Introduction and Opening Hymn

Guest [00:00:00] It may not be on the mountain height or over the stormy sea it may not be at the battle's front. My Lord would have need of me but if by a still small voice he calls to pass that I do not know I'll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in Thine I'll go where you want me to go where you want me to go.

Guest 2 [00:00:42] I'd like to welcome Everybody to the 17th Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium. I'm Kent Frogley. I am the vice chair of the Sunstone Board of Trustees. It's nice to gather tonight in what has historically been one of my favorite sessions here at the symposium. Albert Peck, as you all know, is the Albert, what are you?

Guest 2 [00:01:10] The executive editor, director, publisher, Sunstone magnate. He's the individual, along with help from a lot of his friends and colleagues, that puts this together every year. I've known Albert since 1985 or 86, and he's become a very close and dear friend to me. And he's somebody that I admire greatly and I respect his insights into theology, into the human experience, and into situations and ideas that we as Mormons confront.

Guest 2 [00:01:50] Albert, just for his credentials, graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in political science and philosophy, and then he returned and received a master's degree in public administration. He was an urban planner for a while and then came to Sunstone in 1986.

From Pillars to Remnants of Faith

Elbert Peck [00:02:13] I've for years played around with how people have titled their pillars of my faith. For those of you who've been a frequent attender of these sessions, you know that many people end up rejecting the metaphor of pillars and replacing them with other metaphors. Mary Bradford replaced it with pillows of her faith which she could rest her head on and, well, we'll go. I have named my.

Elbert Peck [00:02:44] My pillars of my faith. They're remnants of my faith, which is not as cynical as it may seem at the start. I think my faith. I grew up and my faith was cultivated. A wonderful culture that the way I remember it, it could have been a Frank Capra movie or a Norman Rockwell painting.

Elbert Peck [00:03:08] I had wonderful parents who loved me and took me to church and had a very realistic view of church and would talk about the people in the ward. I grew to love the members of the various wards I was in. My parents belonged to incredible study groups, just heroes, everyday heroes. People who I still feel, even though I haven't seen them for 20 years, if I called them and told them I was Gina's eldest son, they would come at three in the morning to help me.

Elbert Peck [00:03:36] I felt very connected had wonderful ward leaders who mentored me spiritually and intellectually. I blossomed socially within the church's organizations. Hill Cumorah pageant trips, which were spiritual feasts, youth conferences. Many opportunities to serve and to plan and to organize and to be valued and to show that I had value and to help friends and be helped by them.

Elbert Peck [00:04:04] My spirituality and my sociality came together and were one. And they were within the Mormon community, within the ward structure. It was just a wonderful time period. Emma Luthan described her pillars of my faith as a great sea that supports and buoys her up. I feel the same way about my growing up in the church. It was just a wonderful experience. I learned to love God and as the way many teenagers would bear testimonies at youth conferences, say, I know the church is true and I love every one of you in the same way. My testimony of the church and of God was so linked to the people I grew up with.

Elbert Peck [00:04:45] They were one and the same. And that emotional spiritual binding of those both of that was such an incredible experience. BYU provided the same experience for me. To serve, to be served, to love and to be loved. My mission was an incredible time. I remember once on my mission when I was working in Santa Rosa, California.

Elbert Peck [00:05:15] There was a period for four or five months where I really felt that I had, looking back on that, the attributes of charity. And I just like to read those from Corinthians because they described me at that time.

Elbert Peck [00:05:31] This is from a different translation where it talks about how love is patient and kind, envious. No one is never boastful, never conceited, never rude. Love is never selfish, never quick to take offense. Love keeps no score of wrongs, takes no pleasure in the sins of others, but delights in truth. There is nothing love cannot face. There is no limit to its faith, its hope, its endurance. Love will never come to an end.

Elbert Peck [00:05:59] That's how I was during this time period. I loved everyone. The jerky missionaries, the members who wouldn't help us. And I felt calm and I felt at peace. I would wake up in the morning and feast upon the script and my companion who refused to tract and just took pictures all day long, I loved him. And maybe for that reason,

Guest 2 [00:06:24] at that

Elbert Peck [00:06:24] time, one of the popular songs on the radio which we listened against mission rules was Olivia Newton John's have you never been mellow? And to me, that song spoke to that mellow feeling I felt of a peace with myself, with God and. And with everyone I met. It was a wonderful time period. I've had experiences like that. Since then, sometimes through church calling, sometimes not on my own, and they've always given me a goal that there is a spiritual level of peacefulness and calmness and contentness that I can achieve. And so it's never been some abstract thing that I've read in scriptures. It's been an experience.

Elbert Peck [00:07:07] My mission provided me also with other spiritual experiences which blossomed after my mission as I served in several elders corn presidencies and as president, and as I came primarily through reading Parley P. Pratt's autobiography, to love the concept of the church being the kingdom of God in embryo. And it's our job to help Christ come by building his kingdom here on earth.

Elbert Peck [00:07:33] The idea of establishing Zion gave my whole life a unity and a purpose and a love and a passion that defined my life for many, many years. That was all very good, and I am very grateful for all of that. And it is still very much a part of me. I don't feel disconnected from that aspect of my life at all, although I understand a lot of those feelings and thoughts somewhat differently at times.

Elbert Peck [00:08:05] Then came a period where much of what I believed I no longer came to believe. I think it began when I was working at the missionary training center as a research assistant, and my boss's bosses were general authorities, and we had regular reports on the inner politics and workings of the Brethren, particularly concerning missionary policy. It's quite discouraging to me because the notion I had of prophetic leaders just was not evident there. So I had to ask myself the question, well, what does this tell me about how God operates among humans? And I had to begin revising and revising and revising and revising and increasingly adding a human overlay, a human overlay, a human overlay to any belief I had in divinity, working through human leaders.

Elbert Peck [00:09:02] Then I started studying Mormon history and found the problems I discovered with contemporary church history multiplied a lot. And that plus coming to realize how so many things are bound in one's culture, in one's context, I began to doubt everything that I believed, whether it was maybe it was all just socially constructed and the feelings I had were socially constructed and given to me by my culture and my community. And what indeed was true, I was seeking for an absolute truth. No doubt.

Elbert Peck [00:09:38] I remember once I'd like to tell two feelings, two experiences from this time. Once I remember walking home from work across the parking lot and the church office building or next to the church office building and thinking, what do I believe? Do I believe this? I don't know. Do I believe that? No, I don't believe this. Do I believe this? No, I don't believe that. Do I believe Joseph Smith was a prophet? I don't know. Do I believe Jesus Christ was divine?

Elbert Peck [00:10:05] Maybe. Although that was hard because I'd had real spiritual experiences with Christ. Do I believe God is the Father? Probably. But that's not absolute. What do I believe? And everything was stripped away down to. I believe that there is a spiritual side to life.

Elbert Peck [00:10:23] That's something I could not deny. I'd experienced it so many times in so many ways, I could not deny it because I didn't want to live a life without any sense of spirituality. And from that experience I had to recreate my life. And that's where I get the title, Remnants of my faith. Many things which I once believed, I no longer do believe.

Elbert Peck [00:10:48] What remains of my belief. However, I am much more sure in my belief in those remnants. And of those remnants. I feel similarly about my life. As the prophets would prophesy about Babylon and Israel being carried into Babylon and how God would take a righteous remnant back to Israel to build a new kingdom, I feel that has been done. With my remnants, I wandered in the wilderness. I was carried off into Babylon, and the remnant of my faith which came back, I have built a new and stronger faith from that.

Elbert Peck [00:11:25] Another experience I had during the same time period, which was long before I became editor of Sunstone, was I had occasion to go down to BYU on some errand. After I fulfilled the errand, I took a nostalgic walk along around the campus and I walked around the dorms and remembered my dorm life, and I remembered some of my favorite classes. And I'm sure many of you have had similar experiences. Quite nostalgic, quite sentimental, quite self indulgent. Oh, woe is me. What has happened to me? I'm weeping by the waters of Zion. Even not even Babylon.

Elbert Peck [00:12:05] I started wandering through the maze of halls and secret passageways in the Harris Fine Arts center, entered through the back way into the Pardo Theater, where our ward met once when I was a student there and when I was Elders Quorum President, which had been a blessed time of community.

