I am a nuanced disciple of Jesus Christ. This means that I believe that the church, its doctrine, and its leaders are in a state of change, errancy, and misalignment with heaven. A living faith and a living church will go through stages of growth and understanding. If the restoration of truth and God’s creation of humanity are ongoing (which they are), then things are in process and still being worked. Errors and misalignments remain. We have not yet arrived at the final destination and God’s final product of creation has not yet been made.

Being nuanced means that I try not to subscribe to black-and-white, all-or-nothing, true-or-false thinking with respect to the church or its doctrines. It means that there are degrees of goodness and light, and that I actively seek greater revelation on religious principles and doctrine. It means that I put love first above rules, dogma, or orthodoxy. It means that I can have personal revelation as well as access church revelation. It means that I no longer follow certain lower law scriptures and teachings as I strive for a higher way of being as a disciple of Jesus. It means that I recognize the faults, errors, and sometimes ignorant false teachings of church leaders while also recognizing their calling within the church. It means that I see the intermingling of social constructs and political philosophies with church policies and doctrine. Nearly every church leader at some point has taught in an official capacity a divine principle intermingled and tainted with their own personal philosophy. Heaven’s revelation is mixed with earthly understanding in the church. It means that I call out the errors of prophets, church leaders, and members, learn from their tragic errors, try to avoid condemning them, and then offer grace. We are all in a stage of growth in need of grace. It means that I consider the council of church leaders without feeling the need to follow them down a dead end road or stumble on the same trip hazard that they fell on. It means that I sustain church leaders by supporting them as administrators in running the church and as fellow laborers and disciples of Christ which sometimes also means that I may offer correction when they have blind spots or could do better.

To be nuanced, means that I recognize that the church is a very large community. Many, if not most church leaders and church members are not always ready to face truths that go against their assumptions. It is often harder to unlearn than it is to learn. To be nuanced is to see that there are degrees of spiritual progression for individuals and for communities. It means that I sometimes see the dirt, sin, and wickedness of the church, while also recognizing the spirit and gifts of Christ within the church. It means that I don’t throw away the seedling because it is covered in mud, but recognize its value and hope for its continued growth as it emerges out of darkness. It means that I am a sinner and also a saint who is made holy by the saving grace of Christ. My collaborative transformation, saint-ification, and creation by Jesus is an ongoing process and will continue in this life and the next. Eventually I will be a fully created divine being who is raised from the dust in the resurrection of Jesus, analogous to the parable of how Adam and Eve were created from the dust and made into living beings. The church is also in process of being restored or perhaps more accurately, in process of being created and re-created. The word “restoration” isn’t big enough to capture the future destiny of the church and of God’s plans for humanity. New truths and glories in Christ are yet to be revealed for myself, the church, and everyone. The end goal isn’t just to return to a prior state of innocence, but to grow beyond it into fully adult divine beings in Christ.

To be nuanced means that I am within the church, but sometimes find myself on its outer edges and boundaries. It means that I follow in Eve’s footsteps and eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so that my eyes are opened to greater truths and complexities. It means that I open myself up to sorrow so that I may love more deeply and have greater joy. To be nuanced is to sometimes be on both the outside and the inside of where the majority of church members are found. It is to not always be limited to the boundaries of a box. It is to be home even when on a journey.

To be nuanced means that I see shades, colors, hues, textures, and degrees of spiritual need and spiritual brightness. The same principle, teaching, doctrine or truth can appear differently and be more or less helpful depending on the vantage point and situation. I believe that a holistic and balanced perspective that integrates many truths and perspectives can lead to greater understanding and growth. Contradictions and paradoxes can sometimes be resolved by increasing the dimensional space in which we deal with them. Reality is complex and to understand it often requires a nuanced and multi-faceted approach.

To be nuanced is to believe that humanity, God, and reality is multi-dimensional. It is to acknowledge that my personal development and the ongoing creation of Zion and of all humanity is simultaneously messy, dirty, complex, and beautiful. It is to see the order in the chaos. It is to see the pot that can emerge from the clay before it is fully formed. It is to see steps and processes as well as the final end result. It is to see temporary stepstone commandments, policies, and doctrines that lead us to greater growth as beings who radiate divine light and love.

The spirit, mind, and sight of Christ is the knowledge of good from evil because Jesus sees things both as they really are and how they can be. The miracle of Christ’s creative power is to create good from evil. It is to make sinners into saints. It is to transform weakness into strength and sorrow into joy. It is to transform our sight so that enemies not only become friends, but they become part of us. Jesus is the great peacemaker who turns enemies into family. He makes the poor rich, forgives the debtors, and elevates the humble.

To be nuanced is to have depth perception by seeing with two eyes. It is to fashion an object with two hands that simultaneously push and pull. Communication requires both listening and speaking. It is to integrate science and art, form and function, emotion and logic, and the social constructs of masculine and feminine into a whole. To be fully human is to embrace all of these. Each disciple of Christ must develop the traits and characteristics of motherhood and fatherhood rather than be limited to a predefined social role. Each disciple must grow in love to be able to be both a nurturer and a protector, to become both a care giver and a provider, so that there are no longer male and female social limitations, but one complete human in Christ. Is there any limitation to divine beings in Christ? To be nuanced is to have an ongoing belief cycle involving birth, death, and rebirth. It is to awaken and be woke to perspectives previously unknown. It is to be able to both cry and laugh. It is to have both sorrow and joy. It is to be ever constant and yet adaptable and growing. It is to be adventurous and safe. It is to be more fully alive in the example of Jesus.

To be a nuanced believer is to see Jesus as holding the powers of justice and mercy in his two hands. It is to see Jesus as the refugee king. He is the creator and father of humanity who was born. Jesus is the spiritual milk and honey who was physically breastfed by his mother. Jesus is the spiritual bread of life who hungered for physical bread. He is the waters of life who asked the woman at the well for water. He is the Great Spirit that took on flesh. He is the carpenter who was nailed to a tree. Jesus who is the greatest of all was treated as the worst of all. He descended below all to rise above all so that he could pull us up in divine love.

To be nuanced is to see many things at once. It is to strive to be fully human and believe that there is more than one dimension to me, to God, to church, to doctrine, and to everyone else. For me, to be nuanced means that I place Christ-like love as the highest principle above all else. The defining attribute and highest objective of divine beings in God’s presence is love. The pure love of Christ endures when all other things fail. It endures beyond despair, fear, failure, false teachings, false doctrines, failed prophesy, errant prophets, harmful church policy, sin, sickness, pain, death, or betrayal. Divine love continually seeks and invites connection without fear. It is to simultaneously see my own weaknesses and strengths. It is to see my fears, my sins, and my wickedness as well as to see my divine origin and heritage, my goodness in Christ, and my divine potential. To be nuanced is to embrace grace for myself and others despite spiritual failures. It is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and love those that would treat me as their enemies by following Jesus as the great peacemaker. To be a disciple who walks in Jesus’ footsteps, means that there may be times when I am betrayed by my own religious community. It is to forgive those who do harm to me, to see their pain, and to look beyond their pain to see their divine potential and ongoing transformation. To be nuanced is to look below the surface to see that we are often more alike than different. It is to embrace individual agency and celebrate the individuality and unique gifts of each person while also striving for integrated communal oneness. It is to integrate differences to make sameness and belonging. It is to see the spirit of Christ moving people both inside and outside the church. It is to recognize prophets both inside and outside the church. It is to see that Christ’s tent is larger than just the church. It is to see that God’s kingdom is everywhere and that we will all sit down together at the great feast in God’s heavenly kingdom of many glories. It is to see new things within old things. It is to see that every soul is granted a portion of God’s priesthood power in their very life and in their God given agency to choose. It is to understand that the first earthly priesthood blessing we each received came from our mother with her atoning pregnancy and her bodily sacrifice to birth us.

To be a nuanced believer is to have many names and relationships. I am simultaneously parent, spouse, and child. I am a leader and a follower. I am a teacher and a student. I strive to be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. To be a nuanced believer is to simultaneously be one and many, individual and community, old and young, rich and poor, helper and helped, feminine and masculine, to have a stable home and be on a journey in a distant land. It is to be complex and both rather than “either or”. It is to develop humility with a belief that lives along doubt that may be the catalyst for change and a struggle of faith leading to growth rather than only live in the deadness of immoveable certainty.

It is to develop the gift of prophecy, revelation, and seership to see others with God’s eyes of love. It is to embrace and acquire for myself the priesthood sealing power of charity, which is the sealing power of both heaven and earth which endures forever despite everything else. Above all it is strive to be one with God, myself, and others in divine union. It is to be fully alive in God’s love.

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To continue beyond this point is to leave the safe harbor. To be nuanced is to painfully unlearn what was falsely assumed, mature through stages of complexity, and fearfully discover and embrace what is true. I am a work in progress with many flaws. This personal blog provides only a snapshot in time of my evolution of religious belief. What I think I know today, I may discover was wrong tomorrow. This is my warning and caution to myself as I work out what I believe in my journey of self discovery. I looked into the mirror and it looked back. Dangers ahead.

Future posts intended to document a snapshot in my faith journey are below:

Sifting out what is true and good

• My trifold heresies: The Fallibility of Prophets, Scripture, and Church Doctrine.
  • Prophets may be blind not even seeing what is in front of them
  • Scripture may be errant and harmful
  • Official church doctrines may be false, harmful, and incomplete
• Balancing the scales and maximizing my spiritual return on investment. Pros and Cons of being a Latter-day Saint: good fruit trees among the hypocrisy of white washed tombs full of dead men’s bones.
  • Structure vs Religious Group-Think: The good and bad of local and global LDS communities
  • Pros and Cons of the church as an organization and as an example of a divine institution
  • Moral religion like science: Slow learning from a mountain of failures and false beliefs
  • Religious deception, lies, and foundational truth claims proven false
  • The blessings of this generation contrasted with the blood and sins of this generation
  • Religious moral goodness to benefit humanity contrasted with religious moral failings to include: hubris, elitism, nepotism, tribalism, dehumanization (prejudice, racism, sexism, marginalization, homophobia, transphobia), bigotry, and orthodox religious nationalism
  • Heaven vs Hell: Church power hierarchies, money, sex, bodily autonomy, obedience, and sacrifice
• The prophetic voice and tradition to declare truth and call the people to see the harm they are causing and to repent
• Being a disciple of Jesus in the wilderness