Thoughts on Being "In Far Enough"

At a recent stake conference, one of the speakers told a story about a young child who fell out of bed. When asked what happened, he replied "I fell out because I wasn't in far enough." The speaker drew a parallel to those who leave the church, saying that most of the people he knows who have left, have done so because they weren't "in far enough." 

The question that bears asking, though, is why weren't they in far enough? Did they have time to discover the most enriching and sustaining doctrines of Christ? Did they have help with that? Did they feel welcome? Did they struggle to let go of ungodly influences? Did they encounter some in the church that pushed them out? Were they ever serious about being "in" in the first place?

I'm in the process of building a loft bed for my kids. It's mostly finished, but still lacks a railing and a few finishing touches. Fortunately, the loft is large enough and the kids are small enough that they can still sleep on it safely as long as they stay away from the edge. However, as kids do, they have a tendency to bring a lot of stuff up onto the bed, packing it into the back corners, and reducing the overall size of the usable area. They clutter up their safe sleeping space so the only places left to sleep are near the edges. Unless I go up there regularly and make sure their beds are in good order, they quickly become dangerous. I would love for my kids to be the ones who do this but, well, they're kids. They need help with that kind of thing. 

Of course, I also still need to finish the railing. 

The bed in question at one stage of its construction.

On top of that, there was a point in the bed's construction at which some of the surfaces of the bed were uncomfortable because of exposed rough wood that was prone to inflicting splinters or scrapes. The kids were never expected to sleep or play directly on those surfaces, but they like to try everything. Because they're kids. It also gets hot up there unless we make sure the air is circulating well. 

Now, before you all report me for endangering my children, you should know that none of these dangerous phases lasts long, but building something like this is a process, and I'm exaggerating the hazards a bit for the sake of the metaphor. I don't let them up there if I think there's any chance they'll fall off, and I make sure it's as safe as possible every time.  

My point is that the responsibility for being in far enough is a shared one. If people want a safe spiritual home, they must be willing to order their lives in a way that makes that possible, not bringing in a bunch of stuff from the larger world and cluttering up their spiritual spaces so they can't access the deeper safety and richness available there. I think this is mostly what the speaker who gave this talk was focused on: the choices we make to be "in." That's not a choice anyone else can make for us.

But like my kids, many of us need help learning how to do this, and it should be given patiently, consistently, and without complaint. And we should be aware of the rough edges others may encounter in our spiritual spaces—the places where we have yet to build sufficient spiritual guard rails—and we should work to improve those places. If the church is unwelcoming, or doesn't offer needed support, or worst of all, is hypocritical about its teachings, it's harder to commit to, whatever the virtues of its other offerings may be. 

Consider this example from an article I recently read about a former Southern Baptist leader who found himself an outsider after criticizing that church's growing tolerance for white nationalism and sexual abuse, as well as publicly criticizing Donald Trump. He's recently said he thinks Christianity is in crisis. Here are his words about why:

It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — "turn the other cheek" — [and] to have someone come up after to say, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?" And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, "I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ," the response would not be, "I apologize." The response would be, "Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak." And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.

It's not universal or exclusive, but many of the young people I know who have abandoned organized Christianity in general or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in particular, have done so because they have seen this kind of thing happening. The teachings of Christ are powerful and appealing to them, but people they know in the church believe and promote things that seem to run directly contrary to those teachings. This is confusing. They think they have misinterpreted Christ, or that others have. Either way, they can't get the spiritual nourishment they need. They struggle with the constant pressure to agree with and support opinions or teachings that feel wrong to them. So of course they leave, unfortunately often abandoning the gospel along with the church members who may have represented it poorly. And when that happens, often our only response is to criticize them for not being "in far enough." 

Another example is this: we are in a time of political and social upheaval, but are largely discouraged from talking about these things in any detail at church, unless it's to shake our heads at the general wickedness of the world, and then always with vague enough statements that no one will think we're disagreeing with their personal views on how exactly the world is so wicked. But we need spiritual guidance on these very issues. And while do we do get some of that guidance, we don't get to talk about it very much. 

