The bloggernacle is justifiably abuzz about Taylor Petrey’s upcoming Dialogue article titled ‘Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology’.  While I do not agree with the thrust of his article, and am uncomfortable with the approach, I acknowledge the brilliant strategy and execution of the article.  It really is an impressive and creative piece of work.  It would not surprise me if people were referencing it many years from now.

What I mostly disagree with is the idea of changing the theology in order to have a group of people ‘exalted’, rather than changing people through repentance and atonement to be exalted.

In order to express my discomfort in this, I thought I might try to generalize what I see as the strategy employed, and perhaps suggest some extreme examples to make the point.  One will notice the title of this post with a blank after the ‘Post’.  In a generalized strategy – following Petrey’s template – one can simply fill in the blank with the opposite of any group you wish to be an advocate for.   While I say ‘simply’ I do not mean to reduce the amount of effort it will take to pull something like this off.  You will not be able to just throw this together if you want it to be persuasive.  This effort is what makes Petrey’s work so impressive.

The strategy seems to follow three steps:

Step 1 – You need to show that God himself has something in common with the group you are advocating for.  In Petrey’s article he makes premortal life, eternal life, and God himself largely genderless and asexual.  He uses examples like the creation and the resurrection as creative, yet asexual, acts presumably executed by groups of men.  Thus he clears the way for sealed and exalted homosexuals.  And since heaven is now basically genderless and asexual it shouldn’t really make much difference.  This is brilliant.

To suggest an absurd example to express the force of my worry, what if someone wanted to advocate for sealing and exalting serial killers.  One could point out that God is responsible for all those deaths during Noah’s day as an example.  Thus clearing the way for exalted mass murderers as mass murderers.  I do not choose this example to equate homosexuals with mass murderers, only to show my discomfort for the strategy.  I wanted to choose as extreme and absurd an example as I could think of.

Step 2 – Find some symbolism or way of thinking about certain ordinances that aligns with your preferred group.  This may be best done historically, since that may grant some advantages of being far removed from the present.  Ordinances are important and powerful things, and if you can wiggle your way into them it can be very effective.

One example of this may be one who wants to reclaim contemporary polygamists, and seal and exalt them as contemporary polygamists.  One could easily point to prior teachings and understandings to make this case.  They could also point to widowers who could be sealed to another spouse.  This could be used to move toward a post-monogamist Mormon theology if you wish.

Step 3 – Make the case that current church leaders are out of touch and guilty of pre-critical thinking.  Make an appeal to modern scholarship that is sympathetic to your cause.  This may take some time and effort, but chances are good that if you look hard enough, you will be able to find what you seek.   This has the further advantage of making anyone who disagrees with you seem out-of-touch, ignorant, and stupid.

I think the example that Petrey provides is a good one – that of modern gender studies.  This way you can put modern scholarship up against modern ‘revelation’ (or guides).   This is probably good form for most progressive theological ideas.

To me, the real question is not whether or not we can change a theology in such a way as to seal and exalt whomever we prefer, but whether or not we should.