Worldwide Devotional

I heard it was awful. I assumed from the title it would be. I am glad Jana wrote a piece. This won’t make it easier on families and friends who experience this “dark night of the soul”.

The more we have these, the more I cry.

Arrakeen wrote: ↑15 Jan 2019, 21:12

How can those of us with doubts challenge the stereotypes of people like us when church leaders continue to stigmatize doubters?

Laugh. Ignore them. Keep staying LDS to prove them wrong. Or don’t. It doesn’t really matter. Those old beliefs will crumble away soon enough.

Adding to dande – be happy. Seriously. If people see you calm, at peace, cheerful, they are going to be less scared and over time doubt the messenger.

If I had a magic wand or wish, it would be that the flood of disaffected members came back to church enough to be a light of “you can let go and still be productive, kind, civilized, successful, etc.” That alone would turn the tide. People are visual and tactile. How you do something makes a world of difference.

I think there are a few issues – we aren’t the intended audience, the person giving the talk may feel hamstrung as to what they can say to a general audience, and the person giving the talk may lack perspective.

I go to this analogy too often but imagine that there’s a place where there are only polar bears and lizards. If it starts getting chilly outside the cold blooded lizards might hold a convention for all the animals and talk about strategies to keep warm. Meanwhile the polar bears are breathing a sigh of relief. It got so hot last summer that the polar bears were very distressed. The lizards don’t understand why the polar bears are not interested in their convention. “This is important, everyone should attend! Don’t the polar bears know how serious the situation is!” The lizards decide to fix the polar bears in order to save them from their cavalier attitude towards an obvious danger.

When the seasons change and the climate becomes warmer the roles reverse. It’s the polar bear’s turn to save the lizards from the dangerous heat.

Perspective. And the brilliant thing about perspectives is that more often than not we don’t know when we lack it.

and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

It’s a challenge. In many cases we’ve got people that have not suffered a specific “infirmity” believing that they know how to assist people that have. In the end they may end up doing more harm than good.

The church doesn’t do a good job of supporting people who doubt because most people that are in a position to truly succor people with doubts are found on the outside of the church. I think that’s one of the reasons it can be important to stay, to make the church more capable of succoring the needs of all members.

I think there are a few issues – we aren’t the intended audience, the person giving the talk may feel hamstrung as to what they can say to a general audience, and the person giving the talk may lack perspective.

The intended audience is something to keep in mind and I did learn from a mistake a few years ago with exactly this same kind of presentation – I am not a young adult. Hence I stopped watching them live. In this case my son was part of the intended audience and still found it distasteful – but also said his more orthodox friends probably liked it. It’s a doubt your doubts sort of thing where the message he and I heard was much more than doubt your doubts, but that was the meme the next day.

I’m not sure the most of the apostles feel hamstrung. They seem to be pretty free to say what they want. On the other hand, they do seem to be somewhat united on most topics which is probably the result of sitting in council with each other. I don’t think Uchtdorf’s emphasis on grace is really way out of step in that context but that’s also not a huge departure from our theology and some of us do believe more in grace than others. Likewise, I don’t think Renlund’s emphasis is way out of line with what the group (Q15) generally agrees on. Uchtdorf might take a softer approach while someone else might use the bulldozer. Again in this case I wouldn’t have expected Renlund to be a bulldozer kind of guy.

Lacking perspective on the part of the speaker in this case is almost a given. I think most of them (Q15) do not have perspective on things like doubt or faith crisis (and some other things) because they haven’t experienced it. Isn’t that why we love Holland, because he speaks from experience with mental health? As much as I love Uchtdorf, I’m not sure how much he really understands full blown faith crisis, but he does seem to have empathy nonetheless.

I swear that I have heard that story about the fisherman in the fishing boat before. A little googling reveals that this is at least the second time that Elder Renlund has given this parable and it was copied at least one time by a person giving a talk in SM.

https://stayingintheboat.wordpress.com/2018/06/23/the-old-fishermans-boat/

https://bycommonconsent.com/2018/09/26/choosing-between-the-boat-and-the-ocean/

Like Sister Riess, I do like that the analogy acknowledges “dents and peeling paint” in our church experiences.

I propose a tweak to the parable for it to better fit those with faith transition.

Suppose you live on an island and your life on that island will someday come to a close. There is an old and mysterious fisherman than tells you that in addition to your eventual death, the entire island will someday end. He says that if you and a small group of others make specific lifestyle changes and pool a portion of your resources to create an organization and remain loyal until the end, you may someday be selected to travel to a far away paradise island where we will live as imortals happily ever after.

