There will be some things that take patience and faith. You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life. But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord Himself, with patience and faith, the promise is that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name’s glory” (D&C 21:6).[3]
Here, King Benjamin says three things: (1) People should not fear him as they might fear God, because he is a mortal man, subject to imperfection. (2) People should not trifle with his words, but should open their ears and hearts to what he has to say. (3) This is because he has a divine commission from the people and from God to be their teacher. This is what it means to treat prophets as authorities: we recognize their mortal fallibility, but we do not trifle with their words. This means taking them seriously when they urge us to do something, rather than blithely dismissing them if their instructions do not line up with our preconceived notions.
The antidote to this sort of pride is epistemic humility: an acknowledgement of our own fallibility, the limitations of human reason, the possibility that others of sound mind might arrive at different conclusions from the same “self-evident” premises, or even take *different* premises as self-evident altogether. It’s recognizing that prophets are fallible, but so are we. And so we cannot, without great hubris, claim some special access to the truth of the matter that the prophets have somehow missed. Even the best of political ideas should always be adopted provisionally, and subjected to higher authorities than man’s own reasoning (such as the Spirit and the voice of God’s prophets).
Conviction cannot be maintained through mere book study in our basements. Nor is the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a spectator sport, where our convictions grow solely from observing the experiences of others. We must get our own hands dirty in the work. This is where miracles happen.
For example, our modern culture has embraced a philosophical worldview that many call expressive individualism, which offers us narratives of liberation, where we learn to be true to ourselves by relinquishing the chains of tradition and superstition through self-affirmation. The restored Gospel of Jesus offers us narratives of redemption, where we recognize our fallenness before God, and become new creatures through discipleship and the sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ.
Modern culture has embraced an understanding of love where we adopt a stance of affirmation, or at the very least indifference, towards actions of those we love, where we give up entirely the notion that their choices might put them in spiritual peril. In contrast, the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ shows us an all-loving God who grieves when His children alienate themselves from Him, and where loving parents wet their pillows with tears for their wayward children.
But most importantly, my conviction, my witness, does not rest on any single spiritual experience. Nor should it. Rather, it is better thought of as a tapestry that is woven from thousands of little threads that (on their own) might not convince me, but together, they become an unassailable witness of the Restored Gospel.
The purpose of the Gospel is not to make us happy (as the world defines it, e.g., positive emotions), but to make us holy. And this holiness is what divine Joy looks like.
The way I see it, misery is pain that is embittered with resentment and fueled by selfishness. Suffering is pain that is sweetened with forgiveness and empowered by love. In this world (and in the next) there will be pain and hardship. But the Love of God can transform that pain from misery to suffering, by making us whole in our hearts and holy in our souls.
And if these “lower controversies” are causing needless contention, or causing people to harden their hearts against each other or the Church, we should soften our hearts towards those who disagree. As Paul says, “Let us pursue the things that bring peace and the things that build one another up. Do not destroy the work of God for the issue of food,” or caffeine, edited movies, gender pronouns, or <insert any “lower” controversy here>.
In Hebrew thought — the primary worldview that informs the Old and New Testament — being a child is not some inherent, unchanging status; it’s a verb, and it describes something we do. We become children of our parents by drawing strength from them, by being led by them, by bringing honor to them.
Paul is teaching that our allegiance to God is not merely like that of a slave to his master. It’s a relationship in which we draw strength from God, and are led by Him, like a child draws strength from and is led by His parents — and this is what makes us children of God. As Latter-day Saints, we can think of it this way: by making and keeping covenants with God, we can take up our role as the children of God (as something we do, rather than something we merely are).
When I say that I know the Church is true, I do not mean that the church is perfect, or that our institutional journey is complete. Rather, I mean that this Church is Christ’s.
I am firmly of the belief that the Gospel of Jesus Christ does not insulate us from trials and hardships. It’s not meant to. Because both holy scriptures and modern prophets teach that joy are the object of our existence, many Latter-day Saints inadvertently assume that (1) joy and happiness are defined by positive emotions and that (2) the pursuit of these positive emotions is our purpose in life.
When we spend our time looking for that single spiritual manifestation that will sweep doubt from our minds and hearts, we may come to wrongly believe that God’s promises of spiritual knowledge are empty. But when we look outwards, invest ourselves in the word of God, invest ourselves in ministry in this kingdom, continually renew our covenants and participate in sacred ordinances, we can and will have encounters with God and myriads of spiritual confirmations that, stacked together, serve as a reservoir of spiritual strength that will carry us through times of discouragement, doubt, and uncertainty.
This can lead to something I call ideolatry, which what happens when we become dogmatic about our particular ideological perspective, or hold to it with a fervor that defies correction by God or His servants. When we do this, we have supplanted the living God with an idea (or set of ideas). The God of Israel is not an abstract, universal, immutable set of ideas or laws, but a living, dynamic Person who communicates instructions tailored to our specific time and situation. Latter-day Saints can — and must — be flexible in matters of abstract belief while being resolute in matters of loyalty to God.
I think that Latter-day Saints should follow the prophets, even when they disagree, for these reasons and more. But that doesn’t mean that I think you are an apostate if you disagree with the Church. But there are dangers to be aware of. It’s one thing to disagree with the Church and, based on our own spiritual impressions and reasoning; and another thing entirely to publicly agitate against the Church for its position on the matter. Loyalty to prophets and apostles does not require agreement, but it might require that we do not actively seek to undermine their projects and initiatives, or that we do not publicly urge others to disregard them.
There will be some things that take patience and faith. You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life. But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord Himself, with patience and faith, the promise is that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name’s glory” (D&C 21:6).[3]
Missing Reference