Early Mormon Lyman Royal Sherman died without ever knowing he was called to be an apostle

A lot of men have been called to be LDS apostles since Joseph Smith’s time. Today, an announcement of a new apostle is big news. In the early days of the LDS Church, many apostles became apostates. Some died, some were dropped over doctrinal disputes. An interesting footnote is the case of Lyman Royal Sherman, who lived and died without ever realizing that he had been called to be an apostle.

It’s open for debate as to whether Sherman should be considered an apostle. A traditionalist would say no, since he was only called and never ordained. However it’s clear that this faithful member of Smith’s church was intended to be an apostle had he lived.

BYU researcher Lyndon W. Cook, in a sketch of Sherman’s life, published in the fall 1978 Brigham Young University Studies, writes that Sherman was born May 22, 1804 in Vermont. He and his wife, Delcena, were baptized in Pomfret, N.Y., in January 1832. Sherman and his family lived in Kirtland, Ohio, until 1838.

According to Cook, Sherman was a close friend of Joseph Smith. He served as a president in the first Quorum of the Seventies from 1835 to 1837. Sherman also remained a very faithful member of the LDS Church. Just before Christmas 1835, Sherman approached Smith and said that he felt he was in need of a revelation. Smith obliged almost immediately, telling Sherman via the revelation that “your sins are forgiven” and “let your soul be at rest concerning your spiritual standing.”

Sherman also participated in secret anointings and ceremonies in the Kirtland Temple (see above) and according to reports, spoke in tongues. As the saints were being forced from Kirtland, opposition leaders sought to use a printing office to manufacture anti-LDS tracts. That printing office was destroyed by fire to prevent that, and historians believe it was the ever-faithful Sherman who set the blaze to thwart Smith’s enemies. Sherman then moved to Missouri and was on the Far West stake high council.

Here’s where it gets interesting. While in Liberty Jail in January 1839, Smith, Sidney Rigdon and Hyrum Smith wrote to Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball that Sherman should be made an apostle. However, unknown to Smith, Sherman’s health was ruined after the Kirtland strife and he was dying. Kimball and Young, for reasons still unclear, chose not to tell Sherman of his call to the apostleship. Perhaps Sherman was in a coma? In any event, this early church leader died in February 1839, in Far West, never knowing about his call.

Google Lyman Sherman and there are several accounts of his life that are interesting to read. In any event, his family remained active in the church. His wife, Delcena, crossed the plains to the Salt Lake Valley and died in 1854 in Salt Lake City.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published in StandardBlogs

The temporary, mistaken ban on allowing women to pray in sacrament meeting

Several years ago, I was listening to a Mormon Stories interview with writer Carol Lynn Pearson when I heard her say that in the 1970s, women were not allowed to offer prayers in LDS sacrament meeting. That caught my attention. I turned 17 in 1980 and had been to hundreds of sacrament meetings in the 70s. I called my mom and asked her if this was true. She said yes. She added that the ban bothered her enough to ask our Southern California ward bishopric for an explanation.

She told me that they told her the ban was in place because sacrament meeting was a priesthood meeting and that only priesthood holders could deliver prayers. Mom added a caveat, though. She stated that not long after her query, the ban on prayers offered by women ended. As she told me, the explanation was apparently that it had all been a mistake.

“A mistake?” This whole objectionable footnote to my church’s decade of the 70s, that included the end of its ban on blacks and tussle with the ERA, sounded so bizarre that I Google searched it, and found that mom was probably right — it had been acknowledged as a mistake, … sort of. Go to a 1986 post in the “By Common Consent” LDS-theme blog here. According to author Kevin Barney, in 1967, a ban on opening prayers was initiated under the “it’s-a-priesthood-meeting” reasoning. Apparently, that ban was rescinded soon after but the prohibition continued for a decade or more in some wards. In late 1978, church leaders, perhaps to settle the issue, had this published in “The Ensign:”

“The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve have determined that
there is no scriptural prohibition against sisters offering prayers in sacrament
meetings. It was therefore decided that it is permissible for sisters to offer
prayers in any meetings they attend, including sacrament meetings, Sunday School meetings, and stake conferences. Relief Society visiting teachers may offer prayers in homes that they enter in fulfilling visiting teaching assignments.”

