Growing up in Utah
I grew up in the avenues of Salt Lake City while my dad was
finishing his PhD at the University of Utah. As far back as I can remember, we
were not considered the typical Mormons. As a kid I was exposed to the UofU/
BYU rivalry and I always felt like people were attacking my dad as if he was
not a real Mormon since he didn’t go
to BYU.
I don’t honestly remember ever asking if any of my friends
from school were members or not. I just kind of assumed that they were, but I
don’t have any memories of playing with school friends at church either.
I remember back when I was probably 6 and Stephen was only 4
that mom would let us walk the few blocks to Primary on Tuesdays alone.
Moved to Georgia
February, 1975 I was baptized in the Ponce de Leon building
in Atlanta. Dad completed his PhD and we had just moved to Georgia a few months
earlier. Our Ward didn’t have its own building yet. It was still under
construction and the Ponce building was the closest font. The building used to
have a very nice mural in the foyer showing the various stages of a person’s
life from birth to death. Now all the meeting houses are so sterile and
homogenous it’s hard to find any difference among them. They removed the mural
in the 80s when they remodeled the building.
We were meeting at Rockbridge Elementary School on Sundays
and at a local Methodist Church near Hwy-78 and Rockbridge Rd on Tuesdays for
Primary. I remember my baptismal interview with Bishop Doyle Kotter in one of
the classrooms of the elementary school. I don’t remember what I said but the
story has been repeated that I was kinda spunky. Apparently when the Bishop
asked if I thought this was the only true church I responded, “No, My church in
Salt Lake is the only true church.” Then he tried to explain that all the Wards
were part of the same church. To which I responded, “But this is an elementary
school not a church.” This should have been everybody’s first clue that I
wasn’t just gonna accept their claims at face value. I needed more details. They
let me get baptized anyway.
Late 70s
I remember meeting on the old split schedule. Dad would wake
up early and go to Priesthood meeting which was early in the morning. Then
Sunday School was around 10:00am. Sacrament Meeting was later in the afternoon,
like 4:00pm or something. Primary was on a weekday after school. We loved the
split schedule because it frequently meant that we could go over to a friend’s
house or have a friend over between the two Sunday session. Parents didn’t seem
to object very often because it didn’t involve any more travel than they were
already doing.
I feel like I was probably the typical good little Mormon
boy right up until my teenage years. I don’t remember having any faith
challenging interactions with anybody, inside or outside the church. Most kids
thought I was weird because I was a “Yankee” and never got around to being
critical of me for my religion. Even after I explained that Utah was not even involved
in the civil war they didn’t care.
I do remember one day when the missionaries had come over to
the house and I saw that they had a whole trunk full of Book of Mormons. I
asked them why they didn’t hand out Bibles too. They explained that most people
already had a copy of the Bible in their house. I don’t remember how old I was,
but that actually surprised me. It was the first time in my life that I
actually had to stop and think about what other religions believed. Well they
can’t be all that bad if they still believe the Bible.
Early 80s
Middle School and High school I was always singled out
during that week of history class when we talked about the pioneers. “Michael
is a Mormon. Would you tell us a little bit about your family history?” Besides
the normal embarrassment all kids have when they had to speak in front of the
class this never really bothered me. I do remember a few of my other Mormon
friends being as quiet as possible when I was called on. I guess they were just
hoping that I didn’t call them out, but I didn’t care if people knew I was a
Mormon.
My parents were not the typical Mormons by any stretch of
the imagination. For starters they were very liberal, both in the classical
sense and the political sense. Dad subscribed to Dialogue and Sunstone
as well as The Ensign and he had a copy of No Man Knows My History on
the same shelf as The Journal of Discourses. He instilled in me at a
very young age that knowledge and information were not things to fear but things
to soak up and enjoy.
Because of my parents liberal views towards most things I
think teachers and church leaders just knee-jerk assumed that I shared their
views. In some cases I did, in some I didn’t. In most cases I hadn’t yet made
up my mind. I remember some very heated and passionate lessons in seminary
about deep doctrine. As I reflect back on these decades later I’m pretty sure
their arguments weren’t necessarily with me but I was filling a proxy for my
parents. This gave me an interesting perspective. It was very eye-opening about
the conflicting views on doctrine. But the most revealing aspect of this was the
glimpse it provided into the minds of other members. As much as they had in
common they could still find reasons to dislike each other.
