However, this whole Church thing, specifically the Mormon Church thing, seems very either/or to me. Either Joseph Smith was a prophet or he wasn't. Either the Book of Mormon is true or it isn't. Either the Church is still led by prophets or it isn't. President Gordon B. Hinckley said it himself:
We declare without equivocation that God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, appeared in person to the boy Joseph Smith... Our whole strength rests on the validity of that vision. It either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud. If it did, then it is the most important and wonderful work under the heavens.
Which is all well and good until you learn things like there are multiple versions of the First Vision account that included Jesus, God and Jesus, or an angel... And that the First Vision wasn't really what Joseph Smith led with when he was telling people about this brand new religion, and didn't write down anything about it until years later. People (apologists) chalk it up to bad memory. Well, I've had some powerful spiritual experiences in my life, and I can tell you that they are seared in my memory, and none of those come close to actually seeing God (or Jesus, or an angel). This is just one of the items that make black and white statements like President Hinckley's above problematic.
I'm willing to accept some shades of gray in my theology. In fact, as I feel my spiritual perspective opening up through the faith transition I'm undergoing, I feel very comfortable with shades of gray, with not knowing all of the things of God, and with not being very sure what my eternal future holds. I'm okay with that.
What becomes a problem for me is continuing to be taught whitewashed history about the Church at church every week. Another problem is the dogmatic insistence that the Church is the One True Church. How is that possible when the foundation it is based on is so very shaky?
Husband is good at taking the good bits and just rolling his eyes at the bad bits. The problem I have with this picking and choosing is that I don't think that's what the Church IS. The Church wants everything from you - your time, your talents, your resources. In return, it promises you Truth, with a capital T, and comfort in the knowledge that you are part of the One True Church. Except for when you do a little digging, you discover the foundation of sand that the entire thing is built upon.
It's disconcerting, to say the least.
So my question is, how do you keep going to a black and white Church when your mind is full of subtle shades of gray? How do you make it work?
No comments:
Post a Comment