A Church That Is Real

Walking the Path of Most Resistance

As a youth I always had questions about faith, but I did not dwell on them seriously until I went to university. At Harvard College, I wandered happily in the library stacks, surrounded by books analyzing events, ideas, and problems that had never before crossed my mind. I learned to interrogate an idea and poke hard at its soft spots. This was mostly fun. However, when I poked at my own beliefs, especially in the light of new things I was learning about my church’s history, I felt tender and a bit at a loss.

At Harvard, I became acquainted with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a renowned professor and beloved mentor for Latter-day Saint students. When I read her 1986 essay, “Lusterware,” reprinted in the spring 2024 issue of Wayfare, it made a deep impression on me. “Lusterware,” Laurel explained, was a type of ceramic dishware popular in the late eighteenth century. It was plated with a platinum film so as to resemble solid silver, but if you dropped it, it would fall to pieces like ordinary crockery. In an Emily Dickinson poem, lusterware was a metaphor for disillusionment—a shining, supposedly solid thing which fell and unexpectedly shattered on “the stones at [the] bottom of my mind.” Warning against a “lusterware” view of what we then called Mormonism, Laurel recalled one time in which a distressed young person in the middle of a faith crisis came to her worrying that the Church was perhaps only ninety percent (instead of one hundred percent) divine. To this, Laurel responded, “If you find any earthly institution that is ten percent divine, embrace it with all your heart.”

This idea sent shockwaves across my mind. Growing up, the gospel message drummed into my head was the message of the hundred percent. To my young self the stock phrases, “I know the Church is true” and “the fulness of the gospel” referred to my church’s complete sufficiency and comprehensiveness. Church leaders were always divinely directed, whether it was a bishop giving dating advice or a general authority criticizing the theory of evolution. This hundred percent outlook meant that there was no room for error, no possibility of contradiction, and no need to improve. In this view, the Church was the best of all possible worlds. Everything was as it should be, and should have been.

This is why Laurel’s suggestion to treasure a venture that was less than “one hundred percent divine” was both provocative and lifesaving. As a university student, the “all or nothing” framework left me with a faith crisis as I learned about church history, including past church leaders’ flaws and fallibility. Clearly, there were times when Latter-day Saints had made mistakes with long-lasting and harmful repercussions. As I struggled to readjust my worldview, Laurel’s example of embracing both divine direction and human limitation was a lifeline.

The Church that is true is a Church that is real, and a Church that is real is a Church that embodies contradictions and contrasts, which characterize the nature of reality itself. God’s plan does not call on us to escape life’s messiness by retreating to a bubble free of doubt and conundrum. Instead, our Heavenly Parents have given us the opportunity to struggle mightily with life’s puzzles, thereby exercising our divine capacity. We reason and rage. We stumble, and correct course. We learn to be unshaken. We learn to bend. 

The Church that is real is a Church that is patriarchal, hierarchical, and USA-centric. It is a Church with a history that, like its wider host society, includes racism, sexism, and nationalism. It is a Church that shapes a distinctive “culture region” in the American Intermountain West known for conspicuous consumption and religious elitism. It is a Church in which some men in positions of ecclesiastical power have used that power to abuse others emotionally or sexually, in egregious violation of the Lord’s instructions for righteous authority. It is a Church founded by Joseph Smith, Jr., who instituted a radical new system of marriage, and who concealed some of his additional marriages from his first wife Emma, for whom plural marriage was an excruciating ordeal. 

The Church that is real is also a Church that engaged in radical redistribution of wealth and communitarian economics. It teaches a theology of humankind’s literal divine nature as beloved  children of a Heavenly Father and Mother. All over the earth it facilitates the formation of local communities with their own distinctive cultures. It is a Church that unites rich and poor, north and south, women and men in sacred covenants to take upon themselves the name of Christ and mourn with those that mourn. It is a Church that calls people to serve, regardless of their caste or occupation, and obliges them to develop their capacities and become blessings in the lives of others. It is a Church whose founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., had a radical new vision of eternity and humankind’s limitless potential to make enduring connections and bring forth good fruits. 

Looking at the previous two paragraphs, if some were to read only the first they might conclude that I am an “anti-Mormon” being critical. If some were to read only the second they might call me an “apologist” pushing a rosy ideal. But there are not two Churches and I am not divided. There is one Church, and I claim it as my own, ashamed of what is shameful and proud of what is praiseworthy. My loyalty does not arise out of a calculation that the pros outweigh the cons, but out of reciprocity. In addition to the gift of Christ’s atonement, which he gives freely to all, I owe a debt to my sisters and brothers. Fellow Latter-day Saints have taught me to want to be good, protected me from danger, and helped make real the things I wanted to be true but could not see. 

