In some respects, our society reflects the Athenians who
“spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new
thing.”[1]
Rather than sitting on stone benches listening to and debating others in an
amphitheater built into Mars Hill, 21st-century knowledge seekers
sit in easy chairs using keyboards and mice to miraculously amass information
from a plethora of disparate sources. “Because of modern technology,” said
Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “the contents of huge libraries and other data resources
are at the fingertips of many of us.”[2]
With convenient access to all that knowledge, many of us spend significant
portions of our time searching the internet, following what is trending, or
posting new information about our own life. This is not necessarily a bad
thing. We all appreciate learning something new and there is nothing wrong with
the modern-day mechanisms we use to seek knowledge. Besides, there is an
inherent pleasure that accompanies the discovery of new information.
Yet,
when it comes to learning new information about Church history or doctrine
there seems to be a greater tendency to become offended. New information about
the Church can be like the stone that David slung at Goliath.[3]
Such a thing had never before entered his head and it was lethal.[4]
Over the past few years, I have observed an increasing number of people whose
testimony is shaken when they learn something new about Joseph Smith, Church
history events, or newly revealed statements by Church leaders. The new
information is particularly lethal if it is different than or contradictory to what
they learned while growing up in the Church or if it opposes their personal
opinion. They question why no one told them these things before. For a few, it
doesn’t take long before destructive doubt negatively affects their testimony about
the truthfulness of the Church. Some even become embittered and engage in mocking
or criticizing the Church and its leaders.[5]
Why
didn’t someone tell me that when I joined the Church?
In the
summer of 2013, a phone call to Church headquarters was forwarded to my office.
It was a kind, older gentleman who had been converted to the Church 12 years
previous. After a brief exchange of pleasantries he said to me, “Why are the Ensign people shoving the NRA down my
throat?” I assured him that I knew the people who compiled the Ensign and that
they would not do something like that nor be permitted to do it, especially
with the rigorous review process the magazines go through.
He told
me to look at page 40 of the June 2013 Ensign. There, I found a painting
depicting the moment a mob stormed the Carthage jail to kill Joseph Smith. I
found it quite coincidental that the artist consulted with my wife on this
particular painting to get a more accurate portrayal of the mob. In the very
center of the picture was a gun protruding from Joseph’s pants pocket as he
helped Willard Richards and John Taylor bar the door.
I
grabbed my copy of volume six of the History of the Church and found the page
where this event is recounted. I explained to the good-natured caller that
after receiving assurances from Governor Ford that Joseph and the others in
jail would be protected, Cyrus Wheelock went to visit the Prophet at the jail.
Then I read him the following:
The morning being a little rainy, favored his [Cyrus
Wheelock] wearing an overcoat, in the side pocket of which he was enabled to
carry a six shooter, and he passed the guard unmolested. During his visit in
the prison he slipped the revolver into Joseph’s pocket. Joseph examined it,
and asked Wheelock if he had not better retain it for his own protection.
…Joseph then handed the single barrel pistol
which had been given him by John S. Fullmer, to his brother Hyrum, and said,
“You may have use for this.” Brother Hyrum, observed, “I hate to use such things
or to see them used.” “So do I,” said
Joseph, “but we may have to, to defend ourselves.” Upon this, Hyrum took the
pistol.[6]
After
reading those few details of the event, my friend on the other end of the phone
was satisfied that his concern about the promotion of NRA in Church magazines
was unwarranted. But, to my surprise, he immediately said, “Why didn’t someone
tell me this when I joined the Church?” In a moment of playful sarcasm, I
retorted, “Did you really expect the missionaries to approach your door and
say, ‘Hello, we are representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints and we have a message about His gospel and the gun that Joseph Smith had
in Carthage jail.’” He graciously acknowledged his lapse in thinking and
forgave my lighthearted yet slightly caustic tone.
This,
and other similar experiences, made me realize that people who learn about certain
kinds of information after being in the Church for a while wonder why nobody
told them those things. This circumstance can generate doubt and lead some to become
distrustful of and even embittered toward the Church and its leaders.
Why
aren’t you troubled by issues that bother others?
My son
Zach is an articulate defender of the faith. He served his mission in Arkansas,
part of the Bible belt, where he encountered just about every criticism and
attack made against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was
astute enough to listen long enough to understand the criticism and was wise
enough to spend time searching the truth of the matter. One day while we were
talking about some of the modern-day verbal assaults on the Church, I asked
him, “How is it that you know all the issues that trouble other members but you
don’t seem bothered by them?” He told me that he thought it was because he
learned some of the issues at an early age. He recounted how at about the age
of 13 a teacher at Church mentioned that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy just
like Brigham Young did. To him at the time, it just seemed like another piece
of historical information – nothing testimony-shattering.
It has
become apparent to me that, in general, when people learn troubling issues about
Church history or doctrine in their youth or young adulthood, they seem to be
more accepting of it than if they learn about it when they are much older (say
35 or so). I have concluded that while it is appropriate to introduce certain
kinds of information at certain ages in a child’s development, maybe we ought
to reassess when it is appropriate to expose children or youth to more of the
details about Church history events.
New
Information and Transparency
Between
2013 and 2015, Church leaders published thorough and lengthy essays on a few
troubling issues in Gospel Topics on LDS.org.[7]
They are of a scholarly nature and provide rich and transparent detail.
