In this two-part episode, historians Ben Park, Matthew Bowman, and Ron Barney join Mormon Matters host Dan Wotherspoon in a discussion of the way Mormonism has negotiated these dilemmas in the past, as well as how it seems to be facing them now and into the near future. What kinds of progress have been made in the relationship between the Church and the academic community? How has the Church professionalized its history division while still honoring the role of history and sacred narrative for vital community cohesion and faith? What are some of the debates and who have been the major players in shaping the place Mormonism finds itself now in relationship to its own history and the presentation of its history?

Mixed into all of these inquiries are also explorations of the relationship between history and faith crisis, including the ways that that panelists themselves negotiation the tensions between human frailty and divine workings? The discussion also goes a bit broader into the immediate horizon of Mormon studies in general. What is happening now and how might the increased interest in Mormonism from all sorts of academic disciplines affect our understanding of the Mormon story going forth? The panel also reflects briefly on the leadership tenure of Elder Marlin K. Jensen as Church Historian, who will be stepping down from this role in the next few months.

We invite you to listen and then join in the discussion below!

In this episode of Matters of the Heart, Allan Davis shares a short meditation about a call to repentance related to his transitioning relationship to Mormonism that he received last fall while attending the theatrical performance of a play called Church. A great listen for all who are undergoing the process of re-evaluating their own religious identity and stance related to their childhood faith and religious community. And everyone must, of course, listen to find out what the author means by “masturbatory rage”!

After listening, we hope you’ll read and then contribute to a great discussion below!

Links to Brent Beal’s two “A Mormon in the Cheap Seats” posts that provided a springboard to this discussion: Build Out, Not Up and On Testimonies

In this Mormon Matters episode, host Dan Wotherspoon and panelists Joanna Brooks, Kristine Haglund, and Boyd Petersen discuss this list and various issues it raises, but then launch into a both serious and fun examination of the oftentimes uncomfortable relationship that Mormonism has had with its intellectuals. Among the topics they hash out are what makes someone an intellectual, why being “learned” is often seen with suspicion and denounced by certain church leaders and members, what positive roles do intellectuals play within the LDS tradition, and what advice might the panelists give to those with an intellectual temperament who find themselves struggling for a comfortable home within Mormonism? It’s a great discussion that raises issues faced by many of this podcast’s listeners. We hope you’ll listen and then join in the discussion below!

Additional reading listeners might enjoy:

Leonard J. Arrington’s 1969 article, “The Intellectual Tradition of the Latter-day Saints,” in which the list first appeared

Follow-up article in 1993 by Stan Larson in which he reports on the results of a new survey

Blog thread at LDSWave discussing eminent women intellectuals

Armand L. Mauss essay with ideas for successfully navigating a fulfilling and engaged life within Mormonism as an “alternate voice” (with his suggestions just as easily a fit for “intellectuals”)

I once had the neighbor from hell. I use the expression with theological intent.

Smart and relentlessly treacherous, he was somewhere on the spectrum from malignant narcissist to full-fledged sociopath, and I had no desire to observe closely enough to find out where. I do not know what horror had befallen him — if anything more significant than a stray cosmic ray hitting the genome at the wrong time — but he seemed to be without sincere empathy toward anyone. Worse, he seemed to have grown to love cruelty as the only thing giving meaning to his life. He was Jack Nicholson as the Joker: “So many people to hurt, so little time!” If he was not planning or executing some plot against one person, it was because he was busy with a more hated target.

Our family’s first hostile contact with this guy arose innocently enough. His daughter had a cat. When his daughter was living with her mother — he was, of course, in the middle of a messy divorce — he left it outside in the cold and wet and the hot and dry. My wife, not wanting the cat to suffer, began putting out a bowl of water on our porch in the heat, and a little food and a towel for the cat to shelter under in the cold. Polite suggestions to him that leaving the cat outside wasn’t a good idea led to several conflicted stories about why it was all right, but a clear acknowledgement that the cat was, indeed, his responsibility.

And then, after this had gone on for several months, a middle-aged oriental woman, not speaking English very well, appeared at our door one evening. She asked us if the cat then lurking behind our front bushes belonged to our neighbor, and my wife innocently and honestly answered yes.

And with that simple act, we moved unexpectedly from peace to a full-scale personal war in which our spiritual and emotional health and livelihood was directly threatened.

The woman had purchased the property from a military doctor and his wife when they transferred out of state to a new assignment. She had invested  her savings to make the buy, and then rented the property to our neighbor through an agency. Home prices in our county had been exploding, and she hoped to make a good profit from her investment. Instead, she found a nightmare.

In the year he’d been there, he’d managed to find some loophole each month to avoid paying a cent of rent. County codes here are built more to protect immigrant tenants from slumlords; they really were not designed with what an immoral tenant could do to an immigrant landlord in mind. Heating and cooling systems or plumbing would continually “break” — there were sometimes different heating companies called to the home for repairs on the same day, especially when the first arrivals found the systems to be working properly. He would call for repairs to be made, then deny access to the repairmen. On one occasion, I saw him demand reseeding of grass in his front yard for drainage, and then slip out to the yard that weekend and destroy the new turf.  On another, I saw him inspect a damaged fence, and then, rather than report it, hide the fact from the landlady until another month’s rent was due.

Now, burning through her savings for mortgage payments and repairs  with no end in sight, being harassed by the man by telephone and intimidated by him to the point she was afraid to come to the home without an escort, she saw a possible way to break the lease: it had a no-pet provision. And so she asked about the cat. We answered honestly — and then the neighbor came after us.

My wife had been supporting us by teaching individual piano students from our home for years, and had been the primary breadwinner since my heart attack. He filed complaints that what we were doing instead was a group studio in violation of zoning, and demanded we be shut down. He stole trash during the night and attempted to frame me for illegal dumping of medical waste. He attempted to intimidate parents from bringing children for lessons by rushing to the edge of our property and, without any explanation, taking pictures of the children, and then the license plates of their cars like they were drug dealers. Every night there was drilling into the walls between our homes  or hammering on them, and we never knew if or how he was trying to sabotage our systems. We spent thousands in legal fees just to protect ourselves.

As I began to ask myself who was this guy, and why was he doing this, I found in public legal records that he had a long record of defiance to authority, with a couple of dozen violations, including jail time, for various disputes with neighbors seemingly everywhere he’d lived since adulthood. Simultaneously with his dispute with us and the landlady, he was on trial for phone harassment of his wife, and in a domestic violence dispute with a girlfriend he’d been with less than a month. He sought out potential violations by other witnesses in the neighborhood (such as expired license plates), and threatened to expose them if they testified. He went after the Home Owners Association President, an African-American, by making racial slurs in the presence of her daughter. He went after the county enforcement officials and tried to get their bosses to fire them; he went after the lawyers for conflicts of interest; he tried to get judges removed from his trials. You get the point.

The pressure on us grew more dispiriting, or perhaps I should say dark-spiriting, as months went by with no resolution. And we found ourselves increasingly turning to prayer for deliverance, as we felt imprisoned in our own home, never knowing what we would have to defend against tomorrow. And, as necessary, we were indeed delivered. In a couple of cases, traps laid for us were thwarted by unlikely coincidences. But the darkness, though warded off, was always present.

And then, in one of those deep prayer experiences, I heard in my mind my enemy’s soul cry out in an agony to God to be delivered from the darkness that enveloped him. I do not believe his physical form recognized what his own spirit was doing; he seemed to love the darkness and would cling to his cellphone (from which he harassed victims) like it was a totem of power he could not be without for even a moment. But I heard the Holy Spirit answer: “He is forbidden to remain as he is.” And the word “forbidden” carried all of the undeniable weight of a requirement to choose salvation or doom.

A few days later, entirely unbidden, while I was still trying to understand in my own mind the previous experience,  I heard his soul cry out again that he would be lost. And equally unbidden, my own prayers suddenly changed.

Instead of praying that God would get this guy off my family’s back, I found myself praying that God would get that darkness off this guy’s back. Because I saw that there was truly a predator, and my neighbor was the unsuspecting prey. And I was weeping for him, and praying as hard and as intensely as I have ever prayed for anything in my life.

It was the first time in my life that I truly loved my enemy.  Not decided that someone wasn’t really my enemy (six months after he finally left the neighborhood, he came back to see if sabotage he’d previously prepared for the air conditioning unit had, in fact,  caused the system to fail, leaving new renters he’d never even met sweltering in a summer heat wave for two days). Not just trying to treat my enemy with justice. Not simply restraining my self-defense. For once, I knew what it meant to love an enemy, even knowing he would remain my enemy, and that the existing situation was forbidden to continue.

But why was it only “for once”? What makes it so hard for me — for us — to stay in the loving attitude that the fate of the soul of my enemy (let alone the soul of a stranger or a friend) is of eternal significance even if I must oppose that enemy with all my might?

That seems to be something to spend some time contemplating as we remember this weekend a day of great violence.

First of all, here is the phrasing of the question:  Why don’t women hold the priesthood in the Mormon Church?  How do women lead in the Mormon Church?

The first “answer” was just a quote by Gordon B. Hinckley, and frankly it was the one I liked best, although I worried a smidge about how outsiders might perceive part of it:

“Women do not hold the priesthood because the Lord has put it that way.  (Here we run the risk of sounding like we are saying “because the Lord, who is a man, told the leaders, who are all men . . .”  You get the point).  It is part of His program. Women have a very prominent place in this Church. Men hold the priesthood offices of the Church. But women have a tremendous place in this Church. They have their own organization. It was started in 1842 by the Prophet Joseph Smith (need I say “a man”), called the Relief Society, because its initial purpose was to administer help to those in need. It has grown to be, I think, the largest women’s organization in the world… They have their own offices, their own presidency, their own board. That reaches down to the smallest unit of the Church everywhere in the world…

“The men hold the priesthood, yes. But my wife is my companion. In this Church the man neither walks ahead of his wife nor behind his wife but at her side. They are co-equals in this life in a great enterprise.” (This is my favorite part of his quote).

Common member answers that I thought would be generally acceptable to outsiders:

• God sets the rules.
  • “Well, the quick answer is God’s priesthood, God’s rules. In reading the Holy Bible you can see that the priesthood of God has always been exclusive. I’ve heard lots of speculation on this over the course of my years in the Church, but I still think that the quick answer is only one we know for sure right now.”
  • “I have a pretty simple understanding of this question. It’s God’s priesthood. He can give it to, or withhold it from anybody He chooses. If I thought the church was led by men, instead of by God himself, then I might think that they were selfish, or old fashioned, or just wrong. But knowing that the head of the Church is God, I let Him govern His Church any way He so chooses. But from the outside looking in, I know that you might not know that God really is in charge. You might still be suspicious. I can understand that. Still, the true answer is to ask God. If this is truly His church, then we have less objections to Him choosing to run it His way.”
• Priesthood is always restricted.
  • “The Lord has throughout the scriptures given different responsibilities to different people, based on all sorts of things.”
  • “In the days of Moses, for example, not every man had the priesthood. It is only in our day that every worthy male may be ordained into the priesthood of God.”
• It’s only a matter of time.  (This seemed a bit progressive, but the censors didn’t object.)
  • “My faith is placed in God, and should He choose to extend priesthood to the women of the church, I’m okay with that idea. It’s His church, His priesthood, and I will follow Him any way He leads.”
  • “As to why women do not hold the Priesthood, my answer is it is a matter of the Lord’s timing.”
• Priesthood blessings are for all, and it’s only used for service.
  • “The priesthood is used to serve others and perform ordinances of the gospel, the blessings of which are enjoyed by both men and women.”
  • “The priesthood power is not a gift or a right but an oath and covenant that a worthy man makes with the Lord. It is not a power for man’s own gain and a man is not better off than a woman because he holds this power. Women and men are entitled to the same blessings and promises when they live righteously.”
  • “I have no doubt that I, woman, am as significant to my Heavenly parent as any man. If you understand that the priesthood is all about service, then perhaps you’ll see how this is a vehicle for men to serve God and their fellowman.”
  • “The priesthood however, is not to be used to benefit yourself, but to benefit others, such as the sick, or anyone else (family or otherwise) who is in need of a blessing from God.”
• Women hold key leadership positions in the church. Sample comments:
  • “There are certain positions that are held by men, and certain others that are only held by women.”
  • “There are innumerable opportunities for women to serve and bless the lives of others through their church service. In the church I have always felt important and cherished. I feel that my contributions are appreciated and needed.”
  • “Women do lead in the church in many callings, and do a spot on job of it.”
  • “The five women in my life are leaders. They know what they want and what they don’t want. When they speak, I know I had better listen. While they do not currently have the Priesthood, they do certainly influence me. So do women who lead the children (the Primary organization) and the women’s organization (the Relief Society) and those who speak or pray or serve in the Lord’s house, the Temple.”

