If there’s one topic that never gets old in the ‘nacle[1] it’s faith crisis. A few months back, I started to follow a Vietnamese Buddhist group on Facebook because they post quotes I like. Over the weekend, a group member posted the following, expressing his faith crisis.
“I am really having a hard time with the faith. Just very unsure what I believe anymore after being in Dharmsala and then returning here. 2014 was just filled with hardships for me. Leaving me homeless, penniless, and sick. I struggle with severe medical and mental issues, and even after being in Dharmsala, I don’t know how the buddah viewed mental illness.
For all the things I thought buddhism was, and what it meant to me, being surrounded by it, I at at times felt like I was at peace, and at times, so depressed, so sad, so angry. I was floored when someone I had read, when he met me, wasn’t warm towards me. I thought monks and lamas would be filled with love, and I felt like he didn’t like me. It crushed me. It’s been a year I’m home, and now I am starting to think it didn’t exist at all, this idea.
India was strange. The ideas can be so beautiful, but yet the people did the worst things. I just saw the story of buddah the PBS special, and it just seems like in India, that they embellish the truth, to tell a story, if it’s true I don’t know. My faith is now really spotty. My only release to deal with the anxiety I felt, now not there. I wish we had people to talk to here. I read what he wrote, and now I just think, is nirvana just simply being nice and happiness? What are we trying to really obtain here? How do you obtain this, and be a usual person?
I had more grace, happiness, and peace before I ever found the Dharma, so what happened? Sorry for sharing here, just really feeling extremely lost.”
Sound familiar? Maybe it will be easier to see parallels if I use my Google Translate to go from Buddhist to Mormon:
“I am really having a hard time with the faith. Just very unsure what I believe anymore after going to Utah. 2014 was just filled with stressful situations. I struggle with depression / ADHD / anxiety, and even after being in Utah, I don’t know how the church views that. If the gospel is the plan of happiness, does feeling sad mean I’m unworthy?
For all the things I thought Mormonism was, and what it meant to me, being surrounded by it, I at at times felt like I was at peace, and at times, so depressed, so sad, so angry. I was floored when I ran into a GA at Cafe Rio who seemed too busy and impersonal to even smile back at me. I thought the Brethren would be filled with love, and I felt like he didn’t like me or anyone else. It crushed me. It’s been a year I’m home, and now I am starting to think it didn’t exist at all, this idea I had of Mormonism.
Utah was strange. The gospel can be so beautiful, but yet the people did the worst things. I just saw the story of Joseph Smith and the PBS special on the Mormons, and it just seems like in Sunday School that they embellish the truth, to tell a story, if it’s true I don’t know. My faith is now really spotty. My only release to deal with the anxiety I felt was on Sundays and now that comfort is not there. I wish we had people to talk to here. I read the scriptures, and now I just think, is the purpose of life just simply being nice and finding my own happiness? What are we trying to really obtain here? How do you stay and be a normal person?
I had more grace, happiness, and peace before all this, so what happened? Sorry for sharing here, just really feeling extremely lost.”
Some observations on commonalities:
- Leaders not living up to expectations, particularly being seen as hypocritical for not living the values of the faith; underlying this, a sense of personal rejection from leaders.
- The experience of being surrounded by a majority of believers while feeling like an outsider
- Feeling like stress or depression or other issues are incompatible with spirituality or religion
- Feelings of personal inadequacy
- Seeing white-washed dogma as suddenly not credible
- Dealing with changed perspective on things that used to be of comfort
It’s comforting to know that, but it’s also disquieting. Faith crisis is a human experience, not uniquely Mormon. And it’s a normal part of growing up, questioning who we are, what we believe, how we want to live our lives, and noticing how we differ from those around us including those who have been put in authority over us. And yet, when we are in its throes, too much focus on the outward problems (hypocrisy of others, white washing, flawed perspectives, rejection) can stall one’s journey as much as ignorance.
