Elder Jeffery R. Holland warned in the 2003 April General Conference of what he considers a serious threat to the faith of the children of the church: parents who are derelict in their duty to pass faith on to the next generation because they are prone to “cynicism or skepticism” and who “at the Church’s doctrinal campsite always like to pitch their tents out on the periphery of religious faith.” In his talk, Holland demonstrates the continuing inability of the Church leadership to acknowledge the legitimacy and sincerity of those who honestly doubt, as well as advocating what I find is one of the most pernicious trends in the Church – preserving faith at all costs, even if that means through manipulation and dishonesty.

Holland uses a camping metaphor to describe those who have become skeptical of core doctrines of the Church:

…may I address a rather specific aspect of [our children’s] safety? In this I speak carefully and lovingly to any of the adults of the Church, parents or otherwise, who may be given to cynicism or skepticism, who in matters of whole-souled devotion always seem to hang back a little, who at the Church’s doctrinal campsite always like to pitch their tents out on the periphery of religious faith. To all such – whom we do love and wish were more comfortable camping nearer to us – I say, please be aware that the full price to be paid for such a stance does not always come due in your lifetime… with payments coming out of your children’s and grandchildren’s pockets in far more expensive ways than you ever intended it to be.

Holland portrays cynicism and skepticism essentially as a bad habit to be broken, and suggests that those prone to it “hang back” from complete devotion to the Church out of weakness, as opposed to sincere and honest doubts. Skeptics simply like to be “clever or independent,” as he states later, and thus camp away from the rest of the group because they lack the faith to conform. All such parents need to do is quit their bad habit, and move their tents closer to the rest of the group.

In using such subtly demeaning language, Holland never acknowledges that there are many honest parents out there who simply can’t bring themselves to believe certain foundational claims about the Church because of what they see as substantial evidence undermining the Church’s claims. In fact, members who “take perhaps a so-called liberal view of basic and fundamental things” may very well find that this is the only position their conscience allows them to take. Holland though implies that they are simply lazy and too weak-hearted to accept the truth, “thinking that a little laxness or indulgence won’t matter… Some parents… seem to feel that they can ease up a little on the fundamentals without affecting their family’s future.”

In the course of my experience I have found that there are many members who are deeply disturbed by events of past church history such as polyandry, discrimination against people of African descent, and the Book of Abraham papyri, even if they are only vaguely aware of the details. Others find it hard to swallow many statements of modern apostles, whose political and social biases expressed in books and conference talks clash with some members’ deeply held beliefs about society and our place in it. When you find your conscience rebelling against the actions and words of those who are supposed to be God’s representatives, taking “a so-called liberal” view of the Church is not a matter of weakness or laziness – it’s a matter of principle.

When Elder Holland says that “there is enormous room… for studying and learning, for comparing and considering, for discussion and awaiting further revelation” what he really means is that there is room for such things as long as we all reach the ‘right’ answer – that the Church is exactly what it claims to be. “In such basic matters of faith, prophets do not apologize for requesting unity, indeed conformity…” He doesn’t appear to comprehend how inimical this is to the true spirit of scholarship and inquiry. According to Elder Holland, in “matters of religion a skeptical mind is not a higher virtue than is a believing heart…”

This attitude is typical of the Church’s outlook on intellectual endeavor – we pay lip service to study and learning, while acknowledging that intellectual effort is merely a game people who want to be “clever and independent” play. We know we have the Truth in this Church, and therefore nothing matters except that all reach the right conclusion. Although Holland claims that “there is no place for coercion or manipulation” in the Church, he is advocating that we do in fact manipulate our children into believing.

For example, he tells the story of a non-believing young man whose grandfather was a Mormon, but who “was always pretty cynical about the Church.” With Holland’s perspective that skepticism is just a game or a weakness, he can justify chiding the grandfather for not indoctrinating his children in Church fundamentals. I think it much more likely that this grandfather was being honest about where his faith was, and just couldn’t tell his children to believe something he himself wasn’t so sure about.

Holland’s entire talk seems to be arguing that skeptical parents should put it all aside and just conform for the benefit of their children. But is this really honest? Apparently, more important than honesty and conscience is putting up a false front so that our children reach the right answer. Holland feels it is important to teach children to never question basic assumptions, to always take “loyalty and bedrock belief” as a given. Ironically, if all people in the world followed this teaching, nobody would join the LDS church.

Elder Holland is correct in admonishing parents to openly live their convictions in front of their children, but this applies equally well to those members who are honestly skeptical of some of the Church’s foundational claims. Holland quotes Elder Maxwell, who complains, “There didn’t seem to be any problem with conformity in the day the Red Sea opened,” yet it’s an obvious point that the truth of the Church’s claims aren’t so objectively clear as watching a large body of water divide in two. Conforming in spite of what your inner compass tells you is a recipe for deception, and skeptical parents have just as much a responsibility to live their convictions as do unquestioning believers.

Although some indoctrination is an inevitable part of raising children, we should teach our children how to find the right answers, rather than just what the right answers are. Throughout my life in the Church I repeatedly have had people tell me of how their testimony is more valuable than anything, and that they would never do anything to undermine it. For me though, my testimony was only valuable insofar as it was about something true. More important than having a testimony is knowing the truth as best we can. This is what we should teach our children, rather than teaching them to think that skepticism is a sign of spiritual illness. Instead of teaching our children to never question the ‘right answer’ we give them, we should urge them to follow the counsel of President Hugh B. Brown:

I hope that you will develop the questing spirit. Be unafraid of new ideas for they are the stepping stones of progress. You will of course respect the opinions of others but be unafraid to dissent if you are informed. Now I have mentioned freedom to express your thoughts, but I caution you that your thoughts and expressions must meet competition in the marketplace of thought, and in that competition truth will emerge triumphant. Only error needs to fear freedom of expression. Seek the truth in all fields, and in that search you will need at least three virtues: courage, zest and modesty. The ancients put that thought in the form of a prayer. They said, “From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all truth – O God of truth, deliver us. (speech given at BYU, 1958)

This is the true spirit of skepticism in its most noble form, and more than any dogmatic, unexamined doctrinal assumption, this is they key we need to give our children to true spiritual growth.

May, 2003