Why not investigate?

From the per­spec­tive of a believ­ing mem­ber, there are many valid rea­sons to avoid crit­i­cal­ly inves­ti­gat­ing the truth-claims of the Church.

Lack the time, energy, interest, or capability

To inves­ti­gate requires time and effort. Most mem­bers are busy rais­ing a fam­i­ly and have many demands on their time and focus. Maybe now is just not a good time?

Oth­er mem­bers may feel that a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion is too far out­side their abil­i­ties. A per­son who has not spent time in their edu­ca­tion or employ­ment assess­ing data or argu­ments is like­ly to be reluc­tant to engage in crit­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tion.

Predetermined irrelevance

Some mem­bers may be so com­mit­ted to par­tic­u­lar facets of the Gospel (say, the Book of Mor­mon or the hap­pi­ness they feel in a com­mu­ni­ty of Saints) that the ques­tion of whether the truth-claims stand up to scruti­ny feels com­plete­ly irrel­e­vant to them.

For exam­ple, some feel that their ini­tial exam­i­na­tion of the Church is enough to mer­it their life­long devo­tion. They know that liv­ing the Church lifestyle gen­er­al­ly makes peo­ple hap­py and that is enough for them. They would rather focus on liv­ing the Church than on find­ing infor­ma­tion that might detract from their hap­pi­ness and the hap­pi­ness of those around them.

Become vulnerable to loss or change

To inves­ti­gate is to open one­self up to poten­tial loss or change in at least two sig­nif­i­cant ways:

Loss/damage of past and future meaning.

The fol­low­ing are the major ways in which a person’s entire under­stand­ing of their past and present pur­pose and mean­ing may be altered through inves­ti­ga­tion:

Major con­se­quences of crit­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tion of the LDS Church’s truth-claims

Some exam­ples might include a re-assess­ment of the val­ue of hav­ing paid large amounts of tithing and the man­ner in which a per­son treat­ed “way­ward” fam­i­ly mem­bers.

Possible loss/damange of important relationships.

Vir­tu­al­ly all Lat­ter-day Saints have expe­ri­enced friend­ships that were lost or dam­aged when a friend or fam­i­ly mem­ber under­went a faith tran­si­tion. In some cas­es, those who change faith can end up being shunned or viewed as an ene­my by mem­bers who they once con­sid­ered their close friends.

Sim­i­lar­ly, a faith tran­si­tion can strain exist­ing fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships with active mem­bers of the Church. To inves­ti­gate may mean to face a loss in the close­ness of some fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships for an inde­ter­mi­nate length of time.

Fear of becoming an apostate or a wolf in sheep’s clothing

Mem­bers know that inves­ti­gat­ing is the first step to poten­tial­ly becom­ing an “apos­tate”, and apos­tates are gen­er­al­ly por­trayed in the Church in the worst pos­si­ble light.

A per­son may remain in the Church after inves­ti­ga­tion but the inves­ti­ga­tion may result in their faith becom­ing more nuanced. If they adopt more nuanced views in an effort to rec­on­cile their faith with the evi­dence they have encoun­tered, they may then face the poten­tial dis­ap­proval of some ortho­dox mem­bers who might view them as a wolf in sheep’s cloth­ing.

Damage to ego

Inves­ti­gat­ing the truth-claims of the Church my require self-nega­tion of one’s own ego in these ways:

The mere act of inves­ti­ga­tion may imply that the spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ences a per­son had are insuf­fi­cient or their faith is some­how lack­ing.

If inves­ti­gat­ing were to result in a loss or dam­age to faith, then a per­son might have to admit: defeat to the oth­er-side (i.e., “anti-mor­mons” were right) that they’d been fooled or blind­ed for a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of their life.



Assert faithfulness, pass a trial of faith, and avoid distraction

Some mem­bers may feel like crit­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tion is some­thing to be avoided—that refus­ing to inves­ti­gate is to pass a tri­al of faith. Refus­ing to inves­ti­gate may be a way to assert a person’s devo­tion and faith­ful­ness to the cause. Or, a per­son may see refus­ing to inves­ti­gate as a sto­ic choice to avoid dis­trac­tion with things of less­er impor­tance to their eter­nal pro­gres­sion.

Follow some counsel from General Authorities

Although some of the Brethren have encour­aged inves­ti­ga­tion there are many state­ments by Gen­er­al Author­i­ties that seem to dis­cour­age crit­i­cal inves­ti­ga­tion.

