TrevorPrice.net

Book Review: Patrick Mason’s Planted

Posted on Jan 23, 2016 by Trevor in Religion

Our church is struggling to deal with its non-traditional members. Whether they are heretics, disaffected, non-believers, or otherwise non-traditional Mormons, it can be very hard for them to find constructive, safe space in the community. Likewise, traditional Mormons seem uncomfortable and unsure about what to do from their end. Numerous attempts have been made to bridge this gap, and Patrick Mason’s Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt is the latest promising effort in this front.

Help for the Traditional

One of the author’s principle goals is to help traditional believers, and I feel this book accomplishes that goal about as thoroughly as I can imagine any book doing at this time. I’m genuinely impressed at how thoroughly Mason seems to grasp the variety of causes, symptoms, and feelings involved in a faith transition. And I got the sense that this book could be tremendously helpful for bridging the gap between a traditional believing Mormon and a loved one who falls outside that traditional circle. Whether your calling is Elders Quorum President, parent, brother, spouse, bishop, or apostle, you should seriously consider reading Planted in order to better understand and minister to those on the fringes.

Help for the Church

Another goal the author outlines is his intent to help those on the fringes find more space to happily serve and participate with everyone else. I think we need to seriously push for some dramatic improvement in this department. I wholeheartedly share Mason’s desire for a more mature church that is comfortable with its imperfect history and able to have substantive discussions about doubt.

Here are some samples of his views in this regard:

Bringing troublesome matters into the open rather than letting them fester in secret is a positive thing, especially if it is done with forethought, sensitivity, and care. Doing so reveals a confidence that we have nothing to hide and that there is no problem or question so utterly dangerous that we cannot handle it.

How we deal with doubt in the church today is one of the most pressing tests of our collective discipleship.

Doubt dislocates us from our comfortable places. It refuses to let us get spiritually sluggish with the lazy assumption that “All is well in Zion”.

Too often we have used religion as a means of building a “wall of partition between us,” of introducing “enmity” within the family of God.

If I were to compile a list of all the things my fringe Mormon friends and I wish our traditional counterparts understood about us, this book addresses them all.

Stigmatizing doubt to the point that people feel guilty for even having questions is not conducive to spiritual growth. … I can strongly assert that the challenges [of doubt] are real and that most of the people who face them are earnest.

While some people choose believe from a range of possible options, and other people choose skepticism from the same menu, there are many people for whom faith or doubt appear more as an unearned inheritance than a personal choice. To be sure, as moral agents we decide what to do with the various givens in our life–but we don’t get to choose our givens.

Because of their experiences, some people come to feel that they have no choice but to leave, that the only option with any integrity is to drop out altogether from church activity and perhaps church association of any kind. For some people the church feels toxic, and they can’t bear to be present. For others it is not so clear. They are still attracted to many of Mormonism’s virtues, even while witnessing or experiencing some of its shortcomings. They genuinely agonize about whether to stay or leave.

Help for the Heretics

Mason also seeks to help those of use who struggle to find a constructive, happy place inside church activity. He spends lots of time suggesting different approaches and perspectives. Since I’ve been in this game for several years now, I have more than my share of hard-won experience on the “struggle” question, and I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of the vast majority of his advice. It would’ve saved me from a good deal of grief and many mistakes if I had been able to comprehend and intuit all this stuff years ago.

Just as single example, I love how Mason suggests framing a faith transition as permanent way of life rather than an obstacle to overcome, explaining about a friend, “The searching question, how do I really know? is the essence of his faith life, not its antithesis. The question becomes as important as the answer.”

For the most part, Mason deliberately avoids trying to provide any answers to specific questions that provoke doubt in Mormons. Probably the most important idea he presents instead is for heretics is to be “planted” in Jesus.

Wait, though. Isn’t that sleight of hand? “Don’t worry about all those problems over there that deeply disturb you! Look over here, instead! See? It’s Jesus! Yes, just set those other concerns aside.”

In my opinion, it’s actually a really good move on his part. He generally senses that the real problems lie elsewhere, so to the extent that he feels we should offer apologetics to the marginalized, he suggests pastoral apologetics. I agree with him and the book is much more effective for it. It’s not that those problems aren’t real and that they shouldn’t be fully scrutinized; it’s just that providing reasonable answers for them will unlikely change one’s feelings towards the church, or perhaps there aren’t really any decent answers at all.

What really helps someone get to a healthier spiritual place, then, is focusing on Jesus. Now what that means for each individual will vary, but it’s the surest way forward in a church has changed a great deal and will continue to do so (popular rejection of this notion notwithstanding). Jesus is the vine, Mason explains, and everything else is a branch. Even parts of Mormonism that seemed so central and indispensable in the past, like polygamy, were but a branch that was ultimately cut off. This of course leads one to question which branch will be cut next (I know what I’d vote for…).

Even if it seems like the Church emphasizes one branch or another over the vine, we should stay focused in the vine. I know many non-traditional Mormons that thrive on this framing.

Some Minor Flaws

Some of the discussions (for instance, about why Jesus was a scandal in his day) aren’t as well rounded as I might hope, but ultimately it doesn’t materially detract from the overall thrust of the book. The only real significant misstep was an ill-advised (albeit brief) apologetic attempt explaining Joseph Smith’s peep stone, but Mason used it mostly to demonstrate how historical context changes our interpretations rather than to conclusively resolve that issue.

And while the book spends a substantial amount of pages on how to deal constructively with history (the author is, after all, a historian), I wish even more ink had been spilled on dealing with present day struggles, such as women’s roles, a creating a real home for LGBT members, etc. To me, at least, this is where the hardest questions lie.

Conclusion

If you’re seeking to understand a Mormon family member or friend who doesn’t really fit in the church, or if you are the one who doesn’t fit in but you really want to try to find a safe, healthy place to belong, I think this book will be helpful. If church is totally toxic or unsafe for you, or you have no desire to associate, I wouldn’t recommend it.

I’ll close with perhaps the best questions the book asks its readers:

How far are we willing to go to embrace significant social, economic, political, cultural, and ideological diversity? [To what degree] do we want people among us who cannot give the right answers to those interview questions? And what about those who feel the Spirit in our community and want to join with us but cannot embrace some aspect of our teaching, history, or culture?

Disclosure: I was given an advance review copy of this book

Tags: doubt, faith, faith journey, featured