Authority and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

To a higher degree than most Christian denominations, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints invests its leadership hierarchy with a great deal of spiritual, ideological, and factual authority.

Critics of the Church charge that it is unreasonably authoritarian. They claim that the Church's leaders:

• engage in censorship and historical revisionism of negative incidents in Church history such as suppressing free speech in the Nauvoo Expositor incident
• support sexist doctrine and practices such as Plural Marriage
• exercise improper or undue influence on politics to resist homosexual marriage, gambling, abortion, etc.
• are dogmatic and inflexible
• encourage a culture of unthinking conformity
• punitively excommunicate scholars who disagree with or criticize Church doctrine or practices

Some mainstream Christians contend that the LDS Church, comprising most of Mormonism, is a dangerous organization with an excessively authoritarian leadership and is overly demanding of its adherents. American evangelical Christians in particular, accustomed to decentralized churches and often subscribing to the doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers, are wary of the combination of: 1) the LDS Church's centrally led hierarchal organization; and 2) the teaching in the LDS Church that "a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation." (Lectures on Faith, Lecture Sixth, paragraph 7.)

By the ambiguous use of "dangerous", it is presumed that critics mean that the LDS Church poses a significant risk of controlling the world or its membership with violence, the threat of violence, or the use of the LDS Church's significant finances to exert political and social influence and control. Many of these critics point to politically influential LDS Church members (Ezra Taft Benson, who was both an LDS President and a U.S. Cabinet official, is one such example) as being a sign of the Church's extensive influence; critics often argue that the Church, whose members hold most public offices in the state of Utah, is attempting to codify Church beliefs into civil law.

In regard to violence, critics point to the early Utah period of the LDS Church, when they claim this combination — together with the effects of isolation, provocation, and decades of persecution from other so-called Christians — fostered a climate allowing for the Mountain Meadows Massacre which was carried out in large part by Mormons, and what critics consider to be polygamist excesses. However, Church doctrine specifically denounces any agressiveness of the Latter-day Saints to take over land, etc., in order to "redeem Zion." Latter Day Saint history in the 1800s has shown that Church members were willing to use violence as a means to defend (whether in response to legitimate evidence or as a result of incorrect perceptions) land, family or religion, as is the case with the Mountain Meadows Massacre and the Battle of Crooked River. Regardless, such a centralized organization that has been set up militarily, full of people willing to sacrifice all for their religion, is a grave concern to many people.

To many LDS members, the charge of being "dangerous" is viewed as unjustified paranoia based on naive and grave misunderstandings of LDS theology and culture. LDS members are not pacifists, but they maintain they are not violent jihadists either; nor do its typical members or leaders harbor hidden intentions to control the world or its membership with violence, the threat of violence or any other immoral influence.

With respect to politics and religion, when circumstances warrant it, the First Presidency occasionally directs its local leaders to read aloud its letters to congregants at its regular Sunday meetings to remind members that the LDS Church does not endorse any political party or candidate and that no member should suggest that the LDS Church does do so even if, for example, a political candidate is a member of the LDS Church. Occasionally leaders of the LDS Church take positions on moral issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage or gambling, and encourage its members to be politically active; but leaders try to steer the Church away from formally participating in the political process. Improper political activity would also jeopardize the LDS Church's standing with the IRS as a charitable organization defined under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

With respect to government and religion, from the beginning of the Latter Day Saint movement to the present, LDS members from the United States (about half of the LDS reside in the United States) believe their adherents have proven to be fervently patriotic about the "inspired" form of government which they feel barely made it possible for the LDS Church to arise, survive and thrive. Although the LDS tolerance for submission to earthly sovereigns is expressed in the Twelth Article of Faith, they highly admire democratic forms of government such as the United States for the individual freedoms which they protect. While LDS anticipate that Jesus Christ will sometime reign over the earth in a theocracy, and while leaders of the LDS Church attempted to establish a theocracy which was compatible with a democratic government in the early Utah period, this does not diminish the respect LDS members have for a democratic government.

Regardless of any Christian's level of devotion to democracy, it is arguable whether democracy and decentralization of a religious organization should be vital to the healthy perpetuation of that religion. The ongoing denominationalism may be precisely attibuted in part to the democratization and decentralization of Protestant and other religions as these groups splinter further and further. LDS canon states that "God's house is a house of order". In one respect this scripture means that although each person is privileged to a personal relationship with deity, in terms of a formal organization which officially represents and acts in the name of deity, that organization is headed by God alone; God reveals religious principles to prophets whom he authorizes to speak in his behalf. Prophets, apostles and revelation, not democratically-run ecumenical councils, are fundamental themes in the Bible. To LDS the hierarchal organization of the LDS Church is a model which follows the same organizational form of the early Christian Church "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone". (Ephesians 2:20).

LDS members do not dispute that it is difficult to meet the expectations of the LDS Church laid upon those members who accept these expectations, and that if called upon, they must do whatever they are required by God to do just as Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac. As Jesus said in Luke 14:33, "whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." To Church members, the principle that "a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation" is met by answering to the demands of the formal organization which members feel has been established by God: the LDS Church. While in practice, LDS members may not actually be called upon to consecrate everything they are and have to build up the LDS Church, in theory they must be willing to do so.