For me, one significant cost of this repayment is not merely time, money, meals, and mileage, but cognitive and emotional effort. Why must I labor to contextualize the racist language sometimes recorded in the Book of Mormon, our precious and holy book of scripture? When will the fundamental truth that women and men are spiritual equals created in the image of a Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father, with the same potential to lead, teach, and bless the lives of their fellow beings, be meaningfully reflected in institutional Church decision-making structures? How do I maintain my faith in living prophets and apostles when history shows that over time, teachings sometimes change and contradict themselves?  At one time in our early history plural marriage was elevated above monogamous marriage, but now it is grounds for discipline (unless it is for time and all eternity in the temple). At one time, using birth control would damn you and your posterity to the third and fourth generations, but now it’s not a problem. At one time, some Church leaders wrongly depicted Black people as “fence-sitters” in the pre-existence, but as of 2015 this has been officially disavowed (though it lingers on some Church-members’ family bookshelves). If the Church is true, why can’t it be “right” all of the time? Sometimes I grow weary of always having to explain! To compensate! To wait patiently! To put things “on the shelf”! The—damn—shelf—is—full!  

For me, the long-term solution to these frustrations is not to abandon thoughtful reflection by compartmentalizing spiritual life. Some feel that critical thinking and deep faith do not mix. But for me, life with God in it comes as a whole package. If I can’t make sense of my Latter-day Saint belief and practice in relation to all experience and all knowledge, then it isn’t worth the effort. True, there are many things which we cannot know. But some basic paradigm should be reliable and worthy of wholehearted trust.

Nor do I feel that I personally would be happier, in the long run, abandoning the Church with the intent of moving on to a dissonance-free lifestyle. In today’s world, nearly all of the institutions, organizations, and global structures within which we make our lives are ethically compromised, devilishly complex, and muddied by human error and apathy. To thrust in one’s sickle in any of these places, cultivating a good harvest and eradicating weeds, is not only to improve that part of God’s vineyard but also to develop capacity and experience for acting in the wider world. Time and again, my Latter-day Saint sisters and brothers have lent me inspiration and strength to bring to pass what I want, and need, to accomplish in my community, profession, country, and planet. 

When someone asked Jesus what was most important, he responded: first, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; second, love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments, he said, hang all the law and the prophets.

I am thankful that Jesus included “mind” and “strength” as ways to love God. To engage the mind in the project of faith is not a slippery deviation, but a consecrated contribution to God’s kingdom. Such intellectual engagement requires effort (strength). Here Jesus is putting this kind of effort on par with humans’ other capacities of emotional, spiritual, and intellectual power. Perhaps effort is valuable in and of itself. As we seek to obey the two great commandments within the Church, we practice unselfishness and persistence. We never get it just right, but it is honest work.

Honest intellectual work sometimes leads to cognitive dissonance. That is to say, when one becomes aware of contradictions in what Latter-day Saints believe and do, particularly when these contradictions uniformly invoke divine authority, a murmur develops in the mind which is hard to ignore. For me, at one point, this cognitive dissonance was a deal-breaker. To my way of thinking, I was a smart, rational person who could not belong to an incoherent, irrational religion. Now, however, I have come to believe that cognition is not the most important aspect of being human. Like digestion, cognition is an essential process. Without it we would die. Yet in order to live in accordance with the reality of who we are as children of God (i.e., in accordance with truth), what is most vital is for us to pursue being good, as God is.

The Apostle Paul argued that even if someone had tremendous spiritual power, enough to prophesy, but had not charity, that person’s utterances would be empty as a “tinkling cymbal.” Even someone who understood all mysteries and knowledge, but had not charity, he said, was “nothing.” Spiritual and intellectual power are not substantial in and of themselves, but only in relation to others. They help us to love God, but unless we also employ them to love our neighbors and “our strangers” they are for naught.  

When I ask, “Which is harder: to say something smart and critical about Latter-day Saint practice, or to care for others as much as I care for myself?” the answer is clear. When I ask, “With what do I need more divine help: becoming smarter and more knowledgeable, or becoming kinder and more able to help others?” the answer is clear. When I ask, “Am I better positioned to accomplish God’s work by myself, or in the company of fellow-travelers?” the answer is clear. For me, being a Latter-day Saint and participating in the mission of the Church is an opportunity to be more: to develop greater capacity to love; to know and serve; to enlist help. It is an opportunity to do something difficult but worthwhile. 

I have friends who have decided to do good as individuals, without an organized religious community. Sometimes I envy their escape from the constant struggle to sort between divine fiat and tyrannical culture, godly practice and rote process. More often, however, I rejoice in my many sisters and brothers, in our humble collective search for the divine.

I also have friends who have left the Latter-day Saints and joined another religious community unencumbered by the “baggage” peculiar to our own faith and history. I respect their sense of integrity and feel that God consecrates their worthy work. In my professional study of religious traditions, particularly Buddhism, I have learned profound spiritual truths. I have also learned that all religious traditions have their own human histories, contradictions, and reasons for regret. 

For myself, I choose to be a Latter-day Saint because I love our covenants: to God, to each other, and to the world. I love the baptismal covenant to bear one another’s burdens, the sealing covenant to make human love everlasting, the temple covenant to consecrate our time and talents in establishing a Zion in which there are no poor among us. I rejoice in the power of these covenants to bind us across the world, to make us equal as we stand before God, to convert hope into solemn promises. I believe that these Latter-day Saint covenants are true, which is to say I believe God’s power truly inhabits them, and through this power things which were otherwise impossible become possible.

