Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke at the BYU devotional this week, on the subject of doubt and belief, which ties into a very interesting, recent four hour debate on religion between Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris.
Elder and Sister Renlund spoke on faith crisis Sunday night. I wrote about that earlier. It was a very difficult talk for me. Perhaps the most difficult I’ve heard from LDS leadership since my faith crisis and reconstruction began 12 years ago. They seemed to downplay the difficulty many undergoing through faith crisis are having and seemed to ridicule or blame them for struggling with issues. As a Latter-day Saint who covenants to sustain Elder Renlund, I’m not criticizing him. But it was difficult.
Elder Uchtdorf gave a talk at BYU on the same subject, which resonated with me a lot more. He introduced the talk with an anecdote of a musician giving a world class level concert in a subway to see if people would notice. I love this concept and it has become a bit of a theme for me.
Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
In the talk, Elder Uchtdorf took the approach that faith and doubt are very difficult, very normal issues. His approach was to encourage the doubter to start with a desire to believe and make seeking God a lifetime pursuit. And gave an apostolic promise that if one did do that, they would eventually be rewarded.
Some of you might now say in order to have a greater belief in God I have to believe? But that’s exactly my problem. What if I can’t believe? The answer is. Then hope. And desire to believe. That is enough to start. To desire to believe means to open your heart to the possibility of spiritual things. To lay aside skepticism and cynicism. If you can simply want to believe, that can start the seed of faith.
Please understand this is not a process of once and done. It is not a process of minutes or hours. It may not be a process of months or even years. It is a process of a lifetime. We are seekers. You and I. We are light gatherers. You and I. We are on this lifelong mission to gather light and bear it to the world, which will lead us through the joys and trials of life. Don’t ever stop seeking. Jesus promised that if we seek we shall find. If we knock, it shall be opened. If we listen, we will hear… Hold onto that promise. Even if it takes your entire lives to find the precious light and truth you seek, it will be well worth the effort.
This journey is not easy. You’ll come across some real tough questions. Questions that you may never answer.
Why does the evidence seem to point to me that it is not possible that the Book of Mormon is an actual, historical record, yet why have I seen the transformational power it has in my own life and lives of others?
Why does Joseph Smith’s behavior surrounding polygamy seem so obviously scandalous and not of God, yet when I commit to and live according to the gospel and church he restored to us, my life is greatly blessed?
Why is it so hard to even believe God exists, yet I feel such a call to seek him and her?
Don’t be ashamed if you struggle with these and many other questions. They’re tough questions. But I believe as Elder Uchtdorf says, if you can suppress the skepticism and seek God, you will be rewarded. Earth is crammed with heaven.
The answers as you seek them might lead you to a different paradigm. The paradigm I’ve adopted to address those questions is to view the historical events in scripture and the LDS restoration as metaphorical. Jordan Peterson is using this paradigm in his debate with atheist Sam Harris about the value of religion and belief in God.
Sam: You say you believe in God.
Jordan: No, I say I act as if he exists.
This for me is the subtle difference between faith and belief. We can’t control our beliefs, in my opinion. They are formed at a subconscious level we can’t dictate. But we can control our faith, which is how we act.
Eric Weinstein, acting as the moderator, and attempting to summarize Jordan Peterson’s point, said:
The idea of metaphorical truth is the idea that there are some concepts which are literally false that you can falsify in a scientific, rational sense. But if you behave as if they are true, you come out ahead of where you were if you behave according to the fact that they are false. So to call these things simply false is an error. In effect the universe has left them true in some sense other than a purely literal one. Encapsulations of stories and prescriptions that if you follow them, irrespective of whether they literally describe the universe, you end up with advantages you may not know why they are there, nonetheless you are ahead of your position had you tried to navigate without these truths.
