This question has been on my mind for a few weeks now, and I confess I am not really any closer to finding an answer. As I have read and listened to various stories from people who are struggling with how the church approaches LGBTQ issues, a common theme seems to be how deeply and frequently they have felt God’s love - directly, or through the words and deeds of fellow ward-members and friends. Often, these testimonies go hand-in-hand with disparaging comments about general church leadership and policy. Some of these people have pulled back, in varying degrees, from church activity; others remain active while being open about doctrinal and policy differences they have with the church.
I am very happy (and not surprised) to hear that people who are struggling with major challenges have felt an extra measure of God’s love. That seems to be exactly what Christ would do to comfort and support a soul in need. What confuses me is the sense I sometimes get from them that church doctrines and policies are mix-and-matchable: that one can choose to believe in, for example, the doctrines of eternal families and priesthood blessings, and simply view other doctrines and revelations, such as the Family Proclamation, as misguided, antiquated, or plain wrong.
This tailored approach to religion reminds me of something C.S. Lewis once wrote about Jesus Christ in Mere Christianity:
”I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.”
It seems to me that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by claiming to be the only “true and living church” (D&C1:30) on the face of the earth, forces us to make a similar choice. There is a lot of doctrine that is unique to the restored Church. Some of it is relatively uncontroversial - for example, the doctrine of eternal families, or Christ suffering for our pains and sicknesses in addition to our sins; other doctrines, such as gender being eternal, and certain priesthood keys being held only by worthy men, are becoming ever more difficult for many people to accept. It doesn’t seem like we have the option to believe only those doctrines that make sense to us or are easy to follow. Of course, this doesn’t mean that all church policies or statements by Church leaders are right; however, a willingness to accept core doctrines (as contained in the Standard Works and the Official Declarations and Proclamations of the Church) seems like a necessary part of believing in the only true church.
That still leaves my original question unanswered though. The formula of Christ’s church being a vehicle to help us approach Him makes sense to me. We draw nearer to Christ by exercising faith in Him, and church activity gives us many opportunities to exercise our faith by making and keeping covenants. It certainly also gives us many chances to work on Christian virtues of patience, humility, diligence and long-suffering, to name just a few.
I‘m not quite sure what to make of an approach that seeks to put the church at arms‘ length (through public or private opposition to church doctrine or policy) while simultaneously trying to draw nearer to Him. It sounds hard to muster the humility and faith needed to become more like Christ while nurturing even a small kernel of rebellion (I’m speaking here of willful rebellion (4 Nephi 1:38) rather than simply having doubts and weaknesses). We can definitely still feel our Savior’s love and work on our personal relationship with Him, within or without the Church. And perhaps those things are powerful enough to draw us closer to Christ even as we distance ourselves from the Church. But I also wonder about the implications of the doctrine found in 2 Nephi 28:29-30:
”Wo be unto him that shall say: We have received the word of God, and we need no more of the word of God, for we have enough! For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.” It’s also possible that the question itself is besides the point. If your boat is caught in the midst of a hurricane, it makes no sense to talk about steering in one direction or another. All you can do is hold on for dear life - and God’s love is the surest thing to cling to. How comforting it is to know that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.“ (Romans 8:38-39)
Anyway, I’m still searching for answers, or at least for illuminating points of view. I’m sure there is much I am missing. If you have any light to share, I’d welcome it.
コメント