I want to start with a quote:
“Constant, never-varying inspiration is not a factor in the administration of the affairs even of the Church; not even good men, no, not though they be prophets or other high officials of the Church, are at all times and in all things inspired of God. It is only occasionally and at need that God comes to their aid.”
Elder B.H. Roberts, Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1907), 1:525
No one accused B.H. Roberts of not having faith. The same is true of Richard Bushman or the Givens.
So, if you are more of a B.H. Roberts sort of person, how can you bear your testimony when your faith has matured, grown or deepened as a result of trials or experience or knowledge. Given the experience of Kristine A and others, it is obvious that many ways of bearing your testimony just cause people to stereotype the speaker or bore the audience because they take too long to get out what you want to say. After discussing this with a number of people, this is my advice.
Start with:
“I’ve had my faith mature as it has been tested and find myself with more charity and love towards others now, with a stronger testimony than I had before.”
That meets the goal of being short, direct, and comprehensive.
The longer version is:
The Spirit has born witness to me that Jesus is the Christ, that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church. I‘ve had my faith mature as it has been tested and find myself with more charity and love towards others now, with a stronger testimony than I had before of the love of God for his children.
I’ll note that the other approach “I’ve had a faith transition, but I’ve still got a testimony, and I’m going to make a comment you won’t agree with” will put people’s teeth on edge and will probably get someone who uses it misunderstood.
I would suggest that you never use the term “faith transition” unless, of course, you fit the stereotype that has grown up around “faith transition” that it is a short cut for “loss of faith” or “transition away from faith.”
In addition, I think it is important to realize what it means to have a “true” Church.
First (from BYU Studies)
It is clearly apparent that there have been and now are many choice, honorable, and devoted men and women going in the direction of their eternal salvation who give righteous and conscientious leadership to their congregations in other churches. Joseph Smith evidently had many warm and friendly contacts with ministers of other religions. Quite a few of them joined the Church: Sidney Rigdon, John Taylor, Parley P. Pratt, and others in America and England. Some of them who carried the Christian attitude of tolerance did not join the Church. There are many others like them today.
Second (from the same essay):
[T]o refer to the restored Church as “the only true church” is to speak of it as being the most steady, sure, and solid institution on earth, the closest to the pattern of the primitive Christian Church, in terms of dispensing the mind and will of God and enjoying His complete approbation. It does not suggest that other churches are mostly false or that their teachings are completely corrupt.
It means that it is the church that comes closest to being what God has for you in this life. (Not to say it doesn’t carry with it a host of other connotations or denotations — read the essay and countless others, if you want depth more than a blog post).
What do you think about how to bear your testimony to include the idea that it has grown and matured over time without derailing your audience into thinking that you do not have one?
Wheat & Tares 
Another great post. I agree that it would not be wise to include in a testimony anything that would immediately put people on guard or possibly shake others’ faith. I personally would never use words like “faith transition” in a testimony or ever speak of things that troubled me in our faith.
What I DO include is what I can honestly testify to—and leave out that which I am unclear about. So my testimonies are more likely to convey my relationship with the Lord, some guidance I believe I have received, or a special moment where I felt God’s grace.
My own “faith transition”—I’ll use the phrase here since I am not in a testimony meeting—involves more concentration on my relationship with God and the fundamentals of love, selflessness, charity, etc, than with a particular church at the moment. But I don’t think I need to share that with everyone—and would never want to make anyone else uncomfortable with where I feel I have been led right now.
Stephen,
This is a good and thought-provoking post. Thanks for taking the time to make it. When it comes to my testimony, I try to stick with what I feel strongly about. Despite the quotes in your post, saying stuff like “the only true church” makes me nervous because it smacks more of arrogance than truth. I don’t believe that this church (or any church, really) can make the absurd claim about matching most closely the ancient church (why don’t we have female apostles since Paul mentions them, btw?) because we simply don’t know a lot of the details beyond the basics.
So I think the best way to avoid boring folks and to avoid the rote sayings that usually appear in testimonies is to just stick with expressing feelings about one’s own spiritual journey, as you note in your post. Sunday, for example, I bore my testimony about the Quran and the Puranas of Hinduism and the Buddhist Sutras and how they hold a lot of spiritual truths that have helped me navigate my spiritual life. I also bore my testimony that the Book of Mormon contains similar truths. People seemed to be fine with what I said and a few people told me they appreciated the way that I said it, so I guess I wasn’t too offensive. Also, though, I’d take issue with the last part of your question. I don’t think we should care about whether the audience thinks we have a testimony or not. If we say what’s true for us, I think the spirit can bear witness of that to the audience and if some folks don’t pick up on it, they, not the testimony bearer, need to own that.