Additionally, leaders of the Church Educational System have included links to
the essays in their seminary and institute curriculum.[8]
This way, youth and young adults will be exposed to this seemingly difficult
material with the aid of a faithful teacher who can assist them in working
through things that could cause doubt.
Recently,
a few members have been troubled over learning that Joseph Smith placed a seer
stone in a hat to provide shade from the light so he could see the words
illuminated on the stone better (similar to the way we use our hand or some
other object to shade the sun so we can see what is illuminated on our cell
phone screen). After listening to more than a few people ask why the Church
didn’t tell them this, I did a search on LDS.org with the words “seer stone”
and “hat.” I found seven times in Church magazines where the stone, or the hat,
or both are discussed. The first time the seer stone was mentioned, to my
amazement, was in the September 1974 issue of the Friend.[9] The first time the hat was mentioned was in the
September 1977 issue of the Ensign.[10]
So, not only are Church leaders not hiding things, they are talking about them
in the publication for children and did so 40 years ago.[11]
Furthermore,
I have been involved in writing curriculum for the Church for over 15 years.
The discussions we have when determining what to include in a given manual do
not center on what we are going to hide. They focus on what is relevant and
essential. Think about it. In a year’s time, you only have 48 Sundays with only
25 to 35 minutes (maybe 40 if you’re lucky and the announcements don’t go long)
to talk about the hundreds of gospel topics contained in thousands of
scriptural pages (not to mention the myriad Church history events). How do you
decide what to include and what not to include? After some deliberation on this
question, the obvious answer is to include that which is relevant and essential
for one to seek salvation. Topics such as the United Order, ward budgets (the
way it was done before 1990), regional representatives, the law of consecration
as applied to property, plural marriage, or the exact particulars of the
translation of the Book of Mormon are not as relevant or essential for the
salvation of 21st-century Saints. I repeat that the efforts of
curriculum writers I worked with was to determine what was essential and what
could be left out. There was never an intent to hide information.
I
hasten to add that curriculum writers may need to include some issue nowadays
that didn’t seem so relevant even five to ten years ago. Church curriculum
writers may need to give special heed to Elder M. Russell Ballard’s counsel:
“Gone are the days when a student asked an
honest question and a teacher responded, ‘Don’t worry about it!’ Gone are the
days when a student raised a sincere concern and a teacher bore his or her
testimony as a response intended to avoid the issue. Gone are the days when
students were protected from people who attacked the Church…This is especially
applicable today because not all of your students have the faith necessary to
face the challenges ahead and because many of them are already exposed through
the Internet to corrosive forces of an increasingly secular world that is
hostile to faith, family, and gospel standards. The Internet is expanding its
reach across the world into almost every home and into the very hands and minds
of your students.”[12]
Personal
and Family Study
We are
expected to engage in consistent personal and family gospel study. This, in my
experience, is the best place and time to learn new information about the
Church. We cannot rely solely on the brief and superficial gospel study at
Church meetings for a deep or broad gospel understanding. The Church curriculum
does not have the space, nor do our meetings allow the time, to study
everything in the scriptures or in Church history. So it is incumbent upon each
of us to take the initiative to search more deeply on our own and with our
family.
It is
also important to realize that we glean new information on one subject or
another almost every day of our lives. Often that information is different than
or even contradictory to our current understanding of things. This is the
blessed process of ongoing research, exploration, and revelation. So, we
shouldn’t be offended when we learn something new about Church history or
doctrine any more than we become offended at learning something new about the
cosmos, the sub-atomic structure, or cutting-edge dietary restrictions.
At the
same time, it is absolutely axiomatic that no one learns everything about any
subject all at once. We grow in our knowledge over time and, with the amount of
intelligence God is pouring down upon the earth in all aspects of knowledge in
these last days,[13]
none of us will ever know everything about any given subject.
So,
let’s help our friends and loved ones who are doubting not to let new
information about or from the Church cause them to doubt. Encourage them to be
patient as they learn new things about Church history and doctrine. Help them not
to fret when they learn something new that was not taught them earlier in their
Church experience or that challenges some of their previous knowledge or their preconceived
notions about what is true.
[1]
Acts 17:21.
[2]
“Focus and Priorities,” Ensign, May
2001, p. 82.
[3] 1
Samuel 17:48–49.
[5] 2
Chronicles 36:15–16; Matthew 15:12; Acts 17:32; 1 Nephi 1:19; Moses 6:37.
[6] History
of the Church, Vol. 6, pp. 607–608.
[10]
Richard
Lloyd Anderson, “By the Gift and Power of God,” Ensign, September 1977.
[11] Here are five other places
in Church magazines that refer to the stone and/or the hat: Richard
Lloyd Anderson, “The Alvin Smith Story: Fact and Fiction, Ensign, August 1987; Neal A. Maxwell, “By the Gift and Power of
God,” Ensign, January 1997;
“Highlights in the Prophet’s Life,” Ensign,
June 1994; Russell M. Nelson, “A Treasured Testament,” Ensign, July 1993; “Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon,” Friend, September 2004.
[12]
“The Opportunities and Responsibilities of CES Teachers in the 21st
Century,” Address to CES Religious Educators, February 26, 2016.
[13]
Joel 2:28–29; Doctrine and Covenants 76:7–10; 121:26–32.
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