A recent event in my own life has, without doubt, cemented my firm conviction of the divine origin of life and our existence on this beautiful earth. One night while sleeping, I was suddenly awakened by a single word “ENTROPY” coming to my mind. I had never before thought about entropy in the present context of creation, but had, in the distant past, as a research chemist, recognized the entropy effect on chemical reactions. Entropy is a principle/law of thermodynamics that, in simplified terms, means that any process taking place, without intervention, will naturally go to a DISORGANIZED state. There are complex mathematical expressions of this principle, but a couple of mundane examples illustrate: a man’s garage will most often be disorganized unless intervention takes place. And, of course, the same tendency is true for a teenager’s bedroom. Thus, without a creator, and if creation events had been left to proceed without divine influence, only disorganization would have resulted. Since our world and all of its living entities (mankind, animals, plant life, etc) are highly ORGANIZED, one can only conclude that all of these creations did not occur spontaneously, but must have resulted from God’s directive power. The church organization, gospel principles, etc., and etc. are all examples of highly ORGANIZED systems, and thus thermodynamically (entropy) favored.

For me personally, having received this gratuitous prompting has strengthened my testimony greatly. I have not searched the literature to see if others have had similar thoughts. Personally, I know that the Savior has placed the gospel on the earth and ORGANIZED the true church.

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Lynn H. Slaugh graduated from Brigham Young University with a B.S. in chemistry in 1952, going on to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Washington, in Seattle, in 1956. From 1956 to 1998, he conducted exploratory research with Shell Co. He is the inventor of two commercial industrial processes (and contributed to others), the author of 162 U.S. patents as well as several hundred foreign patents, the author of twenty-nine publications in various scientific journals, and the recipient of the American Chemical Society Award in Industrial Chemistry for 1995.

Posted September 2010

I remember the first conference I presented research work in. I was still an undergraduate at the time, and saw the world through rose colored glasses. I imagined that the conference would be a place where everyone held the same noble ideals, held the pursuit of truth above all else, where cultural and political differences would be overcome through the common language of science. While reading through the research areas of the various groups who were there, to my delight I came across another group who were doing very similar work to my own. I was very excited to find someone else with parallel interests to run ideas past. After meeting with this group, my advisor pulled me aside. He told me they were doing similar work because they had stolen their research from us. He then proceeded to tell me who I should and should not talk to, and what I should and should not talk about. I was crushed. It was the moment where science went from being noble intellectuals pursuing truth, to being politicians pushing agendas and competing with each other in order to secure NIST/DOE grants.

The more you know, the more you know you don’t know. . . . When I was teaching engineering classes/labs at the Colorado School of Mines, we would assess the cognitive development of our students using the “Perry Model of Intellectual and Ethical Development.” Many are familiar with models used in determining various developmental stages in preschoolers and elementary students. Perhaps not as many people are familiar with the models that assess higher thinking patterns within college and grad school, and among post-grads and professionals. It turns out that there is no point where someone is “grown-up,” or where we must cease to advance in knowledge and maturity. Learning is a life-long process. I would like to briefly outline some of the higher stages in cognitive development, as I think they hold religious implications about the nature of our chosen faiths and beliefs.

Most freshmen entering college come in at the lowest Perry level—that of the dualist. When I was a freshman, I was a dualist too. Dualists view everything as being right or wrong, black or white, with no shades of grey. They believe that authority figures can be trusted and do not usually question the validity of what they are told. Students advance into higher levels as they come to recognize and accept uncertainty, and learn how to function in a world where facts don’t really exist. In the highest Perry level, “Students may come to acknowledge that choices require analysis and values. Knowledge, theories, and methods are imperfect and uncertain, thus personal choices require acknowledging personal responsibility that follows from personal values.” In other words, it all comes down to personal values. In an uncertain world, the most certain thing that we can follow is our own principles. The highest levels of cognitive development are achieved by those who are able to most closely follow their own conscience. I don’t know if the leaders in the LDS faith know about Perry levels, but they do know the importance of following our conscience, which is, in reality, the light of Christ.

Our conscience, and many other things in science, clearly point towards intelligent design. The existence of the physical laws, the fine-tuning of universal constants, and our ability to think and be self-aware are all dependent on information, intelligence, and sentient life. The universe is made up of two basic building blocks:

1. that which acts.
2. that which is acted upon.

Science and engineering do a pretty good job when dealing with the inanimate, with those things that are acted upon. Drop a ball of mass m from height h and defined restitution coefficient—and you can calculate what will happen, and perform repeatable experiments. Drop a living cat of mass m from height h and you can no longer calculate what will happen. There is something that resides in what lives, what acts, which is unpredictable because it is not confined to following Newton’s laws. There is no equation that can predict what someone’s life will turn out like, because we are made up of more than just matter and energy. We are endowed with a mind, a conscience, spirit, intelligence—call it what you will, but it exists. We can move, think, and act because it exists. Newton’s first law of motion states that “An object at rest will stay at rest until acted upon by an unbalanced external force.” What unbalanced force acted upon your body to make it rise up out of bed this morning? The rocks outside your front door did not get up this morning, they are still sitting in the same place they were last night. What makes you different than the rocks? We are not rocks; we are not puppets being pushed around by external forces. We are living sentient spiritual beings residing within physical bodies. We are more than just matter and energy. We are the children of a loving Heavenly Father.

I joined the LDS church after having a spiritual experience at one of their meetings. I went to the meeting in order to fulfill a requirement for a comparative religions class. I won’t describe the spiritual experience I had that day, nor experiences I have had since then. Some of those who read this know what I am talking about, and others of you have not yet experienced it. Those who grew up in the church and are used to it probably do not understand what a shock it is to the rest of us—to learn that God is real, that His Son really did come to Earth, and that He can and does communicate with those on Earth. In closing let me share the following quote:

“Major discoveries are not like the discovery of America, where the general nature of the discovered object is already known. Rather, they are like recognizing that one has been dreaming.” – Paul Feyerabend

I bear my testimony, that I know God is real, that He sent His Son to Earth for us, that He is the Father of our spirits, that we are spiritual beings who chose to come to Earth in order to learn and grow. I know that the Book of Mormon, the Old Testament, and the New Testament contain revelations from God, and I believe that God will yet reveal many great and important things. I encourage all to search the scriptures, ponder, and pray with an open mind and heart, that we might all more clearly see reality. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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Jamie has a Ph.D. in Engineering Systems and a B.S. in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. She has worked at Hazen Research in the pyrometallurgy and gold ore labs, and was a graduate research assistant in the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Jamie has taught statics, thermodynamics, circuits, materials testing, and data acquisition labs at the Colorado School of Mines in the Mining and Engineering departments. She is currently taking a sabbatical from academia in order to experience motherhood. Her hobbies include hiking, jogging, teaching piano, freelance writing, and volunteer work.

Select publications:

Stable Configuration of Binary Mixtures in a Horizontal Rotating Cylinder: Axial Migration of Granular Particles, Masami Nakagawa, Jamie Moss (Turner). Powders & Grains 1997 Behringer & Jenkins (eds) © 1997 Balkema, Rotterdam, ISBN 90 5410 8843 May 18-23, pp.495-498

Boundary Effects on the Angle of Repose in Rotating Cylinders, C. Dury, G. Ristow, J. Moss (Turner), and M. Nakagawa. Physical Review E , Vol 57 N4 1998 p4491-4497

Segregation of Granular Particles in a Nearly Packed Rotating Cylinder: A New Insight For Axial Segregation, 1998, M. Nakagawa, J. Moss (Turner), and S. Altobelli. Physics of Dry Granular Media, H.J.Herrmann, J.P.Hovi, S. Luding (eds) pg. 703-710

Particle Mixing in a Nearly-Filled Horizontal Cylinder through Phase Inversion, Jamie L. Turner and Masami Nakagawa. Powder Technology 113 (2000) 119-123

Grain Boundary Motion in Particulate Material J. L. Turner, M. Nakagawa, M.T.Lusk; 4th International Conference on Micromechanics of Granular Media: Powders and Grains 2001, Sendai, Japan, 21-25 May 2001

RESEARCH PROJECTS:

-Solid state grain boundary motion modeled with molecular dynamics/discrete element computer simulations. Vibrating bed particulate experiments used to verify accuracy of simulations. The influence of grain boundaries on force and velocity distributions studied. Kinetics of curvature driven grain shrinkage and solidification disorder-order phase transformations researched.

