I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but I’ve been a little MIA online lately. There was once a time in my faith journey when I immediately checked the blogs as soon as I woke up every day. I felt I needed that presence to feel grounded. Now about once a week I wander around to see if I missed anything. I’ve been wondering what the source of my lack of activity is. Do I care less about these issues? Am I just too busy? Have I just moved most of my online presence into another medium? (Twitter, um, yes) Is bloggernacle fatigue normal? Is my level of faith so low that I’m coasting and don’t care?? Is my faith journey in a place that I no longer need to rely on the bloggernacle community and engagement for a foundation? This last week I ran into a post that seemed to fit.
Boyd Peterson wrote over at Rational Faiths on Landing Instructions for those with a Faith Crisis. Everyone really, really should go read it. It’s that good. I’m an accountant and don’t have much exposure to philosophy, so I hadn’t heard of Paul Ricoeur until Boyd introduced him and his ideas in the essay. Ricoeur developed the idea of three levels of engagement with faith: pre-critical, critical, and post-critical. In the pre-critical stage most things are accepted at face value. As someone moves into the critical stage they allow themselves space to examine and critique their faith. The post-critical stage accepts the insights of critique but seeks faith through those questions. It seeks to question *and* to obey. (I don’t want to copy Boyd’s post, but he has really good example of this; so really, go read it. You’ll be glad you did.)
A person can bounce back and forth between critical and post-critical thought, but they can’t go back to pre-critical – you can’t unsee what you now see. A lot of the things I lost in the pre-critical to critical transition were accompanied by a lot of emotions. I felt sad, angry, scared, betrayed, lost, etc. I needed support and community to work through that stage. The issues are still there but I need new lens to see through, because if I stay in the critical stage I’ll find it increasingly difficult to stay. Many people leave during the critical stage and don’t find the safe “landing” in the post-critical stage. The post-critical stage knows the issues, is aware of the insights the critical questions ask, and have the ability to hold the tension of sometimes opposing views without discarding them. As Brother Peterson says, “In this post-critical world we are, as [Ricoeur] put it, “animated by [a] double motivation: willingness to suspect, willingness to listen; vow of rigor, vow of obedience.”[xiii]” Another example from Rational Faiths:
When Saul spares the livestock, the scripture reads that God regrets having made Saul king and Samuel chastises him, saying “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams” (1 Sam. 15:22). A pre-critical reading of this scripture requires us to think God condones genocide. A critical reading of the text would recognize that this text was written by a relatively primitive tribal people that attributed a call for genocide to their god. But a post-critical reading of the scripture allows us to think ethically about this scripture—to hold it in tension—recognizing that God’s words are inevitably filtered through a cultural prism. We can acknowledge that this is a misrepresentation of God’s will and think deeply about how we individually might justify acts of cruelty in God’s name. [xv]
I’m looking for a way to engage with those issues beyond a gut-level emotional reaction. I still feel like a novice compared to some (and have a lot of road behind me compared to others) and I feel I need to spend a lot more time reading Bushman and the minutes of the RS to be able to say I’m engaging with these issues at more than a superficial level. For me the move to the post-critical stage is a conscious choice; I know I’m going to stay for a variety of reasons, but staying in the critical stage won’t help me get there. I need to surround myself with post-critical thought.
Have you had a similar path in your faith journey? What resources have you found that help you most?
Wheat & Tares 
Nicely said.
Very timely, Kristine! I’m trying to move on as well. There is just too much anger in the Critical stage to stay there for very long.
What is helping me most is to delve into Mormon history and try to understand the humanity of earlier generations of Mormons. The sugar-coated view we’ve been raised on does not satisfy. Learning that past leaders are more like us, rather than less, is helping me connect the historical dots back to my own place in the plan.
You can have a perfectly safe landing in another airport or in no airport at all. You’ll be fine.
I agree that leaving is a perfectly valid choice for many people. Some need to leave just for sake of their mental health.
But if you want or need to stay for a variety of reasons, I think post-critical engagement is essential. If I stay in a place where I get triggered by small things over and over I won’t make it.
For example when I saw this month’s ensign with the lead story on it being a women’s church and saw the hatchet job of the article I had to put it down and mentally move on. I know bs like that happens but the more I engage the more I personally get riled up. There’s plenty to be outraged about. I have to back away from the outrage and engage in a deeper level. Sometimes those resources are hard to find.
So very true. Otherwise we get locked into somethings very much like an OCD loop.
I would have two criteria. Is the church moving in the right direction? I doesn’t have to be perfect now, and it can even be painful now, but if there’s overall forward progress, then stay.
Is it a matter of self preservation. No matter how difficult things are, no matter how angry or unhappy you get, if you are surviving, then give it a chance.
Leave if you see no overall progress or if it’s destroying you to stay.
I also would have two criteria:
First, was the Church founded by revelation by Jesus Christ through the Prophet Joseph Smith? If yes, then stay. No matter how difficult things are, no matter how angry or unhappy you get, if the Church was founded by revelation from Jesus Christ, then give it a chance. If there is any meaning to D&C 112:20, then give it a chance.
Second, are you willing to live your religion (or at least support those who are)?
This is the criteria I use for the Church. For other social or civic pursuits, I might tend towards Kat’s criteria. Even so, I acknowledge that some people might benefit from a temporary voluntary reduction in church activity at certain seasons during their lives.
You mention that it’s impossible to go back to pre-critical once you’ve moved to critical. I completely agree.
I would also argue that it’s impossible to leave critical behind entirely. Post-critical only works if you’re still flexing those critical muscles too.
I keenly feel the tension between the critical and post-critical in my life. I hope there’s a God with a plan for us. I want to build Zion. But I’ve learned that a lot of things the church taught me (and still teaches) aren’t true. I feel treated like an enemy by the people I want to build Zion with.
Thanks for the post. I enjoy seeing how others approach this. Neal gets further into Mormon history. I live a very orthodox Mormon life, but my saving grace has been “zooming out.” I especially like to read abut how Jewish feminists manage to stay planted in their tradition. There is nothing new under the sun. I’m finding that they’ve already thought through most of my issues.
In many ways, I navigate this pathway the same as Ruth. 1 Cor 13 were a set of landinglights that went on quite suddenly for me a year or so ago. Since then, I’ve found myself focusing more on the bigger human family and what God wants first and foremost from all of us and letting go of the pressure of Mormonism.
I still hit turbulence regularly. Usually it has to do with being forced to deal with LDS-‘group’ crap thinking on various issues and the expectations that are heaved onto me because of it.
I agree with the article. I go back and forth between Critical and Post-Critical. Frankly, I’ve been having more and more days when I just want to walk away because I’m tired of navigating it all and just want to live my life focused on God rather than all this other stuff. But leaving would ruin my marriage so I’m pretty stuck and I recognize that the turbulence does get better (and 1 Cor 13 is still there).
ReT –it helps to realize that we see through a glass darkly at best and that everything fails except for the love of Christ.
I “went critical” about 8 years ago. A key part for me of going post-critical is associating with a Methodist church. From them, I have learned that you need to do 3 things at a church: 1) worship, 2) learn, and 3) serve, especially the outside community. I’m still active in my LDS ward, but I find I can’t meet all of these needs in that setting. So I supplement in all 3 categories fairly significantly at the Methodist church. I love taking communion there and praying in worship. I attend bible study there, and I’m involved with their community service ministries. I have tried to bring these elements into my LDS ward. My ward is hungry for service opportunities and to “break out” into the community so that part is pretty easy. I have had successful LDS bible study groups in the past, so that is pretty easy too. More worship and prayer in the LDS setting, now that one is tricky. Still trying to figure that out. I enjoy challenging the LDS leadership to change in simple ways like having more service and learning opportunities. They usually respond in a positive way and I feel like I’m making a difference. To me, faith and Christianity are all about change and renewal and becoming a new person. If I don’t feel that movement in my life, then that’s a problem.
I relate to this post on a few levels. For me since the foundational beginnings of the Church turned out to be based on fraud everywhere I looked I could not put confidence in that. Second, I did what others here suggested. I looked at where the Church was heading now. I don’t like what I see. I love my new view from a different airport that has no set creed from an organized religion. Good luck on your journey Kristine!
“A critical reading of the text would recognize that this text was written by a relatively primitive tribal people that attributed a call for genocide to their god. But a post-critical reading of the scripture allows us to think ethically about this scripture—to hold it in tension—recognizing that God’s words are inevitably filtered through a cultural prism. We can acknowledge that this is a misrepresentation of God’s will and think deeply about how we individually might justify acts of cruelty in God’s name.”
The bigger question: Is God strong and powerful enough to communicate clearly when he wants to? Is impending genocide sufficient reason for God to speak a little louder? Can God work around cultural issues?
Good questions.
Though since the evidence is that no genocide occurred and that the claims are adding in the elements of a triumph narrative I really think it shows how far we go astray by reading our own culture and values into things.
I began reading the bloggernacle several years ago. I find many things profound and enlightening, but I also read many things that moved me from pre critical to the critical stage. I now feel a fair amount of cynicism in the gospel and am having difficulty moving from critical to post critical. Do you have suggestions on how to do this. I miss that simple joy and faith I once had. I know it won’t be the same but I want to feel a deep love for the gospel again.
My engagement with the bloggernacle has certainly been more sporadic this year. Partly it’s life events taking up more time – illness and deaths of both my husband’s and my fathers; both children taking important public examinations at school, and for the eldest choice of course, university, application process, interviews etc; partly it’s resuming music lessons after more than 25 years, together with the accompanying necessary practice, and voluntary involvement with music activities at school – my experiences as ward music chair person having driven me to realise that if I wanted to feel like I was doing something worthwhile in music then I would absolutely need to find it outside of the church setting; and finally an at times overwhelming sense of hopelessness after November that church things are ever likely to change for the better in my lifetime. Attending church feels like an exercise in endurance, in which I mostly sleep through the talks, serve as accompanist in primary & nursery (so there’s some music) unless we’re visiting another ward/branch for my husband’s calling.
I feel like hedgehog. Sense of dispair that things will not get better during my lifetime. I just do what I have to do at church, I get a knot in my stomach as we are driving to church and a feeling of relief when we drive out of the chapel grounds.
I think that giving fancy names like “post critical engagement” (really??) to things is *intellectualizing* as a means of *avoidance*. Your heart and mind are telling you what to do. You are deathly afraid of doing it. You intellectualize to postpone dealing with it.
I am not a mind reader, and I don’t know any of you personally, but I have done this myself (in a different scenario). My sense is that, for some, belonging to the LDS church is a bit like having a crappy job. You aren’t happy, but it’s a job, it’s familiar, and finding a new job is scarey and a hassle. So you just keep hanging in there year after year after year after year….
What usually happens in the job scenario is you are forced to change by external circumstances: you get fired or laid off, you move to another state, you retire, etc. Something forces your hand. That’s probably how you’ll wind up leaving the LDS church. Circumstances will force you to. Or, you could just rip off the band-aid and get it over with.
For a variety of reasons I’m staying and likely always will. I choose this system to be the one I negotiate and use to communicate w God and participate in sacraments.
My next step is to find ways to move out of my 5-year exhaustive, critical stage. Regardless which religion I stay in (or none) I’m a part of cultures and systems I find flawed and oppressive (justice and political system, pervasive patriarchy everywhere, etc.). How do I stay in ways that help to improve “Zion” and are healthy for myself and others?
I’m just experiencing outrage fatigue – I’m staying. So what’s next? I feel I need to move on from a lot of the cycles/triggers I’ve been through already.
Kristine — I think seeking Zion is important. The world will always be fallen and flawed. There will always be a need for charity and loving kindness.
I think it is not a coincidence that Satan’s original title is “the accuser” (which also translates well as “the critic”) and Christ’s title is both “advocate” and “comforter” — one who raises up and comforts and heals us.
I think we need to choose to be like Christ, to love and heal and comfort rather than to be like the adversary — if we want to be happy and to share love and joy.
God is the God of all religions. He is not exclusive to the LDS church. I you are miserable for years (or even decades) in the LDS church, then God is persuading you in His gentle way that it’s not the right place for you. God has lots of houses on Earth. Find one that brings happiness, peace and fulfillment instead of constant misery. That is the only way to be happy and share love and joy.
Kat, all of your comments at W&T are negative, you never have a good word to say about anything. If you are miserable for weeks (or even months) in an LDS blog then God is persuading you in His gentle way that an LDS blog is not the right place for you. God has lots of houses on the internet, find one that brings you happiness, peace and fulfillment instead of constant misery.
@klc
ad hominem much?
Never actually, but thanks for asking.
?
In KLC’s defense, simply attacking somebody’s manner of engagement is not an “ad hominem” attack.
Ad hominem attacks are when you address a person’s character for the purpose of discrediting a position that is not even being addressed. This in no way implies that telling somebody they’re acting like a jerk is a fallacy of any kind.
Grant, I do not have much room to talk since I’m as tactless in these exchanges as anybody else. It’s just that I don’t pretend that people are committing a logical fallacy when they call me out on it.
I he only 1 criteria, no matter what stage I may be in:
– Does the church help me grow?
Frustrations and disagreements are part of the journey, because sometimes I grow from the struggle, sometimes I grow without those by having confidence.
But, bottom line, it is either helping me progress as a person, or I have better things to do with my limited resources.
Re-engaging with new perspectives helps me grow. I can’t go back to pre-critical. But I can choose to stay in either of the other two phases. It’s my choice. I like the things it teaches me, even when I know the church is flawed.
Where else would I go to find a better sandbox to try to practice loving and serving others? I do not know where else.
I also stay highly critical of my own thoughts and prejudices. It’s hard to do that alone, I need others to help me, and I need others to help.
@jeff
Wrong. Maybe you should check a dictionary: ad hominem “(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.”
Was the comment in question directed against any position I’ve maintained? No. It was directed against me. Calling another person “a jerk” is ad hominem on the face of it.
“Maybe you should check a dictionary: ad hominem “(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.””
Maybe you should learn to read, since that is exactly what I just said.
An ad hominem attack is when I address X instead of Y, where X is your personal behavior and Y is the entirely separate claim that is supposed to be at issue. But there is nothing in this that says that your personal behavior (being a jerk) cannot itself be the Y that is at issue.
