The Test of Fruits, and Four Questions to Use Tomorrow

This is the last of four parts. The mechanics of deception have been described, the merchants have been identified, and the two weapons — the anointed one on one side, the devil on the other — have been dismantled.

What remains is what matters: how does one distinguish, in practice, one thing from the other. And the predictable objection at this point is fair — and who art thou to judge?

It has an answer, and the answer is not mine.

The test Jesus gave, and that no one can get around

The predictable objection at this point is: and who art thou to judge? It is a fair objection, and it has an answer that is not mine.

¶ Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.

Matthew 7:15-16

The full passage — Matthew 7:15-20

"¶ Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."

Notice what Jesus did not say. He did not say "by their words ye shall know them." He did not say "by their doctrine," nor "by their charisma," nor "by the size of their congregation." He said fruits — that which is harvested afterwards, and which cannot be faked for long.

And He gave the reason the test cannot fail: a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. It is not a question of probability. It is a question of nature.

Note also the detail of the disguise: in sheep's clothing. Not dressed as a wolf. The false prophet of Matthew 7 does not present himself as a threat — he presents himself as one of us, and the clothing is convincing. That is why the test must be applied to what is harvested, and not to what is seen.

Paul's list, applied

Paul left us the correspondence table. Two columns, and no place to stand between them.

It is worth noting the first word of the good column, in the edition the Church publishes: charity. Not "love" in general — charity, which is the word Moroni will define three paragraphs from now, behaviour by behaviour. Paul's two columns and Moroni's definition are the same tool seen from two sides.

I write in the book: "If the result of adhering to a political-religious movement is the emergence of aggressiveness, the use of lies to 'defend the truth' and the division of families, the biblical conclusion is inescapable: the tree is corrupt."

It is not my conclusion. It is Jesus', applied.

Charity as the dividing line

The Book of Mormon offers, in Moroni 7:45, the most precise definition of genuine discipleship I know. And it is useful precisely because it is operational: each line describes an observable behaviour.

And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Moroni 7:45

Compare, line by line, with the typical militant:

Four lines of one verse, four observable behaviours, four answers. This is the test of fruits no longer being abstract.

And Paul wrote the same line in another letter, with a word that weighs more here:

Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

1 Corinthians 13:6

Rejoiceth not in iniquity. I keep this verse for a very specific and very easy-to-observe symptom: the joy with which the misfortune of an adversary is received. When someone's downfall is cause for celebration in a conversation among believers, there is something there that is not charity, and the verse names it.

The antidote is in the same revelation

It would be dishonest to spend so many pages describing what authority is not without saying what it is. And the answer is in the verses following those we have already quoted — the same revelation, the same page, a few lines below:

No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—

Doctrine and Covenants 121:41-42

Read the list slowly, because each word excludes something we have seen in this article. Persuasion — and not imposition. Long-suffering — and not impatience with those who hesitate. Gentleness and meekness — and not the harshness of Ezekiel 34. Love unfeigned — and not the theatre of whited sepulchres. Pure knowledge — and not the vision of one's own heart sold as revelation. And, at the end, "without hypocrisy, and without guile".

Notice what the passage affirms: no power can or ought to be maintained otherwise. It does not say it is ugly. It says that it does not work — that the thing maintained by other means is no longer the thing, whatever name it continues to bear.

And, lest anyone confuse meekness with silence, the next verse:

Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;

Doctrine and Covenants 121:43

Reproving betimes and with sharpness. There is no invitation here to passivity. What there is is a condition before — "when moved upon by the Holy Ghost" — and an obligation after: "showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved".

That is the test that separates correction from aggression, and it is easy to apply to oneself. After telling someone they are wrong, did you come to love them more or less? If you came to love them less, that was not reproof. It was something else, with an appearance of godliness.

And there is the most difficult instruction of all, which leaves no one out:

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

Matthew 5:44

Not "tolerate." Not "ignore." Love, bless, do good, pray. Four active verbs, and the last is the one that dismantles everything: it is impossible to pray sincerely for someone and continue to believe that person is demonic. One of the two gives way — and that is why, in the environments I have described, one never prays for the adversary. One prays against him.

Four questions, to use tomorrow

When I cannot decide whether I am hearing theology or ideology, I ask four questions. They are not infallible. They are sufficient for most cases.

1. Where does this come from? Theology starts from revelation and submits to it. Ideology starts from a goal and seeks the revelation that justifies it. The former can change its conclusion. The latter never changes its conclusion — only its argument. A reliable sign: ask what fact would make that person change their mind. If there is none, you are not hearing a conviction. You are hearing a position.

2. Whom does this exclude? A doctrine that invites everyone and a doctrine that separates the approved from the others are not the same doctrine, no matter how much they cite the same verse. Compare with 2 Nephi 26:33 and see on which side it falls. And, if the message includes a list of who is condemned, it has already answered — read Alma 31 again.

3. Who gets richer if I believe this? It is the question of the book, and it is the one almost no one asks, because it seems rude. It is not rude: it is Micah 3:11. Follow the money, follow the audience, follow the vote. If the message that demands your indignation also happens, by coincidence, to fill the room, to sell the book or to elect the man to whom the speaker is close, that coincidence is a datum — and it is the most informative datum you will obtain.

4. What does it ask me to do next? If the next step is to pray, study, forgive or serve, you are probably in the faith. If it is to vote, share, donate urgently or hate someone in particular, you are probably somewhere else.

The last one is the one that hurts most, because it is the one most people fail — and they fail it with a good conscience. Those who have been led to hate in the name of God rarely think they are hating. They think they are defending.

The paradox

There is a sentence in the book that was hard for me to write, because it is harsh and it is true:

His followers arrive at the supreme paradox: they defend the movement's lies with more fervour than the Scriptures they claim to revere. They will accept anything — except the truth. And they call that faith.

I did not write this about enemies. I wrote it about people I know, in congregations where I have been, with whom I have shared the sacrament. That is the problem. If they were strangers, it would be easy.

And I must say one more thing, so as not to place myself on the safe side of this text: none of this is external to me. I have defended ideas for being mine and not for being true. I have felt the small pleasure of seeing someone I disagreed with fall. The test of fruits is not an instrument I point at others; it is a mirror that sometimes catches me first.

What discernment is, after all

Discerning is not distrusting everything. Whoever distrusts everything has already lost — they have only traded one prison for another, and the second is more solitary.

Discerning is being able to separate the true part from the structure that surrounds it. It is being able to say: what you said is true, and what you built on top of it is not. It is the most difficult operation that exists, because it requires accepting that those who deceive us have also told us something right.

It is also, and above all, an operation done with the heart in the right place. Moroni did not write that the Spirit of Christ is given to a few to judge others. He wrote that it is given to all men, that they may know good from evil — to all, and to discern, not to condemn.

And there is a final test, which is the most uncomfortable of all, because it applies to no one else:

If your "faith" has made you more bitter, more distrustful, more prone to believe in conspiracies than in verifiable facts, more ready to hate than to love — you are not following the Shepherd.

The test of fruits does not fail. It applies to me, it applies to you, and it applies to whoever is in the pulpit.

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This text develops the introduction and chapters 2 and 7 of The Altar and the Algorithm — How to Identify the New Merchants of Faith. The highlighted passages are quotations from the book. All cited scriptures were checked against the edition published by the Gospel Library — the João Ferreira de Almeida Bible in the version the Church uses, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants. The twelve chapters deal with the rest: the merchants, the money, the pulpit turned into a platform, the paid digital militia, and the practical path out.