"Hell Together" and My Last LDS Temple Experience

I haven't posted in a bit - partly because I've been busy but also because I'm trying to figure out what kind of voice I want to contribute. I like the idea of being a "bridge builder"- trying to find the common or middle ground with others. But maybe finding common ground isn't so much always about only talking about areas where we agree but also sharing different ideas and perspectives and then learning and refining our ideas and beliefs based on those disagreements. Anyways, I'll move on to what's currently on my mind.

Hell Together

This week, David Archuleta released a new single called "Hell Together" which has gotten a lot of attention in certain social media circles. I've personally never followed much of David Archuleta's music and only started following him a little bit over the last year or so after he publicly came out as gay and left the LDS Church. His new song is inspired by his mother who put her full support and love toward him when he left. She told him that she would also step away and then said, "If you're going to hell. We're all going to hell with you."

The chorus of his new song reads,

"If I have to live without you

I don't want to live forever in someone else's heaven

So let 'em close the gates

Oh, if they don't like the way you're made, then they're not any better

If paradise if pressure, oh

We'll go to hell together"

I don't know that I'm an instant fan of David Archuleta's music - it's not really my music genre preference - but I was deeply moved by this chorus and felt strongly the elevation emotion that I once labeled the "spirit."  As David Archuleta points out, Mormons don't believe in the traditional Christian hell, but there is an emphasis that families "can" be together forever with the inverse implied threat that not all will be if everyone doesn't follow the church teachings and beliefs. There were all kinds of reactions to his song ranging from encouragement and support, to calls from active members to be more kind and supportive of LGBTQ so they do not feel compelled to leave, to criticism that it doesn't accurately reflect Mormon doctrine of hell or encourages the supposed "sin" of homosexuality.

My Last LDS Temple Experience

It's interesting to me that people can listen to the same song or live the same events but experience them and interpret them very differently. I can personally relate to David Archuleta's critique of "sad heaven" - the heaven that excludes family members based on the way you believe or in his case "the way you're made," but I also know that many find deep meaning and value from the same teachings that to them bring hope for eternal families and being reunited with loved ones in heaven if they are obedient and faithful to the church. The LDS temple and endowment ritual in many ways is meant to be symbolic of the journey to heaven - beautifully decorated buildings with increasing levels of light culminating in a very bright and ornate "celestial room" where families are finally able to be together after having been literally divided on separate sides of the room based on gender in earlier rooms.

I remember pretty vividly the last time I attended an LDS temple - January 27, 2018 according to Facebook photos. At this point, I was several months into my faith transition, spending almost all my free time obsessively researching church truth claims and apologetic responses and was deeply troubled by what I had discovered.  Many of my immediate family had left the church and as a result was no longer permitted to enter LDS temples even for significant events such as watching their own children get married. But I also was not public with sharing my thoughts and concerns at that point.

Despite a lot of my doubts and concerns about the church, I attended the temple that day to support my wife's family as they went through the temple to specifically perform Mormon temple rituals for my wife's late grandmother (who as a side note was one of the sweetest loving people I've met). 

I'm sure this was a great day for them - one that was a way to honor and remember a loved one that had passed on. Looking back through Facebook photos, my father-in-law described it as a "wonderful family day today, performing work for close family members" and I'm glad I was there to support them. 

But while this was a joyous day for some, it was also a turning point for me that led me further away from the LDS Church. I remember sitting toward the front of the endowment instruction room of the Timpanogos, Utah temple and having a heavy flood of emotions come over me while I was sitting in the dimly lit room watching the temple video. I struggled to hold back tears reflecting that I no longer believed or found meaning in these rituals and that the temple represented to me a very real reminder of how the Church literally excludes and divides families both here on Earth and in their conceptualization of the eternities.  Before the lights turned on, I pulled together my composure and put on a smile so as to not ruin the moment for others, but once back in the car on the drive home, I expressed how difficult the experience was to my ever-supporting wife.

None of this is to say the LDS temple is inherently bad and certainly not meant as criticism of my in-laws who I love and admire in many ways.  It's just to say that even listening to the exact same song or living the same events, we react to things very differently based on our individual lived experiences and current emotional states. 

Final Thoughts

I'm encouraged by some of the comments I've seen in reaction to "Hell Together" from active LDS members encouraging more compassion and love toward the LGBTQ+ community.  I think the church is making and will continue to make some good strides toward better LGBTQ inclusion, but still has a very long way to go in accepting homosexual equality in marrying and being supported in loving, committed and fulfilling intimate relationships. One of my deepest regrets from my Mormon experience is my opposition to gay marriages through my participation in BYU call centers for California's infamous Proposition 8, but I literally did not know any better and thought I was in the right based on what I had been taught and my own lived experiences. It was only through actively listening to others describe their lived experiences that my views gradually changed over time. I know there continue to be areas where I am blind to others' lived experiences. I strive to understand others' views and perspectives which can enrich and change my own perspectives over time.