Wheat & Tares 
Isn’t Uchtdorf’s point that you’re seeking knowledge and that if you’re open to the possibility and try, that eventually you’ll have this strong belief and knowledge. He’s more or less just following Alma 32. Peterson by contrast is giving a kind of William James styled fideism. That is, regardless of whether it’s actually true if it has beneficial effects to the individual you should treat it as true. (He goes a bit farther treating this as truth breaking with his friend C. S. Peirce who was the founder of pragmatism) Now I don’t want to say Uchtdorf doesn’t give a fideistic defense anywhere. There are definitely texts people point to in that direction like “Believe, Love, Do” “In my experience, belief is not so much like a painting we look at and admire and about which we discuss and theorize. It is more like a plow that we take into the fields and, by the sweat of our brow, create furrows in the earth that accept seeds and bear fruit that shall remain.”
Giving credit:
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries…”
from “Aurora Leigh” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Clark. I’m sure Uchtdorf is probably implying that after seeking, you will come to literal belief. But it’s not explicit in his words, and I’m not 100% sure he would not allow for the end result to be a metaphorical belief in the actual events of scripture and the restoration.
The Uchtdorf talk was excellent. Thanks for sharing it.
I was profoundly disappointed with the Renlund talk you mentioned.It was filled with mis informed thoughts. When are these guys going to get educated so members can have intelligent conversations with people as to why folks actually leave the church?
I have been reading some material on the soul/body issue. (dualism). Some theologians neuroscientists dispute the traditional view and argue that we are just body. The mind is like the computer program that runs the brain. See Neuroscience Psychology and Religion. “For most of human history we have cherished the idea that there is a separate immaterial part of each of us – a mind or a soul – that must live somewhere within our body.. That has gradually changed with the advent of scientific approaches to the mind-body relations. We now view the mind as a functional property of the brain not something located somewhere. The mind is a firmly embodied process within the brain rather like a program that runs within a computer” If no spirit when we die the computer program(mind ) dies and so there are no “spirits” waiting somewhere to be taught the gospel and have temple rituals performed for them.
I think Uchtdorf has a different understanding of how the gospel is lived. This view does not require that you move to knowing the church is true. He is not a knowledge and obedience driven person.
He is saying that if we can hope to believe, or even believe (have faith), then live your life developing Christlike love, you will be welcome in the Celestial Kingdom. When you die, if there is an afterlife, and if it is as we teach, then a lot of the questions are answered. Assuming what we teach is true about the afterlife, it then depends how we lived our life. Whether we came to know things in this life v having faith, are not eternally significant. How we live our lives is.
Unless he is the next Prophet the church is in danger. Oaks is next in line.
Interesting thoughts. Although I must point out three fact that there is a pretty big leap of faith between believing in God, when there are all sorts of ways that people conceptualize God, and believing in Mormon truth claims. Being willing either to believe that Joseph Smith brought to light a history of American proto-Christians who actually interacted with Jesus, or to appear as a believer in such by claiming membership and association with actual believers in such requires significantly more mental effort than just casually saying that you believe in God.
“Why does (insert any number of things) seem so obviously scandalous and not of God, yet when I commit to and live according to the gospel and church he restored to us, my life is greatly blessed?”
You have written the general statement that describes the position many find themselves in. I appreciate the directness of your thought. I have no answers as of yet, other than the experience described above. So, like many, I’ll keep up the good fight of trying to figure it out. Talks like Elder Uchtdorf’s empower me and make me feel hopeful about the journey and perhaps the end result. Other talks (sorry Elder Renlund)..not so much. I’ll chose the hopeful messages time and again. Not because I am a pollyanna, but because my experience tells me that’s where the blessing resides..
One of the things that I enjoy about the organization of the Church is that multiple leaders with equal authoritative position address similar topics from different points of view. Sometimes what they say is contradictory, but I find value in harmonizing those teachings, much like harmonizing different verses of scripture that appear contradictory. So I ask myself, how can both Elder Uchtdorf and Elder Renlunds, or Paul and James, etc., be right at the same time, and what does that teach me?
I also think that Elders Uchtdorf and Renlund have a way of reaching different people. If there’s something someone says that rubs me the wrong way, I remind myself that not everyone thinks like me, and there may be others for whom the delivery of that message in that way was beneficial.
To be clear, I don’t think Church leaders are immune to saying something that is just plain wrong, but I try to give the benefit of the doubt first.
