This guest post is by Chad Parry.
A progressive Mormon sometimes has to suffer sitting through a Church meeting where they don’t feel like they belong. These members reluctantly stand out because they ask uncomfortable questions about Church teachings. Some are more brazen activists who have felt a personal calling to defend an important cause. These members love their wards but their choices can put them at odds with the traditional Church orthodoxy. This creates a natural tension, where it feels wrong to abandon their controversial ideas and also wrong to challenge the beliefs of the general body of the Church. Members who struggle to be true to both live under the weight of contradiction. The story of their Church membership becomes colored by feelings of estrangement.
Søren Kierkegaard wrote in Fear and Trembling about how Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac was “a guiding star,” one of the pinnacle examples of faith. Kierkegaard even pondered alternative ways the sacrifice could have unfolded, to illustrate how difficult and heartbreaking the task was. I’d also like to conduct a thought experiment where we imagine a slightly different version of the sacrifice. The Biblical record in Genesis 22 tells that Abraham received the commandment and then “Abraham rose up early in the morning” to travel to Moriah. What if the commandment had not been to leave immediately, but instead to wait one year before performing the sacrifice? What if in the interim Abraham had to defend his choice to orthodox believers? Abraham would have had to wrestle with inspired teachings, culture, and the validity of his covenants.
Abraham could have tried to explain to his priesthood leaders, like Noah and Melchizedek, that God wanted to tempt him. In case there was any doubt, Noah had explicitly commanded that murder was forbidden. Abraham had to make a choice, to follow the revealed scriptures or to follow his personal inspiration. At the time there was no plausible middle ground.
Although the choice was painful, there is no indication that Abraham ever wavered in his decision. He followed his personal inspiration, which must have been most precious to him—more precious than his testimony of the prophets, more precious than his own son. Maybe he realized that his testimony of the prophets had been achieved through personal inspiration in the first place. If Abraham had decided to hold to the scriptures and ignore his inspiration, then he would have been left clinging to a belief without any foundation, a spacious building in the air. Just as the Holy Ghost had confirmed Abraham’s belief in the commandments, the Holy Ghost could confirm Abraham’s need to break them. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
In obeying his personal inspiration, it would have been tempting to just ignore the scriptures. Since Abraham and Noah had been in communion with the same God, it didn’t make sense for their messages to contain contradictions. Abraham could argue that if Noah were a true prophet, then he should have foreseen the sacrifice, and he shouldn’t have forbidden all murder. But since Abraham was striving to remain engaged with the gospel, he didn’t lose faith in everything. Unfortunately he didn’t know any logical arguments that would reconcile his beliefs with the written word.
He had to muster the courage to proceed without the knowledge to make sense of this contradiction. That nagging tension must have been Abraham’s constant companion, as we would expect from any disciple who knew they were wandering a long way from the safety of the iron rod. But just as Lehi in vision was led into the dark and dreary waste by a heavenly messenger, Abraham remembered that he had received a commandment directly from God, and he dared not deny it.
Abraham must have had friends and family, like Lot and Eliezer, who would have a hard time appreciating his decision. Kierkegaard imagined a blunt reaction might go like this: “You despicable man, you scum of society, what devil has so possessed you that you want to murder your son.” A similar example from the Old Testament was Zophar, friend of Job, who incorrectly judged that Job was wicked. In Job 11:1–6 (New Revised Standard Version), Zophar chides, “Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves.”
Any activists who have proposed an idea that runs counter to mainstream Mormonism know about these common reactions. First, members pity them because they are confused but will eventually become more enlightened. Second, members stereotype them as wicked and out of touch with the Spirit. There is very little that can be said for riposte, because criticizing those members back will not actually make the activist feel better. Job only received his consolation at the end of the trial, when the Lord vindicated him and rebuked his friends.
It’s interesting that the Bible doesn’t record anything about Abraham trying to justify the sacrifice to anyone else—even to Isaac, who would have been invested enough to ask. In Job’s conversations with his friends, Job grieved that he failed to win anyone to his side. So Job’s story gives an example of peer pressure but it fails to give an example of successfully navigating peer pressure. It is as if the Bible is warning us that there is no recipe for overcoming the criticism of friends, except to pray for the patience of Job.
Tradition says that Abraham had concealed the sacrifice from his wife, Sarah. The shock of learning about it may have been what killed her. Even laying aside their intense devotion to Isaac, Abraham was jeopardizing exaltation for both of them. They had received the promise that they would be blessed through their seed. Isaac was the heir and only son on the matrilineal line through Sarah, which would have been even more significant in Sarah’s day than in ours. Isaac was a symbol, the physical embodiment of Abraham and Sarah’s covenant with God. Today we would interpret Isaac’s premature death as an excommunication for Abraham and Sarah. It would be a clear sign to everyone else that they had fallen into disfavor with the Lord.
