Covenants and the "Attempted Murder" theory

One of the current debates in the political world involves John Kerry and religion, which has brought to mind a few issues to discuss.

John Kerry is Catholic. Like many Catholics, however, Kerry is pro-choice which puts him at direct odds with the official Catholic position on abortion. (read about the debate here) Kerry maintains he is still a 'good' Catholic and entitled to partake of communion at Mass every week. Many in the church hierarchy say no, he shouldn't because he doesn't accept--in fact, openly attacks--a key tenet to the Catholic faith.

One sees this all the time--Catholics often having diametrically opposite opinions to the official church positions, yet still consider themselves devout Catholics. You don't see that phenomenon much in the Mormon world--that is, you don't normally find famous/semi-famous Latter-Day Saints who openly break basic LDS commandments (say, drinking or smoking) while at the same time claiming to still be an 'active member'. Oh, of course, Saints break commandments like drinking and smoking all the time, but usually they admit they are not following Church standards and separate themselves from the Church to an extent. You won't find, for example, an LDS politician who openly drinks, smokes, and/or cohabits with someone (etc) AND also claims that he is still a 'good' member, worthy to partake of the sacrament every week and/or go to the temple.

(If anyone can think of an example of someone in history who openly broke LDS commandments yet still claimed to be a good Mormon, let me know...)

Of course, the size of the Catholic church is a factor (and, as the article mentions, the recent sex scandals have really hurt credibility) but still, I've always wondered why so many people claim to be devout Catholics and yet don't listen to what the Church has to say...

This brings up a deeper issue, though, concerning covenants and 'sinning':

Different churches have different interpretations of scripture and of what constitutes 'sin' (whoa...there's a news flash...)
Catholics believe all use of birth control is wrong in the sight of God. Generally speaking, Mormons do not.
Mormons believe drinking and smoking are wrong in the sight of God. Catholics, as far as I know, do not.

Let's suppose you have two guys, Bob and Rob. Bob is LDS, but he secretly has a drinking habit. Rob is Catholic, but he and his wife use birth control frequently. Now, from an absolutist perspective, God is either Mormon or Catholic (or perhaps neither)--He can't be 'both'. In other words, (sticking with the either/or option for now) God either considers using birth control a sin and drinking not a sin, or vice versa. Now, here's the question: considering the above actions only, which of the two guys would be considered 'sinners' in God's eyes?
(a) Neither
(b) One and only one of them
(c) Both of them

In theory, either Bob or Rob is in the clear: his action, while considered to be a sin in the 'wrong' Church, it turns out in the day of judgement to be something that God doesn't happen to care about. Therefore you might conclude that only one of them will be 'punished' because only one of them did something that's considered a sin.

In my opinion, though, the answer is (c): both of them are 'sinners' and will receive a 'punishment' of sorts. From the absolutist perspective, it's true: one of them did something that wasn't actually on God's list of sins...but he thought it was, and it was in fact on the list of sins of the particular church which he had accepted as the right one.

In other words, it becomes something similar to 'attempted murder': he didn't actually break a commandment...but he tried to. If you think something is wrong but do it anyway, that shows a particular attitude towards righteousness, doesn't it? Would God let him go unpunished because of a 'technicality', essentially--or would He say his heart and intent was in the wrong place even though he didn't actually succeed in breaking a commandment.

Basically, I believe God will judge mankind based on the covenants we make--regardless of what they happen to be--because how we fulfill those covenants shows much about our character. Catholics who don't follow Catholic doctrine will be punished whether or not God happens to be 'Catholic', and ditto for Mormons. A Catholic priest, for example, who takes a vow of celibacy but then gets married to a women (perfectly okay in the LDS view) would still be punished because he broke his own covenant, and in a sense it doesn't matter whether God believes all men should be married or not, He still rightly judge the priest for breaking his vow.

An example of this would be the Anti-Nephi-Lehis in the Book of Mormon. They made a covenant that they would bury their weapons of war and never fight again. Now, God doesn't require all men to abstain from fighting (i.e. fighting is not necessarily a 'sin'), but He undoubtedly accepted their covenant and would judge them according to it. If one or more of them had broken their covenant (which Helaman warned them not to) and fought the Lamanites, they would be held accountable, even though the Nephites who were fighting alongside of them would not be. Even though God didn't require them to covenant not to fight, He would be able to judge them for good or bad according to how they fulfilled their covenant. (And as the story goes, of course, they did fulfill their covenant and received the Lord's blessing because of it)

In any case, this earth is a time to be tested--to see if we're capable of making and following our covenants and I believe we'll all be judged according to how we fulfill the promises we make, regardless of what church we belong to.