I am a Mormon

I was talking to an LDS friend recently and she was surprised when I called myself a Mormon.  I go to sacrament meeting most weeks, and I have a calling - but she found it strange that I would consider myself a Mormon because of my doubts and dissenting views.

Sadly this is a common perception.  Even my own family has cast dispersion on my sincerity, and motives, and people that I don't know well question the morality of my actions or beliefs.  And so I want to write this message to other transitioning members who may have felt this marginalization

I have a strong commitment to my Mormon heritage.  It's couched in the context of a liberal and non-absolutist faith, but it is abiding.  

Early in my faith transition I felt like I was outside of the church.  In the months and years since, I have come to realize that I am Mormon.  I am a soul wrestling with the doctrine and the scriptures, I'm obsessed with finding truth and letting light and knowledge flow into me, and that is a deeply Mormon trait.

My reason for this journey has been to grow and evolve in knowledge and understanding, and although I feel that the LDS church as an institution is flawed, I'm not going to jettison my heritage.  An artist puts layers and layers of different pigments onto a tapestry, and when the final layer is applied, it is influenced by the depth of every layer that came before it.  The LDS church is part of my identity and it gives me resilience and power.  

Although I can no longer say that I know much of anything, I believe in this community: we are all souls struggling together to understand the nature of God and life.  

Is there reason to believe that God directly influence our lives?

Does God answer prayer, give guidance, allow for miracles, heal the sick through the priesthood, and otherwise give blessings to his followers?  To say that he does indicates that God impacts the reality that we live in.  If this is so then there should be evidence - a real, objective, effect that is measurable and testable.

With science, our understanding of truth is continually refined and improved upon.  Consider any bit of current scientific truth or knowledge: gravity, ecosystems, evolution, etc.  Scientists develop hypotheses and test against them to gather evidence that points us towards the truth.  As proofs are made and the body of evidence grows, the scientific community converges on truth and becomes united in it's understanding.

As a thought experiment, imagine a man plucked from the 15th century and dropped into today's world.  If we were to interview him about his understanding of any manner of 'truth' virtually all of his beliefs would be utterly laughable.  His knowledge of physics, medicine, and the nature of space and the universe would be eclipsed by any curious elementary school child.  But ask him about God and religion, and his belief would fit right into the spectrum of belief today.

This is because there is no way to test against the claims of religion or gather evidence to prove, or definitively refute it.  Where our knowledge of science, technology, and medicine has evolved and improved dramatically, our knowledge regarding the truth of religion has not budged.  And unlike within the scientific community, religious communities fracture and splinter.  New sects and ideologies are sprouting up everywhere.

To me, this lack of convergence strongly indicates that fact-based empirical evidence does not exist in religion.
  

I've laid out this argument in this past and been rebuffed by believers with the idea that God demands faith.  The argument goes that evidence would preclude the need for faith, and faith leads us to truth that is beyond understanding or immeasurable/not testable.

If we accept the argument that God's influence isn’t testable or measurable then our 'evidence' for belief is no longer empirical.  It is internal and based on personal feelings and emotion, or individual anecdotes (attributing our circumstances to God). 

However, given that people of all faiths describe similar emotional conviction as rationale for their beliefs, how can one truly know that his or her faith is correct unless one gives a thorough and fair investigation of other systems of beliefs?

But this would require a mind clear of bias - the clarity to recognize and stamp out internal cognitive dissonance for what he or she was raised to believe.  This is not simple, and may not even be possible.

Only by making a concerted effort to do this, can one defend his or her system of belief as the correct system of belief.

Still, this only applies to individual because this process is based on personal reaction to these doctrines and faiths, and not based on measurable, statistical evidence.  I can't find justification to say that this leads to perfect truth, only that it leads to the faith that is most meaningful to the individual.  

A Mormon Adrift

This is hard for me to write, because I feel like I have a great deal to say but no idea how to do it.  I feel spiritually adrift and confused.

I suppose I will start with the last time I remember feeling spiritually whole.  It was during my freshman year at BYU.  There was a distinct lesson in Sunday school that I recall in which we talked about the Plan of Salvation.  I felt so assured and so confident that I knew my place on earth.  I knew where I had come from, and where I was going, and why I was here.  

