Abraham Failed The Test

When I was growing up, I loved the classic movie, It's a Wonderful Life. Here was a man who, for his entire life, sacrificed a lot for the good of others. I particularly remember one scene early in the film.

George is working for Mr. Gower and is ordered to deliver medicine to a sick client. Gower has just learned his son died and is emotionally compromised. In his distraught state, he unwittingly fills the medicine package with poison. He aggressively instructs George to hurry---not listening to him as George tries to tell him that he might have made a mistake. George, after some contemplation, disobeys his orders knowing the poison could kill the client. He returns and Gower is very upset with George---beating him in fact, until he realizes his mistake. At that point, he cries, hugs George, and is forever grateful that George disobeyed his instructions.

This scene stuck with me because it made me realize something at a young age; that adults, leaders, and parents can make mistakes, and so we shouldn't just blindly obey authority. Sometimes we need to think for ourselves and consider whether obeying the command is actually the right thing to do. When asked to do something bad, unwittingly or intentionally, do what is right instead.

This message was in contrast to the story of Abraham, who was commanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. In this story Abraham is saddened, but still opts to obey God---without question. He prepares to go through with it, until he is stopped by an angel at the last moment. The angel declares, "It was all just a test of obedience and sacrifice!" Christianity, including Mormonism, lauds Abraham's unwavering obedience! "He had so much trust and faith that he was willing to kill his own son for God!"

This story had always bothered and confused me. I was taught that murder is one of the greatest evils, so why would God ask Abraham to murder his own son? Why didn't Abraham refuse, or at least demand an explanation? Why do people see his willingness to kill in God's name as righteousness? Wouldn't God be more impressed if Abraham took the initiative to stand up to Him and say that murder is wrong? Maybe that was the real test---and Abraham failed.

Celebrating Disobedience: An American Pastime

In America, part of our heritage involves disobedience---standing up to any authority that creates unjust laws, denies basic freedoms, and mistreats others. The revolutionary war was all about the original colonists disobeying the British government because they were being unjust. Americans praise this, and we revere the "founding fathers" that instigated the revolution and championed new ideas of freedom.

Throughout history, we have so many examples of people disobeying authority; standing up for what is right! Here are just a few.

• Galileo Galilei - Opposed the church's (1500s) geocentric view, that the earth was the center of the universe, in favor of the modern heliocentric view. He was put under house arrest for his "blasphemous ideas".
• Rosa Parks - Committed civil disobedience by refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. We honor her legacy as an important symbol of the civil rights movements.
• Daniel and the Lion's Den - Even the scriptures themselves are full of stories such as this one, where disobedience was the more righteous thing to do.

Now on the other hand, we've also witnessed the tragedy of what happens when people unquestioningly obey authority and end up doing terrible things. The Holocaust leaves us with harrowing questions about how seemingly "good" people could do such horrible things to other human beings. Why didn't more soldiers and citizens stand up to the leaders ordering these atrocities? Many of course did---these are the men and women we consider heroes who chose to defy authority---at great risk to themselves---for the sake of what was good, just, and right.

Even Americans are not exempt from this kind of evil. The My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam war was a very sad day, where hundreds of defenseless Vietnamese civilians, including women and children, were massacred by U.S. troops. While some soldiers present did not participate in the crimes, they neither openly protested nor complained later to their superiors.

When faced with an order from a superior to do a heinous act, many choose not to disobey, and many choose to turn a blind eye. Again, WHY? This question has led to several interesting psychological studies that try to understand why/how seemingly good, ordinary people could end up doing horrible things (e.g., here and here). One famous study in particular is know as the Milgram experiment.

Subjects were told that they were participating in a teacher/student study, where the teacher (the subject) was to administer increasing levels of painful---even mortally dangerous---levels of electric shocks to the student (an actor) if they get questions wrong in a "memory test". I urge you to watch the video above or read more about it. As the experiment progressed, most participants became uncomfortable with administering the shocks and expressed their discomfort to the scientist in the room. The scientist (another actor) simply responded with some variation of "Please continue; we must complete the experiment!" The result was that over 50% of participants were willing to shock the other person at the most dangerous levels---just because the scientist told them to continue with the experiment. They still obeyed the scientist in charge and deferred ethical responsibility to him. This experiment provides fascinating insight into human morality.

It seems clear from history that sometimes we have a moral obligation to disobey authority, AND we revere those who did disobey in such circumstances as heroes. However, when it comes to God (or even just religious leaders), it seems like the opposite is true!! Why!?

