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March 27, 2011 | 8:00 pm

Theological Exclusivism: Is Heaven Only for Mormons?

Posted by Mark Paredes

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Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus [Outside the Church there is no salvation] . – St. Cyprian
——-
In the Jewish community, people who come up with good answers are widely admired, while those who ask good questions are even more respected. In my experience, those leaders who can do both are usually called rabbis. Last week I was asked a series of probing questions by a Conservative rabbi. Like most of the good questions that rabbis have posed to me over the years, they centered on LDS beliefs concerning the afterlife. Most rabbis, like most Jews, don’t care a great deal about what Christians believe about the olam ha-ba. However, those who do almost always want an answer to the question of theological exclusivism: Can Jews achieve salvation on their own, or do they need to convert to Christianity?

For Mormons, this query needs to be broken down into two separate questions: “Will heaven be populated only by people who lived their earthly lives as Mormons?” and “Will everyone in heaven ultimately have to accept LDS beliefs and ordinances?” Our responses are no and yes, respectively. In order to understand why we believe this, it is necessary to review two important principles:

1) It is an axiom of our faith that the principles of God’s religion are eternal: they were taught to us before we came to earth, and they will continue to be taught in the next life. In LDS theology, the first “Mormon” on earth was Adam, not Joseph Smith. Our scriptures teach that basic Christian beliefs and ordinances like baptism were taught and practiced by Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Moses, all of whom held God’s priesthood. The Judaism of the Hebrew Bible, with its temples, prophets, and priesthood, was the earthly embodiment of the gospel from Moses until the death of Jesus Christ, when Rabbinic Judaism began to develop.

2) Mormons believe in a three-tiered heaven (1 Cor. 15:40-41), with the highest level of the highest heaven corresponding to what most Jews would consider “salvation”: there the righteous will live in God’s presence and enjoy every blessing that He can give them. Moreover, our prophets have taught that almost everyone who has ever lived will be given some degree of glory in the next life. Only a relatively small group of souls who openly rebel against God will be condemned to suffer with the devil and his angels for eternity. In the eternal battle for the souls of men, God wins by a landslide.

The LDS Church believes that portions of God’s truth have been given to the great religious teachers of the world (Confucius, Mohammed, the Protestant Reformers); wonderful, moral people of all faiths (and none) continue to walk the earth. To reach the highest heaven, we believe that one must first of all live a righteous life according to the moral principles she has been taught. One does not have to be a Mormon to be righteous, and being a Mormon is certainly no guarantee of righteousness.

In addition, we believe that those who reach the highest heaven will need to accept God’s eternal truths and participate in ordinances (e.g., baptism, eternal marriage), either in person or by proxy, that He requires in order to achieve salvation. In contrast to other Christian faiths, we believe that the dead also have a chance to accept God’s teachings and ordinances (1 Cor. 15:29). Those souls who have lived righteous lives and accept God’s truths, whether in this life or the next, will ultimately achieve salvation by God’s grace. There is no doubt in my mind that most people in heaven will not have lived as Mormons on earth, and many earthly Mormons won’t make the celestial cut. However, everyone who lives in God’s presence will ultimately share the same faith and accept the same truths.   

The rabbi responded that with all due respect, this belief sounded “exclusivistic,” even “arrogant,” since an infinite God was certainly capable of establishing more than one path to salvation. My response was twofold. First of all, the ancient Israelites – with their temples, prophets, and priesthood—were most likely exclusivistic as well (he readily agreed, with the caveat that Judaism had evolved since then through rabbinic interpretation).  Secondly, everyone I have met (including Jews) who believes that we will continue to live as individual entities in the next life also believes that we will possess far greater knowledge than we have in this one. All of us will have to discard beliefs and ideas that turn out to be erroneous. We will discover earthly “parents” who are not our blood relatives, “friends” who secretly betrayed us, “enemies” who tried to help us, and deeply-held religious “truths” that turn out to be false. Heck, we may even discover that O.J. wasn’t guilty. Mormons believe that lovers of truth from all faiths, including ours, will cleave to truth when it is presented to them in this life and the next.

The rabbi insisted: what about his righteous great-great grandfather, who lived and died a Jew in a shtetl without ever hearing a word about Jesus? I answered that he is in a place now where he is free from mortal limits on knowledge, and has more of a divine perspective on truth. I have no doubt that his righteous ancestor has retained all of the truths that he brought from mortality and continues to add to them in the olam ha-ba. If Jesus turns out to be the Messiah, I’m sure that pious shtetl-dwellers will accept this belief in the eternities. Well, asked the rabbi, what if the Jews turn out to be right? What if Jesus was not the Messiah? What if Joseph Smith was not a prophet? Could I accept this? I certainly could. My goal for the next life is to learn what God wants me to believe and do, not to carry my limited mortal knowledge, biases, and prejudices into the eternities. I can’t express this concept better than the Apostle Paul, who used a memorable metaphor to contrast our earthly and heavenly lives: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Cor. 13:11-12).

