The Doctrine of 2008

I had an interesting conversation with my bishop the other day. It started out with the general, how are you?, is there anything you need to talk about?, etc. After this, we started to talk about me and my development and growth in the Church over the past year. He told me that he respects me a great deal for making the choices that I am making and going through what I am going through. He then told me about some revelation that he had received from God for me. I was a very touching and spiritual experience for me. After this, he really did not have anymore to say to me. I told him thank you and I was getting ready to leave.

As I stood up, he stopped me and wanted to talk to me for a little bit longer. He told me that he has a son who has gone gay. He told me about the history of his son and everything. He does not share this with a lot of people, but he shared it with me because he loves, cares, and trusts me. He and his son have had numerous conversations about the church. Every time their conversation ends, his son ends up hating him more (he has now stopped talking to his son about the Church) and his son has a renewed conviction that God made him gay and that is what he is supposed to be.

After telling me this, I told him about some of the beliefs floating around the MoHo community such as how God is eventually going to allow gay marriage so it is not wrong to act on it now, God made me gay and that is what I am supposed to be, how can I deny who I am and be something that God did not make me, God is telling me to be gay and pursue a relationship, etc. He was extremely saddened when he heard this from me because it was the same reasoning his son had given him numerous times. He then spoke to me about some essential doctrine that I will never forget.

The doctrine of 2008 from God is that doing anything homosexual is wrong and sinful. That is all there is to it. There might be a time in the future where God does change the rules and allows homosexual actions and marriages (I do not think this is going to happen though), but as of right now it is wrong. He told me that if you or anyone else does something, that is considered sinful in this time period--it needs to be repented of. If it is not repented of when the rules change, it is still considered a sin and you still need to repent of it because it was a past transgression when the rules were different. This hit me really hard and I knew it to be true through a witness from the Spirit. We must follow the doctrine of 2008. Just because we feel it is unfair or wrong, does not mean that we can change it. Only God can change it and so far, He has not. The prophets tell us that it is wrong and they are the closest ones to God (we do not even compare to them in closeness), so we must follow what they say and follow the commandments of God.