Consider these inward questions for the Buddhist whose paragraph we read:
- What is a healthy expectation for leaders? Why does it matter to you what leaders think of you or how others behave? Does their behavior invalidate the code of ethics you believe in? If not, what do you believe? What should your code of ethics be?
- Why do you feel a need to belong? What can you do to create more community despite what others may do? In what ways are you creating distance?
- How can you address the causes of depression or stress and restore yourself to a healthier position? What is your stress telling you? What is its real source?
- Do your feelings of inadequacy stem from idealized perceptions of others? What is the source of that perspective? Is it realistic? What are you unable to see?
- Why did you believe what you now find not credible? What about it do you still believe? What about your new perspective lacks credibility?
- How can you create well being from within regardless of where you are? Why was it comforting before? What can you learn from being uncomfortable?
Discuss.
[1] Or if it does get old, it certainly never dies.
Wheat & Tares 
I think we tend to conflate inner peace with evidence of religious faith, even evidence of religious truth when in fact those faulty conclusions actually depend on sleight of hand (mind). I think modern LDS Mormonism tends to indoctrinate by using self fulfilling placebo like prophecy; that rotely following step-by-step rules as little children brings inner peace. This a conditional love model with the parent telling the child the conditions under which the child is found acceptable to the parent and that acceptance (or the anticipation of it) brings the inner peace to the child and inner peace is offered as evidence that “the church (often rather than the gospel itself) is true!”. So the “faith crisis” isn’t a crisis of faith in the gospel itself, it’s a crisis of faith in LDS Kool-Aid, it’s a crisis of faith in the church’s propaganda. Unfortunately when the Kool-Aid and the gospel are conflated in the mind of the collapsed shelf member the gospel can be tossed out along with the propaganda.
“Stay in the boat” is a fear based appeal aimed at fearful child-like members who have already discovered the propaganda is a lie but haven’t yet developed the ability to navigate their own lives with confidence. Sure we lied but staying in a lair’s boat is safer than trying to swim on your own.
The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown – Carl Jung
You said that, “Faith crisis is a human experience, not uniquely Mormon.”
I’ve wondered what it would be like to raise a child differently than I was raised. Being raised Mormon or Buddhist or in any religion with all the mythical teachings has the ingredients for a faith crisis to occur later in life. But what if a child were taught realistic expectations from infancy? What if religious paradigms were never built up in unrealistic ways? What if authority figures and history were never mythologized and romanticized?
I just wonder if the faith crisis could be avoided entirely if our religions and cultures didn’t create these environments for a faith crisis to occur in the first place. Don’t we need to modernize religion more, it seems so archaic. And if we could modernize a religious upbringing to avoid our children experiencing a faith crisis, would it take all of the motivating power out of religion?
I believe in God, but I acknowledge that it’s on faith and that most empirical evidence suggests that God is a creation of my psyche. I still find good fruit as an active LDS member, and appreciate how my membership focuses me on the needs of others and creates a community united towards common goals. Is it possible to have these positive elements of religion without the myth and fantasy? I think we could avoid the faith crisis phenomena, but I wonder if religion would still motivate communities in the way it did previously. I feel motivated still, but I’m not sure everyone who’s experienced this faith crisis comes out on the other side wanting to still engage with religion.
* What is a healthy expectation for leaders?–Assume they’re human, doing the best they can, and have no greater access to inspiration or heaven than you do. This will clash with the LDS culture.
* Why do you feel a need to belong? Because everyone needs a community to belong to. Because Mormonism is a 24/7 lifestyle, the social circle of most active mormons is the ward, and when a faith crisis makes one feel different, he loses his faith and his social network.
I believe one simple change to address this is to decouple the bishops roles of judge, jury, and executioner. Imagine a ward with a confidential counselor you could go to with problems,sins, doubts, etc. that wouldn’t share them with the bishop or initiate church discipline (or stigma.)
