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The thing about whitewashing, though, is that you’re also accountable for not whitewashing. I’ll give you an example in my personal life: I struggle with depression. So does my mother – indeed, her situation is about a thousand times worse than mine. I have not told her or anyone else in my family of my condition. One reason is because we still stigmatize mental illness to the point that the return usually is dwarfed by the costs. Another reason is that she’d feel responsible: parents with depression are extremely likely to have kids with depression for all sorts of reasons. She can’t cope with her own life right now: for me to tell her of my situation would be positively horrible. I don’t think any decent person in my position could possibly reveal all of my situation to her, knowing full well what the result would be. The parallel isn’t difficult to see. If someone is happy within the Church, and you know that revealing some nasty details about the Book of Abraham will (or might) cause them to abandon an institution and a belief system that has brought them happiness and stability, I think you would be accountable for not whitewashing if you decide to be honest about that situation. This doesn’t mean that you have to whitewash all the time, but I definitely think you can’t just decide that you’ve got to be honest because your belief system requires it. In effect, you’re asking someone else who used to be happy to pay the price for your morality, and I think this is exactly what happens in the Church all too often.
Quote:The thing about whitewashing, though, is that you’re also accountable for not whitewashing.
Gabe, this is an interesting point. My parents are both converts to the church (in their late 20s). When my BIC sister found out that our parents had premarital sex, she considered this justification for her own actions. Although my mother pointed out that they didn’t belong to a religion at the time (more accurately, they belonged to two different ones that neither of them believed in), my sister still felt that it was a double-standard. I’m not sure how she could justify that rationalization, but she did. So, I’m torn – is it better to whitewash because some will use it as justification or are they accountable for those actions anyway? I personally believe that my sister would have found justification regardless of knowing about my parents’ past, so the white-washing would not have made a difference.
Yet your situation does seem like a good reason to withhold information and selectively share.
Another example, (going back to the church example), is it better to whitewash JS’s polygamy/sexual indiscretions or not? Do people use the weaknesses of JS to justify their own behavior that they wanted to do anyway? They certainly did in the early days of the church. John C. Bennett got wind of “spiritual wives” and immediately wanted some. When he was told no, he wrote an anti-Mormon treatise. It’s a disturbing story on many fronts.
I do believe that people can lose their faith without it being a justification for sin, but I also know that there are plenty of people in the world who would like to find a justification to do whatever they want. Also I have known some who lost their faith and then subsequently used that to justify sin: immorality, lying, and even vengeance against those they felt had wronged them.
Gabe P wrote:If someone is happy within the Church, and you know that revealing some nasty details about the Book of Abraham will (or might) cause them to abandon an institution and a belief system that has brought them happiness and stability, I think you would be accountable for not whitewashing if you decide to be honest about that situation. …
I think this touches on an important and sometimes difficult to define line. We often say in the church that God speaks to man “according to his understanding.” I think of how I tell my kids the Santa Clause story. I don’t intend for them to believe it explicitly and literally for their entire lives, but I think it can be a part of a healthy childhood. When I liken the situation to Fowler I consider it is probably not proper to try to move someone out of stage 3 before they are personally ready. In the church I think this is commonly understood as nobody wants to hear the “gory details” that don’t specifically “build faith”. I agree about being responsible for moving people ahead of their own natural schedule. I also think this very situation can help accelerate our own personal growth (when we mature we can lose the desire to expose Santa and see the true and good purpose of childhood imagination). Santa is real after all – the gifts do show up under the tree. That is real enough for me and my house. (Santa or Santa’s helper, what’s the difference? President Kimball said God answers most prayers through you and I. The story of flying reindeer can be one way to frame the meaningful reality of the Christmas spirit.) So what is “real” spiritually? Today I find myself less concerned than I used to be. The personal “reality” is much more important to me than the physical possibilities.
Thanks for a great topic Gabe.
At the same time, my faith in goodness and my everlasting hatred against corruption compel me to believe that the good teacher is ever and reverently mindful of the duty NOT to whitewash. I don’t tell my children there IS a Santa Claus, I don’t tell other children there is NOT a Santa Claus, and I play the Santa Claus game with delight every Christmas even as I drop liberal hints it’s merely a game. I don’t tell everybody at church Joseph Smith had a serious chip on his shoulder, but I don’t tell anybody “he lived great and he died great”. I don’t tell anybody (nor do I think in my heart) the Book of Mormon is FALSE, but I also don’t tell anybody it’s the “most correct” book on earth, nor do I make apologies for Laban’s beheading or Captain Moroni’s bad behavior, etc, etc. Tom raises an outstanding point. One way of whitewashing might be to affirmatively promote a lie/”faith promoting ideal”. Another way might be to just not raise the issue. Another might be to not raise the issue, but explore issues in depth when that’s what people want. I think this third way might be what Tom is talking about – you don’t want to tell someone who’s asking about the Book of Abraham “literal translation. Papyri in Church archives. Case Closed.” On the other hand, you don’t just tell people without regard either. Hawkgirl, that’s exactly what I worry about. I have to try really hard to keep myself honest and to avoid seeking justifications to do less than my best. I’m not too good at it either. I really worry that my way of being honest might hurt someone else by telling them what they need to hear to justify themselves in doing wrong. You’re right that people often want to do that anyway, but maybe that’s a consequence of our whitewashing culture: in whitewashing, do we perpetuate the myth that a teacher must be perfect in that which he teaches? So I feel torn: I’m definitely accountable for trying to do the right thing for people, whatever that is. If I whitewash, I’m not being fully honest and I might be perpetuating an incorrect view of how we should learn from others. If I don’t whitewash, I might be shattering belief systems that make people happy. Either way, I’m sure I ascribe too much power to myself
Orson, that’s exactly right. If we try and force people beyond where they are, we’re destined to fail. Tom’s solution might be best: simply provide encouragement for what we can and focus our efforts on uplifting others by teaching what we believe. Whatever we believe, we can always use it as a weapon against others by trying to push them around. Maybe that’s another key part of understanding this: we just try as best we can to empathize with people and try and support their spiritual process, wherever that might be.
I believe in creative honesty – with the emphasis on honesty.
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