Even though Isaac was a powerful symbol, Abraham knew not to confuse the physical symbol with the spiritual truth. In the worst case, the Lord could still perform a miracle and bring Isaac back to life. Likewise, an excommunication on earth would be a powerful symbol, but may not always represent the way of the Lord.
Abraham did not have the hubris to assume that he deserved a miracle or that it would be granted. Isaac’s death was treated with humility and the fear of God.
Abraham’s trial was not an isolated incident. One of the first and most prominent stories in the Book of Mormon is about Nephi feeling compelled to murder an unarmed man. Nephi’s trial would have exposed him to all the uncertainty and stress that Abraham had felt. Jesus himself was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”
President Gordon B. Hinckley once gave a BYU devotional where he commiserated:
The price of adherence to conscience is loneliness. The price of adherence to principle is loneliness. I think it is inescapable. The Savior of the world was a Man who walked in loneliness. I do not know of any statement more underlined with the pathos of loneliness than His statement: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).
Unfortunately, the lonely disciple must grow accustomed to deep waters. A trial of faith can pit someone against scriptures, friends and family, and the Church organization. The Lord is mindful that these sacrifices seem unbearable, and victory seems impossible. Kierkegaard bore his own testimony of how this “prodigious paradox” is a prerequisite to reach the fruit of everlasting glory:
No! No one who was great in the world will be forgotten, but everyone was great in his own way, and … everyone became great in proportion to his expectancy. One became great by expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal; but he who expected the impossible became the greatest of all. Everyone shall be remembered, but everyone was great wholly in proportion to the magnitude of that with which he struggled. For he who struggled with the world became great by conquering the world, and he who struggled with himself became great by conquering himself, but he who struggled with God became the greatest of all.
Abraham eventually descended from Mount Moriah. He has received his eternal reward. Likewise, any faithful believers who defend a true cause must follow the example of Abraham through their tribulations. The scriptures do not offer any solutions to end their anxiety, but they contain the stories of stalwart role models who felt just as estranged. The Lord’s plan is not to eliminate our trials, but to help us understand that they are a necessary part of our mortal education.
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
Having some difficulty getting my head around this. On the one hand feel I would fit the category progressive Mormon, given the description. On the other hand the use of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac as a prototype is something of a gut punch. That particular story is one I really really hate having to sit through in a Sunday School lesson. Kierkegaard isn’t rescuing that. Not really sure where the OP is trying to go…
It creates frisson since Abraham is the model of what progressives reject.
Interesting.
I’m in favor of the “progressive ” description only in a category of Rock Music; I’m usually not in agreement with any other current use of the term.
Do I have a personal testimony about every doctrine/teaching in the Church ; or accept them without question? No, but if those around me do on certain matters, I see it as an opportunity to expand my understanding.
I converted to the Church without an agenda, except a desire to serve in gratitude for being led to it. I came from a denomination full of progressive activists. Some complained of the changes and others complained that the changes weren’t enough.
Ask questions and initiate good discussions without the vitriolic attitude we find in other forms of disagreement .
Conservatives I’m acquainted with in the Church use Abraham as an example of how we should have unquestioning obedience to Church leaders.
But I don’t believe we should blindly follow church leaders.
I really don’t know what to think about the story of Abraham ( or for that matter the God of the Old Testament). How would God have responded if Abraham said “I will lay down my life for you, but cannot disobey the commandment against the shedding of innocent blood.” Did God command Jesus to offer himself up or did Jesus have a choice?
I’ve never framed the story of Abraham as a progressive orientation. Interesting.
As Markablog pointed suggested, I think we should strive for good open discussions without vitriol.
Abraham and Nephi were prophets and therefore it would seem logical that Jehovah would give them a command contrary to the written law if He deemed it necessary.
I doubt that God will tell me to kill someone or take a second wife, etc. Do you see where I’m going with this line of thought?
Also, Laban was not “unarmed”, incapacitated yes, unarmed no.
Yes Lois, I got a taste of unquestioning obedience when our YW leader said she tells the girls “it came from the Prophet, and that’s the same as coming from the lord”. I flinched but kept silent.
There’s another approach toward our Leaders just as damaging: unquestioning doubt/mistrust. Always overshadowing a silver lining with a black cloud. What is the progressive Mormon’s approach into a Sabbath Day….”How much crap am I going to have to put up with today? Not much room for the Spirit of inspiration to work.