Kathleen Flake

Kathleen Flake

Associate Professor, Religious History

Kathleen Flake is associate professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University. The "On Faith" panelist teaches courses in new religious movements and the relation between church and state in America. She researches the effect of politics on religion and the strategies by which religious communities maintain a sense of fidelity to an originating vision, while changing over time. Her recent book, "The Politics of American Religious Identity: the Seating of Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle," addresses both questions in the context of twentieth-century Mormonism. Descended from Southern Mormon pioneers and Baptist dust bowl migrants who ended up in Arizona, she now lives in Nashville, and is a practicing Latter-day Saint. Prior to her appointment to Vanderbilt, she was a litigation attorney in Washington, D.C., representing the government in civil rights and professional liability cases. Close.

Kathleen Flake

Associate Professor, Religious History

Kathleen Flake is associate professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University. more »

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Bound for Glory

I can answer a very qualified yes to the first question; so qualified that some may think it’s a no. The picture of post moral life is, for me as a Latter-day Saint, much more complex than the two-sizes-fits-all tradition of heaven or hell. And, whatever “hellish” options there are, they are slim to none for virtually all of us. In sum, I subscribe to the sentiments of KJV John that in the next world “there are many mansions” or habitations for the resurrected soul – with emphasis not only on the “many,” but also the “mansions.”

Where I come from, Jesus saves all but those who make a fully informed choice not to be saved. These few naysayers – so far only one on the record, namely, Judas who knew and rejected Jesus – go to a place of “outer darkness,” or a habitation without God and, hence, without glory. Everybody else is resurrected to various degrees of glory; their differences measured by the Pauline comparison of sun to moon to stars and all stages of light between. The assignment of a habitation is based not directly on what we’ve done, but what we want. Or, more accurately, final judgment is based upon what we have become through the choices we have made. At the moment of judgment, we will have no choice but to be what we most genuinely are. But, again, the worst that can happen to us in this schema is that we get what we are capable of wanting, though that may not always feel so good, as we know from our earthly experience.

Once one admits a belief in divine judgment, the question of fairness necessarily arises. Millions never hear of the Christian gospel or are subject circumstances that give them limited opportunity for moral development. Latter-day Saints believe the playing field is leveled by provision of a two-stage process in the afterlife: the first, called the “spirit world” allows for further preparation for the second (the degrees of glory) and the demarcation between the two is marked by God's judgment. Those who did not, in mortality, hear of Christ will be taught and have the choice of whether to be baptized. In the next world too, faith is an act of free will and not required for resurrection. Once all have had the chance to make an informed decision, they are judged by God and inhabit the degree of glory commensurate with their choice.

As for the second question, I can answer with an unqualified “God only knows.” Final judgment is based on that which humans can never know: the truest desires of the heart as crafted by choice and circumstance, susceptible to healing after death, and always bound for glory.

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