“what if a child were taught realistic expectations from infancy? What if religious paradigms were never built up in unrealistic ways? What if authority figures and history were never mythologized and romanticized?” It’s an interesting thought experiment, but I actually think this creates worse people, not better. Without religion, children still see authority figures as intimidating or seek their approval. They romanticize the good ones. They make myths. People do this naturally. To raise skeptical children who don’t do this at all is probably to raise sociopaths. Letting go of these things is a natural part of growing up, but you do have to go through it to grow. The chick has to peck its own way out of the egg.
And yet it’s easy to discard today’s heroes for new heroes (forgetting the faultiness of hero worship) or to discard today’s fables for new, more cynical fables (forgetting that we don’t know everything really, and that context is always hard to nail down). It’s easy to go from “knowing” to “knowing something else,” forgetting that the beginning of all wisdom is admitting ignorance.
Hawkgrrrl,
You said, “It’s an interesting thought experiment, but I actually think this creates worse people, not better. Without religion, children still see authority figures as intimidating or seek their approval. They romanticize the good ones. They make myths. People do this naturally.”
Are you advocating that we should continue to perpetuate myth to our children because if we don’t give them a myth, that they will create their own myths to replace the religious ones? I kind of understand what you’re saying, but I’m not sure it has to be this way.
Also, I still have heroes, but I don’t have to worship them as nearly perfect examples. I see what you’re saying about raising sociopaths, but I’m not advocating skepticism of all things, just a healthy skepticism, and a devotion to accepting truth regardless of its source. Mormon culture likes to think that all truth comes from authority figures but history shows that truth comes in all kinds of ways. I think we could perhaps teach children to value truth and still believe in a higher power. I’m just not sure religion retains its relevance in this scenario.
The alternative seems to be intentionally perpetuating falsehoods in an effort to prop up religious devotion out of a fear that the consequences for society are too negative. This seems like a false dichotomy to me.
I’ve never thought of that – in the bishopric one can be a faith questions/doubt counselor; another temporal problems; one for sins and discipline. Or make them separate callings. Whatever.
What if a child was taught critical thinking, how to deconflate, nuance vs black & white and how to think for one’s self and encouraged to do it in addition to morality, religion and philosophy? Of course it you actually did that I suspect as adults they’d balk at a 10% tax to broker their relationship with God.
“beginning of all wisdom is admitting ignorance”. Just as I’m quick to poke jibes, gotta commend words of wit.
Methinks the essence of growing up is learning to fend for ourselves, in matters spiritual and intellectual as well as temporal (IAW with D&C 29, they are all of necessity intertwined). I think of a fave scene from “Slack-Hauf-Funf” (Slaughterhouse Five), where a five-year old Billy Pilgrim, buck nekkid and screaming like a banshee, is tossed into the swimming pool by his apparently insensitive and merciless father, and we don’t really know if heartless ol’ Dad is going to just let the kid drown. Well, in spite of his simultaneous trips through WWII and the cage on Tralfamador, let alone nuzzling with the lovely Ms. Wildhack (“Are you mating yet?”), young Billy somehow makes it alive out of the pool. Was Dad his “hero” then? Might not have seemed like it at the time, but theh old “bugger” was right to do what he did in order for Billy to become a man in good order. Not all “heroes” look so “heroic” when they go through their acts of “heroism”, often simply leading quiet lives of desperation (it’s not just the ENGLISH way…), but if you’re lucky, in time your children appreciate what you’ve done. I at least get that NOW from my grown ones, and hopefully the youngest one (she’s 14) will likewise be appreciative. Mine is to simply know that I’m doing what is needed of me and be satisfied with that, and let the kudos come if and when they may.
“I’m not advocating skepticism of all things, just a healthy skepticism, and a devotion to accepting truth regardless of its source.” I tend to think children need less skepticism than adults do because children are not yet independent in the way that adults must be. They need a mix of dependence with increasing independence over time.