This is pretty basic stuff.
Here’s some literature to bring you up to speed:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_hominem#Not_ad_hom
http://lesswrong.com/lw/w7/the_complete_idiots_guide_to_ad_hominem/
I refuse to get into a silly argument about what “ad hominem” means.
Whoa, whoa, Kat, where did I call you a jerk? You regularly drop in here and slander the church and its members. In your comment above you tell us to just find another place if we are unhappy. I merely reflected that comment back at you. You certainly don’t seem happy based on your numerous cranky comments made here. Since you seem so ready to suggest that people leave the church I just made the same comment back to you. If you are so seemingly upset with the church and its members why hang out on an LDS blog? As you said, there are lots of other places, find one that makes you happier. If that is being a jerk then I would suggest you reflect back on the many comments you’ve made here at W&T and ponder whether that also describes you.
KLC,
“JerK” was the word that I used to summarize your complaint about her tone, etc. While I thought the word fit, she shouldn’t be held responsible if you don’t think it does.
“Frustrations and disagreements are part of the journey, because sometimes I grow from the struggle, sometimes I grow without those by having confidence.”
I agree whole-heartedly with this. I am a better person for my faith-crisis *because* I was forced to work through issues and come up with solutions. I am closer to God for the same reason. I have more empathy *because* I don’t want to be filled with negativity and so I search for ways to love those I disagree with. I am changed for the better because of the church, but also because of my struggle with the church.
Which doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated, have bad days, etc. But recognizing the refiners fire and its net positive effect is important too.
@klc
Not going anywhere. Continuing to call it like I see it, whether you and jeffg like it or not. Nothing either of you can do about it.
Kat, could you drop your adversarial, in-your-face, internet warrior shell for just one moment and consider that up to now, in spite of the negative tone you have approached us with, no one has asked you to leave? This is a pretty tolerant, educated and curious group of, for the most part, faithful LDS people. Which is one reason why I keep coming back.
Can you recognize that the only reason I asked you to leave was purely because you had asked all of us to leave our faith? Asking you to leave a blog apparently doesn’t sit well with you, why would you not recognize that asking people to leave their faith would similarly not sit well with us, even if no one voices it?
People are complex and the choice to follow a faith is probably one of the most complex choices some people make. Is it always rational? I would say no, it isn’t. But that doesn’t make that choice any less real or compelling or satisfying. You are not the memsahib, coming down to give the lower castes the benefit of your wisdom and knowledge. You’re just another shrill voice on the internet, and if you would tone that down a little maybe we would learn something from you, and maybe you would learn something from us.
I’m not miserable in the church. I’m frustrated. And I’m frustrated in our american culture and I’m frustrated with a lot of things. That doesn’t mean I abandon those things. In the wake of the November 5 Policy I was struggling and this line from Hamilton really helped my perspective:
Burr: The Constitution’s a mess
Hamilton: So it needs amendments
Burr: It’s full of contradictions
Hamilton: So is independence
Just because sometimes is hard and difficult and a mess and in need of improvements doesn’t mean it’s worth it. But nice try on convincing me to leave, I guess?
Personally, you leaving is that last thing I want.
Rather, I would simply like more people here to step back and realize the socio-historical origin of the moral standards from which these frustrations derive whatever strength they have. The standards do not come from the scriptures. Nor do they come from the prophets. Such things do not advocate for, let alone demand civil rights, democratic participation, rational deliberation, unconstrained and romantic authenticity, free speech, the sovereignty of “the people”, and on and on. These are all secular inventions – ideologies of very recent origin – that can be very good… so long as they do not lead us astray from the Lord and His kingdom on earth.
At the very best, our frustrations are based in person revelation that applies to us and us alone rather than the readership on some blog or the church in general.
I have learned by hard experience that mirroring in comments seems to always fail. While it seems to work well in face to face (sometimes) I’ve finally given it up when commenting. It just never seems to work.
Historically, the LDS Church seems to me to have been post critical in origin and outlook. Certainly very few of the post-critical members I know, including Kristine, would have felt out of place discussing theology and doctrine with Joseph Smith. I don’t know when the institutional church made the shift. Since I’ve always been a free thinker, I might not have noticed. Maybe I’ve just been hacking off the TBMs for the last 30 years, blithely unaware.
But honestly, it’s a symptom of Mormon literalism, that poisonous substance, that we would even ask how we reconcile support of the prophets with knowledge of their track records. For those of you who bogged down in the first half of Boyd Peterson’s essay, here’s the TL;DR:
So what about modern prophets? Do I have to believe everything they say unconditionally? I don’t think so. In fact, I think we are specifically called upon to exercise our own judgment as we listen to the spirit.
The scriptures and prophets have been consistent about that from the beginning.