On the creation, dinosaurs, and belly-buttons
When I was five years old, I distinctly remember "learning" in Primary (children's Sunday School) that while creating the world, our Heavenly Father first created all of the plants and animals and then our Heavenly Mother created people. This is blatantly false doctrine and not part of Mormon theology in any way, shape, or form, but nonetheless I believed it. It made sense to my kindergarden brain, and I still remember being shocked when my parents told me after Church that day that it wasn't true.
Now, to be fair to my primary teachers, I sincerely doubt that anyone actually "taught" me this. I was a typical, rambunctious five-year old - one who enjoyed enacting elaborate death scenes while singing "Once there was a snowman"and who had in depth conversations with friends about bowel movements instead of paying attention to the lesson. I once even participated in throwing a girl out the window (at her request) during the few minutes before class started. It is therefore far more likely that I was simply not paying attention and, therefore, misunderstood what was being taught.
Children do this all the time, and if not corrected, can go on believing things that are not true for years. I was in college before I realized that dinosaurs did not have an ancillary brain in their tails. I still remember the cartoon on Disney Channel that "taught" me this myth when I was four. My brother was twenty and a practicing paramedic before he realized that your belly-button does not, in fact, keep your skin on. When he was a small child he asked my mom why we have belly buttons and she jokingly told him that it kept our arms and legs attached. Even this false explanation got jumbled over the years.
But while dinosaur butt-brains and belly-buttons have little eternal significance, a belief in false doctrine (or a warped understanding of true doctrine) can be a major stumbling block when a person gets older. One can be an active member of the Church and still not know very much about the gospel. In fact, I have found that those who really understand the most about the gospel are the ones most willing to perpetually refine their understanding of even the most basic doctrines of the Kingdom, while those who know the least are the ones who assume that they know it all already.
"Everything I need to know in life I learned in Primary . . ."
I had a companion on the mission who I will call "Elder Smith" who struggled with this problem at the beginning of his mission. While he grew up in an active Latter-day Saint home, he was not particularly enthused about the gospel. He hated scripture study and was very uncomfortable any time I wanted to discuss anything about the gospel that he had never thought of before. When it came to Church-stuff, he lived by the mantra "Everything I need to know in life I learned in Primary." A Church leader had cross-stitched that for him when he was 12, and it had hung on the wall of his bedroom (and in his heart) ever since. He honestly believed that once he turned twelve, no more learning was required.
Now, to be fair to Elder Smith, there is a kernel of truth in that cross-stitch. A quick review of the Children's Songbook reveals a shockingly broad number of doctrines that we teach children through song. In primary, I not only learned that "I am a child of God," that Christ "paid the price for all our sins", and that because of him I will be resurrected (see Did Jesus Really Live Again?), but also that the lost ten tribes will literally be regathered in the last days, and certain specific details about Christ's future millennial rein. (See The Tenth Article of Faith). The problem is that I didn't understand the meaning of many of the doctrines that I was singing about. After all, I was in college before I realized that the "popcorn popping on the apricot tree" was actually a bunch of apricot blossoms and not a figment of my imagination. (For my sake, please, if any of you just realized that by reading this blog, please confess in the comments section). Why would it be any different for the far meatier doctrines of the gospel?
In some respects, Elder Smith's understanding (or rather his misunderstanding) of his own cross-stitch exemplifies the problem many members face when they attest to believe doctrines which they do not fully understand. (TRANSLATION: All of us, all the time). He thought the phrase "Everything I need to know in life I learned in primary" meant that his gospel literacy peaked at age twelve. To him, everything from there on out should simply be review. Hence, scripture study was a bore. How could he possibly have a question when he already knew all of the relevant answers? He knew it all, so why keep studying? But the things he "learned in primary" included the inevitability of facing doubt ("Heavenly Father, are you really there?") and the importance of the perpetually searching for more truth ("Search, ponder, and pray are the things that I must do"). He also learned about the importance of "increas[ing] our knowledge through study and prayer." When Elder Smith came to truly understand the meaning of those principles which he had sung without really thinking about all his life, his actions changed. He began to love scripture study and spent the rest of his mission (and post-mission life) searching out answers to his new-found questions. In other words, there is a difference between knowing about a doctrine and understanding it, and an even bigger difference between understanding a principle and living it.
