"The Kingdom of God or Nothing"

When I was still a relatively new missionary serving on the streets of Lima, Peru, my mission president informed us that President Gordon B. Hinckley had an announced a new revelation in the recently held General Relief Society Meeting of the Church in Salt Lake City. This revelation, we learned, was titled The Family: A Proclamation to the World, and President Hinckley, along with his counselors in the First Presidency and the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, had collaborated on and signed the message. Among other things, it affirmed the Church's position that "marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God," as well as other important teachings pertaining to the Plan of Salvation.

At the time, we could not have known just how inspired the Proclamation was and the foresight that went into creating it. Our mission president gave each companionship several copies and encouraged us to distribute them in our day-to-day missionary labors. As a result, miracles occurred, and people who may not have otherwise listened to the message of the restored gospel opened their doors and hearts to what we had to teach them.

Fast forward to the present day and to the current week, in which the Supreme Court of the United States is now hearing arguments both for and against California's Proposition 8, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman. People across the country have been very vocal in their support or protest of these proceedings and their possible outcome, and among those are many friends and associates of mine. They've been particularly vocal on Facebook, sometimes changing their profile pictures to a white "equal" sign on a red background, which is akin to support for gay marriage, or by posting other messages about the case.

What surprises me is not my non-LDS friends who are calling for legalization of gay marriage but, rather, my LDS friends who call for it. On the one hand, they claim to sustain the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators - the same people who continue to avow that marriage has been, is, and always will be a sacred ordinance "between a man and a woman" - and, on the other hand, they support a philosophy that is totally contrary to this revelation.

How to reconcile these two issues? Though these LDS friends of mine have made me ponder deeply on this point all week long, today's point isn't meant to be a criticism, per se, of them, for we each "must work out (our) own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12). Rather, it has gotten me thinking about where I stand and whom and what I support. And it's led to me to reaffirm a few absolute truths.

If you will allow me to borrow a line from the musical Oklahoma!: "With me, it's all er nuthin'." When it comes to the gospel, there is not even one shade of grey, let alone fifty. I can either accept all 100 percent of it as truth, or it's all wrong. Joseph Smith either did see God the Father and Jesus Christ in a vision, restored the priesthood and the temple ordinances, translated the Book of Mormon, etc., or he did not; there is no third option. Because I know through the Spirit that he did, and that President Gordon B. Hinckley (now Thomas S. Monson) held those keys when he announced the Proclamation, I know that it, too, is the truth, and truth is "eternal, unchanged, evermore" ("Oh Say, What Is Truth?" Hymns, no. 272).

President John Taylor, another man who held the keys in this dispensation, had a personal motto: "The Kingdom of God or nothing."

In a week's time, we will have another general conference of the Church, during which we will, once again, have the opportunity to raise our right arms to the square, wherever we may be, and sustain the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators. When that moment comes, I know that it comes wholeheartedly and without any asterisks or except for whens.

It is, as President Taylor said, all or nothing.