I had a few very cool priesthood leaders in my teenage
years. Unfortunately, they were very few and far between. Most leaders just
seemed to use their position to bully their interpretation of politics as if it
were gospel.
It became clear at this time in my life that “the Gift of
Discernment” was hogwash. Once, I was accused of doing drugs by one of my
leaders and not allowed to pass the sacrament while friends who actually had
smoked the night before were still allowed to participate. One particular
leader was all about image. He publically dressed me down for having my sleeves
rolled up and a sloppy tie. That was the first time I skipped Priesthood
meeting. Had he known that the reason I had my sleeves rolled up was because it
helped hide the fact that my shirt was too small I doubt he would have
responded as he did. But he didn’t bother to find out the real cause of the
problem. He just criticized the symptom. The sloppy tie was completely my
fault.
It was about this time that the bishop started using the
pulpit time for partisan political speeches. I remember one particular flag
waving and chest thumping speech the Sunday before a general election. I walked
out of the chapel during the talk. It was very bad. I had been sitting behind
my dad, the family took up more than one bench, and he didn’t realize I had
walked out. Dad later apologized to me and said that he should have had the
whole family walk out. My dad complained to the Stake President and the next
week the bishop read the standard form letter from the First Presidency about
elections, but that was the week after the election and any damage had already
been done.
I still believed that the church was true and I did my best
to remain active even though the bishop at the time and many of my leaders
seemed to have it in for me and my family. I periodically attended another Ward
just to see if things were different. They were nicer to me but then they soon started
gossiping about me just attending that ward to see a girl. They didn’t bother
to do the research that the girl in question was not even in town many of those
weeks. So they assumed it was to see different girl. Also untrue. I guess the
idea that a 17 year-old kid was struggling and trying to salvage his testimony
was just too deep for them. It had to be hormonal. So to avoid further gossip I
went back to my ward.
Making the decision to go on a mission was not the cookie
cutter process for me that it seems to be for others. I didn’t even start the
process until well after my 19th birthday. I felt like the leadership had so
judged me that they wouldn’t have allowed me to go anyway. If there is such a
thing as an answer to prayers then the change in the bishopric and priesthood
leadership definitely qualifies. All along I was trying to do what I thought
was correct. I never considered that the Church itself was the problem. I was
just biding my time until some inspired leaders could help me out. So I turned
in my papers.
The Temple
When I finally went in for my endowment I had kinda given in
to the fact that accepting the church and giving it my best effort was probably
the easiest way to keep the rest of the people in my life happy. I’d never had
the miraculous witness everybody talks about but I did believe, or at least I
really wanted to believe it was true.
The endowment was really weird. I’m not gonna sugar coat it. It made me
really uncomfortable. The penalties scared me a lot. Was this literal? Or was
it just to intimidate me to not talk about it. I didn’t know. There were also
several places where they announced that you could back out of you wanted
rather than proceed any further and accept the penalties. That made me think
that it was literal. Why issue such an escape clause about something that was
just symbolic?
During the prayer circle I remember my mom looking at me
with this smile like it was the best day of her life. I was just confused and
assumed that maybe I’d understand it better as time goes on. During my time in
the MTC I found that this was a common belief. You just have to go as often as
possible so you can learn more. They
say that you have to acquire a taste for some foods and some forms of alcohol.
I don’t drink so I wouldn’t know. But if it’s nasty to start with why in the
world would you want to condition yourself to it? In retrospect I feel the same
way about the temple. I think the whole drive to go so frequently was just to
condition oneself to the weirdness.
Mission life
My whole life I had been interested in Japan. I’d even tried
to teach myself Japanese a couple of times. So I honestly felt that my call to
Japan was inspired. I’m sure it had nothing at all to do with the fact that I
put on my application that I had studied a year of Japanese.
