In 1994 I was serving my mission in Brazil. The gospel topics essays didn’t exist, and the Race and the Priesthood essay certainly didn’t exist.

While walking down the street with my companion the issue of the temple and priesthood ban came up. I defended the apostles and prophets, telling my companion that I believed there were good reasons why blacks were denied the priesthood. I followed in the rhetorical tradition of church leaders who told us they were denied for various reasons both pre-mortal and mortal.

I’ll never forget when my companion stopped in his tracks, looked at me, and said this: “Racism. It was racism.” He had nothing else to say on the topic. He was visibly irritated with me, and I was irritated with him.

On Worshiping Ideas

Idolatry has a long tradition. Images have been used as mediums of veneration since at least the rise of the Canaanite religious tradition. A great number of gods were worshiped and idols were formed for various purposes. El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon is thought by many to be the precursor to the God of Israel. Baal, a fertility god, is often mentioned in the bible, as is Asherah, consort to El. The evils of idols are expounded on in many places both in the bible, and outside of it.

There are many reasons given why idol worship may be evil. Is God jealous? Do we simply believe it is evil because God said so? Does God just want us to stay engaged in a good work, and avoid that peculiar activity because idols lack efficacy. Perhaps, but more practically, does idolatry violate Christ’s admonition to love God, and love our neighbor?

I think the first part is clear, that standing up an idol before God takes him out of the equation, or at least puts something between you and your creator.

But does idolatry cause us to also violate the second commandment? In other words, are there cases in which our idolatry gets in the way of loving those around us? I’m not just talking about money, power and sex, the traditional modern metaphors, but ideas, which inspired our darkest moment in history. In less extreme ways a belief in karma from our actions in a previous life may cause us to treat others better or worse depending on their status. This idea plays out in some caste systems, and was used as a doctrinal basis for our own priesthood and temple ban.

Worshiping At the Altar of False Belief

Once an idol is attached to a belief, or a system of beliefs, it becomes sacred. In many cases the mythology of the idol plays a central role in tying together the mythos of the belief system. If the idol is threatened, the believer is often compelled to protect it from harm. If this idol happens to be a belief, or an idea, the destruction of that idea could threaten an entire system of beliefs. Richard Bushman, author of Rough Stone Rolling, discussed this on Reddit:

“… it implies Mormonism is the whole world for people. When the Mormon world cracks, everything crashes down. Lots of people believe in God and Christ who are not Mormons. Are they all as flawed as the Mormons? “I will say something a little abrasive in hopes of being informed. Should not Mormons have a connection with God that goes beyond the Church? Do we worship God or do we worship Mormonism? What should we teach our people to protect them from this vulnerability?”

That is: when your belief system is based on something that is falsifiable, or is based on something other than faith, you risk losing your belief to evidence that can challenge that system.

My response to Bushman’s question is this: We should not base our faith, or our system of beliefs on absolutes. If we constrain our faith to a few centrally important abstract ideas that are based on principles and concentrate on those, we will not paint ourselves into the corner of defending an idol rather than God. A deeply personal and malleable faith can accept new truth as it arises.

Todd Compton discussed the role of truth as it pertains to his own faith:

“I believe that all truth is faith-promoting, if we’re talking about authentic faith. No authentic truth damages authentic faith. Truth, even difficult truths, will only deepen and give breadth of vision to authentic faith. Only brittle, oversimplified faith will break easily when confronted with difficult truths. When we face difficult truths, we should not sensationalize them, but we should deal with them straightforwardly and honestly, using historical context and sympathetic insight to put them into perspective. “Sometimes, when we have had oversimplified faith, we will need to deepen and broaden our faith to include tragedy and contradiction and human limitation, but that is not a matter of giving up our faith — it is a matter of developing our faith. I realize that this can be a painful process at times, but it is a process that gives our faith more solidity and more breadth. The eye of faith sees greater depth, perspectives, and gradations of color; the heart of faith responds more to the tragedies of our bygone brothers and sisters, who become more real and more sympathetic to us.”

The Spiritual Dangers of Brittle Ideas

In his manifesto, Todd Compton gives an example of faith based on embellished facts that alone, may be benign, but in their retelling and cultural entrenchment actually do harm.

“According to one of his biographers, Joseph Smith was about six feet tall. Let’s say that a church member — who sincerely wants to build people’s faith — decides he will portray Joseph Smith as 6 foot 7 inches in a historical movie. This is incorrect, but the 6 foot 7 idea catches on, becomes current in the church. To some people, Joseph Smith as 6 foot 7 becomes a cherished part of their testimony. However, a historian — who let’s say is also a church member — comes across Joseph Smith’s burial record, that gives his height correctly as about 6 foot. The historian publishes an article showing Joseph Smith’s true height. The media picks up the story and the movie writer, believing he has a mission as a defender of the faith, denounces the historian as malevolently diminishing people’s faith in Joseph Smith.”

From an ideological perspective the filmmaker was defending a something that had been codified in the lexicon of belief. His belief is challenged publicly and he is put on the defensive. At this point the historian is vilified by the filmmaker for supporting the historical narrative, and the filmmaker is embarrassed, or angry for being contradicted. Who was right? Who was wrong? Should the historian give up his craft? Should the filmmaker abandon his belief if he is wrong in this aspect? What if he asked for a spiritual witness of this fact and thought he received one?

