Comments on: Future Mormon 5: The God Who Weeps

By: Carey

Carey — Fri, 10 Nov 2017 18:25:36 +0000

Clark,

I don’t have the book in front of me, but Adam isn’t it true that while Adam critiques the Givens’ use of agency and preexistence more strongly than he does there views on evolution? And if memory serves, I thought his critique wasn’t that they didn’t acknowledge evolution’s role in creation, just that they didn’t emphasize it enough throughout.

By: Jerry Schmidt

Jerry Schmidt — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 06:23:49 +0000

It’s odd, but the image that came to my mind in reading the Givens quote, and reading your summation of Miller’s reaction to it was the frescoe “The Creation of Adam” by Michaelangelo. I pictured faith as if it were an electricity between Adam’s outstretched finger (belief) and God’s outstretched finger (knowledge).

By: Jerry Schmidt

Jerry Schmidt — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 06:10:28 +0000

“The call to faith, in this light, is not some test of a coy god, waiting to see if we “get it right.” It is the only summons, issued under the only conditions, which can allow us fully to reveal who we are, what we most love, and what we most devoutly desire. Without constraint, without any form of mental compulsion, the act of belief becomes the freest possible projection of what resides in our hearts…The greatest act of self-revelation occurs when we choose what we will believe, in that space of freedom that exists between knowing that a thing is, and knowing that a thing is not.”

I’m guessing this is the passage from Givens regarding faith you were speaking to.

By: Jerry Schmidt

Jerry Schmidt — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 05:41:06 +0000

“Every generation must start again. Every generation must work out their own salvation. Every generation must live its own lives and think its own thoughts and receive its own revelations. And, if Mormonism continues to matter, it will be because they, rather than leaving, were willing to be Mormon all over again. Like our grandparents, like our parents, and like us, they will have to rethink the whole tradition, from top to bottom, right from the beginning, and make it their own in order to embody Christ anew in this passing world. To the degree that we can help, our job is to model that work in love and then offer them the tools, the raw materials, and the room to do it themselves.”

This description of the motive and loose vision of the outcome of the collection of essays may or may not reflect the actual essays. I will need to read the actual essays. However, the text of the description resonates with me. I see a pattern in at least my parents’ individual conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored through Joseph Smith, and supposedly embodied in the LDS church, as repeated in my own life.

Each of my parents had their own reaction to the LDS church when each were introduced to it. This is based on later recollection, which has its own bias(es). One parent recalled feeling that questions brought up in childhood about the nature of God were validated and answered in LDS theology. The other thought that the LDS church presented a logical framework in which he could fit, as he had no formal family tradition of Christianity.

Being the oldest of a first generation raised in the LDS church, which involved my parents migrating to Utah for that specific environment, I think I may have been given a too rarified atmosphere, but at least my parents included deliberate self-reliance as part of their legacy. As it played out, I think the self-reliance, at least in terms of individual thought, gave way to a personal insistence on how I would understand the gospel.

Essentially, I had to deconstruct the faith tradition from my parents and the social environment I gew up in, and reconstruct it for myself. I had to test assumptions I had inherited, even had to let go of more than a few assumptions, in order for my understanding to increase, and for my faith to become trust.

Sorry if I hijacked your post, but thanks for helping to increase my understanding, and providing peer review in other conversations.