As a young, enthusiastic missionary, glowing with the radiance of the message that I had to share, I remember confidently believing that the LDS faith had a kind of “one up” on all the other religious traditions out there---of course, truth can be found everywhere, but Mormonism’s unique doctrinal claims (Godhead vs. Trinity, the BOM and an open canon, Joseph Smith’s first vision, etc.) were fundamentally necessary in order for salvation to take place.
The way I saw it looked something like this: correct beliefs leads to correct living which leads to salvation. While I had long been aware of many of the historical controversies that challenged LDS truth claims, overall, what I was teaching FELT right. More than that, it literally “burned in my bosom” as I would passionately testify of those things to the thousands of visitors I interacted with at the church historical sites in the Palmyra area. “The Holy Ghost testifies of truth,” I would frequently say, and sure enough, like magic, over and over, it would---the tears in the eyes of the tour groups I interacted with, reflective of my own emotion-filled voice and overflowing heart---this, to me, was the strongest witness that what I was testifying of was true.
In graduate school, we dove deep into Biblical textual history that opened my eyes to the reality that certain “assurances” I had always assumed were non-debatable in the Christian narrative were, in fact, debatable. Learning about the anonymity and anachronism of the Gospels was a challenge for me. Specifically, learning that the well-beloved story in the Gospel of John of the woman taken in adultery was a later scribal addition and debatably authentic left me somewhat deflated. “How can this be?!” I thought to myself, recalling the times that in quiet contemplation I had silently wept as I connected with that beautiful passage. Whether or not the story is in fact actual, it seems clear from the academic analysis of the writing style that the narrative certainly wasn’t John’s. Additional exegetical challenges mount as one pushes further back into the historical record, realizing that the “Christianized” view of ancient Israel and her history is specific and idealized at best, and in many ways, fictional and inaccurate at its worst.
I entered my graduate studies as a conservative who ascribed to a very specific faith tradition and left the program as a liberal thinker, with an expanded paradigm, and a witness that God is bigger than I had ever imagined Him/Her to be, recognizing that the inspired but imperfect Biblical text is but one way people come to know the transformative power of Christ. In the back of my mind, I slowly began to allow myself to tentatively ask the same critical questions regarding the text and function of the Book of Mormon and LDS history and tradition as a whole. Up until that time, I was happy to engage the Bible with a critical lens but hadn’t allowed myself to engage with my tradition’s “keystone.” Crossing that threshold was another major step in expanding my paradigm.
Post graduate school, upon entering the classroom as a young professional, I combined the tools of “spiritual witness” that I had acquired on my mission and the “liberal hermeneutic” I had picked up in my studies. This balanced approach aided me, as an instructor, in tackling the unique challenges the church faces in regards to its historical narrative, contemporary policy and lack of systemic theology, lgbtq/women’s issues, etc. This seemed an indestructible method of approach; one that would successfully help me navigate my student’s questions and faith crises, as well as my own, while staying rooted in the tenets of the restored gospel.
This functioning paradigm I had created for myself came crashing down the morning of May 17, 2018. In a historic event, President Russel M. Nelson met with NAACP leaders that morning to discuss the church’s commitment to better race-relations and heal wounds within its congregations. When my phone started pinging circulation of a press-release on the event, naturally, I opened the story and started reading. The title of the article, “President Nelson meets with NAACP; Offers Apology for History of Racism” caused my heart to race. I remember sitting down in my kitchen, the sunlight streaming in from my back windows, as I began to read the report.
“Today, as Prophet, Seer and Revelator, and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day [sic] Saints, I offer a full unqualified apology for the error of racism which was taught from this office and in the tabernacle and over the pulpits of our churches the world over. I am joined by my counselors in the First Presidency and the full Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in making this apology and we collectively bear witness and testimony of the devastating effects of racism which were perpetuated by leaders of the church in the past.”
