The Church vs. John Cena

An honest man can sell a fake diamond if he says it is a fake diamond, ain't it?

--Jack Pfefer, wrestling promotor, in 1934

Many of you don't know this, but I'm a professional wresting fan. I know it's not real, but I choose to act like it is. I keep kayfabe.

No, that's not a made-up word. Like the mythical languages of Middle Earth, professional wrestling has its own nomenclature. But you should never say "kayfabe" to industry professionals, because that is breaking kayfabe. Let me explain. 

Kayfabe is defined as the code of secrecy that undergirds the pro wrestling industry by which the secret of its unreality is protected. To "keep kayfabe" is the act of staying in character before, during, and after shows so as to maintain the illusion.

Live the illusion. Don't wink. Endure to the end. Keep kayfabe.

But there was a time in the 90's when, for wrestling to survive, WWF Presidnet Vince McMahon had to break kayfabe. I still remember, when I was about 6, watching a documentary at my grandma's house called "Professional Wrestling EXPOSED!" This was on network television, during primetime. 60 Minutes also ran an expose on wrestling--the same news show that later exposed Abu Ghraib. Hard-hitting journalists were catching wrestling red-handed in the illusion. It wasn't that hard to see--when wrestling came on national television, the wrestlers looked like they were fighting with pool noodles instead of arms.

If you say it's real, then you're a sucker for watching it. If you say it's fake, then you're a sucker for watching it. No matter what--the media made you feel like a sucker.

So Vince McMahon orchestrated the Montreal Screwjob. He created an unscripted ending that robbed fan favorite Bret Hart of the championship belt. After Bret's defeat, he spit in McMahon's face (real spit), then found him backstage and punched him (real punch), causing McMahon to have a real black eye. 

But McMahon had to do an interview the next day. WWF's writers wondered what the story should be. McMahon couldn't tell the truth and expose himself as the man behind the curtain, could he? 

In a move of utter brilliance, McMahon did exactly that. He broke kayfabe. He explained how he fixed the match. And he created a new character for himself: the conniving, greedy, manipulating Mr. McMahon.

Wrestling wouldn't have survived unless McMahon plunged it into the haze between truth and fiction. By winking at the audience and telling the truth, he gave wrestling fans a way out. He knew that a knowing wink is a huge relief to someone who has to defend his love of irreverent storylines, cartoonish characters, and extreme brutality. 

We don't have any McMahon's in church leadership, but we do have this guy and a stock photo of a woman eating:

...very...very...slowly. Elder Durrant gave the greatest winking talk of the century, but the rest of the church seems to be clinging to the illusions of the past. 

My church just doubled-down on an interesting doctrine. Same-sex marriage is now tantamount to apostasy and draws a comparison to polygamy. My church said that children adopted by same-sex couples cannot be blessed as babies nor baptized until they are adults who live apart from their parents, and opposed to same-sex marriage. My reaction to all this was the way John Cena reacts to the Russian Flag:

My wife, on the other hand, channeled her inner Roddy Piper (my wife's bat is made out of internet memes):

Do they not see how hard this is? We all sing Follow the Prophet, but we wink at each other when Brigham Young or Bruce R. McConkie is quoted. But leadership doesn't wink back because of the infallibility doctrine, found in tiny print in Official Declaration 1:

"The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place..."

Besides the superfluous spelling of "program", do you see the problem? The church can't claw back! There's no Montreal Screwjob! We always have to double down on existing doctrine--even as the fruit of that doctrine starts to rot. And we end up with ideas like asking children to declare that their same-sex parents live in an apostate relationship, which would be laughable if it wasn't so strange. The church, by an unrelenting pursuit of virtue, has turned public heel.

So now we get temple recommend interviews that look like this:

Bishop: Do you support any apostate groups?
Member: I support gay marriage.
Bishop: That's okay--it's not an apostate group.
Member: Yeah it is. There's a bullet in your manual below Polygamists.

The Mormon Church is difficult because you have to take the doctrine as supremely important to salvation, but at the same time, worth a grain of salt. You have to wink at it, or its utter seriousness will destroy you. The infallibility doctrine is at the root of this mess. It's time for the church to throw it out and wink back. It's time to break kayfabe.

Heavenly Mother is Worried Sick

There is a dead end near my house that my father likes to reminisce about. When we drive by it, he recalls with fondness the many hours he slept there.

When I was a teenager, I had a curfew. Since I considered a curfew more of a suggestion, rather than a rule, I disobeyed a lot. I mean, a lot. And not by five or then minutes. I’m talking hours.

The way my dad tells the story, at the two-hours-late mark, my mom would wake him and tell him to get in the car and drive around until he found my body. She told him to start at Del Taco. (Obviously.)

My dad would then drive approximately twenty seconds, park the car at the neighborhood's dead end, recline his seat, and snooze until his phone rang.

“Honey, he’s home,” my mom would say.

“Oh good. I was worried sick. I'm just on Main Street now – be home in a few.”

And he fell asleep for another then minutes.