Some folks can easily handle skepticism, doubt and question without an adverse effect to their core beliefs, others cannot. some can entertain new information and deal with it, others cannot. Some are either all in or all out, no shades of grey are allowed.
10 people can look at a painting and see 10 different things. It’s not the painting that’s different.
I think at some level kids picking up unrealistic beliefs is hard to avoid. I tried very hard to be real, to the extent we never pretended Santa was real, but told our kids it was game grown ups like to play with children. They were happy to play. But as my son likes to remind me, he still used to think it was singing ‘Popcorn Popping’ that made the popcorn pop.
It seems there are social trends, maybe they don’t apply to everyone exactly the same, but in general, we go through phases, such as a mid-life crisis or a faith crisis.
Educating the children to navigate it or be aware of it won’t remove their experience (they don’t know what they don’t know), but it may help them not crash so hard when they see it can be survived.
#12 Unrealistic beliefs, like the MTC implying that a mission will be a two-year string of back-to-back spiritual experiences?
OTOH, every salesman promotes the benefits and downplays the drawbacks, otherwise no one would find it appealing
Sometimes the “salesmanship” at church is to keep selling the product to the current consumers, so they value what they’ve bought into already.
Hedgehog is right, even if you do it well, kids will pick up wrong ideas, and recognizing nuance is an acquired skill. You might try to teach your kid skepticism, but you might end up teaching them cynicism.
Mythology can be built on lies (and I personally have never run into a situation where I could justify lying to my kids about anything), but it can also be built on limited information. Kids can only absorb so much so fast before they’re satisfied and move on to something else, so they will develop understandings that aren’t quite right. I think it’s much healthier to teach them more information gradually than to tear into the myths they’ve constructed. The problem is that if they quit accepting more information, whether from laziness or because someone told them they had a complete understanding, they’ll grow into adults who will be brutally disillusioned, because their myths will be torn down.
Martin: “Mythology can be built on lies (and I personally have never run into a situation where I could justify lying to my kids about anything), but it can also be built on limited information.” Yes, exactly, and that’s what children do. Sometimes adults do that too.
For me there can be no faith crisis as far as the fact that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord’s Church. For that to happen I would have to have a ‘trust crisis’ come into my life. How could that happen? I would have to stop believing that God has told me that it is his Church. I remember once day-dreaming on the subject, that I was standing before God at the final judgment. In my mind I had myself saying to him something to the effect that he had never told me that the Church was his Church and, in my mind, he looked at me and said ‘Oh yes I did’. At that point, in my thoughts, he brought to my mind, a perfect recollection of all the experiences I had had in my life that assured me that I did know that truth. (Actually, I believe that, in the resurrection we will all have a perfect recollection of everything we said and did in our lives.) In my thoughts, God was holding me responsible for all these experiences.
The Church is true and I know it. God knows that I know it. I have never heard his voice nor seen his face, but I know he lives. Some will say that’s only belief. I say it’s knowledge and I will not move from that stand. When it comes right down to it, I don’t care what the leaders do or don’t do. I’m a very doctrine oriented person, and, when it comes to that, I don’t believe many if any of them have an understanding of quite a number of the doctrines. At least, they don’t talk like it. But there are two things they do have and that is a calling from God to be in the foundation of his Church and they have the keys of the priesthood. No other church on the face of the earth has members that have those two things.
So back to the, so called, faith crisis. Where does this leave it? In trala land. In the Twilight Zone. In the closet, or wherever you are. I guess for some people, God has never told them anything at all – or maybe they’re just not listening. But he has told me, so I’m hanging on with everything I have. Regardless of where you are in life, talk to God. Listen to him. It won’t put an end to your problems, but it will help you to face them and you will stop being depressed.
Martin: “I think it’s much healthier to teach them more information gradually than to tear into the myths they’ve constructed.”