-Discrete element simulations of shock wave propagation through three-dimensional disordered particulate material. Theoretical model derived that successfully predicts shock wave velocity as a function of initial system conditions. This research is being used by Los Alamos National Laboratory to understand compression waves in heterogeneous materials.

-Bulk materials handling experiments and simulations of ball mills, kilns, and mixers. Radial and axial segregation patterns identified in a rotating cylinder. Process using alternating rotation speeds identified for use in producing homogeneous mixtures in a rotating cylinder.

-Replacement bone material created through self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) of powdered titaniumdiboride. Lightweight, strong, porous material produced through exothermic reaction of constituents. Final product analyzed for pore size distribution, and ratio of open to closed pores.

For the Perry Level chart, see:
http://spirit.lib.uconn.edu/~mboyer/burcha2.html

For the Colorado School of Mines, see:
http://mines.edu/

On the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratories, see:
http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/t/about.shtml

On Hazen Research, see:
http://www.hazenusa.com/

For Jamie’s freelance stuff, see:
http://www.helium.com/users/edit_show/581085

Jamie’s Mormon.org profile appears at:
http://mormon.org/me/1CJQ-eng/JamieLyn

Posted September 2010

Although it wasn’t until college that I was actually able to name it, my mind has always been drawn to the quest for the “grand theory of everything.” Given this propensity, it’s perfect that I was born within Mormonism with its bold and expansive views of God, the eternities, and who we are. It’s perfect, also, that I was born to good, curious, engaged parents who valued ideas and always encouraged my theory-making.

Being oriented toward grand theory made many parts of my schooling and early church life easier, for I was always listening for how this or that idea or fact fit into the big scheme of things. As a result, I naturally thought “in context” and was always able to expand on whatever I was being asked to recall—something that impressed both my school and church teachers. Everything came easy for me.

The drawback of a quick mind that is wired to pay attention to the big picture is that it is easy to forget the importance of day-to-day things. In my late teens and early twenties I fell (and still too easily fall) into that trap. I became undisciplined, fell out of the prayer habit, and neglected to live the wisdom taught in the scriptures that I could still so impressively spout. Hypocrisy became my new game—one I played successfully for a while but which I could not sustain. Before long, I was spiraling out of control, and everyone knew it.

As I’ve shared in more detail in several personal essays, I was invited by an aunt and uncle to live with their family and get away from friends and influences that had a powerful hold on me. Living in a great home with an amazing, fun family slowly allowed the better parts of me to reassert their influence. About eight months into my new life I took up a challenge to read the Book of Mormon. In those pages, I got reacquainted with Alma, the younger, and the sons of Mosiah, for whom I felt a powerful kinship. If they could turn their lives around and be of good service to the world, maybe so could I. Two months after that I acted on a crazy prompting to see if it perhaps wasn’t too late to serve an LDS mission. A few months later, I was flying to Seattle at nearly twenty-four years of age.

Post-mission I attended BYU and taught for several years at the Missionary Training Center and was poised for a career in the Church Education System. At this same time, however, my innate need to explore life’s ultimate questions had led me to major in philosophy and to become enthralled with the immense variety of the world’s thought systems and religions, and these interests (along with the discovery that I had difficulty relating to teenagers, who for some reason just didn’t seem as fascinated by “truth” as I was!) led me to decide to pursue more schooling instead. I did a master’s degree in religious studies at Arizona State University and then a doctorate in religion (with a philosophy of religion and theology emphasis) at the Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont Graduate University).

I loved being in school and exploring all the questions I’d been fascinated by my entire life, but as I allowed the power of the various theories I was studying to sink in, the certainties that I brought with me into my schooling fell—painfully—by the wayside. Since most of these certainties were deeply entwined with my Mormonism and the spiritual experiences I’d had within LDS contexts, as I began to deconstruct everything I’d ever felt sure about within the gospel I seriously wondered whether I would ever be able to stay within Mormonism’s fold. During my struggles to reorient myself in this new world in which everything I’d held “sacred” now felt human-made, I felt alienated from other members of my church, and the supportive community I’d found there now seemed like a distant memory. Did anyone else think about these things? Who can I talk to?

Blessedly I made a friend in Arizona who modeled for me both the life of the mind and patience with the institutional church. More than anything else, he helped me simply to slow down and seek longer views and see if I could come to grant the grace to my church and all its fallibilities that I was so willing to give to other religious traditions while still seeing them as offering vital things to the world. He also pointed me to Dialogue and Sunstone, and I soon found additional models of spiritual maturity (as well as immaturity, from which I learned as well) and conversation partners among those who wrote for those publications and participated in Sunstone symposia and the conferences of other LDS scholarly organizations. It was a slow and unsteady walk, but also a richly blessed one, that led me a dozen years after I began graduate school to become Sunstone’s editor and the executive director of its foundation.

Although all during my graduate school years I thought I was headed for a university career, I’m glad things took the turn they did. Whereas schooling allowed me to fully play out my “grand theory” leanings (my major fascination during these years was Process Theology—the most serious attempt in the last two centuries at creating a metaphysic that can handle everything!), my work at Sunstone forced me to stay grounded, to explore my pastoral gifts, and to focus on tire-meets-the-road issues. Given my lifelong propensity for tripping off into the cosmos in pursuit of understanding the biggest context there is, I very much need to be pulled back to earth, to my family, to my neighborhood, to my ward members. The key point in Eugene England’s classic essay “Why the Church Is As True As the Gospel” is that the church with its lay leadership and geographically drawn boundaries forces us to serve and work with others who may not “get” us or who we probably would never choose to associate closely with if left to our own choice, making it a most excellent “school of love.” My time at Sunstone led me to fully believe this and, though not always pleasant, to even welcome this new type of school into my life as much as I had the other.

I’m grateful for my wide and high explorations of philosophy, theology, physics, metaphysics, psychology, and the world’s great traditions. Although I haven’t found specific language that can fully “capture” what I sense to be absolutely true about the universe and its purposes, I have landed squarely in the camp that says it has to do with “soul making” and compassion. I believe we’re here to learn love and to be willing to see and feel and honor the chaos and complexity and suffering we encounter—in the world, in ourselves, and in the others around us—and even as we do this to still affirm that there’s peace and joy to be found and then work to bring these into fuller realization. I’m also grateful for my local and grounded and challenging associations in my family, wards, and other relationships. The Mormonism I love best encourages me to pursue to their fullest extent both of these parts of my soul and, better than anything else I have found, to seek a balance between them. I think I will stick it out. I have a lot more to learn.

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Dan Wotherspoon is a free-lance writer, editor, and manager whose most recent projects include the creation of the website for the Eugene England Foundation (http://www.eugeneengland.org) and serving as director of communications for the Foundation for InterReligious Diplomacy (http://fidweb.org/) and co-writing with its president, Charles Randall Paul, a book titled Fighting about God: Why We Do It and How to Do It Better. For the eight years prior to that, he served as editor of Sunstone magazine and director of the Sunstone Education Foundation, and he now serves on its board of directors. Since its inception, he has been an active participant in the work and development of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology, currently serving on its board, as a secretary for its executive committee, and as an associate editor of Element, the society’s journal. In September 2010, Wotherspoon will also join long-time friend and associate John Dehlin as a host and producer of the Mormon Stories podcast (http://mormonstories.org).

