Help for a freshmen at BYU

[Anonymous]

hawkgrrrl wrote:

The best thing about not going on a mission if you are a guy in the Mormon church is that you know you aren’t going to be targeted by any marriage-happy women who are looking for a husband. There’s a silver lining here.

She has a point.

[Anonymous]

Hi, byustudent – Glad you’re here. :wave:

I hope you can read here and catch your breath a bit. And I hope we can help. I wish I had asked myself some of these hard questions decades ago. I also recommend “Crucible of Doubt.”

The question we ask a lot here is, “What do you believe?” Is what you do believe something you’d want to share with others? Does it propel you to serve in the ways a mission asks you to serve? And it’s okay to take the time you need. I know several boys who went a little later, and several who didn’t go at all, but are living the LDS life. I think there is less stigma attached to not going now.

Fwiw, my husband says that he just went with no burning convictions, caught up in that strong Mormon corridor current. He’s glad he did. Our son almost came home three months into his mission. He decided to retool as a less black and white thinker and stay out, and he’s glad he did.

I don’t know anything about the MTC. Could you just go up there and talk with someone? There must be elders/sisters having the bottom drop out of their faith every day. When they come and express concerns about teaching and testifying, I wonder what they’re told?

I think it’s interesting that some people hated their missions, but stay fully active. And some have no regrets about serving even though they’ve left the church. And everything in between….

[Anonymous]

A good option, I think, is to go and preach about Christ and Him crucified, salvation by grace and leave testifying about the other stuff to your companion. Converting people to Christ is far more important than to JS.

[Anonymous]

I really do appreciate these responses. I’ve emailed one of the professors here at BYU anonymously, and I think I might go and see him tomorrow.

The thing is I do care about the history of the church; the logical side of my brain won’t give me any rest if I can’t come to terms with my knowledge. There’s a couple of quotes/truths that have spurned me on:

“If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.”– President J. Reuben Clark

“Mormonism stands or falls on the story of Joseph Smith. He was either a prophet of God, divinely called, correctly commissioned and selected, or he was one of the biggest frauds in history. There are no other options. If Joseph Smith was a deceiver… then we should expose him; his declarations should be denounced, and his doctrines should be shown to be false.” – Joseph F. Smith

If I can believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and translated the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham, then all the other things (polygamy, race and the priesthood, odd and false statement from various church leaders through history) become significantly smaller obstacles, showing imperfect people. I know Joseph Smith was an imperfect man; I’m not expecting the white-washed version of him promoted by the Church.

But some of the historical problems outlined in my initial post are so glaring it’s hard to think of how it points to anything but fraud. I need to be able to resolve those and everything else will fall in place, and I don’t think pushing them off to the side as less important questions will bury the questions for long.

[Anonymous]

Personally I believe Joseph Smith had a profound spiritual experience we call the first vision. I don’t see any motivation for him to stick to the basic story facing the persecution he faced when he could have just faded into the frontier and become a farmer. I like to think the spiritual confirmation I have had regarding the first vision is actual, but I still struggle with discerning the spirit and emotion, so I don’t fully trust it. Beyond that I am unsure of all the rest and some of it I believe is absolutely made up. But I believe Joseph was doing what he thought was right and I think he believed it – I don’t think he was purposely perpetrating a fraud. That said, I don’t believe the BoM and BoA are what we are taught they are, nonetheless they are good books that teach Godly principles.

Quote:

But some of the historical problems outlined in my initial post are so glaring it’s hard to think of how it points to anything but fraud. I need to be able to resolve those and everything else will fall in place, and I don’t think pushing them off to the side as less important questions will bury the questions for long.

Be careful with that expectation. It could turn out this way for you, but it could turn out differently than you expect as well – it really is a Pandora’s Box. Some of these issues have no resolution, some of the questions don’t have answers. I hope they are cleared up for us at some future point (probably in the afterlife), but here we see through glass darkly. One of my own reconciliations is that I understand most revelation (if it actually exists) does not come in words, rather it is impressions and feelings. It is hard to translate those intangible things into words.

