How Doubt Can Save Your Faith

There is much talk these days about doubt. Much of the reason, at least for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), is the recent article in the New York Times about Hans Mattson’s doubts and uncertainties.

Mattson was an Area Authority for the Mormon Church in Europe, a position of no small sway. He had grown in his understanding of the Church the way most Mormons do: by attending classes and reading church-recommended literature. Unfortunately, this doctrinal fare left him without answers when he came upon anti-Mormon literature that he didn’t understand. This burden seems to have had a very troubling effect on his faith. I feel bad for him.

As a recently returned missionary, I was once asked by a former school-mate to attend a meeting with some friends. When I arrived I got a surprise. The room was occupied by several adults that all had an axe to grind. They all wanted to expose me to the errors of my church and convert me to their own brand of religion. They were persistent and didn’t concern themselves one bit about the stress that this attack on my faith might cause me. I left the meeting unable to answer many of their questions. I had never been exposed to them before. They weren’t questions that ever came up in my seminary, Sunday school or priesthood classes. I was a bit traumatized.   

Some months later I happened upon a volume by Hugh Nibley titled Lehi in the Desert. This is a book showing the remarkable similarities between the Near East (during the time of the Book of Mormon journey of Lehi and his family) and the incidents narrated in the first Book of Nephi in the Book of Mormon. The book is an argument against those who had criticized the Book of Mormon for being naïve and uninformed – and thence false. I couldn’t put the book down. Here at last was a Latter-day Saint scholar who wasn’t afraid to respond to our critics. In coming years I would continue devouring Nibley’s books and many other writings by informed Mormon scholars. 

Nibley wrote a lot of things and his work catalyzed a small army of Mormon apologists with expertise in various fields of study. Much of this work has been published by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), an organization that I have followed for decades.

Within the FARMS Review (and it’s various other names) lie hundreds of responses to Mormon detractors. One can read these responses without having to burden oneself with the negativity of anti-Mormon authors themselves. All it takes is a little exposure to this literature to realize that we Latter-day Saints have a lot of answers to the many criticisms of our detractors. And these answers are quite impressive, and often faith promoting. Sadly, though, very few members of the church take the time to read any of this – or even know that this literature exists. This is even true of some church leaders, as Mattson’s example shows.

It is time that we give a bit more heed to these issues. This is, in fact, the scriptural admonition for those of us that become exposed to deceit: “Wherefore, beware lest ye be deceived…” (Doctrine and Covenants 46:8); “Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods…” (Deuteronomy 11:16); “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.” (my italics).

What exactly does “heed” mean? It means to pay attention to, to take notice of, or to be careful about. And paying close attention to the swirl of opinions and deceit all around us is something we very much need. But what I want to specifically point out is that playing close attention also involves a healthy dose of doubt. I know this will be denied by many well-meaning and faithful persons. Doubt, after all, is what the scriptures tell us to avoid. Before you discard my argument, however, consider a couple of the most important definitions of doubt.

Doubt can be a denial of, or a hesitation about, divine things. This is the meaning we normally intend when we contrast doubt with faith. This is what Bruce R. McConkie means when he writes, “Faith and belief are of God; doubt and skepticism are of the devil.”

But doubt can also involve a healthy amount of questioning. Doubt, according to John Henry Newman, is just one of three ways of holding a proposition. “A question is the expression of a doubt… To doubt, for instance, is not to see one’s way…” If we are not to be deceived; and if the greatest modern sources of deception lie in the swelter of specious religious advocacy groups and their ever-increasing volumes of propaganda; than taking heed must involve a great deal of skepticism. In a word, giving heed needs to involve this questioning form of doubt.

Yet, sadly, the majority of Latter-day Saints are not at all prepared to take this kind of heed. And the by-product of this lack is a vulnerability to deceit.

I have been watching this happen over a number of years in my own extended family. It is a painful thing to see. The process is now almost too obvious to me: a faithful member of the Church comes across some anti-Mormon literature; The information comes as a great shock, which is often followed by pain and a feeling of betrayal, which is then often followed by a falling away from the faith.

