Political religion

You seem determined to attack the things dear to me.  You come over on Sundays and make having a spiritual family night hard.   We had to move family night to early in the day to avoid the disruptions.  You openly attack institutions you know nothing about knowing full well how much good they have done. But in the process of hearing you, I realize something much worse is happening.


You walk away further and further from the faith in which you were raised.  Your language, your demeanor all suggest a step by step departure from the Lord Jesus Christ and his restored Gospel.  This is not a surprise; I knew this would happen.  How could it be otherwise given the relationships you have chosen to be the most important to you.  Now you listen to them and come over and spew it on me without any thought as to whether I need it.  You think me a fool.  You treat me as one.   In our last conversation, when I spoke of righteousness I saw you shut down.  You won't hear it anymore.


One could say you have given up religion, but you haven't.  Instead, you are creating a new one of your own.  I have challenged the lack of a moral center in your views, and the response is always the same.  It never gets defined; instead, you focus on your devil, the collective of banks and corporations.


In our last converstaion, you blamed education problems on private schools because your devil uses them to indoctrinate children. You will think this inaccurate, but after I cut through your tangents, that was your message. The defeat of your devil is a morality more important to you than the moral center found in Jesus Christ. It is true that my  politics are influenced by my faith.  I know others in my faith with opposing  politics who also say their politics are also influenced by this faith.  You are not one of them.  Your faith does not influence your politics.  Your politics are your faith.


I state this because I want you to know and warn you that you of the dangers of this path.  I am not so much interested in your politics as I am the religion they have become. I don't know if it will result in you leaving the Church, but it will result in you complaining about it, as you have already done.  It results in you opposing it openly as you do right now.  This will continue and increase.  How often do you talk about your politics in your home?  How often to you talk about the Book of Mormon?  Better yet how often do you read that sacred record? Is your time to your politics given while having no thought of a calling in your ward?  Is your faith in your alleviation of corporation money greater than your faith in the Lords law about money?


I fear my granchildren will never know the fullness of the Gospel in your home.  Chastity, Word of Wisdom, the standards in the Strength of Youth, the teachings in the scriptures will all take a back seat to teaching about your devil.  Will my grandchildren be those not baptized because you think they can't possibly make that decision for themselves.  Or will it be the old, we don't want them to be biased routine that is often given as a higher morality.  But will you be unbiased in your political  religion to them?


Have my efforts to put an end to the loss of faith in my family history already hit amajor roadblock in your new religion?


I do fear these things. But most of all I fear for your own joy.  You see, no matter what you choose, you belong to me.  I know you are married and loyal to your husband as you should be.  But your bond temporary it will break one day.  Your bond to your children will also break.  Each time I fear for your departure of the pure faith, I find a comfort in knowing you belong to me.  It is the same comfort that gets me through the birth mother's attitude about our adopted children.  It gets me through because I know;  I know to whom those children belong.  It is a comfort that fills the holes in my heart.  It's one you may never experience.


It isn't an emotion or a wish.  It isn't the passions of the heart that so many use and abuse to justify unholy acts.  It is the knowledge of the spirit that has testified to me this is real. You know this. You were in the House of the Lord when we sealed those two wonderful children to us and the spirit testified that day of the truth of enternal families. That day changed everything in our home. I cannot understand how after that you would choose to allow your own emotions of the heart to take precedence over the New and Everlasting Covenant.


But you have and I have accepted that.  I make efforts to help keep your marriage strong for I believe in marriage.  It is an inseperable part of my belief in God  and the truth of both is equally real.  This is revealed truth.  This is true faith as it comes from the power of the Holy Spirit.  It is not the creation of man as political systems are, all of which are nothing compared to the economy the the Lord.


My home is a home of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I will fight any system that tries to replace that in my home.  But I would pefer it not enter my home at all. Your devil is not the devil.  That they may be influenced by him is likely, but they are not the source of evil.  Remove them and evil will show up somewhere else.  In fact it already has.


I couldn't get over the casual nature of the conversation you had in my home about football players violating women and robbing them of virtue. You laughed at it.  Then, just a few minutes later, you treated your banks and corporations with a level of fury and hate as to further damage the peace of my home.  Your attack was not of the spirit and yet that you call it a morality.  How could this be?  How have I failed so badly at teaching you the value of the virtue of all women?  How did this become less important than a bailout?


Keep your politics if you must, but remember that's all they are.  I know I seem passionate about mine, but really, it is ranks below my family, my faith, my job, my friends and neighbors, and my health.  Do not replace them with your faith.  You have a much greater legacy to worry about.