• • • 

My dad was a great father. The very best. 

But my mother didn’t sleep until I was home. And when I got home, she wanted to talk. Not about my punishment—but about my night.

My favorite memory of my mom is just before Kristi and I got engaged. We were visiting my house for the all-important parental approval and decided, late one night, to go to the beach and listen to the waves crash. Three hours later, after we were done making out listening to the waves crash, we realized the keys had fallen out of my pocket and into the sand. We spent an hour searching for them, and then I made what seemed like a good decision at the time: walking home.

We arrived at 3AM. Every light was on, the garage door was up, the car was gone.

I walked in to the living room to find my mom in tears. She ran up to us both and hugged us. Then she stepped back and said "Why didn’t you call?! I am so angry with you I could scream! Let me make you some hot chocolate. DO YOU WANT SOME HOT CHOCOLATE?"

And she lit the stove to make us hot chocolate. And we talked for an hour.

• • •

I thought of these two stories as I read my church’s new essay on our Heavenly Mother. The essay talks about the foundations for our belief in a Mother in Heaven, holding equal standing with our Father in Heaven. As President Harold B. Lee once said:

“We forget that we have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother who are even more concerned, probably, than our earthly father and mother [1], and that influences from beyond are constantly working to try to help us when we do all we can.”

Joseph Smith, it appears, personally taught the doctrine of Heavenly Mother. And yet the revelations on Heavenly Mother seem to end with him. What we have from prophets and apostles after him rehash the same truth. 

Eliza R. Snow: “In the heav’ns are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare; truth is reason—truth eternal tells me I’ve a mother there.

Recent Church statement: “As with many other truths of the gospel, our present knowledge about a Mother in Heaven is limited. Nevertheless, we have been given sufficient knowledge to appreciate the sacredness of this doctrine and to comprehend the divine pattern established for us as children of heavenly parents. Latter-day Saints believe that this pattern is reflected in Paul’s statement that "neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord". Post-Joseph teachings default to logic, reason, and the pattern reflected in Paul’s statement [2]. 

Gordon B. Hinckley: “Logic and reason would certainly suggest that if we have a Father in Heaven, we have a Mother in Heaven. That doctrine rests well with me.”

The doctrine “rests well” with Gordon B. Hinckley even though, “none of us can add to or diminish the glory of her of whom we have no revealed knowledge.” Ouch. President Hinckley then goes on to list quotes from the New Testament, where Jesus references only the Father in prayer, as scriptural evidence against praying to Heavenly Mother.

But wait a second. Did the Church just use the scriptures to stop the worship of a God who isn’t in the scriptures? We believe in Heavenly Mother, who is not in the scriptures, but we shouldn't pray to Her because She's not in the scriptures. Should we really not pray to a female diety simply because Jesus never made mention? [3] 

“The fact that we do not pray to our Mother in Heaven in no way belittles or denigrates her,” President Hinckley says. True—but it doesn’t help Her come alive in our hearts either [4]. 

I can’t imagine coming home late at night as a teenager and saying to my mom, “Sorry mom—I only talk to dad about my day.” That is the dissonance the Church is creating here. We believe in a Mother in Heaven, who cares for us more than our earthly mother, but we shouldn’t talk to her in prayer, because that's weird [5].

Think of how much we know about Heavenly Father—not much. When He speaks, it’s only to introduce His Son. And yet, because we speak of him in church, during family home evening, and in our prayers, our Heavenly Father is real and alive to us. Our leaders never defer to logic, reason, or the pattern found in an obscure scripture to justify their believe in Heavenly Father. 

Addressing a prayer to Heavenly Father was revolutionary and groundbreaking—a tectonic shift in our understanding of God. Because of it, we can picture Him. We seek to understand Him. Why can't we move forward by acting on the additional light given to us by Joseph Smith?

“As with many other truths of the gospel, our present knowledge about a Mother in Heaven is limited.” Is it limited because we, ourselves, limit it?

I’ve always imagined my Heavenly Parents like my real ones. And the last thing I want is for my Heavenly Mother to ask me, as she makes hot chocolate, why I never called.

---

[1] If this is the case, then I have kept my Heavenly Mother awake and worried for approximately 30 years and 7 months. I hope there’s a dead-end somewhere on Kolob for Father.

[2] As a fun side-note: biblical scholars believe Paul’s teaching of the importance of the Gentiles is the reason Luke attributed words to Jesus that he probably didn’t say.

[3] There are many saying attributed to Jesus that he probably didn’t say. Consider Mark 4:12, what Jesus says about some of the Jews—“That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.” This is literally the opposite of Jesus’ mission, likely written and attributed to Him by someone wishing to spur the development of Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. If things can be added, they can be removed. Also, Jesus drank wine. Just throwing it our there.  

[4] Even as I write this, Microsoft Word thinks “Her” shouldn’t be capitalized—there’s a blue squiggly line under it. But it has no issue capitalizing “Him” mid-sentence. Come on, Bill!

[5] Praying to a woman isn't that weird. See Catholicism.