I wanted to be a good missionary. I really wanted to do my
best. I tried really hard to be as obedient as possible. I quickly learned to
love the people and I honestly felt like I was bringing them something of
value.
My first missionary apartment had a copy of Joseph Fielding
Smith’s Doctrines of Salvation. The four of us used it as a resource and
treated it as if it was undisputable doctrine. Pretty soon other missionaries
were asking to borrow the books to answer doctrinal issues, too. I remember
more than one doctrine that caused me to second guess what I had been taught
growing up. Since I resigned myself to the church being true and perfect I just
did my best to conform my beliefs to what I was learning.
A few transfers later my apartment had stacks and stacks of
old Ensigns. Similarly we used to scour them to understand the deeper
doctrines. I soon noticed that many of the talks and doctrines were
contradictory. Both interpretations couldn’t possibly be true. It was also
about that time that I learned that some books from General authorities had
been changed many times, specifically Mormon Doctrine. I was slowly
learning that if you dig deep enough you could likely find a general authority
who would support any position on every point of doctrine. So I didn’t know
what to believe.
Confused, I wrote a series of letters to my mission
president. I liked my mission president, but questions directed at him were
kind of side-stepped. I was told to focus on the basics and not get hung up on
the deeper doctrines. So I did.
My whole mission I tried to be as obedient as possible in
hopes that’d help me find people to teach. It didn’t seem to work. As far as
numbers go my most successful period was when I was companions with a guy who
broke a bunch of the rules and sold the church like he would a used car. I
wasn’t the least bit surprised to find out that he actually was a used car
salesman. I couldn’t understand why the Lord was blessing a disobedient
missionary and I was following the rules and not seeing the success. When I
voiced this concern to the President he transferred me to another area but
still allowed my old companion to keep doing what he wanted if it brought in
the baptisms.
I extended my mission an extra month. Partially to make up
for some of the time I felt like I hadn’t been giving it my all, but also just
to stay in the country a little bit longer. I really do love Japan and I’d love
to go back.
Coming home
It was a little bit of culture shock for me when I got home.
I’d been on my own for two years and it felt odd to move back in with my
parents. I got a place of my own as soon as I could afford it. I was getting
used to being on my own and wasn’t nearly as active as I could have been. I
guess I was just testing my wings and trying to make decisions because I wanted
to do it and not just because it was expected of me. The one exception was the
YSA dances. I’d go to as many of those as I could. But that was primarily to
hang out with Victoria.
Marriage
Victoria and I opted to take out her endowments the day
before the sealing. A lot of people were encouraging us to do it all in the
same day. To me that just seemed like making the wedding day last a lot longer
than it needed to. Victoria’s parents had quite a few non-member friends that
were already going to be waiting for us on the sealing day so we couldn’t see
making them wait longer. I had an ulterior motive as well. I knew that Victoria
would have some questions about the weirdness of the endowment. I didn’t want
our wedding night to be spent discussing that.
As predicted, after the endowment she had tons of questions.
I did my best to help her answer them. It was a very awkward evening. Several
times I had to caution her that her question may have crossed a line into what
we were told we shouldn’t talk about outside the temple. I still wasn’t sure
about how literal those penalties were and didn’t want to take any chances.
I have no criticism at all of our wedding ceremony. I
enjoyed the small room and the limited number of friends and family. I didn’t
have any non-member friends that I had to exclude so that wasn’t an issue for
me as it is for others.
As a young married couple I remember trying to be good
members of the church. We had primary callings and I finagled myself into an Assistant
Scoutmaster position just so I could justify camping and hanging out on the
weekends. I enjoyed the ward we were in. It was an in-town Ward of mostly
college students, CDC doctors and Emory professors. In short, enough liberals
that the Mormon predisposition to lean way to the right didn’t go completely
unchecked. It was a nice period in my life. I don’t remember one single
conflict with church leadership or members over doctrine. To this day I have
some of the kids I taught tell me about how cool it was that I would read from
Richard Bach books right alongside the scriptures.
