Staying Power
The article quotes Steven Waldman, editor in chief of Beliefnet.com, as saying "The Internet allows for both--people to strengthen their faith and to explore others faiths. The number of message boards about leaving your faith are tiny in comparison to those for people staying in their faith."
I wish that had been the opening line of the article, instead of the final one. The article implies that former Latter-day Saints, more than others, crave validation in their choice to leave the church. I grieve that those who face "turmoil in their spiritual lives" have been treated like "traitors to their faith." I also grieve that many find leaving the only option if they find themselves struggling.
As a Beliefnet columnist and committed Latter-day Saint Christian, I want to make my purpose clear. I want to be a support to people in my church. That means being a support to those who are happy as clams and to those who may struggle with their membership. I want to be a testament that one can struggle and still "feel to sing the song of redeeming love" (See Alma 5 in the Book of Mormon). One can feel simultaneously connected and uncomfortable. One can participate fully and joyfully and chafe at an array of practices, patterns or pronouncements. One can still stay. Any call to spiritual life is not for the faint of heart. Paradox is an important principle.
The "happy as clams" Mormons can be a great bunch, a great collective breath of fresh air. To borrow a phrase from Nancy Griffith's song "Ford Econoline," there are many out there who are the "salt of the earth, straight from the bosom of the Mormon Church." Blessings on their obedient heads. Day after day there are casseroles delivered, floods sandbagged, prayers sent aloft, service rendered, good will spread abroad through out the land. You go, Saints!
Other Latter-day Saints approach their faith differently (while still delivering casseroles, etc.). Some wrestle, grapple, explore, ask, seek, press, search in ways that the contented folks may find disquieting. This was exactly the kind of soul searching I went through before I became a Mormon. (As I recall, this was Joseph Smith's process as well.) This was not a fast or easy task for me. Should I give up these gifts of grappling and seeking now that I'm in the Church? I think that would be disrespectful to the God who bestowed them on me. These are among the offerings I give to God.
A Jewish friend of mine told me that "Israel" – the name given to Jacob after his wilderness encounter with the angel of the Lord – means "He who wrestles with God." I love that image. I love the robustness, the physicality, the vigorous embrace of that kind of connection with Deity. My life of faith as a Mormon Christian, as a "daughter of Israel", affords me that kind of exercise.
I understand well that some people have chosen to separate themselves from the church. People in every faith tradition can find things not to their liking. The Mormon church is no exception. However, in my own life, since I have experienced the truth chip: the throbbing white light glimmering beneath the disturbing rhetoric, the dicey history, the contemporary conservative American imprint; the pulse that says "Alive!" There is no way I can leave. It is as though my brain stem has changed or my blood type is different. Despite ineffable aches that some experience (and I don't mean hard-core sinners), God can still want them to stay. He has told me as much. Imagine that. Despite what is sometimes a difficult journey, "joy, joy, God's great joy" bolsters me along the way. I, for one, want others who struggle to stay, too. I need their company.
So what is my reaction to those who decide to leave? It's the same as my reaction is to those who stay. "As I have loved you, love one another." That's Christ's assignment for me. My job is not to condemn. Nor is it to condone. It is to love. That's Christ's message.
And so I learn to love. I love my membership in this Church. I love the covenants I have made. I love being part of the community of Saints. I love the intimacy I have in my relationship with God. I love the scriptures. I love mourning with those that mourn and comforting those who stand in need of comfort--including those who no longer find a spiritual home in the LDS church and those whose loved ones have left. I love that for all my faults and failings--and for all the faults and failings of our Divinely founded, humanly staffed Church--we can "come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 4:16) I love standing as a witness of God at all times and in all places--even on the Internet.
1 comment:
I think the author understands quite clearly why some of us choose to part company when she acknowledges "the disturbing rhetoric, the dicey history, the contemporary conservative American imprint" of her church.
Why should she mourn those of us who've voted against "disturbing" and "dicey" with our feet? Tell me how great your church is, and I'll tell you "good for you". Tell me you're grieving because I don't participate in your "disturbing" church, and I'll roll my eyes at you.
In any case, by conceding the "disturbing" and "dicey" aspects of her church, she'd appear to be well-equipped to understand the motivations of those who've left as a matter of conscience. As such, I'd expect her to also understand that her professed grief looks misdirected and self-serving to anyone who's managed to uninstall the "truth chip" from their brain.
But I suppose that doesn't particularly matter here, because this article is all about retention, not return. The author knows we're not coming back. She's addressing believers and budding skeptics in need of fresh reasons for remaining in the company of believers. In other words, she may miss us, but we're not the intended audience.
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Dear Ms. Kimball,
Please, spare me your self-pitying sentiment. If you "chafe at an array of practices, patterns or pronouncements", what is it exactly that you are doing inside your church to challenge these practices and pronouncements? Is there, in fact, anything that you can do? My own experience in your church suggests there is not, short of leaving. I do not consider "waiting around in the hope of hearing new, better pronouncements" to be the same thing as "doing something". Not in a democratic country. Not in a scientific age. Not as long as my free agency and powers of critical judgment remain intact. Not for whatever benefit submitting to a useful lie might bring me.
So let's be clear that, as much as I'd love to keep you company on Sunday, I will not. And I expect someone of your obvious intelligence to understand my reasons and to not burden me with your overwrought plea that I reconsider my decision.
It may be true that a "call to spiritual life is not for the faint of heart." But what you've issued is a call to attendance, not that other, harder call that you rightly suggest is not for the fainthearted.
Are you standing as God's witness here on the Internet, or are you pitching your church as the latest cure for that chronic human ailment called loneliness? Didn't somebody already invent the Internet to rid us of that particular malady?
Yours in cyberspace,
Chino
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