Avoiding the Antichrists
Discernment, Spiritual Authority, and Recognizing What Is and Is Not of God
Guiding Text
Teaching Section
Spiritual Authority, Discernment, and the Book of Mormon Test
Lesson Plan
This session addresses when institutional authority should be questioned. It is pro-discernment, not anti-Church. The Book of Mormon provides the tools.
Sherem, Nehor, and Korihor share interposing human authority between individuals and God. An Antichrist is any system placing itself between you and your Savior.
Does this teaching invite to do good? Does it persuade to believe in Christ? Apply explicitly to institutional teachings on homosexuality.
Oakley & Humphreys (2019) and Ward (2022): identity negation, enforced concealment, conditional divine love.
Apply Moroni's test to three specific teachings regarding sexuality.
Detailed Lesson Content
In the Book of Mormon, an Antichrist is not an atheist. The three named Antichrists share interposing themselves between individuals and God. This definition can apply to institutional systems claiming absolute authority. Moroni 7:15–16: 'It is given unto you to judge. Every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ.' Given unto you. Not your bishop. You. If a teaching makes you hate yourself, it fails Moroni's test. And if it fails, Moroni says you may know with a surety that it is not of God.
Ward (2022) documented mechanisms of religious trauma: identity negation, enforced concealment, conditional divine love. Developing discernment is not apostasy. It is exercising a spiritual gift Moroni says you already possess.
Recommended Videos
Patrick Mason, ‘Planted’ (author talks, 30–45 min)
LDS scholar Patrick Mason brings thoughtfulness and compassion to faith crisis, exploring how belief and belonging can endure through an age of doubt.
Watch on YouTube →‘Believer’ (2018 documentary)
Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds, a Latter-day Saint, confronts the intersection of LGBTQ+ youth and Mormon community norms in this powerful documentary.
Watch on Amazon →Additional Reading
- Oakley, L., & Humphreys, J. (2019). Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse. SPCK.
- Ward, D. J. (2022). Mechanisms of religious trauma. Clinical Social Work Journal, 50, 382–394.
- Mason, P. Q. (2015). Planted. Deseret Book.
- Moroni 7:12–19; Jacob 7; Alma 1; Alma 30.
Academic Framework
Research on spiritual abuse—defined as the misuse of spiritual authority to control, shame, or manipulate (Oakley & Kinmond, 2013)—provides a clinical framework for understanding the harm experienced by LGBTQ+ people in non-affirming religious environments. Spiritual abuse is distinct from ordinary theological disagreement; it involves the exploitation of a person's trust in spiritual authority to produce compliance through fear, guilt, or shame. The mechanisms documented in Australian Evangelical settings (Ward, 2022) are strikingly parallel to those reported by LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints: mischaracterization, social distancing, erasure, and the pathologizing of identity.
Importantly, research also documents the resilience and spiritual growth of participants who navigate religious trauma. Many emerge with what Ward (2022) describes as 'a more nuanced and deeper faith'—a faith that has been tested by fire and refined rather than destroyed. The goal of this session is not to encourage participants to abandon faith but to develop the discernment to distinguish between divine truth and institutional construct.
Theological Reflection
The Book of Mormon's named Antichrists—Sherem, Nehor, Korihor—share a common trait: they position themselves as authoritative interpreters of God's will while actually leading people away from Christ. But the text also warns of unnamed Antichrist forces: churches 'built up to get gain' (Mormon 8:33), leaders who 'wear stiff necks and high heads' (Jacob 2:13), and those who 'turn their backs upon the poor, and the meek, and the humble followers of Christ' (Alma 5:55).
The Dear Forrest letter applies this framework with precision: 'You must never say no to the Lord, but you are under no obligation to confuse the Lord's voice with the voice of others.' This is not an invitation to spiritual anarchy. It is an invitation to the discernment that Moroni 7:15–16 describes: 'It is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain...for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ.'
The test is simple: Does this teaching invite me to do good? Does it persuade me to believe in Christ? Does it bring me closer to the Savior or place something between us? If a teaching makes you hate yourself, it fails Moroni's test. If a policy makes you feel unworthy of God's love, it fails Moroni's test. The test is available to every person. It does not require institutional permission to use.
Discussion Prompts
- Can you identify a specific teaching or policy that you once accepted as God's will but now recognize as an institutional construct? What changed your understanding?
- What does the 'voice of the Lord' sound like to you, personally? How do you distinguish it from the voice of institutional authority? From the voice of your own shame?
- The letter says you have 'a conscience refined by suffering.' Do you trust your own discernment? Why or why not?
Integration Exercise
Discernment inventory: Using Moroni 7:15–16 as a framework, participants evaluate three to five specific teachings or policies they have encountered regarding their sexuality. For each, they ask: Does this invite me to do good? Does it persuade me to believe in Christ? Does it bring me closer to the Savior? They write their answers honestly, without reference to institutional authority. The exercise is about learning to trust their own spiritual discernment.
Therapeutic Methodology
Primary Modality: Religious/Spiritual Deconstruction Therapy (Pargament, 2007; Exline, 2013). This session requires clinicians skilled in navigating spiritual struggle without pathologizing faith or dismissing legitimate theological concerns. Pargament's model of spiritual coping identifies four trajectories: spiritual growth, spiritual decline, spiritual stability, and spiritual transformation. The goal of this session is spiritual transformation—not the abandonment of faith but its maturation through the development of personal discernment. Clinicians should help participants differentiate between three voices: the voice of the institution (external authority), the voice of internalized shame (proximal stressor), and the voice of personal revelation (authentic spiritual experience). Many participants have never been given permission to trust the third voice when it contradicts the first.
Secondary Modality: Schema Therapy (Young et al., 2003). Participants from high-demand religious environments often operate under early maladaptive schemas that were installed by the religious system: the Subjugation schema (suppressing one's own needs to comply with authority), the Defectiveness/Shame schema (believing oneself to be fundamentally flawed), and the Unrelenting Standards schema (believing that one must meet impossibly high standards to be acceptable). Clinicians should help participants identify which schemas are active, trace them to their institutional origins, and begin the process of schema modification through limited reparenting and empathic confrontation.
Safety Consideration: This session can trigger significant anxiety in participants who equate questioning institutional authority with apostasy or spiritual danger. Clinicians should normalize this anxiety as a predictable response to dismantling a system of authority that has governed the participant's life. The theological framework—Moroni's test of discernment—provides scriptural 'permission' that the clinician alone cannot provide.