THIS. The pounding in my heart seemed to reverberate into my ears as my emotions began to overflow, tears streaming down my cheeks as I continued to read the press release (you can read the contents in full here[1]). I began to text my family and black friends who were members of the church, asking if they had seen it; the euphoria continued as I jumped onto social media to see the excitement exploding on people’s pages as the story was being shared en masse…
“Girl, its FAKE.” The text from my friend down in Texas came through, my brow furrowing as I read it. Confused, I quickly texted her back, letting her know that the statement just came out on the church website. “It’s a copy” she responded, “someone duplicated the site and published this as a hoax. I am devasted. I can’t talk right now…”
Sure enough, the “press release” was a fake one, having intentionally been created to stir up emotions and discussion around race-relations and LDS church history[2]. Always a weak point in my scholarship, I had failed to read the entire document before excitedly reaching out to people to talk about it---had I read the whole thing, I might have grown suspicious due to the magnanimous nature of the apology and the promised “repercussions” that were very much not reflective of official church narrative. After all, three years before, Elder Dallin H. Oaks made it overtly clear that the church “doesn’t seek apologies” and it also doesn’t “give them.”[3]
My heart, along with hundreds, if not thousands of others, was broken. My soul had tasted something that I as a dedicated member of the church had ached to see happen---only to learn that it in fact had not happened, with the actual details of the NAACP meeting being rather anticlimactic and perfunctory.
Tears of frustration and disappointment quietly slid down my cheeks as I sat on my back porch, trying to make sense of things. Didn’t I feel the spirit so strongly as I read that document? As the scriptures describe, didn’t my “heart burn within me?” Reading that document that was now known to be a hoax had stirred within me the exact same emotions I had felt hundreds of times before when I bore my testimony about the gospel, about the Book of Mormon, about the atonement, etc. One of the strongest positioning for my faith was this “witness of the spirit” that we are taught to seek since childhood---“the spirit always testifies of truth!” I had preached over and over as a missionary. Except, just now at that critical moment, it hadn’t. So what was it that I felt, and what did it mean?
The next few days and eventually months led to an honest deconstruction of how it was I knew what I knew, and if “how” I knew these things was a reliable method at all. Additionally, I allowed myself to really examine the times when an “accepted truth” of my faith tradition just felt wrong to me, or, in some instances, dark and frightening. In summary, it was a painful process of staring my reality straight in the face, and accepting just how much I didn’t know.
As a student of religion, I have long been aware that people from other faith traditions can feel the “divine” in spaces not part of their own tradition. For example, I as a Christian could go to a mosque and feel a godly presence, perhaps even “the spirit,” just as I do in my own church. But what about truth claims? Do people from other faith traditions have emotional witnesses given to them by God about the truthfulness of their particular religion?
As a young woman, I was confident that the answer was “surely not.” We as Latter-day Saints were unique in our ability to say, “pray about it, and you will know that its true!” As I attended college, visited with friends from other faith traditions, and studied religion as a graduate student, I saw many instances where a “spiritual witness” was very much a part of dozens of faith traditions (this short YouTube video[4] does a good job of showing what I have just described).
While for years I had created a kind of cognitive dissonance between the academic study of religion and my own personal faith tradition, this event with the false church apology on racism shattered the delicate glass menagerie that had seemingly kept the two spheres separate for me. Now, it was as if those two worlds (my intellectual understanding of religion and my own faith tradition) had suddenly collided, and emotionally, I was trying to gather the pieces and make sense of what was.
Except, now it seemed, I couldn’t get the pieces to go back together. If my answer to the so-called “cracks” in the foundation of church history (both Christianity as a whole and the LDS tradition) as told by the historical record could no longer be filled-in by the ultimate witness of the spirit, having been shown to not be exclusive as I had once thought it to be, exactly what, then, did I really know, and exactly what, then, could I honestly testify of? In the infamous words of Bart Ehrman, “if we know the gospels are wrong on small things, how do we know they aren’t wrong on big things?”[5]
As a Latter-day Saint, looking over the muddied waters of church history, the more recent and painful encounters with changing stances and policies on race, women, and lgbtq persons, I find myself asking the same question; if we know the church has been wrong on small things, how do we know it isn’t wrong on big things? While more liberal church scholars aren’t afraid to ask that question, dissect it, and see what the parts come out looking like, there is another group amongst the church body who, while willing to admit that of course church leaders make mistakes, refuse to attempt to identify what those mistakes are, learn from them, and refine our theology.
