Prophets: articles and tips | FAIR

by Autumn Dickson

We have arrived at the war chapters. Within these chapters are plenty of principles that we can still spiritually engage with despite the fact that the events are taking place on a battlefield. During one such battle, Captain Moroni bears his testimony to Zerahemnah (one of the antagonizing military leaders) regarding the protection of the Lord.

He testifies that they have the true faith and that the Lord strengthened and protected them because of their belief and worship. After bearing testimony, he commands Zerahemnah to make an oath that he and his men will never come against the Nephites again. Otherwise they will commence the battle and wipe out the remainder of the men.

Zerahemnah delivers his weapon to Captain Moroni but refuses the oath. Zerahemnah gives this as his reasoning:

Alma 44:9 Behold, we are not of your faith; we do not believe that it is God that has delivered us into your hands; but we believe that it is your cunning that has preserved you from our swords. Behold, it is your breastplates and your shields that have preserved you.

Captain Moroni believes that they won because of their faith. Zerahemnah believes it was because they were good at war. Note that both sentences contain the word “belief.” People can find evidence of whatever they choose to look for. Captain Moroni found evidence of the Lord’s protection, and Zerahemnah did not.

What we choose to see

I taught a man on my mission who had lost his faith. He had grown up a devout Catholic. He attended mass regularly, and after marrying his wife who was a member, he also started attending church meetings with us. He met with us regularly, read The Book of Mormon, and participated in other faith-promoting activities.

And yet, if you were to ask him, he would have maintained that he didn’t feel any faith in God. He had watched a movie that had asked a question, “What if it’s not true?” or something along those lines. That question had stuck with him, and he had not been able to feel faith since.

My companion and I worked over and over and over to teach him to look for those good feelings from God. We wanted so badly for him to find that faith he had lost. There was one evening where the Spirit was so powerful. We had randomly chosen to sing a hymn or primary song (can’t remember which one). He, his wife, my companion, and I found ourselves in tears. It was “thick” in the room.

But still, our friend could not bring himself to attribute it beyond good hormones that were conjured up with beautiful music. He still could not bring himself to see God in it.

I’ve learned since then that faith is a choice, both when it comes to obedience and when it comes to seeing God in our lives.

My friend participated in faith-promoting activities but wasn’t choosing faith; he wanted faith to descend upon him. Where we felt the presence of God, he felt good feelings that didn’t necessarily come from Him. People can look at the same event and draw completely different conclusions.

When I pray about finding my lost keys, I can choose to believe that God helped me find them or that it was a coincidence. When I feel good emotions associated with church, I can believe that the Lord is making His presence known or that I simply have positive pathways built in my brain when it comes to church. When we look at mistakes leaders in the past and present, we can choose to see fallible humans who are still generally led by God or we can see evidence that they can’t really be prophets if they had flaws. When Alma faced off with Korihor, he testified that all of creation was a witness of God. Obviously, there are millions of people throughout history who have come to a completely different conclusion.

The truth remains that you can find “evidence” to support your beliefs no matter which beliefs you ascribe to. I feel that almost most everyone goes through moments in their lives when they ask, “What if it’s not true?” Though these moments can be a little scary, both for ourselves and those we love, these moments can be defining. They can be the threshold in our lives where we really decide where we are going to invest our belief, and that’s incredibly powerful.

We may be tempted to desperately avoid questions such as, “What if it’s not true?” However, rather than avoiding them, we can examine them closely and try to include the Lord we’ve been taught about. We can use it as a testing ground rather than unraveling because we’re afraid of it.

Why should I choose to invest in faith?

So let’s say we’ve reached that threshold. We’ve asked ourselves, “What if we were wrong about everything? What if I was just seeing what I wanted to see?” If you can find “evidence” of whatever you believe in, why should you choose faith?

Unfortunately, this is an extremely personal question that gets handled by the Lord according to each individual. I can only share my experiences.

For a long time, I’m not even sure I had a good reason for choosing to invest in faith because I’m not sure I was consciously choosing it. I was afraid to consider the alternative of leaving the church, and I had found enough goodness and evidence that I felt okay moving forward. I invested in faith because I had been taught to invest in faith. I believed that my good feelings were coming from God because I had been taught to believe. I’m so grateful for that gift.

I’m also grateful that I reached the point where I’ve made my own, conscious choice to continue investing in faith. It was scary facing some of those questions at first, but walking through those low points created an opportunity for me to invest on my faith on purpose, and that has been far more rewarding.

I still receive all those good feelings and quiet moments and associate them with God, but those are not the reasons I choose to keep investing. Those are rewards I receive from investing, but they are not the reasons I continue investing.

I think my most definitive reason for investing right now is how I’ve felt guided. Over the past couple years, I have been watching the Lord guide my prayers before something happened and then watching them be fulfilled before my eyes.

I’ve told the story before, but as we were moving to Virginia, I opened my journal and prayed for absolutely everything I wanted. I left nothing out, no matter how silly or artificial it seemed. At a time when my husband was under immense stress trying to find something we could afford that wasn’t a box in an alley, I was feeling pretty good about everything and asking for whatever I wanted. Sure enough, seven months later, we were led to a temporary home that had every single thing I had asked for. Not to mention, it was given to us at a price that was unheard of, and we did absolutely no work to get it. It quite literally fell into our laps.

I would have been fine if the Lord had given us a tiny apartment without all the extras and I told Him that too, but it was one of those moments where one of the most important lessons He taught me was, “I heard you.” Maybe in and of itself, this can be considered coincidence, but this has been repeated over and over and over.

I pray. I am guided as I pray. Things come together, and I recognize the Lord’s hand because He told me to pray for it. He would likely still bless my family, but because I prayed for it, I was given the tremendous gift of recognizing that He was speaking to me.

Maybe this is how Captain Moroni felt. Maybe Zerahemnah was impressed with their shields, breastplates, and cunning, but maybe Captain Moroni had felt something nagging at him ahead of time to prepare his men in precisely this manner. Then, when he saw everything come together, he quietly thanked the Lord for preparing him ahead of time. Or, maybe Captain Moroni had enough experiences of that manner that he knew the Lord had been guiding them, even if he hadn’t felt any specifics in that particular moment.

