My Theology

I was born and raised a Mormon and faithfully attend, finding myself emotionally and deeply attached to the faith even as my theologically worked out beliefs have drifted over the years. My belief system no longer perfectly aligns with my church’s, but my emotional attachment is rooted deeply within it. So, how do I deal with disagreements? First, let me describe as best as I can in a succinct way my theology.

Testimony within the LDS church is a deep part of my religion’s practice. A prospective convert must first develop a testimony before they can be allowed to join through baptism. A profession of belief in the faith is a requirement. What does testimony mean. Read the way the church defines it:

“A testimony is a spiritual witness given by the Holy Ghost. The foundation of a testimony is the knowledge that Heavenly Father lives and loves His children; that Jesus Christ lives, that He is the Son of God, and that He carried out the infinite Atonement; that Joseph Smith is the prophet of God who was called to restore the gospel; that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Savior’s true Church on the earth; and that the Church is led by a living prophet today. With this foundation, a testimony grows to include all principles of the gospel.”

I believe a testimony is a spiritual witness given by the Holy Ghost, but I’m not sure how that translates into knowledge as specific as in this list. For me, personally, my spiritual witness can be distilled down to something much more basic. I’ve felt the unmistakable love of God in numerous settings spanning back from childhood – at times I’ve felt alone, inadequate, in nature, connecting with others, countless Christmas eves, holding hands with my wife, at church, at the temple, in scripture, in good books, listening to good music, at concerts, with my kids, in so many ways and in so many places. I’ve also felt unmistakable grace, which overlaps with feelings of God’s love but has a more specific purpose. I call it grace when I’ve felt my my good effort’s effects amplified and my bad mistakes and decisions muted. When I’ve felt peace after resolving through repentance and forgiveness my mistakes that have caused other’s pain. Grace comes within a loving context. God’s love gives me confidence to try knowing I’m likely to fail. God’s grace gives me confidence that even my failings will be turned for good. This is my theology.

I’ve felt God’s grace and God’s love within Mormonism. I’ve felt it in its covenants and ordinances. I’ve felt it in my shared communion worshiping within this religious community. I’ve felt it in the stories of Jesus, as I’ve done deep study in the scriptures. But I’m not sure that’s enough to pin God’s love and grace so exclusively because I’ve felt God’s love and grace well beyond Mormonism’s institutional boundaries as well. And others outside of my faith report these same feelings. My experience with God’s love and grace is one of expansiveness and generosity, reaching deep and far.

Myth

I accept that much of what comes at me through Christianity and Mormonism is myth. Not that it’s all made up and purely fictional. It’s a complicated task to understand religious history deeply enough to separate fact from fiction. Humans thrive on myth and we carry religious truths through that vehicle. Reality is complicated, messy, mundane and intertwined within an innumerable number of individuals reacting to each other in a complex web of relationships. Religious history necessarily simplifies all of this. Religious narrative simplifies the history even more and filters it through the goal of instilling an edifing faith. This creative process is not necessarily fiction and its definitely not done to deceive, although it can be done that way within toxic religions. As I’ve studied my own religious history, I can see how the narrative myths have changed over the years as they should as we accumulate more wisdom and knowledge, having to discard ideas and beliefs that aren’t working. I believe the church’s too tight of a grip on myth as truth has been the source of most of its mistakes.

And the church has made mistakes. I can list some of them – Mountain Meadows massacre, polygamy, the black priesthood and temple bans, patriarchy, unjust excommunications, misuse of financial resources, poor treatment of gay people, etc. The church is not, nor ever has been perfect. They themselves admit as much. But some of these mistakes have embedded themselves into our narratives and so we have to accept that our myths are not perfect either, that they have changed over time and that they will continue to need updates.

I believe in God’s love. I believe in God’s grace. I believe that it’s my responsibility to as best as I can orient my life so I become a conduit of God’s love and grace for others. My theology doesn’t go much further than that. With that as prequel, I wanted to filter the most recent General Conference talks through that lens. What works, what doesn’t. It’s not to say my filter’s are perfect. They are not. I’m not perfectly aligned with the church, so I find myself, at times, in disagreement. It’s possible the church is right and I’m wrong. It’s possible we’re both wrong. Maybe, there’s a small chance, I’m a little more right. Let’s proceed.

First talk: The Triumph of Hope by Elder Neil L. Anderson

Elder Anderson’s talk centers on the blessings that hope can bring as we develop a faith in Christ no matter what difficulties life brings. Life will bring difficulties. We’re mortal. We suffer. We make mistakes. In life, we’re in a constant need of self preservation. We need food, water and shelter. We live in a world of abundance but the abundance has to be extracted, processed, manufactured and distributed. We’ve built systems to do this with an ever increasing efficiency, but the systems are vulnerable to humanity’s imperfections. And of course we’re always subject to the chaos the world inevitably brings. Even in the best case, we die. Before we know it, we’re 80 with a body that hurts and the prospect of death just around the corner. Even sooner than that, we love those who die. Elder Anderson’s point is that God gives us hope that things will work out, that death is not the end. But this hope needs to be nourished through righteousness.

How much I agree with Elder Anderson depends a lot on what he means by righteousness. There’s no way a check the box version of righteousness does the trick. There’s no way a tribal version of religion is the answer. Let me couch that though, through God’s love and grace. Any good effort, even immature check the box efforts are amplified for our good. I’ve felt hope and assurance just by showing up to church each week. Any belief, even when it involves a little too much assurance in our version of religious observance, can be amplified into hope. God’s love strengthens us where are as long as we’re open to it.

Elder Anderson contrasts two families who both endure tragic death, but one doing so without hope in Christ and the other with that hope. The problem comes that the example he uses for the hopeless family is described from a distance, without intimate knowledge of the details. The second comes from his own family, the life of his nephew’s son. The first, the couple had abandoned their beliefs, built a successful, comfortable life, but then tragically, the husband dies. From a distance, Elder Anderson observes the wife’s inability to find peace for herself and an inability to comfort her children. How could he know this for sure? In the conclusion of his talk, recognizing the deep agony many experience with lifelong depression and difficulty even when they try to do everything the right way, to find peace, he promises that the peace from hope “may not come as quickly as you desire, but I promise you that as you trust in the Lord, His peace will come.”

My worry with this talk is that the implied message will be that only a life within Mormonism produces the hope required to endure life’s difficulties well. I’m not sure Elder Anderson actually has that as his intention but I could see how this talk could readily be interpreted this way. God’s love and God’s grace is expansive and fills the earth, working through every human effort, expanding, empowering and enobling it as much as we allow it. Elder Anderson places conditions on that love and grace, that it must come through righteousness. I get it. I don’t believe in cheap grace and certainly, my ability to feel and enjoy God’s love requires something of me. Elder Anderson is vague on what those requirements are.

This talk, then, aligns with my theology, contingent on the degree on by what is meant and how its absorbed.

I’ll try to get through each talk in our last General Conference the same way in future posts.

#bible, #christianity, #faith, #god, #jesus