A flawed effort, but a worthy one

In Planted, Patrick Mason sets himself the challenging but laudable task of addressing both orthodox believers in Mormonism and doubters.

“We can’t set up camp on two sides of an arbitrary divide with believers on one side and doubters on the other and then talk at (and usually past) one another,” he writes. “That approach only exacerbates the problem with a tragic sense of division in the body of Christ.”

It is a remarkable effort. Mason tries very, very hard to be fair to doubting and ex-Mormons. “Before giving answers,” he says, “I have found that it is most important at every point to listen — to really, truly listen.” And I believe he is completely sincere. This is no hatchet job resorting to caricatures of those who disagree with him.

And yet, there is a limit to the understanding that an orthodox believer in a religion that claims exclusive truth can have for someone who does not subscribe to those beliefs. There is a limit to his empathy: you can be a good person if you are not Mormon, or Muslim, or Scientologist, he will think, but at the end of the day you are still wrong. I believe that this is at the core of why, despite Mason’s best efforts, Planted does not quite pass the ideological Turing test.

They all think they have the One True Box

At one point Mason explains, “[W]hen someone stumbles across some controversy about church history and doctrine being furiously debated online, the issue might be a revelation to that person, but it’s more than likely that plenty of others have been down that road before — and many of them have remained faithful Latter-day Saints… [T]here are in fact good answers, intellectually rigorous and honest answers, faithful answers.”

Of course it is anathema to the orthodox viewpoint to concede that the preponderance of evidence indicates that Joseph Smith made it all up. But Mason cannot seem to bring himself to acknowledge that an honest seeker of truth could conclude as much, without being misled by the half-truths and lies of anti-Mormons on the Internet.

Switched off, Squeezed Out

Mason’s thesis is that Mormons who leave the fold fall into two categories:

The switched-off group includes those who, after a life of service in the church, encounter troubling information online or somewhere else, usually regarding our history or doctrine… When a person realizes that at least part of what they are learning for the first time is factually true, not simply the malicious invention of anti-Mormon propagandists, then they sometimes start to wonder what else they haven’t been told. The second group feels squeezed out, like they just don’t fit in at church… Some people who can bear testimony of all the basic principles of the restored gospel but who disagree with certain aspects of the dominant social, cultural, economic, political, or ideological views held by most other members sometimes feel that their presence is unwelcome… Feeling isolated, alienated, and sometimes pressured, they sense that there is simply no place for them in the church in spite of their core commitments. And they leave us.

This is a reasonable categorization of secondary effects, but I think that Mason skips over an even more important meta-reason: both groups ultimately leave because they conclude that the Mormon church does not have the exclusive truth that it claims, and that its saving ordinances are no more necessary for salvation than infant baptism — or perhaps even that there is no such thing as salvation in the traditional sense.

In that sense, Mason is in good company. Mormons have historically demonstrated a remarkable lack of introspection here, concluding that members go inactive because (1) they want to sin, (2) they are too lazy to keep the Mormon rules, (3) they are offended, or (4) they are too intellectual and prideful. (The first place I am aware that these Four Horsemen were explicitly articulated is this 1975 Ensign article by a BYU professor.) It never seems to occur to anyone that perhaps people leave because they conclude that the One True Church, isn’t.

Three of these Horsemen, and I would include Mason’s “squeezed out” as a more sophisticated description of a similar category, can be seen as an analogy to the story of Esau in Genesis, who sells his birthright to his brother Jacob for a bowl of porridge. Mormons are taught from a young age that this represents Esau foolishly choosing temporary, worldly pleasures over following God.

Thus, both the Horsemen and the Squeezing Out are fundamentally insulting explanations for why someone leaves the church. However dressed up in ancillary language, ultimately these are saying that former members were too dumb to remember that they can only have exaltation and true happiness through active participation in Mormonism.

In my own mind there is no doubt that if those members believed that The Brethren were legitimately receiving revelation on a regular basis, they would tough through whatever temporary problems they have. The issue then is not feeling offended or marginalized or anything else, the issue is that they don’t see any such revelation.

