One More Mormon, Pt 3: Making Sense of It

In the wake of stepping away from the Church, I inevitably told my parents. I remember telling them that me attending and not feeling anything was cheapening the experience for everyone else there that was invested and feeling the Spirit. I think my mom called me out and told me it was a load of crap, and in retrospect she was absolutely correct. What I was trying to do was alleviate some of the guilt I had by rationalizing it as a way to benefit other people. It was a weak conclusion, but I was desperate to find a reason, any reason, that I wasn't wholly flawed.

After those first few months of being an 'inactive member' (as active members like to say), I pretty much labelled this corner of my mind with a huge 'THIS IS SLIGHTLY UNCOMFORTABLE' sticker and promptly walked away from it. Over the last couple years I've been finding myself slowly going back to blow off the dust and start sifting through the remains.

I've now come to realize just how absurd the whole thing is. I mean, hey, I'm cool with religion. One of my favourite parts of the the Church of Latter Day Saints is the eleventh Article of Faith, which states:

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

That's pretty dope. I'm all for letting people believe what they want, as long as it isn't causing harm or preventing anyone's search for happiness. More power to the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and everyone else between that finds meaning in their faith and tries to make the world a better place. Live and let live, yo.

I guess I skew fairly agnostic, but at this point I'm confident that the Mormon doctrine in particular isn't the path for me. As I've done more research I've discovered more and more problems with this church that gives me pause.

The doctrine is the first obvious red flag. I will freely admit that I am not, and never really was, a scholar of the scriptures and church teachings. If you are, I'd invite you to read the CES Letter. It provides some pretty damning black-and-white evidence that the scripture and tenants the LDS Church was founded on aren't all they seem to be. And that the indefatigable Joseph Smith wasn't exactly an upstanding guy. I was certainly never taught he was polygamous, never mind the fact that he married underage and already married girls.

Oddly, though, it isn't the black-and-white stuff that's the biggest hangup for my trepidation. No, that goes to decisions the LDS prophets and leadership have made that contradict a lifetime of teachings that told us Christ was a person of infinite compassion and grace.

Thing 1: Why did it take the Church so long to not only allow black individuals hold the priesthood, but for their families to get sealed in the temple? I asked about this once way back in the 'Mission Preparation' class, and was told that the Church is a product of its time, and couldn't 'rock the boat' in a society that wasn't ready for it.

Really? Seriously? We were taught time and again that God's standards never change. That the Prophet was the direct conduit for the Lord's will, to guide His church to be closer to Him. And yet, for some reason, salvation and covenants were withheld based solely on skin colour. For some reason, the God did a better job of speaking to the Quakers in the 1800's, and it somehow took a hundred years for the 'One True Church of God' to get on the same page.

Then you read about the history of overt racism in the LDS leadership and things start to make sense. Some say that the leaders were just human, and flawed products of their time. But what about "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray."? If these men claim to be infallible and speak on God's behalf, and yet are influenced by societies' standards, what the hell is even the point?

Thing 2: Similarly, the church hates gays (and Ls and Bs and Ts and all the other letters). A lot of the above reasoning about African Americans can be filled in here, and I'm sure that as criticism grows, the church's stance will mysteriously change over time (as it has today, even). But here's where they've lost me: can anyone seriously say that Christ, who expressed ultimate compassion and love to individuals from all walks of life, would look at a gay couple and say, "THAT'S JUST WRONG, YOU'RE GOING TO HELL." I don't know if I'm a Christian any more or not, but I know in my heart that the Christ I was taught about would never turn his back on two people finding love and happiness just because of their genitals. I find that an insult to everything I was taught Jesus was supposed to embody. If God exists, if Christ exists, the policies the LDS leadership have put in place are nothing short of a perversion.

If you can't tell, those things really burn me up.

Another thing, less of a burn and more of an uncomfortable heat, is the secrecy. I'm a financially-minded kinda guy, so it gets on my nerves that the church demands 10% of all its members' income and yet doesn't disclose how all the money is spent. You could argue that the real estate and shopping malls are all serving the material needs of the saints and are just good business sense. The fact that so much of the finances are obscured, though, causes me to raise my eyebrows. Why is it a sin to not pay a full tithe, and yet you're not allowed to find out how the money is used? It strikes me as shady at best.

That isn't to say, though, that the church doesn't put that money to positive use. During a couple particularly tough years, my family benefited from paying a full tithe; we were given access to the Bishop's Storehouse, which supplied us with essential groceries for a period where my folks were having a tough time making ends meet. The secrecy still kinda rubs me the wrong way, but I can appreciate that some portion of the income goes to help the members who need it most.

A final sticking point for me is how it was hammered into us from a very early age to be wary of any criticism of the Church. We were told to only consult official LDS resources for answers to questions, and to stay well away from any third parties who were only Satan's tools to 'lead you astray'. Anti-Church literature plants a seed that's difficult to stop from growing, apparently.

Then President Oaks said, "I suggest that research is not the answer" in regards to Church history and doctrinal issues. Then a member of the Seventy counselled that, “Truth can be discovered by doing.” Seems like they're not a fan of people looking into things. It's a far cry from what J. Reuben Clark said in the 1960's when information was a bit easier to control: "If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed."

It took my many years after leaving the Church to become comfortable with even the idea of reading non-pro-Mormon sources. I'd often turn away from it on instinct and it took a while to override that impulse. I was conditioned so thoroughly that it's frightening.

The most painful areas of my parting with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints involved one of its one of most central teachings: that obedient and worthy families would be reunited after death, and continue to be together for all time and eternity. Maybe if I was part of a different family with more internal friction this wouldn't have been a big problem. The thing is, though, that my family is pretty dope. I'd be totally down to spend eternity with them doing whatever it is you do after your days of death and taxes are over. I love my siblings, and although we've all gone our different ways, I know we'll get along really well whenever our paths cross. And I love my parents, too. Sometimes our circumstances growing up were pretty awful, but I know they care for me unconditionally and will support me however I need it.

So look at things this way: becoming an ex-Mormon, or apostate, or whatever, doesn't just mean that I've rejected the values that my parents hold dear and have based a large part of their lives around. It also means that I'm depriving them of a son in their eternal afterlife. And when I think about my other siblings that are no longer practicing members it breaks my heart. So much love in the here and now, but as far as my parents are concerned, they'll spend eternity separated from their children. I can only imagine how deep that has to cut, and how they might feel like they've let down their family when the stakes were highest. It hurts to think about, and is the only enticing reason for me to return.

Why has it taken me so long to write all this out? Guilt and shame by the heapful. As anonymous-ish as I try to keep this blog, I'm worried that it'll float back to my parents and cause them further grief. That's the last thing I want to do. For those of my family that are still involved with the Church, I'm cool with them doing their thang. If it brings them happiness and meaning, who am I to argue?

I still feel like a failure sometimes for not being able to make it work in the Church. Like I did something wrong and screwed up. At other times, I feel betrayed by the leadership for some level of deception. Some days I feel cheated out of my faith. Other days I feel liberated from it.

This'll probably conclude my writings on the matter. It had been building up over the last couple years to the point where I've found myself hoping that someone would ask me about it. Then I'd finally be able to burst like a dam, but who the hell would want to listen to all that? Stories like mine are a dime a dozen and have been told many times over. Maybe if you're on the fence or trying to deal with the aftermath of leaving your faith this will be of some solace. Mostly though, I had to just get it out of myself. I had to process and straighten my story and understand my own emotions on the subject.

Perhaps I might even find some resolution and closure. Just maybe.
-Cril