Our conversation was both earnest and cordial, and we parted with a greater understanding of our respective views on the afterlife, a subject that has touched my life in an unforgettable way. After a profound spiritual experience in Petra, Jordan, I can honestly say I know – as surely as I know that I am typing these words – that we live after we die and that our departed relatives remain nearer to us than we can imagine. To this day I cannot remain in a room where someone publicly denies the reality of an afterlife, and I have walked out on panel discussions when participants have made such baseless statements. I understand and accept that people can hold personal views on the afterlife that are skeptical, even doubtful, but public denial of an afterlife can only be made by people who have no idea what they are talking about. 

I have enormous respect for people who share my interest in the olam ha-ba, regardless of how they perceive it. Of one thing I am certain: lovers of truth who follow the moral precepts that they have been taught in this life will have little to fear in the next. In the case of this rabbi, my goal is to end up where he does in heaven’s hierarchy.
   
——-

I will make a presentation on LDS-Jewish relations at Harvard University on April 8.

Rabbi Barry Block and I will engage in dialogue during the San Antonio (TX) West Stake’s Education Weekend on April 15, and I will make a separate presentation on April 16 entitled “Mormons and Jews in the Latter Days: A Zion Relationship.”

My podcast interview on LDS-Jewish relations is available on the LDS Church’s official radio station: http://feeds.lds.org/WhyIBelieve

The Mormon Times recently profiled two LDS bloggers for Jewish newspapers:
http://www.mormontimes.com/article/19849/Bloggers-trumpet-bond-between-Mormons-and-Jews?s_cid=search_queue&utm_source=search_queue

Mark Paredes is a member of the Jewish Relations Committee of the LDS Church's Southern California Public Affairs Council. You can contact Mark at deverareligione@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @jewsandmormons.

19 Comments — Leave your comment

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A lot to digest here…

But mostly to this i say “AMEN!”: “However, everyone who lives in God’s presence will ultimately share the same faith and accept the same truths.”

Comment by Karen on 3/27/11 at 10:13 pm

Very nice post.  I am a mormon, but feel a very close kinship with the Jewish people.  I think that we have much to learn from each other.

Comment by rod on 3/28/11 at 12:41 am

Salvation will be for all….  Just a matter of when! I have faith in the perfect success in the Lord…

Comment by David on 3/28/11 at 8:45 am

Very good article, and excellent response to the “exclusivist” question. I am often discouraged when this question is posed of my fellow Mormons, and out of a sense of PC offer simple explanations. “Oh no, you don’t have to be a Mormon to go to heaven”. Technically that is not correct, depending on what is meant by Mormon. As per Mormonism, anyone who goes to heaven will ultimately have to accept that the Mormon Church was the only “true” Church on the earth. They will have to accept the basic tenets of the Mormon restoration, and the overall corpus of Mormon doctrines. So, yeah only Mormons go to “heaven”. The caveat which allows for confusion is that Mormons also teach about a postmortal existence where those who weren’t given adequate mortal opportunity to become Mormons, can do so post-mortem. For the sake of theological integrity it is important to make this clarification - and I was impressed with Paredes handling of the question.

Comment by Erick on 3/28/11 at 11:07 am

The assumption that went unexplained in the article and one comment is that salvation equals exaltation. It is not. Salvation in LDS theology is means resurrection. Exaltation means partaking of the full inheritance of Jesus Christ and living with God The Father, Christ and the other who have attained this blessing by their obedience to God’s law, compliance with all the ordinances and righteous living. Most people will not attain this level because of their lack of faith or refusal to comply. But everyone will be given every opportunity to learn of these things and make their own informed choices. Nothing is forced on them. It is said that even the worst people who have ever lived, saving those who deliberately followed Satan, will inherit a kingdom so glorious that nothing on earth can compare. Even that Kingdom when compared to the Celestial kingdom of God the Father, will seem hell-like in comparison.

Comment by JL Fuller on 3/28/11 at 5:58 pm

I realize salvation is considered the highest.  Are we not all the children of Adam and Eve, did they not honor covenants? Again all but a very few…  given the time of eternity.  FAITH.
It is man that equates on percentage.  CHRIST SAID ALL..

Comment by David on 3/28/11 at 6:12 pm

It is interesting to note that The Book of Mormon indicates that there are three distinct groups of people. One group consists of those who reject God and seek a worldly life including a life of depravity, dishonesty and rejection of good and holy things. The second are those people of any tradition who seek to live a righteous life according to the best of their ability and their beliefs. They would choose to live a holier life if they had been born into any religious tradition. Next are those people who are members of Christ’s church who live according to the restored gospel to the best of their ability. The last two groups are considered part of the Church of the Lamb of God. The third group consists of those with greater accountability and a specific work to do on earth that the second group does not have.

