Have you ever read something
late at night right before you douse the lights in preparation for an adventure
into slumber town that caused your mind to accelerate past the point of no
return? You are getting ready for a much
needed sojourn into sleep when—WHAM—you are caught off guard by a subject that
demands your immediate attention. You
fight with the nagging thoughts: “Go away, it is time for bed.” You grapple with them: “Come on brain…is what
you have to say really that important?” And you negotiate with them: “Just let
me sleep, and I will give you free reign of expression in the morning,” but for
all your hard work, all that has passed is an hour of you staring at the ceiling
naively waiting for Mr. Sandman to emerge victorious.
Well, that is where
I find myself right now. I am exhausted
from a long day of overthinking, but in a tragically ironic turn, I cannot pass
out until I express this last bit of overthinking for the day. Here’s the headline that prompted this mania:
“Dear Elder Ballard, Thanks For Further Damaging My Family” (http://zelphontheshelf.com/dear-elder-ballard-thanks-for-further-damaging-my-family/)
Now admittedly, whenever you scroll down your Facebook
news feed at bedtime you run the risk of encountering some strange things that
are bound to engage your mind in the same way disgruntled millennials occupy
Wall Street. In my journey down the
social media rabbit hole this evening, I saw a video of a dog using a baby as a
pillow, seven tips to improve my memory, and a list of amazing foods I need to
gorge on in order to live a long life.
Shockingly, I turned down clicking on each of those gems to read what I
was sure would be an inflammatory post.
I was not disappointed.
As a devout member of the LDS Church, I have noticed a
rise in anti-Mormon rhetoric from past members of the church permeating my
newsfeed. I don’t know if this is a sign
of a drastic rise in many members of the church having a crisis of faith, or
simply an example of the vocal minority becoming increasingly adept at using a
wildfire-like platform to share their views.
What I do know is that, often, these posts strike a nerve that I have
had a hard time pinpointing.
For a while, I assumed that I was naturally adverse to
anything that challenged foundational beliefs that I hold to be sacred. In reality, though, I have come to realize
that my faith is not so flimsy that challenges topple it like a house of cards,
and that if what I have come to believe holds any weight, it will only be
strengthened through sincere inquiry and investigation of differing
perspectives. My problem with the above
article is not that its author attacks points of doctrine, including that the
leaders of the church are divinely inspired.
If it was, I would focus on denouncing his statement that members of the
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles “insist that [they] have been completely, 100%
without fault,” as erroneous because they, just like the church’s founder
Joseph Smith, have always admitted to being flawed—as all of us are. Instead, I hope to turn from the off tread
path argumentative banter that focuses on individual beliefs—which each of us
are entitled to—and rather focus on the problematic way the author expresses
said beliefs.
I would like to consider myself I fairly open-minded
and empathetic person. My field of study
encourages me to look at subjects from different perspectives, and to attempt
to understand where people are coming from even if I choose not to embrace
their viewpoints myself. In short, I
have tried to follow the council of Atticus Finch—whom I consider one of the
wisest characters in literature—who advises his children and audience that,
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point
of view…until you climb around in his skin and walk around in it.”
Thus, when I encounter a stance that is in direct contrast
to mine, I first try to discern rather than evaluate and make judgements. There are many points of understanding that I
share with the author of this article. I
recognize how hard it must be to depart from a belief system that he adhered to
during important years of identity formation, and how much courage it must take
to choose not to believe what the majority of his friends and family do. In fact, I can respect the fact that a person
would question and challenge what they believe rather than accept belief second
hand. Although in my personal experience
my religious convictions have grown stronger when they have been opposed, I
recognize that this may not be the case for everybody, and that in some
instances, it is important for a person to recalibrate their lives to a
position they are comfortable with.
Those are the points I can identify with.
