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As many of you know from my previous posts, I believe in a seperation between church and christ. That beind said, I have trouble with the concept of a “true” church. I feel the mantra, “I know this church is true,” creates a mythical infallible church that permeates our culture. Also, the word “true” implies that the church conforms to rationality or facts which, I feel, no church can claim, mormon or otherwise, considering they operate on faith. What do you think? For me, “True” means just that! True – litteral, historical, No bending, No twisting, No mental gymnastics etc… these are tools used to make the truth what I want it to be rather than what it is. f4h1
I dont think members even think through all the ramifications of what that kind of truth claim means. To them it is just a term they parrot to fit in and express an emotion or feeling they have. In a sense we train our children to lie from an early age and distort what truth is in order to elicit certain behavior from them. We train them to state truth facts with no basis in rational thought. This just get carries on to adulthood for many members and they perpetuated it to the next generation. In reality we know there is no way that they can know the church is true in its entirety. “I know the Church is true” is a classic Mormon cliche’ statement. It is in fact so overused as to often be meaningless. But it still encodes a broad set of information into a cultural phrase-code that expresses unity with “the tribe.” I know we accuse people who say this statement as expressing literalism about the Church; however, I think we skeptics also suffer from too much literalism in this case. We get upset because we can’t stop examining their statement as literal, which fails our expectations of factual truth.
Another key problem with the statement is that it expresses a category mistake in logic. It’s assigning a quality from an incorrect category to a person, place or thing. The mistake is like saying the Church is bacon-flavored. A story can be true. A hamburger can be bacon flavored. I can say “that tree has green leaves.” That statement can be true. Historical stories in the Church can be true or false. But the Church can not be bacon-flavored.
Compounding the category mistake is also a reification fallacy. “The Church” is a very abstract concept. Reification is the process of pretending that an abstract concept is actually concrete. This happens when we blame a corporation for evil acts, or we say “the Government” did such and such. Those aren’t actually true because they are only concepts. Abstract concepts can’t do anything concrete in the real world, only people acting in the name of the abstraction (as a label).
The Church is:
-A building. Is the building true?
-A group of people. Which ones? Are the people true?
-A set of doctrines or dogmas. Are those true? Good luck with that one … Might as well start with proving the existence of God.
-A corporation that owns the tangible assets and intellectual property. Is that true?
-A set of stories and religious narratives. This is probably the closest we can get to a correct category, but it’s about as murky as proving theology.
Thus my oft-quoted statement: The Church is as true as a ham sandwhich.
Now to answer the question: What does it mean when someone says “I know the Church is true?”
My answer: It is a Mormon cultural statement that expresses an emotion about one’s experience as a member. It’s like a cultural code-phrase that encapsulates a broad spectrum of emotions in a compact cliche’. And everyone else within the culture “gets it.” They respond “Yeah, I know so very much what you mean.” (in their mind).
It encompasses an expression of someone saying:
-I really like being Mormon.
-I feel good about being in the Church.
-This is my tribe. I am one with you.
-The ideas in the doctrine and teachings have made me happy and are valuable to me.
-I am inspired by the abstract concept of “the Church”.
-I am feeling a good, positive emotion right now (aka “feeling the spirit”)
-I have a hope that the afterlife is really how we believe it is.
etc.
etc.
This phrase-code contains all that in one quick statement.
I like Brian’s summary. As a Rational, I find that I take language very seriously and literally. Some other personality types are much more devil-may-care about it. Remember that a lot of people saying that they “know” stuff have been saying that since they were two years old. And in many instances it doesn’t mean any more now than it did then, though in other cases it probably does. When I hear someone say that they “know” something, I typically parse it as “I really feel this is important and meaningful”. It helps a little bit. In some ways, being the way that I am (and some other here are, I think) isn’t so different from being autistic. As in some forms of autism, I fail to process language in the same way that most people seem to. I think it helps to remember that, and to cut people some slack accordingly.
I actually had this conversation with my youth ss class on Sunday, after F&T meeting. I used Brian’s ham sandwhich example, and asked them if a ham sandwhich is true? Or if Walmart is true? I no longer get too riled up over this cultural claim, that the church is true. It’s just that – cultural. I have no doubt that many members do believe it is TRUE, as in that it’s perfect and divine…but I don’t think it was ever meant to be that way. I think it is a statement that someone made long ago that became a cultural norm and expectation.
Kind of like JS saying that the BoM is the best book ever written and that a man would get closer to god by following it…. or saying that the mormon church is the best church. Well, sure, I say that I have “best wife” ever. Does that make jwald a goddess of all goddess? Too me, yes, but not to you – but I’m not going to quit saying it. Is the mormon church the best church? Is jwald the best wife?
So anyway, I can see how this got started, the saints, being very proud of their new church, thinking it was the best and coolest pathway to heaven, would certainly say that the church was the “true” and the “best” church on the earth and the right pathway, and even the only right pathway to heaven. That’s how they felt about it, and to them, they were being honest and sincere when they said it…just as I am sincere when I say that I have the “best wife.” I’m proud of my wife and my marriage, and I would have no problem getting up and telling people that.
I don’t think that is any different than folks getting up and saying they have the best religion and the best pathway. I don’t necessarily agree with them, but I can understand how one might be proud of the LDS church and think that it’s the best religion on earth.
jwald made a comment a while ago, that when she says, “I know the church is true”, it wasn’t meant as a statement of fact, but rather a statement of belief. I suppose that makes sense to.
Is all that mental gymnastics? Maybe – I know that our culture encourages it’s members to believe that the LDS church is all true or all false, the one and only true church on the earth. I don’t believe that, and I don’t think I have to, regardless of what gets said at F&T meetings. I use the words, I believe, rather than I know, and I NEVER use the words, “I know the church is TRUE.” I have not used that term in many years.
Brian Johnston wrote:The mistake is like saying the Church is bacon-flavored.
mmmm….bacon…I do have a testimony in bacon. Bacon is true.
My response as I think of this question has come down to defining what it means to “know” and what does it mean to say something is “true”. Those have taken a lot of effort, thought and study to know how to apply these concepts to the church and to me.
It doesn’t bother me when others say “I know this church is true” because I let them define that for whatever that means for them, and they are comforted by such statements, so good for them. I can’t tell them what they don’t know, I can’t tell them to define “true” by my definitions of true. To each his own.
For me, the gospel is true. The church is good. Both truly benefit me and my family, despite many things I don’t agree with or don’t have a testimony of about the church. I feel like I can belong as a believing member with my own unique ideas about it (buffet-style), and I give my fellow brothers and sisters the same privilege (in and out of the church) of worshiping how, where, and what they may.
When I was very young I had a powerful spiritual experience which involved a completely overwhelming sensation and presto-bango instant *certainty* that the Church was all true. All of it, 100% real, what people around me (in the Church) said it was, etc. Thereafter when I said the Church was true, in my mind I was referring back to that incredible experience.
Today, I realize that this revelation HAS to be nuanced for it to make any sense whatever — and that’s ok with me. Today, I require that; Back when it happened (I was younger than 10 years old) it didn’t matter, in fact it wouldn’t have benefited me nearly as much, I don’t think, if the ‘witness’ HAD been nuanced.
So, in effect, it worked for me just as it should have. Kept me trusting God & the Church for many years, which I see now as a net benefit and even blessing. So I don’t resent the fact that I misunderstood the revelation.
Now when I say “the Church” is true, I mean it is effective, that it fulfills its mission, just like an arrow that is true would do.
Or a 2×4 stud would do. If it’s true, it’s useful.
HiJolly
Don’t even mention epistemology in church… A previous thread about this topic: “How much of the church is true” (
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1474&hilit=false There are others, but I can’t search for “true” because there are too many that include that word.
😆 Old-Timer wrote:There are others, but I can’t search for “true” because there are too many that include that word.
😆
Are you suggesting there is so much on this website that is “true”, that it is nearly impossible to find it all?:problem: I must ponder that thought.
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