From Bruce C. and Marie K. Hafen’s book “Faith is Not Blind”;
During the recent decades of international growth, the Church had needed to simplify its curriculum, magazines and other material so that inexperienced church members in many cultures can understand them. Because that approach can limit the availability of more advanced information, many people cheered in 1992 when world-renowned Macmillan Company co-published with BYU (the comprehensive series known then as the “Encyclopedia of Mormonism”). This four-volume work contained scores of careful, readable articles by qualified LDS authors on all questionable teachings. It has since been available on the internet and elsewhere. In addition, access to original Church documents has never been more open than in recent years, as witnessed by ongoing publications from the massive, Church-sponsored Joseph Smith Papers project that began in 2008.
The “gospel topics essays” more recently posted on lds.org are more visible than the encyclopedia mentioned above. They also reflect more recent research and provide extensive additional reference material. Hopefully these essays will help people notice some of what Mattias regrettably missed seeing. That increased visibility also sends a message about the value, in today’s world, of having open minds and open hearts based on a prepared stance that is wise as a serpent yet as harmless as a dove (see Matthew 10:16).
Such resources can help us work our way through complexity to mature simplicity. At that point, we are not just optimists and not just pessimists. We are open-minded believers who know that history and life are not always clear-cut and tidy, but we desire to keep learning and to improve the status quo, not just to criticize it.
First suggestion: Faithful questions are valuable. Having a curious mind is a pathway to understanding and growth. However, there may be some who mistakenly assume the LDS culture of people who wonder. So when we have honest questions, some of us may feel unfaithful or even guilty. Is it wrong to wonder or even wander? We don’t think so. The Church does not self-destruct under questioning or scrutiny. Rather, seeking answers and deeper understanding really can help us grow. As J.R.R.Tolkien said, “not all who wander are lost.”8 So let us welcome questions and questioners.
Recall again Mattias’s comment about living in a bubble. If he was, it wasn’t because the Church consciously imposed that mindset to keep him in the dark. His bubble might have been nothing more complicated than the innocent perspective of Stage One, not realizing that life has more colors than black and white. Good questions help us move on to the more realistic realm of Stage Two complexity, where we can see life in living color, with rich meanings that we must sometimes search to discover.
As we enter Stage Two, however, it’s good to remember that becoming a doubting Thomas is not the end goal of discipleship. Being realistic is better than not seeing reality, but as we’ ve seen, a *myopic preoccupation with complexity can easily become a rigid pessimism that also blocks the search for Truth. As one friend said, we don’t want to be so closed minded that we look at the world through a soda straw; but we also don’t want to be so open minded that our brains fall out. When we then choose to grow into the more faithful perspective of Stage Three, we won’t let the issues we don’t understand get in the way of the fundamental truths we do understand.
Second suggestion: Be cautious about the internet’s weaknesses. One of the internet’s greatest blessings, which is also one of its curses, is that it gives everyone—regardless of age or qualifications—unlimited access to unlimited information. All of that unfiltered data, regardless of how reliable it actually is, can seem to have equal credibility. This lets the bloggers at the extreme end of any spectrum seem as qualified to speak as if they were established experts. You can see their names right on Google, just like the real rocket scientists.~~Bruce C. and Marie K. Hafen’s book “Faith is Not Blind” (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 2018). p.20-22 (continued)
*myopic—nearsighted
