DEALING WITH DOUBTS AND QUESTIONS

I believe in God. I believe that He is literally the father of our spirits. I believe that his

eldest son and our spirit brother, Jesus Christ, was chosen and sent to earth to pave the way for us

to return and become like our Father in Heaven. I believe that Jesus Christ completed the

atonement and established his gospel during his mortal ministry. I know that the Church and

gospel established and taught by Jesus Christ was lost but was also restored through the prophet

Joseph Smith. I know that Joseph literally spoke with God and Jesus Christ. And most

importantly, I know that the authority and power that was bestowed on Joseph Smith under the

direction of Jesus Christ has been passed on in an unbroken link from that day to this day. I know

that the Book of Mormon is true scripture revealed by God. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-day Saints is God’s true Church on the earth today.

There have been times in my life where I legitimately did not believe those things, not

because I was a stranger to the gospel, but because of the overpowering influence of doubts and

questions I had about the gospel and the Church.

I had every advantage a person can have in this life in terms of developing a testimony. I

was born into a faithful Latter-day Saint family. I was baptized at age eight. I was ordained to the

priesthood at age twelve. I graduated seminary. I attended institute classes. I served a full-time

mission. All throughout, I served in numerous callings in the Church.

But after all those things, there was a time where if you had asked me (and if I had answered

honestly), I would have said that I do not believe in God, and I do not believe that Joseph Smith

was a prophet.

1
 Doubts and questions are a part of our mortal experience. So long as our faith and

knowledge are imperfect, we will struggle with doubts and questions. Therefore, my goal today

is to focus on an answer to a single question: how do we deal with questions and doubts about the

gospel?

We are surrounded by members of the Church, both active and inactive, who secretly or

even more openly are wrestling with serious and persistent questions about the truth of the gospel,

or the divine mandate of the Church.

There are many of us who do not struggle with those issues now. But none of us are

immune to the dangers of doubt. Furthermore, all of us can and must help to support those who

presently struggle. My message is for both categories of people.

I want to try to answer the question of how to deal with doubts and question in three parts.

First, I want to explore the doctrines and principles we need to understand about doubting

and questioning. Second, I want to discuss what it feels like to experience doubts and difficult

questions. And finally, I will spend the balance of my time discussing a framework for preventing

and addressing doubts that arise in our lives.

I am very uncomfortable with sharing this message, because I have felt constrained to share

some of my own experiences. They are experiences that are very personal to me. Some parts of

this experience I have not ever shared with anyone before.

In my first year of university, I spent a lot of time studying with friends from another faith.

At one point, they gave me an article written by their church that presented itself as a historical

and doctrinal introduction to the Church. Unsurprisingly, the article was biased and gave a negative

2
view of our beliefs and history. This was the first time I remember being exposed in a major way

to what we used to call anti-Mormon literature.

My first response to this article was indignation, because it portrayed the Church in a way

that I thought was unfair and untrue. Being a student, I started to tackle the article the way I would

deal with anything I was reading in school. I took it point by point to try to refute or dispute its

claims and its manner of presentation. The further I got in this project, the more I realized that

some of the claims were closer to the truth than I could believe.

I was suddenly face to face with historical information and doctrinal positions that weren’t

consistent with what I believed and had been taught my entire life in the Church. I should note

that the questions that arose weren’t limited to what I found in this one article. In the process of

researching my response to this article, I came across dozens more articles that were critical of

church history and doctrine, and these articles raised new questions I had not considered before

and didn’t readily know how to answer.

Individually, none of the issues raised in the things I read were very significant or should

have caused me to doubt in any major way. However, I encountered all these questions and

information in rapid succession over the course of a few months, and at that rate, the questions and

doubts were piling up way faster than I could find the answers.

Let me leave this story aside here so that we can explore the doctrine and principles of

doubts and questions.

3
 I. The Doctrine and Principles of Doubts and Questions

Questions

What are questions?

When we ask a question, what we are doing is identifying that we are missing information,

or that we can’t piece together the information that we already have.1 Having a question is nothing

more or less than realizing we need to know more.

Therefore, questions help to describe our knowledge or ignorance of a certain topic. A

person with perfect knowledge has answered all relevant questions. A person in ignorance has

answered few or none of them.

On most gospel topics, we sit somewhere between these two extremes of perfect

knowledge and perfect ignorance.

1 “Sometimes questions arise because we simply don’t have all the information and we just need a bit more
patience. When the entire truth is eventually known, things that didn’t make sense to us before will be
resolved to our satisfaction.” Dieter F. Uchtdorf, ‘Come, Join with Us’ October 2013 General Conference.

4
 Having questions is a part of mortality.2 Questions about the truth of the gospel are not

only natural, but they are a critical part of the development of our faith.3 Elder Uchtdorf said

“[s]ome might feel embarrassed or unworthy because they have searching questions regarding the

gospel, but they needn’t feel that way. Asking questions isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a precursor

of growth.”4 In fact, “not asking questions can be far more dangerous than asking them.” 5

Doubts

What about doubts?