Right now, prayer and its results are the reasons I keep investing in faith. I have had other experiences where my prayers have been much shorter and involved far less of my silly, little wants, and I have seen how those prayers were also guided because He led me towards something that I wasn’t expecting. I have had even more experiences where I did pray for everything I wanted, but I felt this little nagging feeling that I wasn’t going to get it. And sure enough, I was led elsewhere.

The Lord could lead me for my entire life without me knowing it. But because He has commanded me to pray, He has been able to guide my feelings ahead of time so that I can recognize Him later. And isn’t that just a beautiful reason to pray? Prayer isn’t about getting what we want. It’s about helping us find our Heavenly Father, and it has surely done that for me.

I testify of Heavenly Father who hears and answers prayers. I testify that He can guide our prayers and feelings if we practice that skill. I testify that He can make Himself known to you should you choose to invest in faith and ask for help in recognizing Him. The experiment surely won’t hurt you. You have nothing to lose by asking Him to help you see Him if He’s really there. The rewards I have personally experienced have gone far beyond what I could have imagined, and I know it all comes from a loving Heavenly Father who loved me because He made me.

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Alma 43–52 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.

Gerrit Dirkmaat was featured in episode 5. This is the full interview. Check out Dr. Dirkmaat’s podcast with Prof. Richard LeDuc: https://standardoftruth.com/

Gerrit Dirkmaat is an associate professor of Church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University. He received his PhD from the University of Colorado in 2010, where he studied nineteenth-century American expansionism and foreign relations. He worked as a historian and writer for the Church History Department from 2010 to 2014 with the Joseph Smith Papers Project. He is the coauthor, along with Michael Hubbard MacKay, of the award-winning book From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith’s Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon, published by the BYU Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book in 2015. In 2023, they published another book on the topic: Let’s Talk About the Translation of the Book of Mormon. In addition to books, Gerrit is also the author of dozens of academic articles. He currently serves as the editor of the academic journal Latter-day Saint Historical Studies published by the Ensign Peak Foundation. Since 2021 he has hosted and produced a weekly Church history podcast: Standard of Truth. It examines Church history questions and sources. He and his wife, Angela, have four children.

Sarah Allen is a senior researcher with FAIR, and the 2022 recipient of the John Taylor: Defender of the Faith Award. By profession, she works in mortgage compliance and is a freelance copyeditor. An avid reader, she loves studying the Gospel and the history of the restored Church. After watching some of her friends lose their testimonies, she became interested in helping others through their faith crises. That’s when she began sharing what she’d learned through her studies. She is a co-moderator the LDS subreddit on Reddit and the author of a multi-part series rebutting the CES Letter. She’s grateful to those at FAIR who have given her the opportunity to share her testimony with a wider audience.

The post Me, My Shelf, & I – Episode 8 – Seer Stones w/ Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat (Full Interview) appeared first on FAIR.

In this episode, Jennifer, Zach, and Sarah discuss why seer stones are no longer used today. Throughout this 6 part series, Me, My Shelf, & I will tackle and refute claims about the seer stones head-on using facts from the historical narrative.

Timestamps:

Sarah Allen is a senior researcher with FAIR, and the 2022 recipient of the John Taylor: Defender of the Faith Award. By profession, she works in mortgage compliance and is a freelance copyeditor. An avid reader, she loves studying the Gospel and the history of the restored Church. After watching some of her friends lose their testimonies, she became interested in helping others through their faith crises. That’s when she began sharing what she’d learned through her studies. She is a co-moderator the LDS subreddit on Reddit and the author of a multi-part series rebutting the CES Letter. She’s grateful to those at FAIR who have given her the opportunity to share her testimony with a wider audience.

Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities.

Zachary Wright was born in American Fork, UT.  He served his mission speaking Spanish in North Carolina and the Dominican Republic.  He currently attends BYU studying psychology, but loves writing, and studying LDS theology and history.  His biggest desire is to help other people bring them closer to each other, and ultimately bring people closer to God.

The post Me, My Shelf, & I – Episode 6 – Seer Stones: Why Aren’t They Used Today? appeared first on FAIR.

In this episode, Sarah, Jennifer, and Zach discuss mentions of the seer stones throughout history. Throughout this 6 part series, Me, My Shelf, & I will tackle and refute claims about the seer stones head-on using facts from the historical narrative.

Timestamps:

Gerrit Dirkmaat is an associate professor of Church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University. He received his PhD from the University of Colorado in 2010, where he studied nineteenth-century American expansionism and foreign relations. He worked as a historian and writer for the Church History Department from 2010 to 2014 with the Joseph Smith Papers Project. He is the coauthor, along with Michael Hubbard MacKay, of the award-winning book From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith’s Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon, published by the BYU Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book in 2015. In 2023, they published another book on the topic: Let’s Talk About the Translation of the Book of Mormon. In addition to books, Gerrit is also the author of dozens of academic articles. He currently serves as the editor of the academic journal Latter-day Saint Historical Studies published by the Ensign Peak Foundation. Since 2021 he has hosted and produced a weekly Church history podcast: Standard of Truth. It examines Church history questions and sources. He and his wife, Angela, have four children.

Mark Ashurst-McGee is a senior historian in the Church History Department and the senior research and review editor for the Joseph Smith Papers, where he also serves as a specialist in document analysis and documentary editing methodology. He holds a PhD in history from Arizona State University and has trained at the Institute for the Editing of Historical Documents. He has coedited several volumes of The Joseph Smith Papers and is also coeditor of Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources (Oxford University Press, 2018). He is also the author of several articles on Joseph Smith and early Latter-day Saint history published in scholarly journals and popular venues.

Sarah Allen is a senior researcher with FAIR, and the 2022 recipient of the John Taylor: Defender of the Faith Award. By profession, she works in mortgage compliance and is a freelance copyeditor. An avid reader, she loves studying the Gospel and the history of the restored Church. After watching some of her friends lose their testimonies, she became interested in helping others through their faith crises. That’s when she began sharing what she’d learned through her studies. She is a co-moderator the LDS subreddit on Reddit and the author of a multi-part series rebutting the CES Letter. She’s grateful to those at FAIR who have given her the opportunity to share her testimony with a wider audience.

Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities.

Zachary Wright was born in American Fork, UT.  He served his mission speaking Spanish in North Carolina and the Dominican Republic.  He currently attends BYU studying psychology, but loves writing, and studying LDS theology and history.  His biggest desire is to help other people bring them closer to each other, and ultimately bring people closer to God.

The post Me, My Shelf, & I – Episode 5 – Seer Stones: Did the Church Lie? appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2022 conference.

Kerry Muhlestein, Keys to Understanding Isaiah

Kerry has several books available from the FAIR Bookstore.

Kerry received his B.S. from BYU in Psychology with a Hebrew minor. He received an M.A. in Ancient Near Eastern Studies from BYU and his Ph.D. from UCLA in Egyptology, where in his final year he was named the UCLA Affiliates Graduate Student of the Year. His first full time appointment was a joint position in Religion and History at BYU-Hawaii. He is the director of the BYU Egypt Excavation Project. He has been teaching about Isaiah for almost three decades, and has been teaching classes specifically on Isaiah for several years, and has written a verse-by-verse commentary on Isaiah. He and his wife, Julianne, are the parents of six children, and together they have lived in Jerusalem while Kerry has taught there on multiple occasions.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #82 – Kerry Muhlestein, “Keys to Understanding Isaiah” appeared first on FAIR.

by Autumn Dickson

I learned something this week about the Liahona that kinda blew my mind. I want to share what I learned, and then let’s take some principles from it.

In a Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Robert L. Bunker describes an engineering phenomenon that I was completely unaware of. He talks about a concept that was invented by man in the 1940’s known as fault tolerant systems. Essentially, you build a computer that does the same processing twice (or more sometimes). If the processing comes back the same, then the computer can continue on because it is “correct.” If the processing comes back different, then something failed and the computer can know about it. Thus, it is fault tolerant. The computer can detect if it’s having its own issues.

Maybe I’m way behind on figuring this out, but the Lord built a fault tolerant system in the Liahona. It didn’t even register in my mind that the Liahona had two spindles until I was an adult. Even then, I couldn’t figure out why it had two spindles until I googled it and found this article from Robert L. Bunker. This verse is not in this week’s reading, but it does give us insight into the Liahona which we’re studying this week.

Alma 37:40 And it did work for them according to their faith in God; therefore, if they had faith to believe that God could cause that those spindles should point the way they should go, behold, it was done; therefore they had this miracle, and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God, day by day.

Spindles. Plural. Both were pointing. If the Liahona only had one spindle, how was Lehi’s family supposed to know whether it was “working?” They could have waned in their faith and diligence, but the one arrow was still going to be pointing somewhere. There was no way they could have known that it was pointing “wrong.” Maybe this is completely obvious to anyone with any kind of predilection for engineering, but this totally blew my mind.

First of all, the idea that Joseph Smith, with all three years of his formal schooling, could have come up with that would have been impressive to say the least. This kind of fault finding system wasn’t formally invented until the 1940’s, but Joseph kinda just threw it out there while interpreting The Book of Mormon in three months. If it hadn’t been in there, I’m sure I could have found the faith to just assume the Lord had a way of letting the family know, but I still think it’s super cool that it was included.

Anyway, I obviously do not claim to have figured this out on my own, as made apparent by surprise. However, I do want to try and take this a step further. It makes sense that the Lord would provide a way for the family to know if their Liahona was in working order; He was planning on using it as a tool to teach them about faith, diligence, and being led along. He didn’t just give it to them, and they were done. The Lord is purposeful and wanted them to practice living the gospel principles in a continuous manner.

Though the second arrow has very obvious implications for Lehi’s family, I believe there are spiritual implications for us. After all, The Book of Mormon was written for our day so that we could learn about the Lord’s dealings with His children. So what do we learn from this fault tolerant, second spindle?

The words of the prophets

One of the fail-safe systems the Lord has provided are dual pathways for revelation. Like much of the world, we believe that the Lord can speak to us directly. This pathway of revelation is critical to our exaltation. It requires us to stretch and reach and dig for ourselves. When we have to seek out personal revelation, we are able to gain that personal relationship with Christ which is ultimately what saves and exalts us. It also allows us to be guided in our personal lives so that the prophet doesn’t have to tell me whether studying elementary education in college is a good idea. Personal revelation is crucial.

The world is also a great example of what happens when you don’t have that second pathway; President Oaks has coined this pathway the “priesthood line.” The priesthood line is how we received the scriptures in the past, and it’s how we receive His guidance today. As a missionary, I remember coming across a group of Christians who had a table up on campus. They were of all different Christian faiths, working together to spread the word. It was admirable. We tried talking to them, but they quickly denounced us as non-Christians. When I pointed out that they weren’t completely similar in their own beliefs of Christ, they quickly responded that they were similar in all of the important things. I found this extremely fascinating since some of them believed that baptism was essential to salvation and some of them did not believe this. You would think that this particular aspect would be classified as “important” since it was determining credentials for salvation, but I digress. Even within the same denomination, you can wander from congregation to congregation and find different beliefs.

This second spindle, this priesthood line, helps us know what the doctrine is. Yes, we do have random quotes from random priesthood leaders that are questionable, but true, canonized doctrine is repeated again and again and again and again. It is not hidden; we know what we believe. These two lines of communication help with the concept of fault tolerance.

Personal revelation

Now the fail safe of a priesthood line can be very helpful in finding out the doctrine of the kingdom. The personal line is still necessary; there are some revelations that only come from the Lord, and we all still have to receive our witness. However, the priesthood line can take us pretty far in establishing the stage.

But what about the personal decisions for which there is no doctrine? There is no “right” answer for what people should choose as careers. There isn’t any kind of doctrine about where we should live or how many kids we should have or who we should marry. There are guiding principles, but guiding principles aren’t always enough. I can be righteous as an accountant or as a fashion designer, but is there a specific direction I need to take? Maybe there isn’t a specific direction, but if there is, I definitely want to know about it.

So what are the fail safes for personal decisions? The priesthood line and personal line can help us with doctrine, but is there a fault tolerant system for our personal decisions? How do we know we’re on the right path if there is a “right” path for us to take? There are plenty of times when there isn’t necessarily a “right” option and we’ll be fine either way, but I’ve also lived long enough and been guided often enough to know He has specific instructions sometimes. What is my second spindle?