So that ended the debate? Maybe not. According to the blog, there is a claim that just before he died, Ezra Taft Benson made a statement that some assumed to mean that only men could open meetings in sacrament meeting. As a result, according to the 2008 blog post, there are some wards that don’t allow women to open sacrament meeting with a prayer. I haven’t been to a ward that follows the no-opening-prayer rule for women, as far as I can recall.

The comments to the blog post cited above are fascinating. There are quotes from old church general handbooks and Ensigns that state only priesthood holders can pray in sacrament meeting. One commentator says he went to a training session for leaders where he was told that women should not offer opening prayers.  For what it’s worth, I went through the “LDS General Handbook 2″ and there was nothing it that said only men could say the opening prayer in sacrament meeting.

This is another fascinating footnote in LDS history that makes it so interesting; another example of the truism that God may be the same today, yesterday and forever, but his subjects can certainly display flighty, ever-changing personalities.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

LDS writer Carter’s essays exploit the tension between right and wrong

There’s a furtive thrill in reading honest Mormon writing because we encounter characters, or better yet, real people — who aren’t cliches or caricatures — wrestling with the same doubts that everyone experiences but is so rarely talked about in the three-hour block called church on Sunday. Part of the thrill is realizing that honest LDS writing is still frowned on by many who should know better.

Stephen Carter, the editor of Sunstone, has a book of essays published by Provo’s Zarahemla Books. “What of the Night” deals with many subjects, including death, Carter’s relationship with an inactive brother, non-member neighbors and fishing, mission experiences, and trying to come to terms with what having the priesthood means. The essays are effective because Carter doesn’t telegraph his intentions in advance. He’s not preaching to readers. He’s relating experiences to Mormonism, telling us how it went with him. Although readers will likely not have equal experiences, they will have had similar experiences that provided the same emotions. If an honest reader can stand honest writing, writer and readers can share empathy from the experiences.

I was particularly moved by Carter’s two-essay tribute on the final years of Mormon academic Eugene England’s life. My communication with England was not even as an acquaintance. As BYU newspaper editor, I used to get a lot of feedback from him and his family. The England that Carter knew well — intelligent, liberal, motivated, impulsive and with an eager knowledge of studying the Gospel — fits what I recall of the man.

Carter captures a lesson I learned from England’s example perfectly when he talks of “Gene’s commitment to Joseph Smith’s concept of ‘proving contraries.’ When one proves contraries, Gene always argued, you aren’t doing so to identify what is right and what is wrong but to experience the tension between them. It is the experience of dwelling in this tension that makes you wiser.”

The “tension” that Gospel questions provides my mind is what keeps me a believing member of the LDS Church. I fear that if I had avoided confronting the endless arguments against God or the LDS Church I would have left spirituality long ago. From England’s example, I realize that my outspoken atheist friends, or scholars such as Fawn Brodie or Will Bagley, are as important to my relationship with God and my spirituality, as The Book of Mormon, the Holy Bible, or the works of Parley P. Pratt. There’s a certain irony that a late friend of mine who spurned any independent LDS publications and took a special interest in vilifying England left the church while England himself died a faithful member. If tensions are not explored, little of value is learned, and whatever faith exists is soft.

It hurt to reads from Carter about England’s slow demise due to brain cancer, or the hateful comments he received from men he revered as representatives of Jesus Christ, but I’m glad he and many others provide us material to enrich our lives.

All of Carter’s essays are thought-provoking. I particularly enjoyed “The Weight of Priesthood,” that explores his feelings of doubt that he could provide power and testimony to others during his youth, mission, and post-mission life. Any priesthood holder who has been given the task of blessing a seriously ill person can understand the doubts and weight associated with such responsibility.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published in 2010 on StandardBlogs

Mark Twain got the credit, but Artemus Ward got closer to the polygamists

One hundred and fifty-plus years ago, the Mormons, those peculiar polygamists in the mountains, were foil for toilers in wit and satire. Mark Twain’s portrayal of Brigham Young, polygamists, the Book of Mormon and Mormon wives is archived forever in the classic novel, “Roughing It.” Twain deserves his fame. In a non-digital world, he was more popular than Jon Stewart, Bill Maher or Dennis Miller combined. And Mormons were ready comic foil. In the winter 1974 BYU Studies, then-BYU professor Richard H. Cracroft wrote, “Mormonism and its ‘peculiar institutions,’ … were excellent targets for reform and expose, as well as all types of humor.”

