I really enjoyed studying about ritual – the ways that we use ceremony to create value and meaning – we just experienced one with our sacrament.

And I enjoyed learning about “memorates” – personal experience stories that people tell about their own encounters with the supernatural. In the church, we often call these faith-promoting stories, and that’s the way that folklorists look at them too – that these stories function to justify and validate the beliefs of the people who tell them. They create certainty in the face of uncertainty, and whether the stories themselves are true or not, this is a very valuable thing.

It was an interesting time, and I went through many shifts and changes as I looked more closely at what I believed, why I believed it, and how it fit with the beliefs of other people all over the world. It was a pretty humbling experience, to say the least. And as a result, I have developed this constant, nagging, unshakeable, internal tug-of-war between the skeptic and the believer. It is very much like the lyrics to a song:

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily,
joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
clinical, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the world’s asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.

That about sums up my graduate experience. It was kind of like worlds colliding. I had become skeptical, cynical, but I still had to exist in a believing world. What was I to do?

One thing I did was turn to the scriptures and to the counsel from general authorities and modern day prophets:
Mormon 9:27 - “Doubt not, but be believing.”  Thanks, but too late.
Bruce R. McConkie – “Doubt is an inclination to disbelieve the truths of salvation… it is a state of uncertainty… faith and belief are of God; doubt and skepticism are of the devil.”  Really? Yikes!
President Monson – “Remember that faith and doubt cannot exist in the same mind at the same time, for one will dispel the other. Should doubt knock at your doorway, just say to those skeptical, disturbing, rebellious thoughts: ‘I propose to stay with my faith, with the faith of my people. I know that happiness and contentment are there, and I forbid you, agnostic, doubting thoughts, to destroy the house of my faith. I acknowledge that I do not understand the processes of creation, but I accept the fact of it. I grant that I cannot explain the miracles of the Bible, and I do not attempt to do so, but I accept God’s word. I wasn’t with Joseph, but I believe him. My faith did not come to me through science, and I will not permit so-called science to destroy it’.”

With these quotes, I think it is pretty clear where I ought to be when it comes to doubt and faith. But if I’m being honest, I fall far short of these ideals. I just can’t accept the premise that faith and doubt cannot co-exist in the same mind. They have to. Because they both exist in mine. And I don’t know any other way to be.

I do want to endorse President Monson’s counsel, however, that if you can dismiss doubt when it knocks on your door, from my experience, you will be much more comfortable and far less troubled — so by all means, if you can do it, do it.

But if you’re like me – if you can’t just dismiss your doubts – there must still be a way to keep those doubts from destroying the house of faith. Right? Please? Because I can’t not doubt, but I still want to hold on to my faith. So what am I to do?

Well, the simple answer is that I have had to redefine my faith to make room for my doubts and to find a value in these doubts – so I want to share with you how I have done this.

MY TOP TEN

I want to walk you through my top ten personal beliefs about faith and doubt. Disclaimer – these are just my own imperfect opinions based on my own limited experience. I could be wrong. But this is how I have found personal peace and balance in my life amidst this constant tug-of-war between the skeptic and the believer. So I share these with you because they have helped me, but I also reserve the right to change my mind at any time – it’s happened before, it can happen again.

If I really wanted to be borderline irreverent I might say that these are the philosophies of Glenn, mingled with scripture – but I don’t, so I won’t.

So here are my top ten:

1. Faith – at its most basic level – is desire.

I think this is consistent with the scriptures. Especially Alma 32. This is where Alma is preaching to the poor among the Zoramites.

You may remember that the Zoramites were condemned for their incredible pride – they would stand up on their rameumptom and show forth false humility – praising themselves for being the elect chosen of God, and condemning everyone else around them for following foolish and corrupt traditions. They cast out the poor and were very exclusive in their membership.

So Alma went among the cast out poor and taught them an allegory about faith – that it starts with desire – and that desire can be nurtured and tested and grown into a firm conviction. He compares it to a seed that is planted in fertile soil and cultivated until it grows and bears fruit and you can taste the fruit to know that the seed was, in fact, a good seed.

So faith starts with desire, but it isn’t JUST desire – you have to act upon that desire.

One of my basic desires is to be fair to people and respectful of their beliefs. And this desire has had a great influence over the mental gymnastic that you are about to see, because I also desire to hold on to my faith in spite of all of my doubts.

2. There is really no such thing as “doubt”

I guess you could say that I doubt doubt.