Why Is God The Exception?

Imagine a little girl who has wanted a puppy for a very long time. She would constantly ask her father for one and always tried very hard to be a good daughter and listen to him. One day, the father surprised her and got her a puppy! She was so happy and grateful! She worked really hard to train and take care of it! However, a few months later, her father told her that he wanted her to kill the puppy---to choke it to death. "What!?" she cried! "Why!? Why must I do this? You just gave it to me! I love this puppy! Please father!" Her father didn't explain why, but was stern and demanded that---if she loved him---she would do it. In tears, she reached for the puppy to strangle it. Just before she could do it, her father stopped her and said, "Wait! I was just kidding! You don't have to kill your puppy. I was just testing you! I wanted to see if you would be a good girl and obey and sacrifice for me no matter what!" The girl was confused and distraught. She was shaking; tears were streaking her face. Her father goes on. "Hey no worries! Because you proved yourself, I'll be sure to pay for all your school books next year, and start giving you an allowance! How about that!?"

Does the above story bother you? Could you imagine if that story were real? Would you not be disgusted? Horrified? That is psychological and emotional abuse! If any father actually did that to his child, we would view it as twisted and wrong. Yet, for some reason, when God does it to Abraham---with a human life no less---we're cool with it. Why!? If in the above story I change it so that the daughter refused to harm the puppy, would we not be proud of her? Would we not root for her to stand up to her father's confusing, harmful demand!? So WHY wouldn't we root for Abraham to do the same? Why do you we instead actually revere him for intending to go through with the sacrifice!? AND he gets all sorts of blessings for being willing to kill his son for God!

There are several other examples in the scriptures and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) history where God supposedly commands people and prophets to do terrible things:

God commanded the Israelites to massacre an ENTIRE group of people---man, woman, and child. I'll say it again, this was God demanding GENOCIDE. The prophet Samuel didn't question God and neither did King Saul (although Saul didn't fully obey by sparing the livestock). This is one of the most disturbing moments in the scriptures. Why would genocide EVER be considered righteousness? Even the little children were slaughtered!

Nephi was commanded to kill Laban. Yes, I know Laban was a bad guy, but he was unconscious and defenseless---this was still murder. God supposedly already got Laban drunk and passed out, why not make him already dead at that point too? What's the significance of having Nephi himself commit the murder? Is being willing to kill for God really a requirement for prophet-hood!? If Nephi had refused, would we respect him for it? Would God still have made him a prophet?

Joseph Smith was commanding to polygamously marry 14 year old girls. Often these girls and their families were threatened with eternal damnation if they refused Joseph's proposal. Is that really how God does things? What happened to having agency to choose for yourself who you will marry? These were 14 year old girls---23 years his junior---who were emotionally manipulated to comply. That kind of behavior was considered just as wrong/twisted back then as it is now (see here and here). So why didn't Joseph refuse? Wouldn't that have been more righteous than threatening young girls to marry him? Some people did try standing up to Joseph's practice of polygamy/polyandry, including William and Jane Law, who were excommunicated for it. Law formed a group and published an article exposing Joseph's secret practice, but then Joseph and the Nauvoo city council ordered the printing press (unconstitutionally) destroyed.

Blacks were not allowed priesthood or temple blessings. This wasn't just policy, but actual racist doctrine. Brigham Young taught: 

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so." [Journal of Discourses, Volume 10, page 110]

This was openly taught as doctrine even through the 1960s, for example Bruce R. McConkie said:

"Negroes in this life are denied the Priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty. The gospel message of salvation is not carried affirmatively to them... negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concerned, particularly the priesthood and the temple blessings that flow there from, but this inequality is not of man's origin. It is the Lord's doing, is based on his eternal laws of justice, and grows out of the lack of Spiritual valiance of those concerned in their first estate." [Mormon Doctrine, 1966, pp. 527-528] 

So WHY didn't any prophets/apostles openly stand up to this doctrine? Now, many Mormons say that those past prophets made a mistake, or they say that it wasn't doctrine, but just policy. The quotes above make it pretty clear to me that they taught this as doctrine (regardless, Mormons claim policy is also established by revelation). Modern apostles, like Jeffery Holland, try to say it was never doctrine and that the origins of the policy are unknown, which is completely false in the face of the historical evidence. 