This is not a uniquely Mormon phenomenon. I had a Greek professor in college that used to love catching other Christians (he was one himself, and a devout one at that) speaking in what he called "Church-ese" - parroting biblical phrases which they thought they understood but when pressed, could not give a clear definition. When someone would throw our a Christian buzz word like "justification" or "grace" or "salvation" while translating one of the gospels in class he would simply ask inquisitively "What do you mean by that?" or "Is there a better word for that?" He caught me from time to time with this approach, and the stutter and awkward silence that would follow these questions usually revealed a chink in my gospel understanding. While a bit embarrassing at the time, I have grown to appreciate these self-revelations in the long-term. (Example: What is charity? You probably just said the "pure love of Christ." Does that mean love for Christ? Or the love from Christ? Or the love that he invented? What makes it pure? Come to think of it, what does pure mean? If we don't have charity, does that mean we have tainted love? How do you have tainted love? Cue the 80's soundtrack).
The doctrinal straw-man
I am going to make a bold statement: all of us, inevitably, believe things which are not true. Right now. We all believe certain things to be true which are not. There are many possible reasons for this. It may be because we fundamentally misunderstand the meaning of a common, scriptural word. Or it may be because we had a teacher when we were younger who did not fully understand a particular aspect of the Gospel herself and therefore communicated false doctrine to our impressionable minds. Or it could be that we were simply not paying enough attention during Primary and misunderstood the lesson being taught. Alternatively, perhaps the cultural lens through which we are inspecting a particular doctrine prevents us from grasping its true meaning (i.e. the idea that anything that is ritual is cultish and weird), or certain unspoken assumptions about life and society impedes us from contemplating a particular dimension of the plan of salvation (i.e. the belief that darwinian evolution is contrary to creationism).
Whatever the case may be (it will be different for every person), I think God is OK with this so long as we are constantly engaged in the ongoing quest for eternal truths. As one of my favorite scriptures says: "How long can rolling waters remain impure? What power shall stay the heavens? As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints." (D&C 121:22)
If our understanding of even the most basic principles of the gospel and the plan of salvation - faith, repentance, the pre-mortal life, judgment, etc. - are not constantly evolving and maturing, we're doing something wrong. Hyrum Smith once said, "Preach the first principles of the Gospel -- preach them over again: you will find that day after day new ideas and additional light concerning them will be revealed to you. You can enlarge upon them so as to comprehend them clearly. You will then be able to make them more plainly understood by those [you] teach."
But while man cannot prevent the Almighty from "pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints" in general, a man can successfully dam his own revelatory process by assuming that he understands it all already. This can have tragic results.
I have a friend who left the Church, in part, because he was uncomfortable with the "doctrine" that only Mormons could inherit the Celestial kingdom. I'm not entirely sure how he came to this conclusion, probably a false understanding of D&C 76:74. He was a returned missionary, married in the temple, etc. but somehow completely missed the point of every lesson about temple work and the Spirit World as expounded in sources like D&C 137 ("all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of [the gospel] who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God") and 138, not to mention the parable of the talents. He had an inaccurate understanding of the plan of salvation, and because of that decided that the Church was not true. In other words, because he was disgusted by something that was not true to begin with, he disassociated himself from the Church that was teaching the exact opposite.
This, of course, is not a new phenomenon. In John 6 we read Christ's famous "bread of life" sermon, where the Savior, after miraculously feeding five thousand listeners with just five loaves of bread and two fishes, announces that eternal life can only be obtained by those who eat him. Many of his disciples, assuming that he was teaching the importance of cannibalism, said "this is a hard saying, who can hear it?"(John 6:60) Sadly, John reveals that "from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." (John 6:66) Are we similarly guilty? How many of us, misunderstanding key doctrines, have set up doctrinal strawmen, which once destroyed may risk the foundations of our testimonies? How many of us would have similarly misunderstood the Savior's veiled sermon on faith to be a command to eat people?