I kinda have two answers for this.

First, the Lord helped me understand a simple way to practice receiving revelation. I practiced it with the FSY kids I taught last summer. At FSY, we were given this incredible opportunity where the Lord wanted to speak to us and guide us and teach us. Not to mention, they were all given a journal to carry around anyway. That week, I challenged the kids to write down everything that even barely registered as a potential prompting. I told them that if a thought popped into their heads, they should write it down. They didn’t necessarily need to question whether it was a prompting. They should simply write it down. Was everything they wrote down going to be revelation? No. Would writing everything down help them establish the pattern? Absolutely. If you want to understand whether the Lord is speaking to you, you need a second spindle with which to compare it. Writing down everything could help you start to puzzle out those feelings very consciously and start to recognize the pattern of the Lord’s voice in your own life.

Second answer.

I can’t tell you what your second spindle looks like; it may take time to determine that. However, I can testify of a second spindle. If we learn nothing else from this fault tolerant system of the Lord, learn this: the Lord is capable of helping you know so have faith. When you have a big decision to make and you’re worried out of your mind about whether you’re doing the right thing in your life or whether you’re doing the right thing for your family, set your worry aside and trust the Lord’s ability to speak to you in a way that you can understand. If you don’t feel His voice, don’t fret. If you are regularly turning to Him, He will make His will clear to you if there is a will. Perhaps He will simply close a door that you were planning on taking, or He will open a different one. Perhaps He will guide your desires without you even knowing it, or perhaps you will get a big “warning” feeling that only goes away when you turn around. No matter how He chooses to answer you in any given circumstance, have faith and rejoice that the Lord has a second spindle that works very well. You can trust it.

And if all else absolutely fails, I testify of a third spindle. It’s called the atonement of Jesus Christ, and it makes up for mistakes. It turns all bad into good for those who are trying their hardest to follow the Lord. When I was getting ready to marry Conner and I desperately wanted an answer, I finally gave up and said, “If everything goes wrong and we get divorced and things go totally crazy, the Lord can’t be mad at me because I couldn’t have possibly tried harder to follow Him.” I don’t recommend getting married that way, and I have also learned a lot about marriage since then, but the key is this: you cannot truly fail when you remain close to the Lord. In the end, He can turn everything into a triumph. That third spindle is not fault safe; it is fault proof. It does not fail when we turn it on.

I testify of a Savior who revealed The Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith. I testify that He included the coolest, smallest details that can give us so much insight. I testify that He saw all ahead of time and created systems with which to protect us (but not at the expense of our growth), and I testify that He did that because He loves us.

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – 1 Nephi 16–22 – Autumn Dickson appeared first on FAIR.

by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC

Oh my goodness, we have made it to Week 50. And we’re almost done with this project. The whole goal this year has been to give you a peek into how your Evangelical friends and family see things differently – and how we can approach conversation a little bit differently with them and perhaps have more success sharing the goodness of our faith with them. And it’s been an amazing year for me – I’ve clarified some of my own thinking on this topic and hopefully helped some of you too. I’ve received so many kind and thoughtful notes from some of you that I never could have met any other way, so I’m incredibly grateful for this project.

However, and I’ve alluded to this before, trying to same format with the Book of Mormon just doesn’t make sense. It’s worked this year because we’re doing the New Testament, and maybe we’ll do it again when Old Testament year comes around, but for now we’ve got 3 episodes left in this series. Today the topic is on the Book of Revelation, next week it’s about Christmas, and what I’d like to do the week after that, our final week, is to do quick question-and-answer for anything you would like to know that we haven’t covered yet, that you were hoping to have addressed, or that you’re still wondering about. You can either put questions in the comments below, or email me at [email protected]. I’d like to fit in as many questions as possible so hit me up if you’ve got something.

And, just a tiny bit more business before we start, I’ve teased you already about what will happen next, and it’s 2 things. First, there will be a new concept taking over this weekly format that relates closely to the Book of Mormon, and it has to do with helping your loved ones who are in a faith crisis. I will not be hosting that one, but I know who is and I’m very excited for you to get to hear a lifetime of wisdom on this topic from them. AND, we have a new show with a new format coming out. The idea is that we’ll do 5-6 episodes on specific topics in scripture or church history analyzing them from multiple perspectives – historical, cultural, textual, psychological, and more. I am one of 3 hosts on that show and it’s been so fun to plan it out with our team. The other two hosts are 1) Sarah Allen – who is basically everyone’s research hero – she wrote that incredibly comprehensive response to the CES Letter that is something like 70 parts. There simply is not a more comprehensive collection of research on that than what Sarah has done…. 2) Zach Wright who is the young scholar who hosts the By Study and By Faith podcast. He’s so bright and so quick, if you don’t know Zach yet I think you will really enjoy his energy and perspective. Yesterday we filmed a couple of trailers for this new show that will come out later this month.

Last thing….this week I got to film episodes with two of our partners – Scripture Central’s show Let’s Get Real with Stephen Jones; and the Saints Unscripted show. Both were on my other research area which is sexual abuse in the church and they were great fun to do. You can check those videos out on their respective channels.

Okay, let’s get started for today. We’re going to talk about the Book of Revelation. The reality is that Latter-day Saints and Evangelicals alike are confused by this book, kind of afraid of it, and often prone to taking it out of context. Why? Well, frankly because it’s a weird book. It’s a vision, it’s a dream, and just like your dreams, sometimes symbols intermix in weird ways and then morph and mix again.

Another way to say the same thing is to say that it’s a book that has been mostly treated as a subjective text – that is, a reading the reader brings meaning to based on their own culture, perspective, time in history, personality, and life details. You know a Roarsch test is – the ink blot pictures a psychologist holds up and asks the client to say what they see – well, many of the treatments of Revelation have been little more than that. It’s a subjective text that the reader brings his or her own meaning to. Think about a scenario where you’re telling a group of friends about a dream you had, and each one offers a slightly different interpretation. Who’s right? Well, who is to say?

