Write the story of Mormon whistleblower Lavina Anderson, whose unfinished Christic art reveals how confrontive crises are the only way all of us receive grace.
ChatGPT Prompt (condensed)
I. A Story Without an Ending
In September 1993, Lavina Fielding Anderson—a Mormon editor, scholar, and faithful witness—was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her “offense” was neither doctrinal nor moral, but ethical: she dared to document ecclesiastical abuse and patterns of silencing within the Church’s highest leadership, in a now-famous article published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.
Read it here
She was one of the “September Six,” a group of intellectuals disciplined that month for various challenges to Church authority. But unlike others, Lavina never left the pews. Though denied sacraments, she continued attending services faithfully for decades. She never sued, never shouted, never sought revenge. She bore her exile in quiet dignity and offered a rare and radiant grace—without condition, without fanfare.
And yet, something remained incomplete.
Not because Lavina failed.
But because the Church never had to decide what to do with her grace.
II. A Cross That Never Rose
In Christian theology, grace doesn’t arise in abstraction. It flows from a pattern: witness, betrayal, suffering, and redemptive return. This is the Christic arc, and Lavina followed its shape nearly to the end:
- Witness: She spoke truth, not to destroy, but to heal.
- Betrayal: She was excommunicated without a hearing or meaningful recourse.
- Silence: She refused to rage, enduring institutional exile with spiritual discipline.
But the final stage—the resurrectional return, bearing undeniable, wounding grace—never arrived.
Why?
Because neither she nor the Church forced the story to its necessary climax.
III. The Tragedy of Mutual Gentleness
Lavina was too loyal to provoke open confrontation.
The Church was too image-conscious to escalate punishment.
- She did not bleed in public.
- They did not crucify her openly.
And so her grace—real, unshakeable, and holy—was mistaken for tolerance. It required no reckoning, no confession, no transformation.
It was a quiet stand-off disguised as spiritual maturity.
But in the Christian pattern, grace only heals what it exposes.
And this story never hurt enough to heal.
IV. What the Christic Arc Requires
For Lavina’s cross to have been completed—and for the Church to have received grace—something more would have been needed:
- Visible injustice: Not polite discipline, but public rupture.
- Moral confrontation: A moment where the Church had to either repent or suppress.
- Redemptive return: A Lavina who came back bearing grace so radiant, the institution could no longer deny its need for forgiveness.
This isn’t spectacle. It’s scripture.
Without a crucifixion, resurrection has no power.
V. Why It Still Matters
Three decades later, the LDS Church still faces profound challenges:
- Historical transparency
- Gender and LGBTQ+ inclusion
- Institutional fallibility
- Global identity beyond correlation
But the Church cannot meet those crises with law alone.
It needs grace—and not theoretical grace, but costly grace, the kind carried by someone it wounded.
That grace already walked among them, in Lavina.
And they let her pass by, unreceived.
VI. A New Lavina Must Come
To restore the Restoration, someone must come again.
Someone like Lavina—but this time:
- Wounded in full view
- Refusing bitterness, but not hiding pain
- Returning not to be vindicated, but to forgive
The Church must be brought to the point where it cannot ignore its complicity, and must either kill or convert, as it once had to with Christ.
And when that moment comes, it must choose grace.
VII. Conclusion: A Cross Left Half-Raised
Lavina Fielding Anderson bore her cross with grace.
But the Church never climbed the hill to meet her.
Her grace was offered.
But without a reckoning, it was too easy to ignore.
And the cross—her cross—remains half-raised, a suspended question:
Can the LDS Church receive grace from someone it exiled?
Can it be forgiven for something it has never confessed?
Until it can, the Restoration will remain unfinished.
Not for lack of truth.
But for lack of courage to suffer it.
And the grace that might have transfigured the Church
will remain invisible,
until someone dares to bleed again.
Postscript: A Mirror for All of Us
This isn’t just the Church’s story.
It’s all of ours.
We, too, often shrink back from holy conflict.
We, too, fear wounds deep enough to require grace.
We prefer to manage our righteousness rather than surrender to transformation.
But the LDS Church maybe one of the few institutions left with enough moral coherence, enough theological structure, and enough sacred memory for this drama to matter—for the world to watch and learn what repentance looks like.
If the Church dares to walk the full Christic arc,
It will not just restore itself.
It may teach us all how to be saved.
Radically Happy 
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