Lucifer's Lantern

Temple worthiness isn’t just about "good behavior" in Mormon teaching. It’s a gate that determines who qualifies for the highest blessings the religion offers. The church teaches that only people judged worthy can enter the temple, make covenants, and receive the ordinances that lead to exaltation, which is the belief that humans can become like God and live forever with their families in the celestial kingdom.  This makes worthiness interviews a spiritual checkpoint that can shape someone’s identity, their standing in the community, and even their hope for eternity.    Are You Worthy to Enter a Mormon Temple? Are You Worthy of the Mormon Temple? Yes No Restart Enter the Temple

Never has any passage of scripture come with more scrupulosity to the heart of man than Mosiah 3:19 has to me: For the natural man is an enemy to God , and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever… It’s a passage which seemed to enter with great shame into every feeling of my heart. I heard this passage mentioned and quoted again and again - it appears in General Conference addresses a total of 347 times, over half of which occurring in my lifetime (according to the LDS General Conference Corpus ). It’s a passage that implies a divine curse on not just one people group, not on one continent, but on the whole of the human species - an original sin, as it were. Mosiah 3:19 would have you believe that you and I are God’s personal enemies, because we are the posterity of Adam and Eve. Depending on how you read LDS theology, I either did or didn’t have a choice here, a subject too dense to get into just yet; and either way, an omniscient God supposedly laid the groundw...

  In the last article we looked at how Magnalia Christi Americana demonstrates how early Americans saw themselves as a covenant people in a covenant land. To demonstrate how that same worldview shaped Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon, we’re going to walk through the purposes behind both books. Luckily John Higginson spells out the goals of Magnalia in his introduction to Cotton Mather’s work. Once you compare those intentions to the Book of Mormon , the influence is hard to miss. The First Purpose of Magnalia Christi Americana: First, That a plain scriptural duty of recording the works of God unto after-times, may not any longer be omitted, but performed in the best manner we can. ( Magnalia Vol 1, pg 10) Higginson meant this in a very literal way. Puritans worried that if they didn’t record God’s works, their children wouldn’t know how God had acted among them, and the community could lose sight of the guidance they believed God had provided.  Mather builds his entire project...

In Part 1 of this essay miniseries, I laid out how, if we are to believe that the curse of Laman wasn’t not related to skin color - as was the assumption for most of the history of the LDS church - that there is zero evidence for any of it. In other words, all of the "curse" can be explained naturalistically with no divine intervention and therefore no cause for the Nephites to assign one to them. LDS scripture, however, does not stop at describing a Lamanite “curse.” It describes two other divine generational judgments: a “curse of Ham,” and a “curse of Cain.” Here’s the scriptural precedent for both other curses:

Members of the Mormon church are expected to give ten percent of their income as tithing. It’s treated as a basic requirement of faithful membership. But even though members contribute a significant portion of their earnings, they aren’t given a clear accounting of how that money is used.  The Utah church does not release detailed budgets, financial reports, or yearly accounting. Members of the church donate fully on trust, without the kind of transparency they would expect from almost any other major charitable organization. Ensign Peak This lack of transparency became harder to overlook during the Ensign Peak investigation. For years the church separated its investment funds into thirteen shell companies and failed to fulfill federal reporting requirements.  The SEC found that this structure used by the church was designed to conceal the true size and unity of Ensign Peak’s holdings.   Per the SEC's 2023 report: " The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced c...

There is a very distinct moral rhythm that drives the entire storyline of the Book of Mormon. This is often referred to within the church as the “pride cycle.”     It goes something like this: When the people remember God, they live peacefully and prosper. Their obedience brings material success and national stability. Then, wealth and comfort begin to shift their focus. Pride replaces gratitude. The people start to divide into social classes, persecute the poor, and boast of their own strength. As pride spreads, the society grows corrupt. Prophets warn them to repent, but their voices are ignored or mocked. Eventually, destruction comes through war, famine, or internal collapse. Suffering drives the people to humility. They remember God again, repent, and the Lord blesses them with peace and prosperity. Then the cycle restarts. This pattern is repeated continually from the beginning of the Book of Mormon and is claimed to be the direct result of covenant with God. That when ...

Sexual abuse within religion is not limited to one faith or one culture. It appears in churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques around the world.  The same systems that promise moral direction and community can also aid abusers in hiding their wrongdoing. When power is concentrated in spiritual authority, questioning leaders can feel like questioning God. That fear keeps many victims silent for years. Across history, investigations have revealed deep problems in multiple religious institutions. The Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others have faced reports of abuse and cover-ups. The pattern is painfully consistent across the board. Allegations are dismissed, offenders are quietly moved, and victims are told to stay quiet for the sake of the church’s reputation . Each time the truth surfaces, it raises the same questions: -How could this happen? -Who allowed it to continue? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is no...