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Try this experiment. Type the expression in quotes “I know the church is true” into a Google search, and see what you get. Page after page after page of material set in a Mormon context. That kind of affirmation is a specifically Mormon thing; it is not something other Christians are in the habit of saying about their churches. If you can go through an entire Fast and Testimony Meeting and not get at least a dozen recitations of that statement, it has been a slow Sunday.

I have noticed over the last several decades that, increasingly, expressions of faith are no longer perceived as good enough. Only expressions of KNOWLEDGE!, with its greater perceived certainty, are considered the normative form of discourse in a F&T meeting.

The diminution of expressions of hope/belief/faith/trust in our church culture has, it seems to me, given rise to a rather unfortunate if unintended consequence: faith just isn’t what it used to be.

One does not have to be an expert in religious epistemology to see how this can be a problem. With a steady stream of testimony bearers reciting absolute convictions of unquestioned certainty, what does that do to the young person who hopes, who believes, who at least tentatively feels the flicker of faith, who is willing to trust, but whose offering along those lines is trodden under foot of testifier after testifier? Those seedlings of faith can be fragile and are easily ground into the dust by the ubiquity of what seems to be overwhelming certainty.

The scriptures tell us that faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things (e.g., Alma 32:21), but increasingly we seem unwilling to believe them.

I’m not sure how this trend arose, but I have a guess. When I was young I can recall Elder Bruce R. McConkie campaigning against travel-monies or thankamonies. Bearing a testimony was not the time to tell stories, but rather to recite simple, declarative statements on the fundamentals of the Gospel, such as I know Joseph Smith was a prophet, I know [X] is a prophet, and I know the Church is true. Increasingly testimonies began to lack any statement of the reasons one had for one’s faith, and became formulaic statements of absolutes.

Personally, when I bear testimony over the pulpit I don’t do so using “know” statements. I much prefer to use the language of faith. There are a number of reasons for this preference on my part (e.g., what role does a testifier’s background knowledge play in this? Does one distinguish between a Sunbeam knowing and a mature adult knowing? How did this person come to know–by what process of investigation? If this knowledge is absolute, why have I known people who testified in this way and then lost their knowledge and left the faith? What does it even mean to predicate the word “true” of a mortal organization? Is a corporation sole the only true way to organize God’s church?) And yet people are often puzzled that I express myself as having faith in such and so, and maybe even a little troubled by my lack of professed absolute knowledge about this or that proposition.

Faith crises are a thing these days, especially among our youth. And yet, increasingly, we’re not even allowing them room to have faith. If only a perfect knowledge will do, and our young people conclude they don’t have a perfect knowledge, can we blame them for increasingly concluding that there is no place for them at Church?

If you like to use the language of knowledge when testifying at Church, that’s fine, but somehow we have to communicate to our people, especially newer converts and young people and those returning after a period away, that there is nothing at all wrong or deficient in having faith or something less than perfect knowledge. I like to use the language of faith at the pulpit so as to model for our people that it is perfectly appropriate to ground a testimony in faith rather than absolute knowledge.

What are your thoughts about this?