Geoff, that’s so interesting, and holds hope for those who can’t literally take what their parents have always promised then to be ‘true’ as the case. I love the idea of faith as a process, and I think this could well be an answer to the faith crisis that education, amongst other things, is sparking in our next generations. I think my stress levels go down each time I see Elder Uchtdorf’s face.
“The paradigm I’ve adopted to address those questions is to view the historical events in scripture and the LDS restoration as metaphorical. ” I’m okay with calling the OT, the PoGP, and some of the miracles in the NT metaphorical. And I know that at least a few members consider the BoM metaphorical. But I have trouble with the latter. It’s always been the claim of leadership that the book is literal history. “The most accurate book ever written” or something like that. But if you consider the restoration (LDS history) metaphorical, there isn’t anything left to distinguish the Church from any other church. Particularly when some leaders espouse belief in Church teachings over science, history, geology, etc. In many respects they are anti-science. I can’t accept this paradigm.
“Jordan: No, I say I act as if he (God) exists.” This is essentially Pascal’s Wager. The implication that you should do good deeds in case there is a life after death. You should think about eternity, not just your earthly existence. This logic doesn’t work for me. I would hope we are acting in a certain way because it’s the right thing to do, and not because we are worried about eternal blessing. In some ways, I respect atheists who have no belief in God, but still act honorably, more than I respect many believers.
Another point, is that we have to account for confirmation bias and conditioning. Might someone want to follow in a religious tradition in spite of cognitive dissonance knowing fully well of all the problems simply because they are subject to confirmation bias and have been conditioned to find regularity and normality in it?
Roger, “most accurate book ever written”? — maybe “something like that” —
From the introduction: “Concerning this record the Prophet Joseph Smith said: ‘I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.’ ”
In context that statement by JS’ need not have anything to do with history. In its context, it can as well be read to mean “most correct” in its precepts for getting near to God.
Yes, the Book of Mormon is most often claimed by Church leaders to be a history, but “literal” might be going further than the claim. There are quite a few histories out there on various matters that are in significant disagreement.
Roger I’m pretty sure JP is not using that idea in a Pascal’s Wager kind of way, and I’m sure I’m not. It’s not a covering your bases just in case kind of thing. It’s that when you “act as if” you believe WoW is a revelation of God, or the Sabbath commandment, or the law of sacrifice, or the commandment to love your neighbor, to treat your role as a father as divinely sanctioned, to accept church callings as if they came from God, etc. When I live like that, I’m blessed. So I don’t know if those commandments and guidelines come directly from God, but I act as if they do.
JR, a lot of “Lamanites” out there might disagree with you. They’ve been taught and/or believe that they are literal descendants of the Lamanites. And I think there used to be a sentence in the front of the BoM that stated that it is a history of Native Americans.
be
“When I live like that (obeying the commandants), I’m blessed.” churchistrue, I not sure I understand your argument. It almost seems like we agree with each other. I guess it depends on what you mean by blessed. But your explanation seems to dangerous close to the prosperity gospel. Pay your tithing and you will be blessed.
According to Prez Uchtdorf: “Please understand this is not a process of once and done. It is not a process of minutes or hours. It may not be a process of months or even years. It is a process of a lifetime. We are seekers. You and I. We are light gatherers. You and I. We are on this lifelong mission to gather light and bear it to the world, which will lead us through the joys and trials of life. Don’t ever stop seeking. Jesus promised that if we seek we shall find. If we knock, it shall be opened. If we listen, we will hear… Hold onto that promise. Even if it takes your entire lives to find the precious light and truth you seek, it will be well worth the effort.”
I love this. It dramatically shows the possible confluence between Process Theology and the Church. That everything is in a state of flux. There wasn’t a Creation, there is a Creating, a process that is still ongoing. I think Uchtdorf himself said that the restoration is ongoing. In other words, there wasn’t a Restoration, there is a Restoring. And Uchtdorf now extend Process Theology to an individual’s faith. This is a wonderful concept.
rogerdhansen: “But your explanation seems to dangerous close to the prosperity gospel. Pay your tithing and you will be blessed.” Maybe it is, and I can’t speak for churchistrue, but in my own experience, I find I have more mental clarity when I act as though it is all true and trustworthy. I think of it as the felix felicis serum in Harry Potter. I seem to have more luck anticipating and responding to things that happen. My path is clearer. That doesn’t necessarily equate to economic success, but mental clarity has a lot of benefits.
