Zion

Growing up, I always had Zion in my heart, and as I grew, so too did my love for God and my longing for home. I was raised in a conservative Evangelical home. I went to private Christian school and attended a “Bible believing” Church. I remember as a young teenager my profound desire to be closer to God, though in my immaturity I didn’t know exactly how to achieve it apart from transitory spiritual highs. After graduating high school, I ended up attending college at Multnomah Bible College. My junior high desires had taken deeper root in my soul, and I went off to college with a burning desire to know God and everything He had for me. Based on the tradition I had been raised in, I assumed my primary means of finding these things out would be through God’s Word, the Bible. My desire was to reside in Zion – to really be a citizen of God’s Kingdom. I trusted that reading my Bible would tell me everything I needed to know: how to get there, how to be there, and how to know her Ruler.

I soon found out that there was no “Zion,” at least not in the form I had expected her in. Instead of finding a church that was built on Christ’s authority, I found a multitude of interpretations huddled around a small bundle of “orthodox” truisms. Belief in the Trinity, inerrancy, sola scriptura: these were the requirements to enter what I took to be Zion. I was taught, or at least it seemed to me, that one could not pass through her gates without adhering to certain fundamental doctrine. And so I nodded my head and passed through the gate labeled” Zion.”

“Zion” wasn’t what I expected it. It was human, it was messy and it was confused. Instead of finding transcendent truth and guidance for God’s people, I found division and instability. Had I been wiser, I would have expected Zion to be both human and at least somewhat messy (for, although perfect, God’s dealings with humanity are always fraught with our creaturliness), but in hindsight I never should have for one moment tolerated the division and the doctrinal uncertainty. I should have never have traded in my hopes of the fullness of God’s truth with all its promises for the sliver of “orthodox” sine qua non. But I did not understand then as I do now and we all must grow.

As time progressed, I became more and more disillusioned with the idea that man’s reading of the Bible will lead to a cohesive and necessary understanding of soteriology. Sola scriptura seemed in reality to be the biggest philosophical failure of the western world. Man’s ability to read did not produced a good grasp of who God was or God’s truth. It did not bring Truth, it did not bring unity. It did not bring Zion. Instead, its fruit was school after school of theological thought: Calvinsim, Arminiasm, Baptists, Presbeyterians, traditionalists, new wave theology, the emergent church. Thousands upon thousands of branches of opinions, many of them mutually exclusive in their truth claims.

Ah, yes, you might say, but certainly these efforts could lead to Truth, if only knowledge was really applied with good intent and purity of heart? If only it were so. But I saw teachers and students, both good and learned, reach radically different conclusions, with radically different and perhaps eternal consequences. And so I witnessed firsthand how the Reformation bloom withers under reality’s sun.

In all this, my heart still longed for Zion. When I first realized that Zion was not to be found in any one Protestant tradition or stream of belief, I hoped that reading the Bible might at least tell me how she might be built. However, as I saw those around my striving after this aim with little or no success, I rightly lost faith in my ability to construct her, even in my own heart. I would never be able to know enough or understand enough. Thousands of years, countless histories and incredible culture gaps lay between me and being able to get at the text with enough precision to draw up any sort of blue print for Zion. I felt like a monkey trying to read Shakespeare: I could get bits and pieces here and there, but the metanarrative eluded me.

And so it was that I had not found Zion and I did not know how to build her. But where disappointment met me, hope led me on. And so my heart became a pilgrim and my prayers petitioned the heavens, longing for guidance.

At this point, all the fears that lay at the back of my mind and all the suspicions accumulated since childhood began to take root: there was no Zion here and now on earth, there was no way to build her, there was no way to know or be part of God’s chosen people. There was nothing but the cacophony of opinion and the longing of my heart for my heart’s truest home.

As I felt the twilight coming and as my soul began to despair even as it earnestly poured out its petitions, it happened. I found Zion. She was shrouded in ill opinion and lies, she was hard to descry, but the cries of my heart were heard and God had in His mercy led me home. It was a painful trudge ascending the Hill of the Lord. It was disorienting arriving at her gates and the shock of waking up within her walls jarred me time and time again. Finding her was like learning to see the light, living in color after years of black and white. It was the joy of coming home when you’ve been away so long you can barely remember what home is.

Christ’s Church has been restored once again to the Earth. Zion has descended from the heavens and opens her gates to all who would enter in. Truth is here, beyond thought and supposition, beyond exegesis and all such valiant efforts. Where I had frailly tried to understand God’s Word for myself, I have it explicated for me by His prophets and apostles. Truly, I am blessed beyond words by the blessings of God. Wonder beyond dreaming, peace beyond expression. Zion is here and Christ stands at her gates to welcome all to come in and partake of His Kingdom here and now on Earth.

My Very Brief Testimony

Taken from a brief talk I gave in Sacrament, earlier this year:

When I was first asked to share today about my conversion story, I was thrilled. And then Kevin told me I only had one to two minutes. I certainly won’t have time to tell you all of it, but I’d like to tell you one aspect.

Several years ago, while visiting family in California, I was reacquainted with a good friend of my brother-in-law’s. Corey was a member, and I remember there being something different and wonderful about him. I can still remember the feeling of the Spirit I got from just talking with him, even though it would be several years before I even knew what the Spirit really felt like. Over the next couple of years, I didn’t forget my encounter with Corey. My last semester before graduating from Bible College, I started to write a paper on LDS doctrine. Corey was the only reason I chose the Church as my topic. I knew there was something different about him, and that brief encounter years earlier was enough to spur my curiosity on. Six months later, I was baptized.

Those six months were the worst and the best of my life. I had dozens of questions and even more fears. Sometimes I felt like I would never see light again – but I knew I had seen it once, in a “Mormon,” and hope of finding it again was enough to keep me going.

The reasons why I joined the Church, the reasons that convinced me it was true, are many. But one of the most powerful, and certainly the most impelling, did not come from two Elders knocking on my door, or a Church advert, or even a free Book of Mormon. It came from a member, just being himself.

When we met years ago, Corey said nothing of his faith. But the Spirit shone threw him and into my life.

Today I would like to bear testimony not only of what God has done in my life, but of the incredible ability He has granted all of us to be His beacons unto the world. Every one of us who has the gift of the Holy Spirit bears an incredible light. And when we let it shine, that light brightens the world all around us.

Not every person you smile at or talk with is going to feel the Spirit, get baptized and become a member. But one might. And the one standing here today did. I know this Church is true, I know God lives and I know God loves us. I know God is every day at work in the world and that He uses the light and truth we bear to transform the world around us. I would encourage you today to go forth and bear that precious light more boldly. To raise it a bit higher and carry it more proudly. That light is the greatest gift we have to give the world. And you never know who might be looking for it. I leave these things with you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.