Thoughts On Church History And Faith Crisis Part 2

[Benjamin McGuire]

Ben, if I may interject, you're not grasping Reelmormon's problem as I perceive it.

Yes, that's probably true. On the other hand, I also believe that I am grasping his problem.

Ben M.

[Log]

Yes, that's probably true. On the other hand, I also believe that I am grasping his problem.

Ben M.

Awesome one-liner. Slow clap-worthy.

Where am I wrong, oh wittier-than-I?

Edited April 26, 2012 by Log

[Kevin Christensen]

Ben, if I may interject, you're not grasping Reelmormon's problem as I perceive it.

RM's issue, as he said in the other thread, was that his spiritual witness - the manifestation of the Spirit to him - was that what he was being taught about the Church was true: all of it. And yet he found out subsequently that the Church's version of history is, to his appreciation, vastly oversimplified.

What does the statement, "the Church was true: all of it," actually mean? A church is simply a gathering, an assembly, a bunch of people. Truth is a knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come. So it the idea that the collective gathering has all knowledge, is omniscient, and that a personal testimony confirms the reality of this static state of omniscience and uniform consistency?

Personally, I don't think the statement makes sense. Alma 32 speaks orienting oneself towards accumulated "cause to believe" rather than once and for all, "knowing." And during the process of gathering information and experience, including spiritual confirmation, he says, "Is your knowledge perfect?" The blunt answer, "Nay." He says we have to continue the process. A growing seed changes shape. A perfect, static crystal does not. New wine needs new bottles.

And the starting attitude is neatly decribed here:

PERRY SCHEME OF COGNITIVE AND ETHICAL GROWTH

TABLE OF TRAITS BY POSITION AND TRANSITION

POSITION 1 - Basic Duality. (Garden of Eden Position: All will be well.)

The person perceives meaning divided into two realms-Good/Bad, Right/wrong, We/They, Success/Failure, etc. They believe that knowledge and goodness are quantitative, that there are absolute answers for every problem and authorities know them and will teach them to those who will work hard and memorize them.

Agency is "Out there". The person is so embedded here that there is no place from which to observe themselves, yet they have a dim sense of there being a boundary to Otherness somewhere that gives their Eden-like world view boundary.

Transition 1-2 - Dualism modified. (Snake whispers.) The person starts to be aware of others and of differing opinions, even among authorities. This started the feeling of uncertainty. But they decide it is part of the authority's job to pose problems. It takes hard work to deny the legitimacy of diversity and to keep the belief in the simplicity of truth.

(It should be kept in mind that in any of the transition states it is easy for the person to become depressed. It takes time for the "guts to catch up with leaps of mind." When a sense of loss is accorded the honor of acknowledgement, movement is more rapid and the risk of getting stuck in apathy, alienation, or depression is reduced. When one steps into new perceptions he is unlikely to take another until he comes to terms with the losses attendant on the first.)

POSITION 2 - Multiplicity Prelegitimate. (Resisting snake)

Now the person moves to accept that there is diversity, but they still think there are TRUE authorities who are right, that the others are confused by complexities or are just frauds. They think they are with the true authorities and are right while all others are wrong. They accept that their good authorities present problems so they can learn to reach right answers independently.

Perry observes a condition common to students entering Harvard from everywhere. It is natural stage of human development, not a unique condition caused by the weaknesses of official Mormon pedagogy, nor by the inattention and slowness to listen and comprehend key information that is presented.

That is, the Church presents its history one way, when, in fact, the actual history is quite a bit more complex, nuanced, and perhaps even less-than-obviously faith-promoting.

Again, what is the Church? Mine includes multiple sources of information, not just officially produced manuals, but every individual in it. Ben and Dan Peterson and Hugh Nibley and Richard Bushman and Larry Poulsen and Wendy Ulrich and Jana Riess and Shauna Christensen are just as much "the church" to me as the people who produce the manuals. The Joseph Smith papers are not being produced by a conspiracy of people who want to manipulate me into sheep-like conformity and eternal naivity.

When one expects (and, to be blunt, has good reasons to expect) perfect, complete truth from the Church, and perceives that there is less than perfect, complete truth coming from it, that's a problem.

