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Is it Pertinent to Your Salvation?

f a faith will not bear to be investigated, if its preachers and professors are afraid to have it examined, the foundation must be very weak.
- George Albert Smith

The question "Is it pertinent to your salvation?" is a favorite of church leaders and apologists alike when addressing people who have concerns or questions about the church.  There are a few variations, of course, but the idea remains consistent.  The speaker (or writer) wants people to evaluate issues they come across and weigh how essential that particular concern is in the grand scheme of things.

I have a strong dislike for this question.  I find it to be manipulative and misleading.  It is often accompanied by some narrative about how we need to be focusing on the most important things and not be distracted by smaller issues, or things that we might not understand right now.  It is designed to encourage people to ignore doubts and questions, and to dismiss them as unimportant.  This tactic is used a lot with the youth, which bothers me even more.

Of course, I'm a fairly realistic person, and I recognize that no amount of ranting on my part will stop church leaders and apologists from continuing to ask this question.  So instead, I thought I'd go ahead and just answer it.

Hypothetical #1:  You read the recent essay the church issued about race and the priesthood and it raised some questions for you.  You don't feel clear on why blacks were denied the priesthood (as well as access to the temples).  The essay seemed to raise more questions and concerns than it resolved.  But is it pertinent to your salvation? 
Answer:  Yes.  It is important to understand what happened because it is imperative to know if the church is (and has always been) led by god.  If the priesthood ban was the result of the choices of men, then it calls into question whether god is in fact the head of the church.  If it was done by god's direction, then what does that say about the nature of the Mormon god?  It may call into question the very idea of whether or not the Mormon god is one you believe in.  The questions and their answers have the potential to greatly impact your fundamental beliefs regarding the church, which seems pretty pertinent to salvation to me.

Hypothetical #2:  You stumbled across a transcript of Masonic rituals from the early 1800s and discovered that the text is a very near match to the endowment ceremony that takes place in the temple.  You have been looking for a suitable explanation for why the undeniably similarities exist, but can't find a clear answer.  But is it really pertinent to your salvation? 
Answer:  Absolutely.  There are really only two possible explanations to the similarity.  Either the ceremony came directly from god and was eventually stolen by the Freemasons, or Joseph Smith used the Freemason rituals as the foundation for the endowment ceremony, in which case it wasn't inspired by god.  Since temples are central in all things in the church, the question of where the ceremonies originated is definitely important to know and understand.

Hypothetical #3:  You learned that Joseph Smith married teenage girls, some as young as fourteen years old.  Knowing this makes you incredibly uncomfortable.  It doesn't sit well with your own moral compass, but you're not sure if maybe there might be a reasonable explanation for it all.  But does it really matter?  Is understanding this essential to salvation?
Answer:  Definitely.  Either Joseph Smith married those girls with god's blessing, or he did it on his own.  If he did it under god's direction, that raises questions again about the nature of the Mormon god.  If he did it on his own then it calls into question his divine role as prophet of god, which calls into question the entire church, which could definitely impact your salvation.

Hypothetical #4: You recently read some things on lds.org that say that the Book of Mormon was translated using a special rock placed in a hat, that Joseph Smith would then put his face into to see writing on the rock.  This is completely different from what you have learned about the translation process, and is also totally different from the artistic depictions of the process included in teaching materials.  But the Book of Mormon speaks for itself, and if it's scripture, then what difference does it make how it was translated?  That's not pertinent to your salvation, right?
Answer:  Actually, it very well could be.  You may find yourself wondering why the church has been teaching an inaccurate version of the story for so many years.  You may even wonder what other parts of their history they have been teaching in a less-than-honest manner, and you may find a number of other things.  It might lead you to question why a church that claims to be the one true church led by god would feel like it needed to hide or alter some of its history.  You might find yourself asking why the church would be ashamed of its origins.  Discovering the pattern of deceit in the church may lead you to question whether or not it is, in fact, true.

Hypothetical #5:  You've been reading about the Book of Abraham and have discovered that the papyri it came from have been proven by Egyptologists to be nothing more than funerary texts.  The writing on the papyri doesn't correlate at all with the text of the Book of Abraham.  Is understanding that pertinent to your salvation though?
Answer:  Yes.  Maybe god used those papyri to "inspire" the Book of Abraham, and calling it a translation isn't literal.  But the other possibility is that Joseph Smith made the whole thing up, and that the Book of Abraham isn't scripture from god.  The answer to the question has the potential to throw doubt on Joseph Smith's role as a prophet of god, and that's pretty pertinent to salvation.

I could be here all day, giving countless examples of things that the church would prefer for people to ignore, but that really matter a lot more than they may seem initially.  You get the point, though.

Right now you might be saying to yourself, "But if all these kinds of questions could potentially lead us away from the church, then that's bad.  That's what Satan wants.  That's the whole reason the church leaders don't want us focusing on things that don't really matter."  This is exactly the kind of thing they want you to think.  In fact, when they ask the question "Is it pertinent to your salvation?" they imply the answer they want you to come to:  the church is still true, and it is the only source of truth.  And if you accept that the church is true no matter what, then what difference do any of these questions make?  None at all.

But if you allow yourself to even consider the possibility that the church might not be what it claims to be, then all of these kinds of concerns (and many more) suddenly become much more significant.  Things like this shouldn't be brushed aside as unimportant just because it's possible that there might be a reasonable explanation for everything.  When the other possibility is that the answers could lead you to discover that the church isn't true, then doesn't that suggest that these are issues worth addressing and understanding?  I guess the answer to that depends on whether it's more important to you to cling to what's comfortable and familiar, or whether you want to seek truth, wherever it may lead you.

In the end, my answer is this:  It's all pertinent to people's salvation.  If it's a part of the church, then it's important.  If it's a teaching or a practice or a policy or even a part of the church's history, it matters.  Either it's god's one true church or it's not.  Either he's directing things or he's not.  And if he is, then there is no harm in asking questions.  Truth doesn't hide very well.  And people who genuinely seek for it will find it.  If the LDS church has the truth then it doesn't matter what questions people ask, be they large or small, because all of the answers will eventually lead them back to the church.  And if the church does not have the truth, well...  I hope that people have the courage to seek it elsewhere.

I think details matter.  I think small things can make a big difference.  I spent too much of my life letting other people decide for me which details mattered and which should be put on a shelf.  It's sad to look back at questions I had in the past, that I eventually decided (as I had been taught) weren't pertinent to my salvation.  These were questions that, had I pursued them, could have changed my life for the better a long time ago.  I wish I'd trusted myself more, and not been so afraid of asking questions that weren't popular.

If I could go back in time, I would tell my past self to ask whatever questions I felt were important.  I would never hand the power to define "pertinent" and "not" to someone else, especially not someone who had something to gain by directing my attention away from certain issues.  I think I put too much trust in others who were over me because I lacked confidence and didn't trust myself.  That's all changed though, and from now on, I decide what matters and what doesn't, and I don't let anyone else dictate that for me.  I trust myself a lot more now, and doing so has changed everything.



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