A year later I left for my mission unrefined, but faithful and confident that I was doing the Lord's work.  I was determined to be exact, to be faithful, to do things right and let God guide. A few amazing moments occurred.  But then, very slowly, small and niggling questions began to present themselves.  First, questions about the seer stone, about polygamy, and blacks in the priesthood.  I pushed these out of my mind as best I could, and focused on the spiritual high points that a mission yields, and cherished the interactions with the wonderful people of Guatemala.  But still, hairline cracks were starting to line my testimony.  

In the years since my mission there have been times that I've felt myself begin to descend into a spiritual struggle that was at times emotional and devastating.  I've tried to pace myself, to reign in my desire to fully delve into the details of the historicity of the church and put the more unsettling aspects of church doctrine under a magnifying glass. 

I believe that the leadership of the church are flawed individuals but deeply earnest and devoted to the cause.  Consistently I've privileged leadership current and past, and given them the benefit of the doubt in issues that I can't quite align with my own personal feelings of morality.

There are aspects of the gospel that have real power and move me as I read them and talk about them.  The individuals that I've met in my various wards are good people trying their best to do what is right.  In many ways the community has anchored my faith.  I'm deeply appreciative of the spiritual highs that the church has afforded me but also bruised by the lows and conflicted now more than I ever have been.    

But as time has passed my desire to understand has grown.  The church essays that have been published over the last few years have added fuel to my desire to know and understand truth plainly.  It's been ten years since my mission and only over the last three have I given myself over to uncertainty.  I am trying to give a frank, earnest, and sincere look at the church, it's history, and it's doctrine.  My approach has been at times clinical and other times emotional.  I've found it difficult to do this in a way that both captures the beauty of Christ's teachings, and yet allows me to be detached from my innate biases.

As I've focused on knowledge and truth, my appetite for it has grown exponentially, and the results of endless nights of researching and following sources has been seismic.  This is my heritage and it hurts to admit that I no longer hold spiritual certitudes.  My faith is shaken.  And still I'm left with an endless desire to delve into deeper inquiry.  

As of now, I find myself in an impossible position. On one hand, there are truths that I can no longer avoid even if I wanted to. On the other, there are pressing questions that I cannot explain away or pretend have been answered.  I feel that following the path that will bring me peace is in conflict with being obedient to the administration of the church as a whole.  I find myself going through the motions of everything related to the church and unable, but yearning, to fill a spiritual void. 

The week-to-week reality of being a member and attending church has become frustrating and dull in a way I never anticipated.  I find that the lessons feel shallow, and no longer satiate me.  Worse than this, I understand the mechanics of faith and prayer but cannot see a guiding hand in my life.  

This last week in church there was a talk on the Plan of Salvation, and it reminded me of that lesson I had as a student just starting college.  I can't go back to my previous state, to that certainty that I thought I had as a BYU freshman living in Heleman Halls.  This journey has lead me to recognize just how little I know.  I feel like I'm just scratching the surface, trying to get a glimpse of the truth, even if that truth is painful.  

It's not so much a question of whether the church is true for me anymore, it's now a question of which aspects are true and which are not. I always thought that it had to be all or nothing, until... it wasn't. 

The life of Joseph Smith: A timeline

1805: Joseph Smith born in Sharon Vermont, Dec. 23rd the fifth child of Lucy Mack and Joseph Smith, Sr 

1811: The Smith family moved to Lebanon, New Hampshire

1813: Joseph Smith contracted typhus fever. Infection in leg, which required surgery. Left him with a slight limp the rest of his life

1816: Family moved to Palmyra, New York

1820: Joseph Smiths first vision - Joseph first wrote an account of this in 1832.  There no evidence of a revival at that time

1822: Joseph Smith finds seer stone in a well with Willard Chase. Stone used for treasure digging, and to receive revelation/translate the Book of Mormon

1823: Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph on Sep. 23rd and revealed that Joseph would translate an ancient record, the gold plates. Joseph commanded to tell his father.  It spread around.  Not a lot of evidence of outright persecution, but we can imagine derision.  

1824: Starting in the Fall there was a revival in the neighborhood involving the Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists. This continued into Spring 1825. Joseph's mother, sister and two brothers joined the Presbyterians. 