As mentioned, Twain gets the credit today for being the “Mormon expert” of the late-middle 19th century, but truth is, there was another humorist of Twain’s era who knew the Mormons far better than Twain. As Cracroft points out in his article, “Distorting Polygamy for Fun and Profit: Artemus Ward and Mark Twain Among the Mormons,” the almost forgotten lecturer/writer humorist, Ward, owed his life to a polygamist Mormon doctor and the nursing of plural Relief Society wives after he contracted a form of typhoid fever while visiting Salt Lake City in 1864.

Ward, an acclaimed lecturer who preferred talking to writing, effusively thanked the Saints after recovering. In a letter to Twain, Ward wrote “the saints have been wonderfully kind to me. I could not have been better or more tenderly nursed at home. God bless them all.”

That gratitude, though, didn’t stop Ward as describing Mormonism as “Petticoatism and plunder” a few months later during a tour of lectures on Mormonism. The temptation to ridicule, demonize and find humor in a culture that most Americans loathed was too great for ward, who like any comedian, needed fresh material.

Ward, whose real name was Charles Farrer Browne, was a frail man who eventually succumbed to tuberculosis in 1867 at the young age of 33. His early death, followed by Twain’s, or Samuel Clemens’, long life, is likely the reason he is unknown today.

In the BYU Studies article, Cracroft points out that Twain’s well-known anecdotes about life with the Mormons were written a decade or so after he had visited Salt Lake City. In fact, Cracroft relates that before he wrote chapters about Mormon life, Twain asked his brother for anecdotes of that time, “for I remember next to nothing about the matter,” Twain said to his brother, Orion.

Now, writing is s skill, and there’s no shortage of great writers who put others’ memories on page, Boswell and Rick Bragg come to mind … but Twain’s very witty accounts of The Book of Mormon and the generosity of Mormon men marrying many homely Mormon women owe a lot to Twain’s careful reading of Ward’s accounts among the Utahns. I am not excusing Twain of plagiarism, although perhaps more than a little journalistic license was practiced.

“Roughing It” remains a great book, but more of us should read the book that inspired Twain’s chapters, “Artemus Ward (his) travels among the Mormons.” Published in 1865, it’s available to read for free at Google Books. Don’t expect the early Mormons to be treated with any respect; the religion was still too strange at the end of the Civil War, but it still remains a fascinating read.

--- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

Polygamy opponents were swept aside in Nauvoo turmoil after Joseph Smith’s death

The months in Nauvoo following the murder of the LDS Church founder Joseph Smith were not surprisingly, filled with turmoil and political intrigue. The publication of “The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes” by Signature Books provides detailed accounts of the Nauvoo Stake’s high council meetings. It’s very interesting reading. The High Council was also a political body used to cast out prominent church members who did not support Brigham Young’s claim of leadership, or the church’s still-secret embrace of polygamy.

The purge of those who did not support Young in the months following Smith’s murder is an important part of LDS Church history. The Machiavellian tactics, while ruthless and arbitrary, ultimately underscored why the Mormons survived the Nauvoo disaster and thrived. They needed a “dictator,” — Young — not afraid to seize control and exercise it.

The Sept. 7, 1844 high council case of Leonard Soby, who publicly opposed polygamy in 1843 and helped publish The Nauvoo Expositor a year later, is a typical example of 1844 post-Martyrdom. Despite his past dissident status, which included an association with the anti-Smiths Nauvoo Expositor newspaper, Soby retained an uneasy status among the Nauvoo LDS religious hierarchy.

However, his support for Sidney Rigdon as church leader, and an altercation between Soby, Rigdon, Young and Orson Hyde on Sept. 3 over ordination authority for Rigdon, led to high council members “surprising” Soby with a motion that he be disfellowshipped. Soby protested vigorously, arguing that he was not a sinner, such as an adulterer or a moonshiner, but simply had honest differences with his high council colleagues.

