“O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?… How long shall they suffer these wrongs and unlawful oppressions, before thine heart shall be softened toward them, and thy bowels be moved with compassion toward them?” (DC 121:1, 3).
This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out. They believed God would protect his saints and help them build Zion. The saints did what God asked at so much sacrifice. How could God let this happen?
The point of this post isn’t to cast doubt on God or revelation, but only to point out my observation I noted in the previous post that personal revelation can be a tricky thing. Even Joseph Smith had confusing times. My point in this post, is that the feeling that a spiritual message has gone unfulfilled can be pretty concerning and confusing.
Richard Bushman quotes John Corrill’s statement about losing faith in the Mormon leaders’ (especially Smith’s) promises in Missouri. “I can see nothing that convinces me that God has been our leader; calculation after calculation has failed, plan after plan has been overthrown, and our prophet seemed not to know the event till too late.” “Everything Corrill said was true,” Bushman adds. “The great work had met with defeat after defeat” (Rough Stone Rolling, 379).
I argue that some of the worst pain of the Liberty Jail experience was the devastating feeling of not only that God allowed it, but the nagging worry of the possibility that the revelations might be problematic (I do think such things can get a little messier than we like).
While not usually the major reason people give for losing their faith in Mormonism, I have seen “failed spiritual promptings” sometimes mentioned (see minute 14 to 18 for Alyssa Grenfell discussing her experiences). Grenfell also expresses frustration with other members’ attempts to give interpretations to those disillusioning experiences. I really empathize with those who hurt over this issue. I don’t have any kind of absolute answer.
I mentioned in my last post often not feeling a lot of sympathy from other members when having those kinds of unfulfilled experiences. I once brought up this topic in an eq lesion many years ago and gave some examples I was aware of: a couple feeling so spiritually sure of getting a hoped-for job out of state that they sold all their furniture (didn’t get it), another feeling so sure of a baby’s gender that they bought clothes for the gender but got it wrong.
I do think there were some smirks among quorum members, and as I mentioned in my previous post, we probably all know of people who followed some claimed spiritual promptings in concerning ways.
But here I simply want to acknowledge that having what one views as an unfulfilled spiritual experience can feel quite painful and disillusioning.
The lyricist for my favorite band, Rush, sometimes talks about the complexity of religious issues including doubt. In their very last album, their song The Wreckers seems to address the issue of this kind of spiritual disillusionment. A couple of lines of in the chorus state: “All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary of a miracle too good to be true.” And if that isn’t hard enough, the next line declares, “All I know is that sometimes the truth is contrary, everything in life you thought you knew.”
I’ve always really appreciated that song for conveying what religious struggle can feel like to me (many different kinds). I’ve come back to the song again and again, but it that seems overly bleak (I do think such experiences can be really hard), I also love the last song on the album, The Garden, about the kind of care we should give each other to help with life’s difficulties (a good thing to do).
DaveW’s commented on my previous post that we often don’t like ambiguity or unresolved endings in in our church lessons. Years ago as a gospel doctrine teacher, I attempted to share Bushman’s point about Corrill’s view of his time with the church in Missouri in an attempt to discuss the theme of this post: how do we deal with such disappointments? My attempt went poorly.
As I replied to DaveW, I do get that we tend to want greater certainty and happy endings in our church talks and lessons. But I’ve also experienced many times wishing for greater certainty and resolution, and those feeling very far away. If nothing else, such experiences can help us fulfill our baptismal covenant of morning with those who morn.
Comments
20 responses to “Disillusionment: Spiritual Experiences Not Seeming to Work Out”
Stephen,
Alyssa Grenfell has no credibility with me–she’s a destroyer.
There’s no question that most of us will have an experience or two that will shake us to the very foundations. And often those experiences have to do with events that shatter our understanding of spiritual things. I hit the wall of depression 20+ years ago and have been rebuilding my faith ever since. That said, I wouldn’t want to go back to my previous understanding of things–what I’ve learned over the last while has been worth the pain.
The trick (IMO) is to hang on to what we do know–and don’t let what we don’t know to take us sideways. Easier said than done, I know, but for many of us moderns that’s what enduring to the end has come to mean.