For instance, Sheri Dew, a for­mer coun­selor in the Relief Soci­ety Gen­er­al Pres­i­den­cy taught:

As seek­ers of truth, our safe­ty lies in ask­ing the right ques­tions, in faith, and of the right sources—meaning those who only speak truth: such as the scrip­tures, prophets, and the Lord through the Holy Ghost. (BYU Ida­ho Devo­tion­al, Will You Engage in the Wres­tle?)

Why investigate?

There are sev­er­al com­pelling rea­sons to crit­i­cal­ly inves­ti­gate the foun­da­tion­al truth-claims of the Church.

Most who investigate are glad they did

A pair of infor­mal sur­veys were con­duct­ed in an attempt to quan­ti­fy the per­cent­age of peo­ple who were glad they had inves­ti­gat­ed the truth-claims of the Church. The results were high­ly con­sis­tent: regard­less of the out­come of inves­ti­ga­tion (i.e., whether or not a per­son retained their tes­ti­mo­ny and/or mem­ber­ship in the Church) the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple who inves­ti­gat­ed the truth claims of the Church are glad they did or wish they would have inves­ti­gat­ed soon­er.

Small relative expenditure of time and effort.

A 40 year old mem­ber of record has spent approx­i­mate­ly 5,000 hours lis­ten­ing to core Church instruc­tion. An indi­vid­ual who served a mis­sion spent between rough­ly 6,000 and 8,000 hours knock­ing doors, ask­ing peo­ple to inves­ti­gate the mes­sage, and attend Church with them. Against this back­drop, the time and effort required to inves­ti­gate the Church’s truth claims seems rel­a­tive­ly small.

A for­mer mem­ber reflect­ed:

I wouldn’t even buy a nose­hair trim­mer from Ama­zon with­out check­ing a ton of neg­a­tive and pos­i­tive reviews, but I nev­er even looked at 3rd par­ty reviews of the church before invest­ing my life into it. (source)

Gain something valuable in the investigation

There is much poten­tial for good to occur in the course of investigation—regardless of the out­come.

Opportunity for reconciliation

The process of inves­ti­ga­tion opens the door for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with for­mer mem­bers or oth­er mem­bers who are grap­pling with dif­fi­cult Church issues:

If an inves­ti­ga­tor see flaws in the log­ic or evi­dence that’s been neglect­ed then they can offer it up and per­haps con­vince those who have cho­sen a dif­fer­ent path to come back. Per­haps those peo­ple have missed some­thing?

If an inves­ti­ga­tor is per­suad­ed by the evi­dence (even par­tial­ly), then they have gained some com­mon ground with indi­vid­u­als who have expe­ri­enced a faith tran­si­tion.

If a per­son inves­ti­gates and their beliefs do not change, some kinds of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion may still occur:

Mere­ly read­ing through the issues is an acknowl­edge­ment of the sin­cer­i­ty and human­i­ty of oth­ers who have cho­sen to inves­ti­gate.

A per­son who inves­ti­gates may find them­selves bet­ter able to empathize and under­stand those who have expe­ri­enced a faith tran­si­tion. They may be in a bet­ter posi­tion to then defend and advo­cate in the reli­gious square for those who have cho­sen to leave.

Greater appreciation for eternal truth

If the inves­ti­ga­tion alters a person’s view of the Church to some degree, then they may simul­ta­ne­ous­ly gain a greater appre­ci­a­tion for whichev­er truths with­stood scruti­ny. All that was good and true beforehand—if it was tru­ly good and true—should remain even after inves­ti­ga­tion.

In addi­tion, mem­bers are taught in the tem­ple that “all truth may be cir­cum­scribed into one great whole”. How can a mem­ber accom­plish this cir­cum­scrip­tion with­out con­sid­er­ing all truth?

May foster a climate of belief

BYU Schol­ars are fond of quot­ing Austin Far­rar, a famous the­olo­gian:

Though argu­ment does not cre­ate con­vic­tion, lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows that abil­i­ty to defend is quick­ly aban­doned. Ratio­nal argu­ment does not cre­ate belief, but it main­tains a cli­mate in which belief may flour­ish.

While many indi­vid­u­als who inves­ti­gate end up with less belief in LDS Church truth claims, some indi­vid­u­als who inves­ti­gate have com­ment­ed “that this addi­tion­al dig­ging and uncov­er­ing has actu­al­ly made stronger [their] belief that the Mor­mon church is the only true church of Jesus Christ.”

