"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
The LDS Testimony: There's More Than Meets the Eye
by Jeff Lindsay
During
my two years in the Zürich Switzerland mission, I had the
privilege of working with a large variety of people. I counted 52
different nationalities of people that we taught in that charming
fondue pot of humanity (granted, it wasn’t much of a melting
pot, but I had to find some way to mention cheese which somehow
helped even the toughest of days seem not so bad). We taught people
from all social ranks, and while the poor and humble were the easiest
to teach, we found the highly educated and wealthy to be far warmer
and willing to talk with us than I had assumed. The Swiss are a
friendly people, though I'll admit this was back before America
became a hiss and a byword among many nations that once respected my
nation.
We
had relatively little success among the intellectuals that we met,
but I greatly value the opportunities we had to talk. They gave us
plenty to think about, and we certainly tried to make it mutual,
young and naive as we were.
One
highly educated man, though, was quite angry with us. In nearly
perfect English, he chastised us for thinking we had testimonies. He
explained that he was familiar with our faith and had attended our
meetings while he was in the US, and was amazed at how little
children in fast and testimony meetings would go up and parrot words
their parents gave them, as if that were a testimony. He insisted
that we had been brainwashed and couldn't think for ourselves. His
unkind critique stuck with me and influenced the way I would later
instruct my ward about testimony meetings when I served as a bishop.
While
some young children can have sincere testimonies about some aspects
of the Gospel, I personally want people to express testimonies from
their hearts and not to simply parrot the words of others. I had a
genuine strong but fledgling testimony of God and the power of prayer
at age 6, though I don't think I publicly expressed it until I was a
teenager (shouldn’t have been so shy!).
My
testimony of the Book of Mormon did not really begin until I
earnestly sought to determine its truthfulness or fraudulence at age
14. I came away from that quest first with disappointment that
nothing happened when I prayed, and then, after taking Moroni 10:4
more seriously and reading the book again, more slowly this time,
with deeper pondering, I would eventually arise from my knees stunned
at the power of the Spirit and the joy of being greeted with its
embrace as I received the beginnings of a knowledge that the Book of
Mormon is true.
That
was, though, still a beginning, a beginning of a lifelong pursuit of
understanding, filled with questions and struggles, stumbling and
renewal, blessings and miracles, gentle whisperings of the Spirit and
occasional smack-downs from a loving but firm God. I am grateful that
I have kept a journal along the way because some of the most
significant, dramatic, and testimony-building moments can be easily
forgotten, questioned, and discarded. We need help in remembering
what God has shown us and done for us, and a journal is one way to do
that. The scriptures, of course, are another.
As
for that angry Swiss man, there was some merit to his criticism, but
much of it was a caricature of the LDS testimony, especially the
testimonies of those who have sincerely sought to know for themselves
of the reality of Jesus Christ as our Savior and the truthfulness of
the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. In spite of some children who
wish to participate but end up just repeating a parent’s words,
the typical faithful Latter-day Saint has done a fair amount of
soul-searching, studying, and prayer, just as the Book of Mormon
teaches us. Recall the story of Enos and his quest for a testimony,
along with many other Book of Mormon references to study, prayer, and
fasting to obtain personal knowledge, and then the promise of Moroni
10:3-4 to those who study, ponder, and pray to know of the truth of
the Book of Mormon. The LDS testimony is based upon a combination of
mental effort, such as studying and pondering, coupled with spiritual
effort through prayer and listening to the Spirit, in a quest to
receive revelation from the Spirit of God to our own spirit to help
us understand the things of God. The knowledge that comes to us is
not just fickle emotion. It is knowledge
that comes to our heart and
mind (see Doctrine and Covenants 8:2-3). The mind is certainly
involved. This is about enlightenment, understanding, and knowledge
from a real God, not just a mood and a whim of the heart.
Unfortunately,
the critics of our faith make a mockery of this thing that we call
our testimony. In their caricature of the LDS testimony, logic,
evidence, and facts have no bearing on our faith, just random
heartburn or the warm feelings we get during meetings in LDS chapels
with suspiciously poor air conditioning.
Some
insist that our so-called testimonies represent shear ignorance,
unlike the evidence-based belief system of Evangelical Christianity.
In comments posted by readers at Mormanity,
a number of critics have told me how foolish it is to pray to know
the truth, for that is a sure path for deception. Instead, real
Christians simply have to look at the clear evidence God has given us
and accept the facts--no need to seek subjective "revelation"
since God has already revealed plain facts in black and white. It
gets interesting when you press for details and ask which facts, and
how to interpret them, and why there are so many different teachings
if all truth is so clear-cut. The evidence for things like the
truthfulness of Genesis become an occasional ancient document
mentioning some ancient city also mentioned in the Bible, or some
find showing that maybe there was a king named David. The evidence
for things like the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and
the miracles He performed become little more than assertions of a
much copied and edited document that is long removed from those
events, with absolutely no original manuscript available for any part
of the New Testament. I believe in the Bible, but to say that no
faith is needed to accept Jesus as the Christ because of irrefutable
evidence is ludicrous-- and rather unbiblical.
