This information in this series is relevant because excommunications are increasing, and there is sound reason to believe they will accelerate. The trend is clear. There is a great division and sifting beginning within the church, and many are being labeled as chaff and tares and being discarded.
It is not enough now, and likely will never be enough again, to believe in Christ and His gospel, the Book of Mormon, and the Divinely ordained mission of Joseph Smith. These will not keep you from excommunication if you do not swear an oath of loyalty to the brethren leading the church, a covenant to “Follow the Prophet.” This oath of worshipping the brethren is more important than Christ or His gospel or His scriptures or the head of our dispensation, as far as your church membership is concerned and in spite of loud proclamations to the contrary. Proclamations of welcoming arms of understanding have revealed their utter emptiness to those who have been cast off for following Christ.
If you are called into a disciplinary council for breaking some law in scripture, then you may well belong there. You do belong there if you refuse repentance. That was the intended purpose of the council’s creation.
But if you are called in for a thought crime, or the expression of your thought crime, or disinterest in kissing the ring, or some other trumped-up charge with no scriptural basis, then you may well be facing an unjust trial. If you are called in to an unjust trial, you cannot reasonably expect a just procedure leading to a just verdict. You, like Christ, will be forced to endure injustice. You will suffer actual persecution and oppression by authoritarians, in precisely the pattern I have laid out for you. Scripture will go out the door, just to make sure you do too. Expect it.
But, knowing that going in, this is an opportunity. If you believe in Christ, if you believe in His gospel, if you believe in the Book of Mormon and the Restoration, this is an opportunity for you to testify of this. Do so. Then record it in your journal. Your testimony will be recorded on earth and in heaven, and will stand against those who purport to represent Christ while simultaneously trampling Him and His sheep under foot.
This is also an opportunity for you to claim your rights according to scripture. Not because that will leverage them into respecting your rights, but because that will also become a part of the record of what occurs. Make sure your rights are declared, and that you know the judges are infringing upon them and you will not allow them to do so ignorantly. The scriptures offer protection to the innocent, make it known.
- If you believe things contrary to what the church teaches, but are guilty of no actual crimes wherein scriptural laws are broken, you are scripturally protected against punishment (Alma 30:7, 11; AoF 1:11). This even covers the open expression of said opinions when expressed as such, for if an anti-Christ like Korihor couldn’t be rightly punished for teaching things as opinions, then one who loves Christ but may err certainly cannot be justly punished for such. For example:
- If you have accusations against you, but no witnesses to speak those accusations, the scriptures prevent any action from being taken against you (Mosiah 26:5-9; Moroni 6:7).
- If the accusers or witnesses are found among those trying you, then your trial is necessarily a mistrial (D&C 102:20).
- If your accusers have come directly to their leaders as tattlers, the scriptures require they first be directed back to you to attempt reconciliation personally, before leadership involvement (D&C 42:88).
- If your multiple accusers are not present at your trial, then even Christ would not render a guilty verdict (John 8:10-11).
- If any would say that is not how discipline is handled anymore, by virtue of CHI-1, the scriptures would disagree (D&C 20:80) and the judges’ quarrel is actually with God, who apparently neglected His omniscient foresight of what the Handbook would eventually say when he had prophets record the scriptures with their contrary instructions.
By speaking forth truth and shining a light on the darkness brought to bear against you, you are calling the unjust to repentance, which is in fact your responsibility, especially within the church (Mosiah 26:6). We have all been instructed to call one another to repent (Ezekiel 3:21). It is a facet of love to shine forth a light on darkness and offer correction, and it is needed to keep the church from iniquity (Moroni 6:7). There is no impropriety in a lower-ranked member calling a higher-ranked member to repentance, as we are all equals in the eyes of God (Galatians 3:27-28; Alma 1:26).
Again, just know that the odds are supremely stacked against you receiving a fair trial if you are called in for discipline on trumped-up charges of “apostasy,” whether it is for certain beliefs you share, or for being rebaptized, or for what you do to worship within your own home. Some few may get lucky and have a righteous council, at least at first, but most will not. Expect to be labeled dross and booted. It will be done with piety, and perhaps some lip-serviced notions of love, (maybe even a hint of real love that is just twisted by embedded traditions), but those amount to nothing if they would still unanimously kick you to the curb.
But don’t be afraid. There are a growing number of souls who have chosen God over man, and been expelled for their fidelity to Divinity. They are working together even at this moment to help God bring new life back to the Restoration, to see it become the living vine it was always intended to be. His hand is moving again, the heavens are open once more, and He is doing a new work with a new body of people. If you do not find them, they will find you, and embrace you with truly welcoming arms. You can begin here:
It is not a new church, or sect, or hierarchal organization of any sort. It should never become one, by today's definitions. It is simply a loose body of self-organizing believers, seeking to follow Christ and fellowship with those who desire the same. His hand is moving among them, miracles are returning. Mormons, ex-Mormons and non-Mormons alike are entirely welcomed, though Mormons will likely see the LDS church strip their membership as the fee for such interaction.