Which reminds me when my son was first learning about numbers (not really about myth, though I think the same principles about understanding the world can apply), learning to count. He was very young, and was very bright (still is), and seemed to pick up on the relationship between the numbers fairly easily. Also I had, some years earlier, read an article discussing the possible relationship between numeracy and the names of the numbers in various languages. In some languages pretty much the names of the numbers explain the relationships far more clearly than the English number names do. Talking about numbers with him I’d ask what comes next. He came up with pretty logical names which I did not shoot down – such as twoty, threety, even tenty, because I didn’t want him to lose his understanding of what the numbers were by saying ‘no, it’s such and such’. It was only as he got a little older, that I would say something like ‘and another name for tenty is one hundred’.
Also, I think the emphasis is on myths or understandings *THEY’VE* constructed, as you wrote.
I don’t think Sister Iconoclast and I have gone out of our way to teach our children myths; we’re taught them the truth as we understand it. This necessarily implies some “myth” in the sociological sense, as opposed to the popular connotation, and we certainly don’t claim to have a perfect grasp on the truth either as humans or as parents. However, as someone wisely pointed out, children [and even adults] create their own myths.
Once as a young boy, I asked my dad why he had taken so long in the bathroom. (Our house only had one.) That master of the smart-aleck comeback responded that he had been “meditating.” For years, I thought “meditating” meant “pooping.” That event has colored my view of Eastern spiritual practices and even LDS concepts such as “ponder” for years – whenever I hear anyone suggest that to “ponder” means to “meditate” on the words of Scripture, I get a little twinge. 🙂 (When I read that Gandhi was obsessively concerned with the bowel movements of his followers, I laughed for days.)
But I digress. I left the Catholic Church as a teenager because of a faith crisis driven by historical information. I can testify that the things I thought and felt then are very similar to our young Buddhist’s thoughts, or many of the thoughts and feelings I’ve heard expressed both online and in person by Mormons going through their own crucible. That is not to diminish the importance of those thoughts and feelings; only to suggest that humans have some common ways of experiencing and resolving psychological dissonance.
I later became a Latter-day Saint because of an irresistible spiritual experience, “despite,” one might say, the historical issues of which I quickly became aware. History is what I do; studying Mormon history as part of my investigative process was second nature to me. As a result, I inadvertently inoculated myself, I think, against a lot of the things that seem to derail lifelong members when they run up against non-correlated truth. “Joseph used a seer stone to translate? Yes, he said he did. So?” “Joseph had multiple wives, some in their teens? Yes, the record’s always been clear on that. So?” Stuff like that came as no shock to me because it has always been out there, even in the pre-Internet age. For Heaven’s sake, I was converted while attending a world-class research university in a major American city. I checked out 15 books on Mormonism the day after my first serious discussion and started reading.
I’m not sure what the point of this is, anymore. I am just sad that it is so hard for some folks to get a clear spiritual witness of the kind that I have had, which keeps me in the Church no matter what. (Rich, #18, seems to have had a similar experience.) That witness doesn’t mean I’m not a thorn in my leaders’ sides, an agitator for improvement, an Edwin Woolley, a seeker for the line between culture and doctrine. But it does mean that I feel, as Joseph once said, “I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it; at least I knew that by so doing I would offend God, and come under condemnation.”
So here I am. 🙂
hope_for_things, one of the contentions that Fowler makes in his book Stages of Faith is that faith crisis–and the preceding stages of unquestioning faith and deference to authority (a simplification)–are pretty universal to any belief system, including atheism. I’ve loaned out my copy of the book, so I can’t be as exact as I’d like, but I remember him using examples of people going through faith crises for things such as their loyalty to a workers’ union, and that even people who grow up in religions that are somewhat skeptical and less likely to mythologize, such as Unitarian Universalists, demonstrate the same characteristics of belief as young people that those who grow up in other faiths do. It’s pretty interesting. If you haven’t read the book, I recommend it.
I have had spiritual experiences that grew my testimony and helped me become converted like Rich and Grey Ghost. I have even born(e?) my testimony from the pulpit in those same words “I knew, God knew it, and I could not deny it.”
