“Objection, your Honor! Assumes facts not in evidence!”

“Hearsay, your Honor.”

“Objection – calls for speculation.”

Any of us who have watched or read courtroom dramas are familiar with attorneys objecting either to a question asked by opposing counsel or to testimony offered by the witness. There are rules, after all, to the way evidence is presented in court, reached after centuries of experience in the search for truth and in protecting the rights of the accused and of the state. (I realize this paragraph shows a bias for American practice; adjust as necessary.)

There is another sort of testimony that most Latter-day Saints hear at least as often as we see it on the page or screen: the bearing of testimony to aspects of the gospel, whether in a formal testimony meeting or in passing at other times. I have yet to see any member of a congregation leap to her feet like a defense attorney in court, calling out to the bishop, “I object, Bishop Jones! This witness is not qualified to offer that evidence!” ((Once when a ward member went on – and on and on – about how Barrack HUSSEIN Obama (he stressed the name that way) was a Muslim, a Kenyan, and a terrorist bent on destroying the United States, and passionately demanding that we join to overthrow the tyrant – and, I repeat, he went on and on and on in this vein, with no apparent reaction from presiding officers – and then said, “I know some of you are offended –,” someone did call out from the congregation, “Yes, you’re offensive!” That would be me.))

Still, while it would be out of place to impose rules on the bearing of testimony, I’ve been thinking lately about what we can learn about testimony offered in a court of law that could make our testimony in a religious setting more effective, both for speaker and hearer.

1. Witnesses should testify only to relevant facts. The judge in a courtroom would not tolerate a witness who began his testimony with a joke to put the jury at ease, or who gave the court a rambling account of his recent travels instead of evidence about the transaction under dispute, or who went on at length to thank everyone who visited her in the hospital after the defendant struck her in the crosswalk. There may be multiple valid purposes of bearing testimony in a religious setting, but all those purposes have something to do with acknowledging the truth of some aspect of the gospel. Testimonies are stronger when they focus on those religious goals and don’t stray too far or too long into irrelevant territory.

2. Witnesses in the courtroom must testify only about what they saw and heard or otherwise were directly involved in; they cannot testify to events beyond their personal experience. If the witness saw the defendant enter the bank and pull out a gun, that is what he testifies to. He cannot give evidence about where the defendant ate breakfast or how he spent the money he took, unless the witness himself was a participant in those events. In the religious setting, the most persuasive testimonies follow that pattern: Tell me what you saw and heard – and felt; in matters of the Spirit, we have a broader definition of “personal experience” than is often permitted in a courtroom – and how you know that God blessed you … but don’t make sweeping statements or promises that are beyond your personal experience. That is, tell how your child was healed, or how your prayer was answered, or how you experienced the love of God in some other way. Don’t testify beyond that, though: don’t say “… and I know he will protect you from danger, too” or “… he will grant you the same assurance” – that is beyond your knowledge, beyond your experience, and binds God in ways that you do not have the power to do.

3. Witnesses must offer testimony of specific details, not general conclusions. No judge would permit a witness to say, “I know the defendant is guilty.” Instead, the witness has to testify to the details of what he personally saw and heard: “He left the office a few minutes past five; I saw him get into his blue Mazda and drive out of the parking lot heading east.” For me, the most effective testimonies on Fast Sundays are not those that say, “I know the Church is true,” but instead are those that tell in some detail a personal experience of the speaker that affirmed for him some aspect of the gospel – “When I didn’t think I could go on any longer, such-and-such happened” or “I know it is possible to forgive completely, because when …” Tell me how you know the Church – or, better yet, some aspect of Church teaching – is true.

In the first half (or so) of the 20th century, LDS Sunday School classes designated part of one class period each month for the bearing of testimonies. The intent and style of these testimonies did not at all mimic the Fast and Testimony meeting, except in the fact that class members took turns speaking. Teachers encouraged children, with questions and based on recent class lessons, to express small aspects of testimony:

“How do you know your parents love you?”
“Because Mama tucks me into bed, and Papa carried me to the car so I didn’t have to walk in the snow.”

“How do you feel when you return something that doesn’t belong to you?”
“It makes me feel happy because I know Sister Smith needs her umbrella.”

Through coaching children to recognize the workings of God in their lives in the smallest of ways, and to express that recognition in words, teachers taught children to bear testimony: direct testimony of what they saw and heard and felt, in specific detail. Adults can do the same thing, I think, on a larger scale: We can testify to aspects of the gospel that we know are good, even if we can’t quite bring ourselves to say “I know” about other details. We can train ourselves to recognize how we know as well as what we know. We can better communicate that testimony to our hearers by being specific, and relevant, and personal.

Without cataloguing all the worst experiences you have had in testimony meetings, what would you add to these ideas for offering “better” testimonies?