In the cases I am aware of, the shock of discovering critical arguments about the Church is caused primarily because of a lack of previous exposure to these arguments. It comes because we have not taught are youth to question for ourselves. It may be true (it is certainly true) that Mormon doctrine requires that we find answers for ourselves. But it is also sadly true that we often give only one narrative to our varied history. We never tell our youth that other people see things differently than we do. We don’t ask our youth to give heed to potential challenges.

This may sound critical. I guess it is. I don’t mean to be completely negative though. We, as members of the Church, do a marvelous job of encouraging everyone to find truth by seeking and doing. This is clearly the pattern outlined in sacred literature. But following the spirit and proceeding through our uncertainties with an active faith are the second part of avoiding deception. The first part is to give heed. And this is the part we stand in great need of improving. Without it, our friends and loved-ones will continue to be shocked by falsehoods and partial truths and then lose their faith. It is certainly time to start questioning a little more. We need to feel comfortable doubting all these claims.

Let’s look a little more closely at a few words. Let’s compare the words faith and credulity. Faith is confidence, trust, or experiential belief. It carries with it a motivational mindset. It is the underlying foundation of all action, as we learn in the Lectures on Faith. Credulity, on the other hand, is an over readiness to believe, or a disposition to believe on weak or insufficient grounds.

These two words stand in contrast to the two concepts we’ve just been considering, I mean doubt and disbelief. Where doubt involves questioning and a certain tentativeness; disbelief, like credulity, is quicker to proceed – or perhaps quicker to draw conclusions. Both disbelief and credulity are often poorly informed. Doubt, on the other hand (at least in Newman’s sense), is cautious and looks for more answers as it proceeds.

We love the innocence of children. We see a hint of the divine in their purity and sense the light of Christ in their countenance. And Christ has asked us to be more like them. But children can often be credulous. And we might mistakenly assume that in our modeling of children, we are expected to blindly believe as they often do.

Paul was himself quite worried about this among the Corinthian saints. “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3).

It is interesting that Paul would use this image of the serpent. It is the same image that Christ used when admonishing His disciples to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16).

And in a little-known scripture that I love, the author of Proverbs asks that knowledge and understanding not, “depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion: so shall they be life unto thy soul… then shalt thou walk in the way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble”. (Proverbs 3: 21-23).

I think the word discretion is particularly appropriate here, especially the meaning it bears of cautious judgment and discrimination. There is clearly no blind faith implied here.

But in our church, I see a lot of credulity and a need for a great deal more discretion in gospel teaching. I see far too many persons advancing chronologically through our various curricula developing a sense of absolute opinion on questions of history and doctrine – when uncertainty needs to be acknowledged. If we do this right, there is no need to worry. Terryl Givens (in an important fireside address in Palo Alto, California) rejoiced in this uncertainty.

He said, “in this world, one is always provided with sufficient materials out of which to fashion a life of credible conviction or dismissive denial.” And in a candid moment admitted that “I am grateful for a propensity to doubt, because it gives me the capacity to freely believe.”

On the other hand credulity, though certainly not a sin, is very much a vulnerability. I have seen it up close in my own extended family when an individual learned about Joseph Smith’s relationship with a young woman named Fanny Alger. Polygamy is one of those subjects that we hardly talk about in the Church. We certainly ignore the occasional unsavory examples that did exist.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the anti-Mormon crowd relishes the thought of Joseph Smith as an adulterer and libertine. Even Oliver Cowdery hinted to the same effect when Joseph became involved with the young woman (Fanny) that had been working as a maid in his home. What Oliver did not know was that Joseph and Fanny had been married.

This happened at the time when Joseph was struggling to deal with the issues of plural marriage – being required to bring back the ancient practice, but hesitating because of the resistance he expected. For believing Latter-day Saints it is understandable that Joseph would feel the need to keep this early effort quiet.

Critics of the church almost always fail to mention the visit that Joseph made to Fanny’s parents asking for permission to marry her – permission that was readily granted. Yes there are other polygamous cases that look funny to us, cases where the plural wives seem to have been married already. But we make a serious mistake pretending to understand the situations involved. We have marriage records and a handful of letters and diaries, but very little of specific contexts.

