Real Life Answers

By Andrea B.

In our country where religiosity is on the decline (Huffington Post), many seem to celebrate ethereal spirituality but scoff at religious organizations, not recognizing that organized religions exist for the sole purpose of improving spirituality. Dismissing structured religion is like saying, “I like being healthy and though sometimes I get sick, hospitals are for other people, not me.” Others nominally belong to churches, but rarely attend. With mystic Eastern philosophies claiming the limelight in pop culture (e.g., the film Batman Begins) it feels socially outdated to claim membership to an organized church. And yet, my spirituality is best executed through my church; God as the perfect teacher has created out of a religious organization the perfect classroom. This is a classroom full of struggling, imperfect students, but each member comes to class seeking to be better. Through imperfect people we execute God’s perfect system of learning.

Howard Gardner—Professor of Education at Harvard—advocates that students have multiple intelligences such as kinesthetics, logic, interpersonal savvy, etc. As such, educational research recommends that teachers vary instruction techniques to fit the needs of all different intelligences. So too does our perfect Father seek to vary his instruction to meet the strengths and learning styles of his children. Nephi explains in the Book of Mormon that “the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding” (2 Nephi 31:3) or, according to their intelligence. He does this by instructing us in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to access truth through myriad ways: we are to teach one-on-one; to share and learn in small classes; to be instructed as a large congregation; and to receive counsel and revelation as a single body tuned in to a conference twice a year. In addition, God asks us to speak directly to him, and to have independent study every day to commune with him by reflecting on revelation he gave long ago. We have activities, baptisms, service experiences, institute, family home evening, and temple nights all in addition to our church meetings, because God wants us to learn. He wants ALL of his students, with all of our different ways of learning about the world, to come to a knowledge of the Savior as the Redeemer of the world. If I tried to gain spirituality in isolation, I would miss out on the many additional avenues to truth that only come when I participate in my organized religion.

God’s perfect classroom provides access to truth for all learners. But the organization of the church goes beyond a teacher-student knowledge transfer; it allows for participants to apply what we learn towards one another, to form what the apostle Paul calls the “Body of Christ”, or rather a group of people that provides complementary efforts to care for one another. This is not possible without a structure to guide this effort. Paul teaches that “there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit . . . But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit . . . For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:4, 11–12). God has given a variety of gifts and talents to all of us; it is only as we all both teach AND learn, both serve AND receive service, that our gifts—or our multiple intelligences—can create the body of Christ, and gain a level of spirituality unknown to those who seek it alone. I am grateful for a Father who knows the learning needs of his children. I am grateful for a congregation in which to learn and then apply the principles of the Atonement. I am grateful for the community of people who help me follow Christ. In short, I am grateful for my membership in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

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.

Poised just at the brink of rock face that dropped sharply away below me, I stalled on my mountain bike, wondering how I was going to get up the courage to ride down it, and once I did, whether I would make it down without major spine or neck injuries, and if I didn’t, how I would explain to my wife  why it seemed like a good idea. The problem was, paused right there between going and not going was probably the worst point to be making the decision to go down or not. First, I wasn’t in the position I would have needed to be in to make the descent (rear end needs to be way off the back of the saddle). Second, starting the descent from a standstill, any little nervous twitch of the brakes could send me endoing face first off the drop.

So, I decided to rewind. I backed up a good 10 or 15 yards from the drop off, thought about it for a second, then took off for the edge. Just as I was approaching the brink, I wondered if it was a good idea, but I knew by then it was too late. I had committed already, and willy-nilly I was going down that rock.

What does it mean that I had committed? It means that I had previously decided to go through with it, but more than that, it means I had in essence tied my hands (by riding with some speed) to prevent myself from reneging on my decision if at some point it started to look less like a good idea.

Why would tying your own hands ever be a good idea? Why commit to something and thereby lose the freedom and flexibility to make a different choice down the road? Isn’t it always better to keep your options open? The answer, oddly enough, is no. Some economist friends of mine have thought a lot about this question, so I’m going to steal some of their ideas, and mingle them with another great thinker’s.

As far as I can tell, there are two basic situations where the answer to “should I commit?” is “yes,” or in other words, tying your hands is a good idea. The first is when for whatever reason you are much better suited to make the “right” decision now than you might be later on down the road. On my bike, I knew that at the brink I was likely to be overcome by an irrational fear of hurtling down a steep rock face, and therefore I was much more likely to make the “correct” decision of whether to go for it or not from the more removed vantage point of a few meters back.

The second basic situation is when you are making a plan with another person (or persons) that will make you both better off if you go through with it, but would leave one of you much worse off if the other reneged down the line. Like a classic prisoners’ dilemma, or, say, a marriage. Without the possibility of committing, two people thinking about such an arrangement would know that down the line one or the other is going to find jumping ship better than staying with it, leaving the other worse off than if they had never gotten into it in the first place. So by thinking they are “keeping their options open” in not committing, they are actually shutting down an possibility that would make both of them better off.

I believe that one reason God wants us to worship Him and live our faith as part of a religious community (as opposed to, say, on my own out on my mountain bike as I might do otherwise) is precisely because of the opportunity it gives us to commit to living our faith. By investing in relationships with others at church and publicly promising to live my life a certain way, I’ve committed, because now there’s an immediate and salient cost to straying off the path.

Sometimes it seems like commitment is more and more something that people try to avoid like the plague (exhibit A: rising age at first marriage). They shouldn’t, though. The most important things in life–for me, my family and my faith–would have no chance without it.