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When he was nineteen, Newton meticulously
catalogued his sins, one of which was “Wishing
death and hoping it to some.” Despite his sins, he
believed he had been chosen by God to interpret the
Bible, so he spent more time trying to find hidden
meaning in the scriptures than trying to decipher
the physical universe. One of my science writing
students this past year argued that Newton would
have accomplished much more had he not been so
isolated in his religious pride. To play devil’s—or
maybe heaven’s?—advocate, I countered with the
idea that maybe Newton’s religious beliefs had
actually given him the drive and focus to discover
the laws of nature. We can only conjecture.
We may even find that there need be no quarrel at
all between some aspects previously regarded as sore
points between science and religion. As Alan Guth,
an American theoretical cosmologist, said, “The big
bang theory is not really a theory of a bang at all.
It is really only a theory of the aftermath of a bang.
... But the standard big bang theory says nothing
about what banged, why it banged, or what
happened before it banged.” Georges Lemaître,
who first proposed the idea of the Big Bang, was
not only an astronomer and a professor of physics
but also a Catholic priest, and in the past few years,
Pope Francis has openly supported the Big Bang
theory and evolution, as well as the need to combat
climate change. Our primary war is not against
science or religion; it is against the forces of nature,
including human nature, that diminish our capacity
to feel the sublime in its many incarnations.
I had the chance to visit Hugh Nibley himself
shortly before he died in February 2005. He was
lying on a bed in his living room, propped up by
pillows. Books lay all around him, on his bed and
in stacks on the floor. My old friend Paul, who
accompanied me, asked Nibley if the Mormon
Church was true. Nibley’s answer, on his deathbed,
was the same phrase Mormons use to describe
their belief in the Christian Bible: “As far as it is
translated correctly.” As I look back now, Nibley’s
riddle-like answer seems laced with sadness, as if
the birds of the heavens were not as reliable as he
wanted them to be.in 2013 , my little family of three moved
to Montreal for Andrew’s work, and we were
quickly and lovingly integrated into a wonderfulcongregation. But two decades of studying
Mormon doctrine and how it was practiced began
to cause friction between my desire to be honest
and my desire to be loyal. After investing so much
in Mormonism, it was uncomfortable for me to
realize how many members and leaders of the
Church had, Newton-like, taken their personal
translations of the scriptures and were preaching
them as doctrine over the pulpit. I was also
frustrated by the impotency I felt as a female leader
in the Church. After practicing job interviews
with the young women in my congregation, I was
chastised for not focusing enough on teaching
the girls to become dutiful wives and mothers.
I was willing to stay in the church and fight this
gender war, however, and I began meeting with
my bishop and other male leaders to try to explain
how benevolent sexism was still sexism, and still
harmful. They listened patiently but told me they
could change nothing.
That July, in a small town three hours east of
our apartment, a train accident caused massive
explosions, killing forty-seven people. The news
unfurled images of giant plumes of black smoke,
billowing mushroom balls of flame, and people
shouting, “Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” as those behind
the camera alternately ran toward the inferno for a
better view and ran away in terror. We learned that
the engineer had parked the train, seventy-four cars
long and carrying millions of liters of petroleum
crude oil, on an incline in Nantes, seven miles
from Lac-Mégantic. Unfortunately, he did not set
enough hand brakes on the cars, and the gravity of
the incline overcame the friction of the brakes. The
unattended train picked up speed as it went, and
finally derailed at a curve in Lac-Mégantic. About
half of the buildings in the area were destroyed,
and nearly all the remaining buildings had to be
demolished because of petroleum contamination.
Only months later, my own spiritual engine set
out on a crash course to the center of my soul.
My concerns about gender inequality, a God who
sanctioned polygamy but not homosexuality, and
doctrinal inconsistencies in our scriptures became
more important than my fear of spiritual and social
consequences. The last hand brake broke when I
read In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph
Smith, by Mormon historian Todd Compton,
which derailed my faith in Joseph Smith altogether"SHUDDERING BEFORE THE BEAUTIFUL” | JAMIE ZVIRZDIN