“Doubt” is just a word. It’s a word that we use to describe someone else’s belief that is contrary to our belief. For example, I could say, “I believe it is going to rain today.” And you could say, “No, I doubt it.” That’s really the same thing as saying, “No, I don’t believe that it will rain today.”

My point here is that “doubt” isn’t really anything but another way of saying “I don’t believe.”

3. There is really no such thing as “don’t believe”

I’m playing a game of semantics again. When you say that you “don’t believe” that it will rain, what you really mean is that you “do believe” that it will not rain. It is still an active belief.

I believe it will rain – you believe it will not rain. Your belief vs. my belief. And we may both have valid reasons for believing what we are choosing to believe.

I believe it will rain because I trust the forecast – it’s been right more than it has been wrong, and I don’t mind carrying an umbrella.

You believe it won’t rain because, despite the forecast, you just looked outside and no Japanese person in sight is carrying an umbrella, and the Japanese are never wrong about this sort of thing. Plus, you don’t want to be the only one carrying an umbrella, cuz then you’d look stupid.

So the point here is to define belief as an active thing, despite whatever words we use – whether we call it doubt or say we “don’t believe” it is all really just belief.

4. Faith and Doubt are not opposites – they are equivalents

If both faith and doubt are active beliefs, then they are really the same thing, aren’t they? They are both beliefs, just pointed in different directions.

Someone may say that faith has action but doubt has no action, but I would challenge that.

Yes, the faithful person takes an umbrella even if they are uncertain whether it will rain or not, and that is a faithful act.

But even the doubter takes action by choosing to NOT carry an umbrella and still walking outside anyway. Both are beliefs and both inspire action. Maybe this is the secret key to unlock the mystery of believing “all things” that we have been admonished to do. And then again, maybe not.

5. Faith and Doubt can co-exist

President Monson said that doubt and faith cannot exist in the same mind at the same time – and maybe I am using this quote out of context – but don’t we all doubt some things while simultaneously having faith in others?

For example, I doubt the traditional meaning behind the James 2:20 scripture mastery scripture “faith without works is dead.” I was originally taught that this was James’ response to the atonement of Christ. That we are not saved by grace alone, but must also show forth works for our eternal salvation, for faith without works is dead.

But when I went back and read all of James chapter 2, I saw that James’ message wasn’t about the atonement. It was about our own exercise of faith. It is saying that you have to put your money where your mouth is. If someone comes to you seeking food, and you say “bless you, and hunger no more” but you don’t actually give them any food, then you aren’t actually going to save them.

So I doubt the way that I was originally taught this scripture, but I still have faith that the message is a good message and that it comes from a good source. And that is a balancing act between doubt and faith.

6. Faith without doubt is dead

That is the GOT – the Glenn Ostlund Translation of James 2:20. Faith is a hope and a desire, but it is not a perfect knowledge. So there must be uncertainty, some degree of questioning or doubt, otherwise faith would be knowledge. Uncertainty in and of itself is not a bad thing in my world. And when uncertainty or doubt spurs us to positive action, it can actually be a very good thing.

7. Uncertainty is a scary thing

Without a doubt, doubt will make you more unsure about what you used to be very sure about, and this can be a scary thing. But one lesson that I learned as a kid is that anytime the scriptures say “have faith” you could interchange the phrase for “fear not” and the meaning would stay the same. So even with all of the different conflicting messages all around us in the world every day – even with all of the valid and reasonable reasons to have doubt, if we nurture our faith, we do not need to fear doubt. Doubt does not have to destroy our faith – it can bolster and lift it and lead us to new light and knowledge.

8. Our church has been built upon doubt – or at least upon the positive interaction between doubt and faith.

The First Vision would not have happened unless Joseph had experienced some questions and doubts about what he was hearing in the different revival meetings. But he also had faith that the Lord would answer his prayer. A pretty successful one-two punch, if you ask me.

And throughout the history of the church, doctrines and policies have been added or removed or amended because people have debated and doubted and questioned and reached out in faith, and received further light and knowledge. So there is a lesson to be learned here, that doubt and faith can interact together towards a good end.

9. Repentance without doubt is dead

We are constantly encouraged to evaluate and examine how we are living our lives. We are encouraged to repent when we need to repent, and I think that doubt plays a role here.

I have always found illumination in the Japanese word for repentance – kuiaratameru. If I understand it right, it literally means to remorse and to change. What causes this remorse? What leads us to a realization that we are in error? We must at some point doubt our very selves – we must doubt that our actions have been good actions. So perhaps this is another area where doubt can have a positive influence in our lives.

