Coming to a knowledge of the truth
Being raised in an LDS culture can be very tough at times. Trying to learn and understand the difference between actual doctrine and church culture can be difficult. God has commanded us “to bring up your children in light and truth” (Doctrine & Covenants 93:40). He doesn’t tell us “to bring up your children in church culture.” A friend of mine who served as a Bishop on my mission told me the following story which illustrates a great point.
“A woman came to me worried about her husband’s faith. She mentioned he was wavering in his church attendance and that she was concerned. What should I do Bishop? My cultural side wanted to say I’ll have a talk with him and maybe we can have a special spiritual visit with the full-time missionaries to spark something and get him coming back. But I caught myself from saying that. Instead, I asked her, ‘Is he a good husband?’ ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Is he a good father?’ ‘Yes…what do you mean?’ What I mean is that church attendance is secondary to the things that actually matter. If you treat him with love and thank him for being the great husband and father that he is, not putting the focus on his lack of church attendance, everything else will fall into place in its own time.”
Of course, he wasn’t excusing the commandment to commune often, nor disregarding the eternal benefits of church attendance. He was distinguishing the difference between doctrine and expected practice for this concerned sister. If we look at the scriptures, there’s a perfect example of a prophet-father who was concerned for his son. Alma the younger was causing his father grief and pain as he went around destroying the faith of the members. His father prayed for his son and his prayer was answered when an angel appeared to his son. The angel said (Mosiah 27:14), “Behold, the Lord hath heard the prayers of his people, and also the prayers of his servant, Alma, who is thy father; for he has prayed with much faith concerning thee that thou mightest be brought to the knowledge of the truth.” Alma didn’t pray that his wayward son would attend church, he prayed that he would come to a knowledge of the truth. Attending church is merely a byproduct, of which there are many, of “coming to a knowledge of the truth.”
Of course, attending church is important for many reasons. However, the principle of agency is something Heavenly Father has always honored. He lost a third part of the hosts of heaven due to agency. He could very easily prevent things from happening and definitely has the power to change them after they do happen, but He never will. Agency is integral for us to become like He is, which is why He won’t impede. When we pray that someone will come back to church, or be baptized, or do this, or do that, we are really asking the Father to interfere with someone’s ability to choose for themselves. There are three wills at play here: our own will, the Father’s will, and the other person’s will. Whose will are we truly serving when we pray for that?
We can pray, however, as Alma did for his son–petitioning him to come to a knowledge of the truth. That “coming” to the truth may involve church attendance, it may or may not involve getting baptized in this life into His church. It may also include so many other things that we cannot foresee.
I also know Heavenly Father understands the intent of our heart when we ask him to bring someone back. He knows we are asking for a lost sheep to come back to the fold and He won’t ignore our sincere pleas. He’s a loving Father after all and cares for His children.
I think why it’s so important to pray with the principle of agency in mind is that we begin to redefine the Key Performance Indicators of a “good” member of the church. Let me explain, a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) in business is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives. If we want the company to make $1M in sales for the year, a KPI might be keeping track of the number of sales being made on a weekly basis or the number of calls made on a daily basis. It allows us to see in the short-term if the long-term is going to be achieved or not. In the church, salvation and exaltation can seem like foggy, future events. It’s hard to imagine. When we are called to help others in their path of salvation, it’s hard to understand how effective we are in that effort. So we create KPIs like church attendance, activity attendance, tithe paying, temple attendance, dress code adherence, etc. We think focusing on these metrics will yield a salvific outcome. We begin to report on these metrics in meetings. Sometimes, we may even forget that behind each number or report, is a person with a personal journey toward the truth that differs from our own.
If we pray for these “ecclesiastical KPIs”, then that reflects where our focus is. If that is where our focus is, we will begin to treat our brothers and sisters through the lens of “are they attending church, are they going to the temple, do they fit what a “good” member looks like, do they watch R-rated movies or not. Instead, we can look beyond the exterior of a person and get to know them deeply. We do that only through love. When we act out of love, we don’t have to worry about those church KPIs. The change will happen naturally within a person through their own choice. It will be longer-lasting and they will want to put themselves in an environment where other people want to change all the same–a place like the church, a place like the temple. They will want to contribute and they will naturally want to join in.
As Ezra Taft Benson put it, “The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in…The world would mold men by changing their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature…Yes, Christ changes men, and changed men can change the world.”
I believe that in the end Heavenly Father won’t be concerned with those numbers. He won’t ask us for a report with numbers. He will ask us how we kept the first and greatest commandment–to love our neighbor. If we did our best to love people as the Lord does, then everything will work out just fine for those we love deeply.