In early 2017 I was diagnosed with colon cancer. I had surgery to remove the tumor in June. During the weeks of recovery, I remained home by myself in New Zealand while my husband and children went to the United States to visit our family. One night a sister from Relief Society, Sister Samuelu, knocked on the door. She was a Samoan woman who spoke English as a second language. She stepped into my kitchen with a bunch of flowers. Her face, with its wrinkles and sags, and her voice, worn-down with use, reminded me of my Chinese grandmother. She chatted genially about the new investigator from Brazil, and her granddaughter who is on a mission in Australia, and how once the missionaries lived in a haunted house but how “they’ve just got to be brave.” I thanked her for the time she had spent with my two younger children when she was their Primary teacher. She replied that in truth, she had been getting tired of Primary, but felt that it was important for the kids to have a teacher who showed up. She gave me her phone number and told me to text her anytime. 

As her visit seemed to be coming to a close, I thanked her and gave her a hug. Then, surprising me, she asked: “Can I leave you with a prayer?” “Sure, thank you,” I said, sitting down again. For some reason, I didn’t close my eyes all the way, but stared down at the floor. I felt as if I were an observer. At that time of anxiety and pain, I didn’t really know what to expect from prayers. I was afraid that beyond “Thy will be done,” there was nothing to say.

Sister Samuelu said: “Bless Melissa so that she can live to take care of her kids.” With great eloquence, she invoked blessings on my body, my spirit, the house, my children and husband far away. The specific words escape me, but I remember a feeling of deep, settling calm. I felt as if I could feel my blood vessels widening and my lungs expanding. This is what the presence of the Holy Spirit feels like to me. Sister Samuelu hadn’t laid her hands on my head, but she had indeed blessed me, as did our Latter-day Saint foremothers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

At this lonely juncture in my life, I was blessed by an older Samoan woman who has never made an academic argument, who but for the Church would never have come into my life to teach my children and minister to me. Her prayer said what I had been afraid to say and asked what I had been afraid to ask. It is frightening to face a life-threatening illness and wonder whether God intends for you to make it to the other side. You feel foolish pleading for your life, because it’s quite possible that God has already seen that this will go nowhere. But if someone else makes this plea on your behalf, you feel not presumptuous, but grateful, and receiving. Through Sister Samuelu, I felt God’s power and care in my mind, my heart, and my body.

Sometimes we need others to plead with God alongside us. This is not because God responds to popularity contests, but because sometimes individuals wrestling with mortality are just not up to the task. The Church’s many structures, some of which I have experienced as teeth-gnashingly bureaucratic and subject to patriarchal control, are nevertheless designed to facilitate this sort of potentially transformative human interaction and intercession. Here, in the spaces between us, spring up fountains of living water.

Although they are irreducible to neat percentages, we can embrace both the human and the divine within the Church. We, Latter-day Saints all over the world who labor to build Zion, are ordinary people with ordinary shortcomings. We regularly fail to live up to the measure of our divine callings. Nevertheless, God is real, and patient, and among us. 

It is genuinely painful to encounter un-Christlike behavior not only “in the world” but also within one’s own Church and its history. But since I myself am a regular source of un-Christlike behavior, this pain is something I must own. I must have the integrity to take responsibility for what needs fixing and put my shoulder to the wheel. Just like volunteering to vacuum carpets and empty trash in the meetinghouse, there are ways to volunteer time and energy to repair and renew the living structures of my Church. 

The work of living with contradiction and tension is also something I must own. While it can be a relief to associate only with like-minded individuals with “correct” educational backgrounds, political views, class values, and theological inclinations, it is also a sort of prison—a sanitized separation from the fecund soil of humanity in which God wants us to spread our roots. If our Heavenly Parents had intended for everyone to think alike and to follow the same path back to them, they could have endorsed Lucifer’s plan. Instead they gave us the power of agency, which is the power to make terrible mistakes and cause lasting damage. But it is also the power to be brave, to be wise, to extend the self, and to be a true healer. 

The fundamental reality of humanity is that our values and assumptions are rooted in the diverse circumstances into which we were born, and we disagree deeply about what is good and true. The Church is not a solution for the problem of diversity, but a preserve within which to practice diversity’s values. It is a gritty sandbox within which we bump against each other and become more polished. It is a place with enemies to love, peace to make, and cause for meekness. In this our teacher is the Holy One who ministered in the shadow of imperial power, associated with tax collectors and centurions, met with despised outcasts, and taught people in their own lands and languages. His was always the path of most resistance.

The path as a Latter-day Saint in pursuit of Zion is not always an easy path, but ease is not its purpose. Here I have found people to love and people who love me. Here I have ample cause to rejoice, to grieve, to act, and to be still. Here I am becoming more than I was, and more as I hope Christ has invited me to be.

Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye (1979–2024) was a historian specializing in modern Chinese history, Christianity in China, women and religion, and the history of global Christianity.

Art by James Rees.

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