Roger, I’m not quite sure what I wrote that “a lot of ‘Lamanites’ might disagree” with. I said nothing about which parts, if any, of the BoM might be accurate history or which parts I would think simply metaphorical. Are you asserting that the BoM must be either entirely accurate history (and entirely accurate “translation”) or entirely metaphorical?
BTW, I believe the statement you remembered from the 1981 unattributed introduction was “the Lamanites… are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.” ( I suspect BRM’s authorship, but cannot confirm. In any event, that statement was consistent with the understanding of many Church leaders from the initial publication of the BoM.) In 2006, the statement was changed to say that the Lamanites “are among the ancestors of the American Indians.” An article on the change can be found here: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/695226008/Debate-renewed-with-change-in-Book-of-Mormon-introduction.html
“We are seekers. You and I”
Seeker is a loaded term.
Seekers in the generic sense are people who are not satisfied with what they have found and look for more. But seeker had a different connotation in colonial New England. Seekers were a specific kind of religious folks. They were not usually members of a church and often did not attend any meetings at all. They eschewed any organized religions and their clergy. They did not accept some or all of the creeds, traditions and even scriptures. They were free-thinkers, non-conformists and radicals; even further out there than their Quaker cousins who originally didn’t believe anything except to shut up and listen to what God tells you and love your neighbor. Not a few Quakers got burned at the stake for their effort. Seekers were viewed by the mainstream as among the worst of doubters and even veiled disbelievers.
Joseph Smith’s father was a seeker before his son and namesake founded Mormonism. Alvin, his oldest brother was a seeker and was never baptized in this life. Hence the preacher at his funeral consigned his soul to hell. This bothered Joseph Smith long enough that he had revelations about religious progress after death and ordinances for the dead. Unusual doctrine, except for a seeker.
Disclaimer: I might be the only person on the planet who finds the Harry Potter books boring. But today I find it interesting that the term seeker has a special meaning in that fantasy world. A seeker is the person who catches the golden snitch and wins the most important game. There has to be some Freudian hidden meaning there that escapes me. Help me out?
Elder Uchtdorf is anything but naive. He has to know what seeker meant in circa 1830. He hints, with that word, that pretty extreme doubt is not unacceptable. He might even imply he has doubts himself. (You and I). He draws no deadline, it can be a lifelong quest and continue after death if traditional conversion is also possible then. I leave it to the Potterites amongst us to interpret the meaning of the seeker of golden snitches and guess if Elder Uchtdorf has any hidden messages along that angle.
Well, Mike, maybe the meaning is or hidden message is like the message that appeared ultimately appeared on the snitch Potter inherited from Dumbledore and carried around for a while in book 7: “I open at the close.”
Roger. It’s not prosperity gospel. It’s the abundant life that Jesus offers. It’s the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments. It’s the state of the man who served the poor wayfaring man of grief and forgot his own wounds, his bread tasted like manna and felt like slept in Eden. It’s taking the experiment that Alma offers. I live the restored gospel and it works. People tell me that restored gospel came through angels to humans like Adam, Nephi, and Joseph Smith. I can’t confirm (or even believe) in those actual, literal angelic visits, but I do believe the restored gospel works.
rogerdhansen, spot on.
At some point what was previously considered actual/literal truth among Mormon leaders and members can be understood as metaphorical truth without doing too injustice to Mormon truth claims. But some of the “metaphorical” Mormons (Mormons who believe that there is some element of truth and worth in the Mormon Church but reject its central truth claims as literal and accept them as true only in a metaphorical sense) go too far and promote the truthfulness and value of Mormonism in a way that does great injustice to how both earlier and present Mormon leaders intended the idea that the church is true to be meant. To understand the Book of Mormon as completely metaphorical and also true but not actually containing the words of ancient Americans about Jesus is intellectually dishonest, misleading, and grossly misrepresentative of how the leaders have asked the members to view the Book of Mormon.