But this gets complicated for us, Latter-day Saints and Evangelicals alike, and honestly, for every other group out there. Revelation is a difficult-to-understand book. And we’re not going to dive into explaining it here today – that’s the task for plenty of other shows – but I do want to talk about the different ways we approach a text like this that is just so weird.

And really, the differences here come down to our beliefs about prophecy, covenants, and dispensations. But let me back up and tell you why that’s important. So, the book of Revelation is a very specific type of prophecy called apocalyptic literature. A regular prophecy foretells something in the future – but not necessarily on an epic global scale. For example, in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, we get a prophecy that Babylon Will Rule Over Judah for 70 Years. Now, that’s a pretty earth-shaking prophecy if you happen to live in that time, especially if you’re living in Judah. But this type of prophecy is very specific to the people living in a certain time and place. Your life, and my life, are not significantly impacted by the face that Babylon ruled over Judah for 70 years. However, what we call apocalyptic literature is about events that will impact all of humanity. There is no way for the events of the Book of Revelation to unfold without it impacting every human being forever. And all of this applies to both Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints.

Where we have differences has to do with how our understanding of covenant theology and dispensationalism intersect. In the Evangelical world a person’s beliefs are either formed by the idea that God makes covenants with humanity OR the belief that God deals differently with humanity in different dispensations. But you generally can’t have both. It’s an either/or situation. You can find lots of Evangelicals, especially of the Calvinistic persuasion, who very much believe in covenants in a similar way to how we do. But those Evangelicals would absolutely cringe at the idea of talking about the different dispensations. And vice-versa, the Evangelicals who think about how God works in the various dispensations are very unlikely to see him also working through Covenants.

But Latter-day Saints don’t have this problem. We easily talk about how God deals with groups and individuals through covenant, and we also see how God works differently in different dispensations. It wasn’t until after I joined the church that I even put that together. Like, wait, they’re integrating both?!? It sort of blew my mind because in the Evangelical world those 2 are water and oil. So how does this impact how we read Revelation?

Well, an Evangelical dispensationalist is very likely to read Revelation literally. They try to see a one-to-one correspondence between the symbols in Revelation and the unfolding events of history. For example, “This symbol in the book of Revelation represents that nation of the Soviet Union, and this one represents the United States…” There is a lot of concern for making sure every person knows the saving message of Jesus before the Book of Revelation unfolds. They really deeply want everyone to hear about Christ. Meanwhile, the Evangelicals who think of their relationship with God as part of a covenant tend to think through Revelation really differently. They believe that certain human events can trigger the end times – primarily meaning here that every human being who is supposed to be saved, has been saved. Evangelicals in this camp – roughly 60% of all Evangelicals – believe that only some humans are able to be saved. The problem is that no one knows which humans are to be saved, and which aren’t. Only God knows if he made you for salvation or damnation. So the end times begin when the final person God has chosen for salvation is saved.

And Latter-day Saints kind of combine these two views. We believe that all are God’s children and he would like all of his children back and this promotes our entire missionary enterprise. This is our thinking about all of humanity as a whole. But at the same time, we believe in covenants and that God will keep his end of the covenant with us as individuals. We would agree with them that “God will save who he will save,” We just happen to believe he wants to save everyone.

In addition, our views about prophecy are different. Evangelicals don’t buy into the idea that God has further light and knowledge to give. So they have no modern teaching about what to do with Revelation, they’re kind of left on their own here. While the leaders in our church have given clarity on how to understand many things from the Bible, including this confusing book.

So, all of this to say, the Book of Revelation is rather confusing to most people, and having a conversation with an Evangelical friend might leave you both more confused than when you began! What to do? Here is my advice….The glorious end of the book is that God puts everything right and a place exists where his people can be with him forever. That part could certainly lead you to a good conversation.

Okay, 2 weeks left. Please let me know if you have questions specific to Evangelicals that I haven’t been able to answer yet, I’d be glad to use them in my wrap up episode in a couple weeks. See you next time.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – The Book of Revelation appeared first on FAIR.

by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC

Hi friends, and welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. If you wondered if you missed last week’s episode, it wasn’t you, it was me. And sometimes life is like that. Several of you reached out with kind notes asking if I was okay and I’m grateful for your caring. And here we are, back on track now.

As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand.

I also wanted to tell you….I got to run up to Salt Lake this last week and participate in a preview of Come Follow Me for next year. There are some structural changes in the manual that will likely make it easier for families as well as new material that was not in the manual last time we went through it 4 years ago. I got to take home a physical copy and honestly, if you have kids I recommend getting a physical copy. The digital copies have access to all of the children’s activities, but you will have to print things out and the physical copy has everything in one place.

So, I’m behind a week and here is how I’m going to solve that problem. Today you’re going to get the content from last week, and I’m going to combine the text for this week and next into my episode for next week – they’re both in Revelation and it’s easy enough to cover in the same talk.

Okay, today we’re going to talk about the Holy Ghost from last week’s readings. One of the questions I’ve received at least a couple of times in the last year goes something like: How can Evangelicals claim to have the Holy Ghost, I thought our church was the only church with authority to give the gift of the Holy Ghost. And it’s a good question, you can see why it would be confusing because Evangelicals absolutely do claim to have the Holy Ghost, though they’re much more likely to refer to him as the Holy Spirit. So, what is that like for them?

We’ve talked about this a bit before on this show regarding the “charismatic” or “pentecostal” side of the Evangelical world, but what about the rest of them? Because here is their dilemma: There is no possibility for new authoritative revelation. So anything they feel from the Spirit does not have the same idea underpinning it that God can reveal new things. In fact, they are warned against believing that God might reveal something new to a person through subjective means. Whatever they hear from the Spirit will be echoed in the Scriptures, and that is now they know it’s true. The problem, of course, is that there are millions of choices a person has to make over the course of their lifetime that the Bible does not address, and can not address specifically. They have to take broad principles from the scriptures, apply them to what they feel the Spirit is saying, and only move forward if they see a match. Some of this is a very good safeguard – they have a good understanding that the Spirit is not going to tell them to do something wicked. If you boil the whole endeavor down to it’s most basic parts the idea you’re left with is that the Spirit can remind them of things that the Bible has already said, He can contextualize things the Bible has already said, but not much more.

