Anyone growing up in the LDS church certainly had many lessons on faith and can probably off the top of their head answer, “What is Faith?” with the answer of “The belief of things unseen”, or “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And of course Alma’s “faith is like a seed” analogy will often come to mind. On the church’s web site, the Bible Dictionary has a nearly 400 word description of faith that describes several aspects of faith.
The word “faith” can be used outside of the realm of religion, such as “I have faith the sun will rise tomorrow.” But today it seems that “faith” is mainly used in context of religion or spirituality.
When I was listening to Rick B’s “How Polygamy Shapes Modern Mormons” set of podcasts with Lindsay Hansen Park. I do recall Lindsay making the claim that Polygamy has shaped quite a bit of the modern church and she convinced me that there was some truth in this assertion. But what caught my attention is when she said:
You will understand LDS Mormonism and Mormonism in general if you understand that faith, the word faith, is actually interchangeable with the word loyalty to the institution.
You will understand LDS Mormonism and Mormonism in general if you understand that faith, the word faith, is actually interchangeable with the word loyalty to the institution.
I think I might have heard this said before, but I kept mulling this thought over in my mind and to me it does make sense. Then just a few days ago Dave B made a similar statement in his post “The Engsign on Faith Crisis“
In LDS discussions, “truth” is often confused with loyalty. “Be true,” in an LDS context, isn’t saying anything about truth, it’s saying be loyal, regardless of what the facts are.
Given that I am quite the homebody during the pandemic, it has given me quite a bit of time to read through my stack of “to read” books. I have thought about “faith = loyalty to the institution” as I have read much of early and even recient history in the LDS church. I can’t find many cases were to me this statement doesn’t come into play at least a bit.
Have others thought about this statement and applied it to situations both in history and in real life now? If so, do you feel it is more true than not, or more often not?
Image cropped from Wikimedia commons.
Wheat & Tares 
Well, “faith” is sometimes (often?) used to mean “loyalty to the Church” or a conviction that “the Church is true” (whatever that means). But it is not always interchangeable, e.g., the Article of Faith asserting “faith in the Lord Jesus Christ” as one of the first principles of the Gospel cannot reasonably be understood as “loyalty to the Church” no matter how many times Church leaders (or Church ladies) speak of “faith” as if it meant “loyalty to the Church.” I suspect such usage contributes to a serious confusion between Church and Gospel on the part of many.
Happy Hubby, thank you for this essay.
The phrase that I struggle with is The Church Is True.
The phrase The Church Is True has always annoyed me. It makes my hackles rise. As years pass, I become more comfortable with recognizing and admitting my discomfort with that phrase. I have finally begun to ask myself the bigger question of Why. Why do I despise that phrase?
I realized that I the statement of The Church Is True as a blanket that covers over a huge pile of laundry. The lumps and bumps of that laundry pile can still be seen. Some of that laundry is clean. Some of that laundry is dirty. Some is dirty enough that it has a sour smell that permeates the entire room. Even without actually seeing that laundry, it is obvious to anyone with a nose and eyes that there is laundry under that blanket that needs to be taken care of. The blanket needs to come off. The laundry needs to be sorted. Some can be tossed in a washing machine and easily processed. Some will need some extra steps to get those items clean. A few pieces are so filthy that they will need to be thrown away and replaced with new items. The clean laundry has been tainted by being mixed in with the dirty. It is time to go through and give it all a good wash.
Currently, it feels like the LDS church is attempting to shove clean laundry under that blanket while slowly pulling out dirty laundry, one piece at a time, in the hope that they can eventually have only clean laundry under that blanket. Then, they plan to remove the blanket. The reality is that household laundry does not work like that. There is always someone trying to shove their dirty socks or underwear deep down into the laundry to hide them.
It is only when an organized system for doing household laundry is implemented that laundry is really done right. The household needs to come up with set rules for how laundry is handled. Everyone needs to know that something disgusting is not allowed to be shoved into the pile. Those items have to be openly acknowledged and addressed.
Every time I hear the phrase The Church Is True, I think of that laundry pile hiding under a blanket. It is not all clean. The word true is my mind is a term of cleanliness. Until the church can address its dirty laundry, they should not be using such a word as True. I would like the LDS church to be clean enough to use the term True. Unfortunately, that laundry has been sitting for a very long time. It is not getting any cleaner on its own.
I think leaders would like us to have faith in them that their decisions are correct, which can be confused with loyalty. I think leaders could do a better job of avoiding separating out loyalty from faith, but if the Lord can never lead the Church astray, and if they believe they are not leading the Church astray, it is very easy for them to conflate faith with loyalty. But if faith=loyalty, then it sure makes their job easy when people are loyal to them.
Because I am sure that leaders can quote the 4th article of faith. We should have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, or faith is the substance of things hoped for.
The problem is when practice conflicts with reality, and they want members to sustain them, then loyalty becomes faith. It shouldn’t be that way, but I can see why it is seductive for leaders.
Have you noticed that even on the progressive LDS blogosphere we see the term “faithful Mormon”? That has always bothered me because I really believe that the term “loyal Mormon” is more appropriate. There are plenty of faithful people in and out of the Church. And when you label an active Mormon as “faithful”, you are suggesting that inactive Mormons or members who have left the Church entirely are less faithful. Some are. Some aren’t.
To me, the most faithful people in the world are those who turn their hearts to a superior being (Jesus, Mohammed, etc.) and do so without an institution giving them the ground rules.
