Message from the Directors
February 2008
Revelation: Even When It Doesn't Fully Explain, It Always Blesses
By noinneB ffeJ
We belong to a Church that was restored in response to a question. Joseph Smith went to the grove with an urgent question, and walked out with a world-changing answer. I think it is safe to say that each of us belongs to the Church, and each of us owes our testimony to important, life-changing answers. In fact, the Lord through scripture has told us that He can reason with us and explain things to us just as we do with each other:
And now come, saith the Lord, by the Spirit, unto the elders of his church, and let us reason together, that ye may understand;
Let us reason even as a man reasoneth one with another face to face. Now, when a man reasoneth he is understood of man, because he reasoneth as a man; even so will I, the Lord, reason with you that you may understand.
(D&C 50:10-12, see also Isaiah 1:18)
There is nothing wrong with having questions, especially nothing wrong with taking those questions to the Lord, and then in study and prayer, asking for further light and knowledge. But it is also true that the explanations sometimes do not follow very quickly. We are often expected to obey a revelation we know to be true, even if we cannot explain why the Lord expects us to obey. In Moses chapter 5, we are told that Adam was commanded to offer sacrifices. Since few of us have cultural/religious experience with animal sacrifice, it seems strange to us, perhaps even barbaric and bloody. I think it is possible that it struck Adam the same way it strikes us. And yet Adam obeyed. It was only “after many days” that an angel of the Lord appeared to him and offered to explain the purpose behind this commandment (Moses 5:6).
But it had never occurred to me that our Church leaders may not always know why they have received certain instructions either. It may explain why they might sometimes be perceived as clumsy or unprepared when asked to defend their positions. They may honestly not know why they are taking a particular position on a certain issue—they only know that the Lord wants the Church, as an organization, to take that position. It is also possible that the explanations sometimes given for a particular policy could be wrong even if the policy itself is not. I was recently reading some unedited transcripts from the PBS documentary “The Mormons” and came across this exchange with Dallin H. Oaks when Helen Whitney asked him about the Church's controversial position on the Equal Rights Amendment:
The Church opposed the ERA because of a prophetic judgment that this would take us in a direction we do not want to go for the law of marriage and divorce. And that could not be explained. It's terribly difficult to put reasons to revelation, and that's, I think, why the Church may not have done well in putting reasons to it. I think they didn't have reasons—they had revelation! …But I think the truth of the matter is the Church couldn't put a reason to its opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment because it was a prophetic judgment of where that amendment would lead.
Some people may have disagreements with the Church's position on homosexual behavior, or gay marriage. Some may also find (as Elder Oaks apparently did with the ERA) that the Church's explanations for their positions are awkward and lacking. There is nothing necessarily wrong with either of those feelings, but we need to see this as a challenge that we need to work on, not as an excuse for nurturing our doubts or anger. Does this mean that we are supposed to just obey every time our leaders speak? If they cannot explain them, are we supposed to follow just because they say so? No, and they have never asked us to do that. What it does mean is we must get our own revelation on the matter, and the Lord has promised us that he will do that if we ask humbly and sincerely. We may still not know why, but we can know that it is right.
There is more at stake here than the mere satisfaction of intellectual curiosity. Revealed religion does not merely seek to teach doctrine, but to actively change and improve our lives. The Lord wants to teach us, yes, but even more than that, he wants to make us better. He does not give answers just to educate us—He wants to transform us. Improvement is more important to the Lord than knowledge.
I know that there is much more light and knowledge we could all use on the difficult issue of same-sex attraction. I know many hurtful things have been said about same-sex attraction, and hurtful things have been said to those who deal with it. But I also have a testimony that our Church leaders (local and general) act with authority from the Savior, and that their positions and policies on the issue of same-sex attraction come from the Lord. It may only be "after many days" that we fully understand the why behind this or many others of the Lord's commandments. As we seek to live the Lord's will for us, I testify that something even more important than understanding will come to us—we will personally experience God's love. Our answers will come, and as we wait for them, we will be transformed into something far more joyful than our doubts and questions.