Common members answers that made me nervous:

• Priesthood?  No, thanks!  I’ve got my hands full with these dishes and dirty diapers, thank you very much!
  • “When I read or hear similar questions such as these I want to laugh. To me a question like this is akin to asking for more responsiblity, more accountablity, more work, more angish (sic) etc. . . . I guess my question would be, why would a woman want to hold the priesthood?”
  • “Honey, we women have enough to do! Why worry about holding the priesthood too? Just lovingly hold that dear husband of yours and support him as he honors the priesthood.”  I think I threw up in my mouth a little on that one.
  • “Personally, I would rather lead at home as a mother, than anywhere else.”  I have been rendered incapable of speech by that one.
• Men and women are inherently different.  Mommies have babies, and daddies do (insert awesome entitled stuff).  All right, that’s a very loose paraphrase.  But the old “boys and girls are different” routine often strays into sexist stereotypes easily sniffed out by investigators (unless they too are sexist).
  • “Just as men have not been appointed to bear children in this life, so women have not been appointed to bear the priesthood.”
  • “Men and woman have different responsibilites. The man has the responsibility of holding the priesthood and using those keys given to them (sic) in righteousness. Woman (sic) have another kind of responsibility that of bareing (sic) and rearing children.”  Seriously, what is up with the grammar and spell check on mormon.org??  There is clearly no basic editing.  (same comment)  “Each of us, man and woman have a sacred roll (like the shewbread of the temple?) like our Heavenly Parents that is not talked of much, but is essential just the same.”  I’m unclear what it is that is not talked of much.  The roles of parents seem talked about a lot.  Heavenly Father is talked about a lot.  So does this mean that Heavenly Mother is not talked about?  If so, there’s subject-verb disagreement in that sentence.
• Women have access through men.  This is really close to saying women still get the blessings, but it has the twist of sounding like men take care of women and women are dependent on men.
  • “As a woman I have total access to the blessings of the priesthood through my father, husband, bishop, and home teachers. Our home teachers visit my family in our home monthly and look after our well-being.”
• Women lead by example (aka being modest).  This one kills me with its irrelevance.  How do we go from a question about women and the priesthood to talking about how women should dress?  Yet, here we go.
  • “Many women in the Mormon Church also lead by setting an example of virtue, and do not follow the tight/low cut/body revealing fashions of this day but instead understand their true beauty is enhanced by their choice to be modest in dress.”
  • “Young girls need righteous examples of Christlike women to whom they can look as they try to make good decisions in today’s world. Women who are modest, caring, honest and virtuous lead these girls to Christ.”
• Men need the priesthood because women are better than they are (aka Male Guilt Syndrome).
  • “My wife is a remarkable woman, and does all of this without the priesthood. I, however, need the priesthood because I’m not a woman, and would fail miserably without it.”
  • “Because men are rather selfish and self-centered by nature, they need extra guidance and teaching to acquire compassion and selflessness. Serving in the priesthood is that schooling process for them. Women, on the other hand, are much more natural in their abilities to love and serve and teach. Priesthood is not required for them to emulate the Savior’s commandment to love one another.”

Here are some things I could possibly say if I were answering this question:

• I don’t know why women don’t.  Perhaps that will change at some point in the future.  Women do use priesthood power within temples (but it’s not suitable for mormon.org which is primarily focused on a non-LDS audience).
• We have no paid clergy at the ward level, so priesthood is not a career in our church.
• Women hold at least as many leadership positions as men at the ward level, and are probably more influential in these roles.  Women speak in church to the congregation every Sunday and teach lessons to adults.
• Our scriptures specifically state that anyone who uses “unrighteous dominion” loses his priesthood power.

What were your reactions to these answers?  Did you like some I didn’t like or dislike ones I liked?  What would your answer be to that question?  Are you motivated to create your own profile yet?  Discuss.

First of all, this campaign is slick and attractive.  I applaud efforts to show the diversity that exists in the church, and to showcase some of the cool non-celebrities who are actual Mormons.  These are family-centric people with a wide variety of interests.  There are many of these people whom I would really enjoy on a personal level.  So, kudos on a very effective campaign!

On the downside, some of the answers to the difficult questions are problematic for various reasons (no more problematic than what you hear on a given Sunday from lay members, but they are now public):

• some answers contain factual errors, including some doctrinal mistakes (see below)
• there is no spell check or editing; perhaps this is “keepin’ it real”
• this exposes some of the most common speculations and assumptions that are comfort food to lay members on these tough issues; there’s an upside to this, too.  Perhaps this is an opportunity for the church to clarify or deal with some incorrect assumptions.
• some of the answers are not going to be very appealing to those outside the church.

So, first things first.  Let’s start with the FAQ on polygamy that members answered:  Why did your church previously practice plural marriage (polygamy)?

Reading through the posted responses, this is the one I liked the best.  He refrains from speculating or spinning pet theories that are easily debunked, and he simply talks about trusting God.  It’s not perfect because it really doesn’t answer the question, but it is a very tough question to answer given that it’s not relevant to our daily experience as church members:

I struggle with this question, myself. I believe, as I have been taught, that it was a commandment from God. I’ve heard many theories about why God commanded it but, as far as I can tell, none of the theories can be proven. I do consider the question from time to time but, in the end, I simply have to return to the fact that I trust God and do not understand all of His ways.

Another answer I somewhat liked was this one.  What I liked was that she talked about polygamy on a personal level, about her own family.  But again, it’s no justification for it (can there be?):

My great, great, great grandmother was a polygamist. She immigrated as a late teenager and would have had little opportunity to find a righteous and good husband had she not married my great, great, great grandfather as his third wife. She raised 6 children mostly on her own, since her husband died before their last child was born. The legacy she left continues to inspire me to be stronger and better. I believe she was a polygamist wife for the benefit of her posterity.

There are some other good statements as well, but I wanted to highlight a few that seem problematic for various reasons:

The Prophets have said “to raise up a righteous generation unto the Lord.” The righteous women in the Church outnumber the righteous men. That is another one of those male-female inequalities. This was especially true in the early days of the Church. Plural Marriage permitted every righteous women to be the wife of a righteous man and then to raise up a righteous family. The problem is not so severe nowadays.

The old romantic paternalist argument that women are more righteous than men.  It is demonstrably false that there was a shortage of marriageable men in the early days of the church.  Census numbers in Utah from 1850 to 1960 show more males than females in the state:

Utah population:
                       1850 total 11,380      male 6,046          female 5,334
                       1860 total 40,273      male 20,255        female 20,018
                       1870 total 86,786      male 44,121        female 42,665
                       1880 total 143,963    male 74,509        female 68,454
                       1890 total 210,779    male 111,975      female 98,804
                       1900 total 276,749    male 141,687      female 135,062

The caveat “righteous” is a bit of a two-edged sword; does that mean that Mormons of that era who did not practice plural marriage were unrighteous?  Because another defense of polygamy is that only a select few ever practiced it (see below).  Can’t have it both ways.  Here’s another comment I found troubling:

See the Book of Jacob in the Book of Mormon where the then current Prophet banned the practice because of the unrighteousness of the people. Will the practice ever come back officially? Only the Lord knows, and he hasn’t confided in me.

This seems mixed up or is just worded strangely.  It is not doctrinal that polygamy is the higher law only given to us when we are righteous; that’s the law of consecration.  The admonishment in Jacob is they were being unrighteous by committing polygamy.  My other concern is that leaving the door open that polygamy is coming back (alarming enough to suggest in its own right) just sounds creepy coming from a man.  I don’t see this one winning any converts.  Moving on.

Let’s look at some facts: in the 19th century, about three quarters of the world’s population lived in countries or societies where polygamy was sanctioned or even encouraged. In non-polygamous societies, like Europe, having a “mistress” was common and acceptable by society. I think it’s much more honorable to be legally and lawfully wedded to two wives, than to have one wife and a “mistress”.

It’s true that there are many societies that have allowed polygamy (encouraged might be a stretch), but do we really want to draw this parallel?  Many of these are the same countries that also allow stoning of women or wife burning.  I’m also not sure I would call all of Europe a “society” as if it’s all one country (apparently a society of adulterers – are we not also looking for European investigators to visit this site?  We just called them immoral here). And he just inadvertently classed polygamy in the same boat as keeping a mistress, as if both are simply inevitable, so you might as well make it legally binding.

In the early days of the Church, there were more women than men. In the harsh frontier times, survival for single women was difficult.

Again with this old chestnut that has been disproven.  There were not significantly more women than men (see above).  Yet I grant that frontier life was tough due to lack of fast food chains and toilet paper.

It’s my understanding that scarecely 3 percent of Church members practiced polygamy.

The 3% estimate is disproven.  More accurate estimates indicate 20-30%.  And the other issue is that it contradicts the notion that only the righteous practiced it (so between 70 and 97% of all church members were unrighteous?)

However, when the representative who speaks for God a prophet says that God wants you to do something, you do it. That is what happened back in the day. God told Joseph Smith that He wanted them to practice plural marriage and so they did.

This one sounds rather cultish, like saying “Shaddup and do whatcher told.”  I am quite sure most investigators would want more clarification on how God’s will is understood clearly and how you know when you should listen to this prophet and when not (since investigators don’t blindly follow leaders of a church they haven’t joined).  This is not a very useful answer to those outside the church, the target audience.

God has commanded humans to practice polygamy in many different instances throughout history. Readers of the Bible will remember that Abraham and Jacob Israel were affiliated with this practice. Even the great King David had multiple wives.

IIRC, it was the infertile wives (Sariah, Rachel and Leah) and conniving fathers-in-law (Laban) who were behind polygamy in the OT.  There is no scriptural account in the OT of God commanding polygamy.  These were people who wanted more children and didn’t want to wait for them.  Also, David and Solomon are not examples of God-sanctioned polygamy.  Whoever wrote that answer should read the Book of Mormon:  “for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son. Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.” —Jacob 2:23-24

It was from God’s order out of necessity to take care of many women who were widowed with children and those who were alone.

Again with this old chestnut. I’m telling you, this is one of those very convincing very appealing explanations that we would love to find out is true, but unfortunately, it isn’t upheld by actual data.

OK, the point is not to pick these things apart.  I’m sure we’ve all heard more or less the same types of answers our whole lives in Sunday School, whether they are accurate or not.  And it takes a lot of guts to get on line and say these things with your picture plastered there, so I applaud the courage.  There are MTC volunteers who are reviewing for content and accuracy, so I suppose it is consistent with whatever average missionaries believe is accurate.  Since this is an external-facing campaign, that approach makes sense.  Feedback on doctrinal inaccuracies in the profiles can be submitted to bairdct@mtc.byu.edu.

I gave this some thought, wondering how would I answer such a difficult question for an audience of mainly investigators.  Here are the things that I could say in good conscience that might pass muster:

• I don’t know why.  (I really just have to bite my tongue on this and stop there because I am personally open to the idea that polygamy was not inspired, although that doesn’t bother me in the slightest since I view church leaders as fallible, which is also doctrinally sound.)
• Personally, I find it hard to imagine life under such an arrangement and am glad it is not something that is directly relevant to my own church experience today.
• I am hesitant to judge the actions of others who acted in faith in different times under circumstances that are so different from my own.  Many of those individuals made great personal sacrifices.

So, your turn.  How would you answer this question?  Do you have a mormon.org profile?  Which answers do you like the best and why?  How should the church address mistaken assumptions about things like this?  Discuss.

I’ve observed 4 general categories of struggles that people have in the church (possibly in any church, and there are likely parallels in any type of organization):

1. Cultural. They dislike aspects of Mormon culture, may feel they don’t fit in, or may simply not want to fit in (“I’m a loner, Dotty.  A rebel.”).
   • Examples:  Church activities, social norms, opinions people express, how people dress, unwritten rules of behavior, church standards.
2. Historical. They find aspects of our Mormon history unsavory (even faith-shaking) and white-washed or misrepresented (and sometimes have been unpleasantly surprised due to only having known the uplifting “correlated” version).
   • Examples:  Polygamy, BOM origins, aspects of church leaders’ lives, doctrinal changes, restrictions on priesthood, temple origins, events from church history.
3. Doctrinal. They disagree with certain doctrines of the church or the interpretations of those doctrines they’ve encountered.  While there may be some overlap between historical events that relate to truth claims, it is possible to view these items separately.
   • Examples:  Mormon view of the atonement, Godhood, marriage and sealing, priesthood authority, ordinances, historical claims that are related to truth claims may also fit here, plan of salvation, the role of prophets, Temple Recommend questions related to belief, interpretation of scripture.
4. Personal. They have had a personal issue that has harmed them and caused dissonance with the church.
   • Examples:  marital issue, abuse, interpersonal conflict, depression

It seems that a person could have issues in more than one of these areas, or may find that they are less impacted by a disconnect in one or more of these areas.  For example, one may find historical facts like Mountain Meadows Massacre troubling, but feel that they are personally less important because of no direct personal connection to the historical church.  If an area is of high importance and is also an area of strong concern, that’s when people leave if they can’t resolve their concern satisfactorily.

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It seems to me that for people who care very deeply about a specific area (culture, doctrine, history, or personal experiences), they are more prone to disaffection for that issue if something goes wrong in that area.  Likewise, if it’s extremely important to them and it’s going well, that can strongly solidify their commitment to the church.  What are your observations?  And which of these areas are most important to you?  Have they caused you any cognitive dissonance?  Discuss.

