He was a member of the one true church on his planet — baptized, endowed, and sealed in the temple — and more importantly, he was a full tithe-payer.
At the veil, he knew all the uncorrelated signs and tokens. (It always took forever to re-educate the post-correlation initiates about the penalty oaths, the Five Points of Fellowship, the obedience oaths for women, and why they’d been removed. But drudge work was what the folks in the first degree of the celestial kingdom were kept around for.) Still, Elohim was thrown off a bit when the angel standing guard tried to add a Sixth Point of Fellowship, “penis to penis.”
It turned out that the angel had been a gay apostate who’d sneaked in from the telestial kingdom. He’d spent the last 3.5 million years passing himself off as a member of the first degree of the celestial kingdom, where gay members of the church could stay only if they played straight for eternity (many failed and were demoted). His forged Celestial Kingdom Recommend was confiscated and he was sent back down, after being threatened with Outer Darkness if he tried it again. In any event, the experience gave Elohim a paralyzing fear of homosexuals, which the exalted folks in the highest degree smiled upon, seeing it as an important characteristic to instill in their spirit children.
Elohim then had a PPI with one of the lackeys to whom the founding prophet of his generation had delegated the task of interviewing new candidates for exaltation. It was found that Elohim had been a regional sales representative in a large corporation during mortality, and had never traded jobs despite many opportunities, and more than enough reasons, to do so. Moreover, Elohim had raised eight kids (his wife had wanted to stop at five, but he insisted on his priesthood prerogative to furnish as many spirit children with bodies as possible), whom, because of his job and many church callings, he had rarely seen and to whom he had rarely been able to keep promises.
His interviewer was amazed. Single-minded loyalty to an organization … an insistence on patriarchal privilege over a woman’s wishes … absentee father … holding out promises that often went unfulfilled. The potential was staggering. Elohim’s file was immediately referred to the Celestial Correlation Committee, which reviewed candidates for exaltation. The CCC recommended that Elohim be fast-tracked for Godhood.
Which meant he had to be let in on the Big Secret. “You’re going to have to take more wives,” he was told when he came in for his exaltation callback. “We don’t allow anyone into the highest degree of the celestial kingdom who doesn’t practice plural marriage.”
Elohim was confused. “Polygamy was…”
“Plural marriage, please,” replied his interviewer with a tinge of annoyance. “Gods call things by their proper names.”
“Sorry. Plural marriage was practiced earlier in the dispensation I belonged to, but I didn’t realize it was necessary for exaltation. I mean, I knew that past prophets had taught it was necessary, but I always thought they were speaking as men.”
The interviewer chuckled. “If I had a wife for every time I heard that … You know, it’s the same story on most planets. The church gets into a spot of trouble and we have to signal them to retreat from the practice for a while. We’re always really specific about them needing to teach that it’s a temporary expedient.” He sighed. “But you know how it is. Correlation gets started, they sweep the troubling stuff under the rug, and soon even the members of the church don’t know that the highest degree has a three-wife minimum.”
“Three wives?” Elohim was genuinely surprised.
“Yeah, three wives to represent the Godhead,” the interviewer replied. “Or,” he added with a snort, “as some of the jokers in the second degree say, ‘three wives to give the God head.’” His eyes darted around guiltily. “Don’t tell anyone I laughed at that. Next thing you know the boys from the Triple-C — that’s Celestial Correlation — will send someone down here to examine whether I’m guilty of loud laughter. They’re touchy about that.”
“So I’ve got to find two more wives,” Elohim stated.
“At least. More, if you can manage. Shouldn’t be too hard, once it starts spreading that you’re on the Fast Track. The more wives, the more spirit children. Which means more planets, and more glory for you!”
So far, so good. But one question still nagged at Elohim. “What about my first wife? Do I need to clear it with her? She’s not likely to take well to it.”
“Fetchin’ heckfire, Brother Elohim! Do you want to be exalted or not? There’s plenty of room down in the second degree for the one-wife-only folks. That’s where we keep those slackers, and all they get to do is serve on committees that regulate visits down to the lower kingdoms. You want to make planets and spirit babies, you gotta get with the program! Obedience is the first law of heaven! Wifey doesn’t like it, she can go hang out in the first degree with all the other single women of the church who didn’t have the balls — pardon my Adamic — to put their education, careers, and personal interests aside to find themselves a worthy priesthood holder!”
Elohim was convinced. But his wife was not. She was not at all interested in taking on sister-wives. “We were taught all our lives that polygamy would be practiced in the celestial kingdom, but it wasn’t a necessity!” she raged, when informed of the interview.
“Plural marriage, dear,” Elohim corrected. “Look — the church had to hide some things from us for its own good. Remember how we used to say to ourselves that there were some things we’d have to wait until after mortality to find out about? Well, this is obviously one of those things. The Lord is calling us to plural marriage. So choose you this day whom you will serve.”
Elohim gave her a few centuries to think about it. By the time they came around to the topic again, he had already found and married a multitude of women from various dispensations, who were either single and facing their last chance at exaltation, or who had died in mortality before the age of eight and were very impressed with the life experience of a man who had lived to 79. He even convinced a few already-married women to trade up from their original husband when he pointed out that he was being fast-tracked.
Elohim’s first wife was outraged and refused to take part. The CCC quietly issued a cancellation of sealing and she was sent down to the first degree to find consolation in back issues of Celestial Exponent II that had been smuggled in from the feminists in the telestial kingdom. Elohim quietly vowed never to speak of her again. He determined that, when he had spirit children of his own, they would not be allowed to know for sure of the existence of any of their Heavenly Mothers, lest their acknowledgment of them lead to his wives getting uppity. If his prophets asked about it, he’d just tell them to say that it was to protect her good name. If the women weren’t satisfied with that, T. S. It was his planet; he could do what he damn well wanted with it.
And with that, Elohim was well pleased.
