The Need
My first opportunity to help people who were experiencing
doubts about the Church was a failure. I hadn’t prepared myself to be of
comfort to them or to resolve the issues that caused their doubts. It was my
first year teaching seminary at Granite High School. One student after another
came to class one day holding a piece of paper with quotes by Joseph Smith,
Brigham Young, and other early Church leaders. “Did the Prophet really say this
Brother Marsh?” they asked with doubt manifest in their voice, their face, and
their countenance. They received the papers from a man who stood across the
street. He knew exactly where to stand and what time the students would be
coming to seminary. He was preying on young minds with budding testimonies. His
devious intent was to dowse their faith by igniting doubt. I later learned that
he was notoriously known by my more veteran colleagues to travel from seminary
to seminary in the western United States.
Nevertheless,
I was of no help to my students. I could only tell them not to worry about such
matters. To be honest, the quotes troubled me a little too, but I took my own
counsel. As the day wore on, however, I became more concerned, angered, and
troubled—concerned for the tender testimonies of my students, angered at a man
who made it his life’s career to travel the country to destroy the faith of
young people, and troubled that I could do nothing to dispel the nascent doubts
emerging in my students’ hearts.
My
inability to help my students at that time was actually the result of a
deliberate decision I made years earlier. I had promised myself never to read
anti-Mormon literature. I felt it was a waste of time and that it would detract
from my sole purpose and chosen career—to help people learn doctrine and strengthen
their faith in Jesus Christ.
As I
discussed my experience and feelings with my wife, she, with her ever-present
Eve-like intuition, suggested we do some research to find the truth behind the
quotes. What we discovered in the process strengthened our conviction of the
gospel and the Church. It provided insight into the tactics of those who
attempt to weaken the conviction of Church members and impede the conversion of
investigators.
The Multitude
The
lone man across the street, distributing one paper at a time in the early
1980s, has become a multitude of people in the 21st century, armed
with the capacity to circulate sophistry throughout the world. Their myopic
musings inundate the Internet and are easily discovered by a generation of
tech-savvy youth who surf the electronic waves for knowledge. When young and
eager minds encounter this distorted information, small pebbles of doubt begin
to form. Without the wisdom and experience of knowing how to decipher truth
from falsehood, those pebble-sized doubts rapidly develop into huge stumbling
blocks which destroy faith and lead to mistrust in the Lord and the leaders of
His Church.
It has become abundantly clear that the
tsunami of misinformation saturating the Internet has created an era in Church
history when most, if not all members of the Church are experiencing doubts and
questions about the Church on one issue or another. President Thomas S. Monson
verified this in 2011, stating, “As we go about living from day to day, it is
almost inevitable that our faith will be challenged…Increasingly, some
celebrities and others who…are in the public eye have a tendency to ridicule
religion in general and, at times, the Church in particular. If our testimonies
are not firmly enough rooted, such criticisms can cause us to doubt our own
beliefs or to waver in our resolves.”[1]
The Church is responding by providing transparent information about some of the
troubling issues. But perhaps just as important, if not more so, is helping
people become self-reliant in seeking truth. Those who are confident and
independent in their ability to discover truth and detect deception can survive
the onslaught of sophistry. The Lord promised us “whoso treasureth up my word,
shall not be deceived.”[2]
The Help
Not long ago my wife and I were talking
with a couple, some dear friends, whose faith was challenged and who eventually
left the Church because of doubts about its truthfulness. They explained that
each time they encountered troubling information they put it on a mental shelf.
“Over time,” they said, “the shelf became overloaded and broke.” My wife asked
our friends what issues troubled them. They listed some that were common to
many who are dealing with doubts today – Race and the Priesthood, Joseph Smith
and polygamy, issues surrounding the Book of Mormon, and the Church’s position
on same-sex marriage. What was interesting to my wife and I was that we too had
encountered the same information and yet we were able to resolve our concerns
and continue active in the Church. The way we went about resolving the issues
strengthened our testimony of Jesus Christ, His Church, and His leaders, and
filled us with confidence that we could work through any doubt or question.
Elder
Neal A. Maxwell once said, “All the easy things that the Church has had to do
have been done. From now on, it’s high adventure, and followership is going to
be tested in some interesting ways.”[3] We seem to be in an era of
Church history when doubt is a prevalent test of followership. People all
around us are experiencing doubts. It might be a spouse, a child, a dear
friend, or even a leader in the Church. For some, it is a momentary uneasiness
and they move on. For others, it is an agonizing experience that separates them
from the Church.
Future
posts will include ideas for you to help others you love who are dealing with
doubts and questions about the Church. My wife and I taught these ideas to our
own children who grew up as part of that tech-savvy generation who know how to
find anything about everything on the Internet. I hope they will help you too.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.