I believe I am seeing "faith crisis" as a business term that is used by Mormons as a rite of passage. I doubted too, or I doubted for a while, but now I am even more committed or more resolved, steeled in my knowledge of the gospel.

I am very former Mormon in that everything Mormon now is suspicious and difficult to trust. I think that Mormonism is packaging a "faith crisis" as a manageable event that occurs, is managed, and then steels the Mormon conviction. If a person does not recover from their Mormon crisis, just like with Mormon prayer (Moroni 10), Mormon priesthood, and Mormon works--the failing will be upon the individual. He or she just didnt have enough faith, or didnt have enough patience to work through their "faith crisis".

My TBMs don't use the term and probably wade into doctrinal issues water up to their ankles, but what about others experience recently. Do you agree that faith crisis is being used in Mormonism openly, with an expected outcome, and a canned explanation if it doesn't go the Mormon way?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2013 07:18PM by gentlestrength.

Great insight.

I think you are right in it happening but I think it is in the first stages of evolving and is waiting for a Mormon-coined term to enter the Mormon lexicon.

Michael Ash's book "Shaken Faith Syndrome" selling now in a second edition is very indicative of this.

The Mormon "faith crisis" will probably be called "a trial of faith."

As in, "She has had her trial of faith and now has promised The Lord to diligently attend the temple weekly."

I've noticed that too. Over the past few months, whenever I start to bring up issues with the church, TBMs will instantly brush it off with "Oh, you're having a faith crisis? I had one of those too. All you have to do is read/pray/go to church/pay tithing/repent!" Like it's that easy.

I think it is more acceptable in the church to have a faith crisis, as long as you are actively trying to get out of it. For sure though, I'm seeing that term more and more.

Way back in the mid 90's I read some "anti" books, but went on a mission anyway. I struggled with my testimony and probably should have realized the church wasn't true at that point, but I kept it going. I would have left sooner, but I thought maybe I was just having a "trial of faith" and that eventually I would receive the confirmation it was true if I stayed obedient. It never came and I finally threw up my hands and gave up.

I could definitely see the church using the term "trial of faith" to stem the flow of people struggling with their testimonies.

Well, the Amish have "rumspringa"... the Mormons will now have "faith crisis".... I think it's already common enough that most people kind of brush it off if the person going through the faith crisis is young and hasnt been to the temple yet.


And then they can tell them, "Don't worry, things will make sense in the temple."


ahahahahahahahahahahaha!

I call bullshit on these people who say they have "seen it all before and know all about it" and are now more committed than ever and convinced that the church is true.

My response is to say, "Wow! That's fantastic. Since you're so familiar with the various issues and have already worked through them, let's talk about..."

Yeah, all you'll hear is crickets.

So confirmed "faith crisis" or other like phrase is becoming part of the Mormon conversation and leaders are going to program and manage this conversation.

So this is my follow-up to someone who goes there. I thought I was seeing this concept in my TBMs and not just what I wanted to confirm I was seeing what I wanted to see.

"Knowledge crisis"

"So you resolved your "faith crisis", what are you doing about your "knowledge crisis", back on the shelf?"

"No Mormon can resolve a "faith crisis" without creating a "knowledge crisis"."

This is about cognitive-dissonance, someone who claims to have passed through a "faith crisis" openly admitting they are now steeled in their faith is also admitting o a "knowledge crisis" a conscious choice to believe that faith is more valuable to them than knowledge.

I think there is value in unwinding this construction, there is no resolves "faith crisis" that shows judgement that respects knowledge, the value is places n pretending to kow something that cannot be known, faith.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2013 01:17PM by gentlestrength.

As an RM I boasted that I'd heard all the "anti". On a mission I was handed books, tapes, videos, pamphlets...I saw anti-Mormon books and pamphlets in a Christian bookstore, and I browsed a lot of it. Plus, investigators got "antied" more often than not and I had to "resolve their concerns". So I considered myself a veteran of anti all my TBM years.

But I'd only seen the tip of the iceberg.

Part of the problem was the mindset in which I interpreted the "anti"...ie it was a foregone conclusion it was "anti" at all and thus assumed to be false or distorted. I only "studied" it to the depth of the first available cop out, and then took that as the pat answer. A lot of amateur apologists are that way. They've answered an issue down to the first available "answer" there is, and said they've gotten to the bottom of it. But they haven't nearly.
Admittedly, when you study research as a skeptic instead of an apologist, you see it a lot differently. You don't accept shallow cop outs as answers anymore.

The thing that kills me is how these same people when you bring up things like Blood Atonement, the Aiken and Mountain meadows massacres or whatever else, they'll poo-poo it off saying that those were different times or that it was necessary, and then they will tell you not to judge lest you yourself be judged.

The Mormons are so afraid of speaking evil of the Lord's Anointed that they will defend any atrocity or moral shortcoming perpetuated by their leaders. That's what I find unacceptable, I mean you could see past a former leaders drastic mistake, but to have his followers defend those actions as divinely led and attack me as the sinner for doubting that prophet is pretty screwed up thinking.

