On whether all roads lead to Rome

While I was on my mission (back when we rode dinosaurs to appointments), my last companion somehow got invited to present a paper at a local university in Saarbrücken during a symposium on religion. There were other papers to be presented on a variety of topics, but his was entitled “Alle Wege Führen Nicht Nach Rom” (Not All Roads Lead to Rome).

 

His point, as one might imagine an LDS missionary’s point would be, was that there was only one way back to Heavenly Father, namely through the authorized ordinances of the restored priesthood. He did a credible job presenting; his non-native German was wonderful, and he was well received by the small crowd at the lecture. (We were actually working in a different city; he’d been transferred after he’d committed to present, so he got permission to go back.)

 

As I’ve grown older, I’ve had some different thoughts on the matter. While I agree with my companion that the saving ordinances of the restored priesthood are required for exaltation, how we get to those ordinances may be on very different paths.

 

I have for several years participated in 12-step programs. Part of the concept of most such groups is the acceptance of a Higher Power whose attributes are not specified except to note that the power higher than ourselves can restore us to sanity. The lack of specificity allows people of diverse beliefs to share the benefits of the 12 steps without reference to a particular religion. Many participants I know are Christian, so they have a similar (though perhaps not equal) concept of God to mine. But others do not worship God as we understand him, and still they are able to find a place on the spiritual journey of the steps. I should add that some who come to one of  my 12-Step groups without religion take some time to sort out how to get past the idea of a Higher Power, but many eventually do, finding their higher power in nature or in the group itself or some other way. (The church’s Addiction Recovery Program is different in this point, as one might expect. There, one openly acknowledges Christ’s role in allowing us to change, and rather than restoring us to sanity, he restores us to spiritual health.)

 

I quietly worried about this Higher Power model for my first while in my non-LDS 12-step program. Should I not confess Jesus Christ as my savior? The answer is yes, but the traditions of the program I attend prohibit the discussion of specific religions. In the end, here is how I sorted it out:

 

•  I can believe as I do, but “check my belief at the door” when participating in discussions of a Higher Power in order to allow the group to function as it does. In so doing, I can contribute to the greatest recovery for the greatest number (another part of the organization’s traditions) by avoiding polarizing discussions of religion that have little bearing on the other elements of the program. I do this already in many other aspects of my life. I do not discuss religion at length in the workplace. Nor do I discuss my faith with my doctor or mailman or plumber.

• I can also acknowledge God’s power to reveal Himself to people when He and they are ready. It occurred to me that if others in recovery accept a Higher Power to allow their progress on the spiritual journey of recovery, they will also find God eventually. As they work the steps, they will apply the lessons and blessings of the atonement to their lives, and in that process, God will speak to their hearts in His way and His time. And eventually He will help them to be prepared to take another step and learn about saving ordinances of the gospel. I can respect that God’s timeline is not mine, and I can strive to see if I have a place on His timeline, and I can be patient if I don’t.

• I can share my faith quietly and privately as moved by the Spirit (or invited by others) to do so, just as I can with my co-workers, my doctor, my mailman or my plumber. In the meantime, I can recognize that God has far greater power than I do in the sharing of His word. In recognizing that, I don’t seek to avoid my responsibility to share the gospel, but I recognize that since it’s His work, I can seek to understand His plan for me and act upon that.

 

Gospel truth is gospel truth. If someone learns truth in an LDS sacrament meeting or in self-study of the Bible or in the hands of a Buddhist monk or at the tables of recovery, it is still truth. In time, a person can learn enough truth to begin to want the ordinances of the priesthood. The paths to that point may be quite diverse. And that’s ok.

 

On inclusion

The discussion of white shirts over at Mormon Matters has gotten me thinking about inclusion. You know the deal: A number of different general authorities (including Elder Nelson and Elder Holland) have suggested it's good to encourage young men to wear white shirts while blessing and passing the sacrament. Some are ok with the idea and agree that there's symbolism in the action: white shirts mirror the white of baptism and the temple. Others are not ok, and find this another intrusive near-commandment that allows some to judge the righteousness of others.

You can guess where I stand. I'm the guy who shaved his beard happily to work in the temple. And, as I told a young friend who questioned why, I would gladly have shaved my head if they'd asked me to. Those who make those decisions can make whatever decisions they like, and I can choose to accept them, and that's ok by me. Others don’t feel the same way, and think there are too many rules.

The good news is that the tent of the gospel is big enough for both camps and more. In fact, the gospel tent is big enough for all of us, as long as we are seeking to find and follow the Savior.

Here’s an example that illustrates the point:

I was reading in 3 Nephi 18 this morning where the Savior institutes the sacrament among the Nephites, and he counsels them only to partake of the sacrament worthily, and to prevent the unworthy from partaking of the sacrament. But, he also says of the unworthy, "Nevertheless, ye shall not cast him out from among you, but ye shall minister unto him and shall pray for him unto the Father, in my name….Nevertheless, ye shall not cast him out of your synagogues, or your places of worship…" (3 Nephi 18:30, 32).