Mason says of the first group, the Switched Off, that

They often go off in search of other “hidden knowledge,” sometimes forgetting the basic principles and experiences that they had originally built their testimony upon. They begin to see duplicity rather than sincerity in the church’s presentation of its doctrine and history. Skepticism and doubt begin to overcome trust and faith. Even when reminded of the many good things about the church, including its positive impact in their own life and the ways that they touched others’ lives through their service and testimony, their answer becomes “Yes, but . . .” Shaken by intellectual challenges to their understanding and faith, their relationship to the church becomes tenuous. Some withdraw, and others leave, feeling that they cannot participate with integrity in church meetings where certain details are either neglected or denied.

Mason is describing a shift in epistemology. Many former Mormons become empiricists, deciding that emotional or spiritual feelings are not a sufficiently good source of truth. Ryan Cragun explains how he came to this conclusion:

I met Dean in March of 2001… Dean asked me why I was Mormon. I told him that I was a Mormon because I had received a spiritual witness, an overwhelming emotional manifestation from the Holy Ghost, that Mormonism was the true church and that it was guided by God. Then Dean said, “Huh, that’s funny. I received the exact same witness that the Mormon Church was a cult and was not of God…” I could have dismissed Dean’s response the way I had been taught growing up and on my mission. I could have said, “You didn’t really receive a witness of that.” Or, “That was not a witness from God.” Or, “You obviously didn’t ask the correct way.” But I didn’t say or think any of those things. In fact, I’m not sure I responded to him at all. But something in my brain clicked. And that something was a change in epistemology. At that moment I realized that the method I had been using to arrive at what I perceived to be knowledge was not reliable. I later came to realize that the method I had been taught to use was and is an abuse of human psychology.

Mason addresses empiricism as follows:

To reduce Mormonism to what can be explained rationally or on the grounds set by any other religion is to render it something other (and arguably less) than what it is and claims to be. Mormonism is sui generis — that is to say, it offers its own unique set of questions and answers for the world that overlaps with but is not identical to any other set of questions and answers, whether those posed by modern science or creedal Christianity. What this also means, however, is that while Mormonism is internally coherent, intellectually rewarding, spiritually satisfying, and theologically profound, when viewed solely through any other lens it will appear flawed, foolish, and even scandalous.

That sounds awfully close to saying, Mormonism is true as long as you assume it’s true. By the same logic, so is Islam, and so is Scientology, and nobody should ever leave his religion of birth for another. I don’t find that line of thinking very useful for someone whose goal is to discover the truth.

Room for Doubt, Room for Doubters

Mason calls for an end to stigmatizing doubt and for making Mormonism more welcoming to different points of view:

[Doubt is] less a problem in need of a solution than a common part of the mortal experience that should, like all things, be treated with charity and ultimately consecrated to God… Perhaps the most important thing we can do in the face of our current challenges is to make the church a more welcoming place for those who struggle, creating the conditions in which they can feel comfortable while they work through questions and doubts in the midst of the body of Christ rather than feeling excluded from it.

And he explicitly calls out one of the Four Horsemen stereotypes as inaccurate and unfair:

[In too many cases, doubters] are met with searching questions about their worthiness, with the not-so-subtle suggestion that their doubts are really a cover for or symptom of immoral behavior.

A more recent scapegoat is to demonize the Internet as a source of anti-Mormon lies, and Mason skewers this one too. This is in the context of finding faithful answers, but the underlying message is the positive one of “don’t be afraid to look:”

If you think you might have cancer, you don’t begin and end your search for answers by consulting WebMD. You probably won’t even stop by seeing just one doctor. If your life is at stake, and serious treatments are being suggested, you will probably want to receive multiple expert opinions. You don’t rely on just the good news or listen only to the people who tell you what you want to hear. It’s perfectly reasonable to search out contrary opinions and weigh the worst-case scenario with the best… Consult experts. Go deep. Critically weigh evidence. Think for yourself. Don’t make the first thing you read the last. Give the issue the attention and care it deserves.

Mason further claims that “many [with intellectual doubts] find that their views soften and change, and they return to a matured position of faith” after digging deeper and examining sources for themselves. In my own limited experience, (and here I am sure Mason would agree), nobody ends such a process by going back to a literal belief in the Sunday School stories. But accompanying this I also see a much less fundamentalist view of Mormonism as a whole, usually as one path to God among many. I am less sure that Mason would agree with that second part.

