The church isn't true. Let me explain.

The title may cause some confusion because I both agree and disagree with the statement of the title. It depends on what is meant by it.

Members of the church often say that “the church is true”. 

Language is a funny thing in that any word can mean so many things. 

What is the church? Is it the leaders? The History? The teachings? All of the above?

And what about truth? What is truth? Is it being free from error? Is it a kind of completeness? Is it that the descriptions of the doctrines and the perspectives all accurate?

So what does it mean for the “church” to be “true”?

When many people state “the church is true”, they think VERY different things, and I disagree with most of them.

I do not think that the leaders are free from error.

I do not think that the church history is free from sin or error, nor do I think it is complete.

I do not think that the teachings are complete, or understood completely, or are free from error.

I do not think that the church doctrines are perfect. I do not think they are complete. I do not think that they are even always accurately understood or taught.

Well, probably after that you are probably certain that I DO NOT THINK that the church is “true”—how could I? I just basically defined nearly every aspect of the church as the exact opposite of true.

Yep, however, I do believe that the church is true in another way.

I believe that its organization was orchestrated through a man by the direction of God.

This man, and the many men that followed him, may have made every mistake under the sun—but it does not change my understanding of the way that the church is true.

There are (at least) two meanings of the word “truth”. One meaning represents a kind of descriptive accuracy, like a sort of factual understanding of physical things that were or are. This is temporal truth. Temporal truth can be had through learning and study. We can get it from school and from writings. It encompasses history and many other things.

There is also spiritual truth. Spiritual truth has only one source and it isn't church leaders and it isn’t the scriptures. It has only one source and that is directly from God. 

You may be thinking “hold on a second! – it isn’t the scriptures?!” I repeat: the scriptures are NOT the source of spiritual truth. If they were, I doubt we would have so much religious conflict. 

So what good are the scriptures and church leaders if they are not the source of spiritual truth? 

The scriptures are invaluable as a method to obtain spiritual truth, and church leaders can be helpful as guides, but they are not the source of spiritual truth in and of themselves. 

The leaders in the church scriptures give us some guidance on how to live and they tell us a lot of stories and doctrines. Through living our lives certain ways and through these stories and doctrines we have opportunities to develop faith (belief of things that we have not seen… such as the existence of God). 

Once we have faith, we may gain motivation to approach God. Approaching God is what allows us to be able to receive spiritual truth directly from God. This spiritual truth is impossible to explain to someone who has not received it for themselves, similarly as it would be impossible to describe the color blue to someone who has never seen that color before. Language is only useful if there is a shared experience in association with the word being used. If there is no shared experience, then there is no comprehension. If someone has not received spiritual truth, then they have no real comprehension of the words used to describe spiritual truths. It will literally sound like total nonsense. But for someone who has received spiritual truths, it makes perfect sense.

There is an issue though. It is a big problem. Many, many, many religious people in ALL religions (very much including the religion I belong to) think that “the truth” means that they use the “right vocabulary words”. Or example in the religion I belong to, they think that the “truth” means that they use words like “Telestial”. They think that truth is when they describe certain things in the correct certain ways. They think that the way of truth means that when they close their eyes and think about God that they see the face of the paintings of God that hang in their buildings and in religious texts.

Actual spiritual truth cannot be described in a way that can be understood to someone who has not experienced them.

This statement needs to be explained further. By my description, ALL MISSIONARY WORK then is not spiritual truth? ALL CHURCH MANUALS are not spiritual truth? 

Largely, yes. 

Most religious writings are temporal truth in that they recount historical events in ways that promote belief in God and encourage people to have faith. The rest of the writings of religious texts are attempts at describing things which are physically incomprehensible and beyond our physical realm of experience (such as spirits and heaven). Because these concepts are beyond our physical capacity of comprehension, our understandings of them are only analogous. Meaning, that our understanding of them has enough similarities and parallels to make them somewhat useful. 

Jesus taught in parables for a reason, and His reason wasn’t to be mysterious or secretive. He taught in parables because the subject of his teaching (the kingdom of Heaven) was beyond our experience and therefore, incomprehensible to us. The parables he taught revealed certain aspects of what he was trying to explain to us by likening them to things that we do have experience with.

If the person has received spiritual truth from God already, then these doctrines can be understood correctly—if not, then they cannot be understood correctly. However, even though the doctrines taught by the missionaries may not be able to be understood correctly, they are still of use. They are useful because certain aspects of these doctrines demonstrate things that can be understood, such as: Gods plan is merciful, just as this doctrine which the missionary teaches is merciful.

Thinking about merciful things or thinking about people loving you can make you feel really happy. Believing that you live after you die or that you are a child of God can make you cry for joy. It can make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Crying for joy or feeling warm and fuzzy is not, not, NOT spiritual truth. It is not a spiritual experience. 

People getting up in front of the congregation and crying when they talk about the church or something they believe and how much it means to them, is not “feeling the spirit”. They are completely separate. 