Susan Easton Black mentioned years ago (in a class I took from her) that one can find every sort of experience in the Mormon history of polygamy. This experience ranges from the tragic to the sublime. The historical reality is that thousands of highly spiritually sensitive persons (including several remarkably independent individuals) knew and loved Joseph and would not have followed a libertine as they followed Joseph.

Why can’t we talk about this more openly? It can come as a surprise, for sure. But if we don’t bring it up in an environment of faith, it will very likely come up in an environment of disbelief. In such an environment in will not only shock, it can spiritually maim.

We already have a rudimentary sense of apologetics in the Church. We can build on this. As a young missionary I learned of the oft-repeated argument found in the Book of Revelation (the last book in the Bible) that God would punish those who added to His words (implying that subsequently revealed scriptures were not possible). I learned, however, that there is a similar text found in the Book of Deuteronomy (a book found towards the beginning of the Bible). This second scripture made it obvious that the divine warning at the end of the Bible was really a warning only for the Book of Revelation. The implication being that God can continue instructing His children and that revelation from God to man need not cease.

This is a simple example. Anti-Mormon literature today can be more subtle, malicious, and just mean. It is also more available (through the internet) and more organized. It is unlikely that any active Latter-day Saint today will escape this onslaught – whether it comes to friends, to loved ones or to oneself. We need to know how to handle the shock that comes when we get exposed to criticisms of our faith.

One of the normal responses to this exposure is betrayal. “How is that I have been a member of the Church all my life and have never heard of this before?” is a typical feeling. Elder Mattson (though not a member all of his life) seems to have felt this way.

We should be more aware of credulity and of its vulnerability, more serious about real scholarship. We will be shown the direction the Church has chosen to follow at the end of the year – with the new format for our organ of apologetics (that will displace the Mormon Studies Review). It will deserve our studied care, whatever form it takes.   

I am not suggesting that we hurry to our Sunday School classes and begin troubling others with contrarieties. But I am suggesting that we not shy away from teaching moments when they come. I am also convinced that we should stop disparaging those that have questions.

I have a handful of questions about my faith – questions that our best scholarship does not entirely resolve, at least to me. But I have the advantage of an empirical background. As a scientist I know that rational certainty is a rare luxury. And even on those subjects that I wonder about, I recognize that nobody has a clear understanding on these issues. Why should I lose my faith over such uncertainties?

This is where my uncertainty and questioning – my doubt, if you will, are a great blessing. They keep me grounded in a world of false accusations and pointed criticisms. When I learn of these religious attacks, I have the benefit of several defenses. I know where to find a vast literature of faithful responses. I know that certainty on these issues is not likely. And I know that better minds than my own, have faithfully handled these issues already, and give me motivation to keep looking for answers. A healthy attitude of questioning is a very valuable asset to anyone with faith.

In the end, let us focus on faith and not belief. Faith is a total vital response, as Wilfred Cantwell Smith reminded us years ago. Belief is the rational inclination to propositions. It can trouble us to no-end if we imagine that it is our ultimate goal – it shouldn’t be. It is faith that draws us to Heaven and informs our spiritual lives. Faith is the answer to doubt, and it has nothing to fear from uncertainty.

References

The FARMS Review grew out of the Review of Books on the Book of Mormon; later the FARMS Review of Books; later, The FARMS Review; and most recently, Mormon Studies Review – which will be changing itself again by the end of the year. McConkie’s statement on doubt comes from Mormon Doctrine (page 208 in the Second edition (1966) under “doubt”). John Henry Newman’s statement on doubt comes from his very important A Grammar of Assent (page 4 in my 1947 edition published by Longman’s, Green and Company). Terryl Givens address entitled Letter to a Doubter can be found at: terrylgivens.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Letter-to-a-Doubter.pdf. For a discussion of the Fanny Alger question see Richard Bushman’s Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, published in 2005 by Alfred A. Knopf. Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s comparison of faith and belief can be found in his book by that name: Faith and Belief.

