[In an August 2021] Stake Leadership meeting at the Herriman Utah Rose Canyon Stake, Area Seventy Richard N. Holzapfel responds to comments from the youth about being able to recognize the spirit - but also on pornography and body shaming. His comments reflect a significant shift in the framing of these issues for the youth.
[In an August 2021] Stake Leadership meeting at the Herriman Utah Rose Canyon Stake, Area Seventy Richard N. Holzapfel asked a couple of youth how they felt about repentance. He told them to be honest and authentic. His response to their frank answer was a remarkable assessment of the impact of decades of what he described as hurtful teachings about repentance, purity and perfection.
This has been really great … now … let's be honest here these are two amazing young men and young women. I mean really be honest, these are great so if they're telling you this think of what other kids are saying, think about other adults what they're thinking. Unfortunately, some of you know that Elizabeth Smart as a young girl was stolen from her bedroom in the middle of the night by a by a nut and he raped her repeatedly and did awful things, awful things, because Elizabeth Smart grew up on the east bench of Salt Lake in a very wealthy, exclusive Latter-day Saint community in Salt Lake. She had some ideas in her brain and one of them was that she now was like a old piece chewed gum. Who wants a piece of chewed gum? She didn't realize that man could not take her virtue. She wasn't like a piece of wood that the nail was in it and repentance is removing the nail but the hole is still there. Some phrases that we've used in seminary and in young men and young women, in Sunday Schools for decades in this Church that have hurt the rising generation; and so we've got to get this clear about what repentance is and I suggest that we read President Nelson deeply and President Elder Anderson, I think Lihona, I can't remember [if it is the] February issue, I'm not going to promote his book, his book is great though, everybody should read his book but the article in the Liahona which is free you we should read that and we should accept the prophetic teachings of today. We don't want to go back to the to The Miracle of Forgiveness by President Kimball. You know what he said in his diary before he died, [he said] if I could go back I would rewrite that book. So let's let's drop the dead prophets and embrace the living [prophets]! So President Nelson, apostles and prophets such as Elder Todd Christopherson in particular but Elder Anderson, who's really come on strong this last year in teaching … that the number one problem we have is perfectionism, it's among both the young men and young women but principally the young women are struggling with perfectionism; and there's things that we say, do your best. What's the best? I never can do my best, we have to look at our language, how it's being read, how it's been understood.
In chapter 1 of his book Passing the Heavenly Gift, Denver S. came to a similar conclusion regarding the temple ordinances, writing:
Interestingly, the language of [D&C] Section 20 also defines the process for salvation and justification. The doctrine is important still. Quoting from the original published version in 1833 (then Section 24):
And we know, that all men must repent and believe on the name of Jesus Christ, and worship the Father in his name, and endure in faith on his name to the end, or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God. And we know, that Justification through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is just and true; And we know, also, that sanctification through the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is just and true, to all those who love and serve God with all their mights, minds, and strength, but there is a possibility that men may fall from grace and depart from the living God. Therefore, let the church take heed and pray always, lest they fall into temptation; Yea, and even he that is sanctified also. [16]
These doctrines of justification and sanctification, along with the church offices which allowed ordinances of baptism, laying on hands and administration of the sacrament were established without regard to priesthood. Priesthood and church office were not originally conflated; they would later become so. But that is a revisionist view of the events.
Denver continues to explain that the ordinances like in the temple are merely symbolic and ceremonial, pointing you to develop your own direct experience of resting in the Lord:
Most of the ordinances of the [LDS] church are not the real thing. They are types, symbols of the real thing. They are official invitations ... The [LDS] church and its ordinations and ordinances does not confer power. They invite the recipients to press forward into God’s presence and receive Him, where the actual endowment of peace, joy, promises of eternal life, and power are conferred by Him [Christ] who has the right to bestow them. The keeper of that gate is the Holy One of Israel, and He employs no mortal servant there.[31] If men could confer more than an ordination, there would be nothing to prevent corrupt, wicked men from selling salvation to their friends, family and those they favor even if unworthy; or from barring salvation to others who are worthy, based on petty jealousies and envy. This idea of men holding God’s power is what led to the corruptions of Catholicism.
The original concept of repentance and confession was along the lines of changing your mind, admitting your fallibility, confessing your misdeeds to those you have harmed -- by apologizing and making restitution -- and publicly confessing your faults in public to those standing before you at the waters of baptism while conveying your commitment to a new life. In other words, it was the equivalent of an AA meeting and was not a one-on-one "worthiness" interview of sitting before a single male priest behind closed doors.
The Book of Mormon on the repentance process:
The current Utah-based LDS Church (Brighamite sect) has set up gatekeepers to interview you before entering through the gates of the temple into the realm of the Holy One; but in my view this is against Scripture. As we read in 2 Nephi 9: 41 (emphasis added):
O then, my beloved brethren, come unto the Lord, the Holy One. Remember that his paths are righteous. Behold, the way for man is narrow, but it lieth in a straight course before him, and the keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and he employeth no servant there; and there is none other way save it be by the gate; for he cannot be deceived, for the Lord God is his name.
Mosiah 3: 13 basically explains in the years before 30 AD, that if people merely believed in Christ before he had come, that they'd receive a remission of their sins. It's basically a born again doctrine of believe and you'll be saved (reconstituted and made holy), resting in the Lord. It is made all the more clear that believing in Christ -- by faith and baptism alone, and taking upon oneself his name and receiving his seed, saves (reconstitutes you) -- because in this case, Christ has not even come yet in Mosiah 3; but just believing that he will come, this believing (trusting assurance) that he will come and will fulfill the role of the Messiah, will remove sins from them and saves (reconstitutes them). In other words, when you take on the name of Christ, his seed (DNA) is implanted into you and grows in you and swells and reconstitutes you (see Alma 32) forming you into a holy one like Christ who is a holy being (see Lecture 7).
In the Book of Mormon, wickedness has more to do with how you treat people socially: whether or not you give in to classism and elitism or are stiffnecked and pridefully self-centered and contentious with murderous hate. Note as well that the Book of Mormon updates the concept of the atonement in Alma 7:12:
And [Jesus] will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor [1828 dictionary: support; assistance that relieves and delivers from difficulty, want or distress] his people according to their infirmities.
I interpret this as Terryl and Fiona Givens do, as Jesus experienced our infirmities (our woundedness, suffering, hurts), but not to simply "remove" them from us. He experienced our infirmities (woundedness), so that he'd gain our experience which he needed in order to support us as a consoling friend when we experience infirmities. In other words, he knows exactly what we are going through and wants us to be healed and empowered. Like a friend dusting us off and picking us up to go on fighting the good fight.
Hence, the emphasis is on the healing Christ, healing our traumas and woundedness, not the "sanitizing" Christ leading to perfectionism and pharasical ideas and "purity policing."
The Doctrine and Covenants on repentance and clergyman getting involved in the process:
In D&C 121: 34-37 we read (emphasis added):
Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson –That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.
