EARTHLY GUERRILLA PHASE OF THE WAR AMONG THE HOSTS OF HEAVEN The Book of Revelation tells us that "there was a war in heaven", the hosts of heaven being divided against each other and Lucifer and his cohorts being eventually cast out of Heaven into the earth to make war "on the woman which brought forth the manchild (the Church) . . . and the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." (Rev. 12:7). Many have been shocked, if not overwhelmed, by the series of blows which the Church seems to have been dealt in recent months. A jack-Mormon gas station attendant named Melvin Dumar slipped a copy of a cleverly forged Howard Hughes will, purportedly leaving a large proportion of the Hughes estate to the Church, into the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City where it was sure to be found and introduced into probate with the Church assuming the legal costs, so that Dumar could inherit the lesser bequest he'd written into the bogus will for his own benefit. The result was a flood of national media publicity focussed on the Church's wealth and resources and Hughes' extraordinary reliance on Mormon advisors and bodyguards during the later years of his life. Not long afterwards aa female member of the Falls Church Stake near Washington, D.C. was excommunicated following a series of deliberately staged media events on her part intended to place the Church in a bad light regarding its attitude towards some of the more extreme positions of the Women's Lib movement. This Mrs. Johnson then took advantage of her self-imposed martyrdom to garner more publicity for her private causes. More recently, an avaricious LDS documents trader, caught in the web of his own forgeries and peculations, resorted to a series of bombing murders of some of his victims and their families, bringing more adverse notoriety to the Church, on top of the blizzard of news reports circulating some of the more bizarre historical inventions which he'd inserted into some of the bogus documents he'd forged and which had already drawn worldwide media attention. Inactive and disaffected Mormons weren't the only ones causing problems. A vigorous anti-Mormon campaign has been developing among certain representatives of the Evangelical Clergy. Some weeks ago the Reverend John Ankerberg, whose ministry is based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, devoted one of his hour-long video programs to attacking the LDS Church hip and thigh. This was unique among TV ministry programs in that it was not merely a call "to accept Jesus" and "send in your money", but an emphatic denigration of a fellow Christian Church -- something most ecumenical Christian denominations assiduously avoid. Ankerberg went so far as to invite a number of apostate Mormons to participate in his program to attack Church doctrines and teachings and bring its very history into question (including national television coverage to some of the more outrageous elements in the not-yet-exposed-as-fabricated Hoffman forgeries). Not least among the Ankerberg excesses was a discussion (with liberal, if inaccurate, quotation on public television) of some of the most sacred elements of the LDS temple ceremony. One wonders if NBC or CBS management would condone such mockery of Catholic or Episcopal ritual in other paid for programs. It may thus have been with a sigh of relief that some Latter-day Saints saw national and world media attention turn to the "Television Preacher War" which broke out towards the end of March with forces divided over how to handle the Jimmy Bakker scandal, involving drugs, sex,bribery, cover-up, and mis-use of contributed funds. Understandably, most (but not all) of the other television preachers closed ranks out of fear that the scandal would negatively affect the overall level of viewer contributions. Caretakers were appointed to maintain the $150 million business involved, and Bakker, while distanced from his ministry, was assured that his salary would be continued "out of fairness and to avoid hardship". Mormons should take no satisfaction from this war among the evangelical brethren, even if it has served to allow us to return to the serenity we prefer. First, to do so would be unchristian and unethical. Leave that to those who enjoy pointing fingers. Second, the viewers and contributors to these television ministries are among the spiritually alive but traditionally "unchurched" to whom the message of the Restoration should have appeal. These, our brethren, are survivors of the original "war in heaven" spoken of in John's Revelation, a nd to see Lucifer again spreading his mischief of deceit and dissention among any of the Lord's children here upon earth can give satisfaction to no one but "The Serpent". Why should such things happen? Above all, why should they happen within the ranks of the Restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? How could a returned missionary like Mark Hoffman deliberately cause so much grief to the people among whom he was born and to the Church for which his ancestors had sacrificed so much? Not a few faithful members feel let down, somewhat confused, perhaps even betrayed, by the Sonia Johnson and Mark Hoffman experiences, More broadly, how can a