When I was nineteen, I thought I understood what a mission would be like. I had seen the videos, heard the stories, and imagined the glow of faithful, fulfilling service. But a few weeks into the field, I was already disoriented. It was harder than I’d ever expected—physically, emotionally, spiritually. That uncomfortable realization—that reality wasn’t what I expected—turned out to be one of the greatest gifts of my life.
I now recognize that moment as a kind of Garden of Eden experience: a step out of innocence, into awareness. Into a world where nothing was automatic anymore. And it’s the kind of transition we all make—sometimes in faith, sometimes in relationships, and sometimes in the middle of a quiet Sunday School class. I now recognize that moment as a kind of Garden of Eden experience: a step out of innocence, into awareness. Into a world where nothing was automatic anymore.
The Garden of Eden is a story that evokes a number of questions. In considering that story, we sometimes get hung up on particulars like the exact location of the garden; the relationship between the fall and death; God’s language around male-female relationships; and more. These questions can be interesting, but they are peripheral to the intentions of the story. In the story of the Garden of Eden, believers are presented with a model for how we develop as human beings.
Psychologists have long recognized that human development unfolds in stages. Erik Erikson, for example, mapped out a series of life phases—each with a key challenge that can lead either to growth or regression. Others, like Lawrence Kohlberg and James Fowler, explored how our moral reasoning and faith mature over time. While each model differs, they all affirm the same truth: healthy development requires that we move through periods of disorientation, adjustment, and deeper understanding.
I suggest that the Garden of Eden story is the best possible framework for understanding how we develop, and it is relevant across all areas of our lives. The basic contours of the story are
1. A time of innocence, where participation in a system feels automatic;
2. An awakening to awareness that reality is more than what we previously understood, in ways that are beyond our current ability to process well; and
3. Decisions in the direction of growth and development to function well in reality, or in the direction of maladaptive coping strategies that keep us from functioning well in reality.
As an example, I look back on my experience as a missionary. I grew up in a time when the Church was producing emotionally satisfying audiovisual materials to promote gospel concepts. Among those materials was a 1990 video called “Labor of Love,” which depicted missionary service as a clean and comfortable series of positive experiences. With that as a reference point, I entered missionary service in Brazil in 1993, and quickly found myself shocked and overwhelmed by missionary life that was stressful, frustrating, and physically exhausting. Before I entered the mission field, my future mission experience had only existed in theory, informed by positive stories that had been told to me. My commitment to my mission had been automatic, but now I had new information that led to daily decision points of actively choosing. I was no longer in the garden, where problems and challenges and irony (the “thorns and thistles” described to Adam and Eve by God) exist only in theory. This process of leaving the garden and then facing these choices is one we face in … many areas of life…
This process of leaving the garden and then facing these choices is one we face in church callings, but also many other areas of life: marriage, child-rearing, university studies, military service, career, and more. For most of our significant life experiences, there is a process of bringing to the experience an automatic commitment based on our paradigm of what the experience will be; then seeing differences between reality and our paradigm; then facing developmental crossroads in how we choose to respond.
In the Garden of Eden story, there is another aspect of awareness that greatly determines whether our departure from a garden of life experience becomes developmentally positive or negative. In restoration scripture, we read “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they had been naked…”. In other words, they had become aware that there was a gap in their understanding of themselves and the world around them.
The way that we become aware of these gaps in our perspective matters. Our restoration understanding of Adam and Eve’s new awareness of their nakedness is that it was presented to them as something shameful. To represent Satan as a serpent in the garden is an excellent teaching tool, because his objective was to poison Adam and Eve using the venom of shame as they made their transition to new awareness. In his narrative, their nakedness meant that they were lacking and deficient. And worse, it was God who had allowed them to live in the garden in ignorance of that shameful situation. This was the venom of the accusing serpent in the garden.
I do not mean to suggest here that shame is always a bad thing to experience. I know of a number of situations where a sense of shame has been the catalyst for positive personal transformation. In some cases, shame is the only thing that will lead a person to reverse from a destructive path they have chosen. But when facing a common Garden of Eden-like developmental crossroads—the simple experience of being awakened to gaps in our paradigm and expectations—shame is not helpful or appropriate. There is no sense of shame over a lack of understanding.
“Your mission experience is not what you envisioned, and that means one or both of two possibilities: you are stupid and clueless and live in a fantasy world, or you were deceived by people who gave you the wrong impression of the missionary experience.”
Or,
“Your mission experience is not what you envisioned, but making adjustments to our paradigms and expectations for our life experiences is normal. There is tremendous growth available to us in the process, and in your mission experience, the Savior is eager to lead you through that process over time.”
The first message reflects the patterns of shaming that are found in much of the critical messaging from disaffected members and former members of the Church. In critical spaces, a simple developmental crossroads, like my becoming aware of the humanity and shortcomings of prominent people in scripture and church history, is framed in shame: the difficulty of making adjustments to my paradigm is a sign that I am deficient or I have been wronged. I’m hurting, so obviously it’s my fault or someone else’s fault. Either I or the Church needs to be blamed and shamed. When our loved ones leave the covenant path and isolate themselves defensively, that is a good indicator that they have internalized narratives of shame. Letting go of that poison will allow them to reconnect with us and, in some cases, resume spiritual development. But that can be a long process of returning to their developmental crossroads and making a different choice.
How does this apply to our gospel questioning? It is clear that not all questions are equal. Some are designed to keep people developmentally stuck. In critical spaces, gospel questioning is infused with shaming, accusatory venom. Consider the form of each of these “questions”:
“Obviously, good people do x. So, why do church leaders do y?” (an accusation/insinuation disguised as a question)
“I’m totally open to accepting the Church’s teachings, as soon as unresolvable brain teaser x is resolved to my satisfaction. How do you resolve x?” (a false commitment presented as a question)
“I’m not really willing to apply myself to do the work to understand issue x in depth. So, can you explain it to me in a way that meets all my expectations, validates me, and fits within my worldview?” (an impossible demand presented as a question)
None of these are really questions. They are shaming, dishonesty, and entitlement presented in the form of questions. Sadly, some online spaces reinforce patterns of questioning that are less about curiosity and more about blame.
“I have studied x, y, z materials on this gospel topic. Are these the best possible resources, or are there some I’m missing? My understanding is _____. Is that accurate, or is there a better way to understand this concept?”
“Are there aspects of my worldview, my life experiences, or my personality that are causing me to see this issue the way I do? Are there other emotional or cognitive lenses through which I can examine this information that would open up new possible understandings?”
Here, questioning comes from genuine openness and curiosity. There is no sense of shame over a lack of understanding. I come to my questioning with a positive view that with new resources, there might be a need to make further adjustments to thinking, and that is okay. It is a normal process of spiritual and intellectual growth. And if someone is not engaged in that same process of seeking, it does not mean that they are deficient in any way, or that they are being “kept in the dark,” or any number of other grievance narratives that are inappropriately applied to normal human experience.
This is the developmental crossroads of gospel questioning. Without an awareness of the choices available to us, we can be led to narrow and cynical biases and undertake our gospel questioning like a fearful, wounded animal. With awareness, we can approach our gospel questioning with the bias of charity, free of the poison of shame.
And to be biased by charity is what it means to be truly open-minded.
In our own gospel wrestling, may we choose that bias of charity. It doesn’t just help us grow—it keeps us connected to one another, and to the God who waits for us outside the garden, ready to walk with us again.
