Disagreement and faith

A while ago some essays went up the LDS web site. They treated some of the more controversial - and more ignored - aspects of our church's history.

https://www.lds.org/topics/essays?lang=eng

I didn't pay a lot of attention, but I know some people really struggled with them, feeling their testimonies shaken. As people began to be upset about things in the handbook, that made it seem really helpful. If you can see things in the development of the church that bother you, but still love the blessings it has brought into your life, then that should provide a path to getting through new things that bother you.

As I was reviewing the Equal Rights Amendment, and finding a talk I hated from Boyd K Packer (whom I do not hate), that seemed like the right time to check out the Essays for myself. Then I could make the analogies and draw the lines between reconciling the things we are not sure about.

I found them really underwhelming.

Another friend who had read them said she has read much worse, so I didn't expect to be personally shaken. I still thought I would understand why other people were shaken, but it was all stuff that I already knew. Maybe it doesn't come up every Sunday, but my seminary teacher had mentioned it, or it was in a church history manual, or something.

So I thought the next logical post would be about reconciling yourself with the fact that Brigham Young could be a racist in a time when that was common, but still successfully get people to Utah and get temples built and have revelations. Maybe it makes sense that it doesn't need to be about that, because it kind of replicates when I was leading up to writing about women and the priesthood.

Instead, this is becoming more about how it is not healthy to have an uninformed testimony. If your comfort at church depends on never hearing anything hard, how long do you think you can keep that up?

Back to that other conversation, my friend said that she has been hearing the word "equal" more and more in regards to men and women. There was never an announced doctrinal shift, but it has felt like a slow change that people are accepting.

I don't object to that specific change, but there are much more harmful things that can slip in without examination. That is how you get a seventy hinting at how bad Halloween is without just coming out and saying it. That is getting infected by the world, which can happen when we are not paying attention.

(Even with that, there is nothing wrong with not being in to Halloween, but when you feel like you need to spread that to others, again, that seems like the world is getting to you.)

If you know even the most basic information about the church, you know that we believe that there were prophets who wrote scriptures in the new world as well as the old, that God and angels showed themselves to Joseph Smith, and that the Book of Mormon was translated by the power of God. We are in a cynical age and world, but we believe that. You can handle seeing the power of God working in a variety of ways.

If you have paid any attention to the scriptural accounts of Christ's mortal ministry (and many things prophets and teachers led by him have said), then you know that we believe in being kind and generous, not greedy and judgmental, even though we are living in a cold and materialistic world. You can handle seeing that some things are not charitable without losing your love. At least you need to be able to do so.

And as members of a church with an exclusively lay ministry where we all need to help, you should be able to handle imperfect servants of God. It is often frustrating, but I need forgiveness and guidance and correction all the time, and I am not going to begrudge anyone else their chances at that.

I have had other thoughts, and there are pertinent links below.

Next week I shall explore my most rebellious stance yet.


Related posts:

Multiple posts on following and believing prophets starting here: http://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2014/01/following-and-believing-in-prophets.html

Not infallible: http://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2015/11/not-infallible.html