It would like saying “I enjoying seeing my family, it made me feel good” and then someone saying “oh, you felt good? You must have been using heroin then.” Feeling good is not synonymous with doing heroin and it is not synonymous with a spiritual experience. It bothers me VERY greatly when they are mistaken for one another. 

Emotion is not a spiritual experience. Emotions may hang from spiritual experiences, similarly as fruit can hang from a tree. Emotions also hang from heroin use. A spiritual experience is a spiritual experience. Period. There is no comprehending it unless you experience it. I feel confident to say that perhaps many members of the religion I am a member of insert their “emotional experiences” as the noise-symbol that is intended to represent “spiritual experiences”. But they don’t know it and never will know it unless they actually have a spiritual experience and gain actual spiritual truth.

Members and leaders of nearly all religions dabble or have dabbled in temporal truth as they think it may apply to their religious beliefs in some way or another in various degrees. Creation and the age of the earth are some examples. 

Any time history is told, that is a temporal truth. I personally feel that the greatest dispenser for the vast majority of temporal truth is being produced through the scientific method as it is utilized by trained scientists. If I encounter something that appears to have substantial scientific support, even if it contradicts my previously supposed religiously related temporal truths (like the age of the earth), I tend to go with the theory that has substantial scientific support. Sometimes people (including prophets) make theories (in the realm of temporal knowledge) based on some truth they received from some of their spiritual experiences. They may feel very confident about their theory, but the theory is not itself spiritual truth. Scientists make theories that turn out to be wrong all of the time, and I think the same thing happens in religion. Some members of my religion may feel that I am in the wrong to do this. Maybe I am. If I am, hopefully I will recognize it and I will change my mind.

I personally think that religious people need to be very careful when they mistake temporal truth for spiritual truth or when they make assumptions about temporal truth based on the vocabulary used when someone who had received spiritual truth attempted to describe the understanding they gained from their experience.

When it comes to spiritual truth, the vocabulary is not what is “true”. The words used to try to describe spiritual truths are the pathetic tongue movements made to alter the vibrations of an organ beyond the back of our throats. Words are the gurgling utterances of animals made when we share an experience about something. Two sets of eyes see a rock. One of them moves their mouth and makes a noise that sounds like “rock”—now the two animals have a shared experienced in relation to the noise that sounds like “rock”. That is the basis of all language. That is not the basis of spiritual truth.

Members of my church go their entire lives and use all of the right vocabulary words—thinking all the while that the truth was in the noises they hear from the pulpit of the symbols in their books that represent the noises people made a long time ago. These noises are not spiritual truth. They are not why “the church is true”. 

Some church members read the books of noise-symbols long enough to believe in God sufficiently to pray with their whole heart and soul and to change the way they live their lives. Some of the people who pray and change their lives eventually have a real actual spiritual experience. Suddenly, they have knowledge conveyed to them in a way other than symbolic noise. They experience something that they cannot make a noise loud or complex enough to symbolically represent it. Not even close. They try. They fail. Their brain tries to wrap around their experience. It fails. The noises they made become the vocabulary. The vocabulary of their attempts are written down and they become the doctrines of religion—the noises of religion. People worship the noises. 

Some people worship the noises for a long time and then they realize that the noises are ridiculous. Without any shared experience in relation to the noise, the noise is nonsense—it is false. When they realize it is false, they leave the church. They feel free of silly vocabulary words that they thought were “truth” and they feel free of the silly noises they worshipped which made no sense.

They then go and find people who make noises that make sense to them. Logical noises. Noises which are associated with experiences that they have in common.

Is it easy to mock people when we have not experienced what they have experienced. I would probably do the same thing if I sat in a congregation and watched people get up and cry when they talked about things that made them feel all warm and fuzzy and I thought that was all that there was to spiritual truth.

But I am here to tell you, that is not all there is to spiritual truth, because that is not spiritual truth. I think I cringe in church almost as much as an atheist, but I believe in God. I may agree with almost everything that someone says about my church who believes it isn’t true, yet I do believe it is true. I dont think it is true because it is the only church that uses the word "telestial", or because the organ beyond the back of our throat makes the right vibrations with our tongue to symbolize God. I do not believe it is true because the words I heard about God in my church made me feel the most warm and fuzzy. I believe in God because of experiences I had with God.

I don’t think my church has a monopoly on spiritual truth. I think God has a monopoly on spiritual truth. I think lots of churches can help promote sufficient faith for people to approach God in a way that would allow them to receive actual spiritual truth from God. The main difference in all of this is that I do believe (as I stated earlier), that God orchestrated the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. A lot of people dont believe that, but i do and I am thankful to God for it. Regardless of all of its imperfections and its imperfect leaders and its imperfect members who make terrible mistakes and sometimes do terrible things (as humans often do). I am thankful to God for the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. The church is not the source of spiritual truth, but it led me to God who Is.