At some point if you promote Mormonism to be metaphorical you completely strip it of meaning and value and turn it into a mere shell whose sole function is to maintain tradition and for the younger to profess some sort of belief in, no matter how metaphorical and non-literal, in order to keep peace with and avoid offending deeply believing family members. Not wanting to tell one’s mother of spouse that they don’t really believe in Mormon truth claims seems to be a huge motivating factor behind “metaphorical” Mormonism.
Angela C. and churchistrue, I understand that believing in the Church and following the commandments works for you. And provides you with with non-monetary benefits. And I glad. But bad things happen to good people. That is a truism. And the Church has done little to dispel the idea that following the commandants will lead to tangible prosperity.
More to the point of the post, I agree with John W.: “if you promote Mormonism to be metaphorical you completely strip it of meaning and value.” What’s left?
I like Prez Uchtdorf idea of continuous searching and education. Seek for the truth. But I don’t think the individual should start out with preconceived notions (or inoculations). And should be prepared to accept where the path leads. If it is overcoming doubts and staying with the Church, fine. But I think the individual needs to understand that the Church won’t be the answer for everyone.
Do you think we have to desire/hope for the Mormon version of god and heaven to be doing this right? Because I have to tell you, the Mormon heaven is not a place that I want to be — as a woman. I can’t hope for that. I believe in continuing to seek the spiritual path, but since my feminist awakening, that path has left Mormonism behind.
Noel, thank you for this comment. I heard Michael Ferguson talk about this idea with Gina Colvin on A Thoughtful Faith, and I’ve been looking for more. Do you recommend this book by Jeeves and Brown? Are there any other books that you would recommend?
The difference for me between Elder Renlund and Elder Uchtdorf one is from a culturally romantic Utah and the other from Europe
Having lived for years in these areas one suffers from a myopic cultural history the other a very “ earthy” history…..much more grounded
Only the “Silver Fox” could pull this one off. Oaks, Bednar,….and other fundamentalist hard-liners – NOT A CHANCE. Uchtdork almost persuadeth me to believe again (just a little bit)….and then I hear one of these other knuckleheads raise their voice. I’m with Geoff-Aus, with Oaks at the helm, the LDS Church is in for a really rocky run.
Kangaroo:
You got it half right. Elder Renlund “is from a culturally romantic Utah”? Horse feathers!
Elder Renlund’s parents were young adult immigrants to Utah from Scandinavia who couldn’t even speak good English when he was young. His native language is Swedish and rarely it comes out a bit with a very slight accent. English is his second language which he speaks better than I (having been educated in the Utah public schools). He lived in Sweden for 3 years as a teenager with relatives and served his 2 year mission there also. He did college and medical school at the U of U (8 years) and residency and fellowship at Johns Hopkins (6? years).Those places could not be more different from BYU. He is not like some of my relatives you describe.
I am making this part up.Sweden, with its 9700 baptized members of which 50 to 80% are inactive, is a small community. Elder Renlund has to know Hans Mattsson. He was probably friends with him. He acts like the Swedish faith crisis Hans ignited and the failed Swedish rescue never happened.
He has no excuse- which you have tried to give him. He has purposely but on the Mormon blinders and the rose colored glasses and drank from the linger-longer punch deeply.
Horse feathers hmmmmmm…maybe your only half right too.
I think Elder Renlund has lived amongst Utah Culture and amongst “Church Officers” to have more than a very full dose of unicorns and rainbow view of the world….Germans are not American Swedes
Half right is better than usual for me.
rogerdhansen writes “I don’t think the individual should start out with preconceived notions (or inoculations).”
I sometimes agree with that thinking in various realms including religion.
An example would be in computer programming where to be indoctrinated in someone else’s idea on how to do a thing could limit, not expand, your own ability to discover a great way to do a thing.
But re-discovering wheels is inefficient. I remember developing a sorting algorithm. It was simple, easy to construct and thus reliable, but slow. Eventually I discovered it was one of the oldest sorting algorithms and even has a name: “bubble sort”. I had re-discovered a primitive wheel but I felt great having discovered anything at all.
I generally avoid reading “church books”. beyond scripture but I admire people that have the time to do so especially if they succeed thereby to understand principles of the gospel and principles of living.