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There are many things that bothers me when reading about our unvarnished history. The issues about plural marriage, for one, are really disturbing. The Prophet taking wives who were already married to someone else, the attempts by the Prophet to marry adolescent girls, the constant denial about plural marriage before the public, and Emma’s denials throughout her life when in fact she totally knew… the list goes on and on. I studied in-depth historical time bombs like Brigham Young’s “fantasy” of seeing his offspring holding the keys of the kingdom as against the established pattern, of the problematic history of the Patriarch to the Church office, the evolving theories of each prophet about the Negro curse, the neglected fact that Joseph and Oliver were actually related making them co-conspirators, the crowning of Joseph as king, the troublesome First Vision accounts, and even the similarities between the three-tiered Swedenborgian heaven and our very own three degrees of glory (Emmanuel Swedenborg used the term “celestial kingdom” too, horrors!).
But the strange thing is that I still remain stubbornly attached to this Church–not because it is convenient or comfortable, but because I still know–I still know. And. hey, before you start thinking that I’m some super-active, recommend-holding member with a superb ward or stake calling, well, sorry–I am not that active at all.
Did all these torrents of doubt rattle my soul? Oh yes, they did. And I never had anybody for support–my family had their own issues with doctrine and practices and I could never turn to them. I had a relative who became my pillar of strength when he converted and eventually became an LDS stake president–I swear his testimony transformed the whole stake!–but now he enjoys reading Tarot cards and even turned down a GA’s plea for him to even just pray.
But the thing is, there are some things, despite all this, that you cannot simply deny. It is strange, call me stupid, but the more I see the gaping wounds and all of our past and our troublesome doctrines… If there’s one thing that I have learned, it’s that we don’t really see the whole picture. Our vision is simply limited. And it has to be—for a reason that we still have to find out. Why? We don’t know. The Atonement is something beyond human comprehension–and yet why do many of us believe in a personal Savior even if we can’t even fathom the whole thing? Imagine, someone sweating hemoglobin and yet still alive hours after?
Look at the story of Abraham that we never, never, NEVER question–the Great Jehovah who endlessly utters “thou shalt not kill”, what did he order this guy who was promised an endless posterity through only one miracle son? He told him to murder his son! We just say “sacrifice” to make the scenario more elegant but it is essentially killing! Now, change the names to Joseph, Jr. and Joseph III and the time frame to that problematic 1820s-1840s minefield, tell me, would you still remain 100% believing? And how do you think another Fawn Brodie or D. Michael Quinn would interpret it–oh yes, they’d call this bizarre ritual murder one of the shocking details of Mormondom’s secret history. And yet put that back to the Old Testament and… do I see you reading the account reverently with matching burning in the bosom?
There are some things that down to our dying day will go on unanswered–and yet that’s the beauty of it. And we need it–how else can we truly believe unless we go through the worst? One day, I hope, we will finally see the whole picture.
If there is one thing I’ve learned about being a member of the Church, it’s that we all go through our own personal journey. There will be times when we feel so strongly about our testimony, and there will also be times when we struggle through seasons of doubt. I have seen a lot of things in the Church that seemingly don’t make sense, but I try to plod on despite the doubt, since I feel that somewhere along the road, we will find the answers–not all the answers to all my questions, but at least those that gives me the strength to keep plodding on. What’s important too is to make sure we know what we really want in making this journey. What do we really want to see at the end of the road?