Leaving behind the Mormonism that I used to know
Since our understanding of the gospel must be continually evolving, I would like to suggest that true discipleship requires us to jettison and abandon our false beliefs and misunderstandings, whatever they may be, whenever the Lord sees fit to reveal new information to us. I have to imagine that at least one zealous saint came up to Jesus after his sermon, and said somewhat sheepishly (knife and fork in hand), "OK Lord, I believe. I'll eat you because I want to go to heaven. But will you at least give me permission to add a little ketchup?" While there may be something admirable in such faith, this fictional disciple would have understood the doctrine no better than those who chose to jump ship. While he may be closer to enlightenment than those who rejected the Savior entirely and chose to ask no questions at all, his path of discipleship will eventually require him to abandon this false belief - however nobly acquired - in cannibalism. And by coming to the Lord and asking questions, he will correct false understanding and clarify doctrines. And there is no limit to that promise.
But, abandoning false beliefs can be difficult. There was a time in my life when I believed that the Word of Wisdom was an eternal law (rather than a principle of promise for the "temporal salvation of all saints in the last days"), and was therefore quite troubled by all those pesky scriptures that suggested that the Savior drank wine. Like many members of the Church, I convinced myself (falsely) that Jesus (and Noah . . . and Abraham . . . and Moroni) were merely drinking unfermented grape juice. With great zeal (and without knowledge) I Bible bashed with the best of them, convinced that my interpretation was true.
As I grew older (and delved into my religious studies program at UNC), I realized how completely wrong I was. It took an amazing institute teacher to ween me away from my misinterpretation of scripture. Sadly, I know of others who have struggled to maintain faith when their loyalty to false doctrine was rightly challenged. The friend who lost his testimony because he refused to believe what he thought was Church doctrine but really wasn't and the friend who lost his testimony because he discovered that his belief in false doctrine was ill-founded are merely experiencing two sides of the same coin. Both stumbled because they refused to constantly perfect their understanding of the gospel principles.
True discipleship requires us to constantly search for a purer understanding of the doctrines of the kingdom, and to accept the further light and knowledge that the Father has promised to send us whenever he chooses to reveal it. The Lord does not require us to believe anything that is not true, but he does require us to strive to understand the the truth that he has revealed.
Over the next several weeks I will blog about several obstacles that have occasionally prevented me from acquiring and understanding more truth. These are lessons that have helped me weather the storms of doubt, skepticism, and trials. Hopefully, they will help some of you as well.
When I was five years old, I distinctly remember "learning" in Primary (children's Sunday School) that while creating the world, our Heavenly Father first created all of the plants and animals and then our Heavenly Mother created people. This is blatantly false doctrine and not part of Mormon theology in any way, shape, or form, but nonetheless I believed it. It made sense to my kindergarden brain, and I still remember being shocked when my parents told me after Church that day that it wasn't true.
Now, to be fair to my primary teachers, I sincerely doubt that anyone actually "taught" me this. I was a typical, rambunctious five-year old - one who enjoyed enacting elaborate death scenes while singing "Once there was a snowman"and who had in depth conversations with friends about bowel movements instead of paying attention to the lesson. I once even participated in throwing a girl out the window (at her request) during the few minutes before class started. It is therefore far more likely that I was simply not paying attention and, therefore, misunderstood what was being taught.
Children do this all the time, and if not corrected, can go on believing things that are not true for years. I was in college before I realized that dinosaurs did not have an ancillary brain in their tails. I still remember the cartoon on Disney Channel that "taught" me this myth when I was four. My brother was twenty and a practicing paramedic before he realized that your belly-button does not, in fact, keep your skin on. When he was a small child he asked my mom why we have belly buttons and she jokingly told him that it kept our arms and legs attached. Even this false explanation got jumbled over the years.
But while dinosaur butt-brains and belly-buttons have little eternal significance, a belief in false doctrine (or a warped understanding of true doctrine) can be a major stumbling block when a person gets older. One can be an active member of the Church and still not know very much about the gospel. In fact, I have found that those who really understand the most about the gospel are the ones most willing to perpetually refine their understanding of even the most basic doctrines of the Kingdom, while those who know the least are the ones who assume that they know it all already.
"Everything I need to know in life I learned in Primary . . ."
I had a companion on the mission who I will call "Elder Smith" who struggled with this problem at the beginning of his mission. While he grew up in an active Latter-day Saint home, he was not particularly enthused about the gospel. He hated scripture study and was very uncomfortable any time I wanted to discuss anything about the gospel that he had never thought of before. When it came to Church-stuff, he lived by the mantra "Everything I need to know in life I learned in Primary." A Church leader had cross-stitched that for him when he was 12, and it had hung on the wall of his bedroom (and in his heart) ever since. He honestly believed that once he turned twelve, no more learning was required.