loving Heavenly Father permit innocent children to be abused, even killed by wicked adults? How can He permit a loving and faithful wife or husband to be taken from a family which needs them? How can righteous teenagers be killed in an automobile accident on the way home from a school activity or Church function? A thoughtful book entitled When Bad Things Happen to Good People attempts a not-unhelpful explanation. But it falls short because the author has not yet studied what Parley Pratt called "the philosophy of Heave" -- the fullness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. The answer to these questions, as with so many baffling experiences of life, lies in Free Agency. Earthlife, as a fullness of doctrinal understanding teaches us, is "a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ", an experience in which we learn to distinguish the bitter from the sweet, the good from the bad, and the eternal from the ephemeral: that there is an opposite in all things. If, following our spiritual infancy, we had continued to live in the Father's presence, neither we nor He could have learned which among us have the self-directed will to persevere in the face of hardship and adversity, choosing the long-term right in preference to the short-term expedient; to prefer the sometimes bitter "good" to the often enticing "bad": to avoid the meretriciously attractive sinful for the often dull, if not downright boring, straight and narrow path of life. The incalculable importance of the human body, and the overriding significance in the eternal scheme of things of honesty, integrity, and hard work instead of shortcuts to influence and riches. Honest confession of error instead of cover-up. Virtuous family life focussed on the begetting and careful upbringing of posterity -- children who are wanted, nurtured, and cherished instead of being by-products of promiscuity, weakened from their conception by drugs or social diseases. Beyond this, we must recognize that even well-intended initiatives of free agents may come into conflict. Two perfectly sober drivers will collide if the simultaneously try to occupy the same space on the roadway. So life is a learning experience in which there are inevitable elements of risk. Conflict, strife, and grief may occur a s a result of deliberate choice of an action contrary to the experience of the ages (sin ), or an accident (the outcome of probabilities arising from the conflict of two or more acts of free will or with the laws of the universe. Perhaps in the last analysis these may come down to the same thing.) Mormonism might thus usefully be described as Theistic Existentialism , i.e. the belief that both God and Man operate within the realm of cosmic natural law. Things are as they are and it no use to philosophize otherwise. We must accept the universe as it is. This has led much of the philosophical Existentialist movement into a cul-de-sac of despair. Mormonism is different because, while accepting the reality of the universe with no overtones of magic or the supernatural, we do accept the immanence of a creator deity whose offspring we are and who has leaned to use the laws of nature to a level far beyond our capacity to comprehend. And whose generous desire it is to share this knowledge with us with the speed and to the extent of our ability to master it. Over aeons of time God has learned to use natural law to its best advantage and has devised rules of conduct (e.g. the Decalogue, Golden Rule, and Beatitudes) which minimize human suffering and accident -- though it seems that nothing can eliminate all conflict of wills, since this is essential to God's system for proving the worthiness of the "elect". And while His offspring are of His kind and have the capacity to inherit his Godhood and powers, He has found that the only way to assure that these powers are not bestowed on those who may misuse them, causing cosmic catastrophe, is to subject His children to a series of demanding tests (earth life with Free Will, where we cannot even be hard core certain that we are in fact undergoing a test of our inner-directed preference always to follow the "higher ethic") -- assuring that only the most morally and emotionally stable, worthy, and virtuously self-directed will become heirs to His Eternal Glory (heirs, and joint heirs with Christ [Romans 8:17]), while those inclined to shortcuts or who manifest a lack of self control are simply self-eliminated from the ranks of candidates for godhood and become inheritors of lesser mansions. Following a period of learning and probation under His guidance and oversight preceding earth life, those spirits found worthy were given the opportunity of entering upon a "Second Estate", which we know as mortality. We are here given godlike powers of Agency, procreation, and life and death judgment over others -- but for a period limited to the period of the examination. Operating on our own, away from the presence of the Father, walking by faith guided only by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it is inevitable that we will make mistakes. Mistakes of different kinds, but mistakes from which we can and should gain strength, understanding, and more control over events as we repent