A Response to FARMS Critique of Questions to ask your Mormon Friends
Together
Referring to our chapter entitled "If Mormon Families Will Be Together Forever, Where Will the In-Laws Live?" Jacobson writes:
Mormons don't define "together" as "all in the same place"--rather, the belief that families can be together throughout eternity is a belief that family ties will continue to exist after death, in much the same way that family ties continue to exist even when children grow up and leave home (pg. 159).
While Jacobson is entitled to her own opinion as to what "families are forever" means, we know that many Mormons with whom we have talked believe that they literally will be together with their families forever. They are taking the words of the English language quite literally. It doesn't seem that the LDS Church minds this assumption since it has produced certain commercials and short films to show happy families who will be together in states of everlasting joy. This image is certainly given at the end of the annual summer Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti, Utah. If this idea of families literally being together for eternity is not true, then it would seem honest for the LDS Church to not give this impression through its media and plays. Meanwhile, consider some of the following quotes with bold print being our added emphasis:
[Speaking of going into the celestial kingdom] We will then comprehend all we know before we came here. We will comprehend everything we learned when we dwelt in the flesh; and we will be clothed upon with the spirit and power of God in its fulness, and the kingdoms and power and glory eternal will be given unto us. We shall have the gift of eternal and endless increase. Our families will be with us, and the beginning of our dominion, and upon that basis we shall build forever. Our wives and our children will be ours for all eternity ... (Charles W. Penrose, November 16, 1884, Journal of Discourses 26:30).
When all the family are united together, they enjoy a heavenly spirit here on the earth. This is how it should be; for when a man in this Church takes unto himself a wife he expects to remain with her through all time and eternity. In the morning of the first resurrection he expects to remain with her through all time and eternity. In the morning of the first resurrection he expects to have that wife and his children with him in a family organization, to remain in that condition forever and forever ... I have felt if, when I get through this world, where I have passed through many tribulations and afflictions with my wives and children, I can only have them with me in the next world, in their immortal bodies, to stand with me in the presence of God and of the Savior, and of the patriarchs and prophets ... (Wilford Woodruff, May 19, 1889, Collected Discourses volume 1).
We believe in the glorious millennial reign, in a literal resurrection of the dead, in the reunion of families in heaven, of the sanctification of this earth to be the abiding place forever of the sanctified God. (Charles A. Callis, Conference Report, October 1919, pg. 191).
Well, that assurance came with the restored gospel of Christ and the authority of the Holy Priesthood, under whose power men and women were no more united in marriage until "death doth them part," but they were sealed together with bonds that persist in holy matrimony for time and for all eternity, and into the marriage covenant so established came their children to belong to them forever and forever. What a satisfaction to the true lover of home and family! What a consolation in times of sad earthly partings! What a hope and faith to live for! (Stephen L. Richards, Conference Report, April 1954, pp. 33-34)
The celestial kingdom is where the most happy endings are. That is where the greatest rewards will be found. In the highest degrees of the celestial glory families will be bound forever in great joy. (Sterling W. Sill, BYU Speeches, Jan. 20, 1960, pg. 12)
If English has any meaning, and if the above LDS speakers are correct, then our chapter does have meaning. However, if Jacobson wants to believe that this doctrine refers to existence in separation of other family members, she is entitled to her opinion. But how does she know that "Mormons don't define `together' as `all in the same place'"? Is she the spokeswoman for all Mormons? And, if she is correct, she has failed to back up her interpretation of this key LDS doctrine with Scripture or any other LDS resource.
Furthermore, if Mormonism is true and each Mormon male gets his own planet, we can easily assume that, if this solar system is a model of that in the next life, the closest relative can be no closer than millions of miles away. It would seem that spending eternity in the terrestrial kingdom would allow you to be closer to your loved ones than the celestial kingdom. Some have argued that time and distance is no object for the "man-turned-God." Still, this does not answer the question about who is running the planet if its God has left to visit a family member on some other earth.