On a fateful day you and some others are selected to travel to the paradise island. You depart in an old fishing boat. On the journey you are given crackers and water. You are told that the crackers are surloin steak, that the water is evian or perrier, and that the old and worn fishing boat is a luxury yacht. You are told the strength of your faith and the your worthiness of paradise island will make it so. You see friends and neigbors eating and drinking and commenting on how they “know” the boat to be a yacht, and the food and drink to be steaks and perrier. Sometimes there are violent storms and you worry about the seaworthiness of your vessel but each time the boat manages to pull through and you and your boatmates see to repairs. Over time the fisherman dies. A new leader emerges from among you in John. John is an islander like yourself and has never been to the paradise island but he claims to have the old fisherman’s notes and hand drawn maps. John also claims that in death the old fisherman has gone on ahead to the paradise island and appears to him periodically in his dreams to guide the journey.

You have now harbored concerns for a long time. You have mentioned the “dents and the peeling paint” and are dismissed and shamed as a doubter. Life aboard the boat is not bad necessarily but your experiences have made you start to wonder if there is any paradise island or if John really knows how to get there.

One day another boat approaches. As they draw closer it is revealed that they are headed to the island of your birth. John decrees that there have been doubters among you and that those doubts jepordise the safe journey of all. “Anyone that is not 100 percent committed should turn back now,” Said John. You are faced with a choice, do you go with the boat that is returning to the island (knowing if you do that you will be severing relationships with many of those people that you care about) or do you entrust your fate to John and his group of faithful followers? You strongly suspect that some of the things that have been told to you are not true but maybe the paradise island is real after all. The old fishing boat is well stocked with crackers and water – maybe it will reach the eternal destination tomorrow or next week and you will have been counted as foolish for abandoning the quest. If you leave the remaining passengers may forever after use your decision as a cautionary tale. You are torn and wracked with guilt over your indecision.

This analogy is not perfect. I have started with the original story by Elder Runland. I have removed the unfair ultimatum of choosing between a rickety boat and certain drowning. I have inserted the difficulty of having been told things by your leaders that seem to be demonstrably false. I have also inserted the uncertain nature of the shore/paradise island that I believe is inherant in religious belief.

I am part of the intended audience, and it did indeed feel like a bulldozer.

Lacking perspective on the part of the speaker in this case is almost a given. I think most of them (Q15) do not have perspective on things like doubt or faith crisis (and some other things) because they haven’t experienced it. Isn’t that why we love Holland, because he speaks from experience with mental health? As much as I love Uchtdorf, I’m not sure how much he really understands full blown faith crisis, but he does seem to have empathy nonetheless.

I did like Uchdorf’s devotional this week. I liked how when he mentioned how he had always believed, he acknowledged that this was not the case for everyone. He seems to recognize that he doesn’t fully understand people who doubt, so he takes a much more sensitive approach.

and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

It’s a challenge. In many cases we’ve got people that have not suffered a specific “infirmity” believing that they know how to assist people that have. In the end they may end up doing more harm than good.

The church doesn’t do a good job of supporting people who doubt because most people that are in a position to truly succor people with doubts are found on the outside of the church. I think that’s one of the reasons it can be important to stay, to make the church more capable of succoring the needs of all members.

I find this incredibly ironic given the analogy they used about not trusting those who doubt, “Would you entrust your financial portfolio to someone who was broke?”

Would you trust someone who has never been through a faith crisis to help you through yours?

I wonder whether these sorts of talks are geared primarily to inoculate believers against doubt than to minister to people that have experienced doubt. I wonder whether the people that have experienced serious doubt have been written off or whether it’s more the case that leaders just don’t know what to do with doubters, all they know is that they’ve got to prevent people from ever doubting.

I think it definitely prevents those with doubts from being open about them. A few effects of this:

1. It makes it appear that there are less people with doubts than there are, which makes it both easier for Church leadership to ignore, and increases retention through the bandwagon effect.

2. This has the illusion of inoculating believers against doubt, as the symptoms of doubt are no longer appearing, which reinforces the belief that members leave because they are lazy, sinful, didn’t read the BoM every day, or are talking themselves out of it for “reasons we don’t understand because they won’t tell us, so we’ll assume they’re petty”.

I keep coming back to the analogy of biological evolution. The traits which stick around in the Church, are those which increase the Church’s fitness (population and sustainability), not those which are “true” or “morally just”. When the environment changes, and certain traits that were once advantageous suddenly become disadvantageous, it’s common to see lower growth and even a dip in population, before those traits get weeded out. I don’t think the Church is in danger of going extinct, but we’ve really been struggling and I think will continue to struggle for quite a while. Evolution is a very slow process. That’s the big picture. The Church will sort itself out. But zoom in, and you still can’t help but feel sorry for the suffering individual who will “die” because their specie’s traits weren’t “fit” enough for their survival.