"There Is Not A Right Way To Do The Wrong Thing"  [Becky Craven, 2019 April General Conference]

In the hit show, Game of Thrones, a show about people doing horrible things to get/maintain power, there is a scene at the end of season 6 that really hit home to me (spoilers):

The woman, Melisandre, had previously burned a little girl alive for a religious sacrifice. The man, Davos, learns what happened, confronts her, and they have this exchange:

Davos: "You burned a little girl---alive!"

Melisandre: "I only do what my Lord commands!"

Davos: "If he commands you to burn children, your lord is evil!"

I submit that when God told Abraham to Kill his child at the alter, that was an evil commandment, and I submit that it would have been more righteous if Abraham had refused! Mormons don't believe in moral relativism, yet they use moral relativism when they try to defend these questionable commandments. For example, when defending underage polygamy, they say things like "Marriage at such an age, inappropriate by today’s standards, was legal and common in that era, and some women married in their mid-teens", indicating that what is right/wrong is relative to cultural norms.

When defending Abraham, or Nephi killing Laban, or racial priesthood bans, Mormons say things like, "God is perfect, he has a higher plan, he has good reasons that we just don't know yet! We need to trust him!" If there are good reasons, then why doesn't God tell us those reasons? If we are expected to obey God in these outrageous demands, then it is God's responsibility to explain why. If there is no good reason why, then there is no good reason why we should do it. If Isaac, or Laban, or the Amalekites really needed to be dead, then why didn't God take care of it Himself? Why does he need to "test our obedience" or "test our amenability to sacrifice" with murder? There are plenty of other, better ways to demonstrate obedience and sacrifice than the willingness to hurt other people.

What does God really want? Does he want such strict obedience that we are no different than robots!? Or does God want someone who will do what is right, who will think for themselves? Does he want someone who has the courage to make the righteous choice, even if that means standing up to God Himself? At the extreme end, unwavering obedience and sacrifice for religion is how we get dangerous religious fanatics who crash planes into skyscrapers. Were those men actually evil? Or from their perspective, were they simply following what they sincerely thought their God wanted? So why are those 9/11 terrorists considered evil, but the Israelites, who massacred the Amalekites, not considered evil?

While describing our day, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah mentioned that people would “call evil good, and good evil”. If you are attempting to justify how obeying racist doctrines, how threatening teenaged girls to marry you, or how committing murder in the name of God is good and righteous, then perhaps it is you who are among those Isaiah was talking about who confuse good with evil and evil with good. 

If these things really are evil, then why did God command them? Perhaps it was never a test of sacrificing what we want most in obedience to God, but of choosing good on our own---regardless of God. Can God trust us to think for ourselves and do the right thing---even if the right thing is against a specific commandment? Isn't that the end goal anyway? To not be commanded in all things, and be agents for good of our own volition? Mormonism is a rule-happy religion, but yet it teaches that we want to get to a state where we only have to worry about the two great commandments, love God and love thy neighbor. That seems quite contradictory to following commandments that require you to instead "hurt/threaten/marginalize thy neighbor". Perhaps Abraham, the Israelites, Nephi, Joseph Smith, and those who never questioned the church's racist doctrines were actually doing it wrong, and they failed the real test.

Do What Is Right; Let The Consequence Follow

If we can, in hindsight, see that things like underage polygamy/polyandry and racist doctrines were wrong, then what about now? If the Mormon church and its leaders have made mistakes in the past, then surely there are some mistakes they are making now. Are there current doctrines/policies that church members should take a stance and push back on?

Recent social/doctrinal/policy issues in the Mormon church seem to primarily revolve around the status/treatment of people in the LGBTQ community, the equality of women, and sexual abuse cover-ups. It seems like a terrible shame that the church failed to be a moral leader in the black civil rights movements of the 1960s---the 1978 doctrine change was at least a decade late. Can the Mormon church learn from its mistakes? Maybe this is also a test to see if church members will do the right thing and stand up to church policies/doctrines/leaders that marginalize women, treat LGBTQ people as second-class members, or protect sexual predators!

Some church members recently have stood up to bad church policies; the church's usual response thus far, unfortunately, has been excommunication. However, if we collectively fight for what is right, then positive change can happen faster. Let's urge the church to be a moral leader in these issues, instead of just being a church whose policies/doctrines lag behind societal norms! If there are policies and doctrines that you think are wrong, speak up---even if those doctrines come directly from the prophet. Vocal members have already gone a long way in helping to change church policies/doctrines for the better (see here and here)!

This is a test that we don't have to fail.