Real Life Answers

Guest Post by Zach Bunting

It’s certainly not an issue that Mormons alone have to confront. Any person of faith encounters questions to which there appear no adequate answers in religion. Some might say that to question or search is to open a Pandora ’s box since you could find startling or troubling answers. After all, maybe it is more comfortable to blindly accept something that you want to be true. Tennyson saw things differently: “There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds,” he penned in his poem In Memoriam A.H.H.

For Latter-day Saints, the greatest witness we can receive is personal revelation, communicated to our minds and hearts by the Holy Ghost. It is personal experience that no one can refute but us. The very nature of our faith requires constant nourishment, and the Holy Ghost bears witness of truth, so it follows that as we investigate we can receive the same assurance that initially sprouted our faith. Perhaps that is why one of our Church’s leaders recently said, “As good as our previous experience may be, if we stop asking questions, stop thinking, stop pondering, we can thwart the revelations of the Spirit,” (Acting on the Truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ).

Recently I was involved in a discussion that started with the Curiosity rover and morphed into science versus religion. Those tending toward the atheistic end of the spectrum fueled their argument with scientific evidence in contradiction with biblical accounts. Some of the Christians responded by questioning the validity of science. However, there were a couple of believers that work closely with science who described their personal journeys to reconcile science with religion and maintain their intellectual honesty while fortifying their faith. What distinguished these believers was that they had actively asked questions that they knew had caused others to extinguish the flame of their own faith, but in so doing sought Heaven’s aid. When they arrived at conclusions that were satisfactory to them, they found peace and that familiar assurance that at first had converted them to Christ’s gospel. I felt challenged to venture out and discover where I feel the two intersect. I cannot discard my faith that has been fortified by numerous unforgettable experiences, nor can I pretend that science is faulty and changes with the wind. Both evolve: one as God sees fit to endow us with additional understanding, and the other as man’s efforts and ability enable us to understand. But I can allow both to heavily influence how I see the world. For me, especially when life plays out contrary to my expectations (for better or worse), I can look back and see the scientific explanation for how something happened, but I look through the lens of faith to understand why.

This recent journey was one that I knew came with risks. I have seen friends cast away their faith when they dug below the surface of this issue or others. Why is it that I advocate the search for truth? Is it because modern scripture instructs us to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith”? Is it because I fear to appear ignorant? For me, it is because I recognize that my faith will illuminate my understanding only inasmuch as I allow it to grow, even into the mysterious darkness. In the same poem, Tennyson also wrote:

We have but faith: we cannot know
For knowledge is of things we see
And yet we trust it comes from thee
A beam in darkness: let it grow.

As an explorer hungers to discover what lies beyond the horizon, I too find satisfaction and joy in expanding my understanding. And when I get there, I am not alone. The same familiar Spirit that at first testified to me of the truth of the Book of Mormon welcomes me to a new summit.

Learning is a magnificent process. It inspires the mind and enriches the soul. I love that Church leaders and scripture exhort us to learn constantly, because instead of shattering my faith, the process has solidified mine.

Today’s guest post comes from Jordan, a film student in the Boston area

There are two groups of people who know Mormons love Jews: Mormons and Jews. It’s a religious history thing. Since Mormons, properly identified as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, believe that they are Christ’s restored church, they feel a sense of shared history with traditional Judaism. After all, Christ’s original church was just reformed Judaism, so we feel a stronger connection to that heritage than we do to the rest of Christianity, which spent a lot of time (about two thousand years) digressing and reforming from the actual time of Christ. There are plenty of other, less esoteric reasons, but I guess that’s the one that resonates with me the most.

Earlier this year, I had an opportunity to attend a Seder for the first time. It was a lovely experience, and I was grateful for the hospitality of my friend and her family for allowing me to attend. Afterward, as we drove back to the city, my friend and I had a conversation about tradition, ritual, and human spirituality.

This stuff feels significant. Traditions facilitate the binding of families over the years, and what is ritual but the physicalizing of heritage, belief, culture, and respect? These are the means by which human beings find some tangible hold on the abstract, the spiritual. Also, it turns out we’re bad at remembering much of anything. Tradition–the repetition of singing, reading, washing, eating, all together as a family–helps us remember what’s most important to us.

And what is that? Well, the family, in particular. Families are falling apart in our world. A happy family, with a mom, a dad, and kids who don’t hate each other and hope to escape–I’m not talking about perfection here, just net happiness–anyway, a happy family is becoming so endangered as to be considered something like a unicorn or Santa Claus. A nice thought, but only kids and idiots believe they actually exist. So the things that help to bind families together, and facilitate their happiness, are nothing if not holy.

As for the rest of it–the consideration of Israelite history, God’s relationship to His people, and other things sacred to Jewish religiosity–it’s possible I had more concern for all of that than the people who were hosting the thing. But then, it was all new to me, and at the end of the night, I felt singularly privileged to see inside something so, well, holy.

This post comes from guest author Luke, a student at Harvard Divinity School.

Different faith traditions use different words to describe the words they preach: sermons, homilies, discourses, etc. As Latter-day Saints we use a term that is worth explanation: our sermons are called “talks,” and if you ever visit a Latter-day Saint congregation during its sacrament services, you are almost guaranteed to hear at least two to three of them.
The unsophisticated, and somewhat ambiguous, nature of the word “talk,” points in some ways to the nature of the discourse itself. Latter-day Saints do not employ a paid ministry, nor do our congregations have designated preachers. Instead, each week two to three members of our congregation (women, men, and youth) are asked to speak for 10–15 minutes on a previously arranged theme (e.g. faith, suffering, the mission of Jesus Christ, etc.). Church members are usually given 1–2 weeks to prepare their remarks. No one is required to give a talk, we are simply invited to accept or refuse the opportunity.
As a student at Harvard Divinity School, I believe in the godliness of all inspired speech. I’d like to conclude, however, with why I love the “talk” format within the LDS Church:

1. All are teachers and learners alike.  By giving one another opportunities to seriously prepare and preach to one another, we sustain the Lord Jesus Christ’s mission to convert all of His children into people of great faith. Something changes in the man or woman who prayerfully seeks to study and then teach God’s word to the best of his or her ability. This concept is especially valuable for our youth.
2. A multi-vocal community.  The LDS preaching format reminds us of the importance of our community and of listening to its individual voices. Each week, we learn the word of God from different neighbors with unique sets of life experiences, concerns, and insights.
3. Opportunities to listen and love as Christ does.  As you can probably imagine, this type of system can allow for a wide variety of talks: some perhaps more polished, or more in line with our individual perspectives, than others. And yet despite our personal biases, in all cases we are called to listen to and, most importantly, to love the speaker even as Christ loves and listens to us, regardless of whether or not He agrees with everything we say or do (John 13:34–35).

LDS sacrament services are held every Sunday in local LDS chapels worldwide.