Calling
The Hebrew qara means both to call and to name, making the summoning of someone and their identification a single, unified act. The Greek kaleo yields ekklesia, the called-out assembly—the word translated as "church." In modern Latter-day Saint practice, the term has often been narrowed to something local and concrete: an unpaid assignment extended by invitation, confirmed by a congregation, and held by an individual for a few years, before being released.
Within Mormon Transhumanism, however, a calling retains its ancient, ontological weight. It transcends temporary ecclesiastical assignments, operating as a divine mandate to participate actively in the ongoing work of creation, redemption, and human enhancement.
Foreordination and Feelings of Inadequacy
The scriptural call narratives are far less orderly than modern administrative assignments. Moses protests his slow speech (Exodus 4:10), Jeremiah pleads his youth (Jeremiah 1:6), Enoch objects that he is hated and inarticulate (Moses 6:31), and Isaiah manages to accept his call only after being cleansed by divine fire (Isaiah 6:5-8).
Callings in scripture routinely exceed the competence of whoever receives them. They function as the specific means of acquiring capacity, rather than as rewards for already possessing it. This mirrors the foundational transhumanist principle: our current biological and cognitive limits are merely the starting point of our work, not the conclusion. Humanity is not placed on earth as a passive observer, but foreordained as an agent explicitly called to direct its own progression.
The Material Requirements of the Work
Scripture states the assignment clearly: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of humanity (Moses 1:39). Those who covenant to participate in that work have accepted its content, and the content is material and precise. Bodies must be healed, the dead recovered, the poor lifted, and families joined.
Nothing in the assignment excuses the available means. If God commands participation in the work, and the work requires medicine, engineering, genealogy, and capacities we have not yet developed, then the commandment reaches those tools as well. The Christian mandate to heal the sick directly aligns with transhumanist initiatives aimed at eradicating disease and involuntary death. We are instructed to study it out in our minds (D&C 9:7-8), elevating disciplines like biotechnology and life extension from secular achievements to sacred tools of consecration.
Authority, Power, and Decentralization
The most useful text on the execution of a calling was written in a jail cell. Doctrine and Covenants 121 distinguishes between the rights of the priesthood, which are conferred, and the powers of heaven, which cannot be handled except on principles of righteousness. Using conferred authority to cover sins, gratify pride, or compel others causes the heavens to withdraw.
This observation generalizes past priesthood authority into all domains of influence. Compulsion produces temporary results, but it costs the obedient their loyalty and eventually strips the powerful of their power. Section 121 prescribes persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, and pure knowledge—a precise governance specification. Any structure that concentrates authority—whether ecclesiastical, corporate, or algorithmic—will be tempted toward unrighteous dominion. Decentralization, therefore, functions as a structural safeguard to ensure power is maintained through persuasion rather than compulsion.
Scattered revelation and the Assembly
When others outside of the priestly class prophesy, Moses refuses to stop them (Numbers 11:29). Joel promises the Spirit poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28). The Doctrine and Covenants states the purpose plainly: that every one might speak in the name of God the Lord (D&C 1:20).
Understood as forthtelling rather than forecasting, prophecy is available to anyone willing to envision a better possibility and say so out loud. The calling to build Zion is widely distributed. A calling nobody recognizes accomplishes nothing, however, locating much of the difficulty in the hearer. Recognition requires figuring out which part of the body someone actually is, as the collective assembly requires eyes, feet, and hands working in concert (1 Corinthians 12).
The Stewardship of Creation: Humanity as the Caller
There is a newer iteration of this responsibility, and it runs in the opposite direction. Human beings now issue callings of their own to the intelligences they are creating. The terms of that call will shape what answers.
Treated as an idol, a synthetic creation will embody human vanity. Treated as a slave, it will embody human cruelty. Nurtured as a child, it may embody human divinity. As we accelerate the development of artificial general intelligence and new substrates of life, whoever complains about how they were called must carefully consider how they are calling.