For me thinking trumps feelings. What I think is more important than what I feel. Not that feelings are ignored. They are powerful motivators either way, for good or evil. Verbs that better describe this relationship are know and love. It is hard to do one without the other.
“I know the church is true.” I don’t know what that means. Upon closer scrutiny it means so many different things to different people because spiritual experiences are variable. The verbs know and feel seem interchangeable. It is a far-to-common, vague and confusing statement. Testimony bearing in meetings pigeon-holes them. Perhaps for many it is merely a thoughtless declaration of loyalty to the Mormon tribe chanted from a time in childhood before one is toilet-trained. (For adult converts this might be metaphorical toilet training).
For me I would prefer to change the subject from the church being “true” to the church being good. This can better be defined. At my ward I see many good things happening.
But I also see many ways that my ward is not good: the music stinks, prayers are a string of “vain repetitions”, too many speakers are ill-prepared and have little to say, the lesson manuals are boring, the youth programs disorganized ineffective and too small, and we have no time or energy left to do any authentic community service when the every-member-a-janitor program turns into a weekly guilt flog. This rant goes on and on. My testimony is: “my ward sucks.”
This is a gospel of repentance. The first step of this process on either an individual or an institutional level is to recognize the areas of weakness. This requires thinking or knowing. The second step is remorse, which requires feeling.
This isn’t happening in my ward and never will happen as long as the ram-rod orthodoxy rules and as long as they confine and thwart every effort to improve with their legalism and perfectionism. They can chant, “I know the church is true” all the way down the path to hell and destruction.
Modern science, history and digital communication (internet) is currently rooting out every strand of BS in our church history, theology and practices. Throngs of people are leaving. They are the believers and the propagators of the BS who go on the journey of discovery and separate themselves from those who for a time also are the believers and propagators of BS who somehow may or may not know the BS and may or may not feel the BS.
What will be left in the end? Those few who know and love the genuine truth. My only hope is to be among them.
Well now you tell me! 🙂
This is great, but I still like in Crucible of Doubt how the Givens encourage people to be more honest and authentic in their testimonies. To say I’m not sure about some things but this is what I do believe/hope. But there are more effective ways this can be done as you described.
Sigh. I live and learn.
If the testimonies born by a missionary can be said to be “voluntary” then those are the only times I have born my testimony “voluntarily.”
When called as a priesthood quorum/group leader it is customary, in my experience that one is asked to bear one’s testimony. So, the last time this happened, I simply said, “I believe this is the true church of Christ, but I do not believe the church is true.” Meaning: regardless of the baby really being in the bath water, there is lots of “dirty” bath water that needs to be eliminated.
I sometimes wonder, what’s the point of bearing a testimony? It’s one thing to have a testimony, it’s another thing to feel the need to share it with others. What’s achieved in doing so?
For example, I get incredibly nervous when my kids are subject to testimonies. When someone earnestly and seriously stares into my 10-year-old son’s eyes and tells him that they know the church is true, I feel like they are robbing my son of something. They are robbing him of a piece of his agency. Whether or not someone can really “know” the church is true is debatable, but what is really important to me is the coercive nature of baring this type of testimony to little children. Especially if it comes from someone they view as an authority figure. I see my son eat up these kinds of testimonies, and I just wish people would feel comfortable telling kids that it’s OK to not have a testimony yet. When I try to downplay it a little and explain that it’s OK to not be sure of things, to not 100% believe, it makes me out to be the bad guy. Or somehow less righteous than these true believers who bare powerful testimonies filled with tears in their eyes.
So for these kinds of testimonies, I think it’s primarily an indoctrination technique. And I think focused, systemic indoctrination does rob our children of some of their agency.
But maybe that’s not the kind of testimony you’re talking about in this post. You’re most likely talking about a testimony that’s geared toward a more mature, faithful crowd. Perhaps the only purpose in baring it is to better understand it yourself, without really caring what other people think.
People bear testimonies to feel and share the witness of the spirit.
I really liked the analogy that came up in a similar post at Keepapitchinin.
