Cancer or a Musty Old Document: A Real Trial of Faith

Humble readers, those who know (and, quite logically, love) me best, you know that I enjoy good sparring matches with secular critics of the faith. The old evangelical wing of anti-Mormonism is old, worn-out. The days of the Bible-bash should be consigned to the dust-bin of history. In general, who really believes the Bible any more? Sure, your average Joe Schlunk will tell his kids how they need to get religion, how they should follow the Sermon on the Mount, and other things that seem vaguely reminiscent of a bull-rally for investing in a firm...devoid of a coherent doctrinal or ideological base. The difference is that the commodity they're asking their kids to buy is self-sustenance. It's basically the stuff of "The More You Know" commercials. And who really buys into that stuff unless you're over 21 and/or have kids?


So I suggest that the real questions of faith no longer deal with original sin, faith and works. These issues have simply become litmus tests for one's cultural identity ("Are you a Christian aka 'one of us'?"). And yet, the secular critics tend to be remarkably backward looking in their critiques of Mormonism. Even those within our faith who consider themselves (and rightfully so) educated bemoan how difficult it is to keep faith with all their newly-found knowledge of Church history. "Believing history" and "faithful history" dominate such discussions, as though Christ's central message to his followers was: "Here's what you say when they ask you about polygamy..."

And lest you think me to be trashing my fellow thinkers, I am not; I speak as one who has been (and in some ways, still am) there. We think of ourselves as enlightened and we shake our heads slowly when we see our brethren/sistren drop some horrifically ignorant/malapropo comment about Mormon history or doctrine. To be sure, many of us thinkers have suffered soul-wrenching tragedy. So I don't suggest we are all removed from the cold realities of life. But many of us, even if we aren't, still seek to be because we couldn't handle the realities of mortality.

So I wonder...in all our complaining about the problems that we face as "thinkers," do we realize that the person who just claimed that Joseph was never physically intimate with his plural wives might have given several priesthood blessings to his son to no avail? Or that the woman he still insists that African-Americans were neutral in the premortal existence just saw her temple marriage of 30 years fall apart because her husband ran off with his secretary? Which set of facts are more trying? A musty old document discussing some arcane sermon of Brigham Young or the lurking doubts that you have failed as a father, a spouse? A new mental process or the in-your-face possibility that God, if he's there, really doesn't care? One wears you down gradually; the other slams you to your knees in a rainy park (and I'm not being sensational; I just heard an account of this yesterday). Historical facts hint, wink, imply. The facts of cancer, of marriage grab you by the lapels and throw you on your face.

A call to my fellow thinkers; perhaps our focus/fetish with balancing reason with spirituality, while commendable and laudable, should also be balanced with an extra dose of charity. Perhaps we can learn something from the factually challenged...and it has nothing to do with archives.