Here’s the talk in a nutshell:

1. Why we need the spirit.
   • “Throughout the ages, many have obtained guidance helpful to resolve challenges in their lives by following the example of respected individuals who resolved similar problems. Today, world conditions change so rapidly that such a course of action is often not available to us.”  I think E. Scott just admitted that old folks haven’t necessarily “been there, done that.”  It’s kind of a radical thing for an octogenarian to say.  Frankly, I’m not sure all 80-somethings would admit that.  Kudos, E. Scott!
   • “Personally, I rejoice in that reality because it creates a condition where we, of necessity, are more dependent upon the Spirit to guide us through the vicissitudes of life. Therefore, we are led to seek personal inspiration in life’s important decisions.”  So, he’s saying we shouldn’t do things just because of tradition or what others who are older tell us to do, but we should find out for ourselves the best course.  Personal accountability–one, blind obedience to authority–zero!
   • “Spirituality yields two fruits. The first is inspiration to know what to do. The second is power, or the capacity to do it. These two capacities come together.”  Features & benefits of the Spirit.
2. How to get the Spirit.
   • “I am convinced that there is no simple formula or technique that would immediately allow you to master the ability to be guided by the voice of the Spirit.”  Decrying a formulaic approach to spirituality.  Down with checklists!  Spirituality is personal and subjective.
   • “Our Father expects you to learn how to obtain that divine help by exercising faith in Him and His Holy Son, Jesus Christ. Were you to receive inspired guidance just for the asking, you would become weak and ever more dependent on Them. They know that essential personal growth will come as you struggle to learn how to be led by the Spirit.”  I love the notion that we are supposed to live up to our potential, not just let others make decisions for us.
   • “Your confidence in the direction you receive from the Holy Ghost will also become stronger. I witness that as you gain experience and success in being guided by the Spirit, your confidence in the impressions you feel can become more certain than your dependence on what you see or hear.”  There’s a little bit of implied confirmation bias here, but by the same token, it’s how we develop decision-making ability and intuition:  through experience.  We learn what works and what doesn’t.
   • E. Scott shares 2 contrasting teacher styles and how each resulted in inspiration for him.  While the contrasting examples seem designed to reinforce the correlation committee’s guidelines (the first teacher stuck to the materials and the second one used archane and unusual references), both lessons resulted in personal spiritual guidance for E. Scott.  Of the second experience, E. Scott shared:  “I received such an outpouring of impressions that were so personal that I felt it was not appropriate to record them in the midst of a Sunday School class. I sought a more private location, where I continued to write the feelings that flooded into my mind and heart as faithfully as possible.”  I’m pretty sure he just admitted to ditching Sunday School to write in his journal.
   • “Impressions of the Spirit can come in response to urgent prayer or unsolicited when needed.”  I think it’s hard to chalk it up to the Spirit when it could be confirmation bias – unsolicited one-off ideas are more easily attributable to the Spirit, IMO.
   • “However, the Lord will not force you to learn. You must exercise your agency to authorize the Spirit to teach you. As you make this a practice in your life, you will be more perceptive to the feelings that come with spiritual guidance. Then, when that guidance comes, sometimes when you least expect it, you will recognize it more easily.”  Part of this does strike me as confirmation bias; however, I have experienced an unexpected idea to do something that if I followed it worked out, and sometime I have not and it didn’t work out.  To me, that’s the spirit.
3.  What prevents us from getting the Spirit.
   • “The inspiring influence of the Holy Spirit can be overcome or masked by strong emotions, such as anger, hate, passion, fear, or pride. When such influences are present, it is like trying to savor the delicate flavor of a grape while eating a jalapeño pepper. Both flavors are present, but one completely overpowers the other. In like manner, strong emotions overcome the delicate promptings of the Holy Spirit.”  I like the analogy.  The idea sounds true enough.
   • “Sin is spiritually corrosive. Unrestrained it becomes all-consuming. It is overcome by repentance and righteousness.  Satan is extremely good at blocking spiritual communication by inducing individuals, through temptation, to violate the laws upon which spiritual communication is founded.”  So, sin is bad then . . . right?
   • “With some, he is able to convince them that they are not able to receive such guidance from the Lord.”  I think this is a real issue for people.  I think many have these high-falutin notions of what constitutes “the Spirit” and anything short of meeting JC on the road to Damascus isn’t cutting it.  I think that’s a misunderstanding.  If you re-read E. Scott’s talk and substitute the word “instinct” or “inspiration” for “the Spirit,” you can get a real sense for how commonplace these experiences are.
   • “Satan has become a master at using the addictive power of pornography to limit individual capacity to be led by the Spirit.”  Let’s not make this a porn post, shall we?  But the rest of the talk is basically about how porn makes it impossible to recognize the Spirit.  Personally, I’m no fan of porn, and I think the point is valid.  Porn’s blocking of spiritual guidance is not the worst of its influence in society.  On the subject, E. Scott waxes eloquent.  Anyway, ’nuff said on porn.  Moving on.  Nothing to see here.

Here are some points I think worth discussing from the talk:

1. Does this jive with your experience feeling the Spirit or inspiration or whatever you kids are calling it these days?
2. Do you like the idea that you can be equally inspired in a lesson regardless the instructor?  I found these examples fascinating; although ostensibly the “not as good” instructor was “out of policy,” it had no adverse impact on the spiritual guidance received.  Doesn’t that mean that maybe we can quit wringing our hands over this?  Does that make church a BYOS (Bring Your Own Spirit) institution?  I say yes.
3. Have you ever felt the Spirit when in the throes of strong emotion?  If so, let’s have the deets!
4. Overall, did you like the talk or not?  I am of the opinion that not all talks are for all people.  This one was one I happened to like, but that doesn’t mean everyone should.

Discuss.

• I like the idea of Jesus as a lawyer for humanity.  Having a defense attorney, someone totally in your court who will fight for your cause is enormously appealing to me.
• I like the symbolism of the atonement:  olive press (Gethsemane), the name “at one” ment, the mingling of the divine and the human.
• I like the idea of Bodhisattva, a voluntary sacrifice for others.  But I like it more as one who might sacrifice than as one who would be the recipient of the sacrifice.  Similarly, I’m somewhat uncomfortable receiving gifts.  Although I’m not that comfortable giving them either.  So there you go.

What I have generally not loved about the concept of “atonement”:

• that it creates a religion of losers, appealing to the down-and-outers. Dennis Miller once observed that the prison inmates always seem to find Jesus when no one else down here will talk to them anymore.
• that it is a contrasting idea to theosis (the seeds of divinity within man), a concept which I find inherently more appealing. I’d rather focus on strengths & potential than weakness and shortcomings.  I’m just a cock-eyed optimist!  I do find sadness somewhat off-putting.
• the idea of justice and mercy that is represented feels man-made and not like something that God would be bound to follow. I don’t like the legalistic metaphors often used to explain the atonement.

Here are a few of the ways the atonement has been viewed over the centuries, each with a unique insight:

• Ransom Theory.  In this metaphor from the 4^th century, Jesus liberates mankind from slavery to Satan and thus death by giving his own life as a ransom. Victory over Satan consists of swapping the life of the perfect (Jesus), for the lives of the imperfect (mankind).  A variation of this view is known as the “Christus Victor” theory, in which Jesus defeats Satan in a spiritual battle and frees the enslaved humans from their captor.  (like an action movie with hostages being rescued).  This one sounds kind of cool in a Die Hard sort of way, but it also doesn’t ring quite true for me.  A variation of this I heard on my mission was someone buying a cage full of dirty, diseased birds with lousy attitudes.  Not my favorite perspective on humanity.
• Penal Substitution.  Another metaphor, from the 11^th century, is that man is in debt to a sovereign God who has the power to forgive debt, but also has to uphold the laws. In this metaphor, only a perfect sacrifice could satisfy the demands of the transgressed laws, and Jesus, being both God and man, was this perfect sacrifice.  A slight variation of this is the Protestant “penal substitution theory,” which sees sin as the breaking of God’s moral law, and Jesus takes the punishment in the sinner’s stead.  This is probably the most common metaphor used for the atonement, but it is very legalistic and leaves me cold.  I think we let the metaphor become the thing it symbolizes in this one.  I suspect the atonement is not entirely encompassed by this view.
• Moral Influence.  A third metaphor from the 11^th century, and speaks to the power of the image of a suffering Christ who sacrifices himself out of love for man, and mankind, moved by the extent of God’s love is transformed and healed by the power of the Holy Spirit.  I appreciated this one because I think we LDS tend to look at the crucifixion images in Catholic churches as ghoulish and morbid, but this metaphor explains their appeal to millions of worshippers in a whole new light for me.
• Theosis Metaphor.  Eastern Orthodoxy views the atonement as not a legal release, but a transformation of the human nature itself in the Son taking on human nature. The Orthodox emphasis is that Christ died to change people so that they may become more like God.  This is one I find very appealing, although it’s not one I ever recall hearing at church.  It lines up nicely with our idea that we are sons & heirs of God, with the seeds of godhood within us.

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we expand on these metaphors by recognizing and emphasizing some additional components to the atonement:

• Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane. Modern day revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants adds emphasis to the role of Gethsemane in the atonement process: “…how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not…. Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit…”  I like the focus in LDS theology on the sacrifice being deliberate on Jesus’ part, that he chose to do this of his own free will despite how hard it was.  I like the emphasis on free choice, not so much on the difficulty which feels like a major guilt trip (I suppose because it IS).
  • The name Gethsemane literally means oil press.  In Gethsemane, Jesus as the Son of God is pressed as the olives were.  Oil was and is used for all sorts of purposes: to perform priesthood ordinances, to anoint the body, and to heal the sick and restore them to health.  Metaphorically, Jesus is the ultimate healing and anointing oil.
  • In a talk on the Symbols of the Atonement in 1991, E. Russell Nelson said:  “Olive trees are special in the Holy Land. The olive branch is universally regarded as a symbol of peace. This tree provides food, light, heat, lumber, ointments, and medicine. It is now, as it was then, crucial to life in Israel. It is not a deciduous tree, but ever bearing—always green. Even if the tree is chopped down, life will spring from its roots, suggesting everlasting life.  Jesus came to the base of the Mount of Olives to affect the first component of the Atonement. This He did at the Garden of Gethsemane. The word Gethsemane comes from two Hebrew roots: gath, meaning “press,” and shemen, meaning “oil,” especially that of the olive.  There olives had been pressed under the weight of great stone wheels to squeeze precious oil from them. So the Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane was literally pressed under the weight of the sins of the world. He sweat great drops of blood—his life’s “oil”—which issued from every pore.  Jesus was accorded titles of unique significance. One was the Messiah, which in Hebrew means “anointed.” The other was the Christ, which in the Greek language means “anointed” as well. In our day, as it was in His day, the ordinance of administration to the sick includes anointing with the consecrated oil of the olive. So the next time you witness consecrated oil being anointed on the head of one to be blessed, and these sacred words are said, “I anoint you with this consecrated oil,” remember what that original consecration cost. Remember what it meant to all who had ever lived and who ever would yet live. Remember the redemptive power of healing, soothing, and ministering to those in need. Remember, just as the body of the olive, which was pressed for the oil that gave light, so the Savior was pressed. From every pore oozed the life blood of our Redeemer. And when sore trials come upon you, remember Gethsemane.”
• Empathetic purpose. Christ did not only suffer for the sins of all men, but also to experience their physical pains, illnesses, anguish from addictions, emotional turmoil and depression, “that His bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12; compare Isaiah 53:4).  This empathy allows Jesus to be a more effective advocate and personal friend to us.  This sounds remarkable similar to the one about the image of the suffering Christ creating empathy in humanity (the reverse of this).  But I think when you put them both together, it adds some interest to the perspective.
• The relationship between justice, mercy, agency, and God’s unconditional love. We focus on the need for free agency.  Just as Jesus had the ability to choose to lay down his life, if we are truly penitent we will voluntarily come unto him to receive his grace.  We do this through the process of repentance.  I do find this idea useful – the focus on our personal choice.

I liked the idea that there are many different ways to interpret the atonement, and some of these are more appealing to me than others. How about you?  Were any of these helpful?  How do you feel about the atonement?  Discuss.

Optimization

Optimization largely rules our world. Virtually all of management, engineering, politics, and much of science is about optimization. Optimization, in this sense, is the process of determining the optimal solution given all the objectives and constraints. In management, the process may not be that formal. Perhaps there is a board of directors who gather around a table to discuss the optimal set of policies, the direction to go, etc. In politics it is likely similar. The President of the U.S. surrounds himself with experts on a particular topic, they then engage in discussion, and hope to land on the optimal answer given the objectives and constraints.

For engineers the process is much more formal and precise. Usually optimization takes the form of a cost function – a function incorporating, mathematically, all the objectives and constraints. An algorithm (and there are many) is then employed to “solve” the function resulting in the optimal solution. To demonstrate, here’s an example:

Suppose you are designing an aircraft. There are numerous design possibilities, a canard style, V-tail empennages, aspect ratio of the wings, length of fuselage, coating of the surfaces, wingtips, where to place the turbines, height of vertical stabilizer (if having one at all), etc. etc. We would like to find the optimal answer amongst all these parameters such that we maximize lift, maximize cargo space, maximize safety, minimize energy consumption, etc. Of course we also have constraints. We cannot physically manufacture a flexible fixed wing that is 800 ft long and thin as a toothpick. To solve the problem, we can write down a big, long, nasty equation that would mathematically characterize the physics, constraints, and objectives and then pick our favorite optimization algorithm and wait for it to churn out the answer (which may take a long time).