A full-measure of agency

Arguably, a per­son who is unfa­mil­iar with all the data and poten­tial inter­pre­ta­tions is con­strained in their abil­i­ty to make an informed choice about whether they ought to become a mem­ber or con­tin­ue their mem­ber­ship in the Church. True agency is depen­dent on knowl­edge.

Concern and duty for loved ones

A per­son who feels con­cern for or duty towards loved-ones may feel a need to inves­ti­gate in behalf of those they love. For instance, a par­ent might rea­son that their chil­dren will ulti­mate­ly con­front the truth-claim data at some point and want to be ready with some answers and per­spec­tives. Or a par­ent might want to inves­ti­gate so they can fair­ly rep­re­sent alter­na­tive inter­pre­ta­tions in order to give their chil­dren ample oppor­tu­ni­ty to exam­ine dif­fer­ent belief sys­tems and form their own beliefs.

The con­se­quences of Church mem­ber­ship for an indi­vid­ual and their fam­i­ly are enor­mous, so it seems rea­son­able to sug­gest a per­son respon­si­ble for oth­ers has some duty to crit­i­cal­ly inves­ti­gate the truth claims to ensure they are sound.

The search for truth is its own reward.

Expo­sure to addi­tion­al light and knowledge—even if it caus­es a per­son to need to rework some of their ini­tial narratives—is sat­is­fy­ing in its own right and a wor­thy endeav­or.

Joseph Smith taught:

One of the grand fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of Mor­monism is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may. (source)

And Hugh B. Brown taught:

Only error needs to fear free­dom of expres­sion. Seek truth in all fields… (1958 BYU, Hugh B. Brown, Man and What He May Become)

Gen­er­al­ly, under­stand­ing more truth will allow a per­son to pro­duce a more accu­rate inter­nal map of real­i­ty, and a more accu­rate inter­nal map of real­i­ty will allow them to more adept­ly change what is pos­si­ble to change and to peace­ful­ly accept what can­not be changed.

No more fear of the unknown.

Once a mem­ber has ful­ly inves­ti­gat­ed the Church’s truth claims (from both crit­i­cal and apolo­getic per­spec­tives) they can­not be surprised—they no longer need fear what a for­mer mem­ber might say. Per­haps some indi­vid­u­als imag­ine more dif­fi­cul­ties with the truth claims than actu­al­ly exist?

Eleanor Roo­sevelt once stat­ed:

You gain strength, courage, and con­fi­dence by every expe­ri­ence in which you real­ly stop to look fear in the face.

And the Mor­mon News­room explained:

It feels uncom­fort­able to lis­ten to crit­ics call our cher­ished beliefs into ques­tion, and yet we show strength by engag­ing in sin­cere con­ver­sa­tions with those who oppose our views. After all, we trust that “truth will cut its own way” and love will even­tu­al­ly win out in the con­test of ideals. (source)

General Authorities have encouraged investigation

Elder M. Rus­sell Bal­lard taught CES instruc­tors:

… please, before you send them [your stu­dents] into the world, inoc­u­late [them] by pro­vid­ing faith­ful, thought­ful, and accu­rate inter­pre­ta­tion of gospel doc­trine, the scrip­tures, our his­to­ry, and those top­ics that are some­times mis­un­der­stood… I’m talk­ing about polygamy, seer stones, dif­fer­ent accounts of the First Vision, the process of trans­la­tion of the Book of Mor­mon or the Book of Abra­ham, gen­der issues, race and the priest­hood, or a Heav­en­ly Moth­er. … It is impor­tant that you know the con­tent in these essays [the Gospel Top­ics essays on lds​.org] like you know the back of your hand. (The Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Respon­si­bil­i­ties of CES Teach­ers in the 21st Cen­tu­ry, Feb­ru­ary 26, 2016.)

Conclusions

The deci­sion to crit­i­cal­ly inves­ti­gate the truth claims of the Church car­ries with it sig­nif­i­cant con­se­quences, and each per­son must weigh for them­selves the rel­a­tive mer­it of each of the rea­sons for and against. Hope­ful­ly this break­down has pro­vid­ed some light on the con­sid­er­a­tions involved in decid­ing to inves­ti­gate.

Giv­en the com­plex­i­ty of such a deter­mi­na­tion, it seems wise to refrain from harsh­ly judg­ing oth­ers who have or have not engaged in such an inves­ti­ga­tion. There are a num­ber of rel­e­vant con­sid­er­a­tions, and the deci­sion for any giv­en per­son will like­ly be influ­enced by a vari­ety of fac­tors relat­ed to their per­son­al­i­ty, past expe­ri­ences, and life goals.