Wotherspoon has a Ph.D. in religion from the Claremont Graduate School, where he wrote his dissertation on theological resources within Mormonism for affirming a robust environmental sensibility. He also has an M.A. in religious studies from Arizona State University, where he focused on world religions and ritual studies, ultimately writing his thesis on theories of ritual empowerment. He also has a B.A. in philosophy with a minor in classical civilizations from Brigham Young University.

Wotherspoon and his wife Lorri are about to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary. They have two children, Alex (23) and Hope (16), and live in Tooele, Utah. He is currently soliciting additional writing, editing, and project management clients and can be reached by email at dan.wotherspoon@me.com.

Posted September 2010

So, here is my testimony, in all of its craven naïveté.

I know that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and knows me personally. I have faith in Him and the plan that He has revealed for me and all of His children to become like Him. I know that He sent His Son to show the way and to redeem me to Himself if I am willing to be redeemed. I have felt His love and His drawing me to Him by the power of His Holy Spirit, whose presence is real and palpable to me. My experiences with the Holy Spirit are like immovable pillars in my life. When I have been reluctant to believe or to obey, they have been obstacles to my unbelief; I cannot get around what I know I have felt and experienced of God’s loving reality. When I have needed help and courage to try intimidating things, they have served like anchors to my soul.

The story of how I came to know these things and other fixtures of my personal faith is an embarrassment of predictability. I grew up in the faith, born in Utah. Some of my earliest memories are of being taught “of goodly parents” that my life had a purpose, designed by God, and that there were certain mile-stones along the way to which I should strive: baptism and confirmation, receiving the Aaronic Priesthood, receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood, serving a full-time mission, and marrying for eternity in an LDS temple. I accomplished each of those goals basically on schedule.

Along the way, beginning at about the age of seven, I read the scriptures faithfully. I remember getting up at 6:00 in the morning regularly to read my Book of Mormon by the big bookcase in our basement. I remember puzzling my way through phrases like “great and abominable church” and the passages of Isaiah, which seemed opaque to me. I remember my mother recommending an article by Bruce R. McConkie on how to read Isaiah, which I studied at the top of a guava tree at a park near our home in Manila, where we were living at about the time I received the Aaronic Priesthood. I remember reflecting on the complexity of the Book of Mormon, which made J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, which I also read that summer, seem like a child’s bedtime story; and I thought, “there is no way that someone could have made this all up.” I still think that—more now than ever. (After all, I am now a member of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at BYU.)

I was called on a mission to Guatemala and served there for two years where I learned to love the language and the people and the scriptures even more. When I returned home, I enrolled at BYU where I met my wife (at church in the Clyde building). We married in the Idaho Falls Temple, just as each of our parents had, and began our family without delay while I was still in graduate school at the University of Texas. We are now the parents of six good children and have served in numerous callings in a number of wards where we have always been blessed by our association with the the Saints.

For a cynic, this is the most utterly predictable thing that he or she has ever read. I offer no defense. It is. I also offer no apology, however. If a life that reads like the textbook scenario from How to be a Utah Mormon is the price I shall have had to pay for what I have learned of God’s love and of His plan for me and those I love, I am thankful for the chance to pay it. I’m sorry it makes for such boring reading. But there it is.

What I can’t—or maybe it is more honest to say won’t—give here, are some of the details that might serve to complicate this bland biography and infuse it with a little more interest. Why not? Why do I leave them out? Because I believe that certain things only ought to be shared one on one when the time is right. What is really going on in anyone’s life no matter how unremarkable it may seem on the surface is, in the end, pretty special, even sacred. That is a secret that wise people know and that—shall we say—”not-wise” people have no part in.

I know that each of us is a child of a loving Father in Heaven. He sent His Son to be the gate and the way back into His presence. The Holy Ghost bears witness of these things and of much more when we have the faith to open up to Him. The Scriptures have become both stranger and truer to me over time. I rejoice in the space they create for me to choose either to doubt or to believe. I choose to believe and have come to know in many instances that they teach the truth. I have had experiences that have assured me that God’s power is real and that it is manifest on the earth through the ministry of living prophets and in His holy temples.

And I know that God is love. For now, for here, that is all I have to say.

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A native of Utah, D. Morgan Davis has also lived and studied in the Philippines, Israel and the West Bank, and Egypt. He served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for two years in Guatemala. He holds an undergraduate degree in Near Eastern studies from Brigham Young University, a master’s degree in history from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Ph.D. in Arabic language and literature from the University of Utah (2005).

Dr. Davis is the director of the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative at Brigham Young University’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, where he evaluates, edits, and supervises the publication of classical Middle Eastern works of philosophy, theology, mysticism, and science. The texts are produced in their original languages of (Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, etc.), together with English translations on facing pages. He has been involved with the initiative since its inception.

His areas of research interest include world religions; Islamic origins, literature, and culture; and the history of religion.

An avid traveler, runner, hiker, and mountain biker, and an occasional tenor soloist, Dr. Davis is married to the former Kristina Nelson, and they are the parents of four sons and two daughters.

Posted September 2010

I would not know how to divide my own pursuit of truth into two very distinct parts—say, “faith” and “reason.” Reason would have no purchase on reality if it were not grounded in, or did not arise from, insights or intuitions—including “revelations”—in no way reducible to mere logic or reproducible by some formal and universal method. To live purely by reason, if it means anything, can only mean to be masters and possessors of the meaning of our own existence, and clearly we are not such masters. To live by the light of “science” alone is a non-starter, too, since science, as we moderns understand it, refuses, almost by definition, the question of meaning and purpose. Modern science claims at once to be value-free and to be autonomous or self-governing, and (as Philippe Bénéton has pointed out in Equality by Default) it cannot have it both ways. So the purposes by which we live necessarily exceed our methodical grasp. Philosophy thus cannot dispense entirely with poetry, as Plato well knew, but as many of his successors have forgotten.

At the same time, a truth revealed by a higher power could not be truth for us if it did not address us as rational beings—by which I do not mean philosophers or scientists, but simply speaking beings who make our way in life only by understanding (more or less) the persons and things we deal with as part of some larger whole. Here I agree with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, notably, as well as with Thomas Aquinas and his followers, that we cannot honor our God-given natures without seeking to know the Truth and to live by it. And to know it is not simply to “feel” it or to obey it (though obedience is essential, is primary), but to understand, to seek articulation, to serve God—how did Thomas More put it in the movie?—“in the tangle of our minds.” We are aware, as rational beings, of being parts of a larger whole that we know somehow to be meaningful but that is always escaping our grasp. The Spirit of Truth that is in us recognizes intimations of truth “out of the best books” as well as in those most weighty words revealed to prophets.

But how can we verify the authority of prophets? If such a problem could be solved by some impersonal formal method, then it would not depend upon the purification of the soul of the seeker. Augustine singled out the Socratic-Platonic school of philosophy for praise because it accepted the obligation implicit in the unity of moral and intellectual purification. The truths of Eternal Life are not such as can be received by any and all regardless of character or intention. The truth is gradually unveiled to us “according to the heed and diligence” that we give to what has already been imparted to us (Alma 12:9). Holy truths are not the kind of data that we can first receive and then afterwards decide whether we find it convenient to live by them. This is to say that, if we refuse to offer our own pride and our own projects as sacrifices on the altar of Truth and demand to receive “information” on our own terms, then we will not truly be able to receive such truths and they will only tend to our damnation.

I cannot neatly separate, in my own imperfect striving towards what is good and true, the confidence that I gain from rational evidence from the promptings of the Spirit. I suppose if I were asked to unpack and organize the foundations of my testimony (as this worthy web project seems to require of me), then I might lay them out as follows: 1- Atheistic materialism is shallow, self-contradictory and false. There is a meaning and order to the way things are that cannot be accounted for by the random action of matter in motion, or whatever is the latest scientific expression of meaningless materialistic necessity. And so we must seek some account of the meaning of things that connects the way things are with human purposes, with love and with agency; 2- Among all philosophies and religions, Christianity (a) is the most compelling account of such meaning (the surprising and yet rationally powerful notion of God who gives himself to save the world) and is (b) well-attested by reliable historical witnesses; 3- Latter-day Saint (a) teaching is the richest (notably in its seamless integration of Law and Grace and its response to universal longings for enduring bonds of kinship) and its (b) Church organization is the wisest and most effective among Christian bodies. Moreover, (c) its divine origins are supremely well-attested by (i) reliable historical witnesses and by (ii) the massive, insuperable fact of the existence of the Book of Mormon.

