I want to begin this post by first saying that it may come across as, well, a lot of things, actually—judgmental, critical, over-sensitive, condescending. I’ve found that people are really good at assigning motivations to me when I say things they don’t want to hear. But that’s ok. It doesn’t change the fact that what I am saying is based on my understanding of truth and on my love for God and all people.
I also want to say that, while God has been helping me gain an unconditional love for all people, I have a special place in my heart for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was raised in that church and I understand its teachings. I have also made a serious study of LDS scripture, and I believe much of what comes from it, but I see places where teachings from LDS church leadership do not align well with LDS scripture. Most members of the church tend to not see this as a problem, but, for me, it is a big one. Perhaps, for some, it is enough to take the teachings of the church and live by them and call that “integrity” while being completely ignorant of (or completely at-odds with) what we find in scripture. To me, that’s unwise. God obviously allows men to corrupt his teachings and make the claim that those teachings are still from God. Even scripture can be misinterpreted or misunderstood, as can revelation. The fact is that every avenue that we have to learn more about God can be counterfeited or corrupted. Discovering truth is a difficult process, so it makes me incomprehensibly sad when I hear things passed on from the church’s leaders to its membership that make it more difficult for members to discover and live the amazing gospel that the Lord has given to us. So many will believe what they are told without honestly investigating it, and that is, quite literally, a crying shame.
It’s Stake Conference this weekend where I live. The Saturday evening session was broadcast in a couple of different formats to members of the stake and I tuned in to listen. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that the majority of the meeting was focused on membership retention. Contrary to the “all is well, so stay in the good ship Zion” message that the church is always trying to publicly put forth, there is a lot of evidence to indicate that the church is hemorrhaging when it comes to membership—especially “valiant” membership. I actually commend church leaders for finally coming out and addressing this, though I will say that you won’t be able to fix the problem until you accurately pinpoint the cause.
What a terribly sad thing it was to listen to one of the leaders tell the membership that it was their fault that others were leaving the church—that it was their lack of compassion for those “sitting on the fence” that was resulting in people walking away from the church. He didn’t make this claim that obvious, and perhaps he wasn’t completely wrong in assigning some blame to the members in that regard, but leadership would do better to ask further questions. If there is a lack of compassion in members, why is that the case and how do you fix it? Is it enough to tell the members that they aren’t doing enough or is there a level of culpability that lies with the leaders themselves? Furthermore, is it the compassion of “stalwart” members (and that, alone) that should be expected to keep the less-stalwart people in the church? Shouldn’t the doctrine itself and the fruits that are supposed to be found in it be enough to keep people on the strait and narrow path? The gospel is supposed to produce people like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and too many others to name here who, at various times of their lives, did not enjoy the compassion of others, yet their dedication to God did not waver.
What if the actual cause for the decrease in church membership is something so fundamentally and radically different from what you might think that you will have to rethink your positions on a great many things? Are you able to withstand new ideas no matter how jarring they might be, or would you take offense to them and see them as micro-aggressions?
In my opinion, the main reason why people are leaving the church is the one reason that was conveniently overlooked in the evening session of Stake Conference last night—the fact that the church and its leadership err in doctrine.
That’s going to tip over a few sacred cows for people, I’m sure, but it is what it is, and, frankly, it’s time to stop skirting around issues and cut to the chase. While members might be guilty of complacency and blind obedience, leaders are arguably just as guilty of pride and dereliction of duty.
Members are leaving the church because the church, as an institution, doesn’t correctly teach the doctrine of Christ and because the membership doesn’t study their scriptures enough to know better. I feel great sorrow for the members of the church. I know what it is like to trust your leaders based only on the supposed promise that they will never lead you astray, but let’s be honest, people—leaders can lead you astray.
As I think back at what was presented last night, I was probably incorrect in saying that the speaker overlooked the main reason why people are leaving the church. He did worse than that. He actually made the assumption that the church does not err in doctrine and presented that as a given, effectively pre-empting any claim that church teachings might be incorrect.
This. Is. A. Big. Deal.
He went to chapter 31 of 2 Nephi—one of the best chapters on the doctrine of Christ to be found in scripture—and then basically gutted most of the chapter that talks about the doctrine of Christ. He jumped to the scriptures that are addressed to people who have applied the doctrine of Christ and who have entered into the strait and narrow path. Those scriptures do encourage those people to “press forward” steadfastly, but that’s only because they are on the path to begin with. Anyone who presses forward on an alternate path is going to encounter disinterest, doubt, suffering, sorrow, weariness, depression, anxiety, and a whole bunch of other negative consequences, and that is exactly what we are seeing in the church today. Unfortunately, both leaders and members alike refuse to make this connection and, as long as they do, they will get the same results they have been getting all along—more and more.
True conversion is difficult enough to obtain even when the doctrine of Christ is being taught in its fullness, but it absolutely cannot happen outside of the doctrine of Christ, and it is a matter of critical importance to make sure that that doctrine is being taught and applied correctly. It will take a lot of humility on the part of church leadership to admit that they aren’t teaching correct doctrine, and it will take critical thinking and honesty on the part of membership to find out that they haven’t applied it. I sincerely hope that they will, but if they, like the Jews, fail to realize that what they believe and practice as a church deviates from what the Lord attempted to give to us, even when the evidence is right before them, they can only look forward to the same fate. And it is my love for members of the church that motivates me to warn them of that.
In the next several posts, I hope to present my understanding of the doctrine of Christ.