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The following is a letter penned by Pres. Brown’s secretary and just published. Ardis Parshall (professional researcher and author of the amazing blog “Keepapitchinin”) has said it is authentic, and I trust her as much as anyone when it comes to these things. I love so much of it and want to share it with everyone here.
http://lds.net/blog/faith/defending-the-faith/never-seen-letter-doubt-hugh-b-brown/ Wow. Going to let it roll around a bit before I comment. Thanks. This has been floating around various forums and I saw it earlier today. I like it. I like that the places I have seen it tend to be more orthodox sites. I think it especially fitting for the time frame it was written when the church was much smaller, but it is very applicable today. There is a sense of prophetic-ness, that I can’t put my finger on. Even though it was written for a friend of his time, I really get a Moroni/Mormon “I can see your time” feel with it. I love how he framed his beliefs, but never put down the other persons lack of belief. There is a model for us in that. Bless Ardis for finding it. That women is on a roll.
There is a certain warmth and cadence to his writing that brings joy to the reader. Add his honest acknowledgment of doubts and struggles, and his simple testimony in a belief in God. So honest. So caring. So real. All I can say of that letter is :thumbup: DarkJedi wrote:This has been floating around various forums and I saw it earlier today. I like it. I like that the places I have seen it tend to be more orthodox sites.
It may be on the more orthodox sites because everyone can relate to a trial of faith on some level. Maybe people aren’t as orthodox as we think.
There are things I like in the letter and other things that rub me wrong for whatever reason. I like it because it feels truly genuine, I feel it reflects true Christlike ministry on Hugh B. Brown’s part.
mom3 wrote:I love how he framed his beliefs, but never put down the other persons lack of belief.
That is an important point.
Some key excerpts for me: Quote:
First, I have found that periods of doubt and skepticism, of negative reactions and disbelief have always been characterized by darkness, refrigeration of spirit, pettiness, cynicism, and general misery, even to a point of wishing for oblivion. Whereas, periods of faith, hope, and positive reactions have been times of buoyancy and cheerfulness filled with a desire to be and to become, to lift and encourage, and to point with confidence to something even more about to be. Here, life had cadence and lilt and zest and value, and I gloried in the thought that I could extend these benefits and joys and possibilities to my children.Good point. Doubt can lead you to stop serving, to be bitter and angry. My solution was to keep my lack of commitment to the church, and invite the rays of positivity into my life through service in another organization. Or to serve in the church on a more limited basis…
This was also interesting:
Quote:
I am told, and there seems to be ample evidence to support it, that matter is indestructible, that it is eternal. As a youth, if I had been told by my teacher in school that the desk on which I wrote was indestructible, and then when the schoolhouse burned had seen the mocking ashes where my desk had been, I doubtless would have lost faith in my teacher. Clearly, and before me, was the evidence of his folly. But later in High School and University, where in the laboratory, I learned how to catch and weigh the gases, oils, and ashes that resulted from burning wood and found that the process of burning had not in fact destroyed anything, I concluded that my youthful skepticism was but evidence of the narrow limits of my knowledge. From then on, humility bade me hesitate before questioning the truths which witnesses of research and observation had established. My questing soul still questions, but my questions had to do with ways and means of deciphering and getting at the truth and finding the relationship between observation and intuition, between knowledge and faith.He does wander into TBM-ism later in the article, but acknowledges it, which is to his credit…
I agree, Nibbler, there are a couple elements I don’t really like – one of which is that it’s a bit heavy on testimony in some parts. I believe there is a God for the same reasons he states, but I don’t know it. And I’m not so sure about the part where he talks about the spiritual connection – I feel I have one but it is much more vague than his appears to have been. That’s all OK, though, because we’re all at different places and all have our own relationship with God and I think that’s the gist of what he tried to say overall. I don’t know about the more orthodox sites and doubt, though – those folks at LDS.net are pretty anti-doubt.
In my personal experience it was Quote:general misery, even to a point of wishing for oblivion
I felt whilst doing everything right, serving faithfully in the bishopric and on the HC, attending all meetings, paperwork, temple, tithing, etc, that led me to doubt, question, examine, and experiment on belief. Transitioning my belief in something external to something intrinsic was the most freeing experience of my life.
So, your mileage may vary, but in my view, doubt is a symptom of change, not a disease.
I liked several elements of his article. 1. That he focused on the inner peace effects of doubt versus faith. Regardless of the specific content of the faith or doubt, he focused on how double/faith have an impact on a person’s well-being as a whole. When I was younger, I obsessed about something negative in my life, and my mother said “SD, you should think more positively about that person — you’ll FEEL BETTER”. That mattered to me, and convinced me to try to think more positively, in spite of how awful that person had been to me at the time.
How you feel, the peace you feel inside — is important. So, focusing on the intrinsic benefits of faith was a good way of addressing a faith crisis, without descending into apologetic arguments. It can even be a good way of curbing excessive obsession with doubt.
2. He used a non-religious example of how doubt can be in error — the desk example. Using a scientific analogy in a religious situation lent credibility to his argument.
3. He ended with expressions of love for the person doubting. There was no censure, no ostracization, no “I’m worried about you”. I had the feeling he still respected and cared about the person, regardless of their decision.
4. He steered clear of debate of specific religious issues
5. He started by empathsizing.
There are things I don’t like about it — blaming the adversity on Satan for example. And partial descent into standard mormon answers (SMA’s). I find they work with new people, but not with people who have heard it all..
But I do like his letter — it’s a cut above most responses I’ve ever heard in response to doubt.
Ok, I’ll go there. My experience mirrors Reflexzero’s comment.
Some of the language surrounding doubt in the letter was very negative. This may have been his way of extending deep empathy and not him attempting to cast doubt in a negative light. It’s probably the same thing that I would do.
In the momentdoubt was anguish but with time I recognized how doubts were liberating me from my anguish. Here’s where it gets into a semantics battle. Perhaps Brown would say that was the moment I put off doubt and began to believe again. Interesting in that he doesn’t really specify exactly what he believed in afterwards (I may have missed it), just that he turned back to belief. Depending on how you define doubt and belief, maybe I could say the same? Sometimes I think that “doubt” is just a word we traditionally attach to the beginning of a change in the way we think about something. Any change typically makes us feel uncomfortable, at least initially. Once we near the end of a change perhaps we can say that we start to “believe” again, belief in the new thing. People that share our original beliefs might continue to view us as doubters, but are we? I think that’s the disconnect. People that change their minds about something are viewed as doubters when that isn’t necessarily the case.
The desk and baby analogies bother me a bit. They come across as a more poetic version of saying “my thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are your ways as my ways.” Sure, it’s true, but it can feel dismissive. Another take on “you’ll find out I’m right in the afterlife” that no one really enjoys hearing. Again, I think this is true, our vision is limited. I think the good thing here is that he doesn’t attempt to interject a wrong or right, so that much was nice.
No analogy survives scrutiny but the thing that jumped off the page with the desk analogy: yes, all matter has been retained. The elements that made up the desk are still present in some altered form… but the fire did destroy something, the desk. You can’t sit in the released heat energy, you can’t use a pile of ash as a hard flat surface to write upon. The elements were retained but the functionality was not. In some ways it dampens the hope that I will retain function when I undergo change (die). Sure, all the elements that I’m currently using will all be present but now I’m nearing the horizon of my limited knowledge. Like he says, it’s humbling. Humbling to the point where I cannot say that I am even as much as the dust of the earth.
I do love the compassion he shows and I’d love to see (and spread) more of it in the present.
This was my favorite quote Quote:I like Fosdick’s definition of faith: “Faith is vision to believe what as yet one cannot demonstrate and valor to act on the basis of that insight.”
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