Before I officially left the Mormon Church I wanted to truly study what the church taught. I investigated many of the resources out there that were LDS, and that were what the Mormons would call anti-Mormon. As I studied I realized that the church is not what it claims to be. I learned many things that I was never taught, but is part of the church doctrine. I found out  the most damaging information for the Mormon Church does not come from the “anti-Mormon” crowd, but from its own documents.  One such thing I found out is that a woman needs her husband to escort her to the celestial kingdom, the Mormon heaven, to meet God. This is something she can not do on her own. She must be sealed to her husband in the Mormon temple. If she isn’t sealed to him, she will become someone’s servant.

     Mormon Apostle Erastus Snow preached this:

“Do the women, when they pray, remember their husbands? Do you uphold your husband before God as your lord? What!-my husband to be my lord? I ask, Can you get into the celestial kingdom without him? Have any of you been there? You will remember that you never go into the celestial kingdom (during the temple ceremony) without the aid of your husband. If you did, it was because your husband was away, and some one had to act proxy for him. No woman will get into the celestial kingdom, except her husband receives her, if she is worthy to have a husband; and if not, somebody will receive her as a servant” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p 291)

     When you enter the temple to do your own endowments you are given a new name. Now, the church believes that a Mormon man will use his wife’s (new) temple name to “call her from the grave”. This puts pressure on the women to be the perfect wife, and mother. If she upsets him before one of them dies or if he isn’t happy with her, will he accept her has a wife in the Mormon heaven? This silent fear is understandable. I say silent fear because no one ever talks about it; if the women were to say something negative about it they would not be showing “perfect obedience” to the laws and doctrines of their church.

     As a Christian I know that women don’t have to hope and pray that their husbands will find favor in them and take them to meet God. We don’t need a mortal man to save us. To say that a woman needs her husband to call her from the grave, to save her, to resurrect her is blaspheme! In John 5:25 Jesus says- “Verily, verily I say unto you. The hour is coming, and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.” Those of us who are saved will hear the LORD’S voice. I see nothing about a woman needs to hear her husband’s voice.

     1 Corinthians 15:52-“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” Again nothing about a woman needing to hear her husbands voice to be saved. I have yet to find anything, in the Bible that substantiates the Mormon doctrine, of a woman needing to hear her husband’s voice to be saved.

     The truth is that there is nothing that anyone can do to save us. Psalm 49:7 says- “None of them can by any means redeem his brother, not gave to God a ransom for him.” Jesus purchased us with his blood. Only he has that right to redeem us and to call us forward to meet him. If the Mormon women would just have trust and have faith in Jesus Christ, they would not believe this doctrine. Jesus’ love and atonement is more powerful then any counterfeit priesthood. The Mormon priesthood has no power over the will and laws of God. It overrides nothing God has said, or will say.

     This all comes down to the power trip LDS men get from their so called “priesthood”. They think they are just as powerful as God. The Relief Society isn’t even really run by the women; it’s run by the priesthood presidency. They have a very long track record of using their “priesthood” to control the women in the church. Going back to the beginning, Joseph Smith said in D&C 132-54 that God would destroy Emma if she didn’t accept polygamy. I can’t even begin to say how absolutely wrong this is; it truly makes me sick how the LDS hold this man up do high.

     In John 14:6, Jesus says that “no man cometh unto the Father except, but by me”. We do not need the priesthood, our husbands, or prophets to intercede for us. We can go straight to Jesus, whether that is in prayer or when we die. There should be no one or nothing coming between us and our savior. I hope and pray that the LDS women learn that.

Melissa Grimes

melissa@lifeafter.org

LDS Gem for November 21, 2007 says; “Partnership in the Family – "The government of the family is patriarchal, whereas the government of the Church is hierarchical. The concept of partnership functions differently in the family than in the Church.

"The family proclamation gives this beautiful explanation of the relationship between a husband and a wife: While they have separate responsibilities, 'in these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners' ("The Family: A Proclamation to the World," Ensign, Nov. 1995, 102)."”