Life Lines

She wore an empty stare

No thoughts were festering

The windows there

No hint of anything within

The creases and the wrinkles

Near her eyes were drawn

In weary lines

That told a story of their own

She must have aged that way

The skin transforming to

Habitual gray

A sadness etched in many years

But there was more to see

When she looked up at me

And then I knew

That she had been in reverie

Because her wrinkles turned

Around her smile and drew

The sashes wide

Enough for me to look inside

At something that I knew

Right then of rainbows that

Are really true

And build against a cloudy hue

And see her countenance

Alive and without sound

Provide a humor

To her highlights all around

I wondered at the richness

Of her face, so full

Of care and yet

So full of tenderness and grace

What is the cost of

Keeping such a smile,

What is the life that lifts

The lines of time

What sort of magic makes

Of weariness and grief

Into a loveliness and

Light beyond belief

Light Versus Darwin

Earlier this month, Kathy and I (now feeling somewhat like grandparents in our movie choices) watched the Blue Sky production Epic. It is a fun story of a beautifully animated forest caught in the struggle between the powers of light and the destruction of an evil (and dark) destroyer of life. I enjoyed it – especially the creative animation of the hummingbirds and walking sticks.

But mostly it has given me much to think about. This is because I have come to recognize that one of the great scriptures of the Restoration is about light. In part of what is called the Olive Leaf (Doctrine and Covenants section 88: 7-13) it states that:

“Which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made. As also he is in the moon, and the is the light of the moon, and the power thereof by which it was made; and also the light of the stars, and the power thereof by which they were made; and the earth also, and the power thereof, even the earth upon which you stand. And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; which light proceedeth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space – The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things…”

The story of a lush forest full of life, and the threat of a privation of light that causes death, is really not so very different from this doctrine of the “light of Christ”. And; interestingly, this all pervasive energy is also the theme of one of science’s greatest pursuits: the truth of the beginning of the universe.

As physicist Gerald Schroeder explains: “How can we explain that a bundle of “inert” energy – simplistically stated, superpowerful rays of light – became alive, other than to assume some nonphysical, that is metaphysical, input was involved?”

Of course, this is a debated issue. Or rather it is the unspoken possibility hovering over current discussions about the origin of the universe and of life. It is also a very obvious counter-reality to the modern creation myth that monopolizes our educational institutions: I mean Darwinian naturalism.

The Olive Leaf tells us that life is dependent on light. And, in fact, this is our own day-to-day experience of reality. The sun shines down upon the earth in such abundance that there is not room enough to receive it all. Just a small fraction of this solar output ever gets captured by plants and converted into living things.

Of course this is not the only form of sunlight that we, as living beings, depend on. Our bodies are made to function between a narrow range of temperatures, and the sun (because of its optimum distance from the earth) allows for this. Sunlight peruses our world, filling it with an energy that catalyzes innumerable transformations in every dimension. Truly “the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare” (Doctrine and Covenants 104:17).

Yet this is not the message we get when we look at the world through a Darwinian lens. Competition for limiting resources is here the rule of the day. It drives natural selection where only the best competitors are able to survive. This is the world of painful lives, of scheming and domineering neighbors, and of meaningless or soiled beauty. It is a limiting world that pays virtually no attention to light.

I don’t mean to imply that Light and Darwin are exclusive realities – that the contrast between abundance and death are either/or choices. Clearly we live in a world of both.

I do, however, mean to point out the contrast and to place it in front of a colorblind (or shall we say “myopic”) world. After all, light to most of us is warmth and optimism. It shines when we are awake, and softens when we wish to pause. It reflects a rainbow after our many storms.

But to a materialistic science it is hardly more than energized subatomic particles proceeding primarily from a star (in our case, the sun). It is theistically (and optimistically) neutral. Why bother, it argues, with such abundance. It’s just the way the universe happened to be. It’s just a matter of chance.

And yet, ironically, this “chance” of the materialist just happens to be a miracle itself. In fact it is the quintessential example of what the materialists themselves define as a miracle. The remarkable stories known as miracles – the ones handed down to us from sacred texts - are one-time events. Science refuses to address them because they are not reproducible. There is no way for science to understand causes and effects. Repetition is how science proceeds.