I don’t remember exactly when, but about this time the church
changed the temple ceremony. They took out several of the weirdest parts. But
it’s not like they made a decision to rewrite the whole ceremony. It’s like
they just redacted the script to remove the weirdness. Ever since then, when
I’d go to the temple it seemed really cut and paste. I can tell exactly from
where each sentence was removed. There are even a few sentences that refer
things that have been redacted. They make no sense at all if you don’t know to
what they are referring. The changes also removed the penalties that freaked me
out when I was 19. So does that mean I am subject to those penalties and that
newer members aren’t? Either the doctrine was changing or it was symbolic all
along.
Kids and the Move to Utah
Aaron was born and I accepted a promotion with REI that
moved my new family to Utah. At the time I thought the move was going to be a
good thing. It was a promotion and Victoria was going to be able to transfer
her work too.
It didn’t turn out anything like I had envisioned. With a newborn and with both of us working
retail we seldom if ever saw each other let alone went to church. It was a lot
of trouble to drag a kid to church alone so I think the only time we went to
church was when both of us had the day off. And frequently we didn’t even want
to go then either. It was nice to live close enough that we could walk to
church. I hadn’t done that since I’d lived in Salt Lake as a young kid.
They gave me a couple callings, but I never gave them more
than a token effort. I wasn’t really active enough to get into any doctrinal
conversations. The one time I did speak up in Elders Quorum it was to criticize
the teacher. He had gotten into an accident because he had fallen asleep while
driving on Conference Sunday and listening to a live conference talk on the
radio. He was blaming the general authority for his accident. “So let me get
this straight, you were driving, while already tired, on a conference Sunday
and it’s the GA’s fault you ran off the road?” I think that outburst is what
got me called to the EQ presidency. They regretted that almost immediately.
Living in Utah I was exposed to some of the more extreme
doctrines that aren’t focused on so much in the South. Many Utah Mormon’s
believe and frequently still talk about the literal
gathering of Israel, picking up a few of their belongings and moving to Jackson
Co. Missouri. I found it odd that most southern Mormons have never even heard
this or interpreted it as only symbolic. Add one more thing to my growing list
of questions about literal v. symbolic doctrines.
It was nice living in the mountains, but living in the heart
of Mormondom was kind of depressing. I guess I was expecting some kind of
utopia. Utah politics are just as corrupt and hypocritical as any other state
in the union. It was embarrassing to read about corrupt business deals and the
like and know that it was members of the church who were involved. On a side
note: I lost count of how many times members would use the ward phone list to
stop by the house to talk to us about “an exciting business opportunity”. In
every case I politely told them I was not interested and pretty much guaranteed
that they wouldn’t talk to me again if we bumped into each other in the halls
at church.
Move back to Georgia
Shortly after Rachel was born we made the decision to move
back to Georgia. My extended family never came to see us, even though we were
less than an hour away. My job was not panning out and it was quite a hardship
on the Georgia family members who did want to see us.
The ward we moved into was about as extremely opposite to
the ward we were in after we got married as you could imagine. Where the
Atlanta ward had CDC and Emory to help control the lean to the right, our new
ward had businessmen, bankers, corporate lawyers and accountants to lean it
even further to the right. As if that wasn’t enough it was the home ward to the
mission president and two Area Authority General Authorities. Suffice it to say
they weren’t gonna let me get away with quoting Jonathon Livingston Seagull
in my lessons. Quite the contrary, I found that I was getting pulled aside and
chastised every time I had a talk or opened my mouth in Sunday School. At least
twice I was publicly rebuked by an area authority for something I had said in a
talk. It was pretty obvious that when they spoke they expected the discussion
to be over. So much for getting new insights by having access to General Authorities.
Not only wasn’t I getting answers, the fact that I even had the questions was being
criticized.
2001-2006
My new job at the phone factory would pay for me to get a
degree so I started going back to school at nights. I typically got off work at
4:00pm and most night classes started at 6:00pm. Rather than drive all the way
home just to spend a few minutes with the family and turn around and drive back
I would drive straight to school after work. I’d find an empty room to work on
homework. When that was done I’d head to the library. I love libraries.
Sometimes I’d just wander, with no specific topic in mind, and see what books I
found.
