I think it's inevitable as a gay Mormon that at some point in coming to terms with your sexuality, you will also do a fair amount of wrestling with your religious identity. Everyone approaches it differently, but so far, I've taken the approach of sifting through the culture and the religion (I don't think anybody can really say exactly where one ends and the other begins) and pulling out stuff that resonates and makes me feel good about myself and my relationship with the divine and I keep it. Then there are the things that don't resonate with me or that I feel detract from my relationship with myself and the divine. Sometimes I have to chip away layers of accumulated calcified (that one's for you, Dan C.) cultural baggage to get to a pure and simple truth. Sometimes I'm not really sure what I've found, or if or when I've chipped away the unnecessary baggage enough to find the gem.
One idea that is commonly shared in a Mormon testimony is a gratefulness to have been born when we have the fulness of the gospel. This is what I'm currently dusting off and taking a look at, and it makes me really uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable because I think it leads to complacency. It also makes me uncomfortable because I don't believe that we have a fulness of the gospel. If we are downloading the fulness of the gospel, I think we are probably less than 1% to completion and right now I feel like we have a pretty slow connection and I think it's because of complacency.
I think the mind set of many is that we have the fulness of the gospel, so now we just have to sit around and wait for Jesus to come back, instead of seek to understand how the LGBT population fits into the picture, or what role our Mother in Heaven plays and what a knowledge of Her could teach us about ourselves. And what about gender? Is gender really eternal, and if so, what does that mean? Are we talking about physical manifestations of gender? What if someone is born intersex? What does that mean for them?
I could go on with the questions and I'm sure all of you could add your own and we could come up with a pretty healthy list. When you start to ask yourself these questions, it becomes easy to see that there are a lot of questions that the gospel doesn't answer. I think that in order to get the answers, we have to be willing to live into the tension that those questions create, remembering to breathe, paying attention to the stretching that occurs, the challenge to balance. Most importantly though, we need to remember our greatest responsiblity as humans on this planet is to love our neighbor as ourself.
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I believe "Mormonism" calls for thoughtful disciples who will not be content with merely repeating some of its truths, but will develop its truths; and enlarge it by that development. Not half—not one-hundredth part—not a thousandth part of that which Joseph Smith revealed to the Church has yet been unfolded, either to the Church or to the world. The work of the expounder has scarcely begun. The prophet planted by teaching the germ-truths of the great dispensation of the fulness of times. The watering and the weeding are going on, and God is giving the increase, and will give it more abundantly in the future as more intelligent discipleship shall obtain. The disciples of "Mormonism," growing discontented with the necessarily primitive methods which have hitherto prevailed in sustaining the doctrine, will yet take profounder and broader views of the great doctrines committed to the Church; and, departing from mere repetition, will cast them in new formulas; cooperating in the works of the Spirit, until they help to give to the truths received a more forceful expression and carry it beyond the earlier and cruder stages of its development.
ReplyDeleteElder B.H. Roberts
Jon,
ReplyDeleteThank you. Calcified is such a good adjective. I also like plaque. As a noun, of course.
I understand what you mean, and have experienced similar things. I find myself trying to decide if my current approach (for the most part, a general rejection)is best, or if some other form of religiosity is in order. It's been a while since I last sincerely attended church. Every now and again I find myself really disturbed that I'm not sure what's going to happen to me, or those I love and our relationships after this life.
It's upsetting--but is it more so than wading upstream through the filth in churches? I don't know. So here I stand, waiting with people like you, for more to come down the pipe.
A lot of the purpose for religion is a sort of bridge between the known (our reality) and the unknown. A filling of the gaps, if you may. I think one of the shortfalls that we Mormons fall into is that we already claim have "all that should be known" and that some truth is not useful (thanks, Packer). Thus, we often mentally burn the bridge between what we already "know" from the unknown.
ReplyDeleteAs BLB alluded to, there is a tendency in the Church to place a premium on having (and making known to others that you have) spiritual knowledge. Not belief, but knowledge. I'm often bothered by little children that come up to the podium in sacrament meeting and bear their little testimonies, "I know that ...". That modern Mormon tendency to demean doubt and glorify knowledge is already being instilled in small children...
ReplyDeleteThe issue seems to stem back to Joseph Smith. He simply had an answer for everything, from where the garden of Eden was located to the name of the planet that is close to where God resides. Although there is admission in the Church that there are still many spiritual unknowns, with all of the knowns that are constantly emphasized, it is easy to stick to those and eschew serious spiritual exploration (especially given the Church's attitude to non-orthodox views).
i like how we think the same things but we go about solutions differntly. perspective! you're such a cool person jon.
ReplyDeleteI guess in a way, I've always believed we've had the fulness of the gospel in this one idea: revelation. Today, revelation has been taken over by policy and culture, but I still think revelation is more in the Church than elsewhere. As for the questions, they abound and policy will handle them as long as we complacently treat policy as superior to revelation.
ReplyDeleteI am still waiting for someone to explain to me what God has revealed about most of the questions that affect my life as a married-to-a-woman gay Mormon. The scripture says, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin (James 4:17)."
Well, until someone clarifies a few things for me, I'm not sure I know what to do. For now, I'm being faithful to what I have promised, regardless of what I don't understand. I would dearly love to see more and understand what this is all about.