I don't mean to link shirt color to worthiness! Instead, I mean to suggest that the Lord's standard is high for believers: We should strive to be worthy to participate in priesthood ordinances, and we should be willing to include those who are not. There are those whose calling it is to judge worthiness; the rest of us just shouldn't. Period. We should love and accept and encourage and invite all to come unto Christ.

When Elder Clayton Christiansen, then an area authority 70, visited our stake a number of years ago, he suggested that the church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for the righteous – and he reminded us that we were all in the former category in one way or another. Further, he suggested if we couldn't smell tabacco smoke in our meetings, then we weren't working hard enough.

Knowing that, who are we to judge another who may think or act differently than we do? Indeed we're taught to invite with "persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
By kindness, and pure knowledge…without hypocrisy, and without guile" (D&C121:41-42).

The tent is big and there's plenty of room. Come on in!

On being tolerant with ourselves

The other day I posted about my higher / different standards compared with those of others in my life. Today I'd like to talk about my own inability to reach my own standards.

I suspect we all fall short from time to time. Sometimes these are small things that barely merit a second thought, and sometimes they are mistakes that seem to haunt us for a long time. Without creating a list of my own insecurities and shortcomings, I can say that even seemingly insignificant mistakes of my youth creep back into my consciousness from time to time and still cause discomfort – no so much because I was bad or wrong, as I wasn't what I wanted to be.

In the Book of Mormon, Alma gives his son Corianton good advice in this matter: "only let your sins trouble you, with that trouble which shall bring you down unto repentance" (Alma 42:29). Corianton had made some pretty big mistakes, and you can read about them yourself in Chapters 39-32. But Alma sent him back to work. His counsel is that we ought to feel bad enough to change, but no worse than that.

The Lord himself reminds us regularly through the scriptures that he is anxious for us to turn back to him. In 3 Nephi, for instance, just before he appears to the Nephites he repeats a common refrain: "how oft have I gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and have nourished you. And again, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings" (3 Nephi 10:4-5).

I believe the Lord is anxious to bless us, else why would he have suffered for us as he did? And if he is anxious to bless us, if he wants to gather us as a hen gathereth her chickens, then shouldn't we also want to be gathered?

A commenter on a recent post suggested we need to be tolerant with ourselves as we live the gospel. President Hinckley reminded us that we need to do the best we can. King Benjamin taught that we shouldn't run faster than we are able. Sometimes, even if we're not doing everything just right, we are doing what we can do. And it's good that we are doing what we can. Part of the blessing of the atonement is that the Lord helps to make up the difference when we need it.

A higher standard?

Do you hold yourself to a higher standard than you do others? Sometimes I think I do, and I wonder if I should.

I tell myself I do it out of tolerance, and in an effort not to judge. But do I?

I grew up LDS (from about age 9) in a non-LDS community. Except for my sisters, I was usually the only Mormon in my school, and the older I got, the more divergent my standards (or better said in those early days, my family's standards) were from those of my friends and classmates. Now in the professional world, I work with very few church members, so I am in the same boat.

Even among church members, some of us attend more regularly; some go to the temple more often (and some don't go); some are more consistent about holding Family Home Evening than others, and so on.

My parents never taught me to have friends only in the church. It would have been difficult to do so as I was the only boy my age at church. But even if I had many friends at church, my folks would not have wanted me to isolate myself on some Mormon social island. We have also encouraged our kids to have friends at church and outside the church. We live in a non-Mormon community, but there are more kids my kids' ages at church than I had, and they are fortunate to have good friends there, too. But they also have friends at school who aren't LDS. Some of those friends are religious in their own families and others aren't.

While I know what my standards are, is it fair or reasonable to assume those I associate with will have the same standards? In high school I was fortunate to have a group of friends who, while they did not always share my standards, at least respected them. (The weekend of high school graduation, most handed me a can of Sprite at the door, warning me that the punch was spiked.) My work colleagues are respectful of my choice not to drink alcohol. And they know better than to ask me to go places where I wouldn't take my wife. And many have learned to be more mindful of their language around me (though I've never asked them to).

Some of our children as teenagers have had friends who really pushed my tolerance envelope, however. It almost seems they sought friends who were on the very edge, and I wondered how to respond. (To tell them not to associate with those kids would have been foolhardy; by this time they were old enough to make these choices, and they were making them.) We generally tried to be gracious when these friends came by, and the friends were generally respectful of us when they were in our home. But we worried.

The questions that linger in my mind: how do we teach our children right from wrong, and still teach our children to be tolerant of others? Are my standards higher or just different? We use the phrase "love the sinner, hate the sin", but even that phrase smacks of judgment to me. Or is it my place to understand what God expects of ME (and only me) and live accordingly? Is my telling myself that I have higher (or different) standards than others allow me (or force me) to judge others in, even in some passive way? And is that ok or not?

I'm interested in your thoughts and experience.