Last week’s devotional at BYU by Kevin S. Hamilton made some waves online. Jake C. gave a summary on Sunday with I Believe in Church. While I certainly disagreed with the short sound bites Elder Hamilton’s devo had been summarized to online, I wanted to listen to the whole thing in context and gather my thoughts. After all, I’m still IN the church, and I wouldn’t be if I didn’t, like Elder Hamilton, think one is necessary for me or want one to be a part of my life right now. We must agree on something, right? We did, a little–more on that later. For those who’d like a summary of the whole 30 min devotional, I’ll bop it in at the end.

Elder Hamilton’s “Why a Church”

He starts by highlighting the rise of the spiritual but not religious and how a recent Pew Survey found the most religious observant actually obtained the highest rate of feelings of spiritual peace per week (which, is important, but not necessarily telling much. could it be correlated to those keeping black-and-white paradigms of certainty? where does one find complete spiritual peace when you’ve moved on from those paradigms? I’d venture to say I find more spiritual growth than peace … Anyways) Does some wild oversimplification of how OT “The Church” was all about nuclear families guided by loving patriarchs, NT Church was established by Christ himself, and today JSJ restores them both . . . which, whatever.

Elder Hamilton said we need the church to enable individuals & families to do the work of salvation & exzaltation. He reads off a list of reasons for a Church on his PowerPoint. I find it interesting the order he lists the reasons we need “The Church.”

He compares the church to a capsule-type pill, with Christ and the atonement being the medicine inside. In the argument he builds: we can only come to Christ & walk with him as we

  • receive his authorized ordinances
  • make & keep associated covenants only found in his church along the path
  • renew those covenants every week & participate in the sacrament

He then goes on to highlight four things he observes today:

  • People disconnect Jesus Christ from his church & apostles by saying “I follow the Savior, not the church/apostles.” It is NOT possible. You CANNOT accept Jesus Christ and reject his Church or his messengers. You cannot separate Christ from the Church of Jesus Christ. in 3 Nephi 12:1 “Blessed are ye if you give heed to these twelve who I have chosen to minister to you and be your servants.” Christ tells people to give heed to the 12 disciples. It is simply not possible to completely follow the savior without following his church.
  • The Lord’s church is one of order. You don’t bishop shop or ward hop. A ward is not about what it can give you, it’s about what you can give. It’s a laboratory of learning to learn to love and serve each other.
  • Leaders are only human and are capable of making mistakes. While it’s true that we’re all fallible, The safety net for all of us is the unanimous council system that solves the problem. When they speak in unity they speak on behalf of Christ.
  • “Be the Change: work to change the church from within.” How does this square with being a humble follower of Christ? The kind of change that makes differences in eternities comes from within, our hearts, minds, and circumstances – we repent and change.
  • Some people have found it’s their absolute duty to point out the shortcomings of the church. They feel they’re loyal to the Savior but oppose certain teachings of the church. Oaks has said some who resist prophetic direction call themselves the “loyal opposition,” however appropriate for democracy, there is no warrant for this in the government of God’s kingdom where questions are honored, but opposition is not.” like I don’t support the church’s policy on ______ or I don’t agree with the way the church does ______. Alternative approach: substitute “The Savior” in place of “The Church” and say those statements again. Tells the OT story of transporting the ark of the covenant. The priest who reached out to steady the ark was smitten immediately. Only certain folks have the key to steady the ark. This has obvious modern-day parallels.

We walk by faith and not sight. Despite our efforts, we see thru a glass darkly. Lord sees clearly, Isaiah 55:8-9. In due time we’ll know the answers and reasons behind things we don’t understand right now, but in the meantime, we look to the first presidency. Otherwise, you’ll be tossed to and fro.

He gives an example of one of the first Africans serving a mission and not knowing about the policy of the temple and priesthood ban. He was going to leave the church when he found out from someone on the street but ended up talking to MP Pinegar who convinced him to stay because he had a testimony of the restoration. This missionary has gone on to serve in general offices and as an MP himself.