On one of those wanderings I found Under the Banner of
Heaven by Jon Krakauer. I was familiar with and liked his writing style so
I read the book and found it very fascinating. I was still in the mode of a
true-believer and so when I read it I was able to put up a barrier between what
these FLDS nutballs were doing and what the real
church does.
It was about that time that I also found the LDS section of
the library. They had a copy of the RLDS Doctrine and Covenants. It too
was an enlightening read. Why were some of these revelations drastically different
than the LDS version? Why were some of these revelations included in this book
but not in the LDS version? Again, since I was still trying to believe I just
wrote off anything negative and accepted the positive.
I didn’t know what it was called at the time but what I was
doing was called motivated reasoning.
There are several subcategories to this type of thought process, but suffice it
to say that it is not a logical way to analyze any subject. But that’s what I
had been doing my whole life. I’d accept the good things I learned about the
church and dismiss the aspects I disagreed with.
On that same shelf in the library they had a book that
analyzed the Book of Mormon using modern forensics techniques. By doing
word usage counts, letter frequency counts, and several other literary tools
analysts are able to create sort of a fingerprint for the author of a document.
They then compared the Book of Mormon to several other written works of
people they suspected could have authored the book. Joseph Smith’s personal
writing style was as close to an exact match to the author of the Book of
Mormon as the researchers were able conclude.
To use a metaphor that other have used: When I found
evidence that went against my faith I took that evidence and quietly placed in
up on a shelf. I’ll get an answer to that later. It’s not important right now.
I should concentrate on the basics and not get bogged down in this. Etc. I just
kept filling up that shelf in hopes that eventually I’d be able to make sense
of things.
Allowing Myself to Question
Sometime in 2001 I got called to work in the Elder’s Quorum
Presidency. I enjoyed it but these little doubts and questions kept bugging me.
I went in and talked to the Bishop. He really didn’t tell me anything that I
hadn’t been told before. And honestly I think I kind of freaked him out. At
this point I was still doing my best to believe. I just felt that my own doubts
made me feel rather inadequate to help other Elders who were struggling and I
didn’t want to lead anybody astray.
After releasing me from my Elder Quorum calling they called
to teach Aaron’s primary class. I loved working with kids and this seemed like
a great chance for me to get back to basics. In retrospect, it was that attempt
to get back to basics that uncovered more than I ever expected and caused my
shelf to just come crashing down.
In primary it’s a big deal for the kids to memorize The 13
Articles of Faith. It had been a while since I had memorized them. Also since I
was a kid they had changed a few of them, nothing earth-shattering, primarily
just updating to more modern language. I
remember staying up late until I had memorized them all in their new form.
I thought it would be cute to show the kids the Articles of Faith
the way I had memorized them, at the same age. I began looking for resources
and couldn’t find anything on the official church sites. Then the Ensign
published the Wentworth letter. This was supposedly the origin of the Articles
of Faith. I was excited to read it but my excitement turned to disbelief. They
had edited the Wentworth letter, a historical document, to reflect the modern
version of the Articles of Faith.
And the shelf came crashing down. If they would edit this
document what else would they edit? For the first time I began to look at
websites and resources that were not sanctioned by the church. Questions were
being answered. Pieces of the puzzle were finally fitting together and making
sense. Unfortunately, the picture that was coming together was not the picture
I had created in my mind for the first 35 years of my life. It was like I was
trying to but together a puzzle without the benefit of the picture on the box.
I’d been given and idea of what the picture should look like but it wasn’t
turning out that way. I kept getting frustrated because it wasn’t looking
anything like I’d imagined it would and like I was being told it should. It
wasn’t until I started ignoring the image I had in my mind of what it should
look like that things started to make sense. Rather than force the picture to
look like what I thought it should I just put the pieces together as I found
them and let the picture decide the details. For the first time in my life I
was not starting with the premise that the church was true and trying to
shoehorn the evidence to fit that conclusion.
I remember driving home from work late one night after
realizing that my church was not what it had claimed in tears. My eyes were so
clogged with tears I had to pull over and regain my composure before I felt
safe enough to drive again.
