This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This is the 458th week, and we’re covering the Sunday morning session of the October 2006 General Conference.
This was a strong session with good talks from a number of speakers, but the one that easily stood out to me was “The Great and Wonderful Love” by Elder Anthony D. Perkins.
In this talk, Elder Perkins addresses “three examples of how Lucifer” spreads lies that “plant doubts about the nature of the Godhead and our relationship with Them.” They are (these are direct quotes):
- The snare of false inadequacy. A faithful young person feels unable to meet the expectations of others. At home and school, she is rarely praised and often criticized. The popular media tells her she is not beautiful enough or smart enough. Every day this righteous sister questions whether she is an individual worthy of Heavenly Father’s love, the Savior’s atoning sacrifice, or the Spirit’s constant guidance.
- The snare of exaggerated imperfection. An outstanding missionary feels incapable of meeting the expectations of God. In his mind, this worthy elder imagines a stern Heavenly Father bound to irrevocable justice, a Savior capable of cleansing others’ transgressions but not this elder’s own, and a Holy Ghost unwilling to accompany an imperfect person.
- The snare of needless guilt. A middle-aged woman is a devoted mother, a loving friend, a faithful Church servant, and a frequent temple patron. But in her heart, this sister cannot forgive herself of sins committed years ago that she has repented of and fully resolved with priesthood leaders. She doubts that her life will ever be acceptable to the Lord and has lost hope of eternal life in Heavenly Father’s presence.
This is another one of those talks that I’m shocked to find is nearly two decades old, because it feels incredibly relevant to struggles that some Latter-day Saints (especially in America) are having today.
It also sounds strikingly different from most talks we hear in General Conference. Since when are we taught that we aren’t inadequate, or imperfect, or that guilt is needless? Of course that’s now what Elder Perkins said in his talk, but he did take the opposite position where–instead of emphasizing imperfection–he emphasized that imperfection can be exaggerated. The talk absolutely does not contradict other talks, but it is coming from an unusual direction. Let’s look at his suggested responses to these snares:
- First, see yourself as a precious child of a loving Father in Heaven… God the Father is merciful and has infinite love for you despite your faults. Only the voice of Satan will cause you to feel of no value.
- Second, place your burdens on Jesus Christ.
- Third, forgive yourself of sins and imperfections. Heavenly Father is not expecting you to become completely perfect in this life….Jesus said, “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.” Start with yourself, and forgive others as well.
- Fourth, sustain hope of eternal life.
- Fifth, find joy each day.
I love this talk so much. But why did Elder Perkins take this unusual direction in it?
When I look around today, I see that things like scrupulosity are big problems for my generation or the younger generation. Scrupulosity, in this sense, is basically religiously-themed OCD. (Wikipedia has an overview.) It can dangerously warp a person’s perception of God and the Gospel, leading one to believe that God is a remote, austere, judgmental figure who is disgusted with our weakness.
Scrupulosity is tragic and dangerous, as it erodes our relationship to our Heavenly Parents. To the extent that we see an angry, judgmental God instead of loving, empathic Heavenly Father we are less willing and able to call upon Him for help, and more prone to struggle to lift heavy burdens on our own.
The insidious thing about scrupulosity and the kinds of ideas that travel with it is that, once you put that lens on, it colors everything else you see. It becomes as invisible as the window through which you look. After all, if all your windows are tinted, then how can you tell?
For someone who is laboring under the false paradigm of scrupulosity, or other false paradigms, the ordinary language of a General Conference may not get through to them. Scrupulosity can be a busy little filter, censoring out everything the General Authorities say about love and mercy and highlighting and emphasizing every word about judgment and justice.
And that is why, every now and then, I think we need a clear, emphatic clarion call like this one: something that can cut through even a heavy filter to reach someone who is being isolated from God and invite them to come back to the welcoming arms of a loving Father depicted in the Parable of the Prodigal Son:
20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:
23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
So why aren’t these the only kinds of talks that we hear? General Conference is just that, general. Scrupulosity isn’t the only paradigmatic error out there, and some of them err on the other side. For instance, moralistic therapeutic deism which includes such misleading tenets as (quotes from Wikipedia):
- The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
- God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
Where scrupulosity posits an exaggerated vision of an angry, authoritarian God, moral therapeutic deism posits an exaggerated vision of an absent, permissive God.
Is the current balance of tone and approach in General Conference absolutely perfect? Certainly not. There’s no evidence that God micromanages the workings of His Church with such exacting precision.
For us to get the most out of General Conference, we need to be active listeners. We should understand that there’s a general audience out there, and that most people have different concerns, contexts, and backgrounds than we do. This obligates us to put some effort into finding the talks we love the most, those that resonate easily with us, and instead of plucking them from the bunch and taking them away as the only good or relevant ones, instead using them as entry points to better understand the talks that aren’t as immediately and easily accessible.
No one talk is going to teach a truth that is not found, or properly expressed, in the general body of General Conference talks. The truths that matter the most are the truths that are expressed most frequently and most plainly.
But for those of us who have a distorting lens–like scrupulosity or moral therapeutic deism–obstructing our view, it may take a particularly crafted talk to pierce the distortion and reveal a chink of unfiltered light that can help us replace our flawed lenses.
I love this:
“This obligates us to put some effort into finding the talks we love the most, those that resonate easily with us, and instead of plucking them from the bunch and taking them away as the only good or relevant ones, instead using them as entry points to better understand the talks that aren’t as immediately and easily accessible.”
That’s such a good way to look at the talks. It made me think of the idea of seeing them like somewhat scattered points on a graph, through which you can draw a through line to truth as you read all of them, but which might fall above or below the line if you only look at one point. Not that the talks don’t all contain truth, but like you said—our own lenses sometimes make those truths harder to see, so the more talks we hear and truly try to understand, the more likely we are to find the through line.