‘Trust gap’ hounds the Mormon church, research shows - SLT

[AllieOop]

Here's an interesting article with some revealing research behind it:
http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/faith/5 ... mon-church

Quote:

Some Latter-day Saints may leave the fold after finding out aspects of their history that don't match the Sunday school version — like the fact founder Joseph Smith used a stone in a hat to help him produce the Book of Mormon — but such a discovery is not what drives away most former believers.

It's the realization that they didn't hear it first from their church.

They feel deceived by Mormon authorities, whom they blame for keeping such details from them, and wonder what else these men might be hiding.

It's "a trust gap," LDS writer Jana Riess notes in her "Flunking Sainthood" blog.

Riess has been conducting a large-scale survey, called The Next Mormons, and has been "struck by the fact that among former Mormons, particular historical problems or doctrines don't emerge as the primary reasons for leaving the church," she writes. " ... Book of Mormon historicity ranks ninth, and the other specific historical issues barely register at all."

Instead, the "second most common reason overall (and tied for first among millennials)," Riess reports, was "I did not trust the church leadership to tell the truth about controversial issues."

[redjay]

Ultimately it comes down to not trusting the church to be able to deliver on its promises to be a (the only) conduit for eternal life. If I fully believed that only through the church could I have eternal life with my family, I'd be there; however, it seems the institution is a shadow of what it claims to be.

As my mum used to say to me: no trust = no relationship.

[Not Buying It]

Personally, I don't subscribe to the idea that if the Church had just been completely honest and transparent from the beginning more members would believe in it. No amount of honesty and transparency, however admirable, could change the fact that it isn't what it claims to be. If anything, that would have been more obvious to more of us earlier had they been more forthright to begin with.

Sure, there is a 'trust gap', but their dishonesty is only one issue. Knowing the truth about Joseph Smith, I could never have believed him to be a Prophet no matter how upfront the Church had been to begin with. Once I found out what I know now, disaffection was inevitable.

[Corsair]

This was a very enlightening article. It certainly resonated with me but I won't be passing it along to my believing friends and family.

Personally, I don't subscribe to the idea that if the Church had just been completely honest and transparent from the beginning more members would believe in it. No amount of honesty and transparency, however admirable, could change the fact that it isn't what it claims to be. If anything, that would have been more obvious to more of us earlier had they been more forthright to begin with.

I'm not trying to sound cynical, but I have tried to imagine what the LDS church would have been like if they had been as open as possible at least starting with B. H. Roberts or possibly during Leonard Arrington's administration as historian. I think that the heavy growth of the LDS church from the 1950s through the 1980s would have been reduced. There is also the more extreme example of Community of Christ who had a schism and probably lost half of their membership.

For years, the LDS church depended on this triumphalist narrative which culminates with the faithful becoming gods. Bold claims about the ancient origins of temple worship and Book of Mormon historicity were made when they were not easily falsifiable. The Book of Abraham was still one of the greatest archaeological finds of history that only the Mormons possessed and were just waiting for the academic world to notice and acknowledge this treasure. Tithing and generous fast offerings were a path to prosperity.

That's all changed now and the correlated lesson manuals are passively reflecting the loss that still has not fully entered the LDS cultural consciousness.

[Mormorrisey]

The blog post that this article is taken from is now up on Jana Riess's Flunking Sainthood:

http://religionnews.com/2017/04/19/morm ... st-issues/

Personally, I love Jana. Although she's not as cynical as I am, and still largely is a firm believer, I love her point of view. And it also helps that she puts into words what I'm feeling a lot less angrier than I can, so that I can then pass on her nuggets of wisdom to Sister M. Like today, this article brought some talking points, as we were gently discussing the Lord's true mall. Sister M chided me for "still worrying about that," when I brought up what Jana was talking about. There's no trust there, because they don't trumpet the mall in the Ensign, I have to find out about it in Bloomberg. Just like until recently I have to find out about Joseph's polyandry/polygamy in some vague, "anti-mormon" book before the church came clean about the TRUE history. End of the story, as mentioned in these articles, I just don't trust the bureaucrats in the corporation, as they've been shady about lots of things, not just the history. And when I bring it up with other members or my leaders, I'm told to have more faith and Lucifer is behind my views. Right. THAT'S why I don't trust the corporation, in a nutshell. Good on ya, Jana.

[nibbler]

I've heard the following phrase quite often: "I'm not having a faith crisis, the church is having a truth crisis."

