Richard Bushman and the building of a Spiritual Chain, Pt. 3

Continued from Part 2.

Bushman finds himself in a peculiar intellectual and spiritual space. While at school he reminisced:

"After I returned from the mission field, I no longer had doubts, but I did
have questions. "

This statement summarizes in such beautiful brevity my relationship with the theology and history of the Church since my conversion, up until the present time. His words are non confrontational and honest. They are liberating and comforting. I think the real dissonance occurs in people who pretend to have never wondered at all. I'm not sure if "dissonance" is the right word here, but dishonesty or naivete seemed too harsh.

"They were not specific questions about the meaning or validity of specific
doctrines, the wholesome kind of questions that enlarge understanding.
They were questions of some unknown interlocutor who asked me to justify my
faith. "Why do you believe?"...How those questionings cam to an end is
beyond my powers of explanation...I have come to understand questions and
answers differently...I now have a new sense of what constitutes
belief.

For a long time, twenty-five years or more, I went on trying to answer the
questioner...My chief line of reasoning was based on the Book of Mormon. It
was concrete and real and seemed like a foundation for belief, not merely belief
in Joseph Smith but in Christ and God. Joseph Smith and Mormonism, as I
said before, were never the issues, it was God primarily. Although it
was a lengthy chain from the historicity of the Book of Mormon, to Joseph's
revelations, to the existence of God, it was a chain that held for me. I
felt satisfied that if that book were true my position was sound. Without
it, I do no know where I would be."

Sometimes I wonder what, where, or who I would be without that Book. I'm not joking when I say the answer to that interrogatory could easily be Jails, Institutions, or Death. Perhaps I may be guilty of a little Niblyesque parallelism-- but either consciously or subconsciously, I have developed somewhat of a chain too. However, mine went like this.

• I believe if there is a God. I'm pretty sure he hates me and wants to punish me.

• God as an unknown entity-I'm Agnostic but not so hostile towards "it"

• God as Yaweh or Jehovah- I thought I wanted to be an Hasidic Jew, I liked the rigidity of the theology-perhaps I thought that type of extreme orthodoxy could save me. However, as I spoke with a nuber of Jews not one of them supported my urgent desire to rebuild the Temple. LOL, but seriously) I kept trying to tell them that the temple and Priesthood are integral parts of this book they had me reading (Torah) and their oral traditions. The nail in the coffin was when I suggested it was time to re-convene the Sanhedrin.
  

• God as Jesus, Jesus as God-I took a stab at reading the NT. I immediately became a Christian. This conversion story is too sacred and personal to share.

• Which Church to Join? In the end it came down to Catholics or God forbid the Mormons.

• And then came that pesky Book of Mormon. I read it. I studied it. I had no answer for it. It was a very powerful, moving, enlightening experience. It brought me closer to Jesus. It brought me closer to God. It explained all I had ever wanted to know about God, life and my purpose in the eternities.
  

For me the Book of Mormon is the medium that God often uses to reveal himself to me. He takes me into His bosom through that book. He comforts and embraces me through that book. He assures me of His love through that book. Praise Joseph for his part inbringing forth that book. Praise all the men and women that have sacrificed to bring me that divine book. It has in reality opened the heavens for me and granted me access to God!

Big UP!

The Lamanite