The Crucible of Doubt: Reflections on the Quest for Faith

by Terryl L. Givens

His beloved younger colleague, the colorful J. Golden Kimball, reminded his audience that “There are not enough Apostles in the Church to prevent us from thinking, and they are not disposed to do so; but some people fancy that because we have the Presidency and Apostles of the Church that they will do the thinking for us. There are men and women so mentally lazy that they hardly think for themselves. To think calls for effort, which makes some men tired and wearies their souls. No man or woman can remain in this Church on borrowed light.”11 However, in 1945, a Church magazine urged upon its readers the exact opposite, that “When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done.” Many are familiar with that expression; fewer are aware that when President George Albert Smith learned of it, he immediately and indignantly repudiated the statement. “Even to imply that members of the Church are not to do their own thinking,” he wrote, “is grossly to misrepresent the true ideal of the Church.”12

Teachings that seem to bear the stamp of divine authority and are later declared to be in error are even more challenging to faith.

As for the question of what is or is not revelation, the answer is simple. People just don’t like to hear it. . . . D&C 68:4 says: “And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation.” There’s your answer and, in terms of simple language, it’s not hard to understand. The problem is that it doesn’t do what people want. What people want is to be absolved of responsibility. They want a formula, a rulebook, or an oracle to which they can defer tough questions. God says: “If you want to know if it’s scripture or not, you’re going to have to have your own connection to the Holy Ghost sufficient to figure that out.” In other words: “The burden is on you.” People say: “That sounds like hard work. Please give us a cheat sheet.” . . . And, when God refuses to give out a cheat sheet, people just invent one. They invent doctrines of prophetic or scriptural inerrancy or sufficiency or infallibility, all of which serve more or less the exact same purpose as the original golden calf: a simulacrum of the divine that doesn’t ask us to do any genuine hard work.15

Both Brigham Young and Lorenzo Snow imbibed Smith’s generous bent. Young preached, “Every faithful Methodist that has lived up to and faithfully fulfilled the requirements of his religion, . . . will have as great a heaven as he ever anticipated in the flesh, and far greater. Every Presbyterian, and every Quaker, and every Baptist, and every Roman Catholic member . . . that lives according to the best light they have, . . . will have and enjoy all they live for. . . . This is the situation of Christendom after death. You may go among the Pagans, or among all the nations there are . . . and if they have lived according to what they did possess, so they will receive hereafter. And will it be glory? you may inquire. Yes. Glory, glory, glory.”30

Trials of faith seldom arise from core Mormon beliefs; few struggle with commitment because their God is too benevolent, His plan too generous, the heaven we anticipate too rich in relationships and love. Doctrines, however, no matter how pure, do not exist in a vacuum. We encounter them through teachings, programs, manuals, personal interactions, and institutional forms and practices. And in the process, we occasionally find the pure gospel entangled with unfortunate ideas, pharisaical behavior, legalistic thinking, judgmentalism, and rules based more on tradition than inspiration. Those, of course, are the fruits of culture—a primarily western American Mormon culture almost two centuries in the making. They are not the gospel itself. But the complaint that culture, not the gospel, is the problem, is not entirely satisfactory. Our experience of the gospel is inescapably mediated by, conditioned by, culture.

The empathy shown by Brigham Young is striking: “To profess to be a Saint, and not enjoy the spirit of it, tries every fiber of the heart, and is one of the most painful experiences that man can suffer.”15