Bayesian inference is one algorithm that can be applied to such an optimization problem. Typically one would choose this algorithm amidst a cost function that was stochastic in nature, having noise and/or error in the system, that expressed our confidence.

Finding the Truth, Optimization Style

In some sense, the Bayesian inference mechanism I discussed in previous posts could be seen as an optimization method for finding the truth. If we assume that all the new information we regularly encounter has some (even if very little) truth therein, and we apply that information in the regular Bayesian inference sense, we could then reliably conclude that we have found the “truth,” with some probability (level of confidence), given all the information.

This is highly related to a comment FireTag made on my previous post. He asked

So there are routes to evolve our beliefs toward truth no matter where we start or whatever the order of our search algorithm?

In the context of this question, Bayesian inference can easily be seen as a search algorithm. And, in fact, if we used a Sequential Monte Carlo method, it really does feel like a search algorithm.

In expanding this notion, my response, in part, was:

Absolutely (at least in my book)! Though certainly some search algorithms are definitely worse than others and some starting places better than others! Otherwise what prayer in the world do we have (unless you’re absolutely certain that YOU’VE got it right, but I sure don’t)? I view my religion/spirituality as a compass that (I hope) points me in a good direction. My hope is that if/when the absolute truth is made manifest to me I will be humble enough (and my definition of humble is “openness to the truth”) to recognize it because/in spite of my current confidence distribution.

From this perspective, we might view the church (or whatever church you belong to), the Gospel, this life, and all our associated experience as tools to help us optimize for, and draw nearer to the truth given the objectives and constraints of our personal limitations and the limitations of this mortal existence. While I have encountered a very few number of Mormons who claim that we have ALL the truth, this is not the claim of the LDS church. Most of us, I believe, accept there are things we don’t yet know and don’t yet understand. The real challenge is to have an appropriate confidence distribution such that you will accept that truth when it is made known to you.

However, I finished my response to FireTag with the following:

However, this really opens another can of worms – namely, what is truth? My explanation thus far has been about our perception of truth which may or may not correlate with objective or absolute truth. To argue over whether or not our perception of truth is objective truth is to argue over what forms of evidence are acceptable and what weight we should apply to that evidence (which is the conclusion of this post and is an argument with no victor).

So, re-reading the Book of Mormon stayed on the to-do list for a while. But then the press became more persistent and insistent: “No, you REALLY need to re-read the Book of Mormon,” and the very persistence began to get through my blocks of rationalization. So I kept moving it up the to-do-list until it was high among the emergencies and the recurring tasks, and I began to read.

I had not gone cover-to-cover since I was in elementary school. I still have my first Book of Mormon given me as a baptism gift, and almost every verse in it is underlined: I didn’t know what went with what back then, and figured just about everything must be terribly important and interrelated. So I absorbed the story for a story important in my religion, and soaked up any theology unconsciously in the process. In the decades since, I used the Book of Mormon many times in preparing sermons; you preach a lot when you live in a denomination of mostly small congregations where priesthood is not the province of all worthy males. I taught many individual topics in classes or missionary efforts. I even had a few verbal jousts on my front steps with LDS missionaries before I learned that was fratricide that wasted everyone’s time. But the focus on the immediacy of my assigned tasks didn’t convey the global oversight of that first boyhood reading. In the later readings, I had the theology, both from the Book itself as well as from a deeper understanding of the other scriptural sources of Christian theology, but had lost track of the story as story.

From this perspective, as I began to read I began to understand overarching themes I’d missed before because they hadn’t been “on task”. Among them, I began in particular to see the books of 1^st Nephi through the Words of Mormon as sort of an “old” Old Testament concerned with the overwhelming question of the first generations of Nephites: “Is there still a place for us with God?”

After all, in 600 BC, Judea was the “church”. You didn’t think of personal salvation outside of the structure of your Jewish tribal identity, and keeping the covenant kept your identity guaranteed by the only true God. I mean, look what had happened to the Northern Kingdom. Just gone! Conceptually to the Jews then, it didn’t matter whether individuals in the 10 tribes had been obedient or disobedient, just or unjust. The Kingdom of Israel had been judged unworthy of God’s continued protection as a whole kingdom. The fate of the people as individuals simply was not a question that had any place in the mental landscape. What did God care about a just Assyrian or Egyptian compared to a Jew?

What does it do to your mental landscape, then, when God starts telling you that you are to leave your tribe, and you aren’t ever coming back? You are being further told that the tribe itself is about to be conquered and won’t be there if you do change your mind. You are amputating your culture, and you have little to replace it with, physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. There is beyond the wilderness and the sea a “land of promise” to fill the physical hole, if you cling to your faith, but what replaces everything else?

Lehi and Nephi had their visions. They went, but you can see their frustration and anger at the Jews in their writings over the sheer stupidity of the disobedience of the covenant that was bringing the Babylonian disaster upon them. Laman and Lemuel turned their anger toward their father instead. Everybody was supposedly committed to going into the wilderness, but they all kept forgetting things (like wives) and finding reasons to have to go back to Jerusalem to get them. They seem to have been in shock. Stay! Go! Make up your mind!

And so the scriptures about the ultimate fate of Israel/Judea, as discussed by Isaiah or Zenos, become dominant concerns in this Book of Mormon “old” Old Testament. It is not an abstract theological debate to the Nephites; much of their personal focus and records are devoted to testifying that God has promised a reconnection of their seed (and even the seed of their rebellious Lamanite brethren) to the Israelites in a future time. Acceptance of Christ is seen as the means of this reconnection as well as the means of personal salvation. In fact, personal salvation is the newer, more revelatory concept which is increasingly emphasized as the story moves toward its historical climax. Even at the time of Christ’s appearance, this societal reconnection is on the minds of the people, and Christ takes time to reemphasize it along with his teachings about personal salvation. Indeed, “convincing of the Jew” of Christ’s divinity is as important as “convincing of the Gentiles”; the land of promise is not just a promise for the Nephites, but a means of keeping a promise by God for everyone else.

Many of those who come to this site feel either their “sense of the Spirit” or the “sense of their intellect” calling them into the “wilderness”. Whether it is because the church is not found to be as-advertised, because it changes too slowly, or because it changes too much, the shock and the anger are real and pretty much the same for all. They often no longer can support parts of the culture, but have nothing clear in their sights to replace it. They leave, miss something they left behind, go back, and try again to follow one direction or the other. Some fraction of them experience rejection by the community because they are perceived to be rejecting the norms of the community first. And sometimes they don’t know whether to be angry at others or ashamed of themselves.

They are reenacting this great dilemma of the early Nephites. How are they and their families to be connected to the purposes of God, when they have previously experienced their “tribe” as the only authorized means of connection? Yet, if the call is genuine, it will keep persisting and growing more insistent. There will be a land of promise for those who follow that call, and if the Nephite example holds, it will not just be a land of promise for those “wandering Mormons”. It will be a land of promise of those who come after them, and, in the long run, a blessing for the tribe they left behind as well. Experiencing being called into the wilderness isn’t a strange thing in Mormon history; it’s sort of what makes you one of the tribe in the first place.

The Convert

John is a member of another Christian denomination and he was raised as a believer. He has had one discussion with the LDS missionaries and plans to continue these discussions. In the first discussion the missionaries built on common beliefs with John and challenged him to read a few verses in The Book of Mormon and to pray over them. They read Moroni 10:3-5 in which the Lord, through his prophet, provides a recipe for confirmation of the truthfulness of the message taught. John takes this seriously and reads the verses and prays over them. He also has a strong spiritual manifestation. He feels peace, warmth, and what he interprets as an assurance from the Holy Spirit that the message is true.

For John, he has had a number of spiritual manifestations and hence accepts this form of gaining knowledge. He has not had one quite this powerful before so he takes this manifestation as evidence that the LDS church is true. In Bayesian terms, we might claim that John had a confidence distribution with a mean of “my Christian denomination is true” with a fairly large standard deviation (since he was open to other religious possibilities). When he received this new piece of information (a spiritual manifestation of the truthfulness of the LDS message) he incorporated it into his confidence distribution. This, along with further discussions from the missionaries is enough to shift his distribution to one with a mean of “the LDS church is the true church” with a fairly small standard deviation.

In this scenario there are some interesting things going on with regard to faith, knowledge, and belief. John had “belief” enough to take a leap of “faith.” In essence, he was testing the “tail ends” of his confidence distribution by examining a foreign concept. In a Monte Carlo sense, his random walk was probing “less probable” areas of his distribution. For John, he found some valuable information that he then used to modify that distribution. It is easy to characterize his actions as “faith” as he probed heretofore untested waters. His experience exemplifies the allegory of faith given in Alma 32.

The Stereotypical Mormon

Bill is a lifelong member of the LDS church. He was raised in Salt Lake City and has been an obedient member of the church for all of his 39 years. Bill has a strong testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel and all of its core principles and doctrines.

Bill has had many experiences which he interprets as support for his view of the Gospel. He has a successful career, a great family, good health, and an abundance of opportunities to serve which he attributes to his adherence to tithing, prayer, fasting, righteous living, and heeding the counsel of prophets. Bill has so much confirming evidence of his life choices and beliefs that his confidence distribution has a mean of “the LDS church is the true church” with a very small standard deviation. Bill acknowledges that others have some pieces of truth, but is grateful that he has the blessing of knowing the fulness. Indeed, Bill claims he “knows” the Gospel is true. He would live and die by this, and admits that nothing could persuade him otherwise.

In this scenario, faith, belief, and knowledge take on a bit different meaning. Bill hasn’t really taken the same kind of “leap of faith” that John did. He has put his beliefs to the test and received verification that they were correct. While he has somewhat probed the less probable regions of his confidence (the tails of his distribution) he interprets the information as confirming his beliefs. His confidence in his mean is so great it would be easy to classify Bill’s “faith” or “belief” as “knowledge” (which of course he does regularly at testimony meetings). Each successive spiritual experience or life event, properly interpreted, only adds more information which confirms Bill’s knowledge.

The Disaffected Mormon

Fred is in the same boat as Bill. He is a lifelong member of the LDS church, grew up in Salt Lake City, and did all he was asked to do. However, about a year ago he encountered some individuals that posed challenging questions to his worldview. Initially, Fred’s response was much like Bill’s, that is, he interpreted information to confirm his knowledge. But eventually the information became so overwhelming that Fred had to concede he might not have it quite right.

Fred has also had many spiritual manifestations, but his probing into psychology convinces him that much of it can be explained by regular, well understood psychological phenomena. Fred has also been richly “blessed” with a good career, great family, etc. but has to acknowledge that many non-Mormons have also been similarly blessed. For Fred, his confidence distribution is beginning to change. Each new piece of information, incorporated loosely via a built-in Bayesian inference calculator, shifts the distribution away from his mean of “the LDS church is the true church.” Initially, the information only increases his standard deviation as he acknowledges truth in other places, but eventually his mean starts to shift as well when he examines what he considers to be the lack of evidence for the historicity of The Book of Mormon, the myriad conundrums in Church history, etc. Most alarming for Fred is the feeling of betrayal by not realizing these things earlier in life which he attributes to white-washing by the LDS church.

In this scenario it would be easy to claim that “faith” is being destroyed. I think this is erroneous. Rather, I would say that “faith” is shifting. Fred now has faith in other things, though admittedly less faith in the LDS church being the true church. After a year of struggling, Fred admits he no longer has any confidence that the LDS church is the true church.

Contrasting the Scenarios

The commonalities between the scenarios are interesting. Each individual is doing what he thinks is most probable. John and Fred actually took a “leap of faith” to probe the less probable regions of their confidence distribution which turned up valuable information. Additionally, since some previous experiences had modified their distribution, their built-in Bayesian inference calculator was perhaps more able to objectively incorporate the new information. While Bill did occassionally probe the less probable regions of his distribution, the new information was interpreted to add more evidence to his beliefs.

This leads me to conclude that the biggest argument over “faith,” “belief,” and “knowledge,” actually has nothing to do with one’s “faithfulness” and everything to do with the quantity, types of, and weighting given to different types of evidence. For John and Bill, spiritual manifestations are a perfectly valid form of evidence, perhaps even the most important kind, which they weight appropriately. For Fred, this used to be the case, but as he discovered new information he had to modify his weightings, and began to reject some forms of evidence (spiritual manifestations) previously acceptable to him.

I subscribe to the “confidence distribution” model for understanding people’s beliefs, motivations, actions etc. because I believe it drives to the real issues which is what types of evidence are accepted by people, and what importance they place on that evidence.

This kind of reasoning also brings a different perspective to the word “doubt.” We could say that Fred is “doubting” and couch this in negative terms, but I think a more appropriate characterization would be to admit that Fred now accepts other forms of evidence and hence his faith has shifted. For Fred, he is being intellectually honest, as is Bill and John. This doesn’t make one more faithful, or more spiritual than the others, just different!

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?

Bridges built using sound engineering principles are safe. The Bay Bridge was built using sound engineering principles. Therefore, the Bay Bridge was safe (at least when it was built).

This form of reasoning is reliable, at least as far as logic goes, producing correct conclusions from the premises.

In contrast, inductive reasoning is a form of reasoning in which the premises indicate some degree of support for the conclusion but which do not completely support it. For example:

All bridges I have walked across have not fallen. Therefore all bridges are safe to walk across.

This form of reasoning is unreliable in producing valid results. It is a logical fallacy. There are many forms that inductive reasoning can take; generalization, proof by analogy, causal inference, prediction, etc. These forms of inductive reasoning have different strengths and can provide a form of “information” that is most useful albeit simultaneously by themselves unreliable.

There are people at both ends of the spectrum regarding inductive reasoning. Some people are all too willing to throw out the premises since no conclusion can be reliably drawn. These people ignore the “information” contained in the premises. In “information theory” (a branch of stochastic theory), “entropy” (an uncertainty measure) is used to quantify how much “information” exists in a premise. EVERYTHING has some amount of “information” even if it is very little. On the other end of the spectrum are people all too eager to rely on inductive reasoning supposing they have made a fantastic argument all while ignoring the holes in their logic. These people seem to assign WAY too much “information” to the premises.

Of the possible inductive reasoning techniques, Bayesian inference has become the most influential and reliable. In fact, Bayesian inference continues to be extremely important and reliable particularly in fields of science and engineering in which a reliable conclusion is produced in the presence of noise and modeling error.

In my previous post I discussed why I feel faith is not well understood in Mormonism and why I think some knowledge of Bayesian probability, coupled with Bayesian inference does a good job of explaining what faith, knowledge, and belief are and how we can apply it in our lives. In this post I will elaborate on Bayesian inference as a form of inductive reasoning and try to show how I believe it influences our faith, beliefs, and knowledge.

Bayesian Inference

Bayes’ rule relates one conditional probability to its inverse through a prior and marginal probability (don’t worry this will become clear in a sec). The formula is:
[math]P(A|B)=\frac{P(B|A)P(A)}{P(B)}[/math]
A conditional probability (i.e. [math]P(A|B)[/math]) is the probability of some event A given that B occurs. This reads “probability of A given B.” Explaining the formula:

• Let [math]A[/math] represent a new hypothesis
• Let [math]B[/math] represent a new piece of evidence
• [math]P(A|B)[/math] is the posterior probability (i.e. the probability we are interested in) and is the probability of our hypothesis given our new evidence
• [math]P(B|A)[/math] is called the likelihood and is the inverse of what we actually want. This is the probability of our evidence given our hypothesis
• [math]P(A)[/math] is the prior (i.e. what we believe before we start)
• [math]P(B)[/math] is the marginal probability and represents the probability of witnessing the evidence under all possible hypotheses

There is also a form of Bayes’ rule that works for PDFs and/or distributions as well. It is a bit more difficult to follow but the idea is the same.

A Simple Example

A simple example from Wikipedia will help.

To illustrate, suppose there are two full bowls of cookies. Bowl #1 has 10 chocolate chip and 30 plain cookies, while bowl #2 has 20 of each. Our friend Fred picks a bowl at random, and then picks a cookie at random. We may assume there is no reason to believe Fred treats one bowl differently from another, likewise for the cookies. The cookie turns out to be a plain one. How probable is it that Fred picked it out of bowl #1?

Intuitively, it seems clear that the answer should be more than a half, since there are more plain cookies in bowl #1. The precise answer is given by Bayes’ theorem. Let [math]H_1[/math] correspond to bowl #1, and [math]H_2[/math] to bowl #2. It is given that the bowls are identical from Fred’s point of view, thus [math]P(H_1)=P(H_2)[/math], and the two must add up to 1, so both are equal to 0.5. The event [math]E[/math] is the observation of a plain cookie. From the contents of the bowls, we know that [math]P(E|H_1)=30/40=0.75[/math] and [math]P(E|H_2)=20/40=0.5[/math]. Bayes’ formula then yields
[math]P(H_1|E)=\frac{P(E|H_1)P(H_1)}{P(E|H_1)P(H_1)+P(E|H_2)P(H_2)}[/math]

[math]P(H_1|E)=\frac{0.75\times0.5}{0.75\times0.5+0.5\times0.5}[/math]

[math]P(H_1|E)=0.6[/math]
Before we observed the cookie, the probability we assigned for Fred having chosen bowl #1 was the prior probability, [math]P(H_1)[/math], which was 0.5. After observing the cookie, we must revise the probability to [math]P(H_1|E)[/math], which is 0.6.

The most important part of this example is to note that there is information (in a stochastic sense) in the evidence that we observed that a plain cookie was drawn. Bayesian inference gives us the tools necessary to characterize our belief about the bowl from which Fred picked the cookie.

A Practical Example

Let’s walk through a more practical and intuitive example to illustrate how this might relate to faith, knowledge, and belief.

Suppose Mary grows up in San Francisco, regularly traveling over the numerous bridges connecting the peninsula to the mainland. She has traveled over these bridges numerous times. She believes that these bridges were constructed using sound engineering principles. She also believes that standards were in place to help guide the engineers in making good decisions. She believes that steel is very strong, and that the materials used met some arbitrary specification for stress standards and strength. She also believes there are some engineers who regularly inspect the bridge for weaknesses and problems and would alert her if necessary.

These are all fairly reasonable assumptions in our modern society, and we might easily say that Mary “knows” that if she goes across the Golden Gate today that the bridge will not collapse. In this regard it likely takes little “faith” for her to go across the bridge. She doesn’t have to take a “mighty leap” as it were. She doesn’t grow spiritually by exercising this faith/knowledge to cross the bridge. Nevertheless, it is clear to everyone (I hope) that Mary, in fact, does not “know” that the bridge is safe. There is no way she can know. All she could say is that she knows that the last time she crossed the bridge it did not collapse.

In terms of my last post, we might say that Mary’s confidence distribution has a mean of “the bridge is safe” with a very very small standard deviation.

Now, let us suppose that one day Mary goes across the Bay Bridge (which is and probably will be forever under construction) and part of the bridge collapses. Fortunately, Mary is on the part of the bridge that remains safe. But she witnesses the tragedy, including the loss of many lives.

The question is, what information is contained in this observation and how should it effect Mary’s confidence/knowledge/belief/faith in her frequent bridge crossing? The conclusion is very difficult. If we use inductive reasoning we might say:

All bridges built using sound engineering principles will not collapse. The Bay Bridge collapsed. Therefore, all bridges are not safe.

Although this conclusion feels like a real stretch, if we place ourselves in Mary’s shoes it might seem like a reasonable conclusion given the fear associated with witnessing the collapse of a bridge. From Mary’s perspective, from a Bayesian point of view, the evidence she saw was so overwhelming, and she inappropriately placed such great weight on it, that the mean and standard deviation of her confidence distribution shifted wildly. At this point, her mean has likely shifted to “all bridges are not safe” with a very small standard deviation. Now, it does take a “mighty leap” of faith for Mary to cross the bridge, and she may grow spiritually/emotionally by taking that leap.

Of course to a third party concerned relative this conclusion is completely unreasonable. We can poke holes in her reasoning all day long. Just because the Bay Bridge collapsed doesn’t mean another will. Just because the Bay Bridge collapsed doesn’t mean engineering principles are invalid. We don’t even know the cause of the collapse. Just because the Bay Bridge collapsed doesn’t mean the system of inspecting bridges is broken. The list could go on and on. From our perspective, we might say that Mary’s confidence distribution shouldn’t change at all! But that would ignore the information contained in the observation and/or assign far too little weight to it.

The right answer is to acknowledge the information contained in the observation and assign the appropriate weight to it. Obviously this is a completely arbitrary and subjective exercise. Who is to say what the right weight is? Who is to say what the appropriate measure of information is? Bayesian inference gives us the tools to analyze the problem but it does nothing to help us know how to characterize the evidence and assign appropriate weight to our evidence.

The Application to Faith in Mormonism

Since this post is already too long, I’ll only weakly apply this to faith and save a more in depth analysis for my next post (though I think if you give it some thought the connections are readily apparent).

Bayesian inference can be a valuable tool for helping us understand how to apply evidence into our confidence distribution for a specific hypothesis. “Faith,” “knowledge,” “belief,” etc. are measures of confidence from which we conclude that we will perform various actions. The real question regarding our “faith” is what weight we apply to various kinds of evidence. How it effects our confidence distribution is very simply described using Bayes’ rule.

For most members of the church, spiritual manifestations are a critical piece of evidence that validate their beliefs. They therefore place high weights on those pieces of evidence, giving them a mean of “the LDS church is true” with a very low standard deviation. For others, spiritual manifestations may be too wrapped up in psychology, emotions, etc. to be reliable. Hence they place low weight on such evidence and although they may have the same mean, they may have a larger standard deviation on their confidence. Those who experience disaffection may throw the “baby out with the bathwater” and dismiss the experience altogether, eventually allowing their mean to shift to “the LDS church is NOT true” with a low standard deviation.

Humans have a very good Bayesian inference mechanism built right into their intelligence. We can perform Bayes’ rule calculations internally with very little effort and often very appropriately draw good conclusions amidst a plethora of evidence particularly when we have no psychological attachment to the outcome. But when we do have psychological attachment, it becomes VERY VERY difficult to not allow the internal Bayesian inference mechanism to become biased.

Our Concept of Faith

We typically turn to two scriptural sources for understanding faith. In Hebrews 11:1 we read:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Additionally, in Alma 32:21 it says:

And now as I said concerning faith – faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.

In Mormonism I think we have a hard time reconciling faith in large part because of our scriptures coupled with the “faith” it requires to believe our foundational truth claims. For example, why doesn’t God just come down to all of us and show us an “unmistakable witness” such that everyone “knows” beyond doubt that he is God? Furthermore, rather than a prophet expounding God’s plan, he himself could give it to us so we “knew” it came from him. From The Book of Mormon we have several examples where such “knowledge” was quickly turned to doubt and sin. We use these examples to show that such “knowledge” doesn’t produce the faith required for salvation. Many Mormons will argue that if such manifestations occurred it would be too easy to “know” the truth and faith would no longer be required (which we know is unacceptable since faith is required for salvation). As a sidenote, I’d like to point out the irony that most members “know” the church to be true, which, according to this reasoning means faith is no longer required for most members.

This feels tragically flawed to me. Did Joseph Smith have faith? I think so, yet he ostensibly saw God and Jesus Christ many times and surely “knew” beyond a reasonable doubt that they existed. Was Joseph somehow at a disadvantage because he had actually seen God? Was his faith destroyed by his “knowledge”? Why was Joseph’s vision acceptable, not destroying his faith, but a “sign” would not be acceptable because it would destroy faith?

The situation gets even worse. When someone expresses doubt in the church’s truth claims, they are often labeled as lacking faith. This may feel (to the doubtful individual) like an accusation of being too weak to accept things on faith. Or perhaps that the individual must check their logic and reasoning at the door in order to have the faith necessary for salvation. It marginalizes those who have different thresholds of faith, belief, and knowledge, and elevates those who have faith no matter how ridiculous the claims may be. This type of sentiment may also be responsible for the cultural notion that the widow who sacrifices her last dollar to tithing, rather than buying food for her children is somehow more righteous/spiritual/faithful than one who would not. Examples of faith are couched in terms of individuals who appear to act irrationally to a non-LDS third party observer.

Stochastic Processes

Stochastic processes are processes that are non-deterministic. In other words, they are random, or based on probability theory. To fully elaborate on this theory we need some definitions (I apologize to the mathematics averse, but please bear with me as it will give us some powerful tools to discuss some very important topics):

• Random variable: a random variable is neither random, nor a variable (crazy I know). Rather it is a function (a mathematical function). A random variable maps the possible outcomes of a random event to a set of unique numerical values. For example, a random variable for a fair two-sided coin might be X=1 (if heads), 0 (if tails).
• Probability Density Function (PDF): the probability density function describes the relative likelihood for the outcomes of a particular random variable. An example of this could be a regular “bell curve” distribution describing how a group of students performed on a test. We may also refer (with an abuse of notation) to a PDF as a distribution. (NOTE: for the mathematically inclined, I am intentionally blurring the lines between discrete and continuous random variables. Additionally, for simplicity sake I am merging the concepts of probability density function and probability distribution, though they are in fact different)
• Frequentists: frequentists interpret probability as a measure of probability of an event in a large number of trials. For example, if I tell the frequentist that the probability of landing on either heads or tails of a fair two-sided coin are 1/2 the frequentist may reason as follows: since the probability of landing on either heads or tails is 1/2, that means if we toss a coin a certain number of times, I expect that half the time it will land on heads, and the other half on tails.
• Bayesians: bayesians interpret probability in a more subjective manner using probability as a measure of personal confidence. If I tell the bayesian the same information he/she may reason as follows: since the probability of landing on either heads or tails is 1/2, and I had to place a bet on what the outcome of one specific coin toss might be, I have no reason to have more confidence in the coin landing on one side over the other. Therefore placing my bet on heads is just as good as tails.
• Let A be an event or outcome (doesn’t matter what it is), P(A) is the probability of said event occurring.
• Mean (describes a PDF or distribution): let us loosely define this to be “the most probable event or outcome.” It could also be simply an arithmetic average, but the first definition is better for my purposes. In reality, the mean is the expected value of the random variable where expected value has a precise mathematical meaning analogous to the concept of the center of mass in classical mechanics.
• Standard deviation (describes a PDF or distribution): let us loosely define standard deviation as the variability from the mean. Often the standard deviation is an indication of how confident we should be in the mean. The proper definition is the square root of variance. Variance is the second central moment of a real-valued random variable.
• A normal distribution (Gaussian distribution, or bell curve): a normal distribution is the one you are all most likely familiar with – a regular bell curve.
• The prior distribution: our distribution of confidence before we add any data (may be a uniform distribution, indicating all things are equiprobable).
• The posterior distribution: the distribution of confidence after accounting for all the data.

Using Stochastic Theory

Stochastic theory allows us to quantify our uncertainty in various processes. This relies heavily on the bayesian concept defined above (for now let’s forget about the frequentists). Bayesians use probability to describe their confidence in a certain event or outcome. Let’s walk through an example:

Let’s suppose I have a class of 30 students. I am going to give them the same exam I gave a similar group of students 5 years ago. From my previous class the results yielded a very nice bell curve (normal distribution) with a mean of 75% and a standard deviation of 2. If I am to predict how well a single student will perform (ignoring all other extraneous information), I might say, with a fair amount of confidence, that the student will score a 75%. The small standard deviation gives me this confidence.

Conversely, let’s consider the same scenario, only this time the previous resultsyielded a bell curve with a mean of 75% and a standard deviation of 10. This time, I might be much less confident in predicting a student scores a 75%, but I still would predict a score of 75%.

We can see that a combination of the mean, and standard deviation, in this example, gives us a mechanism for predicting a student’s score as well as evidence for assessing our confidence in that prediction.

Faith as Confidence

The tools of stochastic theory give us a method of modeling and understanding our confidence in various outcomes or events. I propose a new mechanism for understanding and discussing faith, knowledge, and belief – namely the bayesian notion of confidence. I think this has several major advantages:

• It levels the playing field and creates understanding. We no longer have to argue over the semantics of faith, knowledge, or belief. We can shift the argument to what really matters – the evidence.
• It admits all forms of “evidence” including personal spiritual manifestations and allows each individual to weight the evidence as he/she sees fit. That “evidence” can then easily be incorporated into the confidence distribution.
• It removes the tendency to label. That is to say, it would be acknowledged that those who doubt truth claims have different weights attached to certain pieces of evidence. We might argue over the proper weighting one ought to give to a certain piece of evidence, but one’s weighting does not make him or her more or less faithful, just different.
• It is intuitively satisfying and generally describes human behavior. I don’t think I’m really elaborating on anything that most of you don’t already know or have thought about. I’m just spelling it out more clearly and hopefully giving you some technical tools for visualizing it.
• The only definition of irrational is not acting in accordance with one’s confidence. Even those who act according to a “whisper from the Holy Ghost” against their better judgment are seen as rational since they clearly weight the “whisper from the Holy Ghost” more than their judgment.

In part two of this post I will walk through an example of how I think this theory enlightens the faith discussion, levels the playing field, and accurately describes what we really mean when talking about faith, knowledge, and belief.

To me, the answer as attributed to Paul in Corinthians is crystal clear and easy advice:

1 Corinthians 7 : 12-16

12 But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.
13 And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.
14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.
15 But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.
16 For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?

If you accept Paul’s writings as doctrinally binding, this means you can allow an unbeliever who wants to leave to go, but you should stay with your spouse otherwise.  Paul’s counsel reminds me of E. Bednar’s personal life growing up in a house with a non-LDS father and going to church with just his mother.  Eventually, after E. Bednar was an adult, his father did choose to join the church.  I think most confusion regarding mixed belief marriages is related to this scripture in 2 Cor 6:14:

14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

But this second one seems to be about whom you choose to marry or associate with, while the first one is about someone who is already married.

According to Paul’s advice, divorce of an unbeliever is only justified if that unbelieving spouse desires to leave.  Yet we hear time and again of believing spouses who consider loss of testimony a valid reason for divorce.  Why?  Here are some reasons that have been discussed around the b’nacle:

• Change.  It’s normal for spouses to fantasize about divorce when there has been a material change to the “marriage contract” as they viewed it.  For example, John McCain reevaluated his marital contract when his wife became disabled and he ditched her for the leggy blond heiress.  The fantasy may be normal and common, but actually carrying through on it is a bit unsavory.  All marriages will experience change.  Spouses will grow old, develop independent interests, get fat or skinny, change political views, have changes to sexual interest, etc.  While studies show that living in a bad marriage is detrimental to health, the negative health effects of divorce are devastating and lasting.  Being resilient and flexible enough to make marriage work through change maintains your health, both mentally and physically.
• Control.  If either spouse attempts to control the other spouse’s behavior, the marriage is on rocky ground.  Control may not degenerate to abuse, but it is in the same family of behaviors.  Marriage based on respect and mutual love does not involve controlling the choices our spouse makes.  We may wish they would choose something different, but coercing or manipulating or threatening to get what we want is another fantasy best left unindulged.  In marriages where the wife exhibits controlling behavior, husbands have a marked negative health impact that often results in an earlier death.  Maybe that’s something the controlling wife considers a benefit of her behavior.
• Opportunism.  This is one that few people will openly own, but it often sounds something like “I deserve better” or “My patriarchal blessing promised me . . . ” or “Heavenly Father wants me to have . . .” or even “My kids deserve a father who . . .”  Often what is behind those statements are two sentiments:  1) entitlement (last I checked we are still only entitled to taxes and death in this life), and 2) viewing the spouse as an obstacle to “what I want” or “what I deserve.”  Often, the believing spouse in this scenario feels entitled to a spouse who will allow him or her to maintain status in the church.  It can also be based on a fear of loss of exaltation or salvation (meaning status in the life to come).  This is the opposite of charitable love and honoring our marital vows; it is putting self ahead of the marriage.  Some will also talk of the entitlement in terms of their children (e.g. “the children deserve a mother or father who . . .”), but again, it’s not giving the children a very good example of how marriage works or of Christ-like behavior.
• Fear.  Behind a lot of failed marriages lies raw fear.  Fear of change, fear of loss of control in your life, fear of loss of status, fear of eternal consequences that are unclear in one’s changes circumstances.  Fear is something that must be faced with courage and love.  This can take time.

There is obviously justification for leaving a marriage that is abusive.  No one should be in fear of physical harm or be subject to ongoing verbal abuse, but even in cases of abuse, individuals have different definitions of what is abusive, when does disagreement become verbal abuse, etc.  Clearly, anyone can choose to leave a marriage for any reason at any time.  Marriage is voluntary.  But that doesn’t make one’s choice justifiable or healthy for personal growth.  Those who divorce are prone to make the same mistakes in future relationships (consider Emma Smith whose second husband Louis Bidamon was unfaithful).

What do you think of Paul’s counsel?  Is divorce of an unbelieving spouse who is faithful to marriage vows, loving, a good parent, and not controlling or abusive ever morally justified?  Discuss.

When Jesus was suffering on the cross at Calvary, those who put Him there surrounded Him to mock Him. They jeered, “If [thou art] the King of Israel . . . come down from the cross, and we will believe . . . .” (Matt 27:42)

I have emerged from the other end of a marriage that stripped me of my ability to trust myself. It is taking hard work to believe the things that I have survived. I have been accused of things I did not do in a court that seemed sympathetic to the other side. I have learned how to live with a measure of real and daily fear. I have witnessed almost every purpose of my life crumble in my hands. I have not, by any means, lived through the worst that life has to offer, but I have lived through my lot only to be confronted by those who cannot understand and so do not believe me.

My faith has also been left exposed to the elements, raw and aching. I have difficulty knowing what to believe or what to do. I have been confronted time after time with the choice to take the emotionally easy road, to accept what life is telling me, or to take a tiny, twisting and seemingly treacherous path without knowing for certain where I am going or if I can get there. So I think I understand a little better than I did those people who ask for proof.

I have noticed that sometimes those in scripture who ask for proof are given exactly what they ask for, such as Barak with Deborah, the people of Zarahemla, and the those of Ammonihah, while others are left to work out their uncertainty. Often, those who are given the sign they are seeking find that it doesn’t really change their opinions, in the end.

Perhaps the story of this type that I resonate best with is the tale of the man with the palsied son. When told that his son could be healed if he believed, he cried to Jesus, saying, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!”

Time upon time as I have found myself weeping bitterness into my abused pillow, I have cried these exact words in my heart, yearning to feel the fruits of my faith. I ache when I see so many people here on the Internet crying out because they have found themselves at a point in their lives when they just stop believing in the gospel as presented by the LDS Church. I ache because I have looked into that abyss myself, and felt its depths.

The classic analogy to illustrate how that feels is the scene from Indiana Jones when his father lays dying behind him and he is faced with a choice of faith: to walk into a seemingly bottomless chasm, or to turn around and let his father die. He makes that choice, and luckily it works for him. One thing that is poignant about that story is that he almost fully expected to die when he took that step, but he took it anyways because the alternative was worse.

To me, this is raw, living faith. Right now, I am standing at the other end of a failed marriage, and almost every one of the things I have dedicated my life to lie crumbled at my feet. But I don’t keep going to Church and praying with my Father in Heaven because I know that things will work out for me or because I feel as though who I am now has anything to do with the Church and my ward. I pray to my Father and continue going to Church because the alternative—to give up on my dreams and turn my back on what I know (and I do mean know)—is far, far worse.

I don’t know what my future will hold. I don’t know what my Father has in mind for me. But I know Him, and I choose, with eyes open and fear in my heart, to trust Him. I will not wait to believe.

Immigration, and especially the porous border between Arizona and Mexico, is a current issue that seems to divide Mormons’ loyalties:

• Personally.  Many church members are very pro-Latino due to the large population of Hispanic members, the perceived shared family values, and the fact that so many members have served missions to Hispanic countries.
• Politically.  Church members in the U.S. are more predominantly Republican than Democrat (although neither party is directly endorsed by the Church); the political rhetoric of the right-wing lately has swung hard in the direction of anti-immigration (especially illegal immigration) and toward securing the U.S. borders as a measure of national security.

As the article states:

Pearce has repeatedly said his efforts to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and keep them from coming here is based on the Mormon Church’s 13 Articles of Faith, which includes obeying the law.

Nora Castañeda, 46, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Hermosillo, Mexico, who has been a member of the LDS Church for 35 years, said several colleagues confronted her after the law passed. . . She does not believe, however, that Pearce’s anti-illegal-immigrant stance is in line with the Mormon faith, which, in addition to teaching obedience to the law, teaches compassion.

The article points out that the church has no official stance on immigration policies which are clearly the province of governments:

Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for the LDS headquarters in Salt Lake City, said in an e-mail that elected officials who are Mormons do not represent the position of the church. She said the church has also not taken a position on immigration, which is “clearly the province of government.”

“However, Church leaders have urged compassion and careful reflection when addressing immigration issues affecting millions of people,” she said in the e-mail.

So, what do you think about the illegal immigration law and its reflection on the church?  I’m a bit torn on the issue.  Here are my reactions:

• Generally speaking, I’m against things that are illegal, including illegal immigration.
• I’m strongly against allowing terrorists into the country through unsecured borders, although this seems to be a more likely threat via airports than people trekking across an inhospitable desert.  But there is a risk that should be addressed.  However, ejecting non-terrorists doesn’t really further that aim.
• There are many human rights issues because of illegal immigration, including dangerous human trafficking and the conditions that illegal immigrants endure.
• Given that, and the inhospitable terrain that illegal immigrants must traverse to get into the U.S., only the most dire of circumstances and personal danger could drive someone to take such a desperate action.   It’s easy to be concerned about the human rights issues in our own country, but to overlook what those desperate individuals are fleeing in search of a better situation.  My compassion is moved.
• Generally speaking, I am pro-immigration.  Unless you’re a Native American, it’s a little hypocritical not to be pro-immigration.  Immigrants come here full of ideals and dreams and they work their way through the American dream just like our own forebears.  They willingly do some of the toughest work, stuff that even laid off Wall Streeters and desk jockeys are unwilling to do.
• I am decidedly pro-Latino!  Latino cultures are family-oriented, loyal, hard-working, and manage to have a lot of fun, too.  They have proud traditions just like everyone else, and they have a lot to offer the world.  Having served a mission in Spain, I have a lot of love and respect for Hispanic culture.

My own solution to the problem is simple:  the U.S. should buy Mexico.  It’s a win-win!  But since that’s not exactly on the table, I suppose I would like to see us come up with a way to secure the borders, a more open legal immigration policy, a pathway to citizenship for those who entered the country illegally, and diplomatic means to assist in improving the circumstances for those living in Mexico.

As a member of the church, though, the article brought up some additional questions:

• Is the church accountable for the actions of members who are elected officials?  I think not, although see my answer to the next question for a caveat.
• Should elected officials who are members be given carte blanche to associate their actions with Mormonism?  For one thing, how would that ever benefit anyone who lived anywhere but Idaho, Utah, and Arizona (possibly SoCal)?  Again, I say no.  Some correction in this case seems warranted based on Pearce’s political position.  It simply doesn’t seem right to me to pin his political choices on the LDS Articles of Faith.  After all, the AoF says “we believe in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law.”  It doesn’t tack on “and in creating additional laws to punish and deport anyone who has not jumped through our nearly impossible immigration hoops.”
• Is this grounds for someone to leave the church in protest?  Here I have to say I don’t really think so.  The church has not endorsed this position officially; it’s a political matter.  But I would say that if local members are behaving in ways that make it difficult for a specific group of people to attend, it’s understandable (yet unfortunate) that they would leave.
• What does the church do about members who have illegally immigrated?  This one’s a bit of a minefield, and my guess is that we have no official stance.  Personally, I would be hesitant to link one’s illegal status to matters like TR interviews (e.g. “honest in all your dealings”) when desperation or a desire to protect your family has caused you to flee your dangerous home situation for a better life.  I would, in a cowardly manner, propose a “don’t ask; don’t tell” policy for these situations.  Let the heads of cabbage and rotten tomatoes fly!

What do you think?  Discuss!

Church History Principles

1. Continuing exploration of our history is part of identity formation. As a church we seek always to clarify our identity, message, and mission. In our faith story, we see clearly God’s Spirit giving this faith community (not a word we use in the LDS church) tools, insights, and experiences for divine purposes. A people with a shared memory of their past, and an informed understanding of its meaning, are better prepared to chart their way into the future.  (It feels like this is a little too intellectual for us, although I don’t see anything that is directly contradictory to our views.  I think it also implies a consensus-based faith tradition that differs from our authority-based tradition.  In the LDS side of the house, we take our divine instructions pretty literally, and as individuals, we don’t get a vote.)
2. History informs but does not dictate our faith and beliefs. The foundation and continuing source for our faith is God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. Studying history is not about proving or disproving mystical, spiritual, or revelatory experiences that birth or transform religious movements. (Is this a swipe at the LDS church’s truth claims?) Sound history informs faith (whereas inaccurate history misleads faith in either direction), and healthy faith leads to insights about history (ergo, unhealthy faith leads to misconceptions about history). Theology (too big a word for us – half our membership just tuned out) and faith, guided by the Holy Spirit, must play an important role in discovering the enduring meaning of such events as well as the deeper truths found in them (implying:  not just superficial truths based on an inaccurate understanding of history). Our understanding of our history affects our faith and beliefs. However, our past does not limit our faith and beliefs to what they were historically.  (This last statement holds more true to the CoC than it may to the LDS church.  The LDS church is more reliant on truth claims that are rooted in history.)
3. The church encourages honest, responsible historical scholarship. Studying history involves related fields. Historians use academic research to get as many facts as they can; then, they interpret those facts to construct as clear a picture as possible of what was going on in the past. This includes analyzing human culture to see how it affected events. Historians try to understand patterns of meaning to interpret what the past means for our future. This process should avoid “presentism,” or interpreting the past based on a current worldview and culture instead of the culture of the time.  (This bias of interpreting the past based on current worldview is at heart of a lot of negative views of history and is a worthwhile caution).
4. The study of church history is a continuing journey. If we say that a book on history is the only true telling of the story, we risk “canonizing” one version, a tendency we have shown in the past. This blocks further insights from continuing research. Good historical inquiry understands that conclusions are open to correction as new understanding and information comes from ongoing study.  (This is an excellent point that the LDS church could easily adopt).
5. Seeing both the faithfulness and human flaws in our history makes it more believable and realistic, not less. Our history has stories of great faith and courage that inspire us. Our history also includes human leaders who said and did things that can be shocking to us from our current perspective and culture. Historians try not to judge—instead, they try to understand by learning as much as possible about the context and the meaning of those words and actions at the time. The result is empathy instead of judgment. Our scriptures are consistent in pointing out that God, through grace, uses imperfect people for needed ministry and leadership.  (I love this one, and find it very useful.  However, I think this points to a generation gap that has been discussed elsewhere by the handsome Carter Hall.  There is a bias among the older generations to view flawed heroes as insufficiently heroic.  Baby boomers and onward tend to prefer flawed heroes.  Promoting “perfect” heroes results in disillusionment for these later generations, IMO).
6. The responsible study of church history involves learning, repentance, and transformation. A church with a mission focused on promoting communities of reconciliation, justice, and peace should be self-critical and honest about its history (of course, these are not the focus of the LDS church.  Instead our verbs are “perfecting, redeeming, proclaiming, and caring” – very action oriented verbs.  Hmmm.  Not a religion of reflection). It is important for us to confess when we have been less than what the gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to be. This honesty prompts us to repent, and it strengthens our integrity. (Again, this is an interesting perspective.  It takes the faults of the organization and personalizes them.  In the LDS church, the tendency is to view sin or flaws as personal failings, not organizational.  We do not internalize the flaws of the organization or personify the organization as something capable of repentance.)  Admitting past mistakes helps us avoid repeating them and frees us from the influences of past injustices and violence in our history. We must be humble and willing to repent, individually and as a community, to contribute as fully as possible to restoring God’s shalom on earth.  (I don’t think this part translates well for us.  This emphasis on communal responsibility and repentance is a bit foreign to the LDS church.  I suppose that’s a byproduct of CoC being more of a consensus / communal authority rather than authoritative/oligarchical.)
7. The church has a long-standing tradition that it does not legislate or mandate positions on matters of church history. Historians should be free to draw their own conclusions after thorough consideration of evidence. Through careful study and the Holy Spirit’s guidance, the church is learning how to accept and responsibly interpret all of its history. This includes putting new information and changing understandings into proper perspective, while emphasizing the parts of our history that continue to play a role in guiding the church’s identity and mission today.  (This one is interesting.  For one, the LDS church doesn’t really take a direct stand on historical matters.  Richard Bushman and Truman Madsen can write two very different books on the same topic, and the church does not officially endorse either.  Yet we do emphasize lessons that are based on history but only presented with the intention to edify and increase commitment.  If the history is damaging, we do not discuss it in our lessons because it would be counter-productive.  Whatever does not promote the mission of the church is correlated away).
8. We need to create a respectful culture of dialogue about matters of history. We should not limit our faith story to one perspective. Diverse viewpoints bring richness to our understanding of God’s movement in our sacred story. Of course, historians will come to different conclusions as they study. Therefore, it is important for us to create and maintain a respectful culture that allows different points of view on history. Our conversation about history should be polite and focused on trying to understand others’ views. (I do think this is an area where the LDS church could improve.  We tend to be extremely defensive when confronted with any negative interpretations of our history.  I think we could do better at being polite and focused on understanding while maintaining our own more faithful interpretation of events.  But to do that, the faithful interpretation of events needs to pass muster, which it frequently fails to do.)  Most important, we should remain focused on what matters most for the message and mission of the church in this time.
9. Our faith is grounded in God’s revelation in Jesus Christ and the continuing guidance of the Holy Spirit. We must keep our hearts and minds centered on God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. As God’s Word alive in human history, Jesus Christ was and is the foundation of our faith and the focus of the church’s mission and message.  (A great wrap up statement for both churches, IMO).

Are these principles that the LDS church should likewise espouse or are they problematic in their own right?  Would the LDS church have difficulty with some of these principles if put into practice?  Is there a better approach?  IMO, the CoC approach has some good elements we could adopt, but does not directly translate into LDS culture on the following points:

• Community vs. authority.  The LDS church doesn’t take doctrines to referendum.  Decisions are made in consensus at the Q15 level, based on prayerful consideration.  If the Q15 don’t agree, status quo prevails.  By contrast, the CoC is more egalitarian in its decision-making, making decisions “by common consent.”
• Responsibility for the past.  Because the LDS church is more of a top-down organizational church and less of a “faith community” (as evidenced by the fact that the term “faith community” sounds like some sort of PC term for a free-love hippie commune to my LDS ears) there is no group ownership for mistakes of past individuals, even generally among the leadership, but certainly not among the membership.  Passages that reflect this POV don’t resonate for that reason.
• Directness.  The LDS church definitely doesn’t favor this kind of direct approach that ties our hands.  While the CoC talks and writes about openness and change, creating collateral materials that can be reviewed time and again, the LDS church prefers to minimize collateral.  Even the collateral that exists (lds.org, Gen Conf talks, etc.) is often subtly contradictory and written from contrasting viewpoints that enable multiple interpretations, creating a patheon of doctrine.  If you search “Church History” on lds.org (go ahead, I’ll wait), there’s really not much there at all.
• Intellectual approach.  There are church leaders who favor an intellectual approach and who would find these principles appealing; yet, the style of these principles and the ideology seems like it might be inaccessible or off-putting to many lay members of the much larger LDS church.

Here are some principles or talking points that I would suggest for the LDS church (written as if I had to draft it for the church, which I don’t, thank goodness!  Because it was actually really hard to come up with these):

• All history is biased.  Historical elements in scripture are also biased by authors, cultural markers, and limited understanding.  Church history is similarly biased.  Understanding history requires a respect for the inherent biases in what we are reading, whether those biases are in favor of or against the church or an individual.  And our understanding of history is biased by our personal experiences, our views, and time in which we live.
• Understanding history can provide insight.  We can better understand patterns that influenced behavior and that tend to repeat over time within a culture.  We can empathize with our predecessors; our hearts are turned to our fathers and mothers in reviewing their experiences.  We are given countless examples that illuminate our own path, either as cautionary tales or as role models and most often as both.
• Church history is still being written.  Although divine instruction is timeless, our ability to understand it can shift over time and the relevance of different instructions can change as circumstances change.  We should be mindful of the temporal biases inherent in our human understanding as we strive to follow God’s will and comprehend our common history.
• Personal experience leads to faith.  We encourage church members to follow the spirit and to prayerfully seek instruction from Heavenly Father.  This type of humble truth-seeking can help us avoid errors in discernment and criticism of others that can lead to self-justification and sin.
• Our aim is to lead people to Christ.  While history can inform us and provide insight, ultimately it is through seeking a personal relationship with Christ and following His teachings that we grow spiritually and achieve our potential as sons and daughters of God.

What do you think the church should say regarding thorny historical issues?  Anything?  Discuss.

From the Op-Ed (you can mentally replace some of the Catholic references with “Mormon” if that helps):

there seem to be two Catholic Churches, the old boys’ club of the Vatican and the grass-roots network of humble priests, nuns and laity in places like Sudan. The Vatican certainly supports many charitable efforts, and some bishops and cardinals are exemplary, but overwhelmingly it’s at the grass roots that I find the great soul of the Catholic Church

It’s because of brave souls like these that I honor the Catholic Church. I understand why many Americans disdain a church whose leaders are linked to cover-ups and antediluvian stances on women, gays and condoms — but the Catholic Church is far larger than the Vatican.

And unless we’re willing to endure beatings alongside Father Michael, unless we’re willing to stand up to warlords with Sister Cathy, we have no right to disparage them or their true church.

Personally, I find the highs are often higher in Catholicism because of the nature of “vocation”; nuns and priests literally give their whole life to God in a way that Mormons, who consider family life central to God’s plan, simply don’t.  But the lows are also lower, due to a few things Catholicism doesn’t share with Mormonism:  an almost two-thousand year history (and its accompanying baggage), the unhealthy sexual repression of a celibate clergy, an extremely strong anti-birth control stance (that many of its adherents ignore), and the belief in Papal infallibility (a notion that some Mormons like to flirt with).

So, what do you think?  Is the church its organization and leadership or is it the people, its adherents?  Do people get lost in the criticism of the organization and forget the good done by individuals?  Discuss.

• 
• The unrepentant sinners & the unconverted.  The rebellious.  There are stories of missionaries who went out because they were essentially bribed with a promised car or job because parents hoped that a mission would “clean them up” or get them back on track from their wayward existence.  Anyone who served a mission before the change (like I did) probably knew a few of these guys.  If this group used to make up about 3% of the mission population, it has now been eliminated.  These guys were probably pretty independent and resilient; cars and jobs are powerful motivators.  Of course, the ones I knew were mostly self-serving jerks and not very good missionaries unless their acts did in fact get cleaned up on the course of their missions.
• The repentant sinners.  In E. Ballard’s original address on Raising the Bar, he said, “The day of the ‘repent and go’ missionary is over.”  Eliminating these from the pool probably has some preventive value (shame avoidance is a powerful motivator).  My guess is that this used to be a pretty high percentage of missionaries – maybe as high as 25%.  Or else I was just in a unique mission.

 Although we’ve all heard great stories of hardened sinners who found their souls while serving a mission, I think we can all agree that might not be the best method of conversion.  But losing the repentant sinners feels like a loss on a few fronts:  1) everyone is a sinner, and demarking between degrees of sin doesn’t feel quite right to me, 2) I disagree with the implication that they are more likely to slip into those same sins again on their mission (at least that’s not what I saw), 3) who better than the repentant sinner to relate to potential converts, and 4) they are far more likely to have the life experience needed to live independently without going off the deep end.

 In practice, if not based on the actual instructions to “raise the bar,” who was left in?

