How people like me want to be treated at church
An explanation you can send to your bishop or Relief Society president.
In 1967, BYU professor Richard D. Poll proposed that there are two kinds of Latter-day Saints—not good and bad members of the Church, and not active or less-active, but Iron Rod members and Liahona members.
I love this imagery. Iron Rod Latter-day Saints know exactly where their next step is going to be. Their focus is close at hand, and they know that if they keep their grip solidly on the rod, they’ll get where they’re going. Liahona Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, know where they’re trying to get to; they know what direction they’re headed, even if the path isn’t clear to get there. Neither of the two is wrong, they’re just taking very different journeys to get to the same place.
The body of Christ needs both types of Latter-day Saints—the unflinching certainty of Iron Rod church members who bring stability and consistency to our worship, and the exploratory faith of Liahona members who help us deal with complexity.
Out of the two, I’m a Liahona. There are lots of us. Sometimes we’re called “nuanced” Latter-day Saints, or even “progressive” members of the Church (which isn’t a political term in this case). Every person is different, but Liahona Latter-day Saints are generally those who have questions, maybe even doubts, and are choosing to stay. Sometimes we don’t feel like we fit in, because our faith looks different from others. We don’t always relate when people say “I know” things are true; we believe, we hope, and we choose these things, when we don’t know.
You might think of this brand of Latter-day Saints as having one foot out the door, or having the left the Church entirely. That’s true of some people, but not all. Many of us are showing up every Sunday, magnifying our callings, and trying to make everything work.
This type of Latter-day Saint can also have a strained relationship with leadership. Sometimes a well-meaning bishop, Relief Society president, or stake president—probably of the Iron Rod variety—just doesn’t understand this other perspective. For a Latter-day Saint who’s already seeing their faith evolve and expand, having a Church leader who just doesn’t get them can make things worse.
So, maybe this will help. I’m talking to you, bishops, Relief Society presidents, and stake presidents. I polled ~70 of us Liahona-type Latter-day Saints about what they want you, as local leaders, to know about us.1 Here’s how we want to be treated.
I am not a project.
You might feel a stewardship, as part of your calling, to “rescue” anyone whose faith looks different. It may feel like leaving the ninety-nine to save the one who is lost.
But the thing is, we’re not lost. We don’t need to be “checked on” or “saved.” Most of us have sat in a ward council at one time or another, and we know how those conversations go. Save your “focus families” to be those who need help paying their rent, or just got a devastating medical diagnosis. Those who could use your help.
If we need you, we’ll come find you, I promise. But making us a project is insulting.
I am not dangerous.
I can hold a calling, and I can serve in the Church. I can teach a class. Living the gospel differently from you does not make me a leper. I’m not contagious.
Joseph Smith’s journey started with having questions, and the scriptures are full of people who had questions as part of their faith journey.2 And, dare I say, every ward is full to the brim of people who have doubts sometimes, or whose relationship with the Church shifts from time to time. Having questions doesn’t mean someone is elbow-deep in anti-LDS websites or trying to burn it all to the ground.
I still have faith.
Please know this. Please feel this deep in your bones. Many of us whose faith looks a little different have a deeper, richer faith than we used to. We’ve done more reading and more studying than we used to, to make sense of things. In many cases, recognizing what parts of our faith practice are simply cultural—and discarding those that don’t provide value—has allowed us to develop deeper personal relationships with God.
Joseph Smith taught that “the best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask it from books, but to go to God in prayer, and obtain divine teaching” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 191). Many of us are trying to do just that, and looking to God for divine teaching. We’re taking very seriously Alma’s call to “arouse [our] faculties, even to an experiment upon [His] words.” For many of us Liahona members, our spirituality and relationship with God has never been stronger.
A “faith crisis” does not mean leaving your faith.
Some people like the term “faith crisis”; others don’t. Many of us see it more as a faith evolution, or even a faith expansion. It doesn’t necessarily mean something bad is happening!
It can be scary, though. Suddenly seeing wiggle room in your testimony is like having the earth shift beneath your feet. What if everything falls apart? What if you lose everything?
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught us that “our testimony will be tested and tried. Faith is not faith if never tested. Faith is not strong if never opposed.” He reminds us, in his reassuring way, that trials of faith and unanswered questions are normal parts of a growing faith. But losing the childlike faith that you had before is like a death, and it requires some mourning. I can tell you, it’s tough. But the death of a simple faith also makes room for a more durable, more abundant faith. More and more I think this is what Alma describes as a “mighty change of heart”—it’s entirely worth it, but it’s scary and painful to get there.
Our feelings are already tender. We’re probably going through more than you expect.
All we’re looking for is love and support.
Someone told me a story about their friend, who met with their bishop and told him they were stepping away from the Church. His response was something like, “I don’t have all the answers, but I know the Lord loves you. We love you too, and you’re always welcome here.”
It changed the experience for this person. It doesn’t mean they stayed, but they felt loved where they were and had a positive perception of the Church.
Love and support.
Which can be tough! Most bishops and Relief Society presidents aren’t trained in pastoral care, and you didn’t ask to be put in a position where you’re dealing with people’s difficult questions and faith crises or faith expansions. That’s not a slam, it’s just the reality that your background might be in real estate or accounting or something else, and all of a sudden you have a calling that asks you to do something else entirely.
It can be uncomfortable to come talk to a leader that we don’t already have a close, trusting relationship with. We’ve all heard stories of someone who went to their bishop because they were having doubts and concerns, and the bishop took away their temple recommend. We’re wary of going to an Iron Rod believer to talk about our faith.
Some things that you love are hurtful to me.
Many of us nuanced Latter-day Saints, especially those with family and friends in the LGBTQ+ community, have a hard time with the Family Proclamation. We know you love it. We know where it came from. But it is so often turned into a weapon that any mention of it can be painful—for how its been used to ostracize LGBTQ+ Latter-day Saints, and also to reinforce dated gender roles.
By the same token, even the temple can be challenging (and it doesn’t have anything to do with someone’s ability to go in). Some women see the worst of gender inequality coming through in the temple; from unequal language in the endowment ceremony, to the ghost of eternal polygamy living in sealing policies (where a man can still be sealed to more than woman, but a woman can’t be sealed to more than one man), and even in the idea that a man gets to decide whether they qualify for a temple recommend or not. I know it might be hard to imagine someone not loving the temple, but just ask next time. Not everyone’s temple experiences are the same.
Finally, many of us are looking for reasons to stay…
…So don’t give us reasons to leave.
There’s a cultural thing in the Church where sometimes people think you need to be either all the way in, or all the way out. The term “cafeteria Mormons” gets thrown around as a condescending term for anybody who doesn’t fit the mold and maybe isn’t all the way in right now. But we’re all cafeteria Latter-day Saints in our own way; we all decide how we’re going to keep the Sabbath Day holy, how much family history we’re going to do, and if R-rated movies bother us. If all someone can do right now is come for sacrament meeting and sit in the back, don’t you want them to do that? Why would you want them to not feel welcome?
If we wanted to leave, we’d leave. If we’re here now, it’s because we’re trying to stay.
And you know what’s the best thing you can do? Listen.
Listen and try to understand. Our experience is different than yours, so don’t assume that the tools that work for you will work for us. Just listen with empathy, and resist the urge to jump in and fix everything. Because we’re not broken. And we have more to offer than you imagine.
Every ward needs both Iron Rod and Liahona members, and your ward definitely has both (even if it doesn’t seem like it!). Maybe this is part of what Paul meant when he compared the Church to a body; some people are the eyes, others are the feet, etc. He’s very clear that God has set it up this way, on purpose: “But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.” We’re all here to play a role; none of us is an infected appendix that needs to be removed.
Listen. Love. Give us your support. That’s all we need.
Some of them represent my viewpoint, as the author of this article. Others, not so much.
I list a few of them in another essay that’s about exactly this topic, titled “Latter-day Saints should love deconstructing. It’s what Joseph Smith did”.