But when it comes to origins, science has decided to ignore this restriction. The origin of the universe is traced to the Big Bang singularity. The origin of life is traced to a primordial “soup” and a few strikes of lightning. These events seem to be miracles that even science seems to be unintentionally acknowledging. They are, after all, non-repetitious events.

Perhaps this denial occurs because light allows us to see what is (both literally and etymologically) obvious. And the materialist cannot accept a divinity that fills our very existence.

I love the story of Jacques Lusseyran. As a young boy in France between the World Wars, Jacque became blind but refused to let this diminish his life. During the second World Ward, he organized a youth resistance movement to Hitler; and later, as a prisoner at Buchenwald, he helped motivate his fellow inmates.

In his autobiography, And There Was Light, Lusseyran tells of the remarkable discovery he made soon after an accident left him blind. He at first began stumbling around – bumping into things. Then he discovered a light within himself and, “immediately, the substance of the universe drew together, redefined and peopled anew. I was aware of a radiance emanating from a place I knew nothing about, a place which might as well have been outside me as within. But radiance was there, or, to put it more precisely, light. It was a fact for light was there. I felt indescribable relief, and happiness so great it almost made me laugh… I found light and joy at the same moment, and I can say without hesitation that from that time on light and joy have never been separated in my experience. I have had them or lost them together.”

Like so many other truths about life, this relationship between light and joy is clarified by the experiences of a handicapped child. But I want to make it clear that this relationship is not a Darwinian imperative. Organisms can survive in a competitive world without joy just fine. It doesn’t come by being better than others – or more successful. A Darwinian pride my make us self-satisfied, but this is a very different thing than joy.

Joy comes from light – from that divine radiance that fills the universe with its overflowing abundance. Yes it is true that mortality can be limiting. This is our mortal Darwinian heritage. But it is also true that eternal joy depends on our refusal to live with this constraint.

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he states that, “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory” (I Corinthians 15:41).

It is sad that light and life are taken so much for granted. Instead, so many of us fixate on the stresses of a fallen and tenebrous world. And yet it precisely the contrast of darkness and light that helps us to see more clearly. The fallen world with its absence of light is merely a temporary backdrop set against the eternal radiance of God’s glory. The sun is awesome, but it is truly magnificent in the colored contrast of the looming night or the coming dawn.

For now, the important choice before us is quite clear. We are phototropic (not thanatotropic) beings. In order to be true to our nature, we need to choose the light.
References

Schroeder’s quote comes from page 21 in God According to God, published by Harper One, 2009. See Schroeder as well for the discussion on miracles (starting from page 16). Lusseyran’s And There Was Light was published by Little, Brown and Company, 1963. My quote come from pages 16-17.

There Is a Way

There is a way with words that pray
Themselves into the heart

On misty afternoons so full
Of atmosphere that even

God himself observing from
His rainbow seat apart

Will stop to measure every single
Drop before it falls

Keys to the Gates of Peter

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri describes a place between the dolorous regions of Inferno and the blessed abode of Paradiso. It is the challenging and redemptive Mountain of Purgatory. This is the place where Dante and his travelling companion Virgil – and by extension the rest of humankind – learn how to cleanse themselves of the seven deadly sins that are endemic to humanity.

In order to be allowed passage from Inferno, one must pass through a small gate that is guarded by the Apostle Peter, or by one of his angel helpers. This is the place that has been recognized in Christian literature and art as the Gates of Peter. This is the Christian recognition of Peter’s role – proclaimed by Christ Himself (in the 16th Chapter of The Gospel of Matthew) that, “Thou art Peter: and upon this rock I will build my church: and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

These gospel verses have tremendous significance in Christian history although they are largely passed over by theologians. The meaning doesn’t really seem to be difficult to understand. Early Christian writers (along with most of their subsequent followers) understood them to vindicate the leadership of the Catholic Church – manifest in Christ’s recognition of Peter.

So, for example, Theodore of Mopsuestia indicated that this verse, “shows, in consequence, that this is the common good of the church … that in the church would be the key of the kingdom of heaven.”

John, Patriarch of Jerusalem (575-593 A.D.), wrote: “As for… the Holy Church, we have the word of the Lord who said to Peter, Chief of the Apostles, when giving him the primacy of the Faith for the strengthening of the churches. “Thou art Peter, etc.” To this same Peter He has given keys of heaven and earth; it is in following his faith that to this day his disciples and the doctors of the Catholic Church bind and loose; they bind the wicked and loose from their chains those who do penance.”

Saint Theodore of Studium (795-826 A.D.) would likewise affirm: “Since it is to the great Peter that Christ our God gave the Keys of the Kingdom and entrusted the dignity of the Chief of the flock, it is to Peter, that is to say, his successor, that one ought to submit every innovation which is made in the Catholic Church by those who turn aside from the truth.”

The sources from the time of the creeds to this day are fairly consistent within the Catholic Church: the keys given to Peter are granted to the Catholic Church as emblems of spiritual authority.

But this is not really the emphasis that we see in Matthew’s account. Instead of emphasizing the role of keys as symbols of power and authority, the context of the narrative is that of salvation in the world beyond the veil: the “gates of hell”, “the kingdom of heaven”, “whatsoever…shall be bound in heaven”. This is quite a different perspective than the traditional one emphasized in ecclesiastical history.

There have been, however, notable exceptions. The heavenly tradition (if I might call it that) is quite clear in the Divine Comedy. Here Peter has been given charge of granting passage to the departed souls seeking escape from the sufferings of Inferno – not of an ecclesiastic position of authority.

Clearly these two interpretations of Matthew 16:18-19 have existed side by side for a very long time. So, for example, George Ladd (formerly Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary) states clearly that “The truth is implicit in the statement that the gates of Hades should not prevail against the church.” He then goes on to admit that the “image of the gates of the realm of the dead is a familiar Semitic concept.”

For anyone interested in Old Testament references to the gates to the realm of the dead see: Isaiah 38:10, Psalms 9:13, Psalms 107:18, Job 38:17, etc. One particularly interesting reference is in Genesis 28 (verses 17-18) where Jacob stops in his travels to sleep and dreams that he sees the Lord. When he awakes he understands that, “Surely the Lord is in this place … This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

The gates of Hades mentioned in Matthew’s text do not refer to the Catholic Church. The sense of the dialogue between Christ and Peter is concern for the souls in the Kingdom of Heaven. The keys given to Peter are to save the spiritual lives of men and women, both in this life and in the life beyond. They are not a grant of political power in this world, whether that be civic, ecclesiastic, or of any other institution.

Hugh Nibley made this quite clear in Mormonism and Early Christianity. In the important passage, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” the word it is all important. It has been understood almost exclusively to refer to the church. But as Nibley says: “Moreover, the thing which is held back, is not the church, for the object is not in the accusative but in the partitive genitive: it is “hers,” part of her, that which belongs to her, that the gates will not be able to contain.” Clearly this is a reference to those in spirit prison. “[A]nd the gates of hell shall not prevail against [those that are now a part of her – i.e. those that are in spirit prison]”.

This is the meaning that Dante understood when he wrote of the gates of Peter. It is also the tradition that we have preserved in the image of the “pearly gates” – mentioned at the end of the 21st chapter of Revelations (verse 21) – where the gates of heaven are made of pearls.

Yes, Peter became the leader of Christ’s church on earth. But the keys themselves have always been meant to save others – whether in this life or beyond the veil – not as a means of power. “My kingdom is not of this world,” proclaimed Jesus to Pilate. Why should He then grant to Peter keys to something that is not His – keys, that is, to earthly power?

Clearly this was not the intent. The keys of the priesthood are keys to salvation. They allow for the work of redeeming the dead. In the meantime we are left to the powers that be (often lamentably so). This doesn’t mean that we are to passively suffer the injustices imposed on us by the purveyors of power. Far from it. It does mean, however, that God’s work can continue in spite of these injustices.

Yes, The Kingdom of Heaven will come and Christ will be its ruler. But in the meantime, the leader of His church on earth will hold the keys to the temple, not the keys to the White House. It was never meant to be any other way.
References

The famous verse in the Gospel of Matthew is Chapter 16 verses 18 and 19. Theodore of Mopsuestia’s quote is from Fragment 92, cited in Manlio Simonetti’s Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament Ib (Thomas C. Oden General Editor). Intervarsity Press, 2002. The quotes from Saint Theodore of Studium and John, patriarch of Jerusalem can be found in James Likoudis’s St. Thomas Aquinas, Papal Supremacy, and the Witness of the eastern Churches in the First Millennium (www.credo.stormloader.com/Ecumenic/thomaqui.htm). George Ladd’s A Theology of the New Testament was published by Eerdman’s in 1974. The references to the realm of the dead are on page 116. For Nibley’s discussion see Mormonism and Early Christianity (Deseret Book Company, 1987) pages 106-108.

Wheat and The Word of Wisdom

Earlier this year I got over a digestive problem that had bothered me for more than a decade. The solution was quite simple: I stopped eating wheat flour. Soon after changing my diet, the cramps, indigestion, and other unsavory problems disappeared. There have been other benefits as well. I can now do a good deal of physical work without waking up sore and achy. I am losing weight, eating bigger meals (but without wheat products) without stomach complaints, and hardly get discouraged like I used to. I feel a lot better.

For some time, I refused to imagine that my complaints might have been caused by Celiac disease. Of course, they seemed to fit the symptoms. But I resisted this possibility because of a single verse in The Word of Wisdom (in The Doctrine and Covenants) that states quite clearly that we are supposed to eat wheat: “Nevertheless, wheat for man…”

Then by chance (and my good fortune) I happened on a study showing the significant changes that wheat has gone through since the time the Word of Wisdom was given. It was this realization that motivated me to try living without modern wheat.

The story of how we got modern wheat involves a long history of genetic twists and turns. By the beginning of the 19^th Century, wheat had already been hybridized and manipulated for millennia. It would be quite misleading to claim that the wheat of Joseph Smith’s time was a pure and unadulterated grass. It wasn’t.

It was, however, a very different thing than what we eat today. And when I say “it” I really mean “they” because there are a handful of “wheat” species and a boat load of “wheat” varieties that find their way into the mills of people around the world.

The food that we eat today is primarily a product of the green revolution that has magically transformed the world’s diets within the last century. The plants that had fed us for so long were crossed with varieties that would have been confusing and counter-intuitive to earlier generations. Many of these crosses have produced very useful crops. We depend on them to survive. Others, however, can cause us a good amount of grief. Sadly we haven’t paid close enough attention to the potential harm of genetic manipulation. This negligence is coming back to haunt many of us today.   

Glutens (and related gliadins) are often large proteins found in the endosperm of wheat grains that do not dissolve easily in our bodies after being consumed. Our modern wheat varieties have many times more of these proteins than did earlier forms. This gluten accumulation was not really intentional. The proteins were compounded primarily when the chromosome number of wheat varieties doubled and then tripled in the course of hybridization events spanning decades.

Through this process, the leavening of bread was improved. The gluten proteins helped make the bread flour sticky, enabling it to keep air bubbles (created in the process of fermenting yeast) from escaping – allowing for the bread dough to rise. Glutens essentially allowed us to move beyond unleavened bread.

The oldest form of wheat (and presumably the first wheat eaten by our ancestors) is einkorn wheat. It has the typical compliment of genes found in living things (a pair of each chromosome – referred to as a diploid condition). It has a fairly hard grain and doesn’t produce enough seeds per plant to make it economically appealing. It is believed to have been used in soups and stews. It is a rarely used today.

Another group includes wheat species that have come about by hybridizing varieties so that a doubling of the chromosomes occurs (tetraploid wheats). Durum wheat and emmer wheat are tetraploid examples. They still have fairly hard grains but have more gluten proteins – not enough, however, to allow for the fine flours that modern bakeries generally demand.