It didn’t help. Soby may have been a bit naive, or disingenuous. By September 1844, among the Nauvoo High Council, any hesitancy to damn Rigdon as a false prophet trying to usurp authority was a one-way ticket out of the LDS Church. By the end of the night, Soby was effectively disfellowshipped. He followed Rigdon to his church in Pennsylvania, which eventually failed. Soby, 34 when drummed out of the LDS Church, died in 1891 in New Jersey. He remains a footnote in early LDS Church history.

For Young’s majority in the Mormon leadership, there was a far bigger fish to fry than Soby, or even Nauvoo Stake President William Marks, whose support for Rigdon and opposition to polygamy also ended his tenure later in 1844. On Sept. 8, 1844, in a public meeting, Rigdon would be kicked out of the church he had worked with Smith to build, with a litany of LDS Church apostles offering evidence against him.

As Brigham Young mentioned, Rigdon and Soby has been caught by Young and allies ordaining persons as “prophets” and “kings” etc. It was clear that Rigdon, who had already lost popular support in a contest with Young for church leadership, was attempting to take what members he could from Nauvoo with him to set up a rival church.

According to Young ally Orson Hyde, Rigdon, when asked that he surrender his license, threatened to publish “the history of this people since they came to Nauvoo of all their iniquity and midnight abominations.” Rigdon was referring to polygamy, and it was personal to him. His daughter, Nancy Rigdon, when 19, had resisted Joseph Smith’s efforts to make her a plural wife.

The stress of the Nauvoo polygamy battle caused Rigdon further deterioration of a long-taxed body and mind. By late 1844, he was a feeble adversary for Young and his allies. Young, who had long lost patience with Rigdon, chastised Rigdon with contempt. Other apostles provided anti-Rigdon rhetoric similar to what apostle John Taylor, future prophet, offered. He said “… he (Rigdon) is in possession of the same spirit which hurled the devil & those who we{r}e with him from heave(n) down to perdition(.)”

Only Marks offered support for Rigdon. To what must have been a very hostile audience, the Nauvoo Stake president pointed out that over the course of years, allegations against Sidney Rigdon had always been unfounded. Marks also argued in favor of a first presidency-directed church, rather than one — as Young and others argued for — directed by the Quorum of the 12 Apostles.

Marks added, “… I do not know of any other man this day that has the same power to receive revelations as Sidney Rigdon(,) as he has been ordained to be a prophet unto this people, & if he is cut off from the body this day I wish to the man if there is any that has the same power as he (Elder Rigdon).”

Young caustically responded that “Sidney had done as much (as was needed to show his unworthiness) when he arrived from Missouri(;) he had done as much as would sever any man from the priesthood …” Various Young allies also began to charge that the late Joseph Smith had had very little regard for Rigdon, and that his reputation within the church had been overstated. This is not an uncommmon tactic to use, in war, business or religion, when a longtime member of a group is being deposed by a new generation.

As mentioned, the removal of Rigdon and allies such as Soby and Marks were needed if the Mormons were to survive as a religion. Rigdon was an ill man by 1844, both physically and emotionally. He had suffered great physical hardships due to persecution in the 1830s and severe depression and anguish brought on by the introduction of polygamy and attempts by Smith to marry his daughter. Had Rigdon somehow defeated Young as Smith’s successor the LDS Church would have withered away. Rigdon’s efforts to build his own church was a miserable failure, and he spent his later years as an obscure, almost iconic curio who few paid attention to. His eccentricities included long, rambling denunciations mailed to Brigham Young that were ignored or perhaps considered with bemusement by the Utah leader.

In fact, I suspect that support for Rigdon from Marks, Soby and others (several were excommunicated the same day that Rigdon was cast out) had more to do with disgust for polygamy and the knowledge that Young intended to continue the practice.

There’s no way to know if Joseph Smith — had he lived — would have abandoned his polygamy experiment.

Under Young’s leadership, however, it was here to stay, and opposition to “the principle” would not be tolerated.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

On the deadly LDS handcart treks

As an active Mormon, I am accustomed to the romantic tales I hear in church of the wonderful “faith-inspiring” teams of pioneers who traveled to the Salt Lake valley with all their possessions in a handcart, presumably whistling as they trudged along.