A historical examination of the 19th century Christianity shows various traditions “grasping for the certitude and authority the church was quickly losing in the face of rationalism and scientism, Catholics declared the Pope to be ‘infallible,’ Evangelicals decided the Bible was ‘inerrant,’ despite the fact that we had gotten along for most of the eighteen hundred years without either belief. In fact, these claims would have seemed idolatrous to most early Christians.”[6] With the advent of LDS theology, it seems the LDS church followed in the dogmatic footsteps of their denominational cousins, boldly claiming successional prophetic authority through a divine visit by God the Father and Jesus Christ himself.
However, a closer look at LDS church history shows that such bold declarations weren’t always part of church narrative; that perhaps it wasn’t both God the Father and Jesus Christ who visited Joseph in the grove (with the earliest accounts of the first vision describing a solitary divine figure, not two[7]), that perhaps Joseph himself really believed he would usher in the second-coming, which is why there was confusion as to who the prophetic role would pass to after his death, that perhaps 19th century polygamy was a traumatic mistake, reflective of Joseph’s attempt to understand the sealing powers and eternal family---which closer study of Joseph’s own sealings, as well as practiced polygamy contracting the revelation found in D&C 132 (as well as the Book of Mormon clause) suggest?
With both Catholicism and the Evangelical tradition somewhat reforming or even backing down from their dogmatic statements of inerrancy (admitting that the Pope is indeed capable of making errors[8], as well as fundamentalist Christians opening themselves up to the reality that the Bible can be “wholly useful” without it actually being “inerrant”), the LDS church has yet to back down on the fundamental truth claims that for a time seemed effective at retaining and unifying membership, but at the present, seem to have the opposite effect, causing division and exodus.
Was I the only one who was uncomfortable with President Nelson’s recent declaration stating, “we (prophets) will always teach the truth!”[9] Is this statement one that was meant to mean only the acting head of the church, or all of the 15 who are sustained as prophets, seers, and revelators? Is this statement meant to mean, “from this time forward”?
As one reviews church history, it doesn’t take too long to see examples of that statement being, at its best, an oversimplification, and at its worst, simply untrue. Further, current LDS hierarchical leadership structure is reflective of the “imperial, patriarchal and dualistic” nature of the early Christian church shortly after Nicea (325 AD), with things seen “as either for us or against us, and we were either winners or losers, totally good or totally bad---this is surely how our religion became so focused on obedience and conformity,”[10] rather than loving inclusion and transformation.
It seems that the LDS tradition is riding a wave of change that will either push the populous towards the exclusivity of its tradition and doctrinal assertations, or catch the current of humble transformation that will allow it to use redemptive theology to reconsider its past as it makes inclusive strides into the future. I subscribe to the idea that “Jesus was clearly more concerned with what Buddhist call ‘right action’ than with right saying, or even right thinking.”[11]
As a self-identified disciple of Jesus Christ, I would rather error on the side of generous inclusivity and apply humble caution to truth claims rather than draw a hard line in the sand and demand allegiance to truth claims that are beginning to divide and disillusion 21st century church members.
With October’s General Conference only two weeks away, my mind ruminates on all of the above. As a lover of the Book of Mormon and a person who’s heart and ancestry is intertwined with LDS history, I recognize what I see as immense potential for growth and revival within the LDS tradition. This, I think, can only happen if leadership and laity will allow themselves to learn from the history of the Christian tradition as a whole, which has 18 centuries of experience for us to draw upon.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20180517140007/https://www.mormon-newsroom.org/article/president-nelson-meets-with-NAACP-offers-apology-for-history-of-racism/ [2] https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/05/17/no-the-mormon-church-did-not-apologize-for-having-a-history-of-racism/ [3] https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2122123&itype=cmsid [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJMSU8Qj6Go [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP7RrCfDkO4&t=6135s [6] Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ, p.58 [7] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng [8] https://www.catholic.com/tract/papal-infallibility [9] https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/president-nelson-byu-transcript-september-2019 [10] Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ, p.45. [11] Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ, p. 106.