Study: The Moral Virtue of Authenticity

Well, my own take on authenticity: https://wheatandtares.org/2015/06/16/authenticity-will-the-real-me-please-stand-up/ I go through the history of the authenticity movement a little bit and talk about diplomacy, discretion, and duty as counterweights to authenticity. Then I go into self-awareness as an obstacle as well as the need for acceptance.

I concluded with this advice:

-Seek self-knowledge, but recognize your inability to be objective about yourself. Realize that you are in some ways a stranger to yourself, constantly evolving and (hopefully) growing and learning.

-Be curious about others. Ask more about others, out of a genuine desire to understand without judgment. The way to empathy and love lies here.

-Keep expectations for being understood in check, even among family members.

-Let go of the need for approval. The cost is too high. But you don’t need to pick fights about it either. Live and let live, and most other people will too.

-Allow others their own worldview without feeling you need to correct theirs or explain your own. Life’s too short. You be you; let them be them.

Realize that you are in some ways a stranger to yourself, constantly evolving and (hopefully) growing and learning.

I like this. I have heard some people in marriages say their partner changed. Well…ya. That happens. It is not unrealistic.

The same with our testimonies…I am not the same person I was at 21…thank goodness. So…things will change, and that requires creating a new vision of what the new outlook is going to be like.

But it is not inauthentic just because once it was viewed different.

“I feel like I’m living a lie” is usually not an exaggeration, and wanting to tell your friends/family/ward about your faith crisis/transition comes from a deep psychological need to view yourself as a moral person.

I think a lot of the good advice about how to stay LDS comes down to meeting this need without confessing to everyone.

I think the difficult part is that we can privately go through a transition or go on a journey which allows us to explore new ideas. The challenge is explaining it to others who didn’t go on the journey with you.

and wanting to tell your friends/family/ward about your faith crisis/transition comes from a deep psychological need to view yourself as a moral person.

Possibly, but my experience leads to a different conclusion – many of the “coming out” experiences I have witnessed or heard of from people close to me have also come from a place of ego or judgement. In the faith transition model I have heard and seen more people whose anger and hurt led them to feel that they had to come out or they would burst. Their hope was also that their disclosure would influence the other party to see things the same way. To feel as violated, invalidated, betrayed, lied to, etc. Sadly most often that desire has not occurred. More often the opposite takes place, rejection, contention, dismissal. Then the war gets bigger. The “authentic” person is enraged (whether they display it or not) and the tidal wave of crisis grows. The water becomes lava and greater damage often ensues.

This moment of Authenticity that gets tossed around in Faith Crisis mode is very different than coming clean about a personality flaw, a stolen item, an affair. Those all hurt but the authenticity moment brings the dawn of healing – which is where the Moral Fiber quotient applies. A faith crisis – is a whole different beast.

So yes owning our own crap is important. It is moral and healing. Faith Crisis disclosure requires a totally different wisdom and intent.

Seeking validation can certainly be a part of coming out. People that have had a faith crisis may also find themselves in a position where they need to establish boundaries and people may feel the need to come out as a part of the boundary setting process.

Church is often viewed as an all or nothing affair, both from the inside looking out and the outside looking in. Saying “I don’t want to home teach anymore” may get challenged or people setting the boundary may feel as though they need to volunteer their reasons. I do feel that there is a pull to conform at church, boundaries will be tested.

Boundaries aren’t boundaries unless they are communicated and people have to feel comfortable communicating them. That can be a tall order in our culture. I think that’s one of the reasons people end up accepting assignments and then not doing them, sometimes it’s easier to accept a HT assignment and not do it than it is to tell someone you aren’t interested in doing HTing. We have such little experience setting and honoring boundaries in our culture, it takes effort from both ends.

I agree it can make you feel immoral. But I think if you are not fully active, you are being authentic. I show up, talk with other Mormons, have normal conversations and interactions, but what makes it authentic is the fact that I don’t hold a TR, don’t hold a leadership calling, and don’t get up and bear my testimony. I don’t teach the hard core doctrine, and I’m not fully integrated in the Ward.

Ask me to take a Bishopric position, or be a leader in the Ward, THAT would be inauthentic.

I do hold a TR and a leadership calling, and I’m expected to bear testimony and teach doctrine according to a lesson plan. I know how to navigate all this now thanks to this site, but it’s tiring and makes me feel duplicitous – which I think is why the study’s conclusions resonated so much.

A faith crisis is hard enough without having to learn all this strategy and doublespeak, and put up with feeling a bit dirty and alien every Sunday. It does get easier over time, right?

Fwiw, I don’t do or believe in doublespeak. I just know how to share my views and beliefs using Mormonspeak, if you will.

There is a difference, and it is important. I can serve in any calling I am likely to be asked to do and be totally authentic. I won’t share all my nuanced beliefs from the pulpit, but I don’t need to do that to be authentic.

We often conflate full disclosure with authenticity and honesty, and those three things are very different things, in critical ways.