To begin with, let us be clear that doubts and questions are not the same thing.6 Doubts

and questions can be related, but can also function independently. As we discovered a moment

ago, questions relate to our level of knowledge. What, then, does doubt relate to? The answer is

that doubt relates to our faith.7 We know that “fear is the opposite of faith.”8 Somewhere between

perfect faith and crippling fear is the realm of doubt. True faith cannot exist together with doubt.9

2 “Our spiritual journey is the process of a lifetime. We do not know everything in the beginning or even
along the way….Challenges, difficulties, questions, doubts—these are part of our mortality.” Neil L.
Anderson, ‘You Know Enough’, October 2008 General Conference.
3 “It’s natural to have questions—the acorn of honest inquiry has often sprouted and matured into a great

oak of understanding. There are few members of the Church who, at one time or another, have not
wrestled with serious or sensitive questions.” Dieter F. Uchtdorf, ‘Come, Join with Us’ October 2013
General Conference.
4 Dieter F. Uchtdorf, ‘The Reflection in the Water’, CES Broadcast, November 1, 2009.
5 Sheri Dew ‘Will You Engage in the Wrestle?’, BYU-Idaho Devotional, May 17, 2016.
6 “Doubting is not synonymous with having questions.” Sheri Dew ‘Will You Engage in the Wrestle?’,

BYU-Idaho Devotional, May 17, 2016.

7 “To doubt is to reject truth and faith.” Sheri Dew ‘Will You Engage in the Wrestle?’, BYU-Idaho

Devotional, May 17, 2016; “A person whose minds are under doubts and fears cannot have unshaken
confidence.” Joseph Smith Jr., Lectures on Faith.
8 Boyd K. Packer ‘Do Not Fear’, April 2004; Boyd K. Packer, ‘The Power of the Priesthood’
9 “Remember that faith and doubt cannot exist in the same mind at the same time, for one will dispel the

other.” Thomas S. Monson, ‘Be an Example and a Light’, October 2915 General Conference. However,
please note that faith and doubt can coexist at the same time if they are about different things.

5
 While questions are vital to increasing our knowledge, doubt is not a precursor of faith.10

In other words, the recipe for faith doesn’t call for the addition of any doubt. Having more doubts

does not contribute to greater faith.

It is not wrong to have doubts. However, doubt in and of itself has no spiritual value, and

doubting can become wrong when it becomes an end in itself.11 When we wallow in our doubts

or take pleasure in endlessly pursuing them, we have crossed over into the realm of sin.

Questions and Doubts Can Be Related

Even though questions and doubts are different things, we know there can be a relationship

between them. As we find true answers to our questions, our knowledge increases. As the spirit

10 “Doubt is not and will never be the precursor of faith any more than light depends on darkness for its
creation,” Dale Renlund, ‘Doubt Not, but Be Believing’, BYU-Hawaii Devotional, January 13, 2019.
11 “Doubt, unless changed into inquiry from reliable, trustworthy sources, has no value or worth. …Doubt is

not wrong unless it becomes an end in and of itself. That doubt which feeds and grows upon itself, and
breeds more doubt, is evil.” Dale Renlund, ‘Doubt Not, but Be Believing’, BYU-Hawaii Devotional, January
13, 2019.

6
confirms what we learn, we increase our faith. The Holy Ghost is what translates an increase in

knowledge into an increase in faith.12

Questions and doubts can also be related in a negative sense. Questions that remain

unanswered, especially difficult ones, can eventually give rise to doubts which erode the faith we

do have.

We can understand faith and knowledge (or, doubts and questions) visually as the intersection of

12 ““There are those whose intellectual approach to spiritual things has left them spiritually
undernourished and vulnerable to doubts and misgivings. President James E. Faust, Second Counselor
in the First Presidency, has suggested how such persons can seek greater spirituality: “Their faith can be
strengthened by following their intuitive judgment and the purest and noblest feelings of their own souls”
(Reach Up for the Light [1990], 29). Note President Faust’s use of the word feelings. Spiritual things, like
conversion and testimony, come in large part by feelings—the enlightenment of the Spirit. Those who
seek or are satisfied to stop with an intellectual conviction live in a spiritual habitation built upon the sand.
For them and for their children—if that is all the inheritance their children obtain—that habitation is forever
vulnerable. The things of God, including a spiritual conversion and testimony, must be transmitted in the
Lord’s way, “by the Spirit.” “ Dallin H. Oaks, ‘Nourishing the Spirit’, Ensign, December 1998; “Gospel
learning is usually initiated by study and reason, but so far as I can observe, intellectual methods,
standing alone, are not effective in transmitting abiding faith and deep spirituality from one person to
another or from one generation to another.” Dallin H. Oaks, ‘Nourishing the Spirit’, Ensign, December
1998

7
the continuum of ignorance and knowledge against the continuum of faith and fear. The critical

importance of understanding this relationship is that no matter how many questions we have, faith

is possible. If we are somewhere above pure ignorance and somewhere below perfect knowledge

(where our faith becomes dormant), we are able to choose to exercise faith.

How faith can be exercised in the face of difficult questions is a matter we will come to in

due course, but for now, please bear the principle in mind.

So here are the principles to remember as we work through answering our question:

1. questions describe the state of our knowledge;

2. doubts describe the state of our faith;

3. questions can help us increase our knowledge;

4. doubts always decrease our faith;

5. the Holy Ghost translates an increase in knowledge into an increase in faith; and

6. faith is possible anywhere above pure ignorance and anywhere below perfect

knowledge.

8
 II. The Experience of Serious Questions and Doubts

Before I left on a mission, I was able to resolve the questions that I struggled with. It took

a tremendous amount of research, effort, and time. By pure luck and not by my own hand, I came

out of that experience relatively unscathed. But I realize now the danger that I was in during this

time of my life. While I was struggling with doubts, I was incredibly more vulnerable to sin,

temptation, and further attacks on my faith. I can only credit God for the fact that none of these

dangers materialized for me, or my road could have been a different one.

What doubt feels like is a significant part of the reason doubt can be so destructive. This

is something I fear few Latter-day Saints understand. We very quickly give out advice like “doubt

your doubts”13 or “put difficult questions in the back of your minds and go about your lives.”14

This advice is not wrong by any means, but if you have never experienced serious doubts about

the gospel, you might not appreciate what that experience feels like and how difficult that advice

is to follow.

I hope that by sharing with you what serious doubts feel like, I can help you empathize

with people who are experiencing doubts and understand why simple solutions don’t always work.

More importantly, I hope that if you experience serious doubts in your own lives, you can

recognize the emotional response that come with those doubts for what it is – that is, a phenomenon

that is a side effect of the doubts themselves, and not a part of them. Ultimately, the emotional

response that can accompany doubts may be the biggest obstacle to overcoming those doubts. Our

instinct, when someone comes to us with a doubt is to try to supply answers to the questions we

13
14 Boyd K. Packer, ‘Prayers and Answers’, Ensign November 1979.

9
assume they have. In my experience, supplying answers to someone experiencing serious doubts

is often unhelpful. The person in the midst of their doubt might express their doubt by articulating

the questions that triggered it, but internally, what they are actually struggling to deal with are the

emotional side effects of that doubt. In the midst of doubt, intellectual answers to difficult

questions cannot hush the visceral human emotions.

Psychologists believe that the human mind wants consistency. When things come into

conflict – for example, our beliefs conflict with new facts that we learn, it causes something called

cognitive dissonance. We have all felt this in small ways in our lives. Cognitive dissonance

describes a mental discomfort that we feel. That discomfort will motivate us to try to resolve

whatever contradiction caused the feeling in the first place.

What does this cognitive dissonance feel like? At its mildest, it is minor psychological

discomfort like an itch. It may be that something doesn’t sit right with you, or that it bothers you.

You want to resolve the discomfort in some way. However, when the dissonance is mild, you can

often ignore it or set it aside for another time while you go about your regular life.

I want to go back to the story I have been sharing. Fast forward a few years from where I

left off. At this point, I had resolved all the doubts I had. I had served a mission, was newly

married, and now was in my third or fourth year of university.

In one of my classes I met a young woman whose father had been a church leader who had

apostatized over doctrinal and historical issues he couldn’t resolve. My classmate – his daughter

– didn’t know a lot of the details of his issues, but naturally I was curious.

10
 I had so much pride and so little wisdom that I didn’t consider how dangerous and frankly

foolish it was to walk right into a minefield of the very questions that had caused a former leader

in the Church to abandon his testimony. I figured I was an old hand at the ‘anti-Mormon’ stuff

from my previous experience, so I did some digging and very easily found the letters and essays

this man had written about why he left the Church. There were literally hundreds of pages of

material. And I read it all.

What this man wrote was very different than the ‘anti-Mormon’ things I had encountered

previously. His criticisms did not come from taking Church history or doctrine out of context (as

far as I could tell at the time), and he clearly had a greater knowledge of both history and doctrine

than I had. In other words, intellectually, I was outmatched. More troubling, though, was the fact

that the questions he raised seemed sincere rather than borne out of an ill will. He struck me as a

person who legitimately struggled with real issues and left the Church as a matter of conscience

rather than malice. And the questions he raised were very difficult questions.

His questions very quickly became my questions, and there were so many of them that I

was completely overwhelmed. My questions almost immediately turned into doubt, and that doubt

immediately displaced my faith.

The cognitive dissonance that I felt was overpowering. At times, I would literally feel sick.

There were times that my entire body would shiver as I watched my testimony evaporate. I

couldn’t concentrate on other things. Day after day I completely agonized over and was consumed

by my doubts and questions. I remember some days walking around campus for hours instead of

going to class while I tried to make some sense of it all.

11
 I felt betrayed. I felt like the Church had lied to me and manipulated the facts to keep me

in the dark. I felt angry.

I didn’t believe that there was a God. I was absolutely convinced Joseph Smith was a fraud

and a charlatan and that the Church was just taking advantage of me.

Even worse than all of this was the sheer terror I felt about my own future. I was convinced

that if I told my wife, she would have left me. I was so embarrassed and ashamed of what I felt

that I didn’t believe I could share it with anyone. I felt completely alone, and totally alienated

from the beliefs and culture that my entire life was based on. In a very real way, I was in Hell.15

That, on one extreme, is what doubts – very serious doubts – can feel like.

There are no quick fixes for that kind of doubt. It was so difficult for me just to try to

manage the raw emotional experience that there was no way I could even start grappling with my

questions, even if the answers had been given to me on a silver spoon. Advice like “put difficult

questions in the back of your minds and go about your lives” 16 or the popular “doubt your

doubts”17 don’t work in a simple way for that level of doubt.

15 Moses
16 Boyd K. Packer, ‘Prayers and Answers’, Ensign November 1979.
17

12
 III. A Framework for Addressing Doubts and Questions

Let me leave the story there while we approach a framework for how we address doubts

and difficult questions.

Let me return to the concept of cognitive dissonance. If, for example, you experience

cognitive dissonance because of a new fact that seems to contradict your beliefs, there are three

ways out. First, you can deny the new fact. You might simply tell yourself it isn’t a true fact, or

you may try to minimize or ignore that fact. Second, you can deny the belief that the fact

contradicted with – again, telling yourself it isn’t a true belief, or short of denial, you might

minimize the importance of that belief. Finally, you might overcome the dissonance by adapting

or refining your belief in a way that it can account for the new fact.

None of these three possible resolutions is inherently the right or wrong one for every

situation; however, for every gospel related instance of cognitive dissonance, there is a correct

resolution. For example, sometimes the ‘fact’ turns out not to be true or is taken out of the context

of other facts, in which case denying the ‘fact’ or understanding it in a new context is the correct

approach. Sometimes our beliefs are not true and the right outcome is to abandon those beliefs.
13
Most commonly, our beliefs are too simple or too black and white, and the correct way to resolve

our dissonance is to refine our beliefs.18

Why does it matter that there are different ways that we can resolve cognitive dissonance?

The answer is this: in every situation of cognitive dissonance, all three approaches will resolve

the dissonance. Denying a fact will resolve the dissonance even if the fact is true. Denying a

belief will resolve the dissonance even if the belief is true. Adapting our beliefs to accommodate

a facts will resolve the dissonance even if our newly revised belief is false.

In other words, regardless of which path we follow to resolve the dissonance, the emotional

experience of that resolution is the same, even though the path we have taken may lead us astray.

The relief that comes from resolving cognitive dissonance will likely be as strong as the feelings

accompanying the dissonance were.

Many former members of the Church will describe that when they decided to leave the

church, they felt as if a huge weight immediately came off their shoulders. They are not lying

about that feeling – it is a real experience. But that relief is not a reliable indicator as to whether

we have resolved the dissonance in the correct way.

This becomes more complicated in the gospel context, because our doctrine is so heavily

reliant on feelings confirming our decisions as correct. We feel that something is right and true,

or that a certain decision is correct. And so when a person resolves doubts with the wrong

18 The most beautiful illustration of this principle is in the mathematical concept of a fractal. A fractal is a
geometric figure where the smallest details of the figure continually repeat the pattern of the figure as a
whole. What looks like a straight line from far away will, when examined closely, consist of a very complex
geometrical pattern that is not a simple line. When we adapt our beliefs, we come to appreciate that what
looked like a solid line in our beliefs is actually a very complex geometry itself, and it may encompass more
or less than the straight line we saw before.

14
approach, and thereby feels the relief that comes with any resolution to cognitive dissonance, they

can easily interpret that relief as spiritual confirmation that they have taken the right path. If a

person has not already learned clearly to differentiate spiritual promptings from other thoughts and

feelings, this terrain is very difficult to navigate.

This also explains why many who have left the Church are as strongly against it as they

were for it. The feelings they experience are counterfeits of the spirit, but can be nearly as

compelling.

Let me return to where I left off in my own story. My faith was completely overrun by

doubts. In my heart, I no longer believed in God, much less in the notion of a prophet or the

restored Church. But to this point I had suffered in complete silence and isolation.

After what I think was at least a few weeks of this, I reached the breaking point. The only

times I felt relief from the emotional crisis I was in were times that I accepted that my beliefs were

wrong, and as a result, I came to believe that my prior beliefs were in fact wrong.

But I hadn’t stopped going through the motions of Church and so forth. The strain of that

hypocrisy eventually caused me to break. I broke down crying in front of my wife and told her

that I didn’t believe in God and that I couldn’t live that lie any more.

Of course, she was surprised, and probably upset and disappointed.

But she did two things.

15
 First, she loved me. She did not reject me like I had feared. In a calm way, given the

circumstances, she assured me that she would stick with me and work through it. She didn’t push

me away.

That was the most important thing, because if she had pushed me away even in the slightest

way at that time, I would have shut down and she could not have done what she did next.

The second thing she did was to remind me of spiritual experiences I had previously. She

wasn’t preaching or lecturing me. I sensed that was genuinely confused and she desperately

wanted to understand how I could not believe in God given the spiritual experiences I had shared

with her in the past.

What my wife did was not some sort of magic silver bullet that made my issues disappear.

That conversation wasn’t terribly long and didn’t answer a single one of the questions I had. It

didn’t miraculously evaporate my doubts. And the fact that it worked in that situation in my life

doesn’t automatically mean it will work the same way in the lives of others. This is not a one-

size-fits-all issue.

What that conversation did was reminded me of what I had strongly believed, and more

importantly, why I had believed it. I could in that moment that to go forward, I had to reconcile

what I had experienced with the doubts I now had. I couldn’t ignore my own experiences. I had

to work through both my doubts and my faith together. Most importantly, there was a degree of

relief that came from seeing that there might be another way to resolve my cognitive dissonance.

That relief was enough for me to discard the other emotional baggage and to see that denial was

not the only way out. From there onwards, I could focus on what really needed my attention.

16
 Faith comes from remembering spiritual witnesses and exercising hope for the future on that

basis.19 At that moment in my life, I was not receiving any spiritual witnesses, so those witnesses I

had received in the past were the only basis upon which I could possibly have exercised the faith to

start working through my doubts. If you discount the divine witnesses you have received, you

cannot have faith, and you are lost.

Even then, my doubts and questions didn’t disappear overnight. It took years for me to find

answers to some of the more difficult questions, and even more years to come to peace with the

questions I still do not have the answers to. Those answers and assurances didn’t come from just

waiting around to see what would happen. They came from wrestling hard with the questions I

had, but more importantly, once the spirit came back into my life, they came through its influence.

I need you to understand how difficult it is for me to share this story. The shame and

embarrassment for me are still real, even though this happened a decade ago. The embarrassment

and shame I felt then I still feel today. It doesn’t matter that the Apostles have said we need to

accept those who struggle with doubts. I felt, and still feel shame, which is why I suffered in

silence alone for so long before confiding even in my wife, and even then I didn’t tell her

everything I’ve shared with you today.

Far too many members of the Church feel like I do and won’t say a word about their doubts

until they are already broken. I don’t have any solution to this problem. I can say that the one

person I did tell did not react in the way I had anticipated. But I believe we need a cultural change

in the Church before people like me can feel that it is okay to talk about our doubts.

19 https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/gregory-clark_lessons-faith-fear/

17
 However, based on my own experience and study, I believe there is a framework we can

employ that will help us work through doubts or questions. It’s not written in stone – we each may

need to adapt it and apply it in a different way. I have personally understood this framework in

different ways at different times in my own life.

The three steps are these:

First, stop, and deal with one thing (one doubt or one serious question) at a time.

Second, reflect on your experiences.

Third, spend time on your faith.

Stop. Deal with Reflect on your Spend time on

one thing at a time experiences your faith

1: Stop and deal with one thing at a time.

Learning to stop was a long and painful lesson for me.

In both experiences I’ve shared, along with others that I have not, as soon as I came to one

difficult question, I basically threw myself into the deep end and unsurprisingly found myself at

the bottom. We don’t stop because we are too proud, and we think we are immune.

We are not.

18
 I am not suggesting that you ignore things that cause you questions or perhaps even doubts.

Elder Samuelson taught that “[w]e are not afraid of any questions.” 20 If what we believe is true,

after all, there is no possible question that does not have an answer that is consistent with what we

believe. But not all questions are equally valuable or worth the effort of pursuing. And not all

answers are given to us in mortality. Sometimes, dealing with doubts means changing the

questions that we ask, instead of beating our heads bloody against the ones we cannot answer.

Difficult questions are like holes in a boat. You can stay afloat while you fix one or two

holes at a time. But when you have a dozen or a hundred holes at once, your entire effort is spent

just bailing out the water and you might never get to fixing the holes. It’s not that the holes can’t

be fixed, it’s that you can’t stay afloat while you fix them.

Difficult questions are fine. They can be answered or sometimes resolved without an

answer. But if you can’t move forward while you answer those questions, you will never get

anywhere. That is why, when you encounter particularly difficult questions that spark doubt, you

need to step away and start dealing with that doubt before you get any deeper. What we often fail

to realize at the outset is that answering a single difficult question may require becoming an expert

in some aspect of the gospel, and that takes time.

20 “We are not afraid of any questions. That assertion does not mean that the answers to all of them are
available or that those that are, are of equal value. In fact, faith is such a profound principle and so
necessary for us to accomplish all that we must do that details of interest or importance will always be kept
in the realm of faith. Think of the responses of Book of Mormon prophets to either their own questions or
questions posed to them. Do you remember honest Nephi’s response when asked the question “Knowest
thou the condescension of God?” He answered, “I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not
know the meaning of all things” (1 Nephi 11:16–17).” Cecil O. Samuelson, ‘The Importance of Asking
Questions’, BYU Devotional, November 13, 2001

19
 Elder Packer teaches us to “[p]ut difficult questions in the back of [our] minds and go about

[our] lives. Ponder and pray quietly and persistently about them. [The answer] may come as a little

inspiration here and a little there”21

We are better at putting the difficult questions in the back of our minds than we are at quiet

and persistent prayer and pondering on those issues. And just like the junk we collect, if we keep

putting difficult questions in the back of our minds without slowly working through them, we may

come to a crisis point where there is no longer any room in the back of our minds, and we have to

deal with our doubts head on in a very active and sometimes aggressive way. That is a far harder

road to walk, and one that will leave us cut and bruised and scarred in ways that may not heal in

this life.

2. Reflect on our experiences

Faith to move through uncertainty comes from remembering prior spiritual confirmation.

Whether we have had one spiritual confirmation in our life or a thousand, those experiences can

give us faith to move forward. However, those experience are completely worthless if we lose

sight of them the moment doubts take root.

Ask yourself how you have made it as far as you have in the gospel.22 “Stop and think

about what you have felt … and why you felt it.”23

21 Boyd K. Packer, ‘Prayers and Answers’, Ensign November 1979.

22 “Not all gospel questions have answers—yet—but they will come. In the meantime, I have a question.
What conceivable historical or doctrinal or procedural issue that may arise among any group could ever
overshadow or negate one’s consuming spiritual conviction regarding the Father’s merciful plan of
salvation; His Only Begotten Son’s birth, mission, Atonement, and Resurrection; the reality of the First
Vision; the restoration of the priesthood; the receipt of divine revelation, both personally and institutionally;
the soul-shaping spirit and moving power of the Book of Mormon; the awe and majesty of the temple
endowment; one’s own personal experience with true miracles; and on and on and on?”Jeffrey R. Holland,
23 M. Russell Ballard, ‘To Whom Shall We Go?’, October 2016 General Conference.

20
 I was exceptionally lucky in this regard, because I had three things working for me. First,

I had the spiritual wisdom of my wife who had the presence of mind to help me reflect on my prior

faith. Second, despite the crisis I was in, I did have a deep well of spiritual experiences and

confirmations that I could look back upon and that I had to account for. And finally, because of

prior spiritual promptings I had received, I had written down a large number of my spiritual

experiences into a book, my wife had read it, which is why she knew so intimately about my

spiritual experiences. The fact that it was written made those experiences far harder to dismiss or

ignore.

We will drown in our doubts if we focus our efforts on all the answers we don’t have.

Likewise, we don’t deal with doubts through hypocrisy – that is, by pretending to have faith that

we don’t have. However, we are equally hypocrites if we are not true to whatever faith can arise

from experiences we have had.24

Remember the principle that faith can exist regardless of the state of our knowledge. This

is true precisely because faith has nothing to do with knowing all the answers, and everything to

do with choosing to act in the face of uncertainty based on whatever assurances we already have.

Faith is a choice we can only make when there is uncertainty ahead of us.25 It is therefore dangerous

to discard what we do know because of what we don’t yet understand.26

24 “When problems come and questions arise, do not start your quest for faith by saying how much you
do not have, leading as it were with your “unbelief.” That is like trying to stuff a turkey through the beak!
Let me be clear on this point: I am not asking you to pretend to faith you do not have. I am asking you to
be true to the faith you do have.” Jeffrey R. Holland, ‘”Lord, I Believe”’, April 2013 General Conference.
25 https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/gregory-clark_lessons-faith-fear/; “With a Spirit-derived assurance in

place, you can go forward in the Lord’s work and continue deepening your relationship with your
Heavenly Father while pursuing or awaiting answers. If you determine to sit still, paralyzed until every
question is answered and every whisper of doubt resolved, you will never move because in this life there
will always be some issue pending or something yet unexplained.” D. Todd Christofferson, ‘The Prophet
Joseph Smith’, BYU-Idaho Devotional, September 24, 2013.
26 Neil L. Anderson, “Joseph Smith,” Ensign, November 2014.

21
 3. Spend Time on your Faith

Remember that faith and testimony won’t come from the academic pursuit of knowledge

alone. The spirit must confirm these things to create faith.27

You may come across materials that raise difficult questions. They may come from friends

or acquaintances, or even through Church materials or other good sources, or even through the

expectations about life that you have that are not met. You will be tempted to focus all your attention

on those materials or those questions. Even if your questions are coming through good sources, you

cannot forget that the strongest spiritual witnesses will come from the most basic doctrines and the

most doctrinally pure materials.

Therefore, I challenge you this: if you spend an hour with material that challenges your faith,

spend another hour in the Book of Mormon. Even if you have very stubborn doubts, I promise that

over time as you read the Book of Mormon, you will feel the spirit confirm to you the basic truths

of the gospel. That spiritual confirmation will be a continual reminder of what you do believe, so

that no matter how thick the doubts may seem, you have recent spiritual confirmation of the Book

of Mormon to keep you grounded.28 Sometimes a spiritual witness from last year isn’t good enough.

Sometimes confirmation from last week seems too distant. You may have days where spiritual

confirmation yesterday is not fresh enough in your mind.

27
28“Never fail to give equal time to the Lord through honest attempts to understand what the Lord has
revealed.” M. Russell Ballard, ‘To Whom Shall We Go?’, October 2016 General Conference.

22
 Categorizing your Doubts

In my experience and research, doubts about the Church are usually going to fall into one

of three categories: historical, doctrinal, and procedural. Each of these categories can be

approached in a different way.

Historical Doubts

I have often told people that if what you know about church history has come from Sunday

School and Priesthood lessons, you are far from an expert in Church History, and there are a lot of

surprises about our history in store for you.

When you discover that your Church education hasn’t given you a full picture of Church

history, you may feel (as I did) that it was intentional, that difficult facts had been withheld from

the average member of the Church.

Whether that is true or not I cannot say. But what I can say is this: our goal in meetings

like Sunday School or seminary is to build faith. It seems like the best way to build faith is to

focus on faith promoting stories. And after all, Sunday School is gospel study, not a history class.

In that context, one can easily see how, for years, the Church neglected difficult parts of its history

or doctrine in favour of the easy faith-building stories.

That is changing.

In the last decade, the Church has done at least three substantial things to overcome this

problem. First – the Joseph Smith Papers project (https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/). The

Church has more or less taken all of its original source material relating to the early prophets and

23
the restoration and digitized it. You can literally go right back to images of original letters, meeting

minutes, journals, and so forth, and read the original text in the handwriting of those who saw and

did things first hand. This level of transparency takes real confidence. The Church is basically

saying to the critics and faithful alike “here’s everything we’ve got on Joseph Smith. Feel free to

pick over every detail of it.” This level of transparency is unprecedented in the religious world.

In connection with this project, Church materials now provide a more fulsome view of

Church history. The series “Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days”

(https://history.lds.org/saints) is a much more objective and unapologetic account of early Church

history, warts and all, than the Church has ever published before. We only have the first volume

thus far, but if you read it, you will quickly see that it doesn’t gloss over the difficult moments.

Further, if you read that book, you are not likely going to be taken by surprise by any aspect of

Church history later down the road. In connection with creating and making resources like this

available, teachers (particularly of young people) are being encouraged to teach controversial

topics. Elder Ballard cautioned that we cannot send our young people into the world uninformed

about difficult issues. He referred to a need for a sort of spiritual inoculation that comes when we

teach difficult topics in a thoughtful and appropriate way rather than skipping over them like we

used to.29

29 “The effort for gospel transparency and spiritual inoculation through a thoughtful study of doctrine and
history, coupled with a burning testimony, is the best antidote we have to help students avoid and/or deal
with questions, doubt, or faith crises they may face in this information age….“In a similar fashion, please,
before you send them into the world, inoculate your students by providing faithful, thoughtful, and accurate
interpretation of gospel doctrine, the scriptures, our history, and those topics that are sometimes
misunderstood.
To name a few such topics that are less known or controversial, I’m talking about polygamy, seer stones,
different accounts of the First Vision, the process of translation of the Book of Mormon or the Book of
Abraham, gender issues, race and the priesthood, or a Heavenly Mother.””M. Russell Ballard, ‘The
Opportunities and Responsibilities of CES Teachers in the 21st Century’, February 26, 2016.

24
 Finally, a few years ago the church published a number of “Gospel Topics Essays” about

more controversial topics on LDS.org (https://www.lds.org/topics/essays). These provide concise

but satisfying discussions about common historical and doctrinal issues that members face. These

articles may make it possible for you to stop and deal with one issue at a time, because you can

turn to this trusted source to find a quick answer rather than spending hours researching your

questions on your own and potentially having to resort to more questionable sources to find

answers.

Any approach to historical issues have to incorporate two things. First, check the best

sources.30 We have the Joseph Smith Papers. We have “Saints”. These are a tremendous and

reliable starting point for factual well researched information. There are other excellent sources,

such as Richard Lyman Bushman’s “Rough Stone Rolling” that are not official Church resources,

but have been compiled by professional scholars and have been heavily researched. Second, work

hard to understand the context. We always judge prior generations by the norms, standards, and

practices of today, but this skews our view of the past. Something that doesn’t make any sense by

today’s standards may make perfect sense by the standards of a prior time, but we can only

understand it with that full context in mind.

Finally, bear in mind Elder Uchtdorf’s admission: “[w]e openly acknowledge that in nearly

200 years of Church history…there have been some things said and done that could cause people

to question.”31 Saying that Church history has difficult and controversial moments should not be

a controversial thing to say.

30 “Whenever you are attempting to find the answer to a question of great importance, you should, when
possible, go to the primary source.” Cecil O. Samuelson, ‘The Importance of Asking Questions’, BYU
Devotional, November 13, 2001
31 Dieter F. Uchtdorf, ‘Come, Join with Us’ October 2013 General Conference.

25
 Procedural Doubts and Doctrinal Doubts

I treat procedural doubts and doctrinal questions jointly because they can be resolved

similarly and often arise in similar ways.

The doctrine of the Church is its foundation. The doctrine doesn’t ever change, although

our level of understanding that doctrine has increased as the restoration progresses.

Above doctrine, we have policies and practices that do change. Policies and practices (what

I call procedures) are about implementation of doctrine in the current reality. Policy translates

doctrine to the state of the world at a given time. Church policies at the time of Peter look very

different than Church policies today, because Peter was applying doctrines in a different cultural

context. As such, policies change, are added, or are deleted from time to time.

On top of doctrine and policy, we have the culture of the Church. Things like deacons

holding their left arms behind their backs while passing the sacrament, or starting a sacrament

meeting talk by telling the story of how the bishopric gave you your assignment are a part of

Church culture, and often have no basis in doctrine or policy. Culture simply happens when a

bunch of people spend a lot of time together.

If we confuse any of these three aspects of our Church experience for each other, we may

stumble and fall. For example, believing culture is part of the policy of the Church may cause us

to doubt the Church if the culture changes. Similarly, believing a policy of the Church is actually

a doctrine may cause us to doubt when that policy changes.

26
 Culture
Policy
Doctrine

The first step in struggling with questions about policy, doctrine, or culture, is to be very

clear in your mind whether you are actually dealing with a church policy or a church doctrine – or

perhaps even part of church culture that is neither doctrine nor policy. It can sometimes help to

try to write down or explain to someone what the doctrine or policy is (or you think it is) that you

struggle with.

In my experience, doubts arising from policy or doctrine are most readily resolved in one

of three ways. First, particularly with policy changes, the leadership of the Church will often

provide at least some explanation about the change. It is up to us to find those explanations and

seek to understand them.

If no official explanation for a change in policy is provided, it may be a signal that God is

not prepared to explain the reason for the change. In those cases, we are welcome to study the

issues, and we may receive personal revelation about those issues for ourselves. Sometimes, the

questions we are asking are simply not worth asking, but there will undoubtedly be other questions

that are worthwhile.

27
 A second way to resolve these kinds of doubts – particularly about doctrines – is to follow

the Saviour’s promises and try living them. Sometimes our doubts come from imperfect obedience

to a principle, which yields imperfections in the resulting blessings.

Finally, the questions of doctrines and principles must ultimately be a matter of personal

revelation. There is no amount of logic, historical context, or study that can ultimately confirm

doctrinal and policy matters to one who doubts. Confirmation that the doctrine is true must come

by revelation. This requires putting ourselves in a position where we can receive and understand

revelation.

You have probably heard people say things like “the Church is perfect, but the members

of the Church are imperfect.”

The sentiment in this idea is right and has been widely taught in the Church. However,

consider the much more nuanced way that Elder Uchtdorf taught this idea: “I suppose the Church

would be perfect only if it were run by perfect beings. …But [God] works through us—His

imperfect children—and imperfect people make mistakes.”32

In other words, not only is the Church populated by imperfect people, but a result of that

is that the Church as it exists today is not in a state of perfection. The restoration is a work in

progress. The Church is certainly much closer to perfection that any of its members because God

has been refining it for generations, and we have prophetic assurances that the Church will not

lead us astray. But I believe that to say the Church is perfect is to overstate what is actually true.

32 Dieter F. Uchtdorf, ‘Come, Join with Us’ October 2013 General Conference.

28
 Conclusion

I conclude just as I began. I testify that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that Joseph

Smith and Russell M. Nelson are God’s modern prophets. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints is the Kingdom of God on earth. I testify that the principles, doctrines, and framework we

have discussed today, if you adapt and implement them into your lives, will allow you to manage

those doubts and questions that arise in your life, and more importantly, will allow you move forward

as you find answers to your questions and doubts. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

29
 References

1. Boyd K. Packer ‘Do Not Fear’, April 2004 General Conference.

2. Boyd K. Packer, ‘Prayers and Answers’, Ensign November 1979.

3. Boyd K. Packer, ‘The Power of the Priesthood’, April 2010 General Conference.

4. Cecil O. Samuelson, ‘The Importance of Asking Questions’, BYU Devotional, November

13, 2001.

5. D. Todd Christofferson, ‘The Prophet Joseph Smith’, BYU-Idaho Devotional, September

24, 2013.

6. Dale G. Renlund, ‘Doubt Not, but Be Believing’, BYU-Hawaii Devotional, January 13,

2019.

7. Dallin H. Oaks, ‘Nourishing the Spirit’, Ensign, December 1998.

8. Dieter F. Uchtdorf, ‘Come, Join with Us’ October 2013 General Conference.

9. Dieter F. Uchtdorf, ‘The Reflection in the Water’, CES Broadcast, November 1, 2009.

10. Gregory Clark, ‘Some Lessons on Faith and Fear’, May 10, 2008 BYU Devotional.

11. Jeffrey R. Holland, ‘”Lord, I Believe”’, April 2013 General Conference.

12. Jeffrey R. Holland, ‘Be Not Afraid, Only Believe’, CES Broadcast February 6, 2015.

13. M. Russell Ballard, ‘The Opportunities and Responsibilities of CES Teachers in the 21st

Century’, February 26, 2016.

14. M. Russell Ballard, ‘To Whom Shall We Go?’, October 2016 General Conference.

15. Neil L. Anderson, ‘You Know Enough’, October 2008 General Conference.

16. Neil L. Anderson, “Joseph Smith,” Ensign, November 2014.

17. Sheri Dew ‘Will You Engage in the Wrestle?’, BYU-Idaho Devotional, May 17, 2016.

18. Thomas S. Monson, ‘Be an Example and a Light’, October 2015 General Conference.

30