Belief Crisis Instead of Faith Crisis

[Anonymous]

I think sometimes it would be nice to hear the church admit it’s limitations of what it is and what it isn’t (moon vs finger pointing at the moon; or another analogy…the scaffolding to the building not the building).

It feels often like you have to figure that out on your own. You have to choose to make that picture and thought in your mind to be what is important to you. The nuance can make it work by seeing things differently, but still be true.

It’s just frustrating the church doesn’t teach you to see it that way. You gotta want to do that to see it.

I think we’ve discussed this before in other threads…I don’t know it is possible for the church to do that.

[Anonymous]

I think it is possible for the church to do that, Heber. I’m not actually sure we hear it that way from the leadership, recognizing that I, like most people, hear what I want to hear. I think the conflation of the church and the gospel is more of a member thing. On the other hand, other than Elder Poelman’s infamous talk over 30 years ago now, the Brethren also are not making it clear that there is a distinction. Elder Oaks came close last GC:

Quote:

As we speak to others, we need to remember that an invitation to learn more about Jesus Christ and His gospel is preferable to an invitation to learn more about our Church. We want people to be converted to the gospel. That is the great role of the Book of Mormon. Feelings about our Church follow conversion to Jesus Christ; they do not precede it. Many who are suspicious of churches nevertheless have a love for the Savior. Put first things first.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

hawkgrrrl wrote:

When you refer to losing trust in your ability to have the correct beliefs…

What of when you lose the desire to prove a belief to be correct, even if only to yourself? You know that whatever new belief you adopt will likely be proven wrong in time but you chose to adopt it anyway, knowing that you will only temporarily reside in that belief. The correctness of the belief becomes immaterial.

Yes, Enns is saying that thinking that we have correct beliefs is all about our hubris and is therefore antithetical to actually having faith. Relying on the correctness of our beliefs (or our ability to understand God) means that we are not vulnerable enough to experience faith. We are avoiding what leads to real faith, which is kind of human nature. We lack humility until we are compelled (through tragedy) to be humble. While we may feel that we deserve our good fortune, have earned it, when we have trials, we absolutely feel they are unfair.

nibbler wrote:

hawkgrrrl wrote:

Peter Enns is saying that this position of doubt is why you then trust in God because God’s understanding is better than ours, seeing the bigger picture that we cannot. You should realize your own ability to see everything is flawed, and that’s when you are able to “trust in God.” In a sense that means that having faith is having an optimism that the universe will catch you, that God will make up for what you lack and that God has your best interests at heart.

I don’t know about most people but my crisis didn’t stop at the borders of Mormonism. If someone equated church and god pre-crisis, which isn’t uncommon with Mormonism, they may be more naturally predispositioned to put god in the crosshairs when something changes their beliefs in the church. Losing trust in the church might translate into losing trust in god for some people.

While I think this happens in all religions to some extent, it’s more prevalent in Mormonism (and probably JWs) than it is in a protestant tradition because of our restoration “all others are an abomination” narrative. Our eggs are truly all in one basket, and when some of those eggs break, we are inclined to quit eating eggs.

nibbler wrote:

Borrowing from Fowler, maybe a belief crisis is remaining at your current faith stage (horizontal movement) and a faith crisis is transitioning from one stage to another.

No, not at all what Enns is saying. He would say that a belief crisis is might trigger Stage 4, but learning to truly trust God moves you to Stage 5. Enns is operating within the assumption that Christianity is the framework. He’s pushing against the idea that any individual set of beliefs is entirely valid or that we can rely on them.

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