Now, to be fair to Elder Smith, there is a kernel of truth in that cross-stitch. A quick review of the Children's Songbook reveals a shockingly broad number of doctrines that we teach children through song. In primary, I not only learned that "I am a child of God," that Christ "paid the price for all our sins", and that because of him I will be resurrected (see Did Jesus Really Live Again?), but also that the lost ten tribes will literally be regathered in the last days, and certain specific details about Christ's future millennial rein. (See The Tenth Article of Faith). The problem is that I didn't understand the meaning of many of the doctrines that I was singing about. After all, I was in college before I realized that the "popcorn popping on the apricot tree" was actually a bunch of apricot blossoms and not a figment of my imagination. (For my sake, please, if any of you just realized that by reading this blog, please confess in the comments section). Why would it be any different for the far meatier doctrines of the gospel?
In some respects, Elder Smith's understanding (or rather his misunderstanding) of his own cross-stitch exemplifies the problem many members face when they attest to believe doctrines which they do not fully understand. (TRANSLATION: All of us, all the time). He thought the phrase "Everything I need to know in life I learned in primary" meant that his gospel literacy peaked at age twelve. To him, everything from there on out should simply be review. Hence, scripture study was a bore. How could he possibly have a question when he already knew all of the relevant answers? He knew it all, so why keep studying? But the things he "learned in primary" included the inevitability of facing doubt ("Heavenly Father, are you really there?") and the importance of the perpetually searching for more truth ("Search, ponder, and pray are the things that I must do"). He also learned about the importance of "increas[ing] our knowledge through study and prayer." When Elder Smith came to truly understand the meaning of those principles which he had sung without really thinking about all his life, his actions changed. He began to love scripture study and spent the rest of his mission (and post-mission life) searching out answers to his new-found questions. In other words, there is a difference between knowing about a doctrine and understanding it, and an even bigger difference between understanding a principle and living it.
This is not a uniquely Mormon phenomenon. I had a Greek professor in college that used to love catching other Christians (he was one himself, and a devout one at that) speaking in what he called "Church-ese" - parroting biblical phrases which they thought they understood but when pressed, could not give a clear definition. When someone would throw our a Christian buzz word like "justification" or "grace" or "salvation" while translating one of the gospels in class he would simply ask inquisitively "What do you mean by that?" or "Is there a better word for that?" He caught me from time to time with this approach, and the stutter and awkward silence that would follow these questions usually revealed a chink in my gospel understanding. While a bit embarrassing at the time, I have grown to appreciate these self-revelations in the long-term. (Example: What is charity? You probably just said the "pure love of Christ." Does that mean love for Christ? Or the love from Christ? Or the love that he invented? What makes it pure? Come to think of it, what does pure mean? If we don't have charity, does that mean we have tainted love? How do you have tainted love? Cue the 80's soundtrack).
The doctrinal straw-man
I am going to make a bold statement: all of us, inevitably, believe things which are not true. Right now. We all believe certain things to be true which are not. There are many possible reasons for this. It may be because we fundamentally misunderstand the meaning of a common, scriptural word. Or it may be because we had a teacher when we were younger who did not fully understand a particular aspect of the Gospel herself and therefore communicated false doctrine to our impressionable minds. Or it could be that we were simply not paying enough attention during Primary and misunderstood the lesson being taught. Alternatively, perhaps the cultural lens through which we are inspecting a particular doctrine prevents us from grasping its true meaning (i.e. the idea that anything that is ritual is cultish and weird), or certain unspoken assumptions about life and society impedes us from contemplating a particular dimension of the plan of salvation (i.e. the belief that darwinian evolution is contrary to creationism).
Whatever the case may be (it will be different for every person), I think God is OK with this so long as we are constantly engaged in the ongoing quest for eternal truths. As one of my favorite scriptures says: "How long can rolling waters remain impure? What power shall stay the heavens? As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints." (D&C 121:22)
If our understanding of even the most basic principles of the gospel and the plan of salvation - faith, repentance, the pre-mortal life, judgment, etc. - are not constantly evolving and maturing, we're doing something wrong. Hyrum Smith once said, "Preach the first principles of the Gospel -- preach them over again: you will find that day after day new ideas and additional light concerning them will be revealed to you. You can enlarge upon them so as to comprehend them clearly. You will then be able to make them more plainly understood by those [you] teach."