Each of these points would require explanation and would invite much argumentation, which I will not attempt to address here. Since this last point regarding the simple existence of that substantial text we call the Book of Mormon indicates what seems to me the most striking and accessible evidence available, allow me to quote from a letter I wrote, along with friends Daniel Peterson and Matthew Holland, to First Things magazine a couple of years ago:

The recent date of the appearance of this record [The Book of Mormon] seems to [some] to detract from its authority in comparison with “manuscripts containing one or more gospels that date to within just a few centuries” of Jesus’ time, and “some evidence … that goes back to within just a few decades … of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.” But . . . the Book of Mormon . . . is a substantial text (500+ pages) whose internal complexity and coherence are rarely appreciated, even by Latter-day Saints. It includes a dozen or so distinct prophetic voices, interweaves many diverse historical strands, richly depicts a foreign civilization (or two or three of them) including diverse cultural and other features (detailed geography, sophisticated warfare, a complex monetary system, etc.), contains a powerful and many-faceted Christian teaching that is consonant with but not simply identical to teachings of the Bible or of the Christian tradition, and often does so in surpassingly beautiful language—and all this in a volume of English prose of determinate content that no one doubts came into existence during a brief and definite period not quite 180 years ago. The book exists—a brute fact—and is easily available for anyone’s inspection. Mark Twain dismissed it as “chloroform in print,” but of course it was not written for Twain’s entertainment, and the fact that what he looked at in it bored him does little to account for its existence, even if we set aside the compelling quality of its teachings. Anyone with a stake in the veracity of Christ’s message and the reality of his mission might consider the significance of the sheer existence of this text: For if, by any chance, it is what it claims to be, then we are indeed in possession of “another witness of Christ” that truly assures us, independent of doubts arising out of the long, complex, and clouded history of the biblical manuscripts or from the distance of the events they narrate, of the reality of the living Christ.

[Some] pass over . . . the direct and well-attested statements [of 11 witnesses], never renounced even in the face of powerful incentives. . . . Would such testimony in favor of Luke’s gospel not be welcome, even if two thousand years old? [Would we] so easily dismiss the eleven faithful apostolic witnesses to the resurrection of Christ? But we refer readers again to the text itself. How is one to account for it? The more one knows about it, the harder it is to accept any of the alternative theories of its inauthentic production, if indeed there is even a serious contender left in this field. Anyone is free to read the book, to study it prayerfully, and perhaps to begin to appreciate the rich articulation of its parts within a consistent whole, and then, if so inclined, to propose some theory of its origins. Indeed, any reader who is at all open to the possibility of God’s intervention in human affairs in modern as well as ancient times is free to consider the possibility that we, today, have been given a powerful and beautiful new witness of Christ’s reality for all people of all climes and all epochs—that is, the possibility that he holds in his hands an ancient text translated by an unlearned young man by the gift and power of God.

But again, evidence of the kind represented by the brute fact of the existence of the Book of Mormon can only open the door to the kind of knowledge that can guide our lives and eventually exalt us. We have to walk through that door, and then through the next, and then all the others that God opens for us as we seek the kind of knowledge that cannot be separated from the keeping of sacred covenants.

My confidence in the Restored Gospel is thus rooted in an ongoing, unfolding experience that is both spiritual and intellectual: I find that my heart and my mind expand as I keep covenants and seek knowledge by inviting the Lord to strip me of vanity. “Here’s my heart, oh, take it, seal it!” While still a teenager I remember reading in section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants this testimony of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon: “That he lives! For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father.” It occurred to me then that this was a true testimony and that this changed everything, that this was a truth that claimed my existence. This conviction has not impeded my wide-ranging reflections on the great questions of the Western philosophical tradition, but on the contrary has nourished them and, in ways I’m still learning to articulate, has been nourished by them. I have experienced what the prophet Alma promises as the fruit of faith in Jesus Christ: “. . . is not this real? I say unto you, Yea, because it is light, and whatsoever is light, is good because it is discernible . . . ” (Alma 32: 34; my emphasis).

How grateful I am for the real and discernible goods to which the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has opened my heart, mind, and soul! Though “my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted . . . Oh Lord, I have trusted in thee and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh; for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh” (2 Nephi 4: 19, 34).

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Ralph C. Hancock earned his B.A. (summa cum laude) from Brigham Young University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, all in political science. Prior to joining the faculty at Brigham Young University, where he is now a professor of political science, he taught at Hillsdale College in Michigan (1982-1986) and the University of Idaho (1986-1987). He has also been a visiting professor in the law faculty at the University of Rennes, in France (during the spring of 1991 and 1999), and a visiting scholar at Liberty Fund, Inc., in Indianapolis, Indiana (2001-2002).

Among Professor Hancock’s numerous publications are Calvin and the Foundations of Modern Politics (Cornell University Press, 1989); The Legacy of the French Revolution (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996; edited, with Gary Lambert); Just and Holy Principles (Simon & Schuster, 1998; edited); America, the West, and Liberal Education (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999; edited); Philippe Bénéton, Equality by Default: An Essay on Modernity as Confinement (ISI Books, 2004; translated); Alain Besançon, A Century of Horrors: On Communism, Nazism, and the Uniqueness of the Shoah (ISI Books, 2007; translated, with Nathanael Hancock); chapters in a number of books; and reviews, translations, and articles, in both English and French, in Perspectives on Political Science, City Journal, Pensée Politique, Confluences, Political Science Reviewer, Policy Review, Modern Age, Review of Politics, First Things, and Claremont Review.

Dr. Hancock is the founder and director of the John Adams Center for the Study of Faith, Philosophy, and Public Affairs (http://www.johnadamscenter.com/about/ralph-hancock/). He is also a founder of the LDS Web journal SquareTwo (http://squaretwo.org/) and a member of its editorial board. His current focus is on meaning and the limits of philosophy in relation to politics, ethics, and religion, as well as on the thought of Alexis de Tocqueville, Martin Heidegger, Leo Strauss, and Emmanuel Levinas. His The Responsibility of Reason: Theory and Practice in a Liberal-Democratic Age, which examines the meaning and the limits of reason, will be published later this year by Rowman & Littlefield.

Posted August 2010

1. The world is knowable (i.e., understood through man’s physical senses).
2. Its attributes and representations can be abstracted for discussion (i.e., oak trees can be pictured and discussed as concepts rather than being present in the classroom).
3. Within a scientific framework, causal and associative relationships are logically inferred from cases, experimental conclusions, and other data.

Outside this somewhat limited intellectual territory of scientific inquiry are spheres of beauty, poetry, the arts, and normative standards of right and wrong. Evidence of the power of faith is explained by revelations of ancient and modern prophets. And although science speculates as to the relationship of light, mass, and energy, it is left to normative truth to explain each of their origins and ultimate purposes.

Just as I have tested the accuracy of scientific conclusions, I have likewise examined for myself the doctrines and moral principles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church) as an active Church member. Through prayerful study and examination of sacred scriptures (revelations of ancient and modern prophets), I now testify of the existence of a living and loving Heavenly Father who is interested in all of his sons and daughters here upon the Earth. I know of his goodness and kindness. I understand his Plan of Happiness, which provides us a way back into his presence—with the aid of Jesus Christ’s atonement. This Plan, designed prior to the foundation of this World, contains provisions for binding righteous family members together throughout eternity and allows each of God’s mortal sons and daughters the potential to become like him.

The scientific world of orderly laws and outcomes is not foreign to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ outlines eternal laws and ordinances that result in divine blessings promised for those who obey his laws. Those who live righteously have been given God’s divine promises of blessings, salvation, and exaltation. The joy promised by this plan causes those who have it to want to share it with others. All persons who search for peace and never-ending family relationships should examine this message further. It is a Pearl of Great Price.