Jack,
I watched the video. I’m not so sure we should characterize Grenfell in such a manner because her beliefs do not mesh with our own. In fact, in the segment Stephen referenced, I perceived that it matched some of my own experiences and those of others which have been reported to me.
I also think you mischaracterize the actual problems. The fundamental issue is the perception of spiritual truth or revelation and its reliability. You are making claims that you have “rebuilt” faith. That means that you found some things to be unreliable and other things you have judged to be reliable. Correct? If so, your experience and message are nearly identical to Grenfell’s. The only perceptible (to me) difference being that one person stayed and the other stepped away, for reasons that may be only slightly different. Perhaps you and I have a higher tolerance for the inconsistencies we witness in LDS practice? Perhaps the social attachments are higher so we exerted greater efforts at rebuilding a spiritual life?
I don’t know anything about Ms. Grenfell, but otherwise I’m with OP and the first commenter. I am reminded of Luke 2:19, “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” Yeah, that thought goes well with enduring to the end. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is what really matters [but note that this is not the same as faith in the church as an institution or faith in the current prophet as a person]. Many things that are said among us never come to pass, and many things that are otherwise perceived also may not to come to pass. But life goes on, and hopefully faith endures and matures — and along the way, there is space for wisdom and charity to grow.
But yes, in our church culture, we seem to want certainty and happy endings in our talks and lessons.
I didn’t mean to start a debate over Grenfell. I’ve seen a few of her videos and I differ from her view of Mormonism. I was interested in looking at this one because I find Mormons talking about their experiences interesting. I’d seen a few interviews of people mentioning having what they viewed as “failed” spiritual experiences, so since I had this video handy, I linked to it.
I do think that ex-Mormon are probably more open about talking about disillusioning spiritual experiences than active Mormons are. So such discussions are probably easier to find on Grenfell’s channel than pro-Mormon ones. Again, I don’t view Mormonism like Grenfell does, but I can empathize with feeling some concerns and hurts over the issues she mentions at the time in the video I noted. And I do think that expressions of sympathy to other’s hurts is a good thing.
A challenging process and we can learn a lot, though it can be tough along the way.
One of the most insidious traits of church leadership is their tendency to blame individual members when promised blessings don’t materialize.
D&C 103:4 tells us that the saints suffered so much in the failed march to Missouri “because they did not hearken altogether unto the precepts and commandments which I gave unto them.” All they did was try their earnest best to follow the prophet and receive promised blessings, and they were instead blamed for not being righteous enough.
I recall once meeting with my bishop when I was a college student. I was trying to juggle full-time work AND a full load of classes AND dating. In retrospect, I was completely overwhelmed and probably a little depressed. I went to my bishop for help and he immediately asked me which commandments I was struggling with. Like it’s obvious that flagging mental health is the direct result of sin. I was to blame for whatever was going wrong in my life.
Anecdotally, I have heard dozens of similar accounts. We are promised innumerable blessings for jumping through the right hoops. “And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” But somehow when we do our part and the promised blessings don’t follow, church leadership concludes that we are the problem. The alternative would be to admit that the scripture above is incorrect, and that is unthinkable.
My father taught me an important lesson. He pointed out that God only answers some prayers. If he answered every prayer we would need no faith. If he answered NO prayers, then we would have no faith. So he answers some prayers.
I have enlarged this observation. God is a monopolist. He controls all of the spiritual happenings on the earth. His goal, like every normal monopolist, is to maximize His returns. A monopolist raises the price on the goods they control to maximize their cash return. This is the point of maximum economic pain for the society.
So, God, in order to maximize his spiritual return on the planet, operates at maximum spiritual pain.
Jesus pointed this out. The Syrian general came to Elias to be healed from his leprosy. He was healed, and everyone knew about it. Jesus pointed out that there were lots of Jews with leprosy who were not healed.
In the monopolist theory, every Jewish leper prayed all the harder to be healed. Thus, God increased his spiritual yield and the planet’s spiritual pain.
I have been the recipient of blessings. Oddly enough I did not ask for them, but in retrospect I absolutely know they were miraculous. So, in the present, I only ask in general that my life and the lives of my loved ones might be easier. That they will live long and productive lives.
