The Testimony Head-Butt

A few hours ago I had a conversation with a relative that I wish I could have avoided. It does not really matter that I had it with her specifically; this is not an attack on her. I’ve had the same conversation with other Latter-day Saints dozens and dozens of times before.
We were each talking about what’s going on in our lives, and I brought up my newfound quest to learn more about who I am as an evangelical. She said I should just go LDS. I wasn’t really sure whether to take that as a joke or not; joking about it comes off as sort of crass to me, so I said that I could honestly never see myself becoming LDS. She replied that this is because I have not studied it out and prayed about it sincerely enough. She followed up with her testimony that Jesus Christ himself has told her the church was true, and if I had really asked Him about it with a sincere heart and an open mind, He would have told me the same.
Sigh.
At that point there were four things I could do:
1) Get offended at being called insincere and dismiss myself from the conversation in a huff.
2) Lay down my own personal testimony of how God has shown me that what I believe is true, thus implementing the dread testimony deadlock. “God told me my church is true!” “No, God told me my church is true!”
3) Explain how God has shown me that the LDS Church is not true, a more hostile version of option #2.
4) Launch into an explanation of the historical and theological problems I see in Mormonism using my usually superior knowledge of LDS history to cudgel them into a corner where they cannot explain my issue and have to fall back to, “I don’t have an answer for you, but I know the church is true.”
Today it was option #4, the topic of choice being Joseph Smith’s questionable marriage practices. But I’ve been down all four roads before. They all feel equally unsatisfying, and in ten years of studying Mormonism, I still don’t know how to come away from these conversations feeling positive.
In a perfect world, these conversations would not happen. In a perfect world, all of my LDS friends would understand that I have been as sincere as I know how to be, so if the LDS Church is true, either God has a reason for wanting me where I am or He knows I’m not ready to hear about it.
This isn’t a perfect world though, and I understand that conversion zeal gets the better of people. I understand that the insincerity charge is one of the only things believing Latter-day Saints have to fall back on when confronted with someone like me who has already extensively studied the church’s beliefs and still rejects them.
I just don’t know how to come away from conversations like this feeling like the time spent talking has been fruitful.
Comment if you wish, but please know that family is sacred to me and the only person who is allowed to insult my relatives is me.

Comments

The Testimony Head-Butt — 15 Comments

  1. Sounds like quite a dilemma. I agree these conversations can be messy. I’m curious if you have had these conversations with your husband and if so what does he think of Joseph Smith’s questionable marriage practices?
  2. I don’t know how to make conversations like this fruitful and uplifting, but if you want to avoid the conversation altogether, I think you’ve got a winner with:
    “I have sincerely prayed and sought for answers and believe that if the LDS church is true, either God has a reason for wanting me where I am or He knows I’m not ready to hear about it.”
  3. I really appreciate your desire to find better solutions in relating to your Latter-day Saint relatives and friends, to find methods of discussion where you feel the time was well spent. I definitely feel the same way about my conversations with others. I’m only responding based on the information you’ve provided in this post and I fully acknowledge I don’t know you or your relative, so I’m I’m totally off-base feel free to ignore my comment. Here is another option I can think of.
    5) Show how switching denominations alone would not stop my quest. “Oh, believe me, even if I were LDS I would be on a quest to learn more about who I am as an Latter-day Saint. Are you suggesting that you’ve never met a Latter-day Saint who isn’t trying to better understand God’s will for them, or their specific personal mission or purpose? Think about all the LDS you’ve ever known, have you met a Latter-day Saint who ponders on these issues?” I imagine many Latter-day Saints would say sure they do know such people. I would perhaps suggest that Latter-day Saints are also seeking to better understand who they are as well.
    If she says that every Latter-day Saint knows exactly who they are, it’s still possible you aren’t speaking from the same reference point. She may be speaking from within the paradigm that the Gospel teaches us who we are and answers one of life’s fundamental questions. It’s possible your language of “who I am” in a way triggered this line of thinking. If so, I might move from a general answer that we are God’s children, to that more specific and intimate answer of seeking to learn my specific mission or calling or purpose or identity, etc. in life. I think this method might encourage more discussion about what it means to seek sacred identities rather than degenerate into a war of testimonies. Or, it’s possible the line of discussion could take on yet several more permutations but at any rate, it could be at least another option.
  4. I’m gonna respond to these more in-depth tomorrow, but I wanted to answer Wes really quick: No, my husband and I have never had one of these conversations. I think I would throw something at his head if he accused me of being insincere. He has no answer for Joseph Smith’s questionable marriage practices, he’ll honestly admit that he does not know what to say in response to it but he still thinks the church is true. My husband does not have an LDS apologetics bone in his body, which is a good thing. I can handle being married to a Mormon; I don’t think I could handle being married to a Mormon apologist.
  5. Andrea, that’s a really good suggestion. I feel stupid for not thinking of it as I was writing this post. Maybe I’ll have to try that sometime.
    Aquinas, I like your suggestion but I’m not sure it could have helped me a few days ago when this happened. I had mentioned to my relative that I was feeling dissatisfied that I knew so much about Mormonism but not nearly as much about my own faith, and the point she tried to make was that that’s the way it’s supposed to be and I’m missing the boat on becoming Mormon. I’m sure everyone is usually trying to understand themselves better, but if I were LDS I doubt I’d be putting a lot of personal effort into trying to understand myself better. Does that make sense? I sure do appreciate that you took the time to come by and give me advice though, so thank you.
  7. This hasn’t been very successful for me (yet), but I tend to subtle rebuke through humorous means, like, “Well, sincerity isn’t one of my strong points.”
    But, for what it’s worth, I definitely understand your pain. Someone in dh’s family told me (in all seriousness) that Satan must be answering my prayers if the answer was to not be LDS. How do I respond to that? Yep, Satan is my homeboy?
    … do they make a shirt that says that?
  10. I bet my in-laws wouldn’t be amused. Unfortunately. My family either, really. They’d be like, uh, did you join ANOTHER unusual religious group? Really?
  12. I sure was. I’m coming up on my 9 year anniversary date of getting baptized.
    My story is awesome; maybe when I finish my workpapers (instead of trolling blogs) I’ll blog about it. Otherwise, I’ll gmail stalk you and make you chat me. :)
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