Elbert Peck [00:12:23] I sat on this stage, which was dimly lit, and looked down into even a more dimly lit hall and began remembering all of the individuals in that ward and how much I loved them and who they were and their quirky personalities, how much we had shared testimonies and service and given blessings to each other.

Elbert Peck [00:12:42] And I felt very dry at that point compared to that previous time. And I started to weep sitting there on the edge of the stage. And the closing words to a poem that Robert Frost wrote came to me, one that I had memorized or tried to memorize. And it's from his poem.

Elbert Peck [00:13:09] Here's the line. It says, here are your watering places. Drink and be whole again. Beyond confusion. To me at that time, those words meant that here in the community of saints is where I found nourishment and strength. Here was where I was watered and refreshed.

Elbert Peck [00:13:32] From that time, I began returning to the community of the saints a different person than I was before. But so community has become a pillar of my faith. I don't think it's the core pillar of my faith. The core pillar of my faith is my belief in God as I understand it through the person Jesus Christ.

Elbert Peck [00:13:55] But I think a person's religious life must be lived out in community. And let me briefly explain how I understand that. And then I'll be throwing through. I see much of my life trying to understand God. In fact, I understand my life as a spiritual journey and I understand my articulation of that as a dialogue with God that is a lived conversation. Sometimes I'm living in dissent with God saying, I don't agree. Sometimes I'm living in ascent and saying, this is wonderful. I feel a friendship with you. I feel part of you.

Elbert Peck [00:14:39] Sometimes I speak out loud the way Tevye does in Fiddler on the Roof and talking to God. But much of my life, most of it is my life. Well, the quote from the lectures on faith has always resonated with me where we need to know that our life is. That the course we are pursuing in our life is agreeable to God.

Elbert Peck [00:15:05] I want to live a holy life. I believe a holy life is possible. I have tasted it at times in my past, and I want to have that. At the same time, I'm not sure I understand exactly what a holy life is. I come to believe that everything I think and know, all metaphors, I understand life through the categories and language that my culture and my religion has given me. And they are not absolute truth.

Elbert Peck [00:15:34] We could go on to that more, but I hope most of you understand what I mean by that. I don't even know for sure whether Jesus Christ really was who he said he was or whether my understanding of Jesus, which has changed so much over time, is but a category.

Elbert Peck [00:15:51] However, I do know that I feel a spirituality and whatever God and divinity is able to speak to me through that person who I've come to know as a person and who calls to me to live this Better life.

Elbert Peck [00:16:08] And on a day by day basis, Jesus is very real to me. And the life that Jesus Christ calls me to live is very real to me. Yet I can step back abstractly and say that may all be a metaphor, a symbol, whatever you want to call it, that God is willing to speak through to me, and in some other culture he'll use other symbols. That's entirely a possibility. I do not know that. I just know that I am trapped in my time with this symbol and it works very well.

Elbert Peck [00:16:37] Similarly, I believe the same is true about Mormonism. I am in the Mormon culture and in the Mormon community, and I find the Mormon ideals very attractive to me. The concept of growth and progress, the concept of making heaven here on earth, that of service to other people, of living life and community, the equalitarian messages in the doctrine and covenants, and it calls to social justice, they all speak clearly to me and define my life. And I feel a spirit very agitated and animated about those. I have no idea whether they are absolutely true, whether God really spoke those exact words and wants me to know them.

Elbert Peck [00:17:19] But it really doesn't matter to me. Because even if I gave up all of those categories and tried to find the absolute truth, I would be trapped in some other categories. If I gave up this culture and moved to some other culture, however excruciating that psychological work would be, even if it was possible, which probably it isn't, I would still be trapped with that sense of arbitrariness. So I choose the things from my Mormon culture that I feel. The spirit that I've learned through my life works, and those that don't, I'm happy not to live with them and they don't bother me too much.

