If you take one mormon with you on a fishing trip, the minute you turn your back, he'll drink all the beer in your cooler. The key to keeping all your beer to yourself is to bring two mormons with you; they won't drink a drop.
I laughed because I know that stereotype and I know how real it is. Perhaps the lone man drinking the beer told himself, feeling that drinking the beer is a sin, that his sins were between him and God. Now, that is no less true when there is another present that shares his religious preference. Nor is it so were there two more, or three, or an entire congregation. His sins are between him and God. So why should having a pair of Latter-day Saints keep your beer from being drunk?
Church is a hospital for sinners, not a hotel for saints.
A common complaint with regard to many Christian churches is that the members are too judgmental. I do not want to justify their judgment, but I do want to briefly glance at their perspective. Christians believe that Jesus Christ's gospel is truth and that those teachings outline the way to every man's salvation. Through the grace of Jesus Christ, anyone can be saved if they accept him as their savior. From there, sects diverge. As Latter-day Saints-along with many other good people, regardless of religion-we believe in doing good works. Religiously speaking, those good works will show our commitment to and faith in our Savior and our God. In addition, through various prophets' teachings, we learn there are certain acts we are expected to erase from our lives. Some are simple, like murder, lying, and stealing. Others are a little more difficult: coveting, fighting with my little sister, and judging.
Anyway, those who attend church study those actions we are meant to reject and each action's respective counteractions to try and avoid bad influences in their own lives (theoretically). Perhaps they see a friend struggling with something we are instructed not to do. They may reach out to the friend to offer help. If they are correct and their help is accepted, they may feel entitled to reach out more and more until you have your typical Christian busy-body confiscating children's cell phones as they walk the aisles, having nothing but the best intentions.
When Christ told us we were to, "Judge righteous judgment," I think that means we are to discern what actions will bring us closer to him, not to judge who is righteous and who is not. All are welcome at church because, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." And when we go to church, perhaps instead of looking at how much farther on Christ's path to salvation we are than everyone else, since distance is measured from a point of view and yours is not God's, we can offer help to those around us. If our help is not welcome, let us offer love.
Don't judge me because I sin differently than you
We all sin. We all have different ideas of what 'sin' is. 'Bad words' in my house growing up were commonplace in others. Movies I watched never would be allowed to cross the plane of other homes. While God has defined what is sin, our perception of each sin's severity is simply a guess. We can be pretty confident about some that God has explicitly spoken on, like adultery and murder. But from there, we are expected to use our righteous judgment with God's guidance to determine what is keeping us distanced from him and what we can do to close that gap a little. Some struggle against suffocating addictions to drugs, alcohol, pornography, or caffeine. Others may be compulsive liars. And others still may have strong tendencies to judge those around them. No, they are not in the right. But in other areas, neither are you.
Not going to church because of the sinners is like not going to the gym because of the out-of-shape people.
People come up with more reasons to not go to the gym than I can count. However, I have yet to hear someone say they hate going to a gym because nobody there has a 6-pack (well, I guess some may complain about lack of eye candy...). The point is, when you go to the gym, normal human beings do not scoff at pasty white guys like myself struggling to hoist dumbbells or profusely panting and sweating after running on the treadmill for like, 5 minutes. I...they are trying. Sincere effort makes for personal satisfaction; and in extreme cases, ends up as a 2 minute inspirational picture montage that gets over 1,000 shares on Facebook. Anyway, why should it be different at church?
It shouldn't be.
His ego is large and out of control. She smoked 2 joints in morning. I probably slept in and forgot to shower (the stench can literally offend you). Whatever way you shuffle the cards, in the end, what God defines as sin, is sin.
We are all ill. We are all out of shape. We all sin differently. But that is not to say we cannot spot one another. Perhaps we could open our medicine cabinet and share some deodorant with the smelly kid. In all cases, we can offer our love, friendship, and support to our fellow travelers.