Talked to Another Bishop
I went in and spoke to my new, recently called, Bishop about
what I had learned. He, like his predecessor gave me some pabulum responses and
told me to, “.. stay close to my family.” It was no help whatsoever and only
convinced me that LDS leadership was ill equipped to help people with questions
like mine. “Study, pray and obey” may be enough advice for seminary students
who weren’t doing any of the three, but It was just not enough for an adult who
was doing his best at all three and still not improving.
Rachel was about to turn eight and she was really exited
about getting baptized. Rather than make an issue about my lack of belief I
avoided the issue and we got her Grandpa to baptize her.
About this time Victoria suggested that I start a blog. I’d
been using her as a sounding board and research assistant. The blog helped me
to organize my thoughts and put my struggles down on paper.
As part of my research I began reading and listening to
skeptical blogs and podcasts. As it turns out there was a large community of
scientists, educators and science enthusiasts that were applying the principles
of the scientific method to all aspects of life. It made sense to me that
religious claims too should be held to the same standards of evidence as other
claims. This led my research into new directions and I voraciously consumed as
much material as I could in this genre. For the first time in my life I felt
like I was getting some answers to my questions and concerns. I just had to discard
my premise, truly open my mind and objectively look at all the sources.
From books like The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan
and How We Believe by Michael Shermer I began to understand the
psychology of belief and how our brains trick us. I’d been exposed to the idea
of logical fallacies in my high school debate class as well as in college
critical thinking classes. These books reinforced the idea of looking for
fallacies that could possibly lead to false conclusions. Sacrament meetings
became exceptionally irritating. Now that I knew and understood the multiple
fallacious ways of reasoning it was impossible for me to overlook these errors.
Every few minutes an abuse of logic would cross the pulpit and my brain
immediately tagged it and saw it for what it was. Fast and Testimony meeting in
particular became a mentally grueling ordeal.
Scouting
When Aaron turned 11 I was called to work in the Scouting
program. I started out as an Assistant Scoutmaster and later was the
Scoutmaster. I loved working with the boys, but it was torture working with the
ward and stake leadership. They had no idea how the program was supposed to
work and kept trying to force the boys into doing things that they didn’t
really want to do. The stake leadership had set some very arbitrary rules to
apply to scouts and they were not the least bit flexible. When I questioned
them, I got a lecture on obedience.
They released me as Scoutmaster after I lost my temper at a
boy who thought he could get away with anything just because he was the Stake
President’s son. I guess they thought they couldn’t run a program without me so
they made me Committee Chairman. I soon got tired of kicking against the pricks
and asked to be released from that position too. The church is capable of
pulling off a really good young men’s program. But it’s insulting to Baden
Powell’s program to refer to it as Boy Scouting.
2008
By the time Noah turned 8 I was in a non-confrontational
mode. I no longer believed but I didn’t like rocking the boat either. So I
baptized Noah. Nobody ever asked to see a temple recommend. I didn’t have one.
And my bishop didn’t question me either, even though I’d told him my concerns.
I guess he thought that by ignoring my problems they had all gone away.
Nursery
After I left the YM program they called Victoria and me to
be nursery teachers. I loved spending all three hours of church with her. It’s
the best calling I’ve ever had. I didn’t have to delve into my doctrinal
struggles. I hadn’t been to an Elder’s
quorum meeting for
quite a while anyway so this was actually keeping me active for all three hours
each week. I’m a big fan of sitting on the floor and snack time to make any
meeting go smoother.
After about a year of us being nursery leaders they were
hinting to Victoria that they wanted to release us. She told the bishop point
blank that it would probably mean that I would go inactive. They didn’t heed
her advice and released me. I haven’t sat through any more than sacrament
meeting ever since.
Tithing
Somewhere around this time I quit paying tithing. I’d seen the
church refuse to pay for relatively minor repairs and safety items around the
building. They’d already purchased peepholes for the classrooms but wouldn’t
pay the additional cost to actually install them. Then I’d seen them pay for
medical bill for members who couldn’t afford to pay because their primary
income went to feed their cat collection. They’d paid for car repairs, but then
wouldn’t pay for gas so the member could use the newly repaired car. Then they
went and started a multi-million dollar ad campaign.