I find myself wondering... will the "trust gap" create a generation of people that are essentially written off as a lost cause, but the rising generation won't be as affected because they started off with a more accurate versions of history, etc.?

I don't want to derail the thread but the brouhaha over the blood atonement doctrine comes immediately to mind. I bet the people that believed deeply in the blood atonement got whiplash when the church started pretending like it never existed. It's so far in the past now that the blood atonement doctrines don't register with the majority of members. They weren't around for when the blood atonement was preached, they weren't even around during the cover up. They came up in a blood atonement-free world so the issue is a non-starter.

Will something similar happen here? A generation or two will be subject to severe levels of gaslighting but future generations will only know about the rock in the hat and know nothing of the original dominant narratives, the labeling of truths as anti-Mormon lies, or transition period so they won't feel as though their trust has been violated.

There will always be people that study things out to discover the cover up periods, we know all about the blood atonement and the attempts to bury it in the past. There will always be people that this sort of thing matters to but I suspect they are in the minority.

Granted the church has to change the narratives, they haven't even done that yet, but 50 years from now is the trust gap still an issue caused by the same things people deal with today? Or does all this coming to light in the information age never let the dust settle, where the church isn't in a position to pretend that the old narratives never existed.

I'm sure that 50 years from now there will be other issues that people are dealing with but it got me thinking. How does the church recover from the "trust gap." Sitting around and hoping it goes away in a few generations? Will it be too late by then?

Inquiring minds.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

Listening to Richard Bushman's interview on thoughtful faith recently he says that because of the efforts at transparency and inoculation, he thinks these historical issues will gradually dissappear and won't affect the next generation. However the challenge for the next generation will be social issues and that won't ever go away.

[Red Ryder]

I agree with NBI. If it's not true, then it's not true. Nothing else matters.

But for the sake of discussion, let's set aside reality for a minute.

The core has potential to burn out when members stop raising a generation to replace the core. Doctrines will (and have) changed over time however the core doctrine of "this is the one and only true church" has not. The church has the potential to survive any shift into anything it wants over the next 50 years and can do so as long as it doesn't stop saying "this this the true church" and parents teach their kids this. It's already set up for accepting change through the doctrine/idea of modern revelation. We've seen this work in 1978, with the mission age change, and the great apostasy of employed janitors.

It seems that the process to change is in place, but the old men who need to implement the change are just unwilling or don't realize they can make changes.

Until the prophets and apostles start making changes the truth gap is going to continue to widen. The church needs to refresh it's menu. Boring is no longer an option.

[Grace2Daisy]

I have tried to imagine what the LDS church would have been like if they had been as open as possible at least starting with B. H. Roberts. . .

I've often thought about BH Roberts and his discussion with the Q15, and his statement:

“In light of this evidence, there can be no doubt as to the possession of a vividly strong, creative imagination by Joseph Smith, the Prophet, an imagination, it could with reason be urged, which, given the suggestions that are found in the ‘common knowledge' of accepted American antiquities of the times, supplemented by such a work as Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews [published in Palmyra in 1825], it would make it possible for him to create a book such as the Book of Mormon is.” - Studies of the Book of Mormon, by B.H. Roberts, p. 243, 250

One can only imagine what the meetings in the prophet's conference room when the topics of the church's "issues" came up, and the decision to write and publish the essays on LDS.org. Did any of them question (even in their own minds) the truth of what they had been testifying of?

In Robert's meeting the Q15 he experienced what I can imagine might have been the same scene that occurred with the current Q15.

“At his [B.H. Robert's] request Pres. Grant called a meeting of the Twelve Apostles and Bro. Roberts presented the matter, told them frankly that he was stumped and ask[ed] for their aide [sic] in the explanation. In answer, they merely one by one stood up and bore testimony to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. George Albert Smith in tears testified that his faith in the Book had not been shaken by the question.... No answer was available. Bro[.] Roberts could not criticize them for not being able to answer it or to assist him, but said that in a church which claimed continuous revelation, a crisis had arisen where revelation was necessary."

Roberts asserted that the authenticity of the Restoration must "stand or fall" on the truth of Joseph Smith's claim that the Book of Mormon was the history of an ancient people inscribed on the gold plates. Roberts predicted that IF church leaders did not address the historical problems of church origins and possible anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, these problems would eventually undermine "the faith of the Youth of the Church."

Did anyone have the guts to quote Roberts when they were presenting these issues to the current Q15?