Every year many faithful Latter-day Saints take pilgrimages as “handcart” pioneers, trudging along trails. We sometimes see pictures in the media of the happy, 21st century re-creators of the pioneer treks. I imagine a few may recount their experiences in Sacrament meeting.  Here’s a link to a re-enactment

It’s a pleasant modern-day fantasy, but if someone wanted to accurately recreate a handcart trek, they would need to do it half-starved, with bloody feet and blistered hands, with few supplies and noisy handcarts prone to breaking. And if winter crept up, the re-creators would have to stop every so often to bury children and other pioneers killed by disease and the elements.

The hard fact is, the LDS handcart experiment was a disaster. Any money saved did not come close to to suffering endured by new Latter-day Saints who had to trek across a country carrying heavier loads than any rickshaw carrier was forced to endure. In fact, the fourth and fifth handcart groups, the Willie and Martin teams of 1856, were so badly mismanaged that at least a quarter (250-plus) of the handcart pioneers perished on the trail.

Historian Will Bagley recounts the LDS handcart fiasco in the Winter 2009 edition of the Journal of Mormon History. It is must reading for LDS history enthusiasts. The genesis for the handcart idea was money. The Perpetual Immigration Fund was badly in debt and early church leaders wanted to cut costs. Leaders rationalized that new Latter-day Saints would be glad to make a few sacrifices and carry their supplies across the plains to get to Zion.

The first three handcart groups made it through by early fall in 1856. Only about 30 pioneers of 600 died, an average number for the times. However, the handcarts made loud noises that caused discomfort and food supplies were woefully inadequate. Bagley recounts that the Mormon prophet Brigham Young was badly shaken by the emaciated, starved state of many of the handcart pioneers. A key problem that was never adequately handled by Mormon leaders was setting up food and other supplies posts along the trail.

The biggest, most deadly mistake made by Mormon leaders was to allow the Willie and Martin teams to leave for Salt Lake City in mid and late July of 1856. Neither group had a realistic chance of making it to the Salt Lake Valley before the cold and snow set in and the latter parts of the trip were horrifying for the LDS pioneers. As mentioned, about 25 percent died and Bagley opines that many others died after arriving in Salt Lake City. Despite October efforts by church leaders to send out relief wagons, the weakest in the parties continued to die at alarming rates.

Given the horror of the early handcarts, it’s ironic we celebrate them today. Despite cheerily false 1850s reports of the handcart treks in the church-owned Deseret News, LDS leaders did not hide the grim facts. Church leaders hurled accusations, claiming that some leaders should not have sent out the parties so late in the summer. Later, church leaders launched a counterattack from the pulpits against those who criticized them for the deadly handcart  fiascos.

Martin’s Cove was a place where many perished. Here is an account from Bagley’s piece: “We stayed in the ravine for five or six days on reduced rations,” Samuel Jones continued. “One night a windstorm blew down almost every tent. Many perished of cold and hunger at this place.”

Now that would be an experience that would likely bring some empathy and understanding to all the modern-day trekkers to Martin’s Cove.

There’s no doubt that transporting thousands of saints across the plains to Utah was an impressive accomplishment by Brigham Young and other church leaders. But the handcart scheme, which staggered on for five more treks before being stopped, was a big mistake. Far too many suffered for whatever savings were intended.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

Letter to a Doubter important essay from Mormon scholar Givens

LDS author and scholar Terryl Givens’ “Letter to a Doubter” has been widely circulated since he presented the essay/lecture in a speech to a Mormon fireside. The push to acknowledge doubt in one’s spiritual life, indeed to regard the “absence of certainty” as a component of true faith, has gained traction. In LDS General Conference, Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland told those that believe, but do not know, that they are following Christ’s counsel, who said, “Be not afraid, only believe.” (Read)

Givens’ essay is fascinating, and ideally suitable for this era, which is seeing apostasies that result from intense, appropriate scrutiny to long-held assumptions. He begins by pointing out that some “doubts … are predicated on misbegotten premises.” As an example he relates the doubt that troubled late LDS leader B.H. Roberts, who fretted over the many languages of the American Indians. Roberts’ error, which he shared with many church leaders, was assuming that the Book of Mormon spanned the entire Americas. Givens writes, “Nothing in the Book of Mormon suggests that Lehi’s colony expanded to fill the hemisphere. In fact, … the entire history of the Book of Mormon takes place within an area of Nephite and Lamanite habitation some 500 miles long and perhaps 200 miles wide.“

The money quote from Givens is this: “You see, even brilliant individuals and ordained Seventies can buy into careless assumptions that lead them astray. That Joseph Smith at some point entertained similar notions about Book of Mormon geography only makes it more imperative for members not to take every utterance of any leader as inspired doctrine.” For longstanding Mormons, that is not necessarily an easy transition. Authority is big in the church, and the words of a general authority, let alone an apostle or prophet, can be a debate-finisher.

