[Rumpole]

1. red1988, nice try, but I know that you are actually Boyd K. Packer, so no dice.

It would be hilarious to learn that this whole site was a counterintelligence operation set up by the Strengthening the Members Committee to get our actionable heresies on the record. Brian Johnston is a paid informant. And so is John Dehlin, and he just went deep, deep cover.

2. Joking aside, let me respond seriously to red1988. I resist responding in detail, because I’m not comfortable airing all of my doubts in front of other people, even anonymously, because I think (perhaps irrationally) that it would feel like I am “bearing testimony” of my doubts. I don’t want to do that. But I will say that I share some of the common concerns about Joseph Smith’s claims about our scriptures being what he says they are. I haven’t given up on the idea that they are still inspired scriptures, but we make lots of claims about them that go beyond that. So, I suppose I can accept our additional scriptures as inspired scripture, but I think that Joseph Smith made a lot of other claims about them that don’t seem to be true. (Which, when you think about it, is not even close to being the most disturbing thing that Joseph Smith did.) Taking all that together, and I was starting to choke a little bit on the temple recommend question about the restoration. I still might reach the right answer, but if I have to “show my work” you’ll see that I get there through a different method.

3. Which takes me to SilentDawning’s first point: tell no one. Well, I already blew that. I told my bishop, probably right about the time that SilentDawning was typing his (her?) advice, that I could answer that temple recommend question about the restoration “yes” only if one accepts that I don’t necessarily believe that, say, the Book of Abraham is what Joseph Smith says it is. And that fact that I don’t believe that has really caused me to think a lot harder about what I believe about the Book of Mormon. The bishop is a friend and the model of discretion. After we spoke he confirmed that nothing I had shared with him would limit my ability to participate in the church in any way, which is what I expected him to say. So I’ve got that going for me. He did acknowledge that there are leaders in the church that take a different view, but he’s not one of them, and he’s got my back.

[4. This section is in brackets because I’m not sure that this idea makes sense but I want to get it here on paper.

You know, we tell people that it’s OK to doubt, and OK to have questions. Why doesn’t it feel OK? Let me propose a “ratchet theory” of the acceptability of doubting as it relates testimony acquisition and maintenance: Maybe what we mean when we say that it’s OK to doubt and have questions, we’re really just talking to new converts, young people, or people not already fully steeped in the church milieu. That it’s OK to not be 100% sold on all this business when you’re in the process of coming in, because it’s important that you get in the door, and we’re confident, or at least hopeful, that a solid testimony will develop if you can plant and nurture the seed. For 40 year-old high priests, however, it’s not OK. You’re supposed to know these things, believe them to be true, and if you doubt, something’s wrong. In other words, questions and doubts are OK in the growth phase, because we expect or at least hope that you’ll grow out of it, but not in a state of maturity. And it’s important that people in the growth phase get the message that it’s OK, because if they think that doubting is not OK, the barrier to entry looks too high. But regressive doubting by those mature in the church, on the other hand, is poison. So, the “ratchet theory”: it’s OK to have doubts so long as you don’t regress (“dwindle in disbelief,” you might say).

If it were really OK for me to doubt, why am I told to keep my doubts to myself? Here’s an illustration: Imagine a new convert says in Sunday School, “I’m still trying to get my arms around is the Book of Mormon. I have a hard time accepting that it is all that we say it is. But, I’m still reading and studying, so maybe I’ll figure it out some day.” No stake president in attendance would find that sentiment objectionable from a new convert. He’s there, he’s engaged, he’s trying to figure it out. Now put that stake president in my high priest group meeting and have me make the same statement. Now the stake president is alarmed (1) at my doubts, and (2) alarmed that I’d share them.

Now, I agree and understand that the church can’t have a bunch of people sewing doubts in their meetings. Sunday School shouldn’t be “point/counterpoint.” But I do note some dissonance when I’m told that it’s OK to have doubts, but I’m afraid to tell my bishop about them because he’s going to prevent me from seeing my kids get married. So I can only conclude that the church actually thinks that my doubting is bad, probably because at my point I should be past the doubts.]

5. I can’t share any of this with my wife. She would be very much distraught to know that she miscalculated my level of belief or commitment to belief when she decided to marry me and start a family to raise in the church. So I keep this to myself.

And I make an end of this record.

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