Remembering The Covenant: Personal Apostasy

The following post has been a labor of love over several years. By the time I finished it was 17 pages in a Google Doc. With no real way to cut it down and an acknowledgement that no one is likely to read a 17 page blog post I'm cutting it up to publish it in several parts (7 in total) in order to make it more likely that you'll reach the end. 😉

Part 4 can be read here: Remembering the Covenant: General Apostasy

This is Part 5: Personal Apostasy.

Personal Apostasy

So far we have been considering a general state of apostasy in the United States, but the fact of the matter is that a general apostasy is impossible without individual apostasy on a grand scale. That there is a general trend in the nation of people leaving long held traditions of religious belief and faith in Jesus Christ is simply a sign that many people at a personal level are making decisions to abandon their individual faith.

While the Savior’s remarks in verse 10 are likely directed toward “the unbelieving of the Gentiles” (see verse 8), and we have already set forth a compelling case for the Lord’s removal of His truth from among them, it is also worth considering their validity among the believing part of the Gentiles too. The rate at which Church members are rejecting and removing the restored truth from among us ought to be more concerning to us than anything else – because when we give up His revealed truths it has a much greater impact on His decision to take those truths from among this people than anything the unbelievers could ever do.

If it seems unlikely to you that the Church membership is abandoning God’s revealed truth, let us consider a few things in regards to the state of Church membership in the US specifically. We see many abandoning legacies of faith founded in the principle of continuing revelation for a whole host of reasons. The seductive influence of the “new religions” is powerful and claims many who were once in the ranks of the Church, and while many – perhaps even most – members of the Church in the US continue firm in their faith in Christ and loyal to His restored doctrines, it is impossible to ignore the increasing numbers of individuals who are abandoning the truth revealed by God to the Gentiles in this land. If the increasing number of Facebook announcements from previously faithful members of the Church isn’t enough, then this trend is certainly evident from the number of general authorities of the Church – particularly the Apostles – who in the last decade alone have addressed the need to doubt our doubts before we doubt our faith (Come Join With Us – President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, October 2013) and to stick with the Church even when we don’t understand what’s going on (Stay in the Boat and Hold On! – Elder M. Russell Ballard, October 2014).

I have met a few over the years who have become disillusioned with the truths the Lord has revealed to modern day prophets and I am aware of the situation of yet others who have left as well. Their reasons for deciding to leave their faith behind vary as widely as there are people who have left, but many of those reasons can be summed up into a few fundamental concepts which include, but are not limited to: not believing in God anymore; being offended; wanting to live without the restriction of their covenants; having questions they consider to have no answers; lacking sufficient faith, patience, and/or desire to search for answers to their questions; favoring their own competing political or social ideals and agendas over church doctrine and revealed truth; and having so much education they think they know better than God and His chosen leaders. In an effort to justify their decision to leave, many who have left Church activity and/or membership subsequently spend more time looking for evidence that this church is not Christ’s church than they do looking for evidence that it is, and in many cases they do so ignoring personal sacred experiences with the Savior of mankind and His Holy Spirit in the process.

Another potential evidence that we as members of the Church are rejecting God’s revealed truth is general Church language and rhetoric. A careful study of the language used in General Conference talks today by comparison with let’s say 50 years ago may reveal that we are allowing God’s truth to slip from among us. Mormon describes it this way to his son Moroni:

Behold, I am laboring with them continually; and when I speak the word of God with sharpness they tremble and anger against me; and when I use no sharpness they harden their hearts against it; wherefore, I fear lest the Spirit of the Lord hath ceased striving with them.

Mormon 9:4

I recognize that in our age we have studied and gained a lot more knowledge than has ever been understood before about effective communication for positive, peaceful, and successful results. This knowledge necessarily adjusts the way we speak with and convey messages to one another, and perhaps this is a contributing factor to the changes in how we speak about the gospel and God’s instructions in our Church meetings. If, however, you were to compare the rhetoric used by Church leaders 50+ years ago with that used today I think you would find the message to be presented in a much softer way now than it was before – or to use Mormon’s words there used to be a lot more “sharpness.” I think this change is not just a byproduct of our improved understanding of communication or a change in the upbringing and culture of those currently in Church leadership, but also because, as in Mormon’s time, today’s generation simply would not be able to tolerate the direct and often difficult communication patterns used in the past. We are softer than past generations and we need to be spoken to softly, kindly, and lovingly in order for us to hear the messages God wants us to receive. Is this because we are letting go of – even rejecting – the truths He has already given us? Quite possibly, yes.

The last evidence I’d like to present for the loss of revealed truth among members of the Church in the US is the growth of Church membership there. This one is tougher for me to substantiate without the actual statistics as evidence, and recent changes (meaning changes made since I started writing this post) to missionary service and temple building also make it difficult to track, so take this for what it’s worth because I could be wrong, but there was a period of time when Church growth in the US (and North America and Europe in general) seemed to be declining when compared with everywhere else. Numbers of convert baptisms, retention rates, numbers of splitting of wards and stakes as well as numbers of merging units and missions when compared with other areas of the world suggested this trend. Numbers of temples being built and the numbers of missionaries being sent to different areas of the world instead of the US and western Europe contributed to this observation as well. And then there’s always the comparison between the number of people on the records of any given Church unit when compared with the number of them in actual attendance. All of this is extremely difficult for any one of us to know, and as mentioned before, with recent changes in the numbers of announced temples and the changes to missionary service age, etc. it’s impossible really to claim now that the general decline is real. However, these are still factors to consider when evaluating what’s happening in your particular neck of the woods. Are your wards and stakes growing? Are they declining? Are there as many people joining the Church as there are people who stop attending and so numbers have stagnated? What about temple recommends and temple attendance? All of these things are factors in considering whether or not the light of revealed truth is being removed from among us.

To be continued in Part 6: People of the Covenant . . .

This is the end of Part 5: Personal Apostasy.