Against Inoculation
Inoculation means making sure children learn about the doubt-raising stuff somewhere along the way. The Gospels’ chronology cannot be reconciled! Evolution and geology! Joseph Smith was credibly accused of marrying whats-her-name! Neuroscientists don’t believe in free will! Zelph the White Lamanite!
If raised by faithful parents and teachers, the kids won’t feel that things are being kept secret and will better be able to work through the concern and can be given contextual information and apologetics and the case against and so on.
Sure. Fine by me.
There can be real downsides of doing it too soon or too late; of giving too much information; of inoculating too much instead of focusing on the Gospel; of advancing with too much certainty a facile apologetic response that gets blown up later; etc.
But my main problem with inoculation as it is usually done is twofold.
First and least is the sense of smugness that often accompanies it. There is often a feel of ‘now you know the real secret story unlike all those dumb naive people.’ Inoculation is inoculation, not gnosis. This kind of pseudo-inoculation is usually worse than no inoculation at all. A better way of inoculating is, ‘here is some information that sometimes bothers people. Here are some reasons why people who were bothered by it got over it. We believe. Questions? Moving on.” The best approach is just to mention it along with the other information without flagging it as a problem particularly. “They had lots of trouble in Zion’s Camp. Joseph Smith got in a fistfight with his brother. Everyone was quarrelling with each other. They got sick. There were miracles too. Let me tell you about one . . . ”
But my biggest problem is that inoculation usually accepts the frame that these are reasons for doubt. Whereas what they really are is opportunities for increased understanding. These problems are not always just things that need to be rebutted or explained away. They are sometimes areas where, taking them down from the shelf from time to time, you will eventually deepen your knowledge of God and the gospel. Treating them as a problem shuts down those kinds of future inquiries.
That is why, in some sense, I am a spiritual anti-vaxxer.
Sean G.
September 9, 2020
I prefer a metaphysical discussion since that is the real source of most of these issues people “run into”. I recently spoke with my 12 year old atheistic nephew and bewildered him by talking about metaphysics. He was stunned to realize that he believed in many unprovable assumptions. No need to debate miracles if not even experiencing one could make you believe in them.
Jacob G.
September 9, 2020
It’s rarely ever about X. You can see that in how the default club to use against religion switched seamlessly from Evolution to LGBTQ+ = Love, and those two groups don’t seem to be particularly opposed to each other.
People do require justification and plausibility for what they want to do and they will find it or create it.
Rozy
September 9, 2020
“But my biggest problem is that inoculation usually accepts the frame that these are reasons for doubt.”
YES! Best reason ever. When the first Saints book came out I kept hearing people say that some of the new stories or information was hard for them to take; it caused them to question their belief that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. I had just the opposite experience. As I read the book I kept thinking, yes, that proves this is God’s work because it didn’t fail when there mistakes were made or there were problems.
We have four sons, at this time ages 29, 27, 24 and 22. I see Joseph Smith in them–young, inexperienced, foolish at times, mortal with faults, etc. And my boys all are educated, have traveled, and have the benefit of mountains of information and knowledge at their fingertips. Of course Joseph Smith made mistakes, errors in judgement, and such. He was young, inexperienced, ignorant of the world, unlearned, etc. There was no handbook of instructions to go by. Anyway, enough. No matter what anyone says about Joseph, I know he was telling the truth about what happened to him and he was and is God’s prophet of the Restoration.
As for the other things, I’ll take revealed religion over scientists any day!
Ugly Mahana
September 9, 2020
One takeaway that I get from this is that we should never be _smug_ about any aspect of faith. To quote C.S. Lewis, “Asian is not a tame Lion.” More to the point, however you understand the atonement, our spiritual liberty was won through the blood of (the son of) God, spilled in obedience to the will of His Father. While this shocking act must inspire our gratitude, it is nothing for us to take pride in. And any understanding we may think we harbor with respect to the moral failures of any God’s mortal servants pales in comparison to the mighty reality of His sacrifice. This is true whether we speak of God the Father or God the Son.
Mike A
September 9, 2020
We are taught in the temple to be dubious of people who claim to speak for God. “How shall I know that you are true messengers?” It makes sense that people would initially doubt the claims of Jospeh Smith. I regularly challenge my 4 daughters, as well as my Sunday School class full of teenagers (when we were meeting) to put themselves in the shoes of an unbeliever who is hearing about the story of Joseph Smith for the first time in this internet era. A young, uneducated 14 year old boy claims to have seen God the Father and The Son, conversed with angels, received gold plates and produced a new book of scripture (but those plates are not here because the angel took them back!), and was given the keys of the kingdom to open the last and final dispensation. Really? Oh, and then let’s add polygamy, blacks and the priesthood, MMM, gay marriage, etc, etc, etc.
There are certainly reasons for a logical, reasonable person to doubt the claims of this Church.
The key, however, is to put everything in context. This is our duty as parents and why one is naive if he/she thinks that “inoculating” kids is not necessary or proper in this day and age.
Yes, the story of the Angel Moroni and the gold plates is a fantastic claim, but let’s really take a deep dive on what the Book of Mormon is, and how it came to be. Most importantly let me tell you how the Spirit confirmed to my soul that it is a true book of God and how you can know for yourself as well.
Yes, polygamy is a part of our history, and the reasons for it are complex, but let’s talk about why God would command a people to practice it. And while we are at it, let’s talk about the evils that John C Bennett was perpetuating in Nauvoo at the time and how many offspring were generated from Joseph’s polygamous unions. (Answer: none)
If our children hear from their parents about all of the reasons why the Church really is true—warts and all—they will not be caught off guard when they inevitably hear from an enemy of the Church in vivid detail about the warts, and only the warts.
Just my 2 cents.
E.C.
September 9, 2020
“‘[H]ere is some information that sometimes bothers people. Here are some reasons why people who were bothered by it got over it. We believe. Questions? Moving on.'”
Ha! My Institute teacher used this exact formula yesterday. Our second class of the semester, and he spent the whole 90 minutes doing this. He also basically said what you did about understanding.
Actually, what he did was frame it as, “We don’t know a lot of things [about the Book of Mormon]. But ‘not knowing now’ is not the same thing as ‘this is false’. It just means that more research needs to be done, and more revelation has to happen. And you could be a part of that, if you keep asking questions in faith.” Then he gave some examples of how that has happened over the years.
This particular teacher sets a good example of how to teach ‘by study, and also by faith’; he melds personal spiritual stories with facts, studies, and quotes from scripture and modern revelation, as well as a knowledge of Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew. Clearly, he’s spent considerable time pondering over questions of his own.
Sute
September 9, 2020
The reason I’m not a big supporter of inoculation is it’s not a common method embraced by the fathers of our faith. Jesus didn’t need to acknowledge the warts of the prior prophets to make his own ministry more authentic.
From my own experience in professional life, there’s only so much time in the day only so much you can focus on and if you give time to things that aren’t your priority you’ll be driven off course.
Focus on the tree, hold to the rod.
Zen
September 10, 2020
No one is shocked to learn there are open questions in Mathematics or Physics, or any hard science. Perhaps people should be more aware of long-standing unanswered questions, like the Reimann Conjecture, Quantum Gravity, etc.