10. Humility is the key

Whether as individuals or as a church, regardless of what we currently believe or how strong our convictions, further light and knowledge can always reveal new truths, and our beliefs can always change.

Shouldn’t that awareness then lead to greater humility on our parts? Isn’t humility the way we learn to show Christ-like empathy and compassion and forgiveness for others, even when we disagree with them or when they disagree with us?

Isn’t that the humilty that caused the good Samaritan to stop and help the man on the side of the road, even though he probably doubted the other guys’ beliefs?

Isn’t that the compassion and empathy that caused Christ to say “forgive them father, for they know not what they do?” even as they were in the very act of doubting him to a painful and undeserved death?

Back to Alma 32 – Alma rejoiced when he saw that the poor among the Zoramites had been cast out. Why? Because they had been compelled to be humble, and that softened their hearts. No one wants to be compelled to be humble, but I think we should all have soft hearts — believers and skeptics alike. We should be open-minded, tolerant of different ideas, willing to admit our own imperfect understanding.

Doubt – for me – has compelled and pounded and softened my heart. It has lead me to a humilty in my beliefs, or at least an ability and a desire to step off of my own rameumpton and drop any pretense that I am any more elect than anyone else around me. Doubt has helped me repent of this pride.

In conclusion, I have atheist friends who are some of the most charitable, kind, Christ-like people that I know. When I ask them about God, they often say that it makes no sense to them that a loving God would put us in a no-win situation, and would punish us for living in a sinful world that God himself created.

There are many responses to this, but I want to give just one. If the story of the atonement is true – if Jesus Christ took upon himself the sins of the world and died for our sakes – then isn’t that the responsible thing for a God to do? Doesn’t that mean that he has personally erased the effects of sin and death that have come to us as a result of our following his plan and entering into this mortal probation full of death and sin? To me it is like he is saying, “don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. Have faith. Fear not. Now just go and love each other as I have loved you. “

I find great beauty and hope in this approach. And I have a firm desire for this to be true. I also have a strong faith in the principles of charity that we read about in Moroni:  “Wherefore, if a man have faith he must have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope. And he cannot have faith and hope, save he shall be meek, and lowly of heart. Otherwise, his faith and hope is vain; and he must needs have charity; for if he have not charity he is nothing; for 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. Charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.”

This is my hope and my faith, in spite of my doubts.

How do you feel about doubt and its relationship to faith?

I recently came across this story on the BBC Website and felt that I had to return to Mormon Matters to write a few comments about it.

High Cost of Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism

Over the years I have noticed many similarities between Mormons and other religions, but I never thought I would see a similarity in this context with Judaism. This article addresses some of the main issues that people at Mormon Matters find challenging. Perhaps we, as doubting Mormons are not as alone as we feel.

28 year old, Chani Ovadya, is interviewed about her experience. She does not give an explicit disgruntlement with the community but she does make mention of the fact that she felt more feminine then the community let her be. She says that:

“It was the hardest year of my life, and I didn’t have my parents and family who I love with me, so it was even worse…As a religious woman, the most you can be is a teacher, now I am following my dreams.”

She makes a point that she wants to make the transition easy for her family because she still cared so much for them, but all they could say to her in return is “Why have you killed us?” Jeff Spector told me:

“Children who have left the faith or married outside the faith would be considered dead to the family. The families would rend their clothes and sit Shiva, which is the Jewish mourning period of one week.”

One thing I notice from the accounts is that most people that have left do not openly belittle or degrade the people they have left behind, they still have love for them, they still feel a part of their community though they are caught in this impossible dilemma.

An anthropologist named Sarit Barzilai, who has studied orthodox Jewish communities said:

“In one case she knows of, a father who told his daughter he would rather kill her than see her become secular. She eventually committed suicide.”

This story seems quite harrowing given the fundamentalist strains that can also be found within Mormonism and its affect on our own brothers and sisters in the faith who are caught between worlds.

An example of a young gay Mormon who felt that he was caught between worlds was that of Stuart Matis. Before committing Suicide he wrote to The Daily Universe:

“I implore the students at BYU to re-assess their homophobic feelings…Seek to understand first before you make comments. We have the same needs as you. We desire to love and be loved. We desire to live our lives with happiness. We are not a threat to you or your families.”

The article ends with a very understanding and warm rabbi named Ido Lev. He says:

Generally speaking, a person leaves because we failed in some way in our responsibilities to him. And he hasn’t had a satisfactory life and he is looking for greener pastures elsewhere because it is not good for him here. We take responsibility for this because it should be good for him here…it breaks peoples hearts. I don’t see any reason not to speak to your children. I don’t see any reason not to be there for your children if they need you.”