There
are witnesses for Christ, as there are witnesses for the Book of
Mormon, which itself is a witness of Christ. God has not left us
without witnesses and evidence, but the impact of these is greatest
after
faith is exerted. Faith is still required. That’s part of the
plan here.
There
are fascinating evidences for the Bible and for the Book of Mormon,
as there are for the role of Joseph Smith as prophet. These can play
a role in our spiritual journey. Indeed, conversion involves the
brain, but not the brain alone. The role of faith and revelation
through the Spirit must not be overlooked. After turning one’s
thoughts to the Lord, after studying, pondering, seeking, and
praying, one can experience the quiet miracle of receiving revelation
and enlightenment to both
the heart and the mind. It’s not the same for everyone, but I
believe that the gift of a testimony can be available to all in
various forms. A testimony of Jesus Christ or any other non-trivial
aspect of the Gospel is generally not the result of intellectually
overwhelming evidence based on tangible, peer-reviewed data, but on
revelation from God through the Spirit to our spirits.
This
concept is not a Mormon innovation, but is quite biblical and
Christian. Consider Revelation 19:10, which teaches that “the
testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” A spiritual
gift, a miracle, really, is involved in being a true witness for
Christ and being able to bear honest testimony of His divinity. A
testimony of Christ requires revelation. It's not just the logical
result of looking at the hard data. Data rarely changes the heart of
man and turns a sinner into a penitent Saint. The influence of the
Spirit is needed to do this.
Earlier
in the New Testament, Christ explained to Peter that Peter's witness
of Christ was not based on logic and human-generated data (“flesh
and blood”), but had been revealed to Him by the Spirit:
He
saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
And
Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God.
And
Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona:
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father
which is in heaven. (Matthew 16:15-17)
As
for the basic concept of the LDS testimony, based on revelation from
God to the spirit within us, I conclude with the witness of Paul in I
Corinthians 2:4-11 (New KJV):
4
And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of
human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that
your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of
God.
6
However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the
wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to
nothing. 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden
wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none
of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not
have crucified the Lord of glory.
9
But as it is written:
Eye
has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor
have entered into the heart of man
The
things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
10
But
God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For
the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For
what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which
is in him? Even
so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we
have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is
from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given
to us by God.
13
These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches
but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with
spiritual. 14 But
the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for
they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned.
Don't
expect the evidence--as impressive as it can be to those who have the
eye of faith-- to convert the natural man, the man who insists on
evidence and logic and proof. Faith is needed, and prayer is truly
helpful, as James teaches (James 1:5). The goal, of course, is to
receive personal revelation through the Spirit to help us know and
understand the truth of God that is hidden from the wisdom of men. We
call that a testimony. It's a valid biblical concept, in spite of the
hostile caricatures of our critics, and in spite of whatever
weaknesses we have in our own testimonies and the sharing of them.
Lessons from the Cosmos
For
those who want to understand the things of God and eternity only
through the lenses attached to their own eyeballs, who can only
believe what they can see, I would like to ask them how they can be
so confident of the conclusions they might reach through this means.
Science has recently determined that what we can see and measure is
only a tiny fraction of the unseen materials and forces that shape
the universe. As recently discussed at Mormanity, mysterious
dark matter and dark energy dominate the universe,
comprising about 96% of the matter-energy out there. All our glorious
instruments, eyes and hands included, are incapable of detecting most
of what surrounds us in the cosmos.
Apart
from that stunning and recent fact, we stand on one tiny speck of a
vast galaxy within a cosmos of millions upon millions of galaxies.
Even if your eyes are very sharp, what you see, even if you could see
dark matter and dark energy, is a vanishingly small fraction of the
scope of the universe. And even for our own domain, in your own town
or apartment or wherever you are, what you see even with the sharpest
of eyes is limited to photons having a wavelength between about 390
nanometers and 700 nanometers. You can’t see ultraviolet or
infrared. You can’t see microwaves or radiowaves or gamma
radiation or x-rays. The spectrum of electromagnetic
radiation—light—that places a non-trivial role in the
physical world extends far below and above the range of visible light
by many orders of magnitude. What we can see represents a tiny sliver
of the electromagnetic reality right in front of our noses. Are you
so sure you’ve got the full picture, even if you’ve got
20/20 vision? (And I haven’t even mentioned optical illusions.
Another fun topic.)
Here
is a representation of the electromagnetic spectrum, courtesy of
Wikipedia’s
article
on that topic:
There
is vastly more to the universe and to life than meets the physical
eye, and some of the most important information that we need will be
missed if we don’t realize there is a spiritual dimension to
life and that light and truth, spiritual information, can be conveyed
through the Spirit to supplement the pittance of physical data we
obtain with our senses.
Yes,
the testimony thing Mormons talk about isn’t easy and can be
confusing. But to trivialize it or ignore it is far more serious than
just ignoring 96% of reality or nearly all of the spectrum. When it
comes to the things of God and His beautiful plans for us, this is
one area where we don’t want to be blind.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.