When a person is expressing a concern internally, in regard to their faith, then it is painful. Painful in the sense of mental turmoil of weather they should formally leave their religious beliefs, or specifically their religious organisation to feel at peace and just take time away from formal religious practice and association. Over the last four or five months of Twenty-Twenty (2020 A.D), I have been in this situation. I have been internally in pain and confusion in regards to the religious beliefs and the religious organisation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in regard to my testimony and my full belief in the religious beliefs of the restoration movement and my Testimony of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints being the proper Christian church, and is the current organisation of the biblical church and all the religious dogma that comes with being a member of such a religious organisation.
In December 2020 A.D., I have decided to take the following year to being stronger in my mind and faith, and I should be focusing on what I actually believe so that by the end of 2021 A.D. I would be able to comfortably say what I wholeheartedly believe, and where I am comfortable with regards to the religious organisation and theology where I should be. Currently I am uncomfortable with being within the confines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints, and in its doctrines, however, the year of 2021, I hope that I can say for sure, that I totally am committed to The Church or that I should remove my name from the membership thereof and join another church, or no church at all.
An internal conflict regarding the eternities, is a very hard thing and with multiple people coming at me with various faiths and dogmas, it will cause more pain and turmoil in my heart. Like unto politics, if my preferred party, and if I were in that party as a member, changes or if they lose, or if I am unsure, about if I even should be voting for that party and leave that party behind or not, if people of various political associations come at you with their political views, then confusion and anger will of course arise. So, I have decided to write down my beliefs and what I hold dear, when it comes to expressly religion. I shall be making a blog in regard to what I believe, and articles of which I have written, shall be free of which I believe. Which, if you found this online, you already know about it. I hope that through this little experiment, my faith and where I stand shall be known unto me, and others, and that I may find a home in His kingdom on earth.
So, regarding where I stand in terms of Jesus Christ, This is what I believe;
1. I believe that Jesus Christ is the literal son of God, The Eternal father, (John 10:15, Mark 14:36, 61-62)
2. I believe that Jesus Christ died and rose again, to pay for the debt which he did not have, to save us all from sin and the penalties thereof, (John 3:16-18, Acts 4:12)
3. I believe that you can only go through Jesus Christ to get through the father. (John 14:6)
4. I believe that he shall come again unto earth. (Acts 1:10-11)
These is the basics of what I believe regarding Jesus, over the next year I will expand my written down beliefs and share them on here for you all to see. Now, let us be clear, I am no scholar, nor am I trying to start a new church or denomination. I am an individual, who will study about what I believe in and share down those beliefs. I will not sit in a church pew, regardless of denomination or theology, and accept everything said from that pulpit nor missionaries from any group, either online or in person, I will be studying the scriptures so that I may find truth, rebuke any errors that I may have, correcting my own faults, and find guidance on how to rightfully live in accordance with faith (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Now I will still read the scriptures of ‘Mormonism’, and as such I may find doctrines in there I believe, but if I believe in the entirety of the bible, and find that to be my sole bases in what I believe, and not need to find knowledge from that cannon, I shall do what I need to do regarding that revelation through that next year.
Now, to my fellow saints, as I am still a member, and I may or may not be a member at the end of the year, or so when this experiment ends, I want you to know, I will not be one of those Ex-mormons on reddit that will seek to bring you out of your faith, you are all great people and I wish you well, this blog will be for you to know where I stand and know that I have took my time. I did wholeheartedly believe and defended the church, however, this blog and what I am doing with it is to cope with my personal faith crisis. You can share all you want with your stake presidents, and your bishops, yet this is the best way for me to cope with the faith crisis that I have found myself in over the past year since November or December of 2019, as some may know the correlation of that time in my life and why I may be having a faith crisis. I took me a year to realise that I even had a faith crisis, or even that I was doubting my faith in Jesus Christ and the doctrines of Christianity. So it may take a year or two to resolve these things of my heart.
When deciding to make this public, I considered what it could be seen as, it could be seen as me secretly imbedding the Mormon doctrines into a simple cover-up to get ex-members and non-mormons into the church, or it could be seen the other way around, that I am trying to get members to leave the church, and follow me. It could be seen as me starting a whole new religious organisation, by it I could be known for generations, yet none of these is my goal. My goal is to know where I stand, know what I believe, and find where God wants me to be, by the end of this experiment, which would be me coming out and saying that I have found what God wants me to do and where he wants me in life and it is “Blank”. This may be in 6, 12, 18, 24 or 39 months from today. There is no point in trying to force me into believing what you believe, Pentecostal, evangelical, Baptist, catholic, mormon or otherwise. This is my story of how I am coping with this time in my life, and where I do end up, will be up to God the Father. It would be easier to just suck it up and stay where I am, and you’d be right. It would be easier to that, just wait and see, but for me, I need to act and do, I need to actively do these things in my life to know where I stand and what I believe. I do not care where I lose friends, and if I do, I pray for your life, that it may be safe, and that you shall do well.
I sincerely hope that you and I can learn a lot from each other throughout this blog. I will keep the blog up forever, to reflect upon where I was, and where I will be. I’ll write again soon, sincerely,
Dean Liddell
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