If the ad campaign wasn’t bad enough it required that we
remove a perfectly nice brick sign in front of the building and in its place
put up a stamped metal sign that looks like it belongs in front of and office
park and not a church. To make matters even worse they didn’t file for a
building permit and they put the sign too close to the road and it had to be
moved because the DOT was widening the road. So right now there is a sign foundation
paid for with a few hundred dollars of tithing money under a new turn lane. The
church spun this as religious persecution by local government rather than inept
financial management.
After the hurricanes of the 2004 and 2005 seasons the church
sent a bunch of folks down to help. They insisted that we all wear t-shirts
that proclaimed that we were Mormon. Whatever happened to the idea of giving
charity? Was this charity or an ad campaign? I know they were spending a lot on
the humanitarian aid. It just seemed like they could have done even more if
they weren’t so focused on the publicity too.
Up until about 2010, in spite of my doctrinal concerns, I’d
been a full tithe payer. I became convinced that my money was not being used as
I thought it was and finally stopped.
No more teaching callings
They gave me a calling to teach the Old Testament to a few
17 and 18 year olds. It was some of the guys I’d worked with as scouts. They
were nice kids and we had some fun. While preparing one of the lessons I was
appalled at the immoral lesson I was being asked to convey as if I believed it.
It was a story about a prophet being commanded to commit genocide in the name
of the Lord. I just couldn’t do it. A few years earlier we had stopped reading
scriptures together as a family because Rachel was having nightmares. I
couldn’t blindly continue teaching this stuff without raising the alarm. I sent
the bishop a polite email saying I did not want to be called to any more
positions that required me to teach doctrines that I did not personally
believe.
Yet Another Meeting with Yet Another Bishop
So I got called in to talk to the bishop. This was the third
bishop I’d spoken with about my struggles. I knew this guy a lot better than
the previous two so we talked for over an hour. He really is a nice guy but it
quickly became clear that he too had no idea what to do for me. I relayed my
concerns about several topics and got pretty much the same, non-answer,
responses. He was concerned that I hadn’t been studying my scriptures. I
explained that really studying the scriptures was why I was where I was. At one
point he asked me to rate my testimony of the Book of Mormon on a scale
of 1 to 10. His mouth literally dropped wide open when I said, “3”. I
personally despise these type of arbitrary numbers applied to non-quantifiable
concepts. I said “3” was because I knew it would convey to him both my
disbelief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon and my dislike of being
asked to quantify that disbelief.
Eve’s Baptism
By the time Eve turned 8 there was no way I was going to baptize
her. I just couldn’t do it. I talked to Eve and recommended that she ask Aaron
to do it. At the time I thought this was a good idea. Aaron was working through
some issues of his own and I thought it would be a good way to let him know
that they were in the past and we were ready to move on. In retrospect I feel
bad for putting him in that situation.
Aaron and Rachel coming out
Some time in early 2011 Aaron pulled Victoria aside. He
started off the conversation by saying, “You’re probably going to hate me for
this…” and then proceeded to tell her that he could no longer believe in the
god they taught about at church. He was apprehensive because he didn’t have any
idea of the struggles that I’d been having. Victoria brought him in to talk to
me and we all assured each other that things were going to be just fine. He was
pleasantly surprised that we didn’t chew him out. Quite the contrary, in many
ways he was a braver man than I was.
I think it was the same day that Victoria and I talked to
Rachel and she too confided that she no longer believed. In here mind there was
just too much evil that was done in god’s name. She wasn’t referring to modern
day people creatively interpreting the scriptures. She was talking about the
scriptures themselves, the stories of genocide, slavery, abuse and murder that
were directly commanded by a so-called loving deity.
Stopped attending
Church was always something that I just did. Even though I
stopped believing I still went through the motions. I tried to figure out if I
could be a New-Order- Mormon, a
cultural member but non-believer. I just couldn’t make it work. I got too
irritated by the abuses of logic and reason from the pulpit. I began to feel like
my presence in the audience without speaking up against it was being taken as
tacit agreement. It just felt dishonest of me to keep it up. So I told Victoria
that I just couldn’t do it anymore. Since September or so of 2011 the only time
I’ve been in an LDS building is to pick up a kid from an activity, to help
Victoria with one of her YW activities or a meeting with the Stake President. I
also attended a couple Boy Scout Court of Honors because a friend was getting
an award. But I haven’t sat through any doctrinal meetings for the better part
of a year now.