Comment by JL Fuller on 3/28/11 at 6:12 pm

David.
Yes. However if the subject is LDS theology, salvation, (that which Christ provided for all) means resurrection. It means every person who has ever been born will be resurrected from the dead. That is what is meant when He said “all”. However salvation is different from exaltation. Salvation/resurrection opens the way for exaltation for those who prepare themselves for it. Without Christ’s sacrifice no human being would have ever been resurrected. We all would have been consigned to outer darkness with Satan and his angels.

Comment by JL Fuller on 3/28/11 at 6:19 pm

One could say when answering the question “do you have to be a Mormon to go to Heaven” there can be no correct answer as there are no distinct religious traditions after death. One either is or is not living according to God’s law. The only major distinction is whether a person has chosen to enter into holy covenants with God and take upon himself the responsibilities of the priesthood. Not everyone will. But everyone will have an opportunity to learn about what that means and decide for themselves.

Comment by JL Fuller on 3/28/11 at 6:35 pm

JL - as you know, I write this blog primarily for Jews, though I certainly welcome LDS readers and those of other faiths. Exaltation is not in the Jewish vocabulary, and I didn’t feel it necessary to compare and contrast exaltation and salvation in order to make my points in this essay. However, I did find your comments interesting. One note: the Church of the Firstborn is the Church of God in heaven, so there is a distinct religious tradition after death. Thank you all for writing.

Comment by Mark Paredes on 3/28/11 at 7:40 pm

Jews and xtians can speak english till the cows comes home but they don’t speak with the same meanings.Xtians rarely understand jews and if they did they’d be noahides like me.I’ve looked at both arguments but to understand the Torah we need a proper orthodox Rabbi TO EXPLAIN IT not another xtian.Really there is no argument but a lot of confusion perpetrated by churches over the centuries who tend to be hermetically sealed in their minds.I come from a strong catholic backgound.

Comment by patrick hegarty on 3/29/11 at 9:50 am

Patrick
You bring up some interesting points. One thing many converts to Mormonism comment on is how LDS and Catholics (to use a frequent one) are much more alike theologically than they first thought. The big difference often is the nomenclature. We call it one thing while others refer to it by something else. Sometimes, as in theosis, Catholics have a view that is not dramatically different some aspects than that of Mormons. I assume that goes for other traditions too. I even heard that Jews have some sort of teaching about the subject as well although I have not seen it discussed.

Comment by J L Fuller on 3/29/11 at 10:35 am

Excellent thoughts and explanations. Thanks Mark.

Comment by Derek White on 3/30/11 at 9:48 am

i think most christians find offence to the word “xtians”.

Comment by rod on 3/30/11 at 10:49 am

Mark
Not meaning to put too fine a point on the subject, I think saying there is a religious tradition after death and then naming it is a distinction without a difference. It isn’t the name that is important. However saying that there is but one theology makes that point.
Pardon me if I do not quite understand what your intent is, but being complete in discussing theological points does matter. If I am wrong please tell me how. Maybe I just do not quite get what your point is. It happens from time to time.

Comment by J L Fuller on 3/30/11 at 11:43 am

J L - as the French say, “Critiquer, c’est facile. Faire mieux, c’est plus difficile.” Please keep in mind that I’m writing a short essay for a blog in a Jewish newspaper, not a master’s thesis on LDS views of the afterlife. Discussing exaltation vs salvation would not have added anything to the essay, and would probably have confused many non-LDS readers. Remember Elder Ballard’s reminder that we don’t need to overwhelm people with information about our beliefs when we attempt to answer questions. If you would like to write an essay of similar length on this subject and post it for all to see, I’d be happy to read it and see how you approach the topic. Thank you for writing.

Comment by Mark Paredes on 3/30/11 at 5:40 pm

Mark
I think I will pass on your kind offer. However, you are right about jumping to the main course before the guests have had their soup. Pardon me if I get too far off the path. I may be an independent thinker but I am coachable.

Comment by JLFuller on 3/30/11 at 10:03 pm

Mark,
I have just stumbled upon your article.  Very well done!  I have read the comments here and basically just have to say that it couldn’t have been written any better.  I would like to follow your writings in the future.  Is this the only journal or publication you write for?

Comment by BA Rosenvall on 4/03/11 at 9:10 pm

Do Mormon’s still consider themselves “Jews” and consider Jewish people “Gentiles” as claimed in a 1928 JTA article? If so, is this relevant for Mormons to achieve heaven or a specific status in afterlife and would a “gentile” be in a “different” heaven or level of afterlife?

http://www.jewishjournal.com/demographic_duo/item/jewish_identities_for_christians_20120203/

  http://www.jewishjournal.com/demographic_duo/item/jewish_identities_for_christians_20120203/

Comment by Pini Herman on 2/04/12 at 5:53 pm

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