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Humans are really bad at accurately identifying heretics and prophets. Christ preached as much (“no prophet is accepted in his own country”) — and was executed for it (“by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God”). Christ himself is both the world’s most renowned heretic and its greatest prophet.

It’s easy to confuse the two concepts because the definitions of heresy and prophesy mirror each other. They both hinge on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Bible teaches that those who testify of Christ have the gift of prophesy. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints embraces this testifying definition of prophets.

St. Thomas Aquinas defines heresy as professing faith in Christ, while corrupting His Gospel. William Tyndale similarly explains that heresy springs “out of the blind hearts of hypocrites” who “cannot comprehend the light of scripture.”

Prophets and heretics read the same scriptures, and espouse the same faith in Christ, yet preach different messages. In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, who is right? Who is the prophet, and who is the heretic? Tyndale offered one answer: heretics have not “the profession of their baptisms written in their hearts.”

We know what the profession of baptism is. The Book of Mormon teaches that it is to be “willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they be light; and [to be] willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places.”

This baptismal covenant is the core of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If we are not succoring each other amidst their pain, we cannot call ourselves Christians.

The Gospel is that simple, and that impossibly hard. We, as humans, as Christians, and as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have shown time and time again that we do not truly fathom Christ’s call to love one another. We construct walls of worthiness standards and invent exclusionary rules all the time. How many parables about Samaritans and prodigals and debtors and lepers and adulterers and prisoners did Christ teach us — and still we refuse to comprehend the radical depths of his infinite love?

I’m grateful the Church announced yesterday it would stop labeling LGBTQ+ members, alongside their children, as “apostates.” (Apostates are defined as those who outright reject the teachings of Christ.) But removing the apostate label is not enough. We need to also remove their designation as “heretics.” The surest way to do that is to acknowledge that “heretic” is an inaccurate reflection of who our LGBTQ+ sisters and brothers truly are: prophets.

Heresy places institutions above the Gospel of Christ. Many of those who left the Church in the last four years did so precisely because their faith in Christ compelled it. Our siblings and our friends have sought hope and healing in a Christ who is bigger than the exclusionary policies of institutions. Our sons and our daughters have been prophesying, and we have not had the ears to hear them.

Today I offer an invitation to listen and to repent, by turning our hearts to Christ. Our baptism into the body of Christ means that if “one member suffer[s], all the members suffer.” Listen to the LGBTQ+ community’s powerful witness of Christ. No one’s worth in the eyes of God is dependent upon changes to LDS policies. Over the last three and a half years (and long before that), our brothers and sisters have modeled how to sit with one another’s brokenness amidst immense heartbreak, suffering, and death. Even when we cast them out of our churches, they testified of Christ.

As Rachel Held Evans wrote in Searching for Sunday after attending an LGBT Christian conference: “here they were, when they had every right in the world to run as far away from the church as their legs would carry them, worshiping together, praying together, healing together. Here they were, being the church that had rejected them. … I’m convinced that LGBT Christians have a special role to play in teaching the church how to be Christian.”

*Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash