Faith Crisis Stories

Have you all seen this?

https://faithcrisis.wufoo.com/forms/faith-crisis-stories/

It's a project where some researchers are studying the Mormon faith crisis phenomenon. Very, very interesting.

 

They said this: "While we encourage you to express yourself in whatever manner you see fit, please consider addressing: 1) The type of faith you had prior to your loss-of-faith (e.g., fully active, semi-active, non-active). 2) The reason or reasons for your loss-of-faith. 3) How you felt and what you experienced as a result of your loss-of-faith. 4) How others (family, friends, ecclesiastical leaders) have responded to your faith crisis. 5) How you would describe your current belief/relationship with the LDS Church. 6) What might have prevented your faith crisis in the first place, and 7) what, if anything, might help rebuild your faith? "

So here's my submission (before editing! 700 words is really not a lot of words when you're trying to answer all of those questions about such a complex experience and its attendant emotions.) I am not including here the part about the type of faith I had prior to my faith crisis, or the reasons for my loss of faith, as I have covered that in My Story.

Losing my faith was traumatic. For a fully active Mormon, especially a lifelong one, the gospel and its programs provide a certain structural framework that you don’t really recognize until it just kind of vanishes into thin air.  When that happened, I didn’t have any beliefs about anything, really. I had to rebuild my worldview from scratch. It was overwhelming.

On top of the faith/belief/worldview thing, it was socially very confusing. My sister-in-law happens to be my best friend from childhood. We shared a lot of “spiritual experiences” as teenagers. The gospel certainly wasn’t the bulk of our relationship, but it was a big part. And even though we obviously remained close, a part of our closeness was missing. I felt that, and so did she.

Once I realized that I wasn’t going back to church and that my beliefs had changed, I felt like I should explain myself to my mom. I felt like she deserved to know the details of my feelings.  I wrote a three-page letter.

She never acknowledged it.

I remember my mother-in-law sending us an email once where she said that she had had an “impression” that if we weren’t worthy to raise our little son in the Millennium, then she and my father-in-law would have that opportunity. My husband was pretty angry. I actually wasn’t. I knew that it was her last, desperate attempt to get us to “come back”. I knew she was devastated. We didn’t say anything to her about it, but she did apologize later.

My current relationship with the church is that I’m an openly agnostic Mormon. I was inactive for six years, but I missed the community of the church and the “program” of the gospel. I decided to find a way to make it work for me. I couldn’t “fake it”, I couldn’t just force myself to believe again, so I discovered my “hope testimony”.  For the last year, I’ve been trying to be active. I would say I’m semi-active. (My husband isn’t interested in involvement with the church, and it’s HARD doing it by myself with three little kids!) I get to church at least half the time, I read the scriptures with my kids, I pray with them, we listen to hymns and primary songs. We are trying to implement family home evening (a practice my husband actually loves).

What would have prevented my faith crisis? Mormon culture is very rigid. My hope testimony is all about avoiding absolutist thinking. It’s about flexibility and pragmatism— I do this because it makes me happier, it strengthens my family, and it enriches my life, not because I KNOW it’s true. I guess I would say that my faith crisis may have been averted if I had grown up with less rigidity and more room for doubt. As I’ve “come out” as an agnostic in my ward and on my blog, I’ve been floored by the response from people who have felt this way for years. I wish the church were a place where people could openly acknowledge their doubts and find support from others who can’t say they know. The social pressure to “know” is just too strong. And when people admit to themselves that they DON’T know, that’s when the faith crisis happens, because the gospel flow chart ends there.  There’s nowhere to go but out.

I don’t really expect to rebuild my faith. I’m satisfied with where I am.

Have you submitted your story yet?

Flexibility--The key to faith?





I live in Northern Virginia, so I am surrounded by lots and lots of trees. My house is in some woods that are quite dense, which means the trees are tall and the trunks are thin. We get some pretty exciting thunderstorms around here, and even the occasional hurricane, so I have seen these trees swaaaaaaay. Oh boy, have I seen them sway! Sometimes I fully expect their very tops to touch the ground and then slowly lift back up into the sky.

Can you imagine if these trees weren't flexible?  With their height, the slightest breeze would snap them all in half, halting their growth for good as they crashed to the ground. Indeed, they wouldn't even have survived long enough to grow to their current heights.



My natural tendencies are dangerously rigid, so it makes sense that my faith would be as well. You can see it in my teenage righteousness.  Some people look at my story (super Mormon girl turns agnostic after a run-of-the-mill life tragedy) and conclude that I must not have had a "real testimony" in the first place. After all, when my faith was tested, it couldn't stand up against the heartbreak, confusion, and questions.

I maintain that my faith was quite strong before tragedy crumbled it into a heap of hopelessness. My faith was very strong...but rigid. So when the winds of devastation and doubt came, my tree just snapped. It's roots were deep and well-nourished--it was a strong tree. But none of that mattered, because it couldn't sway with those winds.

I propose that the key to keeping your faith at all is keeping it flexible.

So what does flexible faith look like? 