I urge that we, like Rabbi Lev, seek understanding, compassion and love before judgment. I suplicate that we do not fail in our responsibilities to our brothers and sisters who are caught between worlds. It really is heartbreaking for all who don’t feel they belong. To partly paraphrase Rabbi Lev, “It should be good for everyone in our church” as well, no matter what they believe. They should all feel welcome in our community. Let’s help those who are a part of our communities and who have doubts feel that they DO belong.

Before John Dehlin, there was Jeff Burton.

Jeff, a mechanical engineer by profession who was once an LDS Social Services counselor, has helped countless Mormons stay in the Church and stay active after experiencing crises of faith. His book and website, For Those Who Wonder, (where you can download his book for free!) continue to minister to the needs of those who are looking for ways to reconcile their changed religious understandings with their love for, and desire to remain involved with, the LDS Church. He helped me see that I could “remodel” my Mormon “house” to suit my needs in a way that was compatible with the expectations of others who live in it.

After purchasing his book at the BYU bookstore, I began to correspond with him about serving a mission, a decision which weighed heavily on my mind. In these pre-”raised bar” days, he helped me see that my doubts about parts of the Joseph Smith narrative need not prevent me from serving. I could witness to the things which I did strongly believe, like the mission of Jesus Christ and His teachings, in improving people’s lives. I cannot overestimate the impact that his honest and refreshing advice had on an 18 year old who thought he was alone in the Church. Others had gone through the same struggles!

Unfortunately, in the MTC I sometimes pretended to “know” things I doubted. I resented the social pressure to constantly testify. Jeff sent me another letter in the MTC which gave me some good advice about honesty. I determined to be more honest in my convictions and to let the force of what I DID believe in overshadow the doubts I harbored about aspects of the Restoration, especially in my conversations with missionaries and investigators.

Interestingly, Jeff’s advice to be honest helped me with many members of the Church in Germany, who had similar doubts as mine. I became friends with a few souls who entrusted parts of their faith journey to me. We encouraged each other to hold on to the gospel of Jesus Christ, while letting go of the parts of the Restoration narrative that didn’t work for us. (As an aside, Germany is a great place to go to test your religious convictions! Between the ravages of World War II, the Holocaust, and the dominance of Euro-secularism, you are hard pressed to find fellow theists).

I followed Jeff’s trail to the Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake when I returned to BYU post-mission. He was presenting on inactivity rates in different areas of the Church which was quite interesting.

Most recently, I shared my appreciation for his help in staying in a Church which has continued to bring me joy and fulfillment. If not for Jeff, who knows, I might have ended up Episcopalian!

Have any of you benefitted from counselors like Jeff?

Something changed.

In my past I spent some effort as an apologist. I was not a typical apologist, but a calming voice. I’ve never really enjoyed the sparring or “Bible-bashing” as it were. I just felt like the critics’ arguments did not even stand up against my understanding of the gospel, in the sense that if they saw it how I see it the argument would become moot. I really did seek for understanding more than winning, but ultimately I still thought I was right. Eventually, the arguing became tiresome and I gave it up. Ecumenicism is hard work. In the time I spent in apologetics, there were a few of the classic critical arguments that I was faced with, but many of the real zingers remained hidden from me. I think that speaks a lot to what we can expect the bulk of members to have been exposed to. I was in the fray and looking for info and I somehow did not hear about Fawn Brodie (some of her discoveries, but never her name or book), polyandry, baseball baptisms, Joseph’s early magical involvement, etc.

My entrance into New Mormon History was similar to my earlier entrance into apologetics. The first time, I had a job in front a computer with a lot of downtime so I wanted to find places online where I could have interesting church-related conversations with people. In the more recent case, I got an iPod and heard about podcasts so the natural place to start was with podcasts related to Mormonism. A few years ago there were not many choices. I first found a couple blatantly anti-Mormon podcasts which were basically rants on tape. I moved on and landed on John Dehlin’s Mormon Stories.

For those not familiar, or who came to Mormon Stories later, or with short memories, some of the early topics covered on the podcasts included: missionary abuses (soccer and beach baptisms in Latin America), John’s own follow-up experiences of ecclesiastical abuse, racial issues in modern history (Greg Prince), Masonic influences on Joseph Smith and the temple rituals, polygamy/polyandry and their early secretive nature, Grant Palmer’s alternative explanations for the Book of Mormon’s origin, and more. I know, all of that sounds pretty heavy and maybe even like the agenda of an anti-Mormon convention. For years, from an apologetic point of view, I always treated these subjects with a partially closed mind. It was easy to associate these issues with the bitterness and vitriol that usually accompanied the messengers. Somehow John managed to come at these topics so neutrally that the classic defense of dismissal, discreditation, and denial was left in the chamber. An interesting thing happened as I listened to John’s podcasts. Perhaps for the first time, I began to… listen.