In general I know God cares, but I do not trust Him. God’s education can be brutal as well and loving. My wife died young. God had a wonderful woman waiting. Go figure.
One more thing: My dictum is that when you get a blessing, a curse comes along for the ride. When you get a curse (bad thing) there is also a blessing waiting. Be wary, look for the curses and the blessings.
My first wife, whom I loved deeply, and with whom I enjoyed life, demanded 6 children. Raising sex children was a real task. Now, I love them dearly. But one 50 year old is a real problem. Curses and blessings.
six
SVbob,
Your conception of God is horrific.
Old Man,
Just to clarify: my “crashing and burning” had to do primarily with mental illness. I see it as a personal problem–I don’t blame the church at all.
Re: Grenfell: She has made video after video speaking ill of the church in every way she can conjure up: https://www.youtube.com/@alyssadgrenfell
@Davek do you have specific evidence that D&C 103:4 is unwarranted? Bear in mind that D&C 103 was before Zion’s Camp (you seem to have the timeline a bit confused) and well before the Mormon Missouri War of 1838. The main body of the Church was still in Kirtland and it seems the Saints were so eager to move in and expand that the Saint’s newspaper in Jackson County had to run editorials reminding the newcomers that land was to be purchased according to law, not conquered with the sword. Seems to me like there’s room for some lack of hearkening in the historical record.
It seems that there is always an escape for those who want to maintain their belief in the face of failed expectations. Witness Jeffrey Holland’s “wrong roads” story. Coming upon a fork in the road out in the sticks, Holland and his son prayed about which way lead them back to civilization, and both felt impressed to go a certain way. Had that road led them home, the experience would have been one more data point confirming the efficacy of prayer. But instead it led to a dead end, so they went back and took the other road, which turned out to be the right one.
The moral of the story could have been that not all impressions are from a divine source. But instead, Holland interpreted the impression as actually being from God, who had a good reason for leading them down the wrong path.
When I see this kind of reasoning, I wonder: Is faith anything more than putting one’s thumb on the scale when weighing the evidence?
Robert,
Elder Holland’s message in that little video is profound. He says that the Lord had them go down wrong road a little ways–which ended at about four hundred yards from the fork–so that they would know with *certainty* that the other road was the right way to go.
There are times when, for his own purposes, that the Lord wants us to move forward with knowledge — or something very close to it — rather than faith that is to be confirmed after the fact.
I think the comments help to illustrate what I’ve noted in these posts: many aspects of the challenges of following the Spirit.
Our leaders do often engage in “if things didn’t turn out, you did something wrong,” like Davek points out (and the list of rules is so long, it’s seemingly impossible not to do SOMETHING wrong).
God’s purposes can be hard to know, so perhaps we come up with creative theologies like svbob.
Robert is right to note that Elder Holland’s story is an interesting one. When you’re not sure where you are going, it IS nice to know that the other road is the wrong one like Jack said. Yet, if they’d just taken the right road, they’d end up fine. I do think that illustrates trying to make sense of those promptings. We do search for meaning and guidance.
Not that this will be relevant to every such experience, but I got a lot out of the little book: Peter Enns, The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our “Correct” Beliefs, 2017. His thoughts on why trusting God rather than relying on certainty seem applicable to the disappointments and challenges like the ones mentioned.
SVbob, we were actually referring in this post to God the Father, not the Gnostic Demiurge Yaldabaoth, but yes, from a Gnostic standpoint that makes sense.
On believing in protection, despite growing up with the stories of Abinadi and Jesus and Joseph Smith, among others, hundreds dying on the Mormon trail, I think about a woman I met briefly in England, who lamented that her husband had been good and kinds his whole life, and “He still died.” What exactly should we expect? I notice that we tend to tell the story of the 2,060 stripling warriors as though they represented a general principle, rather than an extraordinary circumstance. But recall that when the boys signed up, they “entered into a covenant to protect the liberty of the Nephites, yea unto the laying down of their lives?” (Alma 53:17). When it turned out that all the boys survived, despite many injuries, everyone was astonished, including prophets, generals, soldiers, other parents, everyone except the boys and their mothers. So what changed after the boys signed up? Something their mothers taught them that was not a general principle, but something specifically for them. The mothers taught the boys that if they “They did not doubt, God would deliver them.” And then the part that raises a question that few bother to ask. The boys report that “We did not doubt our mothers knew it.”
