Book Review: Faith Shift
Kathy Escobar’s Faith Shift: Finding Your Way Forward When Everything You Believe Is Coming Apart is written for a Christian audience, but Mormons will find a lot that echos their own experiences. Escobar is a minister, and many of her friends with whose experiences she illustrates her points are ministers as well.
I don’t want to minimize non-Mormon faith crisis, but Mormonism demands so much across so many parts of life that a Christian who just shows up for services on Sunday and maybe for small group study during the week may have trouble understanding the enormity of the consequences when shelves (metaphorical scaffolding holding doubts at bay) start to crack. Ministers, on the other hand, commonly devote their lives to their callings (and support their families with it), so a faith crisis is almost existential in scope and even more extreme than the Mormon experience.
I criticized Thomas Wirthlin McConkie for basing his treatment around a set of stages isomorphic to but different from Fowler’s famous stages of faith. Escobar takes a different approach entirely. She characterizes evolving faith as one of:
- Fusing,
- Shifting,
- Returning,
- Unraveling,
- Severing,
- and Rebuilding.
Escobar’s Stages of Faith Evolution
This represents Mormon faith crisis more accurately than Fowler’s stages in a couple ways.
First, it recognizes that some people react to learning about (for instance) the complexities of Church history or Book of Mormon authorship by retreating to the comfort of the “fused” beliefs they held before. They may shift again later as their shelf gets heavier, or they may stay there the rest of their lives.
Second, Escobar correctly observes that for many people, the unraveling of orthodox beliefs does not lead immediately to rebuilding. Rather, they first must sever themselves completely from their old belief system before they can construct a new one later. Again, this phase can last indefinitely.
This is particularly likely for Mormons, whose religion is founded on the principle that “all [Christian] creeds were an abomination in [God’s] sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: they draw near to [God] with their lips, but their hearts are far from [Him], they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.” Late nineteenth century Mormon theologians drew on Protestant anti-Catholic polemics to synthesize a narrative explaining how the true church established by Jesus crumbled and was lost, until its restoration by Joseph Smith.
This narrative, and Mormon reliance on charismatic promptings to verify their message, often leads the faith-shifting Mormon to a new epistemology of empiricism. Thus, a Mormon who concludes that Smith was not the prophet he claimed to be is also unlikely to conclude that mainstream Christianity has the answers he is looking for — although the broad spectrum of post-Mormonism certainly includes some Christians.
Escobar passes no judgement on those who choose to stay severed, or for that matter on those who return to simple fusing. She does note that a severed existence can be a lonely one, and offers suggestions for how to begin to rebuild once you are ready to do so.
Faith Shifts for Mormons
Escobar’s assurance that someone in the throes of a faith crisis has plenty of company, and her dozens of examples illustrating this, is a valuable perspective at the beginning of a faith evolution.
Those farther along may take some value from Escobar’s advice for unravelers:
- Come to terms with negative emotions.
- Consider the possibility that your soul is not at risk.
- Accept that some relationships will fall away.
- Make time for safe, life-giving friends.
- Try experiencing God in new ways.
- Be selective in what you read and about which events you attend.
- Resist the temptation to compare yourself to others.
This is probably not the book to give to an orthodox Mormon family member to help them understand your journey. The examples of faith-shifting Christians are too superficial to penetrate the mindset that “of course non-Mormons have faith crises; they don’t have the benefit of the restored truth that we do.” For example:
Sitting by a campfire recently, I talked with a dear friend about our changing faith. Over eight years, I have seen him transition from being a dedicated youth ministry leader to a professed agnostic. Miguel’s process has been deep and sincere. He wrestled with his questions and doubts for years, hoping he could make it work, before he finally resigned from his volunteer position. He sat in church with his wife and family even when he didn’t want to be there anymore. He kept trying to resolve his dissonant feelings about God and Jesus. Yet, instead of bringing him to greater peace, he felt more lost, abandoned, and confused. All he once believed felt like a huge sham. He knew he couldn’t keep participating in anything religious and decided that to maintain his integrity, he needed to leave Christianity altogether.
Escobar spends the largest section of her book, spanning multiple chapters, on rebuilding. This is where she gives the most specific advice, on re-engaging with God and scripture and faith communities, on recognizing the good in your old faith tradition, and on opening your mind to new possibilities.
Further Reading
- Kathy Escobar’s blog posts on faith shifts.