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Ellwyn R. Stoddard received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 1961, and is now a professor emeritus of sociology and anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). He received UTEP’s Distinguished Faculty Award for Research in 1990.

Dr. Stoddard is an expert on the culture of the U.S.-Mexican borderlands and is the founder of the Association of Borderland Scholars. He is, moreover, the author or co-author of roughly a hundred publications, including Conceptual Models of Human Behavior in Disaster (1968); Mexican Americans (1973 [1981]; with Richard L. Nostrand and Jonathan P. West, Borderlands Sourcebook: A Guide to the Literature on Northern Mexico and the American Southwest (1983, winner of the 1984 Southwest Book Award); with John Hedderson, Patterns of Poverty along the U.S.-Mexico Border (1987); Maquila: Assembly Plants in Northern Mexico (1987); U.S.-Mexico Borderlands Issues: The Bi-National Boundary, Immigration and Economic Policies (2001); U.S.-Mexico Borderlands Studies: Multidisciplinary Perspectives and Concepts (2002); U.S.-Mexico Borderlands as a Multi-Cultural Region (2005).

Professor Stoddard and his wife have nine children and twenty-three grandchildren.

Posted August 2010

Some seem to acquire faith almost naturally as they grow up. For me, gaining strong faith was somewhat of a struggle. I was born of goodly parents and raised in a Christian home where I was taught about the Savior. When I reached college age, however, my faith was not strong enough to enable me to feel comfortable teaching and testifying to others. This unbelief led me to turn down my bishop’s invitation to serve as a missionary.

After one of our interviews, the bishop pointedly asked if I was going to live my entire life without knowing if Jesus was really the resurrected Lord. The bishop made it quite clear that it was up to me to do something about my lack of faith and encouraged me to make it a matter of urgent study and prayer.

Unfortunately, my desire was weak and I was unwilling to commit the needed time and effort. As a university student, however, I soon found myself increasingly exposed to philosophical and scientific information that appeared on the surface to be inconsistent with faith in God. Simultaneously, I was confronted with choices relating to Christian standards of behavior. I realized that I really did need to know, once and for all, whether the teachings of Jesus Christ were true. If the answer were “yes,” my lifestyle would need to be consistent with those teachings. Therefore, I did not register for the next quarter’s university classes. I then devoted several months to an intense and careful period of studying the Bible (Old and New Testaments), the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Frequently, during my reading, I knelt down asking God to help me understand and to let me know whether the events relating to the crucifixion and marvelous resurrection of the Lord and the plan of exaltation established by God for all His sons and daughters living on Earth were true.

The fulfillment of the promise in the Book of Mormon that the Lord would “manifest the truth of it unto me by the power of the Holy Ghost” did not occur immediately. Although I found consistency and hope in the scriptures, I did not have a witness by the Spirit regarding their veracity.

I attended a fast and testimony meeting one Sunday, when I was well into my scriptural research. I sat there listening to a sister bear testimony of the reality of the Lord’s resurrection and the mercy and power of His atoning sacrifice. I remember thinking to myself as she sat down, “If only I could say that!” But before I realized it, I was standing up. I had indescribable feelings of peace in my mind. The impressions were so powerful that I felt my hair was standing on end. Indeed, “the Spirit of God like a fire was burning.” Under the influence of that marvelous Spirit, I testified that the Book of Mormon is the word of God; that Jesus, the living Christ, is my Redeemer; and that Joseph Smith was and is a modern-day prophet who was divinely empowered to re-establish the original Christian Church, complete with correct doctrine and authority. I knew without any doubt that these things were true.

The same overpowering experience that I felt that morning in testimony meeting has been repeated from time to time throughout the years. My faith and appreciation for the Savior’s love has continued to grow ever since that day.

Whatever worthwhile contribution I may have made to society I attribute to the influence of this same guiding Spirit. That Spirit of truth has assisted me at home and at work. There is no reason that strong faith and science cannot coexist.

I had help from the Lord doing research for my doctor of public health degree at the Harvard School of Public Health. On many occasions, my investigation would come to a fork in the road. Sometimes it was more than a fork; many possible avenues would present themselves. Most of these were blind alleys, however, that would only consume time and not lead to my final destination. When important decisions were necessary I would make them a matter of sincere prayer. I acknowledge that insight, far beyond my own ability, was often the result of a simple prayer. This help enabled me to rapidly complete an acceptable thesis project. I give inspiration the credit; my main contribution was hard work. This same inspiration has also assisted me in clinical practice. Prayer, at critical times when I cared for seriously ill patients, often led to approaches and ideas that positively and significantly affected clinical outcomes.

Many significant professional decisions I was called upon to make in my work were based upon objective, well-controlled science and the confirmation of the Spirit. There is a Spirit of truth. It acts upon people of all religious persuasions, living in every country, to improve the lot of mankind. This Spirit influenced courageous persons like Christopher Columbus, the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and those crafting the Constitution of the United States. This Spirit touches great authors, artists, and composers. It inspires men and woman with inquiring minds to bring forth inventions that affect transportation, communications, energy, electronics, and all other walks of modern life.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encourages members to get involved. The glory of God is intelligence. “And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were and as they are to come” (D&C 93:24). True science and true religion are never in conflict. My faith in a living God and a saving Christ is strengthened by my participation in the sciences. My work in the sciences is encouraged and enhanced by my faith.

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Jim Mason is a former head of the United States Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He served as the President and CEO of Avalon Health Care, Inc.; as an Adjunct Professor of Health Sciences, Brigham Young University; and as a member of the following boards and foundations: Avalon Health Care, Inc., Agronomics International, Davis Behavioral Health, Mental Health Resource Foundation, and Utahns for Better Dental Health. From 1994 until 1999, he oversaw the religious and humanitarian activities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout sub-Saharan Africa. He served as Vice President for Planning and Development and as Professor, Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, during 1993. From 1989 until 1993, he was Assistant Secretary for Health in the United States Department of Health and Human Services, being nominated to that position by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate. He also served as the United States delegate to the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1990 until 1993.

Dr. Mason served from 1983 until 1989 as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and as the administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) in Atlanta, Georgia, and as Acting Surgeon General of the United States from 1989 to 1990. Prior to that, he served as the executive director of the Utah Department of Health, with responsibilities for public health and health care financing, from 1979 until 1983. He was associate professor and chair of the Division of Community Medicine in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Utah College of Medicine from 1978 until 1979. He directed the multiple hospital health care corporation owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1970 until 1975. These hospitals were spun off from the Church to become Intermountain Health Care.

Dr. Mason was born in 1930 in Salt Lake City, Utah, and received B.A. and M.D. degrees from the University of Utah in 1954 and 1958. He then received M.P.H. and Dr.P.H. degrees from Harvard University in 1963 and 1967. He served an internship in medicine (Osler Service) at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and was a resident in Internal Medicine at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Harvard Medical Service, in Boston. He is certified in General Preventive Medicine by the American Board of Preventive Medicine.

He is married to the former Marie Smith and they are the parents of seven children, with twenty-four grandchildren and seventeen great-grandchildren. The Masons have lived in Farmington, Utah, for the past ten years, since his 2000 release from the Second Quorum of the Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to which he had been called in 1994. From 2000 to 2003, Dr. Mason presided over the Bountiful Utah Temple.

Posted August 2010

I have performed many scientific experiments in my career as a university chemistry professor and researcher, and I have observed the results of many more experiments done by graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and other scientists. Some of these observations have led to what would be considered truths in the scientific world. They look right, they behave right, they feel right, and they are believable. I have also read, made observations, and been on my knees in prayer many times during the same period of time, searching for spiritual truths. These truths also look right, behave right, feel right, and are believable, but they eventually become known with more surety than any scientific truth I believe.

