What does it mean to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?[1]  This may seem, at first blush, to be a relatively simple question.  On one hand, the answer is quite simple.  One who is a member of the Church, belongs to the Church.  Everyone baptized into the faith is a member of the Church. This is an overly simple answer, however, and ignores those who, while still on the membership rolls, have left the Church in every other way.  To say that such belong to the Church would be incorrect in all but the most superficial aspect.

I am addressing this question due to a growing number of voices who assert that the Church needs to do one thing or another to help people feel like they belong.  By and large, these voices focus on the individual feelings of the groups for which they advocate.  They emphasize a need for people to feel like they are loved, or to feel like they belong.

A prime example of these pleas was posted recently by a certain Richard Ostler in a lengthy facebook post.  In it, he argues that we (as a Church) should not require that members and prospective members “fit in,” but we should do all that we can to make these people feel like they belong.  Before discussing his post, I think it is important to note that not everyone who walks through the doors of an LDS chapel will fit in, and often for good reason, as we will discuss below.  It is a folly to try to make the tent so big as to encompass anyone who might wander by, and would strip the Church of any power to do the good for which it was intended.  Further, in ways we will discuss below, it is helpful to encourage prospective members and current members to fit in with respect to some important items.

Ostler frames fitting in as a person changing or conforming to the norms of the Church, at the expense of the person behaving in a way that reflects their “true self.”  He argues that when people feel pressure to “fit in,” they are given a disservice.  This is a common theme in some circles, which considers the highest good a person can achieve is to be authentic.

Instead of requiring people to surrender authenticity, Ostler says that everyone should be made to feel that they belong.  He characterizes belonging existing “where we are accepted, valued, loved based our true self.” He claims that “this allows our authentic selves to exist, be seen and thrive.” Ostler uses the well worn analogy of a round hole and a square peg to try and illustrate his remarks.  Square pegs simply don’t fit in, and Ostler asks, “how should those who are square pegs feel? What should we say to them? What would Christ say?”

Of course, there are important considerations that need to be made. In an admittedly extreme example, but one from my lived mission experience, what if the missionaries are bringing an elderly men to Church, only to later be informed by the branch president that this individual was on probation for sexual molestation of a child? Upon being confronted about this, the man admitted his actions but refused to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong.  It was, after all, the way God created him.[2]  Do we want such a person to “accepted, valued, [and] loved based on [his] true self” as he framed it?  Or, should there be some caution against allowing such an unrepentant person to be allowed membership or belonging?

Ostler then identifies several categories of square pegs that he addresses specifically.  These are those: (i) who have testimonies based on “belief” rather than “knowledge;” (ii) who think the Church is wrong on one topic or another; and (iii) who identify as some lgbt variation.  Ostler brings a personal touch to the first two categories, confessing that he can’t say that he knows the Church is true and that there are some things about the Church with which he has real issues. He makes clear how he doesn’t fit in with the mainstream of the Church in these two particulars.

With the third group, Ostler becomes less transparent and he doesn’t clearly set forth what he is saying.  He asserts that many people who identify as gay do not fit in, but he repeatedly discounts that this has anything to do with sin or behavior as “there is good and bad behavior with both straight and LGBTQ people.”  He suggests that “it is unfair to isolate it only to our LGBTQ friends.”  While I would tend to agree here, to a point, Ostler sidesteps the law of chastity here by not making any mention of it.

Which leads me back to my original question: how does someone come to belong, in fact and not just in feeling, in the Church? This is not an idle question, as belonging to and in the Church is not a matter of what you are told, or what you think.  It is a matter of what you do and what you become.  The only question of authenticity is whether you are authentic in making and keeping your covenants, as we will discuss.

In the first place, one becomes a member of the Church by baptism.  With respect to this, we were given the following instructions by the Lord in D&C 20:37:

All those who humble themselves before God, and desire to be baptized, and come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits, and witness before the church that ​they have truly repented of all their sins, and are willing to take upon them the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end, and truly manifest by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins, shall be received by baptism into his church.

