The Leap Out of Faith

Growing up, I took it for granted that faith was a virtue--one of the highest. As I went through my faith crisis I began to see faith more as a dangerous tool used to manipulate people into believing a person's claims without them having to provide any evidence. But there are still stories of "faith" that seem to inspire me. Why is that the case? Should I be giving faith a second look? One of the most salient examples of faith in the Book of Mormon is the story of Samuel the Lamanite (see Helaman 14-16). Samuel, a stranger from out of nowhere, gets up on the city wall and declares that, according to an angel he spoke to, a sign of Jesus' birth will come in 5 years. Then he basically runs off and disappears from the narrative. Somehow all the good guys believe him, and all the bad guys don't. Tensions mount between the believers and non-believers over the next 5 years, and finally come to a head when the non-believers decide to kill all the...

In Tara Westover's wildly successful memoir Educated , she documents her unlikely transformation from her parents' brand of anti-government, anti-education, homeopathic prepper beliefs, to a PhD in history from the University of Cambridge and, well, a wildly successful memoirist. I won't go into a lot of detail here--if you haven't read it, you should--but I just want to make a few observations. Tara's decision to take the ACT and enroll in university, without ever having any formal education in public schools, was a huge step, and was certainly critical in her transformation. But it occurred to me that Tara could have just as easily returned home from school with nothing more than a music degree and a stronger conviction of the world's corruption. I could picture her settling back near her parents, having lots of babies, directing the church choir, and mixing herbs and essential oils for her mom. So what really made the difference? Something that struck me in h...