But while man cannot prevent the Almighty from "pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints" in general, a man can successfully dam his own revelatory process by assuming that he understands it all already. This can have tragic results.
I have a friend who left the Church, in part, because he was uncomfortable with the "doctrine" that only Mormons could inherit the Celestial kingdom. I'm not entirely sure how he came to this conclusion, probably a false understanding of D&C 76:74. He was a returned missionary, married in the temple, etc. but somehow completely missed the point of every lesson about temple work and the Spirit World as expounded in sources like D&C 137 ("all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of [the gospel] who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God") and 138, not to mention the parable of the talents. He had an inaccurate understanding of the plan of salvation, and because of that decided that the Church was not true. In other words, because he was disgusted by something that was not true to begin with, he disassociated himself from the Church that was teaching the exact opposite.
This, of course, is not a new phenomenon. In John 6 we read Christ's famous "bread of life" sermon, where the Savior, after miraculously feeding five thousand listeners with just five loaves of bread and two fishes, announces that eternal life can only be obtained by those who eat him. Many of his disciples, assuming that he was teaching the importance of cannibalism, said "this is a hard saying, who can hear it?"(John 6:60) Sadly, John reveals that "from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." (John 6:66) Are we similarly guilty? How many of us, misunderstanding key doctrines, have set up doctrinal strawmen, which once destroyed may risk the foundations of our testimonies? How many of us would have similarly misunderstood the Savior's veiled sermon on faith to be a command to eat people?
Leaving behind the Mormonism that I used to know
Since our understanding of the gospel must be continually evolving, I would like to suggest that true discipleship requires us to jettison and abandon our false beliefs and misunderstandings, whatever they may be, whenever the Lord sees fit to reveal new information to us. I have to imagine that at least one zealous saint came up to Jesus after his sermon, and said somewhat sheepishly (knife and fork in hand), "OK Lord, I believe. I'll eat you because I want to go to heaven. But will you at least give me permission to add a little ketchup?" While there may be something admirable in such faith, this fictional disciple would have understood the doctrine no better than those who chose to jump ship. While he may be closer to enlightenment than those who rejected the Savior entirely and chose to ask no questions at all, his path of discipleship will eventually require him to abandon this false belief - however nobly acquired - in cannibalism. And by coming to the Lord and asking questions, he will correct false understanding and clarify doctrines. And there is no limit to that promise.
But, abandoning false beliefs can be difficult. There was a time in my life when I believed that the Word of Wisdom was an eternal law (rather than a principle of promise for the "temporal salvation of all saints in the last days"), and was therefore quite troubled by all those pesky scriptures that suggested that the Savior drank wine. Like many members of the Church, I convinced myself (falsely) that Jesus (and Noah . . . and Abraham . . . and Moroni) were merely drinking unfermented grape juice. With great zeal (and without knowledge) I Bible bashed with the best of them, convinced that my interpretation was true.
As I grew older (and delved into my religious studies program at UNC), I realized how completely wrong I was. It took an amazing institute teacher to ween me away from my misinterpretation of scripture. Sadly, I know of others who have struggled to maintain faith when their loyalty to false doctrine was rightly challenged. The friend who lost his testimony because he refused to believe what he thought was Church doctrine but really wasn't and the friend who lost his testimony because he discovered that his belief in false doctrine was ill-founded are merely experiencing two sides of the same coin. Both stumbled because they refused to constantly perfect their understanding of the gospel principles.
True discipleship requires us to constantly search for a purer understanding of the doctrines of the kingdom, and to accept the further light and knowledge that the Father has promised to send us whenever he chooses to reveal it. The Lord does not require us to believe anything that is not true, but he does require us to strive to understand the the truth that he has revealed.
Over the next several weeks I will blog about several obstacles that have occasionally prevented me from acquiring and understanding more truth. These are lessons that have helped me weather the storms of doubt, skepticism, and trials. Hopefully, they will help some of you as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment