Teaching our kids the sticky parts of church history

There's a lot of sticky issues in LDS church history. Almost none are talked about in church. On some level I can understand this, and on another level I feel that the church curriculum needs a major revamp that includes more of it if we want to keep people from falling away. There's too much out there on the internet for members to access that is or seems to be at odds with what they learned in church for us not to do something. I know many people who are aware that controversy over church history is a click away, but they are afraid to go there for fear it will affect their testimony. It's understandable, and it's why the status quo isn't going to keep working. Some people do make those clicks and aren't able to come to grips with what they find.


The church may or may not change their manuals, but as a family we ultimately have the say in what gets taught to our kids in our home. We can and are even supposed to teach whatever we feel is necessary. And so, as our kids get older, I think we are going to teach them the sticky issues ourselves.

I voiced this sentiment to an online LDS forum, and the response I received was generally negative. Some argued that it's best to focus on Christ, that a foundation of faith and prayer is the best thing we can give to our kids to protect them. They said other things might end up being distractions, and the best inoculation we can give them against doubt is the teachings of Christ.

I would agree that Christ and his teachings need to be the center of what we as parents teach our children. But I don't see why we can't inoculate our children with both the teachings of Christ and the sticky parts of history. It seems that some people argue that building faith alone is a strong enough vaccine to protect our children from troubling aspects of the church. In other words, that when our children have left home, their foundation of faith in Christ and prayer will be sufficient to withstand the fiery darts of historical facts that are or seem to be at odds with what is taught at church (Ephesians 6:16; 1 Nephi 15:24; D&C 3:8). Looking at the scriptures I just cited, I can see why one would say that. And ultimately, it's probably the right answer if forced to take a binary view. Helping our children develop their own spiritual experiences might be the only thing they have to cling to when doubts creep into their life. Mine have certainly been a strength for me.

However, an analogy that was made in the most recent general conference is helpful here. Elder Jensen talked about faith and reason being like two wings of an airplane. Both faith and reason are necessary for a person to function properly in the church. I have found this to be true for myself, and I don't think it's wise to only build our children wings of faith and ignore the wings of reason. In the talk, Elder Nash basically says that if the wing of reason seems to contradict the wing of faith, you shouldn't cut off your wing of faith. Both wings are necessary, and it doesn't make sense to cut either one of them off. Endure, and the Lord will open a way to understand how reason fits in. His analogy is far from perfect since he's really just saying that we need to have faith even when things intellectually don't make sense. Nonetheless, I haven't found a better analogy. Faith is what we cling to, but the airplane still needs reason to keep going.

For me, this means I am going to teach my children the historical facts as honestly as possible. Even if they are sticky. But I don't think children will have such a hard time accepting the stickiness, especially if it's done in the context of of love and the teachings of Christ. I don't remember my parents specifically talking much about many of the concerns critics have about the church, but they did have lots of books lying around. Some were from critical authors. In hindsight, I am extremely grateful for this exposure. I don't think most kids my age had access to those books. I read them, I knew that my parents had probably read them, and that was enough for me. Some things were a bit shocking, but I was young enough that my worldview hadn't solidified yet. I've heard it said that one of the hardest things to get people to do is discard preconceived notions. This isn't hard with children, but it's hard to teach old dogs new tricks. For adults, it's difficult to discard the preconceived notion that Joseph Smith fits the mold of the nearly perfect man we see in restoration videos. When they find out he wasn't, sometimes everything crumbles. Teaching our kids when they are young can eliminate much of this difficulty.

In the very least, it's important not to fear these topics when they arise. Someone told me they don't think we need to tell our children about every argument critics have against the church, and I think he's right. But there are some things I will probably intentionally bring up. Getting down to specifics, I'm thinking one way to do this is include it in parts of a larger lesson. Most simple is to talk about issues as they come up in the D&C. For example, if we ever read D&C 132 as a family, we can't help but be faced with the choice of whether or not to discuss polygamy. It's easy to be scared and want to shy away from it, but I won't. I'll even mention the married women Joseph married. Another example -- when reading JSH together, I might spend a minute describing how Joseph used a seer stone to try and find buried treasure, which may have been one of the things that he referenced as a weakness he was praying for forgiveness for. Another example -- when reading the Book of Abraham with my family, I'm probably going to mention that scholars have found many similar pictures and have determined they are funerary texts. It will probably be a casual discussion, and then we'll move on to the more spiritual aspects of the text. These are hypothetical situations, of course, but they help me think that it can be done.

In the end, what I want to accomplish really isn't that grand. I definitely won't have the best answer to critics of the church. My kids are still going to go out and be confronted with issues that challenge their faith. But my hope is that they will remember their father was the first to tell them about it, that their father wasn't afraid of the issues, and that their father has faith despite knowing about the controversies. If that's all I can do to support the wing of reason, I will consider it enough.