Faith and doubt have been a system of checks and balances in my life. If our faith is so strong that we would impose our will on others and punish those who don't agree with us then our faith has taken us down the wrong path.
If doubt softens our arrogance and makes us realize that our earthly understanding is meager, then doubt is a positive force in our lives.
My doubts have opened my mind in incredible ways, and I've grown from my doubts more than I ever did from the blind faith that I once relied on. My doubt awakened an appetite for understanding and learning greater than I've felt before.
Although I recognize that I no longer know much of anything, I now feel like I can base my belief on fact and reason, with faith as a bridge to what cannot be known. Doubt has led me to a deeper fact-based understanding of church history, and it's led me to nurture my own ideas and beliefs on current social and political issues.
But having doubts, growing in knowledge, and drawing my own conclusions on current issues, puts me, and like-minded people, in a precarious situation. There is a collision between the churches stance on social issues (gay marriage, the role of women), and my own. Do I abdicate my agency to the institution, or exercise my agency and follow my conscience to it's natural conclusion - though that may be in direct opposition to the institution of the church?
In a talk this last week, a member mentioned that his faith would lead him to always follow the prophet, without question, and regardless of the worldly outcome. The essence of his message was that if you follow an ecclesiastical leader, even if he is wrong, God will not hold you accountable.
What a dangerous message. We are each accountable for our own decisions. It's critical that we incorporate reason and the feelings of our conscience to find the path that we should take. The sentiment in which people abdicate their right to think for themselves, taken to the extreme, results in Nazi Germany, and WW2 Japan. Even if it's not taken that far, it isn't hard to see the bigotry and atrocities that are the outcrop of blind obedience.
The leadership are not infallible - far from it. Our Mormon history is littered with egregious errors: polygamy, blacks in the priesthood, sexism, and (I believe) the current poorly conceived fight against the civil rights of the LGBTQ community.
The leadership don't have a direct line to the mind and will of god. Revelation isn't like the bat phone; there isn't a special device that can be picked up and through which the brethren are dictated word for word how to run the church - as much as it seems they would like to keep this a possibility in our minds. Revelation comes from inspiration, it comes from feeling and emotion and it's very subjective. The quorum are undoubtedly doing their best, as did early prophets. But they too erred. Joseph Smith, after certain revelations failed to come true, admitted that some revelation comes from God and some comes from the Devil. We're taught that Apostles and Prophets can speak for God, but they can also speak as man.
Brigham Young said:
"What a pity it would be if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not. This has been my exhortation continually."
Our God-given humanity comes from our senses, emotions, feelings, mind, and conscience. When something feels wrong I'm not going to doubt my doubts, I'm going to doubt the wisdom of putting my faith in another man.
If doubt softens our arrogance and makes us realize that our earthly understanding is meager, then doubt is a positive force in our lives.
My doubts have opened my mind in incredible ways, and I've grown from my doubts more than I ever did from the blind faith that I once relied on. My doubt awakened an appetite for understanding and learning greater than I've felt before.
Although I recognize that I no longer know much of anything, I now feel like I can base my belief on fact and reason, with faith as a bridge to what cannot be known. Doubt has led me to a deeper fact-based understanding of church history, and it's led me to nurture my own ideas and beliefs on current social and political issues.
But having doubts, growing in knowledge, and drawing my own conclusions on current issues, puts me, and like-minded people, in a precarious situation. There is a collision between the churches stance on social issues (gay marriage, the role of women), and my own. Do I abdicate my agency to the institution, or exercise my agency and follow my conscience to it's natural conclusion - though that may be in direct opposition to the institution of the church?
In a talk this last week, a member mentioned that his faith would lead him to always follow the prophet, without question, and regardless of the worldly outcome. The essence of his message was that if you follow an ecclesiastical leader, even if he is wrong, God will not hold you accountable.
What a dangerous message. We are each accountable for our own decisions. It's critical that we incorporate reason and the feelings of our conscience to find the path that we should take. The sentiment in which people abdicate their right to think for themselves, taken to the extreme, results in Nazi Germany, and WW2 Japan. Even if it's not taken that far, it isn't hard to see the bigotry and atrocities that are the outcrop of blind obedience.
The leadership are not infallible - far from it. Our Mormon history is littered with egregious errors: polygamy, blacks in the priesthood, sexism, and (I believe) the current poorly conceived fight against the civil rights of the LGBTQ community.
The leadership don't have a direct line to the mind and will of god. Revelation isn't like the bat phone; there isn't a special device that can be picked up and through which the brethren are dictated word for word how to run the church - as much as it seems they would like to keep this a possibility in our minds. Revelation comes from inspiration, it comes from feeling and emotion and it's very subjective. The quorum are undoubtedly doing their best, as did early prophets. But they too erred. Joseph Smith, after certain revelations failed to come true, admitted that some revelation comes from God and some comes from the Devil. We're taught that Apostles and Prophets can speak for God, but they can also speak as man.
Brigham Young said:
"What a pity it would be if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not. This has been my exhortation continually."
Our God-given humanity comes from our senses, emotions, feelings, mind, and conscience. When something feels wrong I'm not going to doubt my doubts, I'm going to doubt the wisdom of putting my faith in another man.
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