Is there an easier way?

Wayfarer…..so sorry you are going through this! A couple of questions….is this the first time she has discovered truly that you are not Tbm? How old is she and are you in a heavy Mormon area? Those things would certainly affect the equation and advice.

I have been openly unorthodox for 20 years and live in virginia, as does she.

This might sound corny, but “bear your testimony” of WHY you believe non-literally – then emphasize that it’s perfectly fine for HER to disagree with you and see things literally.

It sounds like she wants her perspective to be validated by someone she loves and admires.

Hi wayfarer. I understand the concern you have. I wrote that fear on this form somewhere about hard lining with the “it’s all truth or all false”. teaching and concern with the dangers of making such a stance. It’s really like saying the same thing about science–it’s all true or all false. Upon finding science has been wrong at times before what would a person conclude after hearing that?! I am on lunch now so I don’t have a lot of time. But I will try to liken it to my childhood.

My mother gave me what I still hold to be precious books when I was 5 years old. These Value Books http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValueTales” class=”bbcode_url”>http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValueTales

Each book gave a simplified and fictionalized biography of a historical figure as an allegory, illustrating the value of a positive characteristic. Each volume was a white pictorial glossy hardback book around 60 pages long with a brightly colored cartoon of the figure, along with some anthropomorphic item or animal that would narrate the subject’s life throughout the book.]

I used them as a reference in my faith jump. I concidered each attribute as crucial and vitally important to life and harmony with society. I did love the stories growing up but took them literally. When I grew older I found the more complex complete history of those people but the value of the teachings stayed.

Although I still have faith in the bible and BOM, I know not everything is literally true(never mind that much of it may not be is beside the point–I simply don’t know and extend faith). I use the allegory of my childhood books as a refernce that despite that thier is a legitimate concern to the literal nature of the books–the value of the ideals taught therein are immensely important to me.

I can use fairy for that which I do not know but hope to be true. But that is beside the point to me at the moment. I need the teachings therein to be the person I want and desire to be.

We often hear overly simplified teachings at school and even college as well. I sympathize with your daughter because I felt the same way. I used the allegories of the value books in my life to bridge the gap with faith.

If we had to stand by any category or society or science or religion etc.. In this life as all truth or all false then nothing would be. Because nothing is perfect, period. Perfection doesn’t exist anywhere in the universe except in the case of you extend faith to god and Christ but that’s it. We exist because of it, not despite it.

I’ll write more latter after work. I hope this can be in some measure helpful to you or her.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned to one of my daughters that I don’t think that much of scripture and church history is literal…that’s all i said…she came over last night completely distraught: her faith has more or less collapsed: “How can you say that things aren’t literally true and still have a testimony?” she asked. “Either Joseph Smith literally saw God the Father and Jesus Christ and they said all other churches are false or not…how can that not be literal? And if not literal, what is the whole point of the Church? isn’t everything based upon authority? I can’t read the scriptures now, because when I do, I can see how much of them are fabricated…and when I listen to testimonies, it drives me nuts because everyone claims it’s the one true church…”…I do not want my children to lose the joy the Church and Gospel gave me as I raised them…i certainly don’t want to see the typical jump to complete disaffection…i am seeing how the messages of some of our leaders: “either it happened just like JS said it did or its all a big fraud” have created a false dichotomy in my daughter’s head. but I feel powerless to prevent the slide…

One thing that helps me calm down about the Church and the implications of it not necessarily being everything it claims to be is simply to remember that at the end of the day it’s just church and Church leaders are only human. Just because they say it that doesn’t mean you need to believe it or even listen very closely to what they say and take it all so seriously. I think this sort of shift in perspective is what generally needs to happen for any members that no longer believe in the restoration story, obedience to prophets, and the one true church idea to be able to salvage some value out of their Church membership and activity if they want to. However, the Church definitely doesn’t make it easy to stick around if you don’t believe some of these points because of the way they already set the expectation that it is supposedly so important for all of this to be true at the same time plus they repeatedly put so much emphasis on these ideas that it can be hard to listen to and they also try to enforce exaggerated conviction (testimony) about these doctrines through specific temple recommend questions.

Why is it that practicing Catholics can know about the Inquisition, sex abuse scandals, etc. without feeling like they need to leave their church permanently the same way that Mormons will typically “fall away” as soon as they see major problems with the LDS Church and its history? My guess is that it is mostly because average Catholics generally don’t have quite the same unrealistic level of commitment and expectations that active Mormons do to begin with so for them it never really was about the literal truth of the doctrines and unquestioning trust in the leadership hierarchy as much as simply feeling familiar with the Catholic Church to the point that they like it and it basically feels like home to them. Why can’t the LDS Church be more like that? Personally, I think the current inflexible environment is mostly an unintended by-product of the way the Church has evolved so far where it was relatively isolated from the rest of the world without much competition for so long that by the time it really started branching out Church leaders were already used to having active members typically believe and do whatever they were told to without much resistance and most disobedient or less faithful members typically avoid church altogether.

I wrote that fear on this form somewhere about hard lining with the “it’s all truth or all false”. … It’s really like saying the same thing about science–it’s all true or all false. Upon finding science has been wrong at times before what would a person conclude after hearing that?!

💡 ❗ Thanks F_C, that comment really clicked for me. What if we learned something about a part of science that looks fabricated and we lost all faith in all science …all of a sudden we’re wondering if the airplanes are going to fall out of the sky!! 😯

That really helped me to see the error of lumping everything together.

I’m not so sure there is “an easier way”, my friend. But I think the important things are the relationships, so the best way is a loving, gentle, and caring way…realizing it can’t be expressed in one conversation. Over time, it may be easier to work through between you and your daughter.

It sounds like you did it the best way you could think, now you have to just keep a long term focus that it cN work out for the best if the relationship is healthy for it.

These critical conversations take 3 things:

– the right timing

– the right dosage that the other person can digest at a time

– the right tact in how it is expressed.

Hang in there. It could lead to good things in the future.

I don’t disturb their literalism. If they are happy with it, I leave it be….

That is certainly easier and that’s what I typically do as well mostly because I worry about making things worse in some way I don’t expect. However, this approach will not necessarily achieve the worthwhile objective of developing a more mature and resilient type of faith that can withstand realistic challenges without falling apart like a house of cards at the first sign of trouble.