Has good reasons to expect? Really? A human stage of development, perhaps. I often quote Kuhn on "anomally emerges against a background of expectation." The more rigid and exacting the expectations, the more anomalies produced.

D&C 1, not a secret document, sets expectations in a completely different way. "Inasmuch as they erred, it might be made manifest..." If we read it. If I don't read it, should I bitterly resent the Church? I think D&C 1 gives me good reasons to expect imperfection and to feel comfortable with the situation. One of the perks is that if I run into something I don't like, say Parry's Ensign essay on Noah, or some unpleasant remark of Brigham Young's, I don't have to suffer a shattering disillusion. Nor do I have to define my relationship with Parry or the Ensign or Brigham in terms of disappointing moment. I am able to widen my gaze, and broaden my pespective and make allowances for them, just as I hope to have for my own.

Hence, something like the seer-stone vs. Urim and Thummim is a perfectly adequate object of cognitive dissonance, as are any perceived discrepancies between what the Church teaches as its history, and what the documents actually say.

I see a mote eye problem a wine and wine bottle problem. Nothing insurmountable by anyone who makes an effort to knock and seek and learn.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[Log]

Kevin,

I've laid out the basic conflict in as stark, straightforward, and literal terms as I could. I think we're speaking at cross purposes.

I'm saying the source of the crisis is valid on its face, and it must be addressed at that level, which, I think, Ben M. does when he hints at some institutional corrective actions that can be taken when teaching our institutional past.

Nothing insurmountable by anyone who makes an effort to knock and seek and learn.

Which is what led Reelmormon here.

Edited April 26, 2012 by Log

[KevinG]

Is it time to repost "I do not have a testimony of Church History?"

I think it is:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=16&num=2&id=560

[DBMormon]

Okay, the first item on Dehlin's list is the Book of Abraham. Before I can respond, I need you to identify at least one specific historical issue with the Book of Abraham that is supposedly troubling?

If your speaking to me, I have no problem with it but many have left the church when finding out that almost all nonmormon scholars identify it as having nothing to do with what Joseph gave as a translation and instead say it is a standard funeral text as you know. And yes I know it is likely some of the papyri are missing... again... not an issue to me but it is to many

[DBMormon]

Ben, if I may interject, you're not grasping Reelmormon's problem as I perceive it.

RM's issue, as he said in the other thread, was that his spiritual witness - the manifestation of the Spirit to him - was that what he was being taught about the Church was true: all of it. And yet he found out subsequently that the Church's version of history is, to his appreciation, vastly oversimplified.

That is, the Church presents its history one way, when, in fact, the actual history is quite a bit more complex, nuanced, and perhaps even less-than-obviously faith-promoting. When one expects (and, to be blunt, has good reasons to expect) perfect, complete truth from the Church, and perceives that there is less than perfect, complete truth coming from it, that's a problem.

Hence, something like the seer-stone vs. Urim and Thummim is a perfectly adequate object of cognitive dissonance, as are any perceived discrepancies between what the Church teaches as its history, and what the documents actually say.

Log, I couldn't have said it better. This is really the root of my issue at times and I would bet the issue of numerous others. The church is happy letting me believe the simple basic faith promoting story as long as they can and then only offer a more realistic way of seeing the church and answers to tough issues when I have gone out of my way to discover difficult issues... not saying that is how they do it, only that is how I emotionally percieved it as it has happened several times

[DBMormon]

In this case, when we deal with historical issues as a faith crisis, the trigger isn't so much the conflict as the fact that the conflict occurs as we engage in a new way of knowing about the church. This aspect is where we might say that the institutional church has added to the problem more than it has reduced it. The church does this by engaging in its history only in a superficial way and as a cover so to speak, for teaching doctrine and theology. The church leads us to believe that it is also trying to teach us history - even though, very often, is something that is more cultural myth than history. When members discover history as history (or what they perceive as history) they enter a new way of knowing about the church, and this leads to conflict that creates crisis. In terms of the earlier comments, its not that we get new information or new knowledge, art of the challenge is that its new information and new knowledge in an entirely different kind of framework - and a knowledge that doesn't necessarily challenge old knowledge so much as it challenges the framework. It's not the realization that maybe when we speak of the Urim and Thummim we might really be meaning a seer stone so much as the realization that what the church passed off on us as history is clearly not history in any academic sense. These issues are particularly prevalent when we deal with strongly held views that we might call "normative" (especially when those views are inaccurate).

What can be done?

I don't think we need to open up our lessons to the most difficult, or most critical issues. I think that in every situation these will be different from person to person. Given that each member is at a different place, wholesale exposing people to the areas of most concern probably is not completely beneficial. I also do not think that the church would serve its members best by focusing a lot on history. I do think that the church needs to recognize that limiting resources to just that which comes through correlation is itself part of the problem and that the risks of trying to create such tight control inevitably add to this issue. If I had to make three suggestion to the curriculum committee of the church, it would be these:

What can be done?

I don't think we need to open up our lessons to the most difficult, or most critical issues. I think that in every situation these will be different from person to person. Given that each member is at a different place, wholesale exposing people to the areas of most concern probably is not completely beneficial. I also do not think that the church would serve its members best by focusing a lot on history. I do think that the church needs to recognize that limiting resources to just that which comes through correlation is itself part of the problem and that the risks of trying to create such tight control inevitably add to this issue. If I had to make three suggestion to the curriculum committee of the church, it would be these:

1: Teachers (and curriculum material) should be encouraged to avoid reinforcing dogmatic perspective. They could be religious, they could be political, they could be hyper nationalistic. How many times was I given a comment that involved some rather dogmatic (and probably incorrect) statement? Teachers need to allow some liberty among their class members for a wide range of beliefs - and whether or not something is a widely held normative point of view, if we don't reinforce that as a perception among the members of the church, or if we downplay what is perceived as normative (and dogmatic) differing opinions will not be so likely to cause a crisis of faith.

2: Lessons need to involve some kind of critical thinking for both teachers and students. Providing everything bundled up neatly with a quote from a General Authority to boot is to some extent destructive of the kind of education that we need to provide. One of the most ironic lessons for this year (in my opinion) is lesson 3. There we discuss Nephi's vision of the Tree of Life. The contrast Nephi wants to draw is between his own approach (go to God for understanding and personal revelation) and the approach of his brothers (let's ask Nephi - who because of his experience can be seen as authoritative in explaining it). This is followed up by a discussion of the symbolism in the dream from ... Elder Jeffrey Holland. And the lesson we are being taught is that being Nephi is not as good as being Laman and Lemuel. Less may well be more. Reading quotes does not engage the critical thinking skills of class members.

3: If we are worried about exposure to history, then perhaps we need to make clear demarcations in our curriculum material. Take some time to talk about history and make it real history without the need for ethical judgments or the (often unstated) moral conclusions. Then take some time to talk about theology and doctrine. If we want to emphasize both, then we need to include both - and not to confuse them in our curriculum. It should come as no surprise when we see a person experience a crisis of faith in which they are confusing historical elements as representing some kind of gospel truth - because our lessons do just this. We teach gospel truth through (often misrepresented) historical discussions. If we want to use experiences as examples, then lets use our own experiences - something that we don't get through many layers of interpretation and often normative and dogmatic belief.

I really enjoyed this post and felt it offers some real solutions to avoid the problems related with the isssue this thread addresses

[Xander]

Is it time to repost "I do not have a testimony of Church History?"

I think it is:

http://maxwellinstit...16&num=2&id=560

I'll trump your Bitton with a little Shermer: http://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2010/12/cognitive-illusions-why-smart-people-believe-stupid-things

[bcuzbcuz]

Being kind of in the middle from my view (spiritually I have a strong testimony, Historically I really struggle at times) I would appreciate an attempt to handle this thread in a kinder nicer approach.....

The issue at heart at least to me as I have reflected is the former member's inability to disregard the historical narrative in favor of faith. That in essence while they may have had spiritual experiences, those do not trump what seems to them as a historical narrative that places extreme doubt on the church's validity.

While the faithful seems to hold onto faith in the face of History that seems to bring into question the church's truth claims.

You eloquently present the state for the two types of reasoning; analytical and intuitive. There is an intuitive nature to belief that draws conclusions based on personal observations of the world around us. This kind of thinking supports faith.

My interpretation of this is as follows: The world is beautiful, too beautiful to be merely a structure of happenstance, therefore it must have a designer, is the type of reasoning that is intuitive.

Analytical thinking pulls the threads of belief apart and examines them, one by one. Whoever designed the appendix must have been asleep on the job, falls into the other category.

A recent research project, published in Science, looks at these two ways of thinking and reviews how they influence religious belief.

http://www.ts-si.org/the-dialogue/31565-analytic-thinking-disrupts-intuitive-religious-belief

The study found that when test subjects (some 650 persons in both US and Canada) were given problems of analytical thinking that this type of thinking process encouraged disbelief. The full study can be obtained from Science, but it costs. There are several sites that have brief summaries of the study.

Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief

• Will M. Gervais,
  
• Ara Norenzayan.
  

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

How does this apply to your question? You used the word 'spiritually' when talking about testimony and 'historically' when talking about struggles;Two entirely different ways of looking at a question.

[Log]

How does this apply to your question? You used the word 'spiritually' when talking about testimony and 'historically' when talking about struggles;Two entirely different ways of looking at a question.

I wish I could downvote posts. That had absolutely no relevance to this thread, and is mere anti-religious polemic coupled with triumphalism.

Edited April 29, 2012 by Log

[Maidservant]

I can't remember if I posted in your last thread or not, but I did read through a lot and thought a lot.

I can only speak for myself and not any other, and I do not represent any category: I need to share that in my personal experience in engaging with those who conclude their struggles with historical issues of the church (or for whatever reason), they often assert that I am invalidating their struggle, and I am always flabbergasted because that is what I want to say to THEM: You are invalidating MY struggle! *I* am not the one saying that a person cannot arrive at whatever place in their journey makes the most sense. *I* am the one whose intelligence and process of thinking and believing is being called into question as something *I'm* not allowed to have***. I am not accusing anyone. I am simply saying this is my emotional experience in many discussions on the matter (not with everyone, of course).

Also as far as historical matters. I am far more troubled by what seems to me that the Restored gospel is a re-furbishment of the Egyptian religion. I think on this a lot, and this is one of my struggles, and I have my own reconciliations and trust-without-knowing-everything. I can never be dismayed by polyandry, for example (alternative social structures are always cool to me) and BofA (content speaks for itself, I don't care if it came from a rubiks cube), for another example.

Anyway, I do appreciate the exploration you are doing reelmormon, but I'm just throwing out my experience here, too, for it's two cents or less .

*** i.e. I am made to feel that being a Mormon, and choosing to be a Mormon, is an invalid experience

Edited April 29, 2012 by Maidservant

[bcuzbcuz]

I wish I could downvote posts. That had absolutely no relevance to this thread, and is mere anti-religious polemic coupled with triumphalism.

You are entitled to your opinion.

[why me]

I just read the wikipedia entry on CogDis; is it accurate enough?

It seems simple.

It is not so simple. The word is used by postmormons to discribe what all mormons are going through if they still believe in mormonism. In other words, the enlightened ones are the exmormons and postmormons who no longer suffer from it because they are no longer members.

It is that simple.

Edited April 29, 2012 by why me

[why me]

I'll trump your Bitton with a little Shermer: http://www.minnpost....e-stupid-things

No one should have a testimony that church history is perfect because it is made up of imperfect persons. History is history..it is full of interpretations and conflicts. Such is history...no matter what history it is.

[wenglund]

If your speaking to me, I have no problem with it but many have left the church when finding out that almost all nonmormon scholars identify it as having nothing to do with what Joseph gave as a translation and instead say it is a standard funeral text as you know. And yes I know it is likely some of the papyri are missing... again... not an issue to me but it is to many

Okay, but what, where, and when do you propose be said about this subject in the Church curriculum that isn't already being said? What more needs to be said about it in order for you to think the gospel is being presented in a more "realistic way"?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[why me]

If your speaking to me, I have no problem with it but many have left the church when finding out that almost all nonmormon scholars identify it as having nothing to do with what Joseph gave as a translation and instead say it is a standard funeral text as you know. And yes I know it is likely some of the papyri are missing... again... not an issue to me but it is to many

I think that most mormons know that we don't have the original papyri. And we don't. I think that the abraham thing is simple: we have a book. The book contains words. How did these words come about? There can be two ways: Joseph made a translation from a text or he wrote it himself. And these are the two choices that members need to make. As I understand it much of the papyri is lost in a fire. If so, how to prove it one way or the other? Now it would be great to have a papyri that matched JS's translation. That would be a real faith booster and many exmormons would be in the fold because there would be evidence and people seem to need evidence these days at the expense of faith.

Edited April 29, 2012 by why me

[DBMormon]

Anyway, I do appreciate the exploration you are doing reelmormon, but I'm just throwing out my experience here, too, for it's two cents or less .

Thank you for your words

[DBMormon]

Okay, but what, where, and when do you propose be said about this subject in the Church curriculum that isn't already being said? What more needs to be said about it in order for you to think the gospel is being presented in a more "realistic way"?

I don't know wenglund.... I don't know how in a faithful way and without getting on a tangent, you allow members to see there is another side of this issue and you be the one to present it so later on they don't feel hoodwinked. Book of Abraham has been a testimony killer for many... and yet if we only tell the faithful side of the story people will continue to feel like the church is shielding them from having all the info. I wish I knew a perfect solution.... I only know that I hate seeing some leave the church over an issue that seems preventable..... I know preventable how? We shall see the church's attempt soon at better telling it's history as new manuals come out and a better framework

arrives.

Edited April 29, 2012 by reelmormon

[Log]

*** i.e. I am made to feel that being a Mormon, and choosing to be a Mormon, is an invalid experience

Please don't lose heart. We are paying a dear price to know God, and the price we pay is looking foolish in the eyes of the worldly, bearing their scorn and censure. Sometimes, even, this scorn and censure comes from those who style themselves brothers and sisters in Christ.

Remember the barbs of the Adversary when the Savior hung upon the cross, bearing the sins of all mankind, in his hour of faith crisis: "If thou be the Son of God, save thyself!" That is, they made out as if his knowledge of his divinity was invalid in his greatest trial. As he bore the stripes, slurs, insults, and arrogance of his brothers and sisters whom he was there to save, and endured in faithfulness to the end, so should we likewise bear the cross of the world.

Edited April 29, 2012 by Log

[wenglund]

I don't know wenglund.... I don't know how in a faithful way and without getting on a tangent, you allow members to see there is another side of this issue and you be the one to present it so later on they don't feel hoodwinked. Book of Abraham has been a testimony killer for many... and yet if we only tell the faithful side of the story people will continue to feel like the church is shielding them from having all the info. I wish I knew a perfect solution.... I only know that I hate seeing some leave the church over an issue that seems preventable..... I know preventable how? We shall see the church's attempt soon at better telling it's history as new manuals come out and a better framework arrives.

A key to find a good solution, let alone a perfect one, is to correctly understand the problem--which includes, as previously intimated, accurately accessing where the problem actually lies and the cause thereof.

I submit that those who claim to have been "hoodwinked" by the Church, or not sufficiently informed, and who blame the Church for their loss of faith, either don't correctly understand their problem, and/or they are looking for a scapegoat. I hope to demonstrate this by pressing the point with those, such as yourself, who are advocating the "hoodwinked" or "lack of information" position, using Dehlin's list you suggested.

So, please describe for me exactly how the Book of Abraham has been a "testimony killer," and let's dig deeper into those supposed claims to see what and who may really be the problem. Once we rationally ascertain what and who are the real problem, we can then test your proposed solution to see if it is what is best. Deal?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[DBMormon]

when one encounters for the first time that the Book of Abraham is a standard funeral text and sees that those outside the church see Joseph translating to known unrelated egyptian document into some religious christian book. The member who has an issue with this issue sees joseph faking a translation and history showing that the document he worked with was not a record of Abraham at all but some standard funeral text burried with numerous egyptians. Don't defend the issue as again not something I struggle with.... We are simply dealing with the perception others have who do have a faith crisis here. I believe this is addressed by the church stating in some way along the way that the record we have is a standard funeral text and regardless of what we have there is an inspired document that has come from it. I also think we need to do a better job helping people see the difference between translation and transmission and help them see that in transmission it is possible to have an object create the question that god answers through revelation without the onject having a direct correlation.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Log wrote:

RM's issue, as he said in the other thread, was that his spiritual witness - the manifestation of the Spirit to him - was that what he was being taught about the Church was true: all of it. And yet he found out subsequently that the Church's version of history is, to his appreciation, vastly oversimplified.

This seems to be a mess of confusion for me. Part of the problem that I see in this idea is that it is based on the notion that the church is somehow different. Not different in that the church is true (more on that maybe in a moment), but different in that somehow the church becomes completely foreign to the rest of our experience. Our entire lives we go through this process. And its not just true of things like religion and faith. We learned in grade school about Newtonian physics, only to discover later that this is in many ways a vastly oversimplified explanation (particularly if we encounter relativity and quantum mechanics). Yet, we don't hear that this is the great failure of our educational system, or that, because we were taught that Newtonian physics is accurate, but we find out later that it is vastly oversimplified, suddenly everything we learned in grade school is now suspect. There is, of course more going on than what you are portraying. (I might even suggest that reelmormon's own portrayal of himself and his experience is "vastly oversimplified").

We also have the clear reality that not everyone who discovers that the church's version of its history is vastly oversimplified is affected in this way. In fact, many people who encounter this seem to accept it in much the same way that we accept this kind of issue in other places in our lives. We incorporate the new information into our knowledge without it having these kinds of implications. So either there is something inherently different about reelmormon and others who respond in the same fashion, or reelmormon is encountering the information in a different way (or both).

My suggestion has been (quite consistently) that reelmormon's encounter with history hasn't just been an encounter with history, but also an encounter with a narrative of how to understand that history. And he has adopted the narrative as well as accepting various historical interpretations. This comes through very clearly when, for example, he described a faith crisis as cognitive dissonance (a term that is used and abused in this same way w frequently among certain groups of people - but never at all among certain other groups - i.e. you would read it all over the place on Shade's board, but never hear it in church). At the same time, we get these lists - and these lists are also quite popular in those same circles. And then we couple this with the response - which is the kind of demand I can find in many places from this same group of people. This implies that these demands are also a part of the narrative. In a sense, his being here, and making these demands (without being able to do more than tell us that something must be done) is simply a way for him to reinforce his idea that this narrative is accurate.

In these situations, the issue is never really about the facts. Reelmormon seems almost disinterested in discussing individual issues. He does like to bring them up in certain ways, but that is, for him, often the end of the discussion. It's not about defending a fact or an interpretation, its about defending the narrative. As I note from the last post that he provided:

Don't defend the issue as again not something I struggle with.... We are simply dealing with the perception others have who do have a faith crisis here.

What is inescapable in this scenario is the notion that the church is being a hindrance, a stumbling block and a problem for people's faith because it doesn't reveal the other side. How is the church supposed to respond in these models when we dig down and discover that the other side is a fictional misrepresentation of history? How should the church respond to this narrative when it wants to make things seem of the essence that are in reality trivial and inconsequential?

Ben M.

[wenglund]

When one encounters for the first time that the Book of Abraham is a standard funeral text and sees that those outside the church see Joseph translating to known unrelated egyptian document into some religious christian book. The member who has an issue with this issue sees joseph faking a translation and history showing that the document he worked with was not a record of Abraham at all but some standard funeral text buried with numerous Egyptians.

Obviously, the Church doesn't view it that way and even teaches to the contrary and has provided a spiritual means, consistent with the Church's intent and purposes, to confirm what it teaches.

Clearly, then, if certain members views things this way (which is their prerogative), it is nevertheless in contravention to what the Church teaches and provides as a means for growth in faith.

In other words, if certain members view things this way, it is of their own making, and a result of their departing from Church teachings and their following their own ways (man's ways).

Since they are the problem, and not the Church, then the solution should focus on them, and not the Church. Right?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

My suggestion has been (quite consistently) that reelmormon's encounter with history hasn't just been an encounter with history, but also an encounter with a narrative of how to understand that history.

To me, this is a critical point that can't be emphasized too much. The difference between those who grow in faith and those who may lose faith isn't so much a function of exposure to certain historical data as it is a function of how we each individually process the historical data.

The question may then become: "Is there something the Church might do better to help certain individuals learn to process the data in a faith-promoting rather than a faith-demoting way?"

I don't know, nor am I in a position to say or do anything about it.

However, a more relevant question here may be: "Is there something each individual might do and learn for themselves, if they wish, to better insure that they process the data in a faith-promoting way?"

I believe there is.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-