There is much to consider here, but it does answer the question of who belongs in the Church much more accurately than simply looking to see if a baptism has been performed.  Reviewing this verse carefully, there are seven factors associated with whether or not someone should be baptized and received into the Church in the first place, and a handy guide for determining whether or not they have continued to belong in the Church after their baptism.  These are:

• Are they humble before God?
• Do they desire to be baptized?
• Do they come forth with broken hearts and contrite spirits?
• Do they witness “before the Church” that they have repented of their sins?
• Are they willing to take upon them the name of Christ?
• Do they have a determination to serve Jesus Christ to the end?
• Do their works manifest that they have received of the Spirit of Christ, unto a remission of their sins?

Each of these deserves a full treatment by themselves, and in the coming weeks and months I may write about each, but no one who can’t answer each of these questions in the affirmative belongs as a member of the Church.  No one who can’t answer each of these questions in the affirmative should feel like they belong as a member of the Church.  No one who can’t answer each of these questions in the affirmative should be persuaded to feel like they belong.  Unfortunately for some, to believe that you belong, or should belong, in the face of a negative answer to any of those questions would be to believe, and perhaps to love, a lie.

Returning to Ostler’s three groups, do these questions impose a barrier to any of them belonging to the Church?  Not necessarily, but the devil is in the details, quite literally.

Can someone who lacks an “I KNOW” testimony and only has a “I BELIEVE” testimony run afoul of any of these?  No, unless the testimony is insufficient to manifest that they have received of the Spirit of Christ.

Can someone who disagrees with some doctrine, policy or practice run afoul of any of these questions?  This one seems to have greater possibility for problems.  While one is disagreeing with the doctrines set forth by revelation (whether or not they are preceded by a “thus sayeth the Lord”), does this evidence a lack of humility?  If this disagreement is such that it impairs the ability of the individual to fully serve Christ in that specific until the end, it will affect the truthful answer to that question.

And finally, and most controversially, when someone comes to the Church, or is already a baptized member of the Church, and is engaging in violations of the law of chastity, can they truthfully be said to have repented of their sins and have a determination to serve Christ to the end?  If they follow after their own understanding rather than the revealed doctrines, are they truly humble before God?  If they have not repented of this, then they do not belong.

By this criteria, there are many people who belong in the Church who may not fit in culturally, depending on where they live.  Likewise, there are many people who fit in just fine culturally who can’t answer these seven questions in the affirmative, and therefore don’t actually belong.  These are considerations that we should be cognizant of in dealing with those around us.

Likewise, there are a lot of people who have been on the membership rolls their entire lives who do not belong.  There are those who have great, great, great grandparents who crossed the plains and have attended Church every week of their adult lives that don’t belong.  This Sunday, there may be people in the pew next to you who don’t belong, despite all outward appearances.  Most of us need not worry about this though, so long as we do what we need to belong.

Part of the beauty of the Gospel is that there is nothing in our lives that serve as an irreconcilable bar to our repentance and our truly being able to answer these seven questions in the affirmative.  These are the items in which we must “fit in.” We can belong to the Church, and belong in the Church, in fact and reality, but we do it on the Lord’s terms, as it is His Church.  The door is open, ALL are welcome and loved, and there are plenty of members of the Church who will love you and help you get to the point where you can answer each of these questions with a resounding YES!

[1] I do not intend to address the question of whether or not people are welcome in church meetings.  They are, unless they have proven themselves to be a threat. Whether they perceive themselves to be welcome is beside the point.  Likewise, I don’t intend to discuss whether or not certain people are loved.  They are.  Whether they perceive themselves to be loved does not diminish that actual love is there.

[2] I wish I was making this up. The branch president was very concerned in this instance and very relieved when we reached an impasse with the investigator regarding whether he had need to repent.