Tearing down false tradition
What is false tradition? Many would define it as inherited tradition that is false. It’s actually much more than that.
False tradition is anything currently believed when something better is available. Because everything you believe is incorrect or incomplete, false tradition is less about what you currently believe, and more about what is available. Many beliefs can be temporarily profitable while something better is not available. Something positive or neutral will cease to be so the moment you are exposed to something better.
If you want to see the effect of tradition, share the same truth—any truth—with many people. You will see that no matter how many people you speak with, and how different they are, they will say the same things in response. It is as if they were gathered together before you spoke to them and instructed to respond in the same way.
People aren’t born with false traditions. The Lord said: “Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.” (D&C 93:38) It is much easier to teach a child the gospel than an adult, because they are not yet as full of the traditions that are well established in adults.
Most people are highly resistant to adopting new truth that expands or replaces currently held belief. They want to cross the monkey bars without letting go of the current rung. This is, of course, impossible.
While new truth will sometimes be compatible with that which is already understood, it frequently opposes the extant beliefs of the hearer. In this case, before new truth is expounded, contrary false tradition must be addressed. Old beliefs are not abandoned before the holder has a reason to believe they are insufficient.
Teaching the gospel would be easy and comfortable were it not for the fact that those being taught already believe something else, just as planting a freshly plowed field is much easier than planting a weedy abandoned lot. Because traditions almost always exist, preaching the gospel almost always consists primarily in disabusing the recipient of false tradition. This is both difficult and unpleasant.
The prominent reticence towards direct confrontation with ideas comes at a great loss. Without uprooting false tradition, the individual’s ability to have faith on the Lord unto repentance is greatly limited:
And behold, ye do know of yourselves, for ye have witnessed it, that as many of them as are brought to the knowledge of the truth, and to know of the wicked and abominable traditions of their fathers, and are led to believe the holy scriptures, yea, the prophecies of the holy prophets, which are written, which leadeth them to faith on the Lord, and unto repentance, which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart unto them— (Helaman 15:7)
False traditions prevent acquisition of new truth, no matter the source. A new seed sprout doesn’t need sunlight or soil, but as the roots grow, it will shrivel without both. Likewise, new truth can grow only a little before tradition will smother it.
It is surprising to what extent tradition informs what we believe, how strong a hold it has on us, and how impossible it is to gain further light and truth while we are in its grip. It is not enough to skip over the false traditions people hold. False traditions will damn anyone who holds them.
Tradition has the effect of turning fertile ground into stony ground, as in the parable of the sower (see Mark 4:3-20). Tradition is pervasive, and conditions people to respond without thinking. This is why tradition is incompatible with the search for further light and truth:
And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers. (D&C 93:39)
Traditions grow deep roots. They grow beyond your conscious mind, and into your subconscious. You take them for granted, and build core elements of your perspective on top of them. It does not feel good to have your traditions ripped out. When this happens, everything you have built on top of them comes into question, and the passive security we bask in as humans comes into stark question. If this thing that is so core to your perspective could be false, what is stable, reliable, and real?
Although people would prefer to have truth conveyed only in ways that feel good, Jesus did not say he came to make people feel good. He said he came with a sword: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)
What do you do with a sword? You separate things into two pieces:
Behold, I am God; give heed to my word, which is quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, to the dividing asunder of both joints and marrow; therefore, give heed unto my word. (D&C 12:2)
What is he cutting? Your perspective. What is he separating? What is true from what is false. How is he doing it? Through his word. What is his word? Light and truth.
The Lord said that one of the reasons he reveals his mysteries to men is so that those men can “bring many to the knowledge of the truth, yea, convince them of the error of their ways.” (D&C 6:11) We are each responsible to “cause them to know the abominations of their fathers.” (Ezekiel 20:4) “We should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven—” (D&C 123:13) “To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:79)
We must tear down false traditions in order to teach truth. There is no other way.
In fact, of the two things that a truth bearer can do (teach truth or tear down false traditions), the latter is by far the most important. Why? Because while a person can exert obedience and diligence on their own, both will be limited by the bounds of their traditions. It is very difficult for a person to overcome their false traditions without outside help. However, if a person’s false traditions are torn down, they can receive a great deal of light directly from God. While the traditions are in place, they have no ability to perceive anything outside of them, and can’t progress any farther. Cutting through false tradition is far more difficult than teaching truth. Replacing currently held beliefs more often requires another person’s intervention than does acquisition of adjacent (non-replacement) truth.
Teaching new truth will frequently call into question what the individual regards as fundamental truths—something they perceive as intertwined with who they are as a person. Great care must be taken to conscientiously address such topics. If you are going to rip out someone’s cherished foundations, it is a good idea to do it in a special time and place.
In primitive cultures, elders would teach these sorts of lessons in initiation rituals where the initiate would be taken by the elders into a remote area. The only people present would be the initiate and those who had previously been initiated. There, in a special and explicitly different place the elders would expose the initiate to higher truths that modified beliefs that the initiate assumed were foundational, but were actually incorrect or incomplete. There is great wisdom in this approach, and it is still practiced today in some tribes and religious orders.
It is unlikely that you will convince someone who believes differently than you to come into the woods with you on a retreat. And that is probably a good thing. Still, you can extract principles from this pattern of separation and apply it to your teaching.
The best way to teach fundamental truths is through a cycle consisting of containment (separating a few key ideas from everything else and indicating that you will critically investigate them), evaluation (critically investigating them), dissemination (sharing new ideas), and observation (seeing what the person does with the new truth and adapting future interaction accordingly): “the Gods watched those things which they had ordered until they obeyed.” (Abraham 4:18)
This approach gives you an opportunity to preempt catastrophe in the life of another person. You are taking the inevitable consequences of someone’s beliefs (unknown to them but known to you), carefully containing them, and exposing them in a controlled way. You bound off a discrete chunk of chaos and create a physical and emotional safe place that allows your subject to violently rehash everything they think they know until they incorporate the new light you have given them into their previous model.
What to teach
The Lord taught:
20 Behold, this is your work, to keep my commandments, yea, with all your might, mind and strength.
21 Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my Spirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the convincing of men. (D&C 11)
As you completely obey your best understanding of God’s will for you in all things, he will give you more light. His word is the light and it will reveal things as they really are.
As the light within you grows brighter and brighter, you will find that as you interact with the world, the light reveals to you how things as they really are differ from things as they seem to others. The light within you will provide a different perception, and this different perception will yield suggestions for how to change behavior and belief to interact with reality more accurately.
For those that have experienced what is described here, they will be very familiar with the burning feeling that comes when a better outcome is possible, but unseen, except in the light inside you.
For those who are unfamiliar with what is described here, imagine the last time you interacted with the black sheep in your family, or the friends you have with rotten kids, or some other similar situation where it was abundantly clear that there was a better way to do something that would result in the alleviation of many of the negative consequences tied to the present situation. Recall how you could see that there were specific beliefs about the situation that were causing the undesirable outcomes, and how intensely you wished that you could help the people involved to know what you knew.
This is what it is like to have more light inside of you. As the light grows, you will feel this way in more and more situations. It is possible to come to the point where you feel like this in every situation: where the light God provides shows you the difference between the present, telestial (or worse) situation, and the celestial alternative.
As a light bearer, your responsibility and privilege is to bring about the celestial alternative to the present situation to the greatest extent possible, given the constraints of the choices and desires of the people involved.
There are two ways of doing this. The first is to teach what the light reveals to you. The second, which is both far more difficult and far more beneficial, is to teach them how to obtain and apply the light for themselves.