"Pride"and the Rise of an LDS Shadow Faith

A Hope in Change or a Hope in Christ?

Introduction: A Teary-Eyed Elder Holland, BYU 2021

“…let me go no farther before declaring unequivocally my love and that of my Brethren for those who live with this same-sex challenge and so much complexity that goes with it. Too often the world has been unkind, in many instances crushingly cruel, to these our brothers and sisters. Like many of you, we have spent hours with them, and wept and prayed and wept again in an effort to offer love and hope while keeping the gospel strong and the obedience to commandments evident in every individual life.

But it will assist everyone in providing such help if things can be kept in some proportion and balance in the process. For example, we have to be careful that love and empathy do not get interpreted as condoning and advocacy, or that orthodoxy and loyalty to principle not be interpreted as unkindness or disloyalty to people. As near as I can tell, Christ never once withheld His love from anyone, but He also never once said to anyone, “Because I love you, you are exempt from keeping my commandments.” We are tasked with trying to strike that same sensitive, demanding balance in our lives.

Musket fire? Yes, we will always need defenders of the faith, but “friendly fire” is a tragedy — and from time to time the Church, its leaders and some of our colleagues within the university community have taken such fire on this campus. And sometimes it isn’t friendly — wounding students and the parents of students who are confused about what so much recent flag-waving and parade-holding on this issue means. Beloved friends, this kind of confusion and conflict ought not to be. There are better ways to move toward crucially important goals in these very difficult matters — ways that show empathy and understanding for everyone while maintaining loyalty to prophetic leadership and devotion to revealed doctrine. My Brethren have made the case for the metaphor of musket fire, which I have endorsed yet again today. There will continue to be those who oppose our teachings and with that will continue the need to define, document, and defend the faith. But we do all look forward to the day when we can “beat our swords into plowshares, and [our] spears into pruning hooks,” and at least on this subject, “learn war [no] more.”[13] And while I have focused on this same-sex topic this morning more than I would have liked, I pray you will see it as emblematic of a lot of issues our students and community face in this complex, contemporary world of ours.”

A Hope in Change or a Hope in Christ?

We are living through a watershed moment in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A theological turning point cloaked not in full, open rebellion but in rhetorical subtlety and soft-spoken resistance. A point that doesn’t always come with placards or petitions but often comes wrapped in the language of “untethered empathy,” equality (read, “equity), and reform. But make no mistake: it is a departure.

What we are witnessing is a growing divide in where members place their hope. For some, hope still rests in the person, the power, and the promises of Jesus Christ. For others, at least a portion of that hope has migrated to something more malleable—change. Institutional change. Doctrinal change. Cultural change. The idea that if we just push hard enough, wait long enough, or speak loudly enough, the Church will eventually conform to the spirit of the age.

That misplaced hope—hope in change instead of Christ—isn't just a matter of perspective. It's a matter of spiritual direction. It reshapes discipleship. It redefines loyalty. It reframes suffering, not as sanctifying but as oppressive. And it begins to interpret any unchanging doctrine not as eternal truth but as institutional stubbornness. For some, this hope encourages them to enter into same-sex marriages and a same-sex lifestyle with the flattery of, “just wait a little and it will change.”

This hope in change is not merely hopeful, it’s activist in nature. It wants the Church to catch up with the world. It wants revelation to bend to the will of a minority in the congregation. It treats the doctrines of Exaltation, chastity, and gender not as revealed foundations but as human constructs that can be retrofitted through modern, rainbow-colored lenses.

And here lies the danger: when your faith is chained to change, your faith will rise and fall with cultural trends. It will chase the applause of the world and confuse compromise with charity. But when your faith is anchored in Christ—unchanging, eternal, full of grace and truth—you don’t need to ride the emotional roller coaster of doctrinal speculation.