Anyways, by the voice of the servants, it’s the same as God. Build on the rock of the Redeemer, and that’s Christ.. by the way, the only way you can do that is to receive ordinances, make covenants, and renew them every week!

I think for folks who feel called to Christianity (and to practice it in the LDS church) it helps to practice discipleship in a community of imperfect folks striving to love and serve your neighbors (sometimes enemies!). I think as LDS members we have a scriptural obligation to try to create Zion here through those actions, and that our covenants aren’t only to Christ, but to each other. I think the sacrament is the most important covenant I make and renew in that effort, and I am making it to Christ & others promising to forgive and seek forgiveness; to mourn and comfort; to serve and bless.

On Twitter I called the substitution and equation of Christ with “The Church” and “Q12” blasphemous. I stand by that — it still turns my stomach to think of worshipping and loving the church and its leaders like my Savior, a member of the Godhead, the only perfect human to ever live. I could go through all of the things I disagree with here ….

  • The simplification of coming to Christ to making covenants only in our church and then renewing them on Sunday!! Even within our church, this narrow view of walking with Christ and coming to Him is … breathtakingly empty! and small? let alone that people are coming to Christ in every nation, land, and people without even the LDS church being a blip in their consciousness! It reeks of exceptionalism and condescension! I can agree that our Church has a special role in the latter days to lovingly administer all of the covenants we’ve been tasked with sharing – and if we don’t get folks in this life we’ll get them in the next.
  • The introduction of the African missionary who “just happened to simply never heard of [the race ban]” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ wonder how that could have happened!? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and let’s go on leaning into it’s just the biggest mystery and impossible to know its origins even though the last 15 years of scholarship on the race ban has produced fairly convincing evidence with lots of primary and secondary source documents ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but then that would negate every main point of this devotional wouldn’t it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In my first comment on Twitter is that this is completely counterproductive to keeping folks in the church. People are not necessarily having FAITH crises, but CERTAINTY and TRUST crises. I thought this was an attempt to stop the bleeding of folks out the door. What folks need is an acknowledgment of the uncertainty, tools to navigate it, and honesty in shortcomings to rebuild trust. There’s an opportunity to help folks manage & navigate the next step of faith …. one that hat holds paradoxes, uncertainty, & complexity simultaneously with faith. So many people want to keep the faith — I have bishops’ wives with LGBTQ+ kids in my dm’s begging for advice because the church is giving them ~nothing! The failure to do so & insistence to lean into authoritarianism are staggering. I can’t continue. I have my sanity to keep. There is so much more to say. And I’d like to leave space for an uplifting perspective.

Here is where I think I was wrong: this talk isn’t for folks like me. It’s for the BYU students who attend devotionals in person and listen at home. It’s for the kind of people who follow The Church News articles and socials religiously. This is inoculation for those folks. They ever hit something that might trip them up “hmmm, I don’t agree with _________. doh, can’t think that, it’s equivalent to saying the Savior himself is wrong!” I get why they ~feel it’s productive but I think it just builds a brittle faith. I think not only does it push the people near the edges out it creates more of those folks in the future.

I think there are people in SLC who do want to help folks like me who have moved on from an all or nothing faith, but on the down low… through back-channel 501c3s (if I remember back in the day it was The More Good Foundation and BonCom or something?) they are funding all of these strengthen faith projects that are “unaffiliated” (much of the work I have liked a lot myself and find helpful! heck I attended the Faith Matters conference!). What I’m facing is an organization for the most part in retrenchment, and they’re going to give one message more authoritatively, and the other they’ll hope you just kind of pick up on the flip side without any seal of authority, whatsoever.

“All you do is critique or tear folks down! There’s nothing else they can say to build faith, this is the only way leaders can build faith except this; they have before them!!”

This is not difficult and they don’t have