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Samuel’s point is clear: The infinite and eternal atoning sacrifice of Christ, the ultimate act of divine love, is so powerful and complete that all men are are unconditionally redeemed from physical death by his resurrection, and all are unconditionally redeemed from spiritual death, and thereby brought back into the immediate presence of God, without any effort on their part.. The only problem is that after this “free ride” back into the immediate presence of God not all will feel comfortable and at home there, so they will retreat from the fulness of the intensity of divine light and back to a less intense realm of light where they will feel more comfortable and at home.

I was in a dicussion the other day about the concept of "freedom" and what it means to us, why it is important, how we get it, and how we preserve it. As I do in any sort of semantic discussion, I looked up the definition and etymology. Interesting find. The etymology of the word comes from "love" or "beloved". A little research showed me that it was not romantic love or brotherly love. It was familial love. In other words, if you have family, you have freedom. The actual history has a lot of interesting points. But I'd like to focus on this aspect of freedom = family. Gospel points: Liberty and Eternal Life or captivity and death. Eternal Life requires sealing as a family. The gospel is very family focused. "Anti-family" is "Anti-Christ".

Not sure when it was released but I am fairly certain it was pre-2005. From what ai remember it is an instrumental and may have been fairly popular (though probably never saw the radio). It had a clean acoustic feel With a drum set, guitar, saxophone and I believe some brass instruments. It sounded really catchy and also show cases some impressive talent on each instrument. It sounds a bit like a karaoke version of “AntsMarching” by Dave Matthews Band.

I call it the pendulum swing. Yes I realize that needs to be explained. We are suppose to be on the strait and narrow path. But some time, individually, as families, and as a church we can stray from the path. That is when the watchmen (The prophets and apostles) do their job and push us back in the right direction. However many take the current warning and effectively ignore all the other warning and scriptures. This means they go to the another extreme. They do not land on the strait and narrow path but they might be able to wave to it as they cross over it. In this case our watchmen have been strongly pushing the Family and Individual gospel studies aspect of the Gospel. Maybe they saw us straying thinking the church aspect was all we needed, Or maybe they foresaw the Church aspect being shutdown/greatly limited due to COVID. Either way now we are seeing the pendulum swing the other direction. Members of the Church forgetting/ minimizing the fact that they Lord and his Gospel requires us to gather together beyond family. (Currently we are being forced not to gather by the Goverment mandates on COVID that is not on us, but on them, and the church is working that as best it can) The simple fact is the gospel has always being a hybrid Individual, Family, Church thing. And all parts in proper balance are required of the Lord. Those member who think and acting as if the Church is no longer important or necessary are just as wrong minded as those that mistakenly think the church is all we needed. As for the failing of leaders... Yes it happens and yes they will be held accountable. But the simple fact the sins of one do not excuse the sins of another. Alma's son behavior did not transfer the sins of the disbelieving on to his own head. That sin remained firmly on them, rather he added to the sum total of collected sins with sins of his own. Alma called his son to repentance as he needed to, but that did not kept the others from being condemned for not believing... no matter what justification they used. Everyone (except Christ) sins. This makes the church a hospital for sinners. Sadly to many people when they see the sins of there follow church members/leaders forget this and use it to justify doing whatever sin they really wished for anyway.

That’s a very interesting perspective. I’m reminded of books like Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s A Brave New World where there just are no families. In A Brave New World babies are manufactured. Everyone belongs to everyone. Isn’t that a big goal of socialist/communist ideals? The state is your father/mother or your big brother who watches out for you. Or just the idea that’s been floating around for years now that you should “create your own family.” I have a sister who has in many ways rejected the family she grew up in and considers her friends to be more her family than her actual family.

What you are describing sounds like to me to be different manifestations of the same type of personality or quality. But as I've thought about this question a little more I am starting to shift my thinking about something. While I still believe we can ultimately become perfect in many ways regarding our qualities I am wondering if there are not some things for which there is no "perfect" standard. Let's take humor for example. Can we really say someone with a dry sense of humor is better or worse than someone who loves knock knock jokes? I guess someone could develop both but that doesn't mean they don't have a preference. Same thing with interests. While we can become knowledgeable in all things I we can still prefer to spend time with some aspect of creation over another. So I guess we need to differentiate between ability and preference as well as things for which there is a wrong and right and where there isn't. Perhaps that is where personality is manifested by perfect beings.

Alma 39:11 "..for when they saw your conduct they would not believe in my words." My mission president shared this with us to show the responsibility we had to not only share the gospel but to not deter anyone from it due to any irreverent behavior. In Alma it was Corinatons pursuit of "harlots", For us in our mission it meant every little thing pertaining to breaking the smallest of rules like being on time to everything, always dressing properly, never having contention etc.. I use this story from my mission to show that the member in leadership had the higher responsibility, he will be held accountable for his action/words toward your brother. No one is perfect and Im sure that the members many good deeds will out weight the bad ones but at the very least Im sure the Lord will take into account this incident on your brothers behalf. Members being offended at church is a way to common thing and that is why I feel the direction we are heading toward is less church and more God.

Splitting hairs or not, I think questions like this help lead to deeper understanding of principles. Too often, I think, we as a church culture are too prone to accepting basic levels of understanding as all there is to know and discourage deeper study as reaching off into the fringes and not focusing on what is "essential/pertinent to salvation". While certainly too much time can be spent on studying pet topics, this to me, does not seem like one of those at all. How much more critical to the plan could it be than to try and understand the deeper implications and importance of resurrection. If I get any other thoughts on the matter, I'll run them past you.

In reviewing more scriptures about the resurrection I think I might be piecing this together a little more. So see if this makes sense: In Helaman 14:17 it states: 17 But behold, the resurrection of Christ redeemeth mankind, yea, even all mankind, and bringeth them back into the presence of the Lord. So in many of the scriptures I've read where its talking about the resurrection and coming back into the presence of the Lord it also refers to redemption. Mormon 9:13 explains it in a little more detail: 12 Behold, he created Adam, and by Adam came the fall of man. And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ, even the Father and the Son; and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man. 13 And because of the redemption of man, which came by Jesus Christ, they are brought back into the presence of the Lord; yea, this is wherein all men are redeemed, because the death of Christ bringeth to pass the resurrection, which bringeth to pass a redemption from an endless sleep, from which sleep all men shall be awakened by the power of God when the trump shall sound; and they shall come forth, both small and great, and all shall stand before his bar, being redeemed and loosed from this eternal band of death, which death is a temporal death. 14 And then cometh the judgment of the Holy One upon them... So when we talk about redemption, at least in this context, we are talking about overcoming the full effects of the fall, which were physical and spiritual death. Spiritual death in this context means separation from God. It appears that the resurrection actually overcomes both by reuniting our spirits with our bodies and then bringing us back into God's presence. Perhaps this is why the resurrected Lord told Mary not to "touch" him not because he had not yet ascended to the Father because the full redemptive process was not yet complete. When we come into this world we have not yet done anything to merit this separation. So it makes sense that after our testing we are brought back into His presence, having been fully redeemed from that which we had not control over, and then judged to see if we get to remain in God's presence or if the second death comes upon us and we are separated again but this time because of our own unrepented of deeds. If this is true then I am going to have to look at the resurrection as being more than I had previously thought.

I believe we are kind to each other because we care for each other and share many commonalities. Whether we are unified depends on what you mean by that. Look on Facebook at any "progressive mormon" group and you'll see that we are very far apart in many areas of belief. Some of the discussion I have with Saints boggle my mind.