This article is not a condemnation of individuals. It is a call to clarity. A call to see the divergent roads before us, not just as social issues or political tensions, but as fundamentally different hopes. One points us toward the power of Christ’s Atonement. The other, toward the agora. One is narrow, difficult, and leads to life. The other is broad, popular, and paved with ever-shifting good intentions.

And in the end, we cannot serve both.

The Gospel of Repentance and Atonement

The gospel of Jesus Christ is, at its core, a gospel of repentance and divine transformation. It is the good news of Gethsemane, the place where the Savior took upon Himself our sins, our sorrows, and every part of our fallen condition so that we could be changed through Him. God’s love isn’t just a warm blanket to wrap around us, it’s a refining fire that calls us to become joint-heirs with Christ in the kingdom of our Eternal Father.

The gospel doesn't coddle us in our current state, it calls us to something higher. It calls us to withstand Babylon while loving its citizens. To feel the love of God is a crucial first step, but the other side of that coin is to be guided by that love toward Exaltation. That involves our agency and faith. That’s the purpose of the Atonement. Not to comfort us in our sins but to redeem us from them. To change us through repentance and the sequential, spiritual triad: faith, hope, and charity. The Lord invites us as we are, but He asks us to change. Not the doctrine. And the key is understanding this does not just apply to our sexuality or how we see our gender. It applies to everything, and we are all invited to follow the same path.

And that change may not always come in the form we expect. It may not validate how we view ourselves or how we experience desire. Often, it is far deeper. It is a change of heart. A change of will. A surrender to God that says, “Thy will be done,” even when that will runs counter to the natural man.

But the rising “shadow faith” within the Church is preaching a different gospel—one where, more and more, Gethsemane has been replaced by a mirror. Where the call to “follow Him” has been swapped out for the declaration, “I’m staying right here.” This inversion of the gospel is gaining traction under the banner of an untethered empathy with action in the form of a malevolent compassion. They look merciful on the surface but rebel against the foundational truth underneath. It comes dressed in the language of inclusion and “progress,” but it replaces covenant with comfort.

And that leads us to a crucial question: “Who is included in the Father’s plan and His love?” The answer is simple—everyone. Everyone is loved. Everyone is invited. That is non-negotiable.

But inclusion is not the same as Exaltation. God’s love invites all—but the way to eternal life is still narrow. The gate is still strait. The doctrine is still firm. The Savior’s invitation is extended universally, but His covenant path is not broadened to accommodate every preference, behavior, and philosophy. It remains what it has always been: faith, repentance, baptism, and enduring to the end.

So yes, God includes everyone. But that inclusion calls us not to stay where we are, but to move forward, to follow Christ, and to walk the narrow covenant path back to Him.

At the center of this shadow faith is a simple but seismic proposition: that God’s love means His laws must change. That His mercy must rob His justice. That because He loves LGBTQ individuals—as He absolutely, unequivocally does—He must therefore affirm the lifestyles advocated by the Pride movement and found outside of a covenantal relationship with God.

And that movement doesn’t stop at tolerance. It doesn’t stop at asking for love and support from the Church and its members (which should be freely given). It demands doctrinal redefinition. The energy behind this movement is not content with spiritual support for individuals struggling with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria. No—the goal is to sanctify same-sex marriage and “cross-gender” temple paths, enshrine them within temple ordinances, and ultimately redefine Exaltation itself. That is the endgame: to shift the celestial model of family from the union of man and woman into an amorphous structure of self-defined desire. Don’t kid yourself. This is the hope and kinetic energy behind the movement within the Church.

But the doctrines of Exaltation are not elastic. The temple is not a suggestion box. The sealing power is not a democratic process. These things are governed by the order of God and His order of the family, not by the evolving consensus of a modern activist movement.

To hope that the Church will one day overturn the Law of Chastity to accommodate same-sex marriage is to build your faith on sand. Because that law, far from being a relic of the past, is a pillar of truth. It is one of the sacred boundaries that shapes our capacity to receive eternal joy. God’s laws on sexuality are not arbitrary. They are revelatory. They reflect something deeper about our eternal identity and divine potential. And they don’t just apply to members of the Church. These are universal truths.

