A Contract with God

   The eighth chapter of Moroni in the Book of Mormon is an insertion of a letter that, the titular Mormon, wrote to his, titular son Moroni, railing against the baptism of infants. New World (i.e. Mesoamerican/Nephite) Christianity seems to have been going through a lot of the same questions as Christianity in the Old World at the time, interestingly, and I wonder how we'd have this doctrine if it weren't for Mormon's complaints against the practice. He lays it out pretty simply, and logically, but there's no logic he used specific to Mormonism whereby he draws his conclusions, just being commanded by God to speak so boldly (Moroni 8:21.)

   Last I checked, on TV Tropes's page for the Book of Mormon, book, in regard to Moroni 8 says, "Some Anvils Need to be Dropped," and, it's hard to disagree with that tropic assessment. (Dropping an anvil on one's head = metaphor for hammering the moral of the story into one's face. Usually just corny or obnoxious, but, well, some anvils...) If they went the wrong way in the Old World, and started twitching in that direction in the New, then we very well in the Latter Days may have needed some clearing up on that, actually, if it weren't for this epistle...

   James 2:26, Faith without works is dead, which is one that Mormons love to pull out to justify why we love works so goshdarn much, but works can also be dead-- that's the language that Mormon uses in verse 23-- it's "...mockery before God, denying the mercies of Christ, and the power of his Holy Spirit, and putting trust in dead works." Baptism is a covenant, a contract with God, and it requires... the ability to make contracts. Cognizance. Even if not 100% of everything that's going to be required, at least a realization that something's going to be required for salvation and blessings to flow. We renew our contract through weekly communal sacrament (communal means related to the communion, right? pretty sure?) and in so doing, we're supposed to remember the covenant made.

   (It's, Putting It All Together #3 time in my Book of Mormon class, and I'm kind of glad, because not only can I talk about this topic I didn't realize that I've got so much to say about, also I don't have to think of anything else to write about today. Zootopia. I'd be writing about, Zootopia.)

   I didn't even mean to talk so much specifically about Moroni 8, just, I noticed this while studying, but the timeline and process of Old World and New World Christianity, how they were both experiencing some of the exact same schism, um, ing. But baptism has always been kind of fascinating to me, like how as a covenant this thing, going under the water and coming back out, it's absolutely necessary in order to make it through the Gate. That's the gate of Paradise, of course, but to expand that idea, the whole process, the whole path, baptism is the gate: 2 Nephi 31:17-18:

"Wherefore, do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this cause have they been shown unto me, that ye might know the gate by which ye should enter. For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.  

"And then are ye in this strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life; yea, ye have entered in by the gate; ye have done according to the commandments of the Father and the Son; and ye have received the Holy Ghost, which witnesses of the Father and the Son, unto the fulfilling of the promise which he hath made, that if ye entered in by the way ye should receive." 

   Whoa. Baptism, is, the gate, and it isn't baptism itself that cleanses from sin, but the Holy Ghost. Baptism is the gate, but, Acts 19:1-5, it needs to be under the proper authority. Robert D Hales, in the October 2000 General Conference, delivered an address about baptism being a covenant that separates us from the world, while giving us added responsibility toward the world. "Jesus taught, 'My kingdom is not of this world' (John 18:36). These words led me to ponder more concerning His kingdom. I concluded that when we are baptized by immersion by one with the proper priesthood authority and choose to follow our Savior, we then are in His kingdom and of His kingdom... At baptism we make a covenant with our Heavenly Father that we are willing to come into His kingdom and keep His commandments from that time forward, even though we still live in the world." (Find full address here; it has a lot more specifically about responsibilities and recognizing the importance of the covenant.)

   This is what I find so fascinating about the topic, how the knowledge of the proper promises and mode of baptism fundamentally changes our Church organization and lifestyle, building it around this-- baptism needs proper authority, right, and so it's not enough just to believe and be baptised you have to be baptised right, by the right authority, and so there's a fundamental need of the Church to spread out as wide as possible and bring conversion, not because we think our church is more fun or because we need converts for their money or anything, even if you're already a Christian you need the right baptism, and it spirals out from there, and it's the reason why we do family history work, and just so much is connected to this one idea, of "one Lord one faith one baptism" as in Ephesians 4:5. Like I said, kind of fascinating?

   (A cool thing about this particular Putting It All Together assignment is that we can choose to do it on any of the lessons we've discussed in class hereto, instead of having to do it on a lesson learned between this and the last PIATs. And so I chose this topic.)

   Most of Lesson 9, The Doctrine of Christ: Baptism and the Sacrament, revolved around that second thing, the sacrament, the renewal of the covenant. Which covenant is the taking upon oneself the name of Christ, so the sacrament is a sort of, re-Christianization. That... could be, a topic for another day?