Advice for Believers

Mason is at his best as a believer giving advice to other believers dealing with doubting friends and family. I have covered how he calls out ascribing doubts to sin as particularly unhelpful. Mason also tackles another overused trope:

A response of “read your scriptures and pray,” while certainly good advice in principle, is often unhelpful in such cases for two reasons. For one thing, chances are the person has already tried reading her scriptures and praying about her questions. For another, a formulaic answer demonstrates a lack of concern for the person and his actual problems.

Mason also emphasizes that doubt and doubters are not enemies:

Doubt dislocates us from our comfortable places. It asks hard questions of us and forces us to deal with hard issues. It refuses to let us get spiritually sluggish with the lazy assumption that “All is well in Zion…” [S]ometimes in our “I know” culture, we haven’t always been as generous or understanding toward those who can’t honestly use those words. We sometimes treat doubt as a character flaw rather than simply a part of many people’s struggle to live with belief in a secular age… Even if belief is preeminent in your own heart and mind, the fact remains that uncertainty, puzzlement, and doubt constitute the primary spiritual condition for many others.

Mason would agree with Terryl Givens, who writes in “Letter to a Doubter” that

Modern revelation… notes that while to some it is given to know the core truth of Christ and His mission, to others is given the means to persevere in the absence of certainty.

Givens urges doubters struggling with that absence of certainty to “choose to believe.” (I have written elsewhere my take on this admonition.)

Apologetics

Mason spends a full chapter defending Joseph Smith as both a practitioner of folk magic and a prophet of God, as an example of how you can reconcile belief with non-whitewashed history by rejecting false dichotomies.

Briefly, several generations of Mormon apologists emphatically denied that Joseph could have been involved in treasure seeking, rejecting affidavits from contemporaries of his glass-looking and even memories of his trial as simply examples of early anti-Mormon lies. Hugh Nibley called the affidavits “the weirdest extravagances of local gossip,” and of the trial he said, “If this court record is authentic it is the most damning evidence in existence against Joseph Smith.” Then records from the trial where Joseph was accused of fraudulent glass-looking were discovered. Now the new apologetic line is that Okay, Joseph did practice folk magic but that doesn’t mean he can’t also be a prophet. (An observer who remembers the earlier vigorous denials might be tempted to call this an example of moving the goalposts.)

But a close look at the history tends to derail Mason’s argument. As one example, recall that Smith used his seer stone both for treasure seeking and for translating the Book of Mormon. Just like other glass-lookers then and today, there is no evidence that anyone found any of the treasure Joseph saw in his stone; Joseph assigned this failure to the malignant interposition of the spirits of the dead owners of the treasure, sinking the treasure further into the earth. I see several possible explanations:

Joseph, alone among all glass-lookers and treasure seekers in history, was granted legitimate visions from God of treasure, but not allowed to acquire any of it. Joseph thought he saw treasure in his stone but he had trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. Joseph deliberately defrauded his customers with false visions.

It’s true that none of these are completely incompatible with believing that God chose Joseph as prophet anyway, but a reasonable person would admit that they do justify a certain amount of skepticism. And then when that reasonable person looks at how Joseph’s explanation of how how he got the plates from Moroni was strongly influenced by hermetic magic, or even at how his first vision story evolved, that person might decide that the earlier apologists had it right when they contended that folk magic was incompatible with a true calling from God.

Mason also includes a discussion of prophetic fallibility that in some respects is nothing really new in apologetic circles, but as he explores it in the context of the ban on black members participating in the temple and priesthood he is unusually candid in acknowledging the scope of the problem:

“How could the ban happen in a church that worships a God who ‘doeth that which is good among the children of men . . . and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female’ (2 Nephi 26:33)? Assuming that God does not consider skin color to be a marker of worthiness or favor — and knowing that I could not rightly worship a God who did — how could a church led by his chosen prophets continue in that way for over 125 years? Why didn’t God inspire at least one of the prophets — there were ten in that span, from Brigham Young up until Spencer W. Kimball — to make a change on such a momentous issue?”