To tamper with them is not just to change the rules, it’s to change the purpose of the game. It's to unwrite the Plan.

Love, Lies, and Iniquity

“God is love.” That simple, yet profound, statement from scripture (1 John 4:8) is one of the most quoted and misused truths in modern discourse. It is the banner beneath which many now seek to sanctify sin. It is invoked as a trump card against commandments, a shield against accountability, and a rhetorical sword against prophets who refuse to bless rebellion. And they will not bless it.

But let’s be crystal clear: God's love is real, infinite, and redemptive. It is not permissive.

The love of God is not an all-approving smile. It is not a blanket of affirmation for any and every behavior. It is not indulgence disguised as kindness. It is not what the world tells us love must be. God's love is often fierce, unyielding in its standards, uncompromising in its integrity, and rooted entirely in truth.

“Charity,” Paul writes in his piercing letter to the Corinthians, “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.” (1 Corinthians 13:6)

That verse should be the topic of talks and lessons. Clarity is crucial. “My truth” demands “your affirmation.” “If you love me, you will bow to my behavior,” completely throwing out the idea of “love the sinner but not the sin.” We rarely hear that phrase anymore. I wonder why. Because in our day, “love” has been redefined to mean “you must support me in whatever I feel, do, or want.” And if you don't, you're labeled as hateful, bigoted, or unsafe, even by some within the Church.

That’s not mercy. That’s spiritual malpractice.

But true charity, the pure love of Christ, doesn’t rejoice when someone walks away from truth. It doesn’t celebrate when someone transgresses the Law of Chastity. That’s not charity. That’s collusion. You can love someone no matter what, without accepting their behavior.

God's love always points to repentance. Always. Because real love wants more for you than what the natural man desires. Real love sees your divine potential and calls it out of you, not by lowering the standard, but by lifting you toward it. God's love doesn't eliminate your cross. It empowers you to carry it!

The Fantasy of Doctrinal Change

A powerful narrative is gaining momentum among some members of the Church: that doctrine—real doctrine, not just policy—will change. That one day, perhaps soon, the Church will canonize same-sex marriage, recognize gender fluidity, and recast chastity in the image of our boundless identity culture rather than covenants and commandments.

This is no longer a fringe theory. It’s whispered in Sunday School. It’s shared as testimony at firesides and Gather conferences. It’s brought up by teachers at FSY. It’s applauded, pushed, and sold in Deseret Book. It’s taught by Latter-day Saint influencers and celebrities. And it is poisoning the faith of many who have tethered their faith and hope to the idea that the Church will evolve.

Let’s call this what it is: fantasy (Brent Yergensen, in his excellent and recently published academic paper, refers to this as a “fantasy theme” -see link below).

It's a seductive fantasy because it packages falsehood in the wrapping paper of progress. It tells hurting people what they want to hear. It speaks the language of comfort, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. But underneath it all, it’s a lie. A doctrinal delusion.

And it is setting people up for spiritual catastrophe.

Temple and Gender: Inseparable Realities

Walk into any temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and you are immediately entering a space saturated with truths—and not generic, interchangeable truths. Truths rooted in the eternal identities of male and female. Kings and queens, priests and priestesses. Truths that cannot be altered without undoing the temple itself.

The temple is not an abstract spiritual venue. It is a literal house of the Lord, patterned after heaven, revealing through ritual and ordinance the divine order of God’s eternal plan. And gender—male and female—is not incidental to this order. It is essential.

In the Washing and Annointing and in the Endowment, every ordinance —every one—is marked by gender distinction. Not because of cultural bias, not because of the old-fashioned ideas of fifteen old men, but because of divine design.