This makes it more than a simple faith crisis. It becomes guilt by association if you remain with those who approve of evil actions. Standing in holy places requires one to stand away from unholy places. That isn't a crisis of faith, it is a commandment.

yeah, loved when, after coming clean with my parents about my issues, my dad says "I have heard this all before, but..." my faith is fine, etc or whatever....

Impossible to have heard it all before. Much of the data/issues were new at the time. DNA, changing of words in scriptures, etc...

I think many are taught to regurgitate what others have said. "Brother so and so heard it all before and researched, so I can just say THAT too...."

I agree: great insight. Now we will hear that are several mentions of the same thing in the BoM, and examples of early church pioneers having a crisis of faith, indicating it is, and always has been, a part of God's Plan, and that the church has ALWAYS talked about a Crisis of Faith....

For decades TSCC and its sheeple would attribute this so called "Trail of Faith" or "Faith Crisis"
as the result of the individual sinning, otherwise they wouldn't be experiencing a weakening of their testimony.
In the past, TSCC knew if they could isolate a single questioning individual
they could effectively stigmatize, shame or threaten most of them back into conformity,
or at worse excise them singly from the pack.

Fortunately, the dynamics have changed. I'm sure TSCC's has come to the realization
that it is often now couples, families or whole communities experiencing this so called "Faith Crisis" simultaneously.
There's a "strengthening of resolve" when a questioning member has one or more people to make their journey with.
Possibly, this has resulted in their new tactic, the "Faith Crisis, Rite of Passage."

I suspect TSCC looks at each individual situation and determines which tactic
would be most effective (i.e. ecclesiastical threats, shaming, loss of family & friends, bribes for GA's,
reassuring the member it's simply a "Faith Crisis", etc.)



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2013 01:39PM by heretic.

http://www.fairlds.org/fair-conferences/2013-fair-conference/2013-why-mormonism-matters-pastoral-apologetics-and-the-lds-doubter

The above link to John Delhin's FB page, "Why Mormonism Matters: Pastoral Apologetics and the LDS Doubters" by Seth Payne was "liked" on FB by one of my relatives.

Isn't another name for this "trial by fire"??!

Been out over 20 years, recently engaged with 2012 Presidential run and the misfortune of watching TBM being passed on to the next generation in my family without being able to do much. I think I can help by working on the structure of Mormonism itself though.

Maybe they've had names for it, maybe I am seeing what has been there all along.

What I am talking about has been mentioned by a few others though. It doesn't involve me, I'm long gone, but those still in Mormonism.

The Mormons seem to acknowledge (whatever the words) a faith crisis, a trial by fire (isn't this an event--death, job loss, gay child) and then quickly empathize

Oh I had one of those too--

And then dismiss, move on

They don't go tell me about what is going on, or what is it that you are dealing with?

It's salesmanship, business operation--acknowledge, relate, dismiss/reassure, move on.

The "knowledge crisis" is a term I am going to see if I can introduce into these situations, maybe better to use than cog -dis, and not complimentary to faith crisis. How can you resolve a faith crisis without creating or ignoring a knowledge crisis.

If the Mormon can't talk about a knowledge crisis, they never had a faith crisis.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2013 06:21PM by gentlestrength.

This is very much the current method of dealing with doubters. When the HT's found out I had stopped believing, the first two things out of them were "Well, are you having word-of-wisdom issues?" and "Has someone in the neighborhood offended you?" Then the next weak-sauce technique to bring me back was two or three high priests (my age group) "befriending" me and each relating their own "Crisis of Faith" story and how it made them stronger after all! They had each read "anti" material and quickly rejected it out-of-hand, knew all about this stuff and poo-pooed it. It's a technique of showing that you are not at all unique and that you should easily be able to defeat these doubts, and if you don't, you're spiritually weak.

The resolution of a crisis of faith is more often than not a compromise between truth and peace. The doubter finds himself in a place where following truth will jeopardize his primary relationships. He can't unlearn what he has learned, but he resolves to sacrifice truth to achieve peace.

It is much more acceptable to characterize his conflict as a crisis of faith which he has overcome.

And you will never hear in GC a talk about not enforcing peacekeeping by enforcing religious practices and forced belief.

Lucifer was such an amateur compared to Elohim.

I wish! Wouldn't it be great if every mormon had to do an "in defense of" project at some time? To be the person who has to defend the critic's accusations? Instead, the mormon masses just willingly latch on to those others who say they've been there and stayed loyal.

Regardless, it's fun to watch the mormons with their new spins as more and more of their beliefs/lifestyles are brought to light.

Well, I think there will "faux" faith crisis, perhaps I didn't explain that well.

Dismissive by design, like saying oh, yeah, I had one of those "faith crisis" thingies, but got over it. John Dehlin seems to speak this language in his work, he seems quite polished and talking to both sides, while embracing Mormonism.