A similar situation is now playing out among members of the church concerning the content of other Gospel Topics Essays. An accepted narrative exists that has often been taught in our manuals or over the pulpit. A different, more historically grounded explanation also exists, but is less well known, or hasn’t been addressed as directly as it could be. When the two collide in Sunday School, or other venues, the results are sometimes emotional and unpleasant. Teachers are often not prepared, or trained to moderate discussions where diametrically opposed viewpoints can be used to edify the faith of everyone involved in the discussion. To make matters more complicated many of our leaders have not read or heard of these essays nor are they familiar with their content.

A few examples may help illustrate the problem.

Evolution

There is a diversity of opinion in the church regarding evolution. We know that in the early 20th century James E. Talmage and Joseph F. Smith held diametrically opposing views on the theory of evolution. Evolution is an interesting topic because many, or most, members of the church have accepted evolution as a scientific fact that can be observed in nature, and in laboratory environments. When discussed this usually comes with a huge caveat: “people were the exception.” Most members indeed believe that people did not evolve to our current state of being from lower species.

This belief can be traced to the statements of leaders of the church in the early 20th century, when much of the religious world was trying to make sense of how evolution fit into our world view. In 1992 the church consolidated many of the statements from church leaders on evolution in a packet that they distributed to students who would learn evolution as part of their curriculum. The packet contains a lot of very literal reading and interpretation of our scriptural texts reflecting the views of the first presidency of the church at the time. It ends on a rather high note stating that our religion does not have an opinion on the sciences, and it should really focus on the gospel. That’s a nice message, and it resonates with me, but the nine preceding pages have often been taken out of that context to make some pretty strong statements against science in general, and the evolution of mankind.

Gregory A. Prince chronicled David O. McKay’s views on evolution in The Rise of Modern Mormonism.

“I would like to know just what it is that a man must be required to believe to be a member of this Church. Or, what it is that he is not permitted to believe, and remain a member of this Church. I would like to know just what that is. Is it evolution? I hope not, because I believe in evolution.”

He went on further to say that he wanted to keep his views private, because he didn’t want people in the church to believe that what he was saying was doctrine. In addition, he said he wished that other general authorities would do the same, particularly Joseph Fielding Smith — like his father, a strong opponent of evolution.

A Historical Adam and Eve

This is a more controversial topic, because there have been recent conference talks that have endorsed the idea of a historical, or ‘actual’, Adam and Eve. The idea of a literal Adam and Eve is interesting, and it’s a strong thread in mormon doctrine that weaves itself through no small amount of controversy.

I personally am not certain that Adam and Eve had to literally exist. In fact, there’s reason to believe that the creation story is an amalgamation of different stories that were compiled by a later redactor. While we cannot prove that Adam and Eve did not literally exist (as that is not a falsifiable statement, depending on what you think I mean when I say that), the story told as allegory is no less inspiring to me than if it were literal. The implication that a lack of belief in the literal interpretation of the story limits our ability to understand the atonement is not an assertion that I agree with. Can the story motivate us to be better, more christlike people without also being literal?

For me, approaching biblical studies from a historical critical approach has been a very spiritual exercise. It has liberated my mind from the cognitive dissonance inherent in trying to reconcile a literal reading of the Bible with a trust in the naturalistic world we live in. Fortunately, Holland didn’t say that it’s a requirement to believe in a literal Adam and Eve to be a member of the church. As David O. McKay said with evolution, I hope that this Church does not require that belief.

Historicity of the Book of Mormon

Another idol of belief is historicity of the Book of Mormon. There is an army of mormon apologists who will stand up and attempt to defend the historicity of the Book of Mormon. In the most recent episode Philip Jenkins challenged Bill Hamblin (a professor of history at BYU and a long-time apologist) to give a single piece of objective evidence for the Book of Mormon. In spite of his best efforts and collaboration with his apologist friends, Hamblin has continually failed to give any evidence that can be tied back to the Book of Mormon. You can follow the discussion here.

The real issue with historicity is that apologists have not yet put forth a positive case to support it. There are no archeological or anthropological theories that support the Book of Mormon which have been put forward for peer review. All we get from apologists are excuses for why we can’t find evidence, far-fetched speculation, or contrived parallelisms.

With this absence we have to be open to the possibility that the Book of Mormon is not historical.

Does that imply that the Book of Mormon is less than scripture? Does it mean that we can’t be inspired by its stories? Does it mean The Church isn’t true? It doesn’t have to mean any of those things, unless, of course we have built historicity into an idol.

It is a scary idea for some to accept that it might not be historical, others have found inspiration in the idea that perhaps it’s a grand allegory, or an apocalyptic warning set to narrative. In that sense it’s not much different from other scripture — if we don’t take that literally either. Better yet, limiting, or abandoning historicity also can help us to understand some of the 19th century influences in the book bringing us to a better, richer understanding of the text and its underlying meaning.

Conclusion

During my mission, my relationship with my companion never really recovered from the damage of that day. I felt that he had tried to destroy my deeply held beliefs. He was older than me, wiser too. He was from a pretty remote village in the Amazon rain forest, but he was not ignorant by any means. He knew the scriptures, and was a man of culture — familiar with the customs and literature of his own country, and able to teach me a thing or two about my own as well.

Unfortunately for me I saw him as something of a heretic. He attacked one of my idols of belief. I recognize now that it was not the idea that was the problem, it was me. Now that I no longer revere that particular idol I can see him in a new light, and appreciate him for who he was, and the journey he was on.