This is the great theological brick wall that the shadow faith slams into at full speed. You cannot overhaul gender in the temple without demolishing the meaning of the temple itself. You cannot insert same-sex sealings into the ordinances without stripping the ordinances of their revealed, revelatory function. The sealing of a man and a woman is not just a ceremonial nod to heterosexuality and eternal gender, it is a mirror of eternal truths: Adam and Eve, Father and Mother, Christ and the Church. Family!

Remove male and female from the temple, and you’re not just revising the rites. You’re rewriting heaven.

And yet, the new gospel of affirmation insists otherwise. It tries to shoehorn gender ideology and queer theory into a system built entirely on the duality of male and female. But the temple does not accommodate fluidity. It does not mold to our personal narratives. It leads us into God's narrative.

When the Family Proclamation states that “gender is eternal,” it is not offering a sentimental statement. It is issuing a doctrinal anchor. A serious, fundamental anchor of truth. Eternal gender means it existed before birth and will continue after death. It means your gender is not a blank slate. It means there is divine purpose and divine distinction baked into your very being.

To hope that gender in the temple will change is to misunderstand the temple entirely. It is to mistake a house of revelation for a hall of accommodation. But the temple does not exist to make us comfortable—it exists to make us holy. And holiness requires conformity to God’s will, not cultural consensus.

The Brethren know this and understand it. Even under severe pressure, they are not going to yield to this cultural consensus. Recently, an interview between the church's Public Affairs Department and President and Sister Oaks was publicized. One question to President Oaks was, “can you explain why this whole issue of homosexuality and same-gender marriage is important to the Church?” His answer, “Over past years we have seen unrelenting pressure from advocates of that lifestyle to accept as normal what is not normal . . . The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must take a stand on doctrine and principle. This is more than a social issue — ultimately it may be a test of our most basic religious freedoms to teach what we know our Father in Heaven wants us to teach.”

“Charity Rejoiceth in Truth”

If there is a single verse that slices through the fog of cultural confusion with prophetic clarity, it’s this one:

“Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.” —1 Corinthians 13:6

Not in affirmation. Not in comfort. Not in popular opinion. But in truth. “For behold, justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; and thus, none but the truly penitent are saved. What, do ye suppose that mercy can rob justice? I say unto you, Nay; not one whit. If so, God would cease to be God.” (Alma 42:24–25.)

The shadow faith—this internal movement of doctrinal revisionists within the Church—has rebranded charity into something altogether different. It holds Teddy Bear Jesus up as its molten calf. No truth. No justice. No compass. No order. Just comfort and affirmation. The pseudo-charity simply means: “Be nice at all costs. Validate identity. Affirm behavior. Just ‘lift and love.”

But what is that kind of love, exactly?

It’s not charity. It’s cowardice with a smile.

It’s a love stripped of covenant. A compassion detached from commandment. A sentiment that embraces you in your sins and tells you to stay there because “you’re perfect just the way you are.” (I’ve seen this many times). But that’s not the love of Christ. That’s not the love that saves.

Christ’s love is far more truthful and far more beautiful. Because He is tethered to truth, we can tether ourselves to Him and have complete faith. Otherwise, no one could have true faith in Him.

When Jesus encountered the woman taken in adultery, He didn’t pick up a stone. He also didn’t affirm her lifestyle. He said, “Neither do I condemn thee” (the law condemns). Mercy. And then—“Go, and sin no more.” Truth. That’s charity. That’s the whole gospel in one moment with faith and repentance at its core.

Too many today are preaching a half-gospel. A gospel that says “Neither do I condemn thee,” but leaves out the hard, essential half: “Go, and sin no more.” It leaves people in their brokenness. It substitutes validation for transformation. And it calls it compassion.

But Jesus doesn’t leave people in tombs. He calls them out of them.

So, what does it mean to love someone who struggles with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria? It means walking with them, weeping with them, standing by them—and calling them to Christ. Not to change the doctrine but to invite them to walk with Christ. That is real charity.

Real charity means loving someone enough to hurt their feelings if it saves their soul.

