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The following is excerpted from the Deseret News. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.

Bruce and Marie Hafen first came face to face with a lot of church history challenges and doctrinal questions in a 1960s Brigham Young University religion class titled “Your Religious Problems” taught by B. West Belnap, the school’s Dean of Religion.

Belnap often let his students struggle and reach their own conclusions, although he knew just when and how to guide with an occasional nudge, the Hafens said.

“It was a blessing to explore these questions together in an attitude of mutual trust,” the Hafens wrote in their book titled “Faith Is Not Blind” (Deseret Book, 135 pages). “He was teaching us how to be good students of the gospel even as he helped us strengthen our faith in it. That class helped us to see that ‘faith is not blind.'”

Little did they know that five decades later, the husband-wife writing team would draw upon that experience in writing “Faith Is Not Blind,” which they hope will help people dealing with unsettling information, uncertainty or doubts related to their faith in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Encountering surprises and uncertainties is actually part of faith’s natural growth process. Working through such opposition is the only way to develop authentic, well-tested spiritual maturity, said Elder Hafen, who served as a General Authority Seventy before he was given emeritus status in 2010.

“Our purpose is to talk about how can we learn from hard experiences, things that are complicated and difficult in general, with church issues included because they’re so important, instead of being disillusioned by them,” Elder Hafen told the Deseret News. “All we’re saying is, look this is going to happen all the time, get used to it. It’s how we learn and grow. It’s as old as Adam and Eve. See it as a positive process.”

To read the full article, CLICK HERE.