However, when attempting the emotional out of body
experience that is empathy, it is important to recognize points of commonality
and points of departure. Where I depart
wholeheartedly in terms of comprehension when reading this article, and many
others that are designed to attack people of faith, is why the attack must be
made in the first place? I can absolutely understand that a person believes
differently than I do, and I can even sympathize with the pain that difference
of opinion can produce when those views place them in the minority. What I can’t understand is why a person would
seek to impart that pain on someone else.
What is it about the human condition that encourages
us to seek retribution when abandoning a cause we had previously
championed? Do we, as individuals, think
that upon experiencing a crucible we have now cornered the knowledge market and
should therefore impart our newfound wisdom on others? Do we seek a kind of emotional catharsis in
seeing others follow our same path? Or are our attentions completely benign in
that we hope to show our own discoveries to others in hopes that they find
similar illumination? I ask these
questions because I don’t have the answer to them. What I do know is that none of these aims
will be satisfied by attempting to tear down someone else’s faith.
If the author of this article believes that an
epiphany entitles them to a lion’s share of the world’s wisdom and that it is
their duty to disseminate information to prevent others from continuing down
the path of religious belief, than how does that make them any less bigoted
than the church they are criticizing.
Essentially he is saying, “It is not okay for you to say what you
believe and share your opinions, but it is alright for me too.” For example, Albert Carrington[1]
vehemently attacks Elder Ballard’s recent statement that “When someone stops
doing these simple but essential things, they cut themselves from the ‘well of
living water’ and allow Satan to muddle their thinking,” but makes a similar
blanket statement when stating that, “everyone else would call” the blogger’s position
“following your conscience and standing up for morality.” What makes Elder Ballard’s general statement
of belief abhorrent, while the author’s stance is self-labeled as moral?
Judging by the acrimonious tone and content of the
article, I would predict that Carrington would argue that Elder Ballard’s
statement is evil because it causes heightened tension between him and those
who continue to hold to their religious convictions. I find this faulty logic for two
reasons. First, is Elder Ballard’s
encouragement of members of the church to stand firm and not cut themselves off
from what he conceives as truth really increasing discord in his life, or are
is the blogger possibly projecting his own feelings of anger and betrayal onto
his peers and family members? As someone
who returned early from a mission, I am aware that there are unfair stigmas
attached to people in the church—as will always be the case when it is made up
of imperfect members—but I also recognize that sometimes the negative views people
harbored towards me were imperfect machinations of my mind and faulty attempts
at telepathy. Could it possibly be that
the antagonism the author feels Elder Ballard’s rhetoric if fueling is instead a
manifestation of inner turmoil?
If the answer to that question is an honest and
heartfelt no, my second qualm is how will publishing a polarizing article
improve the situation any? Rather than
ask sincere questions and seek meaningful responses—or in other words, rather than
employ the same empathy Zelph thinks should be offered to him—it seems that he
instead decided to entrench each side further in their corners by accusing church leadership of transferring
“blame onto the members of the Church who you are refusing to teach, refusing
to be transparent with, and who you are failing to nourish,” a statement that
becomes hypocritical at the article’s end when he hyperbolically blames Elder
Ballard for “ruining his eternal family.”
Being eager to unfairly condemn someone in the same manner you feel you
have been unfairly condemned is akin to a motorist breaking the speed limit to force
another vehicle off the road for running a stop sign.
Perhaps I have gotten this all wrong and Carrington’s
purpose in writing this article was to apply a healing balm to a conflicted
soul. I can understand how it could seem
strengthening if others join in celebrating a new found ideology while also
tearing down the previous one. I would
warn, however, that this panacea for inner turmoil is a poison, and the discord
that he seeks to absolve will instead become a pandemic of disharmony. There are many instances to point to of the
corrosiveness of vengeance in history or in the realm of literature, but I will
quote my favorite exploration of the pitfalls of reprisal: Alexander Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, in which the
author remarks, “Moral wounds have this peculiarity - they may be hidden, but
they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they
remain fresh and open in the heart.” By
seeking a scorched earth and vengeful attitude towards the Church, it is my
fear that the author of this article—and those similarly inclined—will continue
to irritate this “fresh and open wound” until nothing remains of their soul but
bitterness and hatred. I can commend a
person for establishing their own belief system, but I would caution them about
spending their valuable time trying to destroy others religious’
convictions.