[Anonymous]

I agree with DarkJedi. I can think of other interpretations besides fraud without even going the seminary teachings route. Here are two others that readily spring to mind: 1) self-deception mingled with inspiration and revelation, 2) mental illness mixed with revelation. Once you see some of the divine in it, then you have the really fun task of trying to separate out the good – not that easy, unfortunately, but a lifelong pursuit for many of us.

[Anonymous]

byustudent wrote:

“If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.”– President J. Reuben Clark

One of my favorite quotes.

byustudent wrote:

But some of the historical problems outlined in my initial post are so glaring it’s hard to think of how it points to anything but fraud. I need to be able to resolve those and everything else will fall in place, and I don’t think pushing them off to the side as less important questions will bury the questions for long.

I remember feeling exactly the same way. I assume you are probably having a hard time with your studies as this just chews up so much mental energy. Many people here can tell you they have moved from a faith crisis to more of a faith transition where it does not feel your world is falling apart. After some of the anger phases and with working through many issues and changing (sometimes drastically) my perceptions of some things (like the fallibility of leaders and gospel not being the same as the church).

I suspect you will be able to find some professors that can really help. There are some that have gone through a faith crisis. Some of them may have resolved the issues in a way that may not help, but others may have. So even if the first professor doesn’t “click”, keep checking around.

[Anonymous]

I think you are asking very, very good questions, byustudent. Keep digging. You’re on a good path to growth.

Also remember how faith works. Keep yourself involved in good things, good actions and good reading and good service.

Some truths are not found by logical thinking and study alone. They become truth when living principles that help put thoughts into a new perspective.

You may have a big reading list already, but I recommend Religion and The Pursuit of Truth by Lowell L Bennion, 1968.

It is written for people in your stage of life, specifically.

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

In fairness, and trying to to derail or detract, there is a double standard at BYU Heber. It is perfectly OK for a non-member to go and believe pretty much whatever they want as long as they agree to live the honor code and can prove some modicum of moralistic behavior. Member students who leave the church or who are on that track do not have the same luxury. I’m not saying BYUStudent is in that position currently, but his fear is valid.

I would agree DJ, the fear is real and fair for you to raise that. And I’ve been away from campus for a while, only see things through my kids’ experiences now. But I’m not sure exactly what you are saying about expectations for members, honestly. All students need to live the honor code, and get an ecclesiastic endorsement…member or not. There is clearly leadership roulette involved, but … a student that attends church 50% of the time, and lives the honor code, and perhaps disagrees with many teachings or has doubts can still attend BYU, just like members with doubts can hold a temple recommend.

Is it really a double standard? Or just expectations dependent on what the student is doing, whatever their faith is?

To my point…it is good to clarify this and get facts, and not just fear out of false assumptions.

[Anonymous]

I know that need to have things resolved before being able to take a step further one way or another. As a friendly warning, don’t get too swept up in it and rush too fast towards resolution. You may feel like it must be resolved right now or you’ll lose your mind. But as many will say here, take a deep breath. Go slow. Tackle one thing at a time.

It is good to care about the history of the church; I reached my faith crisis because I wanted to know the full history of our church in case I encountered its less pleasant side while out in the mission field. I had always suspected there was more than what was taught over the pulpit and in our church buildings, and I didn’t want to be blindsided by things when I was in the middle of eighteen months of religious service. I’m very grateful that my faith crisis happened when it did.

We don’t have all the answers. You won’t find all the answers you want. There are things that may take years for your to resolve if they ever resolve at all. The trick is to break out of the black and white thought process that pervades church culture. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

My advice to you is to approach your studies with a desire to find peace with the religion. That doesn’t mean agreeing with it where it clashes with your own personal beliefs. It means more determining what you do believe and accepting those new, personal beliefs as your own, while also accepting that they are free to change as you live and experience and grow. This quote from the How to Stay in the Church article on the main page of this site is what helped me a lot, and my advice to you is to take it into thought:

Quote:

Buddha taught: Fix yourself, and make peace with your faith tradition before you ever consider abandoning it for something else.

Please continue to keep us updated. It’s not an easy or fun situation to be in, but you certainly don’t have to deal with it alone.

