Is God's Love Conditional? Or, An Excuse for Me to Write About Mormon Civil Liberties

This 2003 Ensign article from Elder Russell M. Nelson has surely caused a great number of people some concern. This is how I responded to the issue on another blog, though here slightly toned down to better suit the tone I have in mind for this blog (plus I've had a few more minutes to refine my thoughts):

This is an odd article. Elder Nelson spends some time citing scripture to indicate that God’s love is ‘conditional’. He stresses that the doctrine of God’s unconditional love is a false one inspired by the devil. Elder Nelson then references a few verses indicating the God’s love is, in fact, unconditional, or in his own parlance that ‘God loves the sinner’. He then sums the thing up stating : “The full flower of divine love and our greatest blessings from that love are conditional—predicated upon our obedience to eternal law.” So why doesn’t he just say in the text of the article (and in its title) what the summation seems to indicate, that the full blessings of God’s love are contingent upon obedience, not that God only loves the obedient? My guess is that Elder Nelson, like many other members of the church, is more concerned theologically with getting to a desired end result ( i.e. personal righteousness (read obedience + grace*) and exaltation for church members)), then complete intellectual honesty/openness and respect for the process. In other words, better to motivate through fear if it works, classifying any possible ‘slight misdirection in the details’ as of little importance. I needless to say, am not a big fan of this approach. However I do recognize its effectiveness, and that it may be born from frustration with the inherent 'inefficiency's' of the alternative system.

On my mission I served in a stake that was notoriously strict, it went above and beyond church policy in terms of its stances on the drinking of caffeine, what constituted appropriate activates for the youth, ect. However compared to the boarding stakes it had higher temple attendance, conversion rate, ect, ect. I think the perceived effectiveness of hard-line stances, and motivation through fear, such as I perceive Elder Nelsons comments may be endorsing, makes it very difficult to convince ’bottom line’ motivated proponents of such, that these stances and polices could be destructive to individual members ( i. e. causes excessive and unwarned guilt, ect). Members thusly hurt might be considered a sort of ’collateral damage’ if they are even thought about or recognized at all. However it might be pointed out that the Church’s ’higher standard’ also serves as one its greatest sources of attraction for both life long members and converts. I think a political metaphor here might be apt, some think that a suspension of some civil liberties might be apt to better further the war on terrorism, while others believe such infringements undermined the very Constitution and free society that we seek to protect. I for one am generally more comfortable with the latter approach, though would make some minor concessions (politically) given they were subject to proper judicial oversight. I would like to here other peoples thoughts on this, meaning the theological aspects explored here, but you can weigh in on the Patriot Act as well if you would like to.

*Though not necessarily in the same way most protestants understand it.