The sheer mass of issues and questions and concerns became so much that I could not sweep them under the rug anymore. We become complacent in our testimonies, don’t we? We take wonderful experiences and use them to give out free passes to anything that is uncomfortable. Pretty much every LDS woman I know who has vocalized their feelings about polygamy is confused and even sickened by the thought of it, yet… they feel comfortable just not dealing with it.

The recurring trouble that I continue to face is actually one of Mormonism’s greatest strengths. We believe that you can know for yourself by asking God about the truth or goodness of any thing. I love the idea that God cares about us enough to help us make sense of all this. Of course, the great variance of definition of what the witness of the Holy Spirit feels like can certainly be confusing, but an amalgamation of the purveying concept is that good things are confirmed by a positive gut feeling and/or peaceful and clear thoughts. This is the instrument we have been given by which we can determine the sham from the sacred. Yet, when we run into these troublesome questions, we don’t use the instrument. Perhaps we are afraid of what it might tell us. My wife has told me that whatever it is that I’ve learned that could change my testimony this much, she is afraid to hear, and thus does not even want to hear. I know I was afraid, and for good reason. The answers have complicated my life. Ultimately I think that’s a good thing, but I will get into that in the next post.

What happens when you use the instrument, and it says something you weren’t expecting? What do you do when you take counsel to seek the comfort of the Spirit on a troubling concern and it does not comfort you? Sadly, I don’t feel that we are trained to really trust the Spirit or ourselves. It seems as though we are trained to trust our leaders more than ourselves, and perhaps even more than the Holy Spirit. In the gospel picture that I see painted in the modern LDS church, it is the place of priesthood authority to tell us what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad, what is true and what is false. In this picture the Holy Spirit is there to help you know if you should give a pass-along card to that guy in line at McDonalds, or if you should turn left on 7th street today to narrowly avoid a fatal traffic accident, or if you should go on that skiing trip to Colorado with your friends that end up buying booze and drinking all weekend.

When you face the issues, you not only have to fight the pain of disillusionment, but you also have to fight through the guilt that you must be somehow spiritually inferior if you can’t get right with priesthood discrimination or polygamy or Masonic temple connections or Book of Mormon historicity. After all, the Spirit witnesses the truth of all things to the honest in heart.

I don’t know why, or what is different about me, but this process has not hurt as much for me as it does for a lot of folks. I came into the church from a world of poverty economically, spiritually, and emotionally. The gospel liberated me and gave me confidence in my own worth. I went from a very shy and fearful nobody to a fairly vocal and confident person. Maybe it is that confidence and determination to not be a victim that has taken me through the passage mostly uninjured. The biggest challenge I face personally in this journey is resisting the instinct to anger. Anger and bitterness will not bring about peace for myself or the changes that need to happen for others’ sake.

It can be difficult, having been spiritually raised in the Mormon faith to revere justice, to deal with the apparent injustice of what is really implied when we say our leaders are fallible. I feel like that is a backup defense when apologetics fail, and the implications are rarely taken seriously. So much of what we believe is built upon foundations of other things also being true. Its easy to oversimplify the situation by presenting it as one bad brick taken from a pile of good bricks. In reality it is more like the party game Jenga, where you have a tower of blocks and you carefully remove blocks and hope the structure stands. Eventually, you start to see how certain blocks can’t be removed without failure of the whole because many others stand only on its strength.

You can easily find yourself in the very place from whence the church claims it will rescue you. Like a wave on the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That feeling is extremely uncomfortable when you feel that your spiritual health, both now and eternally, completely hangs on being right. The Great Apostasy concept declares that it is an unacceptable relationship with God to be wrong about doctrine and practice, and the Restoration of the God’s organization and priesthood represents fixing that problem. So why does it still feel broken?

This may seem bleak, because it is. Its important to understand the thought process, and the seriousness of the challenge to faith. However, this is not the end of the story. The obvious question is, what next? Once you get here, it is usually not acceptable to simply shelve your concerns and pretend to be the Happy Mormon again. I hope you’ll stay tuned for part two, where I will approach the “what next” as best I can.

Update: you can find part two here.