The Mormon Church often says that its doctrines constitute a true restoration of the gospel, but it doesn’t. Rather, the Lord gave the true restoration of the gospel, in Swedenborg’s opus, True Christianity, where he made it clear how and why God is one person.

Swedenborg wrote that the center of heaven is, in fact, made up of married partners, and although this is generally taught in D&C as well, it is sullied by false things that are spun into and among it. What’s most important to accomplish on earth is being joined to the Lord’s Spirit through the charitable way a person lives his or her life, which is symbolized by marriage. So long as that regeneration in the Lord is accomplished, if a marriage to a partner is not found on earth, one can be found in heaven, regardless of Mormon membership or temple rituals.

Although it’s obvious they still love each other, Mary is no longer Jesus’ mother. She was his physical mother who birthed him while he was on earth, but his physical body was progressively transformed and glorified, made one with the Father of Heaven, so that it’s no longer the case that she is his mother.

From this, we can easily discern that when Jesus said “hate” in the verse prior, he wasn’t talking about malice or violence. He was talking about getting your priorities straight. As a Christian, Jesus must be central to your life in every way. He must be more important than your father, mother, sister, brother, spouse, child, friends, employer, employee, etc. As sad as it is to say, I think the reality is that a lot of us choose to side with our family instead of with Jesus. We’re Christians by name only, simply to appear in good social standing.

The best economies consist of leaders who delegate tasks into the hands of individuals, enabling them with the power and autonomy to contribute without bureaucracy standing in the way. The reason this works is because these leaders thoroughly vet people for genuine intentionality before putting them to work and then allow them to fail and iterate quickly on their ideas, becoming more knowledgable each time. In fact, skillsets and resumes aren’t very important. What’s important is love, willingness, persistence, and ingenuity — values associated with capitalism, where work actually gets done, more than socialism, where work is often blocked for review by committees. Capitalism can certainly be motivated by excessive greed and pride and that leads to its own evil which we want to alleviate, but more often than not, even when that happens, it results in a less severe outcome than socialism, because at least something is getting done.

An important concept to understand is that the Father within Jesus is nothing but goodness. Sometimes that goodness may involve punishment, but he never wants that result. He wills that the sin never occurs in the first place, but if it does occur, allowing a consequence is the most loving outcome for everyone, not only to help reform the person, but to protect the innocent.