Going back to Church

Recently, I've been asked variations of a question several times by active Mormons, ex-Mormons, and Never-Mos. That question is: “What would it take for you to go back?” or “What would it take to change your mind?”

It’s an interesting question, to say the least, and I've thought a lot about it. I know a lot of people who would say, “I will never go back,” or “I will never change my mind,” etc. But I’m not someone who works in absolutes. Only a Sith does that . . . 

But the simple answer to that question is the same as the one Bill Nye (the Science Guy) gave at the end of his debate with Ken Ham: Evidence. (You can watch the part in question here.) Before we move on, let’s examine those answers. Ken Ham’s answer was: “No one is ever going to convince me the word of God is not true.” While I have to admire his personal conviction, I believe it to be the epitome of foolishness to stick to one’s guns in the face of incontrovertible evidence.

Here’s my favorite example of this exact thing. Like him or hate him, Jon Stewart often has really good points. This is a piece about Nancy Grace, the HLN anchor who was absolutely sure that the Duke Lacrosse team raped a girl. She harped about it for *months* almost every night. When the evidence cleared the boys of any charges, she didn't come out and apologize or admit she was wrong. If you skipped past the link, go back and watch it. It's quite entertaining. (For what it's worth, if you want to see a great fictional representation of her, go watch Gone Girl)

Can you imagine what our justice system would be like if the police or ADA just decided someone was guilty and ignored any evidence to the contrary? Every so often we’d have a press conference with the DA or a judge explaining that there doesn't need to be a trial because they felt it in their hearts that the suspect was guilty and put them into the correctional system earlier that day. Doesn't sound very fun to me.

I know eating crow is humbling and not very fun, but admitting one is wrong when the evidence says so is taking the high road, and it is what should happen in an honest society. I remember an “argument” that I had with a companion while I was in Japan regarding the filming location of the movie Karate Kid Part II. I had known a guy who went there on his mission and wrote back about how he was serving where the movie was filmed. My companion said it wasn't really filmed there, but was shot in Hawaii instead. We went back and forth with our reasons for why we thought the way we did, and it got a little heated, each of us absolutely sure we were correct. After a while, we realized that this was something that could be easily verified using the internet. We did so at a member’s house later that week, and it turns out that it was filmed in Hawaii. I admitted I had been mistaken, we moved on, and it was never brought up again. I believe that had I not admitted defeat, ( by saying something like, “The people who run that website are all liars,” or, “I don’t care what it says”) it would have become a wedge between us. But it wasn't and didn't have to be.  I’m not trying to boast of myself, just give an example I know from my own life.

I think it’s admirable that someone is able to change their views to fit the evidence. That’s what science (usually) does, and I wish it were more common in the world. It takes an amount of integrity and maturity to do this, but for a lot of people, not admitting to having ever been wrong is more important than almost anything.

But anyway, back to the question: What would it take for me to go back? 
Based on the numbers the BoM reports, there should be scads of archaeological evidence of some kind of Christian-believing Hebrew civilization. We should be able to find DNA evidence of Hebrew blood in Native American populations. We should be able to show that Joseph Smith could translate Egyptian before anyone else. Sadly, this kind of evidence is sorely lacking.

But if the church were able to show evidence that its current claims were true, I would be stupid to not go back. After all, my eternal salvation would be at stake. But even still, it's an interesting thought experiment, but I would rephrase the question as, "What would it take for me to go back knowing that it's just another man-made organization?"

Well, it would have to be a lot of things that would be changed. I can't un-know what I now know about the true history of the church. But I will admit that there are a few things I miss about it. Things like, having instant friends, having a community of support, and organized parties (for Halloween or Christmas).

So I guess I would go back just for a sense of community, but the following things would have to happen (this list is partially my own thoughts mingled with suggestions from other ex-mormons):

• They would have to dispose of the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham as canon because neither has proof in scientific evidence which is externally supported. (Scientists aren't out to get Mormons or deliberately ignoring evidence that supports it. The evidence just isn't there). A couple of Egyptologists at BYU suggest that the Book of Abraham isn't wrong, but who signs their paycheck?
• The Quorum of the 12 and First Presidency would have to publicly admit that they are not actually prophets seers and revelators but merely businessmen running a church. It would also mean coming clean with their entire history, and dropping the "one, true church as the only way to get back to heaven" shtick. 
• They would have to become financially transparent and probably minimize excess wealth in a mass donation of services especially to its poorest regions. ($1.4 billion in humanitarian aid over 26 years versus $3.5 billion spent on a mall by Temple Square is unethical and I am almost positive Jesus as depicted in the New Testament would rebuke the leadership as he did the money changers).
• Their teachings would have to focus solely on teaching Christ-like values of charity, forgiveness, withholding judgement, and entirely drop the sexual shaming of children and adults. 
• Drop F&T meeting - it's just people reassuring themselves that they are right and "brainwashing." Change the culture from the top down to stop saying, "I know the church is true," and start letting people say, "I believe in Christ's teachings," or something like that. Stop the emphasis on the organization and more on the teachings. 
• No more temple recommend interviews at any age. Confession becomes entirely optional and self driven.
• Drop the sexist culture of modesty of women to help men keep their minds clean and focus on respecting each other. Women, are not, as Dallin H. Oaks suggested (paraphrased) "walking pornography" because they choose to wear a low cut or sleeveless top or shorts/skirt above their knees or a bikini, and men are not mindless sex addicts who will hump a bare shoulder on sight. 
• Ditch the garments; they're pretty unbearable, especially in summer heat. Also, having everyone check up on each other's underwear in order to know how righteous everyone else is being is creepy.
• Ditch the temple ceremonies entirely and make temples an open place of worship and meditation. It's clear that the Endowment is a hybridization of Masonic rites and Moses 4. They made no sense to me when I went through. I have learned that they are out of place due to being a man-made combination of a medieval fraternity's ceremony and Joseph Smith's version of Genesis. I expected something more focused on Jesus or learning about self. 
• It would have to accept science and history where applicable. No more young earth teaching in Seminary, no more anti-gay mantra, no more anti-history (see Boyd K. Packer as an offender with The Mantle is Far Far Greater than the Intellect specifically in his commentary about truth not being useful and that historians should hold back things that don't promote faith).
• The church would have to promote equality of all members. (Probably either need to offer priesthood to all, or dispose of the idea entirely and just treat each other as equals including having female leadership even up to the First Presidency and among the apostles and 70's. "Women are to motherhood as men are to fatherhood," not "women are to motherhood as men are to priesthood," which is a false equivalency.
• The church would have to stop "love bombing" people, because it's intrusive. If someone is interested in returning to church, they'll do it of their own volition. Groups of people just dropping in on others, frankly is cultish and rude. People should always call ahead before appearing at someone's front door, especially if this person has never met the other person. How can Home and Visiting Teachers actually suggest that they love or miss someone who they've never met? Also, it's a shallow system, I have yet to keep in touch with anyone I was home or visit taught by after I moved out of that ward or branch. These are "assigned" associations, not natural affiliations and friendships.
• Missions could continue in an entirely humanitarian aid function. No more proselytizing and no trying to find people who have just gone through a life change as "Golden contacts." It's exploiting people in a time of weakness to get people to convert after divorce, death, or financial hardship. Having 80,000 strong as a humanitarian force would do a lot more to drum up interest in the LDS church than knocking on door after door interrupting dinner after dinner.
• Ditch tithing as a requirement because the whole justification for it out of Malachi is flawed reasoning (but that's a discussion for another day). Make it a voluntary contribution, not mandatory if someone wants to see their kid/sibling/cousin/whatever get married in the temple. 
• Seriously cut down on the unnecessary meetings. 1 hour a week for church services should be plenty, and combined with other church activities/meetings, I would think that fewer than 3 hours per week should be spent in callings and such. 
• Change the amount of responsibility the leadership (specifically Bishops and Stake Presidents) have, along with the amount of time they spend away from family. Of all the people who suffer from "too much church," I think bishops' families are probably up there.

So there's a whole bunch of things. I really doubt it will happen, but you never know. It happened to the RLDS Church when it changed itself into the Community of Christ. After learning about them, I think that if I were forced to pick a church to belong to, it would be them. Partly because of the shared heritage, partly because it's somewhat familiar to what I knew/learned as a kid, and partly because I can respect their integrity in all the changes they made.

(Written by Joseph)

It's been a good Summer (and Autumn so far)

This is the first post in quite a while, and for a good reason. I'd like to think that we have made further progress on our transition out of the church. It still comes up in conversation when things remind us about it, and I still go to the ex-Mormon discussion boards for updates, but it's not the obsession it used to be.

It will still be a long time before we hardly think about it at all, but we're getting there. We're still running the bi-weekly Ogden PostMos coffee meetups and met some really great people. Some of their stories have bits of humor and irony in them, and a lot of them have hurt and sadness because they were rejected by spouses and family after announcing their disaffection from the church. For a lot of them, their personal integrity was too strong to continue to pretend to believe and smile when they know the truth about the church.

But recently it's been being brought up a little more often because of a few things. General Conference is the main one, but along with it comes all the Facebook updates that our friends make about it. Hearing the chatter about the new "film" (I'm loathe to call it that, as it resembles an infomercial  more than anything) also does it. Admittedly, a lot of it is because we live in Utah. Had we been living somewhere else, it would not have been as big of a deal when we left, nor would we have to hear about it all the time on TV or at work.

Still, we like living here and have no plans to move because of it. There's just too much we love about living so close to just about everything (except the ocean, much to Anne's chagrin). So we will continue to endure and hope that we can help some others do the same.

Our Journey Together

Previous entries in this series:

Anne's Journey
The Tale of Sir Joseph: Part 1
The Tale of Sir Joseph: Part 2

The Transition Out

Because of our positions and callings, we kept going to church, but each week became more excruciating. We would come home infuriated at the lies that were being taught and perpetuated. We realized that most of it was being done unintentionally, but it still angered us the same. The other members of the ward had no idea they had been deceived, nor that they were perpetuating the deception to each other.

Anne had to teach a lesson to the YW one week, and just couldn't bring herself to teach the drivel from the manual, and instead substituted it with stories and quotes about living a good life and following Jesus. Another time, during a lesson on motherhood taught by someone else, she stated that she (personally) felt more validated/fulfilled when she worked and help provide for the family and encouraged the girls that being a stay-at-home-mom isn't the only "career" path there is. Her secretary quickly jumped in and corrected Anne, telling the girls that they should WANT to be a mother/SAHM, and that was the only goal they should have at this point.

I contacted an older cousin of mine because I had heard that she'd left the church some time ago. As it turns out, the rumors of her exit had been greatly exaggerated. She had, indeed, had a crisis of faith, but not quite like ours. She instead directed me to her younger sister, whose experience (and her husband's as well) was very much like ours. On our way back from Thanksgiving in St. George, we stopped by their house to talk to them about it. It was immensely helpful as we didn't know anyone else who had gone through something of this nature.

I became an active participant in the RfM message board, and later on Reddit as well. Through this I was able to interact with some of the people whose stories helped me out (like Simon Southerton), as well as post thoughts to deal with the anger and frustration I felt.

I wanted to stay just to finish my tenure as a Cubmaster until Avery aged out of Cub Scouts (which was about 8 months away) and Anne wished to make a graceful exit from the YW Presidency. This gave us time to contemplate and plan how we would leave, how we would tell our family, etc. We didn't think that going inactive slowly and discretely would work because of Aurora's anticipated baptism in the next year, and she'd have to field all kinds of questions from family about it. We realized that we had to tell our family in a letter, and let the bishop know that we wanted to be released.

Around this same time, I got word that one of the wards we combined with for Cub Scouts was pulling out of our group. Bishop Jackwagon (from the other ward) decided that their numbers had swollen enough to warrant running their own program. I realized that even though I had done an excellent job in running three wards' programs for 5 years, I could be overruled in the snap of a finger, even in the face of logic, proof, and persuasion. Once Bishop Jackwagon had decided that god had spoken to him, there was nothing I could say that would convince him otherwise. But at this point, I knew that the whole church worked this way.

We sat the older kids down to tell them what we'd found out and what it meant for the future. Aurora was excited to not have to go to church anymore and didn't really think about it much more than that. Avery was a little distraught. He tends to take things very literally, and had taken to heart what his primary teachers had told him about heaven/hell and how the church is necessary. It troubled him for some weeks, but he eventually came around. We started missing church about every other week starting with the new year, which we all loved.

Finally, we pulled the proverbial trigger. I went in to talk to Bishop Niceguy [a man for whom I have a lot more respect than Bishop Jackwagon and Bishop Coach] after church and told him we've found out some information, and that we wanted to be put on the "No-Contact List." I told him I would continue doing Cub Scouts until summer so he would have adequate time to find a replacement, but that other than that we didn't want to be bothered. He informed me that he would pass the message onto the ward council, and