But understanding that all people are fallible, as well as a realization that doubt is a component of true faith, are main themes of Givens’ advice. It’s well-needed, because, the LDS Church is losing young adults who are confronted, in an Internet-archived world, with contradictions that can easily dent weak faith that relies on claims of certainty.

Givens offers five components of belief that can lead to doubt. In The Prophetic Mantle, he reminds readers that the Scriptures, including The Bible, are full of prophets who err. They include Abraham. Moses, Jonah, and Paul. Givens writes, citing LDS Prophet Spencer W. Kimball’s repudiation of Brigham Young’s Adam-God heresy as an example, “… when Pres. Woodruff said the Lord would never suffer his servants to lead the people astray, we can only reasonably interpret that to mean the prophet will not teach us any soul destroying doctrine—not that they will never err.” Again, this addresses the incorrect assumption that whenever a prophet speaks, he is absolutely correct. This weak idea is easily disproved — just read many of Brigham Young’s discourses — but it can do damage to persons who demand no errors in their belief.

Another issue Givens addresses is the mistaken idea that God was silent on issues of theology, and that the Christian church was inactive, for centuries prior to 1820, when Joseph Smith received the First Vision. Instead, Givens urges those with doubts to see Smith’s mission not as starting over, but “that of bringing it all into one coherent whole, not reintroducing the gospel ex nihilo.”

The third part of Givens’ essay addresses the idea of “Mormon Exclusivity,” or the assumption that in a world of several billion, a few million Mormons have a “monopoly on salvation.” Givens then points out something that I deeply appreciate about my religion, that it offers salvation to virtually all of God’s children. He writes, “… the most generous, liberal, and universalist conception of salvation in all Christendom is Joseph Smith’s view.” Givens stresses the theology that “here and hereafter, a multitude of non-Mormons will participate in the Church of the Firstborn.”

The final two points of Givens’ essay are a rebuttal to the idea that organized religion is unnecessary and the misbegotten assumption that belief automatically brings personal satisfaction and personal revelations of truth. He explains that the gospel of Christ is a message that invites inclusion, and sharing, and spiritual sociality that exists on the earth, will exist in the afterlife. He writes, “In this light, the project of perfection, or purification and sanctification, is not a scheme for personal advancement, but a process of better filling — and rejoicing in — our role in what Paul called the body of Christ …”

As for the personal feelings of failure, disappointment, despair, and general unhappiness, traits that do not go away even when we profess a belief, Givens advises “three simple ideas: be patient, remember and take solace in the fellowship of the desolate.”

As Givens continues, “Patience does not mean to wait apathetically and dejectedly, but to anticipate actively on the basis of what we know; and what we know we must remember.”

Memory is a powerful component of faith and belief. One reason we are taught to gather in organized churches is to participate in the Sacrament, where we remember what Christ’s sacrifice has done for us.

And, as Givens relates, membership in the Society of the Desolate is something to be proud of. Its members include Mother Teresa, whom Givens quotes, said “I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. … Heaven from every side is closed.”

If we take nothing else from “Letter to a Doubter,” please understand that even the most spiritual feel spiritually alone, not rarely but often. That too, is a test of faith.

In his conclusion, Givens urges that we be “grateful” for our doubts. He adds, “I am grateful for a propensity to doubt because it gives me the capacity to freely believe. … An overwhelming preponderance of evidence on either side would make our choice as meaningless as would a loaded gun pointed at our heads.”

I lack the talents Givens possesses to do justice to his discourse/essay, so I urge readers, again, to read it carefully. It’s important that we not allow our doubt to be exploited by others, but use it as an advantage designed to strengthen our spiritual beliefs.

(Letter to a Doubter can be purchased for 99 cents on Kindle.)

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs