Written for the Eugene England Essay Contest in January 2019 when I was a member of the LDS Church. I had a lot of other things going on at the time, like being forced to move at the last minute after my roommates went behind my back to make the landlord inform me that they wanted me to leave, so it didn't turn out great and I wasn't particularly surprised that it didn't win anything. Disappointed, yes, since three hundred dollars would have made my life a lot easier, but I digress. The topic didn't have to have anything to do with Eugene England himself but I had to start somewhere and he seemed as appropriate as anything.
How Eugene England Helped Me Transform My Testimony
By C. Randall Nicholson
After a few faith crises, I still couldn't in good conscience bring myself to reject my testimony, but I realized I couldn't keep patching it up the way it was before. Continuing to be a fundamentalist would only perpetuate future crises – not a fundamentalist in the sense of having multiple wives (for as Brigham Young would say, "I doubt whether he could get one wife"), but in the broader sense of assuming that every word from a church leader represented the mind and will of the Lord and that Obama's socialism would hasten the Second Coming. I needed a more tenable paradigm, and scoured the internet for guidance in constructing one.
Of course I continued to read the scriptures, pray, attend church and so on, but the internet gave me the "anti-Mormon" information that first shook my testimony to its core, and the internet was a marketplace of ideas for what I came to think of as a "secret club" of people who had all this information and still maintained some form of belief in the Church's truth claims. Nothing in Sunday School or General Conference had prepared me for what was, to me, thoroughly uncharted territory – and only those who had trekked through it already, who had joined the secret club, were in a position to help. Some such people undoubtedly existed within my own branch, but I had no way of telling them apart from the normal members.
John Dehlin, in his presentation on "Why People Leave the LDS Church" (as we were then allowed to call it) assured me that "Everyone is a Mormon on their own terms" – but what kind of Mormon (as I was then allowed to call myself) did I want to be? Would I be a Liahona Mormon now as opposed to an Iron Rod Mormon, according to the dichotomy set out by Richard Poll in his legendary sacrament meeting talk "What the Church Means to People Like Me"? Would I be a New Order Mormon, like the others on an eponymous discussion board I discovered and found an immediate kinship with? Would I simply be a liberal Mormon, a church member that Harold B. Lee (quoting someone else) defined as "merely one who does not have a testimony"?
I believe there is or should be a place in the Church for members of all stripes, and I will never look down on someone's personal faith journey, but I was looking for something very specific. I was looking for the paradigm that I would consider the near-flawless marriage of faith and reason, one that would maintain a belief in prophets and angels and miracles without dismissing cold hard facts of science and scholarship, and vice-versa. Several faithful scholars embodied the sort of Mormon I realized I wanted to be. Time and space considerations prevent me from covering them all in detail, so I'll focus on one: Eugene England.
I won't get a chance to thank him until the next life, but Dr. England helped me to learn at least three principles that were of equal or greater importance to answering specific issues: 1) maintaining a healthy perspective on culture and doctrine, 2) forgiving the mistakes of church leaders, and 3) recognizing the Church as the sacred and ennobling institution that God intended it to be, as much because as in spite of its imperfections.
1. Maintaining a healthy perspective on culture and doctrine.
On the surface, this seems like a Primary-level concept. The Church teaches us not to judge, but Mormons are judgmental, so that's culture instead of doctrine and shouldn't threaten anyone's testimony. Right? But it gets more complicated than that when church leaders say things that can go either way, and often the only difference appears to be time. After a few decades, we're comfortable assuming that awkward or appalling quotes were just their personal opinions, when members at the time may not have seen them that way. What statements do we hear or read now that will someday be dismissed as personal opinions?
No issue in church history has bothered me more intensely or frequently than the racism of men who were supposed to be God's servants. Sure, I wouldn't fault old white American men for being racist while most old white American men were racist. I shudder to think how recently and how casually my young friends and I tossed around slurs regarding each other's perceived sexuality or mental capacity. But the extent to which this racism influenced the Church through the decades, and refused to die out even in the twenty-first century, deeply disturbed me.
Far from turning a blind eye to lingering racial folklore within the Church, Dr. England tackled it head-on as a faithful Saint. He announced in 1998,
Of course I continued to read the scriptures, pray, attend church and so on, but the internet gave me the "anti-Mormon" information that first shook my testimony to its core, and the internet was a marketplace of ideas for what I came to think of as a "secret club" of people who had all this information and still maintained some form of belief in the Church's truth claims. Nothing in Sunday School or General Conference had prepared me for what was, to me, thoroughly uncharted territory – and only those who had trekked through it already, who had joined the secret club, were in a position to help. Some such people undoubtedly existed within my own branch, but I had no way of telling them apart from the normal members.
John Dehlin, in his presentation on "Why People Leave the LDS Church" (as we were then allowed to call it) assured me that "Everyone is a Mormon on their own terms" – but what kind of Mormon (as I was then allowed to call myself) did I want to be? Would I be a Liahona Mormon now as opposed to an Iron Rod Mormon, according to the dichotomy set out by Richard Poll in his legendary sacrament meeting talk "What the Church Means to People Like Me"? Would I be a New Order Mormon, like the others on an eponymous discussion board I discovered and found an immediate kinship with? Would I simply be a liberal Mormon, a church member that Harold B. Lee (quoting someone else) defined as "merely one who does not have a testimony"?
I believe there is or should be a place in the Church for members of all stripes, and I will never look down on someone's personal faith journey, but I was looking for something very specific. I was looking for the paradigm that I would consider the near-flawless marriage of faith and reason, one that would maintain a belief in prophets and angels and miracles without dismissing cold hard facts of science and scholarship, and vice-versa. Several faithful scholars embodied the sort of Mormon I realized I wanted to be. Time and space considerations prevent me from covering them all in detail, so I'll focus on one: Eugene England.
I won't get a chance to thank him until the next life, but Dr. England helped me to learn at least three principles that were of equal or greater importance to answering specific issues: 1) maintaining a healthy perspective on culture and doctrine, 2) forgiving the mistakes of church leaders, and 3) recognizing the Church as the sacred and ennobling institution that God intended it to be, as much because as in spite of its imperfections.
1. Maintaining a healthy perspective on culture and doctrine.
On the surface, this seems like a Primary-level concept. The Church teaches us not to judge, but Mormons are judgmental, so that's culture instead of doctrine and shouldn't threaten anyone's testimony. Right? But it gets more complicated than that when church leaders say things that can go either way, and often the only difference appears to be time. After a few decades, we're comfortable assuming that awkward or appalling quotes were just their personal opinions, when members at the time may not have seen them that way. What statements do we hear or read now that will someday be dismissed as personal opinions?
No issue in church history has bothered me more intensely or frequently than the racism of men who were supposed to be God's servants. Sure, I wouldn't fault old white American men for being racist while most old white American men were racist. I shudder to think how recently and how casually my young friends and I tossed around slurs regarding each other's perceived sexuality or mental capacity. But the extent to which this racism influenced the Church through the decades, and refused to die out even in the twenty-first century, deeply disturbed me.
Far from turning a blind eye to lingering racial folklore within the Church, Dr. England tackled it head-on as a faithful Saint. He announced in 1998,
I check occasionally in classes at BYU and find that still, twenty years after the revelation, a majority of bright, well-educated Mormon students say they believe that Blacks are descendants of Cain and Ham and thereby cursed and that skin color is an indication of righteousness in the pre-mortal life. They tell me these ideas came from their parents or Seminary and Sunday School teachers, and they have never questioned them. They seem largely untroubled by the implicit contradiction to basic gospel teachings...1
Dr. England wanted to change the culture within the Church so that it could fulfill its mandate to become a church for everyone. This race issue was one of his primary concerns. Earlier in his career he pondered helpful paradigms for coming to terms with it (e.g. as a "cross" that Mormonism had to bear), but by the end of his life, the future became his ultimate priority. He became far less interested in pointing fingers of blame than in extending hands of fellowship to those affected. He recognized that discussing past or present racism within the Church was only worthwhile insofar as it served to eliminate said racism.
In part because of Dr. England's passion for this topic (along with that of others like Darius Gray, Marvin Perkins, and Margaret Young), I too became determined to stamp out lingering ideas about the reasons for the priesthood ban. As a young college student, I had a meager sphere of influence, but I did what I could in online discussions and institute classes when I saw these things pop up. To my surprise, I never met any resistance. When I had opportunities to correct people's misconceptions, they were grateful to me for informing them. Their testimonies didn't appear shaken in the slightest. I decided to follow their lead.
Make no mistake, I'm still not completely at peace about this topic and I haven't stopped my research. I'm not for a moment saying "It's in the past, so don't worry about it." I still had to figure out how to reconcile these substantial failings with the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, I found greater fulfillment in trying to focus on helping the Church, in my own small way, live up to its ideal as a place where "all are alike unto God".
2. Forgiving the mistakes of church leaders.
Like all good little boys, I loved dinosaurs. I owned several dinosaur books and the superb BBC documentary "Walking with Dinosaurs", so I learned about evolution from an early age. It was straightforward and obvious and it never occurred to me to think it contradicted the Book of Genesis in any way. When I grew older and more enthusiastically involved in the Church, however, the writings of Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie assured me that an irreconcilable, impassable chasm of incompatibility separated the two items. Pseudoscientific arguments from other sources (e.g. law of thermodynamics) got me too, but these men provided the impetus for me to turn my back on science and sacrifice my intellectual integrity to the gospel.
One liberal Sunday School teacher caught me off guard by asking, "What's wrong with evolution?" and was unaffected by my effort to show him the error of his ways. When FAIR (as FairMormon was then called) claimed that the Church had no position on evolution, I thought it was a noble but woefully misinformed statement, blatantly contradicted by Apostles of the Lord. I experienced considerable cognitive dissonance for a couple years because I knew the overwhelming evidence for evolution hadn't magically gone away. I found out that some other Christians were allowed to believe in evolution, and I envied them.
Two semesters of entry level biology and a reading of Finding Darwin's God by Catholic biologist Kenneth R. Miller later, I was ready to come out of the closet as an evolution believer whether it was against my church's doctrine or not. Finding out that it was not, that FairMormon was correct, removed a huge weight from my soul – but it also was a leading factor in Elders Smith and McConkie becoming my least favorite Apostles of all time. It didn't help that they frequently came across as arrogant jerks in their own books (and not in the funny, charming nineteenth-century way of some earlier leaders like Parley P. Pratt or Brigham Young). And, again, they had both perpetuated the above-mentioned racial folklore in authoritative tones.
Dr. England, as it happened, lived at the right time and was prominent enough to have interaction with both of them. In 1963 he visited Elder Smith to ask whether he was required as a member in good standing to believe the teaching about black people contained in Elder Smith's and others' writings. Despite his own abhorrence of racism, Dr. England held obvious sympathy for this man whom he recognized was in the unenviable position of defending a policy he had nothing to do with, which he could only assume was divinely sanctioned, against increasing public outrage.
Elder Smith originally said that yes, this belief was a requirement. Yet after re-reading the relevant scriptural passages, Dr. England reported that he
In part because of Dr. England's passion for this topic (along with that of others like Darius Gray, Marvin Perkins, and Margaret Young), I too became determined to stamp out lingering ideas about the reasons for the priesthood ban. As a young college student, I had a meager sphere of influence, but I did what I could in online discussions and institute classes when I saw these things pop up. To my surprise, I never met any resistance. When I had opportunities to correct people's misconceptions, they were grateful to me for informing them. Their testimonies didn't appear shaken in the slightest. I decided to follow their lead.
Make no mistake, I'm still not completely at peace about this topic and I haven't stopped my research. I'm not for a moment saying "It's in the past, so don't worry about it." I still had to figure out how to reconcile these substantial failings with the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, I found greater fulfillment in trying to focus on helping the Church, in my own small way, live up to its ideal as a place where "all are alike unto God".
2. Forgiving the mistakes of church leaders.
Like all good little boys, I loved dinosaurs. I owned several dinosaur books and the superb BBC documentary "Walking with Dinosaurs", so I learned about evolution from an early age. It was straightforward and obvious and it never occurred to me to think it contradicted the Book of Genesis in any way. When I grew older and more enthusiastically involved in the Church, however, the writings of Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie assured me that an irreconcilable, impassable chasm of incompatibility separated the two items. Pseudoscientific arguments from other sources (e.g. law of thermodynamics) got me too, but these men provided the impetus for me to turn my back on science and sacrifice my intellectual integrity to the gospel.
One liberal Sunday School teacher caught me off guard by asking, "What's wrong with evolution?" and was unaffected by my effort to show him the error of his ways. When FAIR (as FairMormon was then called) claimed that the Church had no position on evolution, I thought it was a noble but woefully misinformed statement, blatantly contradicted by Apostles of the Lord. I experienced considerable cognitive dissonance for a couple years because I knew the overwhelming evidence for evolution hadn't magically gone away. I found out that some other Christians were allowed to believe in evolution, and I envied them.
Two semesters of entry level biology and a reading of Finding Darwin's God by Catholic biologist Kenneth R. Miller later, I was ready to come out of the closet as an evolution believer whether it was against my church's doctrine or not. Finding out that it was not, that FairMormon was correct, removed a huge weight from my soul – but it also was a leading factor in Elders Smith and McConkie becoming my least favorite Apostles of all time. It didn't help that they frequently came across as arrogant jerks in their own books (and not in the funny, charming nineteenth-century way of some earlier leaders like Parley P. Pratt or Brigham Young). And, again, they had both perpetuated the above-mentioned racial folklore in authoritative tones.
Dr. England, as it happened, lived at the right time and was prominent enough to have interaction with both of them. In 1963 he visited Elder Smith to ask whether he was required as a member in good standing to believe the teaching about black people contained in Elder Smith's and others' writings. Despite his own abhorrence of racism, Dr. England held obvious sympathy for this man whom he recognized was in the unenviable position of defending a policy he had nothing to do with, which he could only assume was divinely sanctioned, against increasing public outrage.
Elder Smith originally said that yes, this belief was a requirement. Yet after re-reading the relevant scriptural passages, Dr. England reported that he
then, after some reflection, said something to me that fully revealed the formidable integrity which characterized his whole life: “No, you do not have to believe that Negroes are denied the priesthood because of the pre-existence. I have always assumed that because it was what I was taught, and it made sense, but you don't have to believe it to be in good standing, because it is not definitely stated in the scriptures. And I have received no revelation on the matter.”2
The more famous interaction with Elder McConkie didn't quite go so well. After some doctrinal disagreements with Elder McConkie's son, a fellow religion professor, Dr. England wrote to the Apostle seeking constructive feedback on his manuscript about the nature of God. Elder McConkie's response lives on in infamy to this day. He lambasted the manuscript, bluntly called Dr. England to repentance for his "heretical" ideas. His ten-page letter can perhaps best be summarized by its most infamous statement: "It is my province to teach to the Church what the doctrine is. It is your province to echo what I say or to remain silent." To make matters worse, copies of the letter somehow went into public circulation before Dr. England ever got it.
It seems obvious to me that Dr. England had acted in good faith and would have been fully justified in protesting against this unwarranted treatment. If I had been him, it's unlikely that I would have remained a member of the Church. As I would have been, he was very hurt and confused and probably humiliated – yet he responded with what seems to me a superhuman level of humility and deference. He wrote in one letter, "It is still not entirely clear what lessons I have learned, but I am sincerely trying. May the Lord continue to bless you in your powerful work as a special witness of Christ."
It seems obvious to me that Dr. England had acted in good faith and would have been fully justified in protesting against this unwarranted treatment. If I had been him, it's unlikely that I would have remained a member of the Church. As I would have been, he was very hurt and confused and probably humiliated – yet he responded with what seems to me a superhuman level of humility and deference. He wrote in one letter, "It is still not entirely clear what lessons I have learned, but I am sincerely trying. May the Lord continue to bless you in your powerful work as a special witness of Christ."
When questioned by his family, colleagues, and students about his thoughts and feelings surrounding Elder McConkie, England was consistently and remarkably sympathetic and respectful of the apostle. His children have no recollections of their father expressing bitterness toward Elder McConkie, or any other apostle. Immediately following the broadcast of the April 1985 General Conference in which Elder McConkie gave what turned out to be his final talk before his death thirteen days later, England commented on how moving he found Elder McConkie’s personal testimony of the Savior.3
After Elder McConkie's death, Dr. England expressed his ideas on the nature of God with little further resistance. He came to wonder if he had been too deferential, forgetting that this one Apostle didn't represent the entire Quorum of the Twelve or First Presidency. But as far as flaws go, not being assertive enough is a pretty sympathetic one to have, and the way he comported himself under this incredible pressure makes a lasting positive impression long after his own death. His gracious treatment of both these men helped me to gain an appreciation for them and forgive them for misleading me about science and doctrine.
3. Recognizing the Church as the sacred and ennobling institution that God intended it to be, as much because as in spite of its imperfections.
One of the most impactful General Conference talks for me was Donald L. Hallstrom's “Converted to His Gospel Through His Church” in April 2012, which outlined a distinction between the two terms that I had never given the slightest thought. I never used them interchangeably again, and if every necessary chance in my life were that easy I could become perfect over the weekend. Most of us could, and then we wouldn't need to have this discussion.
Some members like to say "The Church is perfect, but the people aren't." This is as much a logical impossibility and falsehood as "The body is perfect, but the cells aren't." This misconception sooner or later sets members up, as it did me, to either lie to themselves or risk losing their testimonies. But there's also a pernicious temptation to magnify the Church's imperfections to the point that it looks essentially useless, light-years removed from the kingdom of God on Earth that we think we deserve, a necessary evil we grudgingly tolerate to get our ordinances of salvation and exaltation.
At one point, I was deeply disturbed by what I saw as a glaring discrepancy between what the Church claimed to be and what it actually delivered. To me it looked less competent than many secular institutions, let alone what I would expect from one led by revelation. I was okay with people making mistakes – but why did there seem to be so many, and of such magnitude? Of course I knew it did a lot of good in the world and that the prophets and apostles were good, sincere men, but those things didn't matter as much to me anymore.
Elders Smith and McConkie were hardly the only leaders past or present, global or local who said things that rubbed me the wrong way. Members in my wards, institute classes, the internet, and beyond have also been tactless, thoughtless, and/or tasteless. As much as we may resent the idea that anyone leaves the Church because they were "offended", there's no shame in not wanting to stay with people who make you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. I'm not ashamed to admit that when a Facebook group admin banned me on false pretenses and blocked me for complaining, or when a pair of security guards at Temple Square were unnecessarily belligerent as they kicked me out for breaking a rule I didn't know, it made me want to stop going to church.
I am, by nature, a cynical, pessimistic, easily offended and judgmental person who doesn't let things go easily. My experiences with members of the Church have been overwhelmingly positive, but the negative ones stick longer and deeper. And maybe that's why I need the Church even more than some. Dr. England, who forgave an offense larger than all I've experienced from members combined, regarded it as a "school of love" much like Martin Luther regarded marriage – and unlike the latter, it's a school I can attend whenever I choose. He explained:
3. Recognizing the Church as the sacred and ennobling institution that God intended it to be, as much because as in spite of its imperfections.
One of the most impactful General Conference talks for me was Donald L. Hallstrom's “Converted to His Gospel Through His Church” in April 2012, which outlined a distinction between the two terms that I had never given the slightest thought. I never used them interchangeably again, and if every necessary chance in my life were that easy I could become perfect over the weekend. Most of us could, and then we wouldn't need to have this discussion.