With this understanding, I testify with a surety that Jesus Christ lives and true religion is available for anyone and everyone to embrace. I have found truth in the doctrines taught in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is restored from the original church established by Jesus Christ in the old world (i.e., area around Jerusalem) and in ancient America as related in the Book of Mormon. These truths have become known to me by manifestations of the Spirit after study, testing, and prayer. Knowledge of these truths has brought me more satisfaction and happiness than any truths I have learned in scientific pursuits. In fact, they have enhanced my scientific career. There have been many times that I felt a divine influence in a scientific decision I made. I know without a doubt that I would not have been able to realize my scientific achievements without the guidance that comes from a sure knowledge of spiritual truth and the promptings of the Spirit.

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Milton L. Lee received a B.A. degree in Chemistry from the University of Utah in 1971 and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Indiana University in 1975, after which he spent one year (1975-76) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Upon leaving MIT, he accepted a faculty position in the Chemistry Department at Brigham Young University, where he is presently the H. Tracy Hall Professor of Chemistry. Dr. Lee is an author or co-author of over five hundred scientific publications. Since 1980, he has given over seven hundred presentations on various aspects of his research, of which approximately one-third were invited lectures at major conferences and symposia. He is a member of the Scientific Committee for the International Symposia on Capillary Chromatography.

Dr. Lee is best known for his research in capillary separations and mass spectrometry detection. Among the scientific awards that he has received for his achievements in research and professional activities are the M. S. Tswett Chromatography Medal (1984), the Keene P. Dimick Chromatography Award (1988), the American Chemical Society Award in Chromatography (1988), the Russian Tswett Chromatography Medal (1992), the Martin Gold Medal (1996), the Latin-American Chromatography Congress (COLACRO) Medal (1998), the M. J. E. Golay Award (1998), the American Chemical Society Award in Chemical Instrumentation (1998), a Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa, from Uppsala University in Finland (1998), the Dal Nogare Award (1999), the Eastern Analytical Symposium Award for Achievements in Separation Science (1999), the California Separation Science Society Award (2005), the Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award (2008), and the EAS Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Fields of Analytical Chemistry (2008).

Professor Lee is also an entrepreneur and has been involved in transferring technology from his university research laboratory to the private sector. In 1984, he co-founded Lee Scientific to manufacture and market supercritical fluid chromatographic instrumentation and, in 1991, he co-founded Sensar Corporation to manufacture and market unique time-of-flight mass spectrometric instrumentation. Most recently, he is a co-founder of Torion Technologies, which is developing novel ion-trapping devices. In addition, Dr. Lee acquired ownership of the Journal of Microcolumn Separations in 1991, and became the publisher as well as an editor for the next eight years. He is listed as a co-inventor on twenty issued or pending patents.

Posted August 2010

I was asked to add my testimony of Jesus Christ and of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to this website. A bit awed by the task, I have prayerfully considered this effort and hope it will serve others as they grow in their understanding of Jesus Christ and His gospel.

History

I was baptized and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after I graduated from college with my baccalaureate degree in nursing from the University of Cincinnati. (It was on July 24th and I had no awareness of the historic significance of the date.) I met with the missionaries for about eight weeks.

My religious background up until I joined the Church was somewhat eclectic. My parents were Christian. My father was raised in a strong Catholic tradition, and my mother was raised Episcopal. My father was a professor, and twelve years older than my mother. They resolved their religious differences by not joining any church.

When I was in the third grade I went with a neighbor to a Methodist church. When the neighbor moved, I would go by myself. I was allowed to attend Sunday School but not the main Sunday service. I liked learning about Christ, and the teachings resonated deep within me. I would attend church with my friends and got a view of other churches. One summer I only went to the Catholic Church a few blocks from my home. They were all interesting. I was active in the Methodist Church through high school and part of college. I searched for my own testimony of Christ and read the Bible daily.

I had many questions about life during college. Should I be a nurse? How should I serve God? Should I choose another field? What was next? Why were people the way they were? And I had many other questions.

Joining the Church

After graduating from college, I had a few dates with an LDS returned missionary who asked the “golden questions.” My response was, “I already know about your church. I have read the encyclopedia.” But, I agreed to listen to the missionaries. Much of what they taught I already believed. The plan of progression and discussion of premortal life, while not new, resonated intensely within me. While reading the Book of Mormon (I read the whole book in a short time), I was very touched by what I read. King Benjamin and his sermon were deeply stirring. Nephi, Alma, the Stripling Warriors, Mormon, and Moroni were additional testimonies of Christ, and they affected me deeply.

Even though the precepts and church writings were good and would build my commitment to Christ, converting to a peculiar faith was troubling. I knew I would be ostracized by my family, even some friends, etc. The future in a new faith was so uncertain. I only knew a few people who were LDS, and I was moving to Boston, Massachusetts, later in the summer for graduate school. What if the people were strange there, or didn’t want me in “their” church? Even though I felt the Church, its teachings, and practices were how Christ would have wanted His Church to be if He were on earth, the decision to join the Church was very, very difficult. I don’t even have words for it. It was like giving up everything I knew or had been a part of so far in my life. Maybe that was why my mother was so upset when I did join the Church.

I am sure the missionaries knew from my prayers that I was struggling with the decision, and they were very kind and patient. It took several more weeks for me to be baptized. I was terrified. My brother attended my baptism. The terror leading up to baptism was totally countered on the day I was baptized. I was calm, reassured, and felt a wonderful confidence that all was well. I would even try to conjure up a feeling of anxiety, but kept being reassured. It was an incredible feeling of peace.

Journey after Baptism

I moved to Boston about a month after I was baptized. I went to Boston University’s School of Nursing, in the master’s program in child psychiatric nursing. I loved school; it was wonderful. I loved learning and was fascinated by what I was learning.

But, personally, it was the loneliest year of my life. There were two very good experiences with the Church. I was given a job leading music in the Primary (a mid-week activity), and worked with wonderful people. The second was that Elder Boyd K. Packer held an early morning class for all the LDS students in the area. I was so new to the Church, I was like a sponge, learning as much as I could.

There were only a few single LDS women in the ward, and we were all involved in graduate studies. After a couple of years, the ward had many singles; some were students and some were working. It had grown and divided several times by the time I moved to Utah six years later. I worked at the University of Utah Hospital and taught at the University of Utah College of Nursing for many years before being asked to be the Dean of the College of Nursing and moving my career to Brigham Young University. There is a lot to my story in the intervening years, but that is enough to help you understand the beginning of my religious journey.

My Testimony

Joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a life changing decision, and a wonderful gift. I have learned so much about Jesus Christ and how to live a more worthy life. I have learned how to serve others in a more Christ-like way. I have tried to give serious thought and effort to how I would dedicate my life to Christ. I married in my early thirties and had children in my late thirties and early forties. I had a PhD and tenure before I had children. After struggling to decide if I really wanted to be a nurse, after graduation I never looked back and never wished I had chosen something else. Full time or part time, I stayed with nursing and developed a career in academic nursing. I believe this was what the Lord wanted for me and the talents and gifts He had given me.

I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is my Savior and my Redeemer in every sense of the word. I have no question that He lived on earth as the Son of God. He is the Savior of the world and my Savior, who makes me whole and perfect with his healing redemption. Through the gift of the Holy Ghost I can receive inspiration and instruction. I won’t be instructed in everything, as I would not develop my own knowledge and capabilities if every decision were made by another. I believe that God the Father does care for us, for Jesus has told us so. The Prophets of old and the Prophets from Joseph Smith through President Monson have testified of Christ, of a Heavenly Father who loves us, and of the Holy Ghost. The Church is divinely organized and led by a Prophet today. I believe that prayers are answered, just not always the way we want. However, the answers are always to our benefit, if we choose to listen carefully, and trust the still small voice of the Holy Ghost.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is beautiful to me. Through its practices and teachings I can know, understand, and partake of an eternal perspective that fills my longing to know who I am and where I am going. The sacrament, Church activities, General Conference, from Relief Society to ward parties, I am enriched by them all. I have been blessed to share my journey with beautiful ward members. Most of all I am blessed by a righteous husband, who cares about me and our children. He works very hard to fulfill his gifts, talents, and role as husband and father. My children make me weep as I behold their divine beauty. Marriages have brought in new family members and, as the grandchildren join our family, I feel God’s trust in me grow, for I am part of a divine heritage.

