Over the next little while, we here at LDSLF will be proud to present “What Next,” a series of posts in which Mormons who have experienced a crisis of faith discuss their spiritual lives and aspirations in the aftermath of that crisis. The participants in our series range from individuals who have left the LDS church and found peace and spiritual satisfaction in another religious tradition, through to people who have resolved their crisis of faith in such a way that they were able to become/remain relatively orthodox Mormons. (Exactly how orthodox depends on whether our stragglers get their essays to me in the next week or two — friends, you know who you are!)

In introducing this series, I want to thank each of our authors for their courage in sharing intimate aspects of their emotional and spiritual lives with us. While Serenity and I do not necessarily agree with the opinions of any particular author, we certainly do endorse them all as individuals whose experiences and perspectives deserve careful consideration. Hence, by way of ground rules, I would ask that all commenters show respect for the people involved in our series. Please feel free to offer your opinion or your insights, but try also to acknowledge the validity of other people’s experiences. Because of the emotionally sensitive nature of the material under discussion, Serenity and I will be willing to edit or delete hurtful comments which we might otherwise disregard.

To begin this series, I will offer a discussion of my spiritual life and hopes after my crisis of Mormon faith. Serenity Valley has already discussed this topic at some length in a Mormon Stories podcast with John Dehlin. In a few days, we will continue the series by posting an essay on the same topic by Ann, who originally suggested this series and who was instrumental in organizing it. Then, we’ll just see how things go from there!

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Stories of conversion and of crises of faith are a lot like the proverbial snowflake: each one is unique, and yet paradoxically they all look identical to the average outside viewer. I have perhaps an excess of each kind of story, and I won’t burden you with them today. Let me instead offer the shortest summary of my crisis of faith that I can manage: I lost faith in the perspicacity of revelation. Perspicacity, of course, is in part just a complicated way of saying “clearness of understanding or insight,” in the first definition offered by the Oxford English Dictionary. But it has an added layer of meaning; in many Protestant traditions, a major tenet of faith is the “perspicacity of the Bible,” which means that the Bible is so clear and convincing that it’s impossible for any honest reader to fail to understand the book’s central messages related to salvation. Mormons obviously don’t believe this about the Bible, but we have a tendency to assign perspicacity to modern revelation, which is described as being clear; unambiguous in truth, interpretation, and source; and powerful enough to resolve our major spiritual dilemmas.

A series of difficult experiences led me to believe that this wasn’t at all true. While I have always continued to believe in revelation, I find it difficult to accept the idea that revelation is immune from the ambiguities and uncertainties which infect all other human endeavors. How do we know which revelations are genuine and which are the more mundane product of our own human desire for the divine? How do we know when we’ve actually interpreted a revelation correctly? Do we, as mortals, see “through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12), or does revelation somehow allow us to know even as also we are known?

There are many roads for Mormons who have the set of questions about revelation that I came to be infected with, and I have travelled at least a few steps down most of them. I’ve tried maintaining orthodox, correlated belief, hoping that, like a physician, my skepticism would heal itself. But this route left me feeling like Jesus’s “whited sepulchre,” professing purity on the outside but filled within with doubts that felt both corrupting and inescapable.

I’ve briefly tried seeking fulfillment in another Christian tradition, but the very effort was a mockery both of my faith and of theirs. My belief in Christ was taught to me through, and has been fundamentally shaped by, the atonement sermons of the Book of Mormon. As an Episcopalian, a Catholic, or a Presbyterian, I would thus be more of a heretic than I could ever be within Mormonism.

I’ve also taken steps into the world of ex-Mormons, I place that I found composed of wonderful people, many of whom I am proud to count as my friends to this day. But the problem is that I simply don’t belong; unlike most ex-Mormons, I continue to want to believe. Even when I find it difficult, or perhaps currently impossible, I still desire belief and so leaving was never really an option.

So, in the end, I’ve found peace in accepting the ambiguities of the hope mixed with faith that I possess. Perhaps, when I read the Book of Mormon or listen to a sermon by Gordon B. Hinckley, I don’t often hear the thunderous chorus of absolute and universal truth. Instead, I sometimes hear the subtle oboe solo of a spiritual message that is true enough, at least for me, at least for now. And, that turns out to be enough for me to be getting on with.