And in some ways, dear Latter-day Saint friends, they have it easier. They view the scriptures as a check-and-balance against the subjective experience of hearing the Spirit. It’s a cleaner process, far less messy. There is another way they have it easier, but it doesn’t always work out fo them very well – that is they have no one above themselves telling them what the scriptures or Spirit are actually saying. The vast majority of them are going to make an honest attempt to listen to both scripture and spirit in an open way that allows God to guide them. But we little humans are excellent at self-deception, even when it comes to spiritual things. It’s very easy to mistake one’s own desires for the Spirit. We have this problem too – all humans do – but our risk is mitigated a tiny bit because we have a Prophet who can give a final word on big things. We don’t need – or want – to have a Prophet giving us exact directions on every single thing. But there is some rest available in the fact that we’re not left alone to figure it all out by ourselves. The difference here for Evangelicals is that they do accept pastors and others to teach them, but those teachers are employed by the will of the listener. If the Evangelical person does not want to listen to a particular teacher or pastor, they don’t. And they feel no compulsion to see that person in authority. While Latter-day Saints are much more likely to see the goodness of having someone with authority being able to teach us.

So, do Evangelicals have the Holy Spirit? I will speak for me, not the church, not FAIR, just myself. Long before I knew very much about our church at all, I know that I had the influence of the Holy Ghost in my life -guiding me, teaching me, leading me. At the most basic definition, that is the gift of the Holy Ghost. So, what’s different now that I’ve joined this church, been baptized and confirmed? Well, honestly, it’s not a lot different in terms of feeling the Spirit and allowing him to lead me. The difference is the presence of covenants.

In the Evangelical church someone can hear the Spirit, and as long as it confirms basically what is in scripture, then it’s considered a good thing. For me, now as a Latter-day Saint, the Spirit’s role is to provide a broader kind of guidance that allows me to do the things I’ve already been asked to do, or promised to do. It’s not about confirming the scriptures – it’s about how do I live out the covenants I’ve made. Now, there are Evangelicals who believe in covenant theology, but the role o the Spirit is still kind of stuck just being able to confirm what scripture says. And I’m sure other people’s experience is different than mine, I can only tell you my experience.

Okay, that’s about all I’ve got to say on that. Next week we’ll do Revelation – which is always weird, but that will be fun. See you then.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – 1–3 John; Jude appeared first on FAIR.

by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC

Welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. My name is Jennifer Roach and today we’re going to talk about polygamy. As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand.

We are on Week 43 of this 52-week project. I’ve teased you a little about what will happen next year. I’m still not ready to spill the beans, but we had a planning meeting for it yesterday and I’m really encouraged.

Our jumping-off point is 1 Timothy 3:2:

Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach…

Before we start, let me set some expectations. This is not an apologetic for polygamy. This is not to pretend there are not hard issues with polygamy. If you yourself, Latter-day Saint friend, are struggling over the history of polygamy there are so many resources to help you. Let me just briefly touch on 3 of them. 1) The work of Brian Hales on this topic is the the very best source for learning the history here. His site JosephSmithsPolygamy.org should be your first stop if you’re wanting to see the most in-depth display of original documents as it relates to Joseph’s polygamy specifically. Brian and his then-wife Laura Harris Hales (now passed) created the site. Laura was amazing and kind. I gave my first formal talk for FAIR in 2020 and Laura was the speaker right before me. We had never met but she just sort of told me, “You and I are going to be friends because you need to know the things I can tell you.” Maybe not that blunt, but in essence, that’s what it was. Laura’s talk that year was on Helen Mar Kimball’s later-in-life reflections on polygamy. Helen was sealed to Joseph when she was 14, which gets really complicated for us today. But Helen’s own words, written after a lifetime of living polygamy, are the essence of what it means to embrace faith in the midst of something really messy. And if I had not already been completely swept off my feet over this church, I would have become so right then and there. My very favorite genre of speaking or writing is from the standpoint of, “You can maintain faith even if things are messy, even if you have doubts, even if you have questions. Those things in no way disqualify you from having a strong faith.” So, resource 1 is: check out Brian’s site (Brian is very much alive and well – just this last week he released a paper on Joseph Smith’s education called, “Joseph Smith’s Education and Intellect as Described in Documentary Sources.” Our friends at the Interpreter Foundation have it up on their website. It’s 8,000 words and over 120 footnotes. Brian’s site and Laura’s talk on HMK at the 2020 FAIR conference. 2) Second resource you should know about is the 2023 talk at FAIR by Don Bradley. Don is a proper historian and did the deep research for Brian and Laura’s work. And he has continued on in that work. Don’s talk at FAIR a couple months ago brings new information into play that changes the timeline of Joseph’s polygamy – which snaps several previously problematic ideas into place. It is well worth your time. 3) Finally Brittany Chapman Nash’s book, “Let’s Talk About Polygamy.” Brittany worked in the church history department for a long time, she was on the YW General Advisotry Board. She makes the topic very accessible and this is a very easy read. I think it’s less than 150 pages, in plain language, and it’s a great resource if you are struggling here. Ok, those are 3 great resources if you’re struggling in general with the topic as a Latter-day Saint. But what we are going to do today is different. We, as always, are going to talk about this topic as it comes up for Evangelicals.

So, before I was interested in the church, I knew some rough details about polygamy – mostly from movies or tv shows. I couldn’t have sketched out an overview of why it started or when. I just knew it was a thing, and supposedly wasn’t a thing anymore. But even that small amount of knowledge is more than a good percentage of Evangelicals have. As evidenced by this reality….Since joining the church I’ve received a handful of messages from friends about various tv shows that go something like this: “Hey, I’m watching such-and-such tv show about your church. There’s a lot going on there – you okay?” And they mean that with the kindest of intentions, they really do. They just don’t realize they’re watching a show about the members of a different group who practice polygamy, not our church. And I would say most Evangelicals have an understanding that is somewhere between what I knew and the knowledge that my friends displayed in their messages. So when they think about polygamy you need to know that their imaginations are populated by what they see on television and not by actual historical realities.