I pray that you may feel the confirmation that you are a treasured, precious child of a Heavenly Father that loves you. I pray for those who hear the missionaries or find the message of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that they may have the sincere desire to ask if the message is true, and, after the confirmation by the still small voice of the Holy Ghost, have the courage to join and serve in the Church.

I pray for the leaders, the members, and especially for the children. Love the children, for they are precious and need our guidance to return to our Heavenly Father after this life’s journey.

I say this is the name of Jesus, Christ. Amen.

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Beth Vaughan Cole has been the Dean of the College of Nursing at Brigham Young University since 2007. Prior to assuming her present responsibilities, from 1993 to 2007, she was a professor of nursing at the University of Utah, where, among other things, she chaired the Acute and Chronic Nursing Division of the College of Nursing and coordinated the nursing doctoral program. She received her first degree in nursing from the University of Cincinnati, and subsequently earned a master’s degree in child psychiatric nursing from Boston University and a Ph.D. in family studies from Brigham Young University.

Her specialties include end of life issues, family, obstetrics (maternal, newborn), and psychiatric nursing. Her research and writing has appeared in such places as the Handbook of Families and Health: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Thousand Oaks, London, and New Delhi, 2006) and in such journals as Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, the American Journal of Critical Care, and the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, and she is the co-author of Family Nursing Practice (Philadelphia, 2003).

In 2000, Professor Cole was honored with the President’s Award of the International Society for Psychiatric Nursing; in 2001, she was named a “Hometown Hero” by Salt Lake City’s KUTV (Channel Two).

Posted August 2010

An Eternal Work in Progress:
A Personal Essay on Belief

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
– Rumi¹

It may seem a bit strange that a Latter-day Saint’s confession of faith would begin with a quote from a medieval Sufi mystic. I like the fact that our tradition allows us to find truth wherever it might be—even in thirteenth-century Konya if necessary. We are, as Rumi intimates, on a journey, a pilgrimage, and as Latter-day Saints we surely can be enriched in our quest by drawing on the intellectual insights and spiritual experiences from other knowledge traditions. We are instructed in our religion to do more than merely passively appreciate truth in all its forms, but rather “we should seek after these things” (Article of Faith 13). Seek after such things, not just casually peruse or dabble.

Much of Rumi’s writing reinforces my own beliefs of inclusive spirituality and the bliss of a direct and personal experience with God. In this passage, Rumi describes the pathos of the human circumstance in this alien world as we wrestle with distressing and often torturous questions of ultimate, eternal truth. But while we often only see through a glass darkly, our inner essence calls us to a higher dimension, and we hear whispers—if ever so faintly—that we are from somewhere else. And while our Latter-day Saint tradition shines its own distinctive shaft of light on Rumi’s uncertainties, humbly we must admit that we do not have perfect knowledge.

But before getting to a discussion of belief and truth-knowing let me provide a bit of personal context. I am what some would call a birthright or “DNA” Mormon. Mormons are my folk, my tribe. I belong here. I come from stock who were among the first pioneers to settle the Utah territories. I have a rich family heritage of sacrifice, faith, and unfathomable commitment to the building of the kingdom. I’m inspired and moved to read their stories of dispossession and fortitude, their suffering, and their uncommon gratitude. I honor my history. I am proud of it. I have faithful and believing parents, who worked hard to provide a spiritual framework in which I never felt myself insignificant or that the universe was a meaningless one.

My religious upbringing created an organic worldview that made God an everyday reality for me. I cannot imagine belonging to any other religious community. This is not to say I don’t struggle with some aspects of my religious village: the prevailing social, economic and political conservatism of our current membership; the sentimentality that is sometimes presented as spirituality in our testimony sharing; the occasional over-emphasis on church activities where the church itself risks becoming an object of worship. But I suppose it’s not unlike most family circumstances where the cords that bind are stronger then the tensions that divide. There is much that is right about my faith community, and thankfully there is sufficient diversity among believing Mormons that allows people like me to find a place under its tent. The church has given much to me. I find it a remarkable place in which selfless service is rendered and its lay leadership authentically tries to respond to the will of God as they best understand it. It is a place where I’ve witnessed many types of yearning made manifest: the need for social support; the need for peace, meaning, transformation, and redemption. And, for many, the message of the restored gospel generously meets their individual needs in profound, life-giving ways.

Ours is a consequential even though underestimated theology, and as a church we are a vital and divine instrument designed to bring about much good to the human predicament. But we are not a perfect church, and I don’t think we seriously claim to be. I have come to identify my own religious experience as a part of a grand assembly of God’s children whom he loves and mercifully blesses, continuing to reveal himself “unto all nations” in different ways and by different means (2 Nephi 29:12). I have come to view different religions as a deeply valued expression of the divine human family. Alma puts it nicely: “For behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have” (Alma 28:8). Our Latter-day Saint tradition is a part of that broader fabric of human experience with its own distinctive and vibrant threads divinely woven by the greater designs of God.

A part of our theology that speaks powerfully to me, and, in a way, sets it apart from other religious philosophies, is its sheer spiritual imagination of eternity and the stirring potential of the human soul. I have yet to come across a grander and more exquisite vision of life’s purposes. If one measures the greatness of a particular philosophy by what possibilities it inspires in people, then I cannot think of a more aspirational or noble vision for humankind than to see ourselves as gods in embryo—to not just live forever in some blissful state, but to be eternally emergent, ever becoming something more than we are. Ours is not a shallow theology, but one that is rich, thoughtful, and unique, particularly as it relates to questions of life’s purposes and the vast individuated possibilities that lie ahead of us. Mormonism is an optimistic faith and a positive affirmation of life, an optimism that fosters courage to live more fully if we let it.

But my individual faith has experienced various transformations over the years, and it indeed continues to evolve with time and experience. I’ve witnessed the beliefs of my youth transform to a more earned and independent faith as I served a mission in Pennsylvania. Studying at Stanford and Oxford, I gained a greater appreciation of reason and intellect as tools to inform and add texture to my understanding of the world. And while these tools have limits, they are not to be feared or ignored. As I have lived in various cultural contexts, and as the aperture of my experience has broadened, I have found my faith in God again change but deepen as I witnessed His hand in the affairs of his children no matter their nationality or religious profession. But I confess that my “simple” faith has given way to something else much harder to define, and I have grieved over a loss of such simplicity.

Doubt and uncertainty have become much more a part of my spiritual landscape. But I don’t despair because I believe as Miguel de Unamuno once observed, “faith which does not doubt is dead faith.”² And maybe that is what Alma means when he writes: “if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe” (Alma 32:18). Ways of knowing are so highly individualized, and even our own scriptures speak of the differing gifts of the Spirit for each individual (Doctrine and Covenants 46:10-26; Moroni 10:9-17). But I have come to understand that perhaps there is no such thing as “certainty” for me in the way we often hear in our general conferences and fast and testimony meetings. I’m left with only evolving levels of knowledge and varying degrees of confidence in our system of understanding. I do not preclude the possibilities that others have such knowledge, but I have not been endowed to “know.” And while I have not been blessed with very many spiritual gifts, I can still say that I have felt God’s presence. I have had prayers answered. I have been reassured and guided. I have been witness to the unexplainable. But with so many unanswered questions, contradictions and paradoxes of life, I cannot claim to understand God very well. God, even though real to me, at times seems quite remote from many aspects of the human condition. His Spirit and influence seem as provisional as the breeze which “bloweth where it listeth” (John 3:8). My experiences have made me much less trusting and gullible and far more skeptical. My sense of “realism” in this regard is a product of understanding that intellectual constructions continually alter, sensory knowledge can be manipulated, and even empiricism is ultimately subjective. Epistemology—or the philosophical analysis of how and what we know, and what the horizons of any particular way of knowing are—can be extremely useful to us in approximating reality as we currently understand the world, but the boundaries of our knowledge spheres are fluid and permeable rather than confidently fixed. All religious traditions, including our own, have their inconsistencies, their troubling histories, and their operational problems as they deal with the vagaries of the human beings they serve. Our own interpretation of scripture and prophetic authority still leaves many questions unanswered or uncertainly answered. In other words, all knowledge, whether in temporal or spiritual form, requires faith of one degree or another. This no longer troubles me unduly. Sure knowledge and faith for me cannot co-exist. To build one’s house of faith solely on intellectual constructs is as shifting sand wherein the borders of our understanding are ever fluctuating and never hermetically sealed. But it also seems to me to be problematic to anchor one’s conversion in single instances of miracles or answered prayers where by the prayer of faith one person receives health, and in spite of such prayer another dies.