and relearn. Jim Bakker's mistakes, and Sonia Johnson's, and possibly even Mark Hoffman's, while different in kind and seriousness, are the kids of mistakes they came to earth to learn from. ?For repentance and learning from life's experiences are open to all of us up until the Final Judgment. So how should members of the Church trying to live righteous lives, whose personal mistakes may be of a more benign nature, view all this? Should we feel personally offended that a member of our Ward, or Stake, or Church has been excommunicated for a grave and widely publicized act? Should we rejoice in the downfall of a radio preacher whose message is in competition with that of our missionaries? As far as the Sonias and Marks Hoffmans are concerned, we should recognize that these are inevitable results of the working out of Free Agency and of the Church doing what it is here to do: Teach Truth and assist sinners to repent. A wise General Authority once said, "The Church is a hospital for the sick, not a museum of the saintly". The Church is "The Refiner's Fire". The Bible is replete with accounts of good people straying (David), good people suffering (Job and Jonah), and bad people repenting (the people of Ninevah). And full of examples of the tares being separated from the wheat. Providing insight into this process, Brigham Young once said that it took the Power of the Priesthood to exalt a man, and that it took the same Power to condemn him to rule with Satan in Outer Darkness (Journal of Discourses). Those who repent, accept Christ (now or in the hereafter) and live according to the Fullness of the Gospel, may inherit the Celestial Glory (D&C 76:51). The "honorable men of the world" who lived according to their lights, but who "died without the law" will inherit a Terrestrial Glory (D&C 76:51 ff.). While "they who receive not the testimony of Jesus" will inherit the Telestial Kingdom (D&D 76:81 ff.) -- still a kingdom of glory "which surpasses all understanding". According to Brigham, who asserted this was the teaching of Joseph, only those who have received a fullness of the gospel and the blessings of the priesthood, and who then turn on their blessings, denying the spirit of revelation or Holy Ghost, by which they had initially obtained this knowledge, will lose all claim to salvation and will dwell with Lucifer in his kingdom of no glory. So the "sifting machine" which is part of the work of the Church is working in our day, as it always has in the past. If we never observed anyone fall from grace, we might doubt the power of the Church to exalt one to glory. But when one can within one's own lifetime contrast the grace, love, power, and charisma of such spiritual giants as David O. McKay and Spencer W. Kimball with the shortsighted, inhumane avarice of a Mark Hoffman, the know-it-all egotism and self-righteousness of a Johnson, or the sin-covering, pelf-seeking cravenness of a Bakker, one can wax confident that the Church its function today, just as it did when Dathan rose up against Moses and was rejected; or Annanias and Sapphira vainly thought they could deceive the Apostle Peter; or, as in nearer days, when Thomas Marsh insisted on taking his wife's part in an argument over milk in preference to his Apostolic calling; or a Sampson Avard thought he was better equipped to run the Church than Joseph Smith; or a T.B.H. Stenhouse, former President of the European Mission, and his wife Fanny, undertook to "tell all" in a money grubbing expose; or a William Godbe, who considered Brigham Young his intellectual inferior, found themselves cut off from the Church, preferring to be "right" rather than saved. The Church has consistently taught that while it is God's sole institutional representative on earth, and as such, the only gateway to exaltation, it is but a narrow focus of His larger educational undertakings with regard to His offspring. Thus, if the negative image projected by the Marshes, Avards, Stenhouses, and Hoffmans, impairs the converting mission and exalting function of the institutional Church, this, too, is an inevitable by-product of the Agency which is the only method ever discovered through aeons of time and the expanse of the universe to bring men to Godhood. By like token, the Jim Bakker/John Ankerberg/Jimmy Swaggart/Oral Roberts/Jerry Falwell embroglios are the inevitable playing out of Lucifer's broader strategy to undercut the Heavenly Father's efforts to bring as many of his children as are willing to dwell with Him in one or another of his "many mansion". While Latter-day Saints can take no comfort from those of their own who fall short, nor from the failings of their gentile brethren, they can view these events as among the signs of the times. and clear evidence that the providence of our Heavenly Father is being worked out in His earthly school, as it was during the Preexistence. The War in Heaven is being pursued on a Guerrilla basis during our earthly probation, the foe often being indistinguishable from the ally, as was anticipated when Lucifer's warring host was cast out into the earth specifically to tempt, try, harass, and sift the righteous third who kept their First Estate and were found worthy to sit the examination for a Higher Glory.