Doubt/Faith

Tomorrow, I'm attending the baptism of my friend Mary. New Year, new beginning. It seems the perfect time for a baptism.

Mary called me earlier this week to tell me the news. This is a big step for her, not one she takes lightly. She's been investigating the Church for many years, and a couple of years ago she almost got baptized but then called it all off at the very last minute -- to much embarrassment, and much to the chagrin of the elders and others intimately involved. She was introduced to me by a friend of mine who happens to be an atheist. Candy had told Mary about my wrestles with faith, and my journey, and Mary decided she needed to talk with me before she made any final decisions either to join or not to join the Church. So over the last couple of years, Candy, Mary and I have met periodically for lunch and heartfelt conversation. And in that time, Mary and I have become very close.

When Mary called to tell me about her baptism, we wept together on the phone. Mary told me she had been asked to make suggestions as to who she would like to have speak at her baptism, and she wanted me to speak about the Holy Ghost. I told her I felt so incredibly honored that she would want me to do that, but I was certain I could not be allowed to speak at an LDS baptismal service. And that was when the weeping started. She told me that the reason she's getting baptized is because of my faith and testimony. And she couldn't understand why I wouldn't be allowed to speak at her baptism. And I told her what I've told her before: Everything will work out in the end for the best and highest good of each and all of us if we just move forward in faith. And my presence at her baptism will have to be enough of a witness of what I know about faith and love and about the Holy Spirit.

I called my friend Candy and told her Mary was getting baptized, and Candy agreed that we both needed to be there to support her. Candy said something about the extraordinariness of a situation that might prompt her to walk through the doors of a Mormon church in order to attend a baptismal service. And she also, to my delight, volunteered that she would repeat the performance again some day when I am finally able to be baptized too. Now that is a testimony to the depth of the love of my friend Candy, that, not really sharing any of my faith, she understands me so completely, and is able to share my deepest hope with me. So Mary's rooting section on New Year's Day will include an excommunicated gay Mormon and a Unitarian atheist, united in our desire for Mary's happiness, and in our hope for her baptism to be both a new beginning and a deepening of faith.

I've been reading a book lately about the history of unbelief in America (an excellent book, by the way). It seems there are also (synchronicity!) a crop of blog posts by Beck and Kiley and Andrew about the personal conundrums caused by belief and doubt; or by a desire to believe in the face of doubt. I think my friend Mary has a profound faith, what Mormons call a testimony, but she's also been paralyzed for many years by different kinds of doubt.

An irony of wrestling with doubt is that in the midst of such wrestling we often feel guilty, as if it is wrong for us to doubt, when in fact doubt registers what I consider one of the highest forms of integrity. A person wavers in doubt because of a desire to make the right choice, and because he or she is honest enough admit that he or she doesn't know the right way to go. Doubt is not a comfortable place to be. When in doubt, we long for the certainty that will enable us to move forward with the courage (and presumably happiness) of our convictions. We have to wrestle with uncomfortable emotions, with an awareness of personal weakness, with conflicting desires. Doubt is always as much a matter of the heart as it is of the head! Even when we don't recognize the heart's role in doubt... We wonder if the "right" thing to do is to stick with a course of action that our head tells us can't be right, but our heart tells us ought to be right. Or is the "right" course to do what reason dictates, even when it "feels" icky?

One thing I can say is woe to the person who sells out in one way or the other. By that I mean the person who consciously professes belief just to win applause or get some other tangible reward. That kind of choice will eat at your soul until you don't have the power to believe in anything any more.

A person of integrity should doubt. But there, of course, also comes a moment when a person of integrity must choose. That isn't to say that we don't sometimes have to revisit choices; swallow hard and admit we were wrong; repent! My life has, for good or ill, been shaped by those kinds of choices. I am only human. But if we don't choose, if we refuse to move forward and commit for fear of later having to admit we were wrong, we miss out on the greatest gifts and the greatest ultimate happiness life has to offer.

Mary asked me how many baptisms I have attended in my life. I told her I wasn't sure, but probably around a dozen or so. I told her that three of those were baptisms I had performed.

"What was that like?" she asked.

"Terrifying," I told her.

"Really?" she asked in surprise. "Why?"

"Because I recognized the enormity, the incredible importance of what I was doing. And because I wasn't always sure I was worthy."

"Oh," she said, in a voice that told me she now understood perfectly.

I feel something like this now, for Mary. Of course Mary's decision to be baptized is Mary's decision. It is her choice. But she says that her baptism would not be possible without my faith and my testimony. My life has touched hers in some meaningful way that has helped her come to terms with doubt that till now had barred her way, like some angel or demon at the foot of Jacob's ladder. You don't give a gift like that to someone else without giving some part of yourself. Without owing some eternal part of yourself.

In thinking about it, I was reminded of what Elijah witnessed, when

the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. (1 Kings 19: 11-12)

So there are moments when I feel incredibly broken, like the rocks must have felt flying off the mountain, like nothing can be right with me. And there are times when I wonder if everything I believe in isn't, like the mountain in the earthquake, crashing down around me and proving me just another fool. But after the wind and the earthquake and the fire, the still small voice remains constant. It speaks of love, and keeps me grounded.

My greatest privilege in life has been to bear witness of that voice, and to see it bear fruit in love.

Those Who Professed to Belong to the Church of God

Lately I've been reading George Marsden's biography of Jonathan Edwards. (Marsden, by the way, is at his best in this work. Nuanced, relevant, and insightful! He splendidly shows how Edwards is still relevant today, how his theology is still a force to be reckoned with... An amazing piece of work I would highly recommend to anyone interested in American religion.)

One of the defining struggles for Jonathan Edwards was the problem of distinguishing between what he called the "visible Church" and the "invisible Church." This was a concept that became very important early in the Reformation -- it was something that both Martin Luther and John Calvin had to reckon with in their own theological work.

The concept of an "invisible" vs. "visible" church becomes necessary the moment you define the church in terms of a true, living faith and relationship with God. The problem stems from the fact that a person may profess faith outwardly, but inwardly their heart may not truly be aligned with God. A person may appear outwardly in every respect to be faithful both in word and deed, but it is difficult (if not impossible) to know whether that person is putting on a show of faithfulness in order to win the adulation of others. This poses an ecclesiastical problem if you belong to a church that insists its membership rolls should more or less only include true believers. Because it then sets for ecclesiastical leaders the more or less impossible task of reading what is truly in the hearts of his or her parishioners.

Edwards pointed out that we can look for "signs" of true, inward faith in people's outward behavior. But ultimately we cannot know for sure. We must acknowledge that, at least to some extent, the "visible" (earthly) church will not correspond perfectly with the "invisible" (true) church. Some individuals who should be included may be excluded from the church. While other individuals who should be excluded may be included in the church. Edwards believed this was the true meaning of the "wheat and the tares" parable. Only God knows the true state of individuals' hearts, and only God will ultimately be able to sort things out when Christ comes again and brings our present age to an end. Still, Edwards insisted that the church needs to try to discern, and needs to try -- as much as is humanly possible -- to sort the wheat from the tares.

The Book of Mormon seems to make reference to this important principle in passages I've read recently in Helaman. The principle of a universal, invisible Church seems to be established in Helaman 3: 28-29:

Yea, thus we see that the gate of heaven is open unto all, even to those who will believe on the name of Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God. Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God....

Here, access to the Kingdom of Heaven is presented purely as an act of will, an act of desire. It is presented as a movement of the heart. "All... who will believe"; "whosoever will."

A few short verses later, this true church is contrasted with the church as it exists in the world. Verse 33:

And in the fifty and first year of the reign of the judges there was peace also, save it were the pride which began to enter into the church—not into the church of God, but into the hearts of the people who professed to belong to the church of God—

This verse uses the word "church" in two different senses. The first use of the word "church" is when the author indicates that "pride... began to enter into the church." So here he is speaking of the visible institution, with earthly membership rolls. But as quickly as he states that pride has entered "the church," he clarifies. "Not into the church of God, but into the hearts of the people who professed to belong to the church of God." So here is as clear a statement as you can find almost anywhere in scripture that individuals who suffer pride to grow in their hearts are not actually members of God's true church. They may be on the membership rolls of "the church" but they are not members of, what this author calls "the church of God." They may "profess" to be members, but they are not in truth, in the only sense that really matters in the eternities.

Now, this notion disturbs (and I think should disturb!) complacent views of the church and what church membership means. Often it disturbs us, though, for the wrong reasons. A wrong reason for it to disturb us is that it deprives us of nice easy categories into which we can simplistically place everyone and everything in the world. In a nice, tidy, complacent (arrogant) world, we belong to the One True Church, and our membership nicely entitles us to a front row seat in the Kingdom of Heaven. And everyone who is not with us is against us, so we're justified in treating them somewhat less than. And to be reminded that things don't actually work that way, that some people we might think of as damned are actually saved, and some that we might think of as saved are actually damned, well that messes things up and makes us very unhappy.

But a right reason for this to disturb us would be if it does the opposite. If it makes us just a bit insecure in our assumptions about our belonging in the Kingdom of Heaven. If it makes us realize that our church membership can't save us, if our hearts are improperly aligned.

This is just where Jonathan Edwards went with this insight. Church leaders, he insisted, must attempt to align the outward, visible church with the inward, invisible (true) church, but they will fail. They do so out of a responsibility to the souls of those they watch over. But their efforts are secondary to the efforts and responsibility of the individual believer. It is the individual believer, Edwards insisted, who must primarily ever be on the look-out for "signs" of true belief within their own heart and soul. It is ultimately our responsibility to measure our desires in the balance of Heaven-ordained virtue.

For Edwards, this Heaven-ordained virtue was organized in its totality around the principle of divine love. God's infinite, eternal, perfect love for all of creation, and for all his children is the founding principle of the cosmos. A true love for God will manifest itself in a selfless love for everyone and everything that God loves. And it is our task to measure ourselves against and align ourselves with that kind of love.

Whosoever will, may.