Alright, I would be the first to admit I am probably
full of it. In attempting to walk in the
author’s shoes, I may have unfairly attached his intentions to negative
motivations. If that is the case, I
apologize. It could very well be that he
sincerely hopes to help others make important personal progress through
introspection. Even with the nobility of
that goal, I wonder why it is necessary to cast any party in a negative light. Could this not have easily been accomplished
by making statements of belief and defending them without using personal
attacks? The fallaciousness in his tone
is most evident to me when he questions Elder Ballard’s story of telling
someone who had doubts about the church to read the Book of Mormon. He repudiates Elder Ballard by harshly by directly
addressing him and saying that if, “You [Elder Ballard] have the answers, you
just don’t think it is important to share them. If you actually do have answers
(and I doubt you do) and are not providing them to the people who need them
most, then the eternal damnation of these formerly faithful Saints is on your
hands. If you honestly had the ability to bring divine counsel and apostolic
clarity to this mess and did not, you have failed in your calling and failed in
saving souls you could have saved,” but rather than attempt to answer these
questions, you do not ever sincerely imagine why he offered that counsel and instead utilize antagonizing
discourse. It is possible that Elder Ballard recognized
that when a person establishes their own beliefs and investigates an issue for
themselves rather than have it prescribed to them, their foundation is
infinitely stronger than it could have been.
In short, the author pejoratively condemns Elder Ballard as a failure
without either answers or the best interest of the Saint’s at heart, and also
takes issue with the apostle unfairly labeling him, but by not even attempting
to understand his perspective, Carrington becomes guilty of the myopia he was
eager to condemn.
While my response has questioned a specific instance
of someone trying to bring down a system of worship they have already
unsubscribed to, I think it is applicable across religions and ideologies. Rather than create a productive dialogue that
brings two sides closer together, we often decide to disparage an opposing viewpoint,
and in so doing take on the same sanctimonious tone that we find disgusting and
disgraceful in those who disagree with our side of the story. In attempting to understand Mr. Carrington’s
viewpoints in a way that refrained from personal attacks and vitriol—even if
the attempt was not perfect—I have gained more compassion for him and those in
a similar situation. At the same time,
my beliefs that were challenged have been strengthened by the fact that I was
able to think through a different perspective and still emerge with my beliefs
intact.
Still, I feel like there is a paradigm chasm that
exists between Carrington’s approach and mine because rather than call for a
sincere discussion, the article instead relies repeatedly an overly dramatic denigration. In the end, the aforementioned nerve this
article struck seems to be that it undermines the seminal belief of the
free-minded that two individuals be entitled to believe what they desire so far
as it does not place the other person in harm.
We live in a day and age where the constitutional pillar of “religious
freedom” has been turned on its head to mean that religious institutions allow
those of different faiths or the secular world to believe what they want
without that same privilege being afforded to them. Channel your inner John Lennon and imagine a
world where we spent more time listening and less time blaming; less time
tearing down and more time building up.
Seriously. Close your eyes and
imagine it for a good minute. What do
you see? To me it looks a lot like
heaven on earth—and one that is accessible to both atheist and theist, African
and Caucasian, Republican and Democrat, homosexual and heterosexual, Russian
and American, Muslim and Christian, former members of the LDS church and
continuing practitioners.
With that sublime image in mind, I can finally sleep in peace.
[1]The
author of this article uses a pseudonym that alludes to a former member of the
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that was excommunicated for sexual
misconduct. This perhaps gives
illustrates the frame of mind the author is approaching this topic from, but it
interesting to note that Carrington was eventually rebaptized.
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