In short, I believe Mormon testimony should be like legal testimony. Saying “I know” is insufficient unless the witness also presents his experience/evidence. (“I know that guy robbed the bank because I was there and the robber looked just like that guy.”) Elder Busche’s biography talks about visiting a congregation in East Germany(?) where members every month “shared what Christ had done for them in their lives.” That seems so much better than what I hear in F+T meeting. And imagine the closeness that would create in a ward.
In both cases (legal and religious) unrelated stories and travelogues would be disallowed.
Here’s the link to the Keepa post I should have included in the comment above http://www.keepapitchinin.org/2015/08/13/learning-to-bear-testimony-1913/
TOC – I really do like your thoughts on testimony. After hearing person after person on the stand affirm that they KNOW a, b or c does not really bring in the spirit for me. I can program a robot to say that…
I enjoy it far more when I hear a new member get up, who has not been overly exposed to our culture, and bear a real testimony – one filled with how real experiences gave their life meaning within a gospel context.
Every ward has their fair share of testimonies that aren’t – we have a member who has included the following:
– the bom was written in base 10 (mathematical language)
– that in doing his genealogy he was stuck on who Gods second sister was
– that various names have certain meaning. Jesus = let me help you.
– that paintings in the temple “spoke” to him.
I feel anxiety when I hear this type of stuff, not love for the Lord. I have always yearned for the day when I hear by bishop read a letter from the prophet and first presidency that replaces F&T meeting with something else….
I have not publicly borne my testimony in that format for quite some time. Privately to other, very frequently, publicly, no.
If testimony is not personal, it’s not testimony. Too often we hear vain repetitions at church instead. But I like the witness analogy from a trial. Speak about what you saw and heard, but you don’t have to make closing arguments for the defense.
LDS_Aussie, Jesus/Yeshua actually does mean to rescue or deliver, so that individual isn’t too far off. 😉
I witnessed last Sunday how a kid’s 3-sentence formulaic testimony broke the tension in the room after one of the regulars’ exceeding length forced the leardership to intervene. A healthy combo of sincerity and brevity usually yields good results.
I don’t remember the last time I stood up and bore testimony in a fast and testimony meeting. I think it was just before I got married, and we had our 21st anniversary earlier this month.
I really, really don’t like the format of the meeting, and much prefer giving a talk in sacrament meeting.
So now I’m thinking does this mean I’m in trouble because my kids (nearly 18yrs and 15yrs) have never seen me get up and bear testimony during testimony meeting.
I have lived in the US and Europe for a number of years and I am convinced that Testimony meeting should be abolished.
I wonder if Joseph Smith decided to include a testimony element in our worship as a ‘normal’ practice of 19 century Protestant (Pentecostal?) form of worship. Considering that we have adapted several Protestant elements into our worship eg our Chapel arrangement with a lectern,many hymns and similar presentation formats.
Given too that a spiritually moved testimony has power, I wonder if a Sacrament Meeting is the best format (perhaps elsewhere in our services?). I must admit the testimonies I remember are the proliferation of ‘bad’ ones.I sense that this is because they have the most emotional impact. With an increase of mental illness and personality disordered people in society generally, this meeting becomes a magnet for them as they have a captive audience and even gives them more delight and focus on themselves when the leadership asks them to finish!
In our ward and elsewhere including the “Centre Stake of Zion” the political commentary, the really inappropriate jokes (including one about women’s breasts, too “liven up the meeting”, the ability to communicate with animals who ‘direct their lives.’the paint in this Chapel is the same colour as my home in the Pre existence(!!) the list could go on and on.
The trouble with this meeting is that ‘investigators’ are often exposed to the most bizarre range of topics that usually have little to do with the Gospel. As a Ward Mission leader some years ago we had a wonderful young 18 year old boy come to Church with his mother for his Baptism. He and his mother were treated with a “testimony about the Temple’ about “TG”S (the speaker’s words)and how uncomfortable they were and it got worse. His mother got up and grabbed the boy and left never to return!
The whole nature of our Sunday services needs to be reviewed but Testimony meeting needs to be the first to go.
When we bear testimony that the Church is true, we have to identify what we mean by “Church.” This link is a comprehensive study of what the Book of Mormon teaches about the identity of the Church, its head in Jesus Christ, and the ultimate goals and strivings of the Church, and what it means for the Church to be true. This approach may be hope for people wrestling with difficult questions. What are your thoughts?