The King Swing
In October of 2011 I typed out a long blog post and called
it the King Swing. It was essentially my coming out as a non-believer. I no
longer considered myself a member of the church and it felt dishonest not to
let the people I love know. I expected a little fall out from family. So far I
have received nothing but support from family and friends. Mom didn’t take it
very well but it was still much better than I’d expected. I’m still waiting for
the other shoe to drop with some people. Besides posting it on my blog I
haven’t been rubbing anybody’s nose in it. Some family members still are going
about their lives as if nothing has changed. I have a visitor tracker on my
blog so I know who has visited and how long they stayed on each page. I’m
content to let them bring it up with me on their own terms.
Meetings with Stake President and Scare Tactics to Get me Back.
Sometime in December, 2011 the Bishop and Stake President
paid me a surprise visit on a Sunday afternoon. I was taking a nap. I’d gotten
up early to donate platelets and had spent the rest of the morning cleaning up
the house. Victoria just let me sleep. I swapped emails with the Bishop and
Stake President quite a few times while trying to reschedule. We had at least
three different meeting scheduled and every time they cancelled shortly before
the meeting time.
I felt like I was being manipulated so I sent them a polite
but firm email. The basic theme of the email was “What do you hope to
accomplish?” and I laid out the path I had taken to where I was and what it
would take to get me back. That got them to leave me alone for a few more
months.
February I got an email request to meet with the Stake
President. I accepted and went. I respect his perspective and what he believes
his task is. I just no longer believed that he had any authority over me. I was
criticized by some of non-member friends for meeting on “his turf”. But I
wasn’t threatened by meeting in his office. To the contrary, I think I was more
at ease. It’s a lot easier to get up and leave an uncomfortable setting than it
is to kick somebody out of your house.
We talked for about an hour and a half. It was a pleasant
conversation but I wasn’t charmed out of believing the church so I wasn’t going
to be charmed back in. I wasn’t scared out of belief so I wasn’t going to be
scared back in. I also explained to him that at this point I just don’t know
what to believe in anymore. But I was much more comfortable with an honest “I
don’t know” that a dishonest “I know”. We left on pleasant terms but I know he
was frustrated that I didn’t have a witness of the error of my ways.
Shortly after that meeting he sent me a very disturbing
email. I won’t share all the details. But he obviously sees doubt and curiosity
as sins. He used four different euphemisms for “Satan” while making his points.
He was clearly trying to scare me back into the church. I typed up a nice
response but ultimately did not send it. I don’t think it would have
accomplished anything. He pretty much told me that I was under the influence of
Satan. With that mindset what could I possible say to persuade him otherwise?
Resigning?
I have yet to take the formal step of resigning from the
church. Members sometimes refer to this as having your names removed from the
records. The legal term is “resign”. I remember a Stake Conference speech from
an apostle that there is no such thing as removing your names from the records
or a “do not contact” list. The only reason I hesitate is that I just don’t
want it to trigger another series of interview and interrogations. If they are
comfortable to just leave me a lone I’m content too.
There are a couple online recovery forums that I frequent
periodically. I feel like a fish out of
water when I visit them. Most if not all of the posters are very bitter and
antagonistic towards the church. I don’t share that. Lately I’ve been just kind
of a lurker on those sites. I just don’t have the anger and frustration with
the church that so many of them do. I really am content to live and let live.
If the church works for you I won’t try to talk you out of it. If you want to
have a talk about church doctrine or church history, I’m just as open to
discuss it as I was before.
I think that most of the church leaders are good decent well
intended people. I just no longer accept that they are divinely guided. That
doesn’t mean that a conference talk about sharing each other’s burdens means
any less to me. I still do my best to find the good in everybody and in
everything. The Mormon Church has loads of good people and good doctrines. I
will continue to do my best to learn from them and incorporate those teachings
into my life.