1825: Oct-Nov. Josiah Stowell hired Joseph and his father to help him search for buried treasure near Harmony, Pennsylvania. Joseph boarded with Isaac Hale, where he met his future bride, Emma Hale.

1826: On March 20th, Joseph Smith was brought before Judge Albert Neeley on charges of money digging, using a "peep stone" to locate buried treasures for hire, according to Court records of Chenango County

1827: Joseph eloped with Emma Hale. Her father opposed the wedding. Stowell helped Joseph and Emma move back to Manchester, NY.

1827: On Sep 22nd, Joseph went to the hill and received from the Angel Moroni the gold plates, Written in Reformed Egyptian

1827: Oct-Nov; Joseph and Emma moved back to her father's farm in Harmony, Pa. They took the plates with them, Joseph started to translate.

1828: Feb, Martin Harris, who would later act as a scribe for Smith, took a document containing some of the characters copied from the plates to Samuel L. Mitchell and Charles Anthon to see if they were authentic. 

1828: Apr, Harris became Joseph's scribe

1828: June. Harris took 116 pages of manuscript back to Palmyra to convince his wife the translation was true. Lucy Harris either destroyed the pages or hid them.

1828: June 15; Smith's first child died shortly after birth, leaving Emma near death. Sometime after this, Joseph traveled to his parents' home to retrieve the manuscript from Harris, only to learn that Harris had lost it

1828: Fall; In the fall Smith returned to his translation, using his brother Samuel, wife Emma, and her brother Reuben as scribes.

1829: April; Oliver Cowdery took over as scribe.

1829: May 15th; John the Baptist bestowed the Aaronic Priesthood on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery as part of the restoration of God's Church on earth; JS later said that sometime after receiving the Aaronic Priesthood, Peter, James and John bestowed upon the Melchizedek Priesthood.

1829: June; Secured copyright for Book of Mormon. Moved to Fayette, NY to complete his translation

1830: Early in year; In order to raise funds for the printing of the Book of Mormon, Joseph gave a revelation for several men to travel to Canada to sell the copyright. The revelation failed and was not included in his 1833 printing of his revelations.

1830: March; 5,000 copies of Book of Mormon were printed by the Grandin Print Shop in Palmyra, NY. Martin Harris pledged his farm to cover the printing costs. In April of 1831 one hundred and fifty-one acres of Harris' farm were auctioned off to pay the bill.

1830: April 6th; The Church of Christ was organized in New York with a handful of people, as God's one true church on earth

1830: June; Began his revision of the Bible. Work on the revision continued into 1833. It has been estimated that half of the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants are in some way connected to this translation effort. While the whole revision has been printed by the Community of Christ 

1830: November; Sidney Rigdon and other Campbellites joined Mormonism.

1831: The Smiths and the church moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where Rigdon had been a pastor.

1831: June; Joseph Smith traveled to Jackson County, Mo. where it was revealed that it was to be the site of the City of Zion and a temple. Mormons started settlements in Missouri. Members living in two main groups, in Ohio and Missouri.

1832: September; Revelation that the church was to build a temple in New Jerusalem (Independence, Mo.) in this generation

1832: Fall; Joseph Smith wrote the earliest account of his first vision, attributing it to his sixteenth year (15 years old). In it he only mentioned "the Lord" had appeared

1833: Bible revision completed

1833: July; Joseph Smith's revelations were published as the Book of Commandments, at Independence, Missouri. The press was destroyed before the printing was completed, but a number of copies were salvaged.

1833: Fall; Mormons driven from Jackson County, Mo.

1834: The name of the church was changed to The Church of the Latter Day Saints.

1834: Military expedition to Missouri to help saints there; Zion's Camp

1835: February; Organized Council of Twelve Apostles, Quorum of Seventy.

1835: July; Church purchased Egyptian mummies and papyri. Joseph Smith began translating of the papyri, which would eventually be published as the Book of Abraham, part of the Pearl of Great Price. Also composed an Egyptian alphabet and grammar.

1835: Fanny Alger affair; Oliver Cowdery referred to it in 1838 as a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair." 

1835: September; A new edition of Joseph Smith's revelations was published under the title Doctrine and Covenants. However, numerous changes were made in the revelations from the 1833 printing. Section 101:4 denied the practice of polygamy. This section was maintained in every ed. of the D&C until replaced in 1876 with section 132 commanding polygamy. Also included in the 1835 ed. were the Lectures on Faith, which were deleted years later, in the 1921 ed. of the D&C.