Elbert Peck [00:17:55] That is my journey. That is my conversation with God as I, as I work on something and eventually I say, this isn't good. The spirit doesn't really resonate with me on this and I have to abandon it. But sometimes I do that. I hold on to something for a very long time when I don't. That is a scary life. It's a life of freedom and it's a life of friendship and it's a spiritual journey. The dangers of it, I think, must be checked by living in a community where your life is not only in dialogue with God, which you can often create in your own image, but your life is also in dialogue with a believing community who can say to you, that doesn't look right, or we value that and we don't value that.

Living Faith Within Religious Community

Elbert Peck [00:18:42] And I believe our lives need to be lived in a religious believing community for that checking as well as for the opportunities to love and serve and be loved and served. So I guess those basically are my two pillars of my faith. A loving community of saints and a testimony of a God who calls me to live a life. I'd like to conclude just by reading one of the passages that just resonate to me.

Elbert Peck [00:19:16] I have a passion for the New Testament and New Testament scholarship. Parts of it now I read and I can totally dismiss and say, that's just Paul speaking. Other parts, when I read and whenever I read them, they just say to me, yes, this is how you can be. This is how you should live. They're the same themes that were in First Corinthians. They're the same themes that are in the Beatitudes, in the Sermon on the Mount. It's the message of Paul that we can put on new creation with the Spirit. We can become a new creature. We need to be children of light instead of children of darkness.

Elbert Peck [00:19:52] Here is Paul in Galatians, Heavens that are. Mormon reads Galatians where he says, anyone can see the behavior that belongs to the unspiritual nature. Fornication, indecency, debauchery, idolatry and sorcery, quarrels, a contentious temper, envy, fits of rage, selfies, ambitions, dissensions, party intrigues, jealousies, drinking bouts, orgies and the like. I warn you that no one who behaves like that will ever inherit the kingdom of God.

Elbert Peck [00:20:23] But the harvest of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no such law. There are so many similar passages of pastoral counsel in the New Testament, particularly in the Epistles of Paul, that whenever I read them, whether they're in Ephesians or Colossians, that passage which says, you need to live the fruits of the Spirit, be a children of light, put on a new creation of love, of gentleness, of kindness, of meekness.

Elbert Peck [00:21:02] That is a spirit that calls to me and I feel an affinity with Jesus who does that. And that's why I need a community to do those things with. I feel somewhat embarrassed to talk about those issues because people who work with me on a close basis, I think know how much I don't possess those attributes. And I genuinely feel guilty about them all the time. I don't feel guilty about a lot of things, but I do feel guilty about not acquiring those traits as gifts of the Spirit.

Elbert Peck [00:21:33] I like having the remnants of my faith work a new creation in me. I feel freed from so many of the trivial concerns that can divert us from those issues that the spirit, I think, at least in my life, is so agitated about. I don't find the spirit concerned very much with picky doctrinal points, administrative concerns, but I do find a spirit that calls and haunts me to become a new creation.

Elbert Peck [00:22:06] And there may be a better way of articulating it, but I am in the Christian Mormon tradition and I love that tradition and it works very well for me. And the spirit seems to be able to speak to me very well on those core issues.

Elbert Peck [00:22:23] And those are a few remaining but very real and strong beliefs that there is a God, there is a divinity in the spiritual side of life, and humans can change by connecting with that individually as well as in community. Thank you,

Guest [00:22:55] Stormy Sea it may not be at the battle's front My Lord would have need of me but if by a still small voice he calls to pass that I do not know I'll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in Thine I'll go where you want me to go I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord over mountain or plain or sea I'll say what you want me to say Dear Lord, I'll be what you want me to be Perhaps today there are loving words which Jesus would have me speak There may be now in the paths of sin Some wanderer whom I should see O Savior, if thou wilt be my guide Though dark and rugged the way my voice shall echo the message Sweet I'll sing say what you want me to say I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord over mountain or plain or sea I'll say what you want me to say dear Lord I'll be what you want me to be there's surely somewhere alone holy place in earth's harvest field so wide Where I may labor through life's short day For Jesus the crucified so trusting my all to thy tender care and knowing Thou lovest me I'll do do thy will with a heart sincere I'll be what you want me to be I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord over mountain or plain or sea I'll say what you want me to say dear Lord I'll be what you want me to be I'll be what you you want me to be I'll be what you want me to be.

Elbert Peck [00:26:00] Sa.

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