Mason’s answer, that God lets His prophets make human mistakes, sometimes serious ones, sometimes for a long time, is a reasonable one and Mason defends it ably. But Mason goes on to insist that Mormon prophets are nevertheless “reliable guides for a life of faith in an age of doubt.” This waves away some serious questions: if a prophet cannot tell when he is speaking for God, how can his followers? What is the practical distinction between a prophet who sometimes speaks for God but nobody knows when, and an ordinary well-intentioned man taking his best guesses? Is Mason playing semantic legerdemain here, claiming they are reliable guides for faith but not necessarily for truth?

The other tension is in the large gap between the views that Mason articulates here and what is preached over the typical Mormon pulpit both locally and globally. It is difficult to look at the historical record and not conclude, as Mason does, that Mormon prophets have frequently been wrong. But it is even more difficult to square that with sermons like Russell M. Nelson’s recent talk in General Conference, where he tells us without qualification that we should follow the prophet because “his counsel will be untainted, unvarnished, unmotivated by any personal aspiration, and utterly true!”

The church pays lip service to the concept of prophetic fallibility when forced to do so, but it much prefers to celebrate Wilford Woodruff’s (and Ezra Taft Benson’s) declarations that the prophet will never lead the church astray. This tension will not be resolved easily or soon.

When Church is Hard

Mason gives some practical advice for the Squeezed Out: “Simplify. Creatively work it out. Create spaces of inclusion. Make a place for yourself. Use the church to accomplish good things.”

He compassionately notes that

Since the beginning of the church, people have left, and many have found other communities that have given them meaning and purpose. Because of their experiences, some people come to feel that they have no choice but to leave, that the only option with any integrity is to drop out altogether from church activity and perhaps church association of any kind. For some people the church feels toxic, and they can’t bear to be present. For others it is not so clear. They are still attracted to many of Mormonism’s virtues, even while witnessing or experiencing some of its shortcomings. They genuinely agonize about whether to stay or leave.

He offers some reasons to encourage those agonizing to stay, although some of them may seem more of an indictment of the organization he is defending: staying in the church, he points out, “helps avoid familial conflicts that frequently arise when a person experiences and acts upon serious doubts.”

Ideal Mormonism

Mason ends with a summary of some things Mormonism does well.

The ideal classlessness of Mormon community was exemplified by a comment made by a friend of mine named Kelly, a convert to the church in South Bend. He was a janitor at the University of Notre Dame, where several other members of the ward were either graduate students or professors. On that campus, as at most campuses and other places of work, janitors are practically invisible and occupy a distinctly lower place in the de facto caste system. Professors and janitors just don’t normally mix, at least not socially. But Kelly and his wife Kathy were amazing people. They refused to be intimidated by all these people with advanced degrees and fancy words like “hermeneutics” and immediately endeared themselves to the entire ward. They quickly became part of the dinner circuit and joyfully served alongside other ward members in every capacity, sharing lots of laughs in the process. When my mother came to visit, Kelly sought her out, gave her a bear hug, and exclaimed, “Isn’t this a great church, where a janitor and a professor at Notre Dame can be friends?”

Ex-Mormon skeptics like to quote the aphorism that “What is good in the church is not unique, and what is unique is not good.” But this is false. Mormonism has some uniquely good qualities, and Mason articulates them well. If you don’t want to take Mason’s word for it, I also recommend Bloomberg View columnist Meghan McArdle’s recent piece, “How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive.” (“I’m not sure this key ingredient is available in a secular version; I think religion might only come in religion flavor.”)

Mason concludes that “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not the only place to follow Christ, but I don’t know of anywhere better.”

Who this book is for

It is not for ex-Mormons. I think Mason would agree. As hard as he tries, his first principle that the church is true no matter what does not allow him to describe ex-Mormons entirely sympathetically. (One possible exception is ex-Mormon evangelicals; for Mason, belief in a vigorous, literalist strain of Christianity is the next best thing to belief in Mormonism.)

It is aimed in part at the family and friends of ex-Mormons, urging them to not judge harshly. While a welcome message, Mason’s subtext (again, from his first principle) that there are faith-promoting answers to all the tough questions tends to undermine the impact this could have. Because if your daughter isn’t coming to the same conclusion that the church is true, it must be that she hasn’t studied hard enough, prayed hard enough, or tried hard enough to believe.

The best audience for this book is someone who knows enough to be anxious but who wants to remain in the church, who is looking for comfort and for reasons to stay. For that person this book will resonate deeply.

Further Reading