• The worthy.  Candidates who had no serious (confession-worthy) sins in their past to repent.  This group is the long-standing majority of missionaries both before and after the change.  I’m going to estimate this constituted 60% before the change, which would put it at 83% after the change.  If the goal was a higher percentage “worthy” missionaries, mission accomplished.
• The sheltered.  Children of helicopter parents.  These are the missionaries who have never lived away from home, don’t know how to cook, clean or care for themselves if they get sick, and haven’t had much experience dealing with people (e.g. a companion) outside their own family.  I’d ballpark this at 3% of the mission force before the change, but with the change, that boosts it to more like 4.2%.  These guys seem slightly higher risk for not making it through a mission.
• The mentally unstable.  It’s not a sin to have a mental illness, and depending on the mental illness and its treatment or lack thereof, it can prevent one from making missteps that would lead to a repentance issue.  However, this same issue could create problems for the missionary, out on his or her own, trying to cope with the stresses of a mission while also coping a mental issue.  Before the change, I would have ballparked this at 1% of missionaries, but with the change, this moves to 1.4%.  This group should be shrinking, but according to a SLTrib article, it may go unreported due to the stigma of not serving.
• Those with health issues.  Again, not a worthiness issue at all, but this can impact someone’s ability to complete their mission, especially if they are in an area with unfamiliar climates, foods, exposure to other ailments, and different doctor care.  I would have ballparked this one for my pre-bar-raised mission at about 3%, and based on these estimates, probably 4.2% now.
• The socially isolated.  Those that couldn’t get a date, much less commit sexual sin.  Poor social skills.  Possibly poor hygiene.  Could include extreme introverts.  OK, there’s a reason missionaries are occasionally mocked for their dorkiness.  I would have pegged this at about 5% of missionaries before the change.  With the change (if my original estimates are anywhere near right), that moves this to 6.9%.

In a talk by L. Tom Perry in the 2007 November Ensign, he said:  “Full-time missionary service is a privilege for those who are called through inspiration by the President of the Church. Bishops and stake presidents have the serious responsibility to identify worthy, qualified members who are spiritually, physically, and emotionally prepared for this sacred service and who can be recommended without reservation. Those individuals not able to meet the physical, mental, and emotional demands of full-time missionary work are honorably excused and should not be recommended. They may be called to serve in other rewarding capacities.“

• Stigma of not serving.  It seems that this idea of honorably excusing those who are not fully prepared is not well understood.  Someone who is unprepared emotionally, physically or spiritually is considered damaged goods by the lay membership.  Average members often still consider those who don’t serve a mission as unworthy, regardless the reason, not as “honorably excused.”
• Reluctance of local leaders to offend.  In some of these cases, a local leader determining that a young man or woman is not ready to serve a mission is an indictment of members’ parenting skills or social skills of the candidate.  This can result in hurt feelings and drive people away who are asking to serve.
• Lack of self-awareness.  Self-reported social, physical and emotional readiness may be unreliable, especially for young people with little exposure outside their family circle.
• No external assessment.  We determine worthiness based on the interview questions, mostly related to confessable sins.  But we don’t consistently apply as much scrutiny to issues that are in fact less reliant on self-reporting errors:  physical health and mental wellness. Both of these could be assessed in a clear manner through professional instruments and interviews with health care professionals.

What could we do differently?  Here are some suggestions (some of which are doubtless being done to varying extents):

1. Quit babying the youth.  YW and YM leaders should treat the youth who lead the quorums and YW groups to lead those groups, giving them clear opportunities to organize, lead, and instruct others.  Parents should push their kids to take on more reponsibility, not less.
2. Mainstream viable mission alternatives that are viewed as equal, non-token assignment with no associated stigma.  These can’t be populated with just those who are physically or mentally unable to serve a proselyting mission, or the stigma remains.
3. Require some minimum time living independently prior to serving (not just in dorms which often act as substitute parents).  This one might be a problem for those who don’t have the financial means to make it a reality, but there is something to be said for having to cook your own Ramen noodles and wash your own clothes regularly while living with people who aren’t related to you.  Perhaps serving “temporary” field missions would be a good approach; this was done with young members who were not yet old enough to serve missions when I was on my mission.
4. Provide better instruction on mission preparation that includes social skills (a bit tough to assess), emotional resilience, independence, and so forth.  Use external assessments to assist local leadership in good decision making.
5. Ensure better balance in considering all requirements:  social skills, emotional resilience, physical health, and worthiness / repentance.  Allow the repentant to serve, provided they are clearly ready in all areas, including the spiritual.  Technically, the guidelines do allow for this, but the wording of the original talk and instruction was so direct that there seems to be a reluctance to allow for it among local leaders.

Others have blogged on this topic here (friendly) and here (hater).

Have we lost something by preventing the repentant from going?  Or should we cut further to eliminate those who are socially unprepared or coping with mental or other health issues?  What are your experiences?  Do you disagree with my guesses at percentages above?  Do you have any great stories (who doesn’t) about the unconverted, the socially awkward, or the rest?

Discuss.

In a post at BCC, John Hamer gave a thorough history of Marsh’s disaffection with the Church and concluded:

“Thus, while the moral the Thomas B. Marsh fable, i.e., that faith can be shattered over something inconsequential, is true enough, it would probably make sense to tell a different, more appropriate fable to illustrate that moral.”

The same conclusion can be reached by considering additional aspects of Ryder’s story.  A talk in the Sunday morning session of General Conference by Donald L. Hallstrom titled Turn to the Lord referenced the Symonds Ryder story as follows:

Symonds Ryder was a Campbellite leader who heard about the Church and had a meeting with Joseph Smith. Moved by this experience, he joined the Church in June 1831. Immediately thereafter, he was ordained an elder and called to serve a mission. However, in his call letter from the First Presidency and on his official commission to preach, his name was misspelled—by one letter. His last name showed as R-i-d-e-r, not the correct R-y-d-e-r. This caused him to question his call and those from whom it came. He chose not to go on the mission and fell away, which soon led to hatred and intense opposition toward Joseph and the Church.

In such retellings of the Ryder fable, the misspelling of his name is often the only reason cited as the cause of his decision to then leave the church. (see B. H. Roberts in HC 1:260–61; Fawn M. Brodie in No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet, 118; Donna Hill in Joseph Smith: The First Mormon, 143; Cannon and Cook in Far West Record, 286; Dean C. Jessee in Papers of Joseph Smith, Volume 1: Autobiographical and Historical Writings, 511.) Probably the origin of this story is his funeral sermon preached in Hiram, Ohio, August 3, 1870, by B.A. Hinsdale.

“Ryder was informed, that by special revelation he had been appointed and commissioned an elder of the Mormon church. His commission came, and he found his name misspelled. Was the Holy Spirit so fallible as to fail even in orthography? Beginning with this challenge, his strong, incisive mind and honest heart were brought to the task of re-examining the ground on which he stood. His friend Booth had been passing through a similar experience, on his pilgrimage to Missouri, and, when they met about the 1st of September, 1831, the first question which sprang from the lips of each was–”How is your faith?” and the first look into each other’s faces, gave answer that the spell of enchantment was broken, and the delusion was ended. They turned from the dreams they had followed for a few months, and found more than ever before, that the religion of the New Testament was “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” (A. S. Hayden, Early History of the Disciples (1875), p. 251.)

Perhaps the misspelling was a bother to Ryder, but this one incident was hardly the sole reason for Ryder’s departure. For one thing, spelling was more fluid in the 19th century and earlier. An attempt at standardized spelling in the U.S. did not begin until the appearance of Webster’s “American Dictionary of the English Language” in 1828, and for at least a half century many words continued to be vociferously debated. American census-takers varied quite a bit in their reporting of people’s names, showing that they were not asking people “How is that spelled?” but rather writing the name as they thought it should appear. Ryder’s name appears as following in the U.S. census:

1830 census Hiram, Portage, OH: Simonds Rider
1840 census Hiram, Portage, OH: Symonds Rider
1850 census Hiram, Portage, OH: Simonds Rider, wife Mahitabel
1860 census Hiram, Portage, OH: Symonds Rider, wife Mehitable
1870 census Hiram, Portage, OH: Symands Rider, wife Mahitable

Ryder’s commission with the misspelling of his name took place in June 1831 and may account for his not going to Missouri, but as noted he did not leave the church until Ezra Booth’s return in September. In the meantime, Ryder became concerned about other developments. In a letter to A.S. Hayden he wrote:

“But when they [Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon] went to Missouri to lay the foundation of the splendid city of Zion, and also of the temple, they left their papers behind. This gave their new converts an opportunity to become acquainted with the internal arrangement of their church, which revealed to them the horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and place it under the control of Joseph Smith the prophet. This was too much for the Hiramites, and they left the Mormonites faster than they had ever joined them, and by fall the Mormon church in Hiram was a very lean concern.” (Symonds Ryder, “Letter to A. S. Hayden,” February 1, 1868, cited in Hayden, op. cit., pp. 220, 221.)

It seems that the coming threat of enforced consecration might have been more of a problem for Ryder than the misspelling of his name. The influence of his disaffected friend Ezra Booth must have also had an effect upon Symonds.

The Religion 341 Church History manual states:

“From the outset the Church had an unpopular public image that was added to by apostates and nurtured by the circulation of negative stories and articles in the press. People gave many reasons for apostatizing. For example, Norman Brown left the Church because his horse died on the trip to Zion. Joseph Wakefield withdrew after he saw Joseph Smith playing with children upon coming down from his translating room. Symonds Ryder lost faith in Joseph’s inspiration when Ryder’s name was misspelled in his commission to preach. Others left the Church because they experienced economic difficulties.”

Such a view boils the disaffection of these individuals down to a single, easily dismissed anecdote rather than acknowledging the difficult and complex issues they faced. This practice encourages members today to dismiss the very real concerns confronted by members who question aspects of the Church. “If you have questions, you must be sinning,” the party line goes. In reality, there are multiple tangled and tortuous reasons why someone may develop a crisis of faith. Not only should we look deeper into the available documents to discover the motivations of historical figures, we should listen, and listen, and listen some more to come to a greater understanding of our friends and associates who question.

As for Symonds, poor thing.  If he was really so concerned about spelling, he must have rolled over in his grave when they placed this tombstone — with the name of the “Desciples” church spelled wrong!

Generally, in LDS culture, when you determine that someone doesn’t have a TR, it’s human nature to automatically assume you know why based on reasons you think are most common; it’s also a little awkward to ask, which is why most people skate by on assumptions.  (Just because you assume a reason does not necessarily mean that you attach a judgment to that reason).  Do you assume they are behind on paying their tithing or that they have committed some serious sin?  Or do you assume they are being too self-critical in how they answer the questions?  Do you consider some reasons more “acceptable” than others?

[poll id="145"]

In your opinion, are some of these bigger issues than others (actually more important to temple admittance), in your opinion?  Here’s my ranking (I put these into groups that denote their importance).

 Definitely out:

• Adultery or fornication.  Kind of obvious.  I can’t imagine too many people disagreeing with me on this one.
• Not paying a full tithe.  If I quit paying my Lifetime Fitness membership, they won’t let me in either.
• Abusive family relationships.  Of course, the trick is whether someone admits it.  It assumes that an abusive person has the sociopathy to abuse people, but also is enough of a good guy to admit it.
• Polygamous affiliations.  Unless you are a recurring character on Big Love.
• Embezzlement / fraud.  Again, provided you are confessing such a thing. If you’re willing to commit fraud, what’s a little lying?  But I suppose if you’re imprisoned for fraud, you’re not getting an R&R pass to go to the temple anyway.

Subjective areas:

• Recently resolved issues related to those on the definitely out list, once restitution is made
• Struggling with porn or masturbation
• Emotional affairs
• Struggling with WoW, but intending to follow
• Failure to pay child support, but intending to pay it
• Affiliations with groups whose ideologies conflict (other than polygamous sects)
• Doubting, struggling with belief
• Intermittent garment wearing
• Church activity intermittent but recently improved

Not a TR issue:

• sexual thoughts, no actions
• struggling with anger in family settings, no abuse
• disliking but obeying the standards
• things not on the list like drinking Coke, playing face cards, being a Democrat, gambling, or opposing Prop 8
• church activity intermittent due to work commitments or health reasons

My own lists indicate that I view it as subjective based on your intentions and how long your intentions have been temple-ready.  So, how do your lists differ from mine?  Do you somehow avoid making these types of assumptions?  Discuss.

I want to explore these myths using the office of Prophet/President.  The centrality of his position hierarchically, the significant role he plays in the faith of many members of the Church and also the infrequency of contact with the general membership make this an apt example.

These myths come in many varieties.  There are stories about the Holy of Holies, about paintings of the Saviour and about mantle experiences. Now all of these may well be true, in whole or in part, or they may be completely fabricated. I am not concerned with their truth claims, rather I think that what is essential in the dynamic of these stories is the way that they become transferable between Prophets.

It is possible to trace a number of these stories (or variants of them) through many leaders, especially prophets, of the Church. This does not add to their fallacious nature rather it serves to reinforce what Bushman noted, which is that the office is endowed with charismatic gifts and not the person. Therefore it is probable, even expected, that these charismatic gifts are manifest by diverse men who hold the same office.

For example, the ‘This is the Place’ myth is re-cycled in England regularly but in a context far removed from Utah. Instead this myth focuses on the construction of the Preston Temple. Simply stated, a number sites were discussed but one site had a number of people who always resisted building permission. Yet, President Hinckley had asked for a Temple to built in Preston and when he saw the different sites he said… Yes, you guessed it. Then, though there were problems, the Temple went ahead. I am sure other similar stories abound.

My point is this, the process of re-cycling and repeating these mythic stories is one mechanism for maintaining the dynamism of a charismatic office, specifically the Prophet, in a Church where the general membership is so far removed from the individual. This is not to say that miraculous things do not happen, but these stories play an important sociological role in reinforcing this key notion that is rooted so firmly to the earliest days of the Church. These Mormon myths serve as a form of transferable charisma for an otherwise distant office.