Some members like to say "The Church is perfect, but the people aren't." This is as much a logical impossibility and falsehood as "The body is perfect, but the cells aren't." This misconception sooner or later sets members up, as it did me, to either lie to themselves or risk losing their testimonies. But there's also a pernicious temptation to magnify the Church's imperfections to the point that it looks essentially useless, light-years removed from the kingdom of God on Earth that we think we deserve, a necessary evil we grudgingly tolerate to get our ordinances of salvation and exaltation.
At one point, I was deeply disturbed by what I saw as a glaring discrepancy between what the Church claimed to be and what it actually delivered. To me it looked less competent than many secular institutions, let alone what I would expect from one led by revelation. I was okay with people making mistakes – but why did there seem to be so many, and of such magnitude? Of course I knew it did a lot of good in the world and that the prophets and apostles were good, sincere men, but those things didn't matter as much to me anymore.
Elders Smith and McConkie were hardly the only leaders past or present, global or local who said things that rubbed me the wrong way. Members in my wards, institute classes, the internet, and beyond have also been tactless, thoughtless, and/or tasteless. As much as we may resent the idea that anyone leaves the Church because they were "offended", there's no shame in not wanting to stay with people who make you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. I'm not ashamed to admit that when a Facebook group admin banned me on false pretenses and blocked me for complaining, or when a pair of security guards at Temple Square were unnecessarily belligerent as they kicked me out for breaking a rule I didn't know, it made me want to stop going to church.
I am, by nature, a cynical, pessimistic, easily offended and judgmental person who doesn't let things go easily. My experiences with members of the Church have been overwhelmingly positive, but the negative ones stick longer and deeper. And maybe that's why I need the Church even more than some. Dr. England, who forgave an offense larger than all I've experienced from members combined, regarded it as a "school of love" much like Martin Luther regarded marriage – and unlike the latter, it's a school I can attend whenever I choose. He explained:
There is constant encouragement, even pressure, to be “active”: to have a “calling” and thus to have to grapple with relationships and management, with other peoples ideas and wishes, their feelings and failures; to attend classes and meetings and to have to listen to other people’s sometimes misinformed or prejudiced notions and to have to make some constructive response; to have leaders and occasionally to be hurt by their weakness and blindness, even unrighteous dominion; and then to be made a leader and find that you, too, with all the best intentions, can be weak and blind and unrighteous. Church involvement teaches us compassion and patience as well as courage and discipline. It makes us responsible for the personal and marital, physical, and spiritual welfare of people we may not already love (or may even heartily dislike), and thus we learn to love them. It stretches and challenges us, though disappointed and exasperated, in ways we would not otherwise choose to be – and thus gives us a chance to be made better than we might choose to be, but ultimately need and want to be.4
While the importance of a personal connection to God cannot be overstated, an organized religion accomplishes things by putting us together that we couldn't dream of on our own. Dr. England pointed out some of those things, and in doing so pointed out the brilliance of a God who makes human weakness a crucial asset to his plan rather than a tolerable defect. Thinking of it this way helps me to smile and feel love in my heart when a brother or sister in Christ says something stupid about black people or evolution.
Conclusion
What I went through to transform my testimony instead of throwing it away could aptly be described as "mental gymnastics". That's a derogatory term, but it isn't wrong and since I can't do real gymnastics with these tight hamstrings I have to take what I can get. I went to all this trouble because of the goodness and truth I saw in the Church even in my darkest times and the spiritual experiences I couldn't deny. I chose to resolve my cognitive dissonance on the side of faith, now more or less happily married to reason. Belief is always a choice, but it should be an informed one.
Eugene England's call for humility, deference, and charity while still tackling historical, cultural, and/or theological problems head-on modeled very well the kind of Mormon (now Latter-day Saint) that I decided to be. Of course I'm far from measuring up to him morally or intellectually, but I'm a better Christian and a better thinker in part because of his posthumous influence. On top of that, he showed me that the labels we choose to define our church affiliation and demarcate our testimonies from others are far less important than I thought. We're all in this together whether we like it or not and have a sacred duty to make the most of that.
I'm sure I would have enjoyed the chance to correspond with him in life, and that he would have made the time for my annoying and vapid . As it happens, he did write a “Letter to a College Student” that, notwithstanding some differences in detail from my own life, seems in places to be speaking directly to me.
Conclusion
What I went through to transform my testimony instead of throwing it away could aptly be described as "mental gymnastics". That's a derogatory term, but it isn't wrong and since I can't do real gymnastics with these tight hamstrings I have to take what I can get. I went to all this trouble because of the goodness and truth I saw in the Church even in my darkest times and the spiritual experiences I couldn't deny. I chose to resolve my cognitive dissonance on the side of faith, now more or less happily married to reason. Belief is always a choice, but it should be an informed one.
Eugene England's call for humility, deference, and charity while still tackling historical, cultural, and/or theological problems head-on modeled very well the kind of Mormon (now Latter-day Saint) that I decided to be. Of course I'm far from measuring up to him morally or intellectually, but I'm a better Christian and a better thinker in part because of his posthumous influence. On top of that, he showed me that the labels we choose to define our church affiliation and demarcate our testimonies from others are far less important than I thought. We're all in this together whether we like it or not and have a sacred duty to make the most of that.
I'm sure I would have enjoyed the chance to correspond with him in life, and that he would have made the time for my annoying and vapid . As it happens, he did write a “Letter to a College Student” that, notwithstanding some differences in detail from my own life, seems in places to be speaking directly to me.
The special problem in the Church is that our high level of general satisfaction with the Gospel life style and our genuine spiritual experiences and resulting strong commitments tend to make us willing to let sincerity be enough, without requiring of ourselves what missionaries are always requiring of other people whose beliefs they are challenging – that one must be (as completely as possible) right as well as sincere. If we take the whole Gospel seriously it challenges us to be thoughtful, to test, to be sensitive, to be balanced in our use of faith and reason, of experiential evidence and the witness of the Spirit....
I love the Church with all my heart and mind, but it’s a love that has to be developed, renewed – one which I know can lapse, can ebb and flow. I hope you’ll give the Church a chance – again and again. It needs you – and you need it, because it is the means that the Lord has given us to struggle with the great moral and spiritual imperatives from God for attaining the possible Godhood within us. I think the Church is by far the best place to do that and the only place we really can, partly because of the very challenges that human association in the Church context provides and which have been so upsetting to you.5
Bibliography
1. England, Eugene. “Becoming a World Religion: Blacks, the Poor – All of Us”. http://eugeneengland.org/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/1998_e_001.pdf
2. England, Eugene. Dialogues With Myself, Orion Books 1984, p. 132. http://signaturebookslibrary.org/dialogues-with-myself-12/
3. England, Rebecca. “A Professor and Apostle Correspond: Eugene England and Bruce R. McConkie on the Nature of God". http://www.eugeneengland.org/a-professor-and-apostle-correspond-eugene-england-and-bruce-r-mcconkie-on-the-nature-of-god
4. England, Eugene. “Why the Church is as True as the Gospel”. http://www.eugeneengland.org/why-the-church-is-as-true-as-the-gospel
5. England, Eugene. “Letter to a College Student”. http://www.eugeneengland.org/letter-to-a-college-student
Read more of my essays here.
2. England, Eugene. Dialogues With Myself, Orion Books 1984, p. 132. http://signaturebookslibrary.org/dialogues-with-myself-12/
3. England, Rebecca. “A Professor and Apostle Correspond: Eugene England and Bruce R. McConkie on the Nature of God". http://www.eugeneengland.org/a-professor-and-apostle-correspond-eugene-england-and-bruce-r-mcconkie-on-the-nature-of-god
4. England, Eugene. “Why the Church is as True as the Gospel”. http://www.eugeneengland.org/why-the-church-is-as-true-as-the-gospel
5. England, Eugene. “Letter to a College Student”. http://www.eugeneengland.org/letter-to-a-college-student
Read more of my essays here.