Aaaand then at age 30 I seek and research history for the first time, because I’d only known what had been handed to me. And moving around the country 15 times in 4 times zones and all the different people I’d met from so many backgrounds and religions . . . ALL of them had had spiritual/emotional/psychological experiences confirming the truth of their religion to them. I doubt few religious people truly lack this experience.
So how do I weigh out that my spiritual experience weighs more than everyone else’s? As a result of my faith transition – I don’t. I believe in God and Jesus Christ and the atonement. I believe I access the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the LDS church. This is where I should be, but I know countless people who are so much more Christlike than 90% of most mormons I know . . . I’ve had great discussions with them and shared my faith . . . but maybe God wants them to be where they are (shrug).
Kristine, I think you may be right. The Church really isn’t for everyone, and while I’ve heard a variety of opinions on the exact nature of other people’s “testimony experiences” of their own faiths, mostly from skeptical Mormons, I can’t doubt the sincerity of their subjective experience or the way in which that experience helps them improve their lives.
kristine:
“but maybe God wants them to be where they are (shrug).”
No He doesn’t. Not one single one of those 90%. If they aren’t in the Church then they don’t have access to priesthood keys. No matter how good they are, they apparently didn’t know that. If they are so good then they shood have felt that. Mortality is the test of faith. They didn’t do very well on that, but there’s another test I’ve only heard myself talk about and that is the test of sight. In the spirit world, they along with everyone else will most certainly understand it and accept it. (If anyone would’nt accept the ordinaces done in the temple, for them, then they would, automatically, not accept an authorized baptism, which the only way to be cleansed from your sins, putting you in hell forever. If you feel uncomfortable about what I just said, then read it again and think about it.)
The only problem with this is, by not accepting the truth in the test of faith, I believe there is a great danger of not being eligable for the highest reward in the judgment – exaltation. Showing people the way to exaltation is what the gospel is all about. That can’t be done in another church.
It does not matter what anyone does or says, you only put your trust in God. You never, ever put your trust in mortality. (D&C 1:19) And by mortality, God means every single mortal one the face of the earth.
Well Rich you go on thinking that, I believe Elder Bednar recently said the Pope is where God wants him to be because of how he can influence others.
All of this lds exceptionalism turns my stomach.
I’m probably somewhere in the middle on this issue (leaning Kristine). I do believe that the priesthood and its ordinances are essential for eventual exaltation, but the devil is in the timing. I do not believe that all people are wired such that they are ready right now, they only get one chance, and if they shut the door on the missionaries, they’re rejecting the Gospel.
I strongly disagree with this statement of Rich’s: “If they aren’t in the Church then they don’t have access to priesthood keys. No matter how good they are, they apparently didn’t know that. If they are so good then they shood [sic] have felt that..”
I can only think and hope that Rich is exaggerating for effect, has typoed, or that I have misunderstood him. At face value, this statement is [nonsense] of the purest ray serene.
The idea that, first, non-members don’t have access to priesthood keys is ludicrous. Those keys were turned by the Lord and are held by the prophet for the salvation of the world, not solely for Latter-day Saints. A bishop holds spiritual responsibility, by virtue of priesthood keys, for all who reside in his ward, not just the members of the Church. As an elder, I have authority to baptize, a priesthood key obviously available to non-members, and blessings of healing and sometimes those of comfort can also be given to non-members. The priesthood was restored to bless the earth, not just the Church.
Next, the notion that “good” people “should have felt” something that would somehow magically turn them to the Church smacks uncomfortably of the damnable Calvinist heresy of predestination, and/or sounds as if Rich is saying that people who don’t leap right into the font are not “good.” We all know that this is not the case; we interact with people every day not of our faith who are good people. Sure, they’re sinners and fall short of the glory of God – as do we. We also know Mormons we wouldn’t trust to dog-sit for us, right?