I’ve come to be at peace with limited understanding, having faith that the mists will clear with time, and that faith is a large part of the purpose of life. The architecture of my faith is probably more durable as a result of my skepticism. I’m not shaken by “errors” or “controversies.” Having made the study of comparative religion a life-time endeavor, I am less perplexed by the problems and anomalies of our own church history because every religious tradition has its own set of specific historical questions or inconsistencies. Controversy seems to be a natural part of the human endeavor of constructing sense—whether scientific or theological. My academic experience in the social sciences has taught me that if we don’t have a perfect, linear, measurable view of a research subject, we must take what various perspectives we have available and, through triangulation, come to a reasonable context that is logical and internally consistent. In other words, we take bits of imperfect or incomplete knowledge and configure them in a way that supports a defensible thesis on the larger question. While I have always felt a tenuous connection to the Spirit as I try to understand God’s purposes, I have been left to harness other divine powers such as mind, logic, intuition, and even emotion in triangulating a clearer picture. This melding of “heart and mind” has given me a compelling and sufficient context for daily living and sustains my needs (Doctrine and Covenants 8:2) even in the hours of my darkest struggles. In a way, the quality of lived, interpretive experience is in itself a final test of “knowing,” because our own individual subjectivity is all we ultimately have. Spiritual evidence is inherently experiential. We cannot live through others, and they cannot live through us. Not all ways of knowing are always compatible at the same moment, and at times I have had to suspend, modify, and sometimes discard certain beliefs and other presuppositions. At times the best I can muster is hope.

But I also believe this is as it should be for such testing grounds as this. We are purposely left to find our way, drawing on whatever resources we can in this soul-stretching pilgrimage. The journey we are on is, by deliberate design, neither clear nor easy. One of the eternal principles my faith-tradition teaches me is that there is “opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11). Individual growth only significantly occurs when we strain, struggle, labor. If God were too intrusive in our affairs, our individual freedom and diverse wills would be compromised and growth hindered. It’s what we fought against in the councils of the pre-existence. I’m OK with not having all the answers and being fully certain. To me there is a particular beauty in God’s mystery.

I guess I am more of what Richard D. Poll calls a “Liahona” Mormon, one who approaches faith issues somewhat differently than “Iron Rod” Mormons who represent the mainstream of our faithful.³ The two metaphors are, of course, drawn from the experience of the prophet Lehi in The Book of Mormon. In Lehi’s famous dream, the Iron Rod represents a sure way to God if we but hold on to His Word. The path is delineated by a hand-rail even when the mists of life consume us. It’s a single path, a “narrow way,” a path that has answers to every important question through scripture, prophetic authority, and the Spirit. In these sources the Iron Rod Mormon finds comprehensive direction to all aspects of life. And if answers are not immediately forthcoming they are either irrelevant, or the Lord will reveal His will in time and according to our faith. There is a certain safety and confidence that can be attained, not by asking questions but by looking for answers in the gospel—answers that only need to be revealed with sufficient prayer, study, and patience.

Liahona Mormons, by contrast, are represented by Lehi’s sacred compass that pointed the way but did not clearly delineate a single path. The users of the compass were left to navigate around and through obstacles on their own. Indeed, the clarity of the Liahona’s direction was dependent on the particular context of the user. Liahonas are suspicious of tidy answers, of either/or propositions. They are often preoccupied with questions and skeptical of answers that are universally applied. I suppose the longer I live and the more I experience, the more I see the world and humanity in vivid colors and in complex, transcendent hues, and, yes, sometimes gray—but rarely if ever, anymore, in black and white.

Perhaps my awareness of the faiths of diverse people and the complicated sufferings of a conflicted world has made me impatient of exclusive faith claims. A mounting realization for me is that absolutist claims in a religious sense are a form of spiritual death. We become unresponsive and insensitive to other possibilities when we have, or think we have, all the answers. It closes us off. In effect, it damns. Religious history teaches us that absolutism inevitably ends badly, fanatically, and at times even violently. Living and working many years outside of an urban-American Mormon experience gave me the opportunity of knowing and befriending others whose hearts and minds seemed very much like my own, but who had their own religious convictions, their own faith, that offered them as much peace, meaning, answers to prayers, miracles, and other transcendent spiritual experiences as my own religious tradition did for me. Are the religious experiences of others to be dismissed or minimized as something less than my own spiritual encounters? It seems ignorant, if not arrogant, to think so. I like Philip Barlow’s characterization of ours being a “uniquely true” church but not one that has the corner on all truth or goodness.⁴

So, in the end, I choose to believe in God. I believe He desires happiness for us. I believe Him when He generously unveils his own purpose and meaning when he says: “this is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). I have also grown to be thankful for God’s grace and patience. I’m convinced that He is in it with me for the long-run. The same being who took thirteen billion years to develop our galaxy has the patience for me to get it right. I have faith that he is not done with me after this life is over. This life is merely a provisional, transitional state for something else. And while I, like Rumi, do think much about where I came from and what my purposes might be, I do have one advantage over Rumi. I have, at least, been blessed with an idea of those answers because of the grace and the sublime imagination of this church. While many of my questions remain unanswered or uncertainly answered on this glorious, wondrous quest, I have a compass that tells me in a “voice of perfect mildness” that this is not all, that I am here in preparation for something larger and more significant (Helaman 5:30). I am an eternal work in progress. And, like Rumi, “my soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that. And I intend to end up there.”

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Notes:
¹ Barks, Coleman, The Essential Rumi (New York: Harper One, 1995), p. 2.
² de Unamuno, Miguel, La Agonía del Cristianismo (The Agony of Christianity, 1931) as found in Gerrish, B.A., & Stimming, M.T., The Pilgrim Road: Sermons on Christian Life (Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky, 1971), p. 114.
³ Poll, Richard D., History and Faith: Reflections of a Mormon Historian (Signature Books: Salt Lake City, UT, 1989).
⁴ Barlow, Philip L., “The Uniquely True Church,” in A Thoughtful Faith, Philip L. Barlow (ed.) (Centerville, UT: Canon Press, 1986), pp. 235-258.

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Bradley J. Cook is the Provost at Southern Utah University and also Professor of History there. Prior to his current position he served as President of the Abu Dhabi Women’s College in the United Arab Emirates. Dr. Cook began his career in higher education in 1990 as the Special Assistant to the President at the American University in Cairo. After his stint in Egypt he became the Director of Government Relations for International Bechtel, Inc., in Kuwait.
Upon completing his master’s degree at Stanford University and his doctorate at the University of Oxford, he took a faculty position in the Department of Educational Leadership and Foundations at Brigham Young University. He also served as Vice President of Academic Affairs at Utah Valley University.
He is the author of the book Classical Foundations of Islamic Educational Thought, a part of BYU’s Islamic Translation Series. Some of his other publications can be found in such academic journals as International Review of Education, Comparative Education, Compare, the Comparative Education Review, Middle East Affairs Journal, and the Journal of Critical Inquiry into Curriculum and Instruction.

Posted August 2010