Since I've come to England, I've met Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Anglicans, Catholics, atheists, Easternists, and countless other religious faiths who have learned we are Mormons. Excited to meet them and to talk about what we believe, we ask what they know about the Church.
Their initial reaction is that our church is a cult, rather like Amish or Kool-Aid drinkers, who slap so many restrictions on its members that we cannot assimilate into the twenty-first century, nor live our own lives.
To all of these delightful people (and many more who are confused about our rules in general) let me explain.
Agency
This word means the freedom to act, or literally, "that a man is agent unto himself, to choose right from wrong". We believe strongly that every single person on this planet has this freedom. However, where most people would say they are victims of society or something else that keeps them from choosing what they like, we say that agency is coupled with consequence.
Take our Word of Wisdom, or health code (Doctrine and Covenants, section 89). The Word of Wisdom tells us (back in 1830s) that tobacco, alcohol, coffee and tea are unhealthy and addictive. Every member chooses to keep or reject this code. By rejecting it, they cannot worship in the temple, take the sacrament, or hold a calling. In the world outside the Church, they may become addicted to alcohol or cigarettes, be constantly sick from drug use, spend all their money to drink or use, or even hurt others because they are not in control of their wits.
But by keeping it, as I and all these girls on program with me have, we are freed from the influence of alcohol or drugs. We are free to use our minds to their fullest extent, and thus keep our agency and our health intact. We are free to spend money on other things. We are free to remember every night of our lives and never wonder where we were or what we did. We never have to be responsible for doing something stupid simply because we were drunk. We are free from jail time and rehabilitation clinics. Since we will never drink and drive, we will never be haunted by an accident in which we killed someone. We are free to live our lives.
Is the only argument for alcohol to have a good time? If that's the case, I will keep my frisbees and you can keep your cases.
Intimacy
Perhaps the biggest indictment against the Church is that we choose to obey the law of chastity. This means that we have no sexual relations before legal and lawful marriage between man and woman, nor any extramarital relations therafter.
This is considerably harder to keep. All of us are driven to reproduce; those instincts are surpassed only by the will to survive. It's not a question of never touching a cigarette or a beer. So to make things a bit more personal, I will only speak for myself.
I discipline myself that in my personal relationships I will not be intimate. I've dated a few people, and those relationships have been based on friendship and admiration. After they ended, I do not look back and regret anything I've done or haven't done. Because of this, every time I start a new relationship, I start new, carrying only the things I've learned. It's hard enough to break up when all you did was hold hands--I struggle to imagine the incredible emotions that come from intimacy, especially with your "first".
For all you out there who think this is impossible, I turn twenty-one this week and I'm pleased to announce that I've kept the law of chastity my whole life. It's not because my church is twisting my arm or threatening me to; it's because I want my wedding night to be just between me and my husband. If he is worthy and kept the law of chastity as well, I won't have to worry about getting an STD because it would be physically impossible. I won't worry about whether I am being compared to some girlfriend he had in high school. I won't wonder if he has a kid he's secretly paying child support to. We will give each other everything, never thinking about some other person or comparing that night to some other night. We will be each other's "first"s, based on friendship and admiration, ready to start a family together out of love, rather than mistakes.
Because I've made this choice and am disciplining myself to keep it, I will never have a shotgun wedding, feel the crush in my self-esteem, have ultra-jealous boyfriends, see the horrible results of my own affair--I will be free to choose how I want to live my life, responsibly and unhampered by what might have been.
On Rules
Rules, when kept by willing proponents, keep us free. Really. If alcohol and affairs is the way of the twentieth century, I'm not really interested in living that sordid life of guilt and suicide. By disciplining myself, I am free to be honest and responsible and a good example to my friends and children someday.
For all you folks out there who think the way I do, you are not alone! There are 35,000 students plus staff at BYU who are trying to keep to these standards of living and are happy to do so because it makes us happy. The Church is 13 million strong worldwide. We are trying to keep ourselves free and untainted from the world's standards, which get shorter and shorter as the years fly by--and as they do, our "rules" of "can't" make more and more sense.
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