Then there are softer wheat grains found among the species with a tripling of the typical genetic content (hexaploids). As expected, these have quite a bit more glutens. These softer wheat varieties comprise the bulk of the wheat used today. And it is the flour of these varieties that are particularly troublesome to people like me.

Earlier this year I decided to try baking a loaf of einkorn wheat bread. I wanted to know if eating a diploid wheat (with fewer glutens) would upset my stomach. I found a source online, ordered a small bag, and made a loaf after it arrived. The loaf was a bit dense but savory and, when eaten warm, was a real treat. I made a peanut butter and jam sandwich that tasted wonderful.

Then I waited for the grief that I have come to expect after eating wheat products. But nothing happened. I ate another piece of bread and still felt fine. Then I decided I needed to try a tetraploid wheat – the kind that would have been used by our ancestors of previous generations.

Some of these species include emmer and durum wheat. They are a bit easier to find than einkorn wheat but are still specialty products and are quite a bit more expensive than your typical wheat. That said, I found a source of emmer wheat grains and ground the kernels myself in our small hand mill.

My loaf of emmer wheat bread came out of our bread-maker smelling very nice and grainy. I ate a piece and again waited for the trouble to begin. It didn’t. I was again pleased to know that I could eat this older wheat without difficulty. I was also pleased to know that I could enjoy the wheat known to the world at the time the Word of Wisdom was given.

I’m not sure if I will continue baking emmer wheat bread or try using a less-expensive gluten-free alternative. Time will tell. In the meantime, I have learned a lesson: dietary wisdom needs to be a dynamic pursuit. We should know this already. Christians enjoy eating ham even though – as religious descendants of Judaism – it might have been forbidden.

As Latter-day Saints we eat a good deal more meat than one might expect we would – considering passages found in the Word of Wisdom. Is this because we have better ways to preserve meat today? I’m not sure. Maybe we should eat less meat.

And so it is, I’ve discovered, with wheat. I have no doubt that wheat was, for most of our human history, the proper mainstay of our diet. I’m also convinced that it should no longer be the case. I think our uninformed scientific recklessness has ruined it – at least for many of us.

Here are a few sentences from a group of wheat scientists describing the situation in straightforward (and unemotional) prose:

“During the last decades, a significant increase has been observed in the prevalence of CD [Celiac disease]. This may partly be attributed to an increase in awareness and to improved diagnostic techniques, but increased wheat and gluten consumption is also considered a major cause. Over 100 years ago, breeders started to systematically cross and select bread wheat for higher yields, adaption to climate changes, better bread-making characteristics, and improved disease resistance. Little information is available about the breeding history of landraces on these aspects”. (See the reference from Van den Broeck et al.)

So there it is. We have taken a food that once enjoyed the approval of Heaven and tried to improve it. And not only have we tried to improve it, we have done so without even worrying about the consequences. This should certainly be a cautionary tale. No wonder the Lord’s dispenses dietary advice as a “word of wisdom”. It is something we need to keep working on and thinking about with a good deal more humility than is our wont.

References

The reference to wheat in The Doctrine and Covenants is found in the Word of Wisdom (Section 89:17). Wheat Belly by William Davis was published in 2011 by Rodale. Jerold A. Bietz provides a useful hint on gluten accumulation in: Genetic and Biochemical Studies of Nonenzymatic Endosperm Proteins; in, Wheat and Wheat Improvement, Second Edition, Madison, Wisconsin, 1987. On the variability of wheat gluten genetics see Mapping of Gluten T-Cell Epitopes in the Bread Wheat Ancestors: Implications for Celiac Disease by Oyvind Molberg et al. Gastroeneterology 128 (2005): 393-401. Michael Pollen’s recently published book Cooked contains an interesting discussion on leavening. The significant article by Hetty C. Van den Broeck et al. (Presence of celiac disease epitopes in modern and old hexaploid wheat varieties: wheat breeding may have contributed to increased prevalence of celiac disease) was published in Theoretical and Applied Genetics (November, 2010), Volume 121 (8): 1527-1539.