That’s the kind of love we need now. Do we have that strength?

Do we still have a love that rejoices in truth?

Christ or Change: We Must Choose

The last two paragraphs of the Family Proclamation:

“We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God. Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.

We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.” - Written by the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles, 1995

I believe this. Do you?

And for the sake of clarity, love for those who consider themselves LGBTQ is distinct from the Pride movement. The Pride movement is pernicious, anti-identity, and yes, anti-family. It seeks in every way to destroy identity and to disintegrate the family.

If you’re not careful, once you step onto the Pride slide, you might find yourself defending things you never imagined—like “Tinkerhell” and “Marilyn Monhoe” (yes, those are the cleaner names)—drag queens performing for kids at your local library’s story hour. What begins as untethered empathy can quickly morph into malevolent compassion in action and ultimately into complicity and advocacy when discernment is traded for cultural applause. You think you are “enlightened” with a new liberation when you are simply encouraging the breakdown of identity and family.

There’s a point in every moral struggle where the fog lifts, the lines sharpen, and we are left staring at two paths—distinct, incompatible, and unavoidably consequential. We are at that point now. Not just as a society but as a Church. And certainly as individual disciples of Christ.

The path ahead demands a choice: Will we put our hope in Christ, or will we put our hope in change?

This is not rhetorical. This is not theoretical. This is real, present, and personal. The time for theological ambiguity and soft-spoken sidestepping is over. The illusion of the middle ground is vanishing. The Church has made it clear where it stands. The Brethren are not blinking. The doctrines are not evolving. And the spirit of the age is not slowing down.

So, what will we choose?

Will we stake our spiritual future on the belief that the Church will eventually alter eternal doctrines to fit the ever-shifting demands of culture? Or will we stand firm, plant our flag in the unchangeable rock of Christ, and say, "Even if the world changes, even if it costs me everything, I will not move"?

One path, the path of doctrinal change, offers immediate cultural rewards. It comes with applause, inclusion, a certain “belonging” for others, and the warm embrace of a world that tells you you're brave for defying your prophets. It requires no repentance, only that you align with the current social narrative. And it always demands more. First affirmation, then celebration, then submission.

But this path is built on sand. It cannot bear the weight of eternity. And it will crumble.

The other path—the path of Christ—is steep. It is narrow. It often feels lonely. It will cost you. You may lose friends. You may lose the respect of your peers. You may lose your place at the table of modern acceptability. But you will gain something immeasurable.

You will gain peace.

Not the fragile peace of social affirmation, but the enduring peace of spiritual integrity.

You will gain truth.

Not the changeable "truths" of man, but the eternal truth of God.

You will gain Christ.

Not a Christ who bends to your will, but the Christ who saves you from yourself.

Make no mistake: both paths promise hope. But only one delivers it.

Hope in change leads you to activism, anxiety, and eventual departure.

Hope in Christ leads you to peace, power, and eternal life.

As the division within the Church deepens, as the rhetoric of resistance grows louder, and as the costs of true discipleship increase, let your choice be clear. Not hidden in ambiguity. Not diluted in diplomacy. Clear.

Hope in Christ.

Not in change.

Brent Yergensen, a professor of communications and rhetoric, recently published a remarkable paper in the Journal of Religion & Society through the Kripke Center at Creighton University. The title is bold and fitting: “Shadow Faith or Organizational Breakoff? Inflection Points and the Symbolic Convergence of Latter-day Saint Subculture.” To date, I haven’t seen anything else that brings this level of clarity, or courage, to the internal discussion of the LGBTQ Pride movement within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This article draws from his outstanding work.

About The Author

Greg Matsen is the founder of Cwic Media and the host of the Cwic Show. He is also the editor of this Substack, Alive and Intelligent. He hosts excursions to Israel, Turkey, and Egypt, where he teaches about the parallels of the Egyptian and Latter-day Saint temples and contrasts gospel principles with the philosophies of men.