1836: March; Dedicated the Kirtland temple.

1836: November; Smith established the Kirtland Safety Society Bank, but couldn't obtain a charter. Bank failed. Many members agitating against Smith

1837: A new edition of the Book of Mormon was published, with thousands of corrections in spelling and grammar.

1837: Missionaries sent to England

1837: December; Growing dissent among members over financial matters. Martin Harris excommunicated

1838: Joseph Smith moved from Ohio to Missouri in part due to law and dissenting members

1838: April; Oliver Cowdery excommunicated. David Whitmer withdrew his membership. The name of the church was changed toThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

1838: June; Rigdon preached his famous "Salt Sermon," directed at those who had opposed Smith. Two days later, eighty Mormons signed a statement (the Danite Manifesto) warning the dissenters to "depart, or a more fatal calamity shall befall you." Mormons formed the Danites. Dissenters Whitmer, Cowdery, and others fled Far West.

1838: August; Danites skirmish with anti-Mormons who try to prevent Mormons from voting at Gallatin. A civil war breaks out in four Missouri counties

1838: October 25; Apostle David W. Patten is killed while leading Danites against the Missouri militia in the 'Battle of Crooked River.' Apostle Parley P. Pratt kills a militiaman, and wounds another 

1838: October 27; Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issued the "extermination" order against the Mormons

1838: October 30; 17 Mormons were massacred at Haun's Mill, Missouri, by non-Mormon militia, headed up by Sheriff Jennings of Caldwell County

1838: Joseph Smith surrendered to Missouri militia at Far West and was imprisoned. Spends months in Liberty Jail while awaiting trial.

1839: Smith escaped while being transferred to another county, fled to Illinois. Settlement of what was to become Nauvoo, Illinois started.

1840: Mormon Church had about 17,000 members. Gov. of Illinois signed the Nauvoo charter, giving the city of Nauvoo extensive legal rights.

1841: Joseph Smith was sealed to Louisa Beaman, usually listed as his first plural wife. Over the next 3 years he would marry at least 33 women in secret marriages

1842: Relief Society established

1842-44: Joseph Smith, John Taylor and other members of the Mormon Church printed denials of polygamy in the newspaper, even when they were practicing it

1842: Smith published "Book of Abraham" in the LDS newspaper, Times and Seasons. Also, an account of Smith's 1820 vision was published for the first time.

1842: March; Smith became a Free Mason

1842: May; Smith privately introduced the temple endowment. Women were not included until September 1843.

1842: May; An assassination attempt is made on Missouri's ex-governor Lilburn W. Boggs, allegedly by former Danite and later member of the Council of Fifty Orrin Porter Rockwell

1842: Summer; John C. Bennett published his expose of Mormon polygamy, The History of the Saints, and was excommunicated.

1843: July; Smith privately dictated a revelation authorizing the practice of polygamy, but it was not formally announced until 1852, and was not included in LDS scripture until 1876 (present day D&C 132.) The 1876 D&C no longer contained the 1835 section denouncing polygamy.

1844: March;  established the theocratic Council of Fifty. In April Joseph was secretly anointed and ordained by the Council of Fifty as King, Priest, and Ruler over Israel on Earth

1844: April; "King Follett" sermon on plurality of gods 

1844: June 7; The first and only issue of the Nauvoo Expositor was published. In it former church leaders, now dissenters, condemned Smith's secret polygamy, doctrine of plural gods, his political aspirations, and his ordination as king.

1844: June 10; As mayor of Nauvoo, Smith condemned the Expositor as a public nuisance, printing libelous statements against him, and ordered its destruction. This caused a great uproar in the community.

1844: June 18; Nauvoo placed under martial law.

1844: June 24; Joseph and Hyrum Smith surrendered to civil authorities to stand trial for "riot and treason"

1844: June 27: While incarcerated at Carthage Jail, Joseph and Hyrum were allowed to have several visitors. Two men smuggled guns into them. At approximately 5 p.m. a mob stormed the jail. Joseph and Hyrum shot back, and Joseph wounded a couple of men, one of whom was later said to have died. The mob killed Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and wounded John Taylor.