I think the antidote is the "knowledge crisis", you got over your "faith crisis", what about your "knowledge crisis". Those that are pretending or just parroting words, won't know what this is, but those who have truly have had a crisis, I would say awakening, would know that by overcoming a faith crisis they had to accept a knowledge crisis.

My experience must have been somewhat different, it was pre-Internet, and things just didnt add up.

No grandfather God listening and talking to me.
No magical sorcery powers of priesthood.
No ability to dismiss the ridiculous god of just One True Church, an operational failure by design.
Throw in the temple cult rituals, and I knew only nut jobs would tell me performing throat slashing rituals was beautiful. (Do old Mormons long for the days when they could imitate dies bowling themselves for Jesus?, Beautiful!)

"Faith Crisis" is in other words another thought stopping technique.

Those members who haven't really had one will be encouraged to have a Faux one to reinforce the concept. It's cool and trendy to have a safe little superficial "Faith Crisis". These people can be relied upon to talk about their "Faith Crisis" and how they overcame it. It's sort of a social phenomena. A meme that spreads.

Then those members who actually have a real, and therefore dangerous encounter with facts and following period of intellectual epiphany then may be able to comfort themselves that they too are having a "Faith Crisis", but don't panic, it's happened to a lot of people. It's harmless! Faith will return and everything will be okay.



I like your idea of challenging the thought stopping concept "Faith Crisis" with the more truthful "Knowledge Crisis" and then bringing in the Shelf metaphor.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2013 05:24PM by 2+2=4.

I have yet to meet a mormon that can explain the first vision and why there are 7 of them, and Joseph didn't have anything to do with the final fairytale version they all know and love.

One of my TBMs says she's looked at them and thinks they're in harmony. I think she is being deceptive, I don't think she's looked at them. She's not scholarly, but there is no missing the differences.

The different versions of The First Vision is keystone and become knowledge crisis for someone that claims overcoming a faith crisis while knowing about the origin of the versions of The First Vision.

I think they are slightly confusing to read and it's hard to find each version in it's entirety to print out and then compare. This was the most damning bit of evidence for me, so I took the time and did just as I've described. It was time consuming. I don't think your friend did the work. I don't see how anyone could lay even the version in JS hand and the official version side by side and find "Harmony".

I think this is a very astute observation, OP! It's an attitude with a lot of victim-blaming, and I'm tired of running into it. I get a lot of: "well, I had a faith crisis, but then I got over and now I believe more than ever. You need to pray more."

Even more aggravating than the fact that praying cannot magically make something false into something true, is that no one who has said this to me has actually had an experience like what I consider my "faith crisis".

For me, it was a single moment of complete clarity, as it dawned on me that everything I'd been taught my entire life was a bunch of bunk. Less "crisis", and more "epiphany". You can't recover from an epiphany, you can only lie and delude yourself. But you will always know.

Just had a near argument about our faith crisis with parents. They were a bit shocked when I told them that we didn't feel like we were having a "faith crisis" but a "faith awakening".

Great framing the terms is one effective way of communicating and challenging the authoritative narrative provided by Mormonism to their followers. If we don't use their false labels they cannot effective force the discussion.

Faith awakening is much more different than a faith crisis or crisis of faith. It says to me, I had been deceived and am acting on information that is now more accurate and True.

Us in the outer world have a word for this....


(Drum Roll ....................)


It is called ...... DENIAL

The "Inoculating the saints" podcast from Dehlin and Mormon Stories was a Mormon apologist circle jerk. They were quite clear about following a medical epidemiological public health model with "appropriate" information. Their biggest concern was that there weren't enough qualified health workers to administer the vaccines soon enough. I.e., there were not enough sunday school and seminary teachers educated well enough on these issues to be trusted to administer the "appropriate" doses of misinformation to the youth.

I was amazed at the frank way in which they felt they were providing "better information" to combat "bad" "anti-Mormon" information. I like the "Knowledge crisis" and "faith awakening" reframings offered on this thread, because I don't see how they can tell the actual truth and not have people be disgusted. You can lie or you can offer FAIR style apologist arguments about Book of Mormon anachronisms, or the racism in the BOM, or the lack of DNA evidence for the BOM, or for the multiple versions of the First Vision, or for Joseph Smith not having sex with any of his "celestial" marriage wives. Wouldn't the LDS church just be deepening the deception for a lot of the smarter, more skeptical, more critical people who, when they do wake up, smelling a rat about a lot of these lame explanations, and doing their own research, cry foul all the more loudly because they were offered absolute rubbish as their "inoculation" by their SS and seminary teachers?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2013 08:28PM by derrida.

But only if you return to the church...that seems to be the dominant rhetoric on FMH and By Common Consent these days.

Exactly. It's a "faith crisis" if you return (and you're revered and put up on a pedestal if you do), but "apostacy" if you don't.