Buffet Believing?

A leader of a church once said that the religion to which they belonged was not to be treated like a “buffet”, where we could go through and just pick the beliefs that we liked. From one perspective I agree and from a different perspective, I disagree.

Sometimes there may be people who may use a buffet approach to their own spiritual morality. They might say to themselves that they will do one thing, but excuse themselves from doing another thing. For example, they may engage in prayer or meditation, but then fail to give meaningful service to others. This kind of “buffet” approach to spirituality may leave the individual with an unnecessary high degree of spiritual emptiness. They may leave the “meal” without gaining nourishment, lacking essential components of their “spiritual nutrition”. Then wonder what the heck everyone else is talking about when they refer to "spiritual experiences" and such.

Another approach to the “anti-buffet” idea is to apply it to what you believe. Some say that either you have to accept EVERYTHING that every church leader has ever said to be 100% flawless, or you must reject all of it. If you are eating a plate of food, and you find a pebble in your mashed potatoes, you must then dump the entire plate of food into the trash. Or if you are given a plate of food and you like the green beans but aren’t that fond of the salmon that you must eat the salmon regardless of how you feel about it or else you are somehow morally degenerate. I would like to challenge this approach because I consider it to be unreasonable and unrealistic and frankly, wrong. The consequence of it is causing people to choke on their meal, vomit the meal they have eaten, or simply get up from the dinner table and walk away.

This is not a necessary response to the problem at hand. I think the root of the problem is that as humans, we delight to put labels on things. We love to compartmentalize, categorize and sort. The root behavior of all of these activities involves “dividing”. We do this with food. We do this with ideas. We do this with people. We divide them. And then we become divided.

Must everything be divided? I believe that I can agree with certain parts of many religions. I also believe that I can still sit in my church and be fed spiritually even if I don't think that every church leader from its origin was flawless in everything that they ever did and said (aka: some stuff might be wrong or incomplete).

My beliefs exist on a scale-- not in a box.

I have beliefs that I hold because of personal experiences. I might put a 9 or 10 next to one of these beliefs. I dont have very many 9's or 10's. Most of my 9's and 10's are beliefs that most people would probably agree about. They are mostly the very things that nearly all religions have in common (there are a few exceptions to this).

I have other beliefs that I hold because they might make more logical sense than the alternatives. The EXTREMELY logical beliefs, might get a 7 or 8, while the beliefs which are kind of a stretch may get a 3 or 4. If a superior belief comes along, I try to see if ti fits in contextually with my 9's and 10's. If it doesn't, then it gets set aside... much like a puzzle piece.

For example, I have had people from other religions tell me that if someone didn't verbally accept Jesus that they were automatically going to be thrown into a fire to burn for eternity. This belief is in direct contradiction to a 10 of mine. I had an experience where I came to gain an understanding of Gods love, that experience was so powerful that it is a 10 for me. Such a behavior (throwing someone into a fire to burn for eternity) is totally not congruent with my experience of Gods love. It doesnt fit my 10 and so it gets dumped. I frankly don't care how sure you are that the bible is flawless and that its interpretation is incapable of having any mistakes in it and that your interpretation of it is perfectly accurate.

Once and a while I run into a belief that is VERY logical in many ways and fits in many contexts. When this happens, I may lay both beliefs side by side and simply say "i'm not sure which one is correct", but I will act upon the one that is most likely to yield the best results.

Do I approach my beliefs like a buffet? you bet I do. I frankly don't care if it comes from Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, or atheism, if I like it, Ill try it out on my plate.  I have no illusion that church leaders are infallible. If I come across something that they say which seems wrong to me, I'm not putting it on my plate unless/until it seems right to me. That being said, that is relatively uncommon.

Also for me, the view of the universe presented in the LDS church is the most helpful for me personally in my spiritual pursuits. I find the spiritual meals that I eat there to be the most "nutritious" and delicious. But for me, it goes beyond that. I have other deeper spiritual and more personal reasons that I serve in the church I do. These reasons are very special and personal to me and are related to personal experiences that I have had. Does that mean that another person can't be in another religion and also be serving God?
I agree with a church leader named Gordon Hinkley when he said something to the effect of "There are people in many religions who are inspired by God and serve Him". This I believe.

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