Well, when something hurts, or doesn't make sense, or doesn't fit with new information or experiences, blind/simple/unthinking faith shrugs its shoulders and recites platitudes. "Everything happens for a reason." "He's in a better place." "Maybe God is just testing my faith." Unthinking faith doesn't like to feel too much. It's easier to just accept what he's been taught until his questions don't bother him anymore. Unthinking faith is like a perpetual sapling in the woods--wind can't possibly damage it, but it never grows or matures.

Rigid faith, when it can't answer the tough questions honestly, starts to believe that maybe faith doesn't have the answers. Maybe he was wrong all along.

But flexible faith shelves its unanswerable questions, or maybe even tweaks itself a little so that its possessor can keep a handle on it. He doesn't shrug off his confusion, but he doesn't toss his faith out the window. Not yet. It's just..."on hold" for the time being. Or perhaps the hoper learns to look at the question in a different way. Maybe this new information or experience can actually illuminate the gospel principle in question, rather than obliterating it altogether. Or maybe not.

Flexible faith doesn't take everything quite so literally, or even in the way things have always been taught. It considers other interpretations.

Flexible faith loves a good bargain. "Well, this principle makes little to no sense to me, but I'm going to keep practicing it because I value what I receive in exchange." Flexible faith chooses to obey the Word of Wisdom, even if it makes no sense to him and kinda cramps his style, because he values the opportunity to attend the temple with his wife. Flexible faith attends his meetings, even if he feels bored sometimes, because he values the sense of community he achieves by being consistent. Flexible faith teaches his children the principles of the gospel, even if he's not completely sure of them, because he believes that such teaching will make his children better people. Flexible faith hopes for unbelievable doctrines (like that of the atonement or eternal families) to be true, because he likes the idea of having a plan that will right his wrongs and fill in the gaps of his imperfection. He likes the idea of his family relationships continuing in another life--it's much better than the idea of being cut off from his loved ones at death. It doesn't make much sense in light of what he knows intellectually, but he hopes for it anyway, rather than rejecting it altogether.

Flexible faith remembers that, even though religion often makes no sense, science is wrong a lot, too. Science recants. Often. Flexible faith realizes that there is no way to definitively answer these big questions in the affirmative, but neither is there any way to definitively disprove them. So it keeps hoping. It shelves its questions and revisits them regularly, but it hopes. And it hangs on. It bends with the wind instead of rigidly resisting it.

And in so doing, it continues to grow.

I bore my testimony???



So, yesterday I bore my testimony at church for the first time in well over seven years. What compelled me to do such a thing? I don't really know. I do know that Elder Holland's conference talk really spoke to me (more on that later), which isn't shocking because I'm pretty sure he peers into the soul of every single person who hears him speak. It kind of inspired me. And I like to share my experiences and tell people what I think, so...what better platform, right? (Oh, right. A blog. A blog is a pretty good platform, too.)

The testimony I shared is exactly what I have written on this blog as my "hope testimony".

And then a strange thing happened. People stood up and said that their testimonies were basically the same thing, a hope that this stuff is true, not a knowledge of it. At least ten people approached me throughout the day and told me that my "testimony" was the most inspiring testimony they had heard in a long time.

Say what???

They said that the honesty was refreshing. A few people told me that they or their husband or their son really needed to hear it. What is happening here???

Anyway, this morning I read Alma 32 (obviously). "Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true." Alma 32:21

Oh my gosh, I have faith? I think I do. That is exactly what my testimony is--hoping for things I don't see (with my eyes or my reason).

So then I started reading lots of hope scriptures.

Jacob 2:19--"And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them." Not after you obtain knowledge, but after you obtain hope.

Ether 12:4--"Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God." Hope seems to be sufficient to anchor the soul, which then leads to all this other stuff.

Moroni 8:26--"and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto prayer, until the end shall come, when all the saints shall dwell with God." I like this one because we tend to view the Holy Ghost as a means to obtaining knowledge, but this is saying that his job is to fill us with hope and love, which appears to be sufficient.

13th Article of Faith: "We believe all things, we hope all things..." There is no claim that we know all things. We admit here, and indeed in all the other Articles of Faith as well, that we believe this stuff--we hope it.

I think it's interesting that our church--or at least the culture of it--places such a premium on knowing. We see kids being trained to say it from the very beginning. ("I'd like to bear my testimony. I know this church is true. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet." Yadah, yadah, yadah.) Why do we do this? The scriptures don't seem to indicate that knowledge is the stuff of righteousness or salvation. Faith is. Hope is. I mean, as Alma does go on to say, hope should compel us to "experiment upon the word", which means living the principles of the gospel, testing them to see if they do indeed bring us the happiness they promise. But I'm just not getting the message here that knowledge is the requirement, or even the goal.

I know you're probably thinking all of this is obvious, and wondering how I could have missed it all my life. Well, I did hear/read these scriptures over and over, and I did have a million lessons on Alma 32. Indeed, I delivered many of them myself. But they always seemed to end in the possibility of obtaining knowledge. You know, if you're righteous enough you might obtain that. And I'm sure that a lot of my faith problems have to do with my personality, with the way I processed this stuff. But I'm clearly not alone. For goodness' sake, in ONE ward, at least TEN people APPROACHED me! Who knows how many people feel the same way but didn't approach me? And who knows how many people there are in all the other wards? And how many other people weren't attending any ward at all yesterday BECAUSE they have these issues?

I blame "Moroni's promise" (Moroni 10:4-5). "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere hear, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."

Or rather, I blame our emphasis on Moroni's promise. We teach kids to seek this. As missionaries, our entire purpose is teaching investigators to seek this. We largely define a "testimony" as having received this witness. But what about all the people who never get this? Or what about those of us who think we have, but later realize maybe we haven't? This emphasis on knowledge and bearing "testimony" of knowledge makes the church a really hard place to be for people whose minds just don't work like this.

How about teaching people to hope for these things? Maybe for their entire lives. Maybe it's okay to just hope and experiment until you die. That's probably what I'll be doing. But I think Alma says it's enough in Alma 32:43--"Then, my brethren, ye shall reap the rewards of your faith, and your diligence, and patience, and long-suffereing, wating for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you."

We are rewarded for faith and diligence, not for knowledge.

I have a dream--a hope, if you will--that one day, in LDS congregations all over the world, people will honestly acknowledge their doubts. They will feel safe to say that they don't know. The church will be a place where people come because they're experimenting upon the word, they're hoping for something, together. They're helping each other sustain that hope and test the principles of the gospel in their lives. THAT is what I believe the church should be for. It shouldn't be a club for knowers. It should be a support group for hopers.

Truth

Warning: The following may be offensive to Mormon eyes.

Truth. Mormons love truth. They claim to be the only church that has all of it. They encourage the pursuit of it.

Fundamentally, I don't care about religious "truth" (and I apologize, but let's just pretend that all of my references to truth are in parenthese because I consider it to be a concept that is debatable, especially in areas like religion, philosophy, politics, etc.). I don't intend to pursue "truth" or a testimony of it, because I don't think it matters. Who cares what is "true"? I just care about what works for my life. This makes me a pretty bad Mormon. Given the Mormon obsession with truth, this kind of attitude is verging on wicked.

There are a few reasons that I don't care to pursue truth.

First, if there is a God and if there is a life after this one and if our status in that life is based on a judgment by said God, I just can't bring myself to believe that that judgment is going to be based on whether or not we knew what was true about the foundations of the earth or what comes after this life or whatever else this elusive "truth" encapsulates. I hope that judment has to do with how we treated each other and what kind of people we were . And since lots of different beliefs about what is true can lead to that good behavior and can nurture good hearts, I just don't think it matters.

Secondly, I think that the pursuit of truth can be a major barrier to action. Insisting that truth exists compels some people (usually the most honest and sincere ones) to search for it and search for it and ultimately require themselves to find it before they can commit to a set of principles. The pursuit of truth can also drive otherwise happy and satisfied people away from good principles. It makes me sad (and okay, sometimes it makes me laugh) to hear of Mormons talking themselves out of church activity because of some random historical inconsistency in the Book of Mormon, or because of some artifact found or not found in Central America. Those people obviously feel that a church needs to be "true", through and through, in order for them to participate in and benefit from it. And that's too bad.

Third, insisting on the existence of truth is divisive. It builds barriers and makes people think they have special authority or rights or whatever, just because they "possess" it. Mormons are obviously a peaceful people, but look at the potential for harm that comes with some versions of truth and the people who consider themselves privileged enough to possess it. On a less dramataic scale, it can make people exclusive. Why do they exclude? Because they possess truth and the "others" do not. They feel superior because they have apparently found the truth. Then there's the opposite of exclusion--the compulsion to convince everyone else that you have found the truth. You're so fortunate to possess it that you have to go tell everyone else and get them to accept the same thing. Again, a divisive practice.

Fourth, I don't care about the pursuit of truth because at my core, I am agnostic. I don't believe that anyone can really know any of these things. And I just don't accept what are fundamentally emotional experiences as evidence of anything but the fact that someone loves and cares about what they are reading or thinking about or doing. I'm happy that they love it! But, for me, it doesn't mean anything beyond that. Since I don't believe that anyone can really know "truth", particularly as it pertains to religious questions, why would I spend my time looking for it or trying to verify or disprove various claims to it? Doesn't seem like a good use of time.

Ultimately, I'm a pragmatist. I don't care what is true, I care about what works. Mormonism makes me happy, it has the potential to make me a better person and to strengthen my family, so I intend to participate in it. But I do so as a choice, because I believe that religion is just that: a choice. You can't prove (or disprove) it with history, science, your feelings, or the Holy Ghost. You just choose to believe it or you choose not to. Period.

I can no longer require myself to believe the Church's doctrine in order to to participate in and benefit from its organization and programs. On a practical level, this approach is tricky. How do you sing hymns, or pray, or read scriptures if you fundamentally don't believe the content? That's where my hope testimony comes in.