So how did the mothers know? This was not what they would have learned from bitter personal experience. They had witnessed the slaughter of a thousand men so determined to keep their covenant of peace they they were willing to perish by the sword. Indeed, many of the mothers may have been on the killing ground themselves. So how did the mothers know? I think they knew from the only source that could know and could and would tell them. They were like the Widow of Zarapeth and Sariah, who had already offered everything, all their wealth, their former lives, their sins, and while making that sacrifice, they could make the same justified complaint that the widow had, that Sariah had. “I have offered everything. Are you going to take my son?” I think that a direct answer to that kind of prayer, offered not only with faith, but with repeated, demonstrated action accounts for what the Mothers promised to the boys and what they reported and experienced. And the same kind of thing happened with Drusilla Hendricks, as she agonized about letting her son go when the Mormon battalion was being raised. Finally, she reports:
“I was asked by the same spirit that had spoken to me before, if I did not want the greatest glory and I answered with my natural voice, Yes, I did. Then how can you get it without making the greatest sacrifice, said the voice. I answered Lord, what lack I yet. Let your son go in the Batallion, said the voice. I said it is too late, they are to be marched off this morning. That spirit then left me with the heart ache. I got breakfast and called the girls and their Father to come to the tent for prayers. William came wet with dew from the grass and we sat down around the board and my husband commenced asking the blessing on our food, when Thomas Williams came shouting at the top of his voice, saying “Turn out men, Turn out, for we do not wish to press you but we lack some men yet in the Batallion.” William raised his eyes and looked me in the face. I knew then that he would go as well as I know now that he has been. I could not swallow one bite of breakfast but I waited on the rest thinking I might never have my family all together again. I had no photograph of him but I took one in my mind and said to myself, If I never see you again until the morning of the resurrection I shall know you are my child. My husband took his cane and went to where the drum was beating. I went to milk the cows. Libbie went with Sister Kimball. Catherine went to the brook to wash some towels. I thought the cows would be shelter for me and I knelt down and told the Lord if He wanted my child to take him, only spare his life and let him be restored to me and to the bosom of the church. I felt it was all I could do. Then the voice that talked with me in the morning answered me saying, It shall be done unto you as it was unto Abraham when he offered Isaac on the altar. I don’t know whether I milked or not for I felt the Lord had spoken to me.”
Thanks, Mike. I really loved Ralph Fiennes’ speech from the movie Conclave:
“And over the course of many years of service to our mother the church, there is one sin that I have come to fear above all others: certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end [Latin my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?] He cried out in his agony in the ninth hour on the cross.
“Our faith is a living thing precisely because is walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there were be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.
Let us pray that God will grant us a pope who doubts. And let Him grant us a pope who sins and asks for forgiveness. And who carries on.”
I found that lovely, but not really something our church stresses much.
Yes, life’s pain isn’t something the faithful escape, Kevin, but as I focus here on the issue of it looking to people like spiritual communications haven’t been fulfilled. That’s what Corrill was saying, I think, and a point Bushman felt had some legitimacy. There are issues for believers in such things of facing doubt, disillusionment, and even loss of faith.
I do think you made a good point in my previous post about Alma 32 not stressing certain knowledge. But similar to what I said Mike, I feel like we have a lot of declarations of certainty from our leaders, and the lack thereof doesn’t seem celebrated much.
Hoosier, see instead D&C 105:2. That’s the verse I was thinking of earlier. It’s another example of the faithful saints (of Zion’s Camp) being told that the failure was their fault.
2 Behold, I say unto you, were it not for the transgressions of my people, speaking concerning the church and not individuals, they might have been redeemed even now.
It seems to me that acceptance is an advanced form of faith that we rarely explore, but is vital to the survival of our faith. It is practiced by many other faiths. I work on acceptance as the only solution to my many confusions in my relationship with God. I think that this principal might offer me peace, it seems to me inevitable that we will all need to develop this principal. I think it’s an advanced form of faith and trust in God.