[Anonymous]

byustudent wrote:

“Mormonism stands or falls on the story of Joseph Smith. He was either a prophet of God, divinely called, correctly commissioned and selected, or he was one of the biggest frauds in history. There are no other options. If Joseph Smith was a deceiver then we should expose him; his declarations should be denounced, and his doctrines should be shown to be false.” – Joseph F. Smith

With statements like this I like to add a tagline to remind myself that this is only one person speaking for themselves. So to that quote I’d add the tagline “…for Joseph F. Smith” meaning that’s the way Joseph F. Smith feels about the matter, not how everyone should view the matter. For Joseph F. Smith JS was either a prophet or the biggest fraud in history but I’m free to arrive at my own conclusions. There’s plenty of distance between those two ends of the spectrum and that’s where I choose to reside. I mean surely Bernard Madoff is the bigger fraud.

But seriously, I think god can work through flawed people, in fact if he works through people at all it’s going to be through flawed vessels. But as flawed as JS appears to have been? Maybe. Maybe that’s just the universalist in me that hopes that a loving god could reach down and make an example out of any one of us.

I got to the point where it wasn’t any one particular thing in isolation, it was the crushing weight of the whole. What picture do I see when I take a step back to view the mosaic? At first that picture was “yup, con man” but then I started to take a few more steps back. I’m going to have to take several more steps back before this new picture comes into focus but for now I can say that I’m starting to see something else entirely.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

byustudent wrote:

“Mormonism stands or falls on the story of Joseph Smith. He was either a prophet of God, divinely called, correctly commissioned and selected, or he was one of the biggest frauds in history. There are no other options. If Joseph Smith was a deceiver then we should expose him; his declarations should be denounced, and his doctrines should be shown to be false.” – Joseph F. Smith

With statements like this I like to add a tagline to remind myself that this is only one person speaking for themselves. So to that quote I’d add the tagline “…for Joseph F. Smith” meaning that’s the way Joseph F. Smith feels about the matter, not how everyone should view the matter. For Joseph F. Smith JS was either a prophet or the biggest fraud in history but I’m free to arrive at my own conclusions.

This relieved a lot of pressure for me. I think it’s Hawkgrrrl who talks about putting on the anthropologist’s hat and just taking notes sometimes. Then it’s obvious – at least to some – why he’d say that. What else is the fully-invested nephew of the prophet and son of a slain father going to say?

[Anonymous]

What’s hard for me is how do we separate when prophet’s are speaking for themselves or when they are speaking for God and the Church, especially when talking about specific religious matters? It seems like picking and choosing which statements from the general authorities comprise doctrine and beliefs and which one’s were spoken as men (distinct from “cafeteria Mormonism” where individual members choose which doctrines to focus on).

[Anonymous]

byustudent wrote:

What’s hard for me is how do we separate when prophet’s are speaking for themselves or when they are speaking for God and the Church, especially when talking about specific religious matters? It seems like picking and choosing which statements from the general authorities comprise doctrine and beliefs and which one’s were spoken as men (distinct from “cafeteria Mormonism” where individual members choose which doctrines to focus on).

Tough question, and the answer may well depend on just how TBM the person you ask is. The most believing/orthodox members would say every word spoken by a GA is scripture and it’s all inspired. The next level of believer would say you can tell by the influence of the Spirit confirming it to you (FWIW, I think there is some validity to that idea). The most doubting will say none of it is inspired and they’re always or almost always speaking as men. I’m somewhere between the last two, partly because I don’t trust my feelings and partly because I don’t think any prophet of late has said anything significant. I know this sounds a bit trite, but you need to figure it out for yourself.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

Is it really a double standard? Or just expectations dependent on what the student is doing, whatever their faith is?

To my point…it is good to clarify this and get facts, and not just fear out of false assumptions.

I agree that BYUStudent may have been jumping to conclusions and that it is indeed OK for doubting students to be full participants at BYU (just like I hold a TR).

The double standard, which doesn’t apply at this point to BYUStudent, comes in for those who do resign their membership while a student at BYU. Even though they are then non-members, they are not given ecclesiastical endorsements, they are dismissed from the university, and holds are placed on their records – even if they agree to live the honor code and could otherwise pass the interview as a non-member. A person who has never been a member is not placed in that situation. Likewise, BYU does employ non-members. However, if a member employee resigns membership that employee is almost always dismissed – always if they are professors. Like others, they need to be extra careful about not appearing to be apostate and remain in good standing at BYU.

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