Years ago when I taught elders quorum, I brought up President Nelson's statement that we should be proactive in eliminating racism and other such biases from our congregations. I asked how we could do that, and we had a discussion. Not long after that, the elders quorum president said people were complaining that my lessons were too political and that I should keep it to issues that are relevant to our congregation. He specifically brought up the racism topic (a topic I know was appreciated by some of the more racially diverse members of the ward, because they said so). I was literally "corrected" by my quorum president for facilitating a conversation about how we could apply a direct instruction given by the prophet in general conference the previous week. One that I had felt spiritually prompted to bring up. 

Contrast this approach to that seen in New Testament books, where Paul and others repeatedly bring up the specific challenges faced by believers in localized areas and offer counsel and clarity: this is wrong, this is right. This is of God, this is of the devil. This was a necessary guard rail to make sure the early believers were not deceived, and did not fall off the spiritual bed. My quorum president also wanted that approach, but he thought the issue I chose was irrelevant, despite a direct instruction from the prophet to be proactive about it. It may have been controversial, but isn't the controversy a good reason why we should bring it up? Because we need guidance to figure it out? Isn't that why the prophet spoke about it with such directness?

This is the part of the metaphor I might call keeping the air in circulation. If we can't talk about these things safely in our congregations, where can we do it? We always talk about how we want our members to stop going to worldly or antagonistic sources of information to learn about our beliefs, but do we consider that one reason they feel compelled to do so is because we are reluctant to have hard discussions about it ourselves? 

Another recent article I read (about the declining importance of religion in Americans' lives) indicated that "Black Protestants are the only Christian group in which a majority — 63% — believes that congregations should get involved in social issues even if doing so means having difficult conversations." This seems lamentable to me. Because of the historical link between Black congregations and the civil rights movement, the article says, those conversations may be more familiar to this group. But they should be available to all of us.

Personally, I think there are a number of social and political issues that lose some of their relevance when a person becomes a committed disciple of Christ, but there are others that gain importance. Questions about family life, about aggression, about how to serve the least among us, about inequality, about our stewardship of the earth: these are all of central importance to people trying to build up the kingdom of God. Not every issue needs to be framed in terms of official church doctrine, but our faith should be present and relevant in all aspects of our lives. This is especially true on a local scale. If for no other reason, these issues are important because they impact the lives of our members, including those who are trying to get further into the church, perhaps to a place where some of those things no longer seem like they have to be the major focus. They're trying to figure out how to be in fellowship with us without abandoning the teachings of Christ that they feel so deeply in their bones. Or maybe they're trying to figure out if the teachings of Christ still apply to modern life, like the people in the Southern Baptist example. We should help them with that. 

If the teachings of Christ don't help us know how to live, then what are they for?

I am in no way saying that church meetings should be political fights, or that our church leaders should endorse specific candidates or tell members how to vote. I'm also not saying every lesson should be focused on this kind of issue. But the freedom to discuss these things in a loving environment in which it's okay to disagree and we all understand that we're working through the issues together with the goal of understanding how our faith can and should inform our lives is a priceless guard rail to those trying to get further in. If we keep treating those who seriously mention ideas we're uncomfortable with as though they're "going off the deep end" or succumbing to the world, how can we ever hope to keep our converts, or even our children as they grow up and inevitably encounter these things in their lives? If we ourselves haven't wrestled with these issues and come to a thoughtful, charitable, faith-based conclusion, how can we expect anything but dismissal from others who are in that process?

I'm not trying to criticize the stake leader who gave this talk. It's true that we have to make spiritual choices that no one else can make for us. But when I hear talks that criticize the spiritual choices of others, I try to ask myself what I can learn from it personally. If I'm already committed to staying in the church, then the relevance of this talk for me is about how I can help others make that same commitment. After all, Lehi says we can't choose unless we're enticed by one side or the other, and sometimes it seems like the other side is the only one doing any enticing. 

No one can, or should try to, force conversion on someone else or in any way coerce a person into spiritual growth, or a specific belief. God himself doesn't save people by force, but "by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile" (D&C 121:41-42). Anything else is unrighteous dominion. 

But isn't that exactly what we engage in when we casually expect our members to be fully committed to their faith, and when they struggle with that, refuse to consider that we may bear some responsibility for why they fell off the bed?