Wondering – Thanks for your comments and you mentioning the confusion between Church and Gospel reminded me of Ronald Poelman’ GC talk entitled “The Gospel and the Church”. I think the fact that he was asked (forced?) to re-write and re-tape the talk is ironic and to me actually proves his original talk was more on the money. It seems the church wanted “faith in the Gospel” to equal “faith in the church (and hence the leaders)”.
Damascene – I like the analogy even if I dislike what it represents. Reading “The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy” to me seems to be a book full of stinky jock straps of patriarchy. I saw a petition for asking the church to put out a statement of apology for the racist past (and present?) of the church. I think we are going to continue to get comments like those from the NAACP asking for more to be done about the past support of racism. But do you think the church is up for creating a laundromat for itself, or is it more inclined to try and just throw a nice cover on top of issues instead?
Mormon Heretic – I agree with what you say, especially that where the rubber meets the road, quite often our leaders won’t say “faith=loyalty” outright, but it seems that it is absolutely what they feel. As in if you disagree with a stake president on a topic, then YOU are not having faith and just accepting what the leader’s belief is. But I can think of exceptions even at the higher levels – at least in the past. If I am recalling it correctly when Juanita Brooks was writing her book “The Mountain Meadows Massacre”, President McKay put the kibosh on some folks that wanted to excommunicate her for this action.
josh h – I think all I can add is “amen”. Ok, maybe if I was more verbose I could say, “amen brother!”.
While to me the proper object of faith is not the Church, there is also something to be said for loyalty. Loyalty does not need to mean unquestioning acceptance of and obedience to whatever someone in the Church hierarchy above you says. Loyalty to the Church as the Church of Christ can take the form of opposition to hierarchy when hierarchy is leading away from Christ’s principles.
I have had the impression, however, that JS’ understanding of loyalty was personal to him and I fear that some Church leaders’ understanding is the same.
Faith is belief in one’s own ability to emotionally withstand hardship and adversity in spite of an uncertain future. It shouldn’t be uncompromising belief in absolutist yet unevidenced truth claims about history and nature.
I can’t speak to what church leaders think because I am far removed from them, but for me, my faith is centered in Jesus Christ. My faith in Jesus Christ prompts me to charitably sustain all my fellow Saints in their callings, high and low, as they magnify their offices as best they can. May He bless us all in our efforts.
Great topic. I don’t invest much in the idea of loyalty to the institution: I differentiate between “the institution,” “the gospel,” and “the church.”
For me, criticizing the institution is fair game with caveat: I try to avoid criticism in the context of “the church,” because I define the church as “the body of Christ”—brothers and sisters, members, all same-team. I can criticize the institution as separate from the people.
Also, I don’t refer to our institutional belief systems as “gospel.” I see where the institution markets beliefs as a response to having no authority to offer answers. It doesn’t bother me: I see a bunch of Boy Scouts with titles of authority to replace childhood merit badges.
I do not see faith and belief as the same thing.
Loyalty is a structure of belief, not faith. Hope is a structure of faith.
Nothing in the gospel orders loyalty above love. So instead of “loyalty,” we ought to supplant “love,” and see where that takes us.
Merriam Webster‘s first three definitions of faith are: allegiance to duty or person, fidelity to one’s promises, sincerity of intentions. Think of how the word is generally used outside of the church. Faithful spouse, acting in good faith etc. Further definitions related to religion come later.
So of course church discourse can use the word faith to mean loyalty. But I think most of the time it means belief in the teachings and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Either way, I would most definitely describe my faith as nuanced, and believe love, not faith, should really be the first principle of the gospel. At least it‘s the first and greatest commandment. Let‘s never forget that.
While the world could definitely benefit from more faith, greater benefit would come from more love.
So let me express my love and gratitude for all W&T participants. It would be cool to have a gathering and meet each other some day.
I am reading Taylor Petrey’s book, “Tabernacles of Clay” and was struck by this quote from Boyd K. Packer on page 157. Concerning gay-lesbian members of the church, Packer
The footnote references “Talk to The All-Church Coordinating Council.”
In explaining disapproval and forbidding republication of McConkie’s “Mormon Doctrine”, President McKay is reported to have said McConkie “is a General Authority, and we do not want to give him a public rebuke that would be embarrassing to him and lessen his influence with the members of the Church…” But lessening his influence and the influence of that unauthorized book is exactly what seems to some to have been needed. (And one wonders if he were capable of being embarrassed. )
Where BKP apparently spoke of “faith in church leaders,” I would prefer thinking of “trust” in church leaders. The strength (degree?) and scope of any such trust appropriately varies from leader to leader and from subject to subject and from circumstance to circumstance — at least unless one chooses to think them infallible conduits of God’s will and words on all subjects and that one has understood them equally infallibly and unless one is able to pretend that all of what they have all said is internally consistent. I don’t know any thoughtful, knowledgeable person who can do that.
Interesting post. One thing I think is important to note is that one reason church leaders use faith in the way they do (i.e. loyalty, etc.) is because the other kind of faith, what the scriptures call “the substance of things hoped for” is an extraordinarily flimsy kind of belief upon which to base misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc. I mean, if faith in God and, by extension, his laws comes down to “well, I hope this is true” and you’ve spent the entire life of the church denying women equality and denying gay folks the kind of loving relationships they seek and you’ve spent most of the life of the church denying the priesthood to a substantial percentage of even male members, then you’ve really f*****d things up because that means you’ve essentially denied these things based upon no evidence at all. You’ve essentially made things up in order to legitimize your prejudices. But if “faith” is in both your leaders and everything they say, then you’re less likely to really do the kind of engaged introspection that the search for true faith (and by extension, empathy and compassion) calls for.
*Brother Sky