I investigated the Church and was baptized at the age of 20. If you had caught me 3 years earlier, I wouldn’t have had much interest. In fact, I did meet an impressive young LDS man while in high school, but although I recall his integrity and charity, nothing of what he told me about the Church stuck with me at all.
Where I may part ways a little with Kristine is that I don’t really think that people’s Christliness is an indication of the validity of their faith traditions. There’s such a great spectrum of human behavior and motivation that to say, “A person’s church must be good because she is good” is a huge leap of false causation. Imperfect as we are, we frequently make assumptions like that, so we do need to be attentive to our own public actions and their effects. There is validity in Alma’s admonition to Corianton. But it’s not an absolute proof test of a religion to see that it produces good people. That said, Kristine didn’t expand on this in great detail and may not have meant exactly what I’m implying.
[Oh – and re even born(e?) my testimony, yes, the “e” is correct, unless you actually gave birth to it as opposed to carrying/bearing it. 🙂 ]
New Iconoclast:
First, the word ‘shood’ was supposed to be should. The dictionary actually had a definition for shood but it had nothing what so ever to do with anything I said. Please spare me any further typing on the subject. I really proof read this stuff but that’s no guarantee.
1. ”The idea that, first, non-members don’t have access to priesthood keys is ludicrous. “
I see your point when you say the priesthood is available to all people but when they accept the gospel the first thing we do is baptize them. Until they come into the Church , through baptism, the existence of the priesthood is NEAR worthless to them. I suppose the pope could have one of his cardinals baptize him. How’s that for ludicrous?
2. “Those keys were turned by the Lord and are held by the prophet for the salvation of the world, not solely for Latter-day Saints.”
How true! “That he came into the world, even Jesus, to be crucified for the world, and to bear the sins of the world, and to sanctify the world, and to cleanse it from all unrighteousness;(D&C 76:41). Everyone, in mortality, who has not committed an unpardonable sin will unavoidably be saved, and that includes the popes (all of them, barring an unforgivable sin). They will all be taught in the spirit world and they all will accept the gospel just as every non-member will. When they and everyone else accepts the gospel as taught by the Lord’s Church, they, automatically, accept an authorized baptism performed, for them, in the temple, and, for the first time, they will be cleansed from all their sins. Without this cleansing they would be found, ‘filthy still’ in the judgment and hell would be the only place they could go. In verse 41 above, the forth thing we are told that the Savior accomplished by his mission is that he would ‘cleanse it’ (the world), as you already said, from all unrighteousness and that’s just what he did (and, once again, that includes the popes).
3.”Next, the notion that “good” people “should have felt” something that would somehow magically turn them to the Church smacks uncomfortably of the damnable Calvinist heresy of predestination, and/or sounds as if Rich is saying that people who don’t leap right into the font are not “good.”
New Iconoclast, don’t depend on dictionaries and Calvin for your definition of ‘predestination’. First, try Paul.
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. (Romans 8)
God predestines people to exaltation by giving them the gospel, but they can, and, at any time, turn it down. If they accept it, they are on collision course with exaltation but they don’t have to accept it if they don’t want it. God is not beholden to our definitions. By the way, as wrong as Calvin was on that one, he will, without a doubt be saved also ( Unless, of course, his mistake was unforgivable.) Everyone has the light of Christ. All they have to do is hearken unto it.
4. “I investigated the Church and was baptized at the age of 20. If you had caught me 3 years earlier, I wouldn’t have had much interest.”
Any reason, you can think why you weren’t caught three years earlier? Even if you had been, they would have caught you three years later and you would have accepted and – happy ending. (Microsoft didn’t like the previous sentence, but I do.) Yes, you still have the rest of your life but now you have the remission of sins through your access to the priesthood. Yes, I should have said ‘priesthood’. I’m not so sure about the KEYS of the priesthood. Use that remission of sins and you’ll be glad you did. Comparatively very few people have it. Maybe a lot of them will accept them when they are ‘caught’. If they do, they will live happier lives.