But even if you can explain all of that to them, and I think many (most?) Latter-day Saints could, you still have a problem…They interpret this verse in 1 Timothy to mean that all expressions of polygamy are bad for all places and all times. They get real squeamish explaining the polygamy of almost every prophet in the Old Testament and will usually say something like, “Yeah, they might have done that, but God didn’t like it or allow it – they just did it.” You can point out that 30% of the countries in the world still allow it today. They just…it’s usually been a hard no for them. But even that is changing.

In 2003 Gallop does a survey and finds 7% of adult Americans thought polygamy was morally acceptable – by 2020, 20% of adult Americans said it’s morally acceptable. And 35% of adults who consider themselves politically liberal say it is morally acceptable. This is sort of the spot where I walked in. I wouldn’t describe myself as particularly liberal, but I lived in a very liberal West Coast city for 25 years and that exposes you to a wide variety of people and lifestyles where the automatic response of most people is, “love is love.” So when I was investigating the church, that’s the cultural soup I was living in, so when the issue of polygamy came up my response was something like: Love who you want to love, why should I care? When the conversation came up with 2 women friends that are members of the church I was surprised. So surprised. I asked how they thought about the history of polygamy or the issue in general and they kind of fell all over themselves trying to tell me how bad they thought it was. They wanted to put lots and lots of distance between today and the 1800’s. I was confused. My liberal culture had taught me: You don’t get to have an opinion on how other people structure their marriages. Now, I get what they were doing – I was an investigator and they were trying not to freak me out – and I see the goodness in that. But I was far less worried about the issue than they were. As time went on, and I learned more, there were parts of the topic that I struggled with harder than others – I struggled with Joseph’s polyandry and if you struggle with that one too you must watch Don’s talk that I referenced earlier. But my initial reaction to the topic of polygamy was kind of, “So?” And I really haven’t moved too far from that. I understand the problems, I understand that the theological framework that supported polygamy is still found in places in our church. I listened to 100 episodes of a popular podcast talking about polygamy. And perhaps I’m not the typical example here, but what I’ve observed is that people inside the church are more touchy about this topic than people outside of it. So, all of that to say, you might be surprised that this conversation could go an entirely different way than you imagine. You, Latter-day Saint, might have far more complicated feelings about this than someone outside of our faith. You’re allowed to have complicated feelings here, and there is plenty of help for that, but Evangelicals don’t necessarily walk in with the same baggage.

And here is the other direction I want to go. I think sometimes we Latter-day Saints look at Protestants widely, and Evangelicals specifically as being a people who don’t have to grapple with history as hard as we do in our church. Since we’re talking about polygamy we’ll use that as the example. There are 2 reasons for this.

1) Evangelicals are perfectly aware of polygamy in the Old Testament. But, that was a very, very long time ago. Meanwhile, in our church, there are people alive today whose grandparents practiced polygamy. So stories about polygamy (and all of its challenges) are not just random stories about stuff that happened 3,000 years ago. Evangelicals have the luxury of not thinking about this topic very much because 3,000 years is a long time. And, to be honest, in general, they’re fairly unaware of the events that have happened in the interim. For example, Martin Luther, the great reformer and father of Protestantism, said, “I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more than one wife he should be asked whether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case the civil authority has nothing to do in the matter.” But even that was 500 years ago, so it just doesn’t feel as relevant for them.

2) Evangelicalism is very young as a faith community. Younger than ours. They really didn’t start gaining steam until post-WW2. And what was the cultural zeitgeist in post-WW2 America? Everything is modern and new. Everything is about the future. New is better than old. So they’ve culturally been able to tell their origin story that way. Think of the biggest Evangelical church in your town, I can almost guarantee you that their origin story is something like, “Well, Pastor So-and-So just wanted to study the Bible with some friends so they started a Bible study group in his living room. And pretty soon it grew into a church, and now here we are.” Well, that’s a pretty tidy history. But you understand that it’s an edited history. “Jesus did some stuff, died and rose again, then fast-forward 2000 years and we started this church.” And that’s the end of the history lesson. Because its culturally allowed (even expected) for the story to be told that way, they mostly just accept it, and no one asks harder questions based on history. They actually really do have it easier here than we do. But this is sort of the pay off on this topic and what I want you to hear….

Faith in messy. History is messy. People are messy. There was a time in our church’s history when a more sanitized version of history was being told – that happened for a lot of reasons, and it seems we’ve mostly moved past that mentality. And now we grapple with this stuff. And yes, some people leave over these issues. But have you met the people who know the depths of these issues and don’t leave? Don’t abandon their faith? People who can struggle through these issues, faith intact? If you’re watching this, I suspect there is at least some of that in you too. And you have no idea what a gift that is. A person who goes to a church whose origin story is Pastor Bill and his living-room Bible study, well they don’t develop the same skill in the same way. They don’t have to because the messier details are obscured from sight. My very favorite people in the world are people who model this for me – they want to know all the details of everything, and they still choose faith.

My point here is not even to prep you on how to talk about polygamy with outsiders. I don’t think that’s even a very interesting conversation, and a pretty large number of them won’t even care. But there’s a pretty easy pivot from that conversation to how one keeps faith alive while also acknowledging the messy. This is one of the gifts of our faith that you might not see, but in my opinion, helping other people build their faith by modeling how to wade through complex issues is one of the holiest things you can do in this world. I hope and aspire to be able to do that for other people, and I know you do too.

Okay, well, there you go. And seriously, if you are hurting or struggling over this issue please check out the resources I listed at the top of the show. Sometimes I’ve seen this cynical attitude from critics of the church that says, “Well, if you knew everything I knew, you’d leave too.” Which is just ridiculously untrue. And the folks in the sources I mentioned can really show you what its like to know all the details and still maintain faith.

Next week, “the priesthood of all believers” is up. That will be a great conversation. See you then.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – 1 and 2 Timothy; Titus; Philemon appeared first on FAIR.

by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC

Welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. My name is Jennifer Roach and today we’re going to talk about Gnosticism. As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand.

We are just going to jump right in with this week’s verse Col 2:8-9:

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, which are based on human tradition and the spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form.

Okay, normally I don’t exegete passages for you, that’s not what we’re doing here, but I do feel like a little guidance is helpful here in order for you to understand where we’re going. Paul’s statement here in Col 2 is kind of weird if you don’t understand what’s happening in the background. He makes this statement that you shouldn’t be deceived by human philosophy and traditions. Okay. And then if you don’t know what he’s doing it seems as if he makes a strange left turn by adding in the reminder that Christ had a body. No one would blame you if you read that passage and wondered if the pages got stuck together or something. It’s odd on the face of it.

But what Paul is doing here is addressing Gnosticism. What is Gnosticism, why should you care, and what does it have to do with Evangelicals?

Gnosticism is a philosophy that covers many things, and we only have time to talk about 1 part of it. The Gnostics believed that it really only matters that you get the correct knowledge in your head. Thinking correctly and having knowledge is not just the most important thing, it’s everything – to the degree that the world which exists outside of the invisible things going on in your head just don’t matter. The only things that really matter are things you can think about – things you do with your actual physical body have nothing to do with it, they certainly don’t need to be regulated, and something that’s just pointless to worry about. If thinking in your head is everything….then the things that happen outside of your head are nothing. There was a very specific version of this in Paul’s day that he’s fighting against – and that idea was that Jesus either didn’t have a body, or maybe he only appeared to have a body. In this view, Jesus had obtained enough knowledge that he was able to be body-less because of his advanced knowledge. And someone with that much knowledge shouldn’t even be bothered with a body – it distracts from the really important thing, knowledge in your mind. So when Paul says, “Hey, don’t get distracted by this philosophy, Jesus actually had a body,” he is responding to this issue.

So, what does this have to do with our conversation about Evangelicals? As you know, Evangelicals reject the idea that anyone can choose to accept ordinances done on their behalf after the person has died because of their view that the afterlife is a binary between Heaven and Hell. But that’s only the first part of why they get confused about proxy ordinances. Gnosticism is the other reason why.

To Evangelicals having a body is not considered a gift, it’s not something they even think about all that much. They tend toward a kind of dualism that says belief is more important than behavior. What you think in your head is more important than what you actually do with your body. Now, to be fair, most people don’t study philosophy, and probably couldn’t tell you much about Gnosticism, but you can see the impact it has on their faith in the way they don’t value doing good works in the same way that we would in our church, or they don’t think baptism is important – it’s a nice thing, but accepting baptism is not really required for entrance into Heaven. They’re happily less restrictive on clothing, language, substances, and more because as long as you’re believing the correct things, it doesn’t really matter all that much if your physical body is allowed to do other things. So even though most of them won’t know the word “gnostic” they live in a system greatly influenced by it. The theologically trained folks know what it is – and they understand that Gnosticism is a bad thing. In that world, it is a legitimate and devastating blow to call someone out for being “too gnostic.” So it’s not like the leaders and theologically educated folks are embracing the idea that your body dosn’t even matter, but to preach about that doesn’t really go very far in that world. What you wear doesn’t matter, what you say or where you go doesn’t matter, what you do doesn’t matter – as long as you say the right things.

Okay, why should you care about any of this….It is a fair question for those outside our faith to ask why proxy work is how it has to be. If they can set aside the idea that there are no chances after death to believe (which is hard for them to set aside) they still get stuck on exactly why it requires a person who still has a physical body to get baptized, for example, on their behalf. Couldn’t God just accept their confession of faith after death? Why involve the people who are alive today and have bodies? This truly makes no sense to them. They might bring up the thief on the cross to whom Jesus spoke and said, “today you will be with me in paradise.” No baptism, no proxy work for that guy was required in what Jesus said. Though to be fair, Jesus was a bit busy at the moment when this conversation was taking place.

So, if you’re having a conversation about proxy work with an Evangelical this concept of Gnosticism is in the background, even if either one of you know it. So, what do you do?

Well, one interesting way to address this is to wonder with them: Why was it important that Jesus had a body through which he suffered greatly? Couldn’t God have just decided to forgive the sins of anyone who would come to the correct cognitive beliefs about their sin? They will probably tell you that God could have done that – but he didn’t. Why was it important to Paul that Jesus had a real body when he did his proxy work for us?

The other piece that comes up here is something I want to be really careful and kind with. There is a piece of Gnosticism – and especially the kind that is at the heart of modern-day evangelicalism – that says not only is knowledge important, but MY version of knowledge is the most important. For example, the key to salvation in the Evangelical world is that each person makes a “personal profession of faith in Christ.” And that is good. We believe that too – no one can decide about Christ for you, you have to decide for yourself. But from there, the Evangelical faces some different challenges. If MY personal salvation is based on MY own thinking – then everything can be. And there’s no one to tell me otherwise. If I don’t like what my pastor teaches, I go find a pastor who teaches what I like. When I get mad at him – or when he’s too old or not cool enough – I can go find another one. No one gets the final word but me. They’re not being self-centered or egotistical about this – its a theological expression for them and they feel the great responsibility of having to decide every single thing in their own head. There is no authority. No prophet. The first time I heard the phrase, “the authority of God was taken from the Earth,” I remember being confused because I had been so indoctrinated in the idea that God really wanted us to figure everything out on our own. In the Evangelical way of thinking that’s not seen God’s authority being taken – but that the very concept of authority doesn’t matter anymore. It’s postmodernism – the author is dead, and with him the concept of authority. You yourself have to be your own authority. Shoot, today in our Western culture we don’t even like the idea of saying that someone who has spent decades studying is an “authority” when I person can spend 5 min on Google and piece together a loud opinion. Evangelicals aren’t just up against this in our culture, they’re up against it as part of their faith system.

If you’re thinking ahead, you can already see how this same dilemma causes them to reject having a Prophet. They DO value prophets – they just value the ones who they can read and not see. The ones who lived so long ago they couldn’t possibly understand life today. Having a living prophet – another way to say that is to say we have a human Prophet who lives in a human body – feels much more dangerous to them than reading dead Prophets who are now disembodied.

That’s a lot of philosophy for today. So I’m not going to go on too much longer. But I hope this has helped you see how these differences play out. And really, if anything, I want you to recognize the goodness of the water you’re swimming in but probably don’t even realize.

Next week, I don’t remember what we’re doing, but in 2 weeks we’re talking about polygamy. So that’ll be fun. See you next time.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – Philippians; Colossians appeared first on FAIR.