Open and Closed
I had a challenging conversation last night with a friend who is a non-practicing Jehovah's Witness. Although she is non-practicing, she is very firmly set in her beliefs, at least on the subject we touched on last night.
This rigidity of thought reminded me of a blog post by Michael Austin at By Common Consent. He discusses the need in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to be able to admit that we are wrong. But I came around to this article in a kind of backwards way.
A long, long time ago when I was serving my mission in Germany I remember encountering people who were simply not interested in exploring new ideas because their religions offered them everything they wanted, culturally and philosophically. I remember vividly how strange it felt to talk to someone who expressed interest in listening to what we had to say. I didn't trust it. What kind of people could simply abandon what they'd learned all their lives?
But I was there to teach and be a conduit for the Spirit to convert their hearts to Jesus Christ and the "only true and living church on the face of the earth" (Doctrine and Covenants 1:30). Therefore, it must be good for people to open their hearts to the truth.
And then once they've found it, to close their hearts again?
It feels a little bit like people are aiming themselves like arrows. You draw back the string, aim, and shoot, and some people don't quite make it all the way: they hit the ground in front of the target. Some overshoot: they sail above the target, leaving behind what they could have had. And some thunk with great satisfaction into the meat of the target and stand there, quivering.
There's a giant problem with this theory. Motionlessness is a form of damnation. I know it's kind of a truism-by-pun, but the equation of damnation with being "stopped" (ie. "dammed") is not false, for all that it seems to come from nowhere, linguistically.
We are not arrows, cocked and launched for a single flight. Our motion is constant, whether we make progress or not. I have always been traumatized and terrified by the thought of my dear ones leaving behind our truths. The first time a friend told me that he did not believe anymore (not that he believed something else, but only that he had stopped "believing" as a general attitude) I could not stop crying for nearly twenty-four hours. I cry every time. My heart breaks. But the answer to this pain is not to wish that my dear ones would stop searching for themselves, which is why I embrace individual journeys even if they lead away from the places that I am.
It would be wrong to hope that people would open their minds only long enough to agree with me and then close them forever.
In the Church or out of the Church, church-adjacent, or abroad, I think the answer is to keep our senses open to understand the will of God, or hearing the mind of God as best we can. That means confronting the possibility that we are wrong - that we will receive answers we don't expect or don't want - and that we may need to exercise humility, be willing to act on new information, and respect that others may be functioning under information that we do not have, not merely ignorant of things we think we know.
We're not an arrow, shot once and stuck wherever we land. We are a seed, twisting and experimenting, reaching toward the sun.
This rigidity of thought reminded me of a blog post by Michael Austin at By Common Consent. He discusses the need in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to be able to admit that we are wrong. But I came around to this article in a kind of backwards way.
A long, long time ago when I was serving my mission in Germany I remember encountering people who were simply not interested in exploring new ideas because their religions offered them everything they wanted, culturally and philosophically. I remember vividly how strange it felt to talk to someone who expressed interest in listening to what we had to say. I didn't trust it. What kind of people could simply abandon what they'd learned all their lives?
But I was there to teach and be a conduit for the Spirit to convert their hearts to Jesus Christ and the "only true and living church on the face of the earth" (Doctrine and Covenants 1:30). Therefore, it must be good for people to open their hearts to the truth.
And then once they've found it, to close their hearts again?
It feels a little bit like people are aiming themselves like arrows. You draw back the string, aim, and shoot, and some people don't quite make it all the way: they hit the ground in front of the target. Some overshoot: they sail above the target, leaving behind what they could have had. And some thunk with great satisfaction into the meat of the target and stand there, quivering.
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We are not arrows, cocked and launched for a single flight. Our motion is constant, whether we make progress or not. I have always been traumatized and terrified by the thought of my dear ones leaving behind our truths. The first time a friend told me that he did not believe anymore (not that he believed something else, but only that he had stopped "believing" as a general attitude) I could not stop crying for nearly twenty-four hours. I cry every time. My heart breaks. But the answer to this pain is not to wish that my dear ones would stop searching for themselves, which is why I embrace individual journeys even if they lead away from the places that I am.
It would be wrong to hope that people would open their minds only long enough to agree with me and then close them forever.
In the Church or out of the Church, church-adjacent, or abroad, I think the answer is to keep our senses open to understand the will of God, or hearing the mind of God as best we can. That means confronting the possibility that we are wrong - that we will receive answers we don't expect or don't want - and that we may need to exercise humility, be willing to act on new information, and respect that others may be functioning under information that we do not have, not merely ignorant of things we think we know.
We're not an arrow, shot once and stuck wherever we land. We are a seed, twisting and experimenting, reaching toward the sun.
I think that your desire for your friend to have an open mind to your beliefs and what your study theologically has brought you to should go both ways. Like with a friendship, it is a 2-way street, a back-and-forth exchange of ideas/beliefs. From reading this, my take away is that your friend is wrong and you are right. If your friend felt her/his belief was right and yours was incorrect it is the exact same happening. I find agreeing to disagree, yet still respecting the person, their beliefs, and having an interest in the first place in which to open a dialogue and share to be the most important aspect of your “challenging conversation“. I think you are lucky to have a friend who would discuss religion with you at all. How does the saying go? “Never discuss religion or politics if you wish to keep friends and family. “
ReplyDeleteI think that refusing to talk about religion and politics has had a seriously detrimental effect on U.S. sociality. Have you read Michael Austin's book "We Must Not Be Enemies"? If not, I recommend it. I will keep discussing everything that pops into my head, and examining my position, and trying to be as open-minded as I have been.
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