Please read the blog post by James Patterson in full, here are just some of the main highlights I excerpted:
… Emmet is, of course, devastated. Since coming in contact with The Piece of Resistance and being told of the prophecy, he has felt his calling, in spite of his weaknesses and his shortcomings, was to save Legoland. Now it turns out it was all made up.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Rather than folding and walking away, our hero does something surprising. He doesn’t react with anger. He doesn’t react with shame. He doesn’t react with disgust. He actually embraces the difficult and seemingly fraudulent nature of Vitruvius’ confession. Talking to Lord Business at the climax of the movie and urging him to abandon his plan of destruction, Emmet says wisely:
You don’t have to be the bad guy. You are the most talented, most interesting, and most extraordinary person in the universe. And you are capable of amazing things. Because you are the Special. And so am I. And so is everyone. The prophecy is made up, but it’s also true. It’s about all of us. Right now, it’s about you. And you… still… can change everything.
The prophecy is made up. But it’s also true.
I remember hearing that line in the movie theater and just losing it. Openly weeping at the complex beauty of that statement and how it applied to my then-nascent faith crisis.
It’s where you go from there. Is there really no other choice than to call it all a fraud and cast Joseph Smith aside into the gutter, along with his theology? …
It’s time for me to get comfortable with the idea that a lot of scripture is likely mostly “made up.”
Made up by well-intentioned people doing their best at grasping toward this thing we call “God” and attempting to put it in relatable, human language. People who have the audacity to reach up toward the moon and the stars to try to touch the hand of God. Trying to bring a piece of the divine down closer to within our grasp. And writing most times in a completely different social, political and religious context than our post-modern minds can relate to.
Embracing the notion that Mormonism is made up actually helps me makes more sense of history, not less. It helps me feel more comfortable with Mormonism. It gives me more hope and less anxiety. Can you believe that?
This is a concept hermeneutics calls “breaking the myth.” The loss of literal/historical belief in something (such as scripture) or doesn’t have to necessarily mean we must or even should abandon all value in that thing. I can still find great value in the Book of Abraham, even though I may come to the conclusion that Joseph Smith created it out of whole cloth. Just as I find great value in the story of the Good Samaritan, even when I can accept the fact that it most likely has little to no historical value. In that way, it remains “true.” Myths, while not fully historically accurate, can still hold great value in our lives.
The funny thing is, this isn’t just true of Mormonism. Or even religion. This is a process humans continually go through. We place value in things we find to be literally true. Then we find out they are not literally true. We can either abandon them and give up on the value they can have in our lives, or we can re-work them and retain the values that ring true to us. …
… It helps me accept Joseph Smith’s incredibly flawed nature and of all the skeletons in Mormonism’s past, as well as the blights that are a part of Mormonism’s present, and of the uncertainty of Mormonism’s future. I can finally make sense of the Book of Mormon when I read it not as a historical text, but as inspired (and inspiring) fiction. I can make room for fundamentally flawed leadership of “modern prophets” when I understand that they’re grasping at straws just as much as I am. As much as we all are. …
… So, Mormonism may all just be made up. But it’s still true.
I don’t mean that flippantly. And I certainly don’t mean it to diminish the pain caused by Mormonism turning out to be not quite what someone thought it was. Believe me, I recognize the pain there.
But I also can’t escape the fact that, for me, the essence of what Mormonism is, when you strip away the dogma and the rote practices and the cultural baggage, still rings true. Truth used to be a fixed recitation of testimony tent poles. But now, with a new view of the universe and of life, truth is much more complex, much less tangible, and much more beautiful. I find truth in certain symbols, because they speak to me. Even if those symbols turn out to be constructed by man, not God, I can’t deny the power they have in pointing me toward divinity. I can’t shake off the pull they have over my spirit. I continue to find value and goodness and meaning in many of the symbols and practices of Mormonism. Not because they are based on historical facts, but because they point me toward truth and goodness if I allow them to. In that way, they are true. To me.
It’s still true because it’s still my language.
It’s still my culture. It’s how I am most comfortable reaching through the vastness of eternity and space and time to try to communicate with the divine. …
… Mormonism may be made up, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take the bricks of truth that lie all around us and make something new and wonderful out of it.
