The Church Doesn't Hide its History

"...but the church doesn't hide its history. You could have studied this any time you wanted to."

I don't know how many times someone has told me this when I share with them how betrayed I felt when I started studying LDS church history in detail. Besides being a very dismissive comment, it is just not true. The church has carefully crafted its historical narrative. They spend every year out of four in Sunday School discussing church history. It is just that a small subset of the historical knowledge base is emphasized. Is that the same as hiding history? I think so but that is debatable.

But what is not debatable is what I just pulled up on lds.org. The church has been making more and more historical documents available, such as Joseph F. Smith's journals. Good for them for doing this.

But check out these couple of pages (view images 10 and 11 here):





What's with the big black blocks?!?!?!?!? 

Well, it turns out that we know roughly what is in that section because a few people have seen it and one of them, D. Michael Quinn, actually transcribed it and that transcript actually resides in his notes today and is publicly known. Basically, the entry makes reference to the fact that in the Council of Fifty meetings in Nauvoo, everyone swore to be subject to a death penalty if they revealed what went on in the meetings. Unflattering stuff for sure, but not as unflattering in my opinion as being caught hiding stuff like this. That is very unbecoming behavior for an organization that claims to have more truth than any other on the earth. This is exactly the kind of behavior that showed me that I cannot trust the church to level with me.

And please, if you are one of those people going around gaslighting those of us who have lost trust in the institution of the LDS church, telling us that the church has always been open with its history, please please stop. Stop right now.

The church is surely getting better at this but it has a ways to go. The Council of Fifty meeting minutes are scheduled to be released next month. But the fact is that they have been hidden up to and past the point of this writing on 8/12/16.

Hopefully they will remove these (and any other) black blocks out of the LDS historical documents that they have published soon.

Insight into the Experience of Doubt

I recently read a blog post Kayla Lemmon that discussed Tyler Glenn's new music video in which he expresses his pain and anger at the LDS church. The purpose of my post is not to discuss the blog post or the music video, although I found both interesting. I just found a response to a comment on the blog by someone named Kerry to be particularly insightful and thought I'd share it.

TK's Comment (parent comment):

Having seen many fall away from the Church, my heart also aches for these individuals. 

My problem is the approach of many of these departing brothers and sisters. I understand that they are hurt. Often, when the culture (not the doctrine) is the cause of the pain, they have every reason to be hurt. 

But, when I speak with offended or questioning individuals (and I have on many occasions), they have never been willing to approach their Bishop and discuss their concerns. They are never willing to speak to leaders or reach out to those members that sincerely want to help them. Instead, they reach out to the John Dehlins or the media. Instead, they attend the Saturday afternoon session of general conference so they can scream “no” at the top of their lungs–even though this act represents a serious misunderstanding of the practice of sustaining. Or, in this case, they create music videos where they deface religious icons that are important to many. 

I wish they would reach out to the many caring bishops that would sit with them and help them understand, resolve, or overcome their issues. Obviously, there are bishops out there that–for unfortunate reasons–may be unapproachable. In my experience though, the vast majority of these leaders are willing and desperate to help. 

To sum up my thoughts: my heart aches for them, and I wish they would use the mechanisms in place to get the help they need. Those mechanisms do exist, but they don’t appear in the forms we are used to in a democratic society. They aren’t done on the street corners or in a crowded forum; instead, like the act of rescuing a lost sheep, they are done on an individual basis.

Kerry's response to TK's comment:

Non-member here, with a life-long fascination with the church and years of experience reading about and talking to those who leave. I occupy a strange middle ground in this debate, and as such I think I can explain the behavior of those departing in a way that makes sense to you. 

I’m sure your experience with leavers is honestly represented here, but bear in mind that nobody really knows another person’s story. Those people who refused to talk to the Bishop were almost certainly carrying trauma you didn’t see. In virtually all cases, leaving the church is an incredibly painful and lonely experience. It is not a decision that people undertake lightly, or simply because they are offended. Imagine what it would take for you to lose your faith, and you have some idea what these people are up against. They don’t want to lose their faith. Very often it is an internal battle that is fought and lost over a period of months or years. 

