This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Let's pretend I get called into my bishop's office next week. The purpose of the meeting is to ask me to hand over the deed to my house, the titles to both my vehicles, control of my bank accounts and have my paycheck directly deposited to the LDS Church.

Bishop: "The Lord needs these things, Brother Kirby."

Me: "No. No, he doesn't."

I would give more or less that same answer if the bishop (stake president, apostle, etc.) directed me to report back to him in a month with two additional wives. No, not no, but hell no.

Stake president: "Would you pray about it?"

Me: "OK, give me a sec … hmm, sorry, still no."

What about you? Got enough faith to make those leaps if asked? Better check with your current wife first. Not only would mine veto the idea of extra wives, but she's also the only one who knows how to find the deed to our house.

Remember all the slobbering fits the rigidly faithful had when other members called for African-American men to be ordained to the priesthood? "Follow the brethren, it comes from God, it's a curse from the pre-existence, get thee hence thou weak of faith …"

Where are those priesthood-ban police today? Did they leave the church? Did they grudgingly accept that it hadn't originally been God's idea? Or did they take a moment and reflect on how utterly ridiculous all their hollering against giving African-Americans the priesthood had been?

Change is tough on people, especially the uber-dogmatic. Given what we've agreed to in the past, change should be easy for Mormons. It's not. Today, we get snotty when someone merely suggests a different name.

Recently, when I wrote that it was OK with me if Mormon women were ordained to the office of deacon and that maybe it was time to change the names for Mormon young women organizations, I received a few contemptuous responses from Mormons (mostly male) upset that I would even go there.

"Stupid!!!"

"I don't hear any Mormon women calling for new names."

"You're not going to change anything."

That last one caught my attention. Change. I like it, especially when it happens to previously (and imaginarily) immovable doctrine.

Look, I already know that I can't change things in the LDS Church. What's even better is that you can't stop change from happening. Supposedly, that's up to God. And given what he's demanded of us in the past, I'm pretty sure he doesn't take our feelings into account.

At some point in the future, when the church does change the names of women's organizations and the amount of say they have, aren't you gonna be the foolish one?

Suppose in a few years gays are accepted more readily and even allowed to get married without being excommunicated? It could happen. Stranger things already have.

Other faiths don't get off the hook so easily, either. If it wasn't Abraham being commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac, it was everybody being commanded to slaughter the Amalekites, right down to their pets.

The Bible rarely has anyone saying, "Guys, maybe we should think about this some more." If they did, God killed them.

Human beings love predictable. Maybe that's why we'll maintain faith in things — even ridiculous customs — long after they prove to be foolhardy or even downright dangerous.

The great American orator Robert G. Ingersoll was right when he said, "Blasphemy is what an old dogma screams at a new truth."

Given that the world is supposed to end wonderfully/horribly/ignominiously, I suspect we'll all be forced to eat our words about something we once thought was immovable and true.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.