The thing that makes this battle so incredibly painful is the fact that usually it cannot be shared with anyone. Raising serious doubts and concerns, unless it’s done with extreme caution, will in most cases provoke angry and frightened reactions. Believers will see it as a threat to their reality, and they will react defensively. In order to maintain the peace and protect those they love from pain, doubters tend to carry their doubts alone. They hide the burden until they cannot hide it any longer, and usually at that point they leave. This decision can seem sudden and rash to those around them, but it isn’t, it is simply the visible culmination of an invisible struggle. 

Usually a lea[v]er’s friends and family will counsel them to pray, read scripture, talk to the Bishop, as though the leaver hadn’t tried all these things repeatedly and found them to be ineffective. It hurts to hear these suggestions, because it reminds the leaver that their friends do not understand their struggle and cannot help them. Some people will not meet with a Bishop at any point during their deconversion, but this is rare, and usually happens because the leaver understands their own problems well enough to know that the Bishop has no answers for them. It’s not that Bishops are not caring and eager to help; of course they are. It is that solutions simply do not exist. Again, imagine what it would take to destroy your faith and you will understand why a meeting with the Bishop is not going to change anything. 

You say that you have empathy for those who leave, and I believe you. But bear in mind that even kind intentions, when improperly expressed, can cause damage. When you speak to someone who is on their way out, please give them enough credit to assume they have already prayed and asked for help. Approach them with an attitude of trying to understand them, rather than trying to fix them. Whether they ultimately choose to leave or stay, their journey and yours will be better if you treat one another with respect and kindness.

The bold emphasis is mine.

I don't have much to say about it other than it really summed up my experience clearly and spoke to me. Thank you, Kerry, whoever you are.

Where is the LDS church headed?

I had been thinking recently about why I felt anxious and abused at LDS church Sunday School and Priesthood quorum lessons. I mean, just thinking about going makes my chest feel tight and my heart rate rise. I think that this is extremely odd since I don't react to the prospect of any other meeting that way. I've been asking myself what the issue is there.

Then recently, D. Todd Christofferson made a post on Facebook that I think allowed me to deconstruct what is going on. Here is the post:

I’m not sure what is behind the increasing attacks upon the Prophet Joseph Smith in our current time, but one thing is for sure: it is increasing. I want to declare my witness of this great prophet. 

In his youth, this pure-hearted boy came to know Jesus Christ. He not only knew of Him, but he knew Him. There were more than one or two occasions when he communed with Jehovah. He could stand as one who knew and bore witness of the identity of Jesus Christ. He heard from the mouth of God Himself that Jesus was His Son. He never faltered in that witness. 

There is no reasonable explanation for the existence of the Book of Mormon other than what the Prophet said—that he was given the power to translate it. No human in his condition could have originated the book. 

Joseph Smith never claimed to be perfect, and he told the Saints that, but he fulfilled his mission. He fulfilled his commission. He did what God ordained him and asked him to do. 

He now stands with the Savior having given a good report. May we recognize the debt of gratitude we owe him and thank our Heavenly Father for this obedient prophet who restored the gospel of Christ. (D. Todd Christopherson Facebook Post)

This elicits the same feelings I get in Sunday School lessons. Why? I think the answer is simply that this post is a denial of my reality. It is a subtle form of gaslighting. This post basically says that there is no possible valid reason to feel angry at Joseph Smith.

I grew up viewing Joseph Smith as a hero. He was a major role model for me. As the church portrayed him, he was a paragon of honesty, humility, and love for his wife, Emma. It was kind of shocking to find out that Joseph Smith was arrested because he ordered a printing press destroyed that was exposing his secret practice of polygamy (I always assumed it was trumped-up charges, did I assume that or was that taught to me?), or that he boasted in his May 26, 1844 sermon that he had accomplished things that Jesus never had, or that he chose to repeat marriage ceremonies with some of his polygamous wives to avoid telling Emma that he had already married them, or many other things, so on and so forth, etc. etc. etc.

I made the following comment when I initially read D. Todd Christofferson's post, which has since been deleted by him (or whoever manages his Facebook account):

Finding out about Joseph marrying teen orphan foster daughters and other men's wives after years of faithful service sure did not help my faith. Maybe if church leaders (cough cough) portrayed Joseph a little more realistically in conference talks there wouldn't be so many who feel so betrayed by the facts.

Obviously I was being quite snarky, but there is real pain behind that snark. When I began to research church history in earnest, I desperately desired understanding and validation of my concerns. One of the most painful moments in my life was visiting with my bishop and having him vehemently deny that Joseph Smith ever practiced polygamy and then proceed to ask me if I was cheating on my wife (because the only reason one could possibly have concerns about Joseph Smith is if you were an adulterer?!?!). Thankfully, other LDS members were much less judgmental, but it was hard to take that from my bishop. It hurt a lot. And it hurt more because I had no material from higher church authorities with which to enlighten him. No conference talks or other resources that would discuss Joseph's marrying of Orson Hyde's wife, teen orphan foster daughters, polygamy denials, etc. etc. etc. The church had plainly avoided these difficult subjects for quite some time, so my anger isn't just at Joseph, but in fact it is primarily directed toward the people who taught me a whitewashed version of Joseph, people like D. Todd Christofferson.

Back to Elder Christofferson's Facebook post, several days after the post was made, the following comment was the top comment with almost 1200 'likes'. The next highest comment had less than 500:

I used to have a testimony of Joseph Smith. But my testimony was based on the narrative that I learned while growing up in the church as well as what the church taught up until it released the essays on the church's web site. I was shocked and saddened to learn that my testimony was based on lies. I think that's a big factor in a lot of people's disdain for Joseph Smith. The translation wasn't what I thought it had been. The first vision wasn't what I thought it had been. The Book of Abraham wasn't what I thought it had been. And Joseph Smith's relationship with Emma wasn't anywhere near what I thought it had been. 

So I am leaving my comment here not to diss anyone, but to share why many people have changed their opinion about Joseph Smith and have lost their testimony of him. I don't wish to lead anyone astray, but I want to provide insight.

If you know all of these horrible issues and still have a testimony of him, then that is your choice and your belief, and I respect that. But there are many of us who can no longer believe and have gone through a traumatic faith transition. Please respect those of us who now believe differently. Thank you.

This comment (which I felt was quite respectful) was deleted the same day that my comment was deleted, and these deletions go right to the heart of why I felt abused all my life at church.

When I go to church, I feel deleted. It is not a place where I can share myself, and it is that way by design. The lessons go out of their way to avoid covering the subjects that are big concerns for me and make it clear that my perspective is invalid. Basically, they deny my reality, which is exactly what Elder Christofferson did when he deleted my and many other comments on Facebook. These are the kinds of games that abusers play. Someone with truth on their side need not do this.

I wish I could ask Elder Christofferson directly where the church is headed and get an honest answer. Not that it matters much but I am curious. Is the church going to eventually acknowledge the elephant in the room that is the historical record or are we going to keep pretending that we can't possibly imagine how anyone could have any serious concerns about anything Joseph Smith ever did? Are they going to limit the discussion of Joseph's foibles to "sometimes he played with kids" or are we going to wrestle with the theological implications of Joseph's polyandry (marrying other men's wives) and the like?

When Epistemology and Doublethink Collide

Let me define epistemology and doublethink to start out so that we are sure to be on the same page with these words.

Epistemology is just the study of how we gain knowledge. It answers questions like, what are good methods of learning and how sure can we be that we are right?

'Doublethink' is a term coined by George Orwell in his book 1984 and simply refers to believing two contradictory things at the same time. It is something we find a lot in high-commitment ideologies (like in the fictional world in that book) but we find it elsewhere as well.

Now the reason I am writing this article today is that I grew up Mormon and lately I have been thinking of how my views on the subject of epistemology have changed since I left that church. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that doublethink lay at the foundation of my methods of determining truth in that earlier phase of my life.

Anyone who has spent very much time in or around the LDS church knows that Epistemology in the LDS faith is centered on the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is described as mostly speaking to us through our feelings (it is acknowledged that the Holy Ghost can speak directly to a person with audible words or even appear before them but stories of this actually happening are very rare). The Holy Ghost is stated to be the best method to gain knowledge. Here are a couple of quotes to back this up:

In addition, the gift of the Holy Ghost is available as a sure guide, as the voice of conscience, and as a moral compass. This guiding compass is personal to each of us. It is unerring. It is unfailing. (James E. Faust, The Gift of the Holy Ghost - A Sure Compass, April 1989)

[The Holy Ghost's] communication to our spirit carries far more certainty than any communication we can receive through our natural senses. (LDS.org Gospel Topics, The Holy Ghost)

Mormons are told to pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true (implying that the events recounted in it actually, literally occurred). The response of the Holy Ghost to this question is supposed to imply that the entire belief system is correct and any factual assertions that the leaders make are also correct. All of this is proven correct by feelings given to you by the Holy Ghost. So it is easy to see that the reliability of this method is of the utmost importance.

And this is why it was always so concerning to me when I heard church leaders address the issue that crops up when someone has an experience where they feel that the Holy Ghost tells them something that contradicts what the church teaches. It is usually handled by explaining that the experience didn't come from the Holy Ghost, but from some counterfeit:

Be ever on guard lest you be deceived by inspiration from an unworthy source. You can be given false spiritual messages. There are counterfeit spirits just as there are counterfeit angels. (See Moro. 7:17.) Be careful lest you be deceived, for the devil may come disguised as an angel of light. 

The spiritual part of us and the emotional part of us are so closely linked that is possible to mistake an emotional impulse for something spiritual. We occasionally find people who receive what they assume to be spiritual promptings from God, when those promptings are either centered in the emotions or are from the adversary. (Boyd K. Packer, The Candle of the Lord, 25 June 1982)

This opens a huge can of worms for me. Here is where the doublethink lies. You cannot claim that a method for learning truth can easily give convincing false results (whether by Satan or by self-delusion) and also claim this is a high-reliability method for determining truth. Those two claims are mutually exclusive.

And besides this, the same feeling can be subject to dramatically different interpretations depending on the person who interprets it. I have seen people claim, upon learning some of the stranger details of the origins of LDS polygamy, that the bad feelings that they felt were proof that the things they were learning were not true. I have also seen people claim to believe that similar bad feelings were sent by the Holy Ghost to tell them that the things that early church leaders did were wrong. Now, my personal opinion at this point in time is that I felt bad learning those things simply because it doesn't feel good to learn unflattering things about people you hold in high regard. It didn't feel good to me to learn about Bill Cosby, either, but I hope you get my point that a simple feeling is easy to interpret many different ways.

What got me thinking about all of this was looking into the methods that other religions (which make factual truth claims that contradict each other) use to determine if their beliefs are true, a point that is well-illustrated in the video below.

Notice anything? They are all suspiciously similar. The "testimony meeting" format of the young polygamist girl's profession of knowledge of her beliefs will seem especially familiar to others who are or were LDS. It seems that the Holy Ghost told her things that contradict what it has told to people in the LDS church, and many other churches. Or maybe she just didn't interpret the feeling correctly. Or maybe she was tricked by Satan or her own feelings. Or possibly something else that I can't think of. It's not perfectly clear and straightforward by any means, if this is indeed the way God intended to tell us the most important things in life.

Since leaving the LDS belief system, I have had people ask me questions like, "What about your spiritual experiences? How can you cast them aside?" I have also had people tell me that, "Deep down I know the LDS church is true."

First, I would say that I could never, even as a full believer, state my beliefs with as much surety as the Muslims or the Heaven's Gate followers in the video above. I'm just not the type of person that has had strong experiences of this nature and this doesn't worry me. I have strong experiences of awe and wonder, but I just don't think that this is telling me anything about objective truth.

Second, to those who tell me that I know the LDS church is true, I would just say no. No I don't. In the bottom of my heart I really, really don't.

While I don't expect this to convince anyone to change their mind about they way they view the world with this article, I hope people are able to see why it is hard for me to accept the Holy Ghost or feelings as a reliable way to determine objective, factual truth and why I am bothered by the doublethink that I think is involved.

Thanks for reading. As always, your comments and thoughts are appreciated even if you don't agree with me.

Well, I Did It...

I mailed my resignation letter last week. There is a part of me that is a bit sad and it feels like I am closing the door on the LDS part of my life, but I still have a lot of really good LDS friends that I will continue to interact with. I like who I am and for better or worse, being LDS has made me who I am, so it doesn't make sense to be angry and fight against something I have no control over. It just felt like it was time. It feels good to look forward to the future.

Anyway, I have been feeling a waning interest in LDS issues, so I just thought I'd make a post that is a table of contents for my thoughts/concerns with LDS doctrine. If I ever feel like I have something to say again, I may write on this blog again. But this is goodbye for now.

The issues below represent my thoughts on what I feel are the unsolvable problems in LDS theology, history, and morality.

Introduction

Historical Racial Teachings in LDS Doctrine

Polygamy and Honesty

Polygamy and Coercion

Other Moral Issues with Polygamy

Translation of the Book of Abraham

Science vs. Doctrine

God as a Moral Exemplar in LDS Theology

My Letter to LDS Church Leaders

What Would it Take to Get Me Back to Church?

Thoughts on John Dehlin's Upcoming Disciplinary Council

My thoughts on Dehlin himself:

I have never understood John. My own way of thinking is very different from his. He always came across to me as somewhat overly emotional, indecisive, not particularly good at interviewing (talks far too much about himself and asks leading questions), and I never understood his desire to stick with the LDS church given how many problems he obviously had with it.

However, John is a man with a ton of energy. My own journey had me wanting to distance myself from the LDS church and invest less and less time there as I became more and more disillusioned, but John seemed to really like being in the church despite his problems with it. John somehow had his faith shaken to the core and yet found the energy to invest countless hours seeking out interview subjects and performing interviews. As a result, he amassed an unprecedented pile of easy-to-access information. So when I read Todd Compton's book and I wondered who Compton was, I went and listened to Compton talk with Dehlin for hours and came out feeling like I knew the man. Same for Simon Southerton, Terryl/Fiona Givens, Richard Bushman, and many, many others. This was incredibly valuable to me at that point in my life and for that I will always be grateful to John.

My impression of Dehlin has been that he has vacillated between trying to steer people into staying in the church and stating that people should do whatever they think is right. I have never gotten the impression that he has tried to get them to leave. Now certainly many of the issues he discusses are disturbing to many people and cause some (many?) to leave the church but that is hardly John's fault, that is the fault of Joseph Smith et al. or God, depending on your point of view, or in other words, those who made the 'history' in the first place.

The Church's place in this conflict:

When I was suddenly thrust into my "dark night of the soul" after reading the Wikipedia article on Joseph Smith in late July 2012, I desperately wanted official answers to my questions from the LDS church. The information that I found was extremely sparse. It was clear that the only way to learn about the details about the origins of polygamy was from sources outside the church. I went to my bishop to discuss my concerns and was told that Joseph only ever had one wife and was told to go think about what I was doing to my family, pretty unhelpful advice given the nature of my issues. I had precious little official information from the LDS church with which to rebut my bishop's mistaken beliefs about Joseph's monogamy. All I could find was a little one-liner in the Gospel Topics section of lds.org that said something to the effect of Joseph having cautiously taught and practiced polygamy. I could find absolutely no discussion of the details that I was concerned about. Even after the release of the new essays, there is no discussion of the vast majority of the details that concern me.

So while John Dehlin and many others have been discussing these issues in detail and this has caused many to leave the LDS church, this is in my view not their fault. The disturbing issues are disturbing because they are in fact disturbing and confusing. This is not the fault of the critics. The church seemingly cannot offer answers that are satisfactory to people like me, otherwise they would have charged into the discussion and offered them long ago. For a church that warns so much about the arguments of the critics, the LDS church spends precious little effort discussing the issues that concern the people who are listening to the critics.

I will never forget that when I desperately needed frank discussion and validation of my concerns, the helping hand of the LDS church was nowhere to be found. There was no official discussion of my concerns. My bishop lacked even the most basic historical literacy on these thorny issues. So where did I go? Unofficial internet apologists, critics, books written by historians, and everything in between. Where else could I have gone?

I find it ironic that one of these voices will be on trial for weighing in on subjects that the LDS church was so late to the game to weigh in on themselves. While the LDS church has addressed some issues in the years since, these responses still largely sidestep the real questions and concerns that I have, things that Dehlin has discussed in detail with various experts in the fields they represent. The church doesn't seem to have the courage to weigh in themselves, but they seem to have the courage to kick someone out who does.

Also, Dehlin has expressed his desire to have someone attend his trial to take notes or to tape-record the proceedings. The church has responded by denying his requests to have a note-taker and requiring the signing of a form that says that he will not record the trial (even though Utah law allows recording conversations, even without the consent of others present).

There is something just not right to me about an organization holding a trial for somebody and insisting that it be done in secret when that person wants it done in the open, especially when that person is concerned about abuses of power by that organization. I mean, I understand protecting confidentiality if that is what the person wants but the insistence of keeping things secret when the person on trial does not wish it does not seem right.

Where do I stand?

I don't believe the foundational truth claims of the LDS church. I also believe in an inalienable right to total authenticity for all people. I don't ever expect someone to hide their true thoughts and feelings from me and I reserve the right to share mine whenever I want to, in public or not.

It has been difficult to get clear information on exactly what John did that is considered "apostasy". From what I can tell, though, I am guilty of all of the same things that John is, just on a smaller scale, since I just have fewer people reading my thoughts. I don't agree with the church is many areas and don't believe it's truth claims, and I express myself publicly on my blog. Am I guilty of apostasy?

When I listened to Elder Uchtdorf's talk, "Come, Join with Us," I honestly thought I was still welcome despite my disbelief and speaking my honest thoughts but recent excommunications have me thinking that I am not. For the first time, I am actually thinking of writing a letter to have my name removed from the membership records of the church. I'm not sure I believe in Jesus anymore but I am pretty familiar with the New Testament and I just can't see Jesus handling things the way things are being handled by LDS church leaders these days. In fact, wasn't there a story in the New Testament of a trial being held in the middle of the night to avoid scrutiny? I wouldn't be surprised if there was a request for a note-taker that was denied for that one as well.

Edit: My wife pointed out that while I stated above that "the helping hand of the LDS church was nowhere to be found," that actually isn't true. There were some kind LDS friends who did reach out to me and I am very grateful for that. The LDS church is full of very kind people and I need to acknowledge that.

What I was trying to express with that statement was my frustration to a lack of official answers for difficult questions. For example, if D&C 132 speaks of polygamy only in the context of men marrying multiple virgins, what in the Hell was Joseph Smith doing marrying Orson Hyde's wife while Hyde was on a mission to Palestine? That is the type of question I don't expect the brethren to try and tackle any time soon because I don't think there is any possible good answer. The mere fact that it needs to be asked is incredibly troubling. Add to this the fact that many people find out about this stuff from somewhere other than the church (usually critics) and you get many people who feel basically that the church purposely withheld information to keep them in, and there is a very strong feeling of betrayal.

So I recognize that John is attempting to shame the church publicly and that they have every right to kick him out of the church, but I have this pipe dream where Thomas S. Monson gets up next conference and says, "Folks, there are lots of people out there who find out some of our historical quirks at a late age, things like Joseph marrying his friend's wives, his own teen foster daughters, Brigham Young endorsing slavery, etc. etc. and they are kind of angry that they only found this out after decades of dedicated service to the church. Frankly, we as leaders could have done a better job of preparing people for the digital age. Please be understanding and kind to people who lose their faith in Joseph Smith." Why haven't they already done this? Do they deserve some shame for not doing something like this? Instead we get Elder Andersen's backhand slap comparing us to Judas. I hope that the church can improve on this some day but I have grown weary of waiting.

What Would it Take to Get Me Back to Church?

My wife and I recently met with my bishop. I hadn't met with him since I was in acute crisis mode 2.5 years ago when I initially lost my belief in Joseph Smith's status as prophet of God.

Basically, the bishop offered to continue to meet with me with the goal of helping me re-establish a relationship with Jesus and to know that Jesus is in charge of the LDS church. He told me that this knowledge has brought him great happiness and that he wanted to share that with me. I shared with him some of my concerns that I felt contradicted some of the claims that the church makes. It was a civil and kind conversation all around, I thought, but it got me to thinking, what would it take to get me back to full activity and belief in the LDS church?

Spiritual Experience

Would some sort of spiritual experience do it? I have a deeply rational/analytic personality and despite praying heavily all my life I have honestly just felt like I was talking to myself. When I initially started learning the details of the origins of Mormon polygamy, the Book of Abraham, and racist comments* made by past prophets I decided to apply methods that I had been taught my entire life to solve the problem. I prayed about it. At the time, I was exceptionally emotional. So I opened myself up to the possibility that God would explain it all to me. I said a prayer and asked what I was supposed to do and I felt a calm, peaceful feeling come over me and felt distinctly that I should no longer try to justify Joseph Smith and other LDS church leaders' questionable behavior and that I should no longer be a disciple of that church.

Now that is a hard story for an LDS believer to swallow. In the believer's paradigm the church is true, so the Spirit would never tell someone to separate themselves from it. If I got that answer, I *must* have done something wrong. This presents an interesting conundrum. The Spirit is on the one hand the highest form of truth. It is what you use to establish the veracity of the church, so it is necessarily higher in the hierarchy of tools to use to determine truth than the teachings of the church itself. The LDS church teaches that the Spirit is the most sure way to know something. On the other hand, the spirit can be unreliable. Also according to LDS church teachings, the Devil can give you spiritual promptings or your own feelings can be easily mistaken for spiritual promptings from God. I don't understand how a method can be both so sure and unsure.

It ends up playing out a lot like this in practice: A person who feels prompted by the spirit to leave the church is told to ask God again. The logic becomes completely circular. A Mormon would never tell someone to ask again and again if they received an answer to stay in the church, but they have no problem telling someone to ask again and again with the goal of getting an answer to stay in the church. The funny thing is, there is also a well-known cautionary tale in LDS teachings (the story of the lost 116 pages) that serve to caution against asking again after receiving an answer from God.

Another interesting thing I have done is read, or whenever possible watched on YouTube, people sharing how they know that their religion is correct. It is almost invariably that they asked God and had a positive emotion as a response to that prayer or that they just know it is true because of how they feel when they are listening to the teachings. I watched footage of "Heaven's Gate" cult followers talking about how they knew that their religion was true and I was really struck with how similar it was to being in an LDS testimony meeting. How do I make sense of that in the Mormon paradigm?

When it comes down to it, I think that the answer to my prayer did come from me. I don't think that a simple emotional feeling is enough to establish the truthfulness of something beyond a reasonable doubt.

Okay, so a simple feeling probably wouldn't be enough to get me back. Would I accept a visit from the God of Abraham in the flesh as a spiritual experience that would put me back in full church activity? Possibly.

You see, given the behavior of the God of Abraham in the Bible and in LDS history, I think if he does in fact exist it is a distinct possibility that he is not a good or moral being. For me to follow him, we would have to sit down and have a chat where he would explain some seemingly unexplainable things. For instance, why he ordered genocide and the killing of babies in Canaan, why he was cool with slavery, why he sent an angel with a sword to threaten to kill Joseph Smith unless he married dozens of women, etc. Earlier in my life I was okay to have a parent/child relationship with my church where my church would tell me what to do and I would do it without question. I now would demand an adult/adult relationship, even to God's face. I need to be told why I am doing something and then be invited to do it. I deserve that.

Jesus Leading the Church

I want to address another thing that my bishop said in our chat, that he knows that Jesus is the head of this church and that he wanted to restore my relationship with Jesus. I responded to him that I have no problems with Jesus and my issues were that I didn't think that the data lines up with that theory. To be sure, the LDS church has some beautiful teachings and motivates a lot of people to do good, but I don't see Jesus leading Joseph Smith to give coercive marriage proposals to teen foster daughters. I don't see Jesus telling Brigham Young to declare that slavery is God's will to the Utah Territorial Legislature (leading to the legalization of slavery in Utah in 1852). I don't see Jesus when LDS church leaders deny the practice of polygamy while practicing it in secret. What does it even mean when Mormons say that Jesus is leading the church? Does it mean that he occasionally bumps them in the right direction while they make huge moral mistakes in the name of God? Or does it mean that Jesus wanted all of these weird things to happen? I need an explanation if I were to ever even consider coming back.

You see, for a very long time Jesus was my hero. Mormons are famous for reading the Book of Mormon over and over but I always wanted to read the four Gospels. I don't have problems with Jesus, I have problems with LDS church leaders and their inability or unwillingness to condemn bad decisions by past leaders. I just don't think that Jesus would have a problem doing that.

Happiness

Another thing my bishop touched on was his desire to share with me the happiness that he feels in the LDS church. I didn't say anything in our visit, but it seems like the assumption behind his statement was that I am unhappy for having left the church. This is the complete opposite of how I feel. I am happier now than I have ever been, and I was never more miserable than when I truly believed it all and was doing everything that the church asked of me. I am an introvert and the LDS church can be pure hell for introverts. I served as an Elder's Quorum President and during that time I would dwell on how restful death would be if I got in an accident and died, because I was continuously being asked to do things that were *way* outside my comfort zone. So you have to excuse me if I am skeptical that I am going to jump back in to church activity and that everything will be sunshine and roses for me. After having left the LDS church behind, I am happier and more fulfilled than I have ever been in my life. That isn't to say that losing my faith wasn't a traumatic experience and didn't cause me great pain and a need for healing, but I wouldn't trade back for anything now. Only now that I have separated myself from the church am I now unafraid of dying. Strangely, it terrified me when I was a believer.

For me, the main problem with participation in the LDS church is that it doesn't meet my needs. I don't get to discuss the things that interest me there. The lessons re-hash the same things over and over and don't answer the real questions I have. Why do God and prophets do things that seem morally reprehensible? Why is it a measure of our goodness whether we believe that things that seem morally bad are really somehow morally good (though we can't understand why)? Why isn't it more important that I treat others with kindness than that I believe a certain way about events long in the past? Why does that even matter at all?

What Are Prophets For?

This brings up another thing I don't understand. What is the role of a prophet? Because if God is going to go through all of the trouble of calling a prophet, it logically follows that God must have a strong desire to communicate clearly with us. So why is it that the best answer to my concerns is, "We'll find out after we die." Why doesn't the prophet just ask God why there was a priesthood ban for anybody of African descent if current church leaders don't know how the ban started? When Ordain Women tells the church leadership that they feel that women should have the priesthood and asks them to ask God if it is time to give the priesthood to women, why don't the church leaders just say, "Thanks for the suggestion. We asked and the answer is ..."? Why do they get defensive and offer stern warnings about the tone of the question? If the question is a good one, who cares who asked it or what their tone was? Or is it inappropriate for prophets to ask God questions?

Back to the Original Question

So what would it take to get me back into full activity? The church would have to take a new direction in a lot of things. Church culture would have to drastically change so that we celebrate learning from the mistakes of the past instead of pretending they never happened. The church would be much more focused on kindness than obedience. In fact, obedience would never be asked for, reasons simply would be given to do something and it would be up to the individual what to do. The church would focus on moral reasoning rather than on strict obedience. They would have to be completely comfortable with the full participation of non-believers. It would be a completely different place, which is why I am not asking for this to happen. Even if all that happened, I may not want to go. I'm an introvert and I think I'm already doing pretty well at moral reasoning. I go out with friends and we discuss moral concerns in small group settings and that really is enough for me. There really is no church-sized hole in my soul.

On the other hand, to be clear, I don't think there is anything that can ever make me believe that there is a just and prefect creator of the universe that wanted so badly for Joseph Smith to have dozens of wives that he sent an angel with a sword to threaten to kill him if he didn't (as is taught in the new lds.org essay on Nauvoo polygamy and in the new seminary manual). If I have to believe those sorts of things, I don't think I can do it. I will stay a lone wolf. I don't think it is possible for me to go back to that unquestioning, uncritical belief that I had earlier in my life.

* Such as when Brigham Young said that slavery was God's will in his 1852 speech to the Utah Territorial Legislature, or when John Taylor said that blacks survived the flood so "...that the devil should have a representation upon the earth as well as God," or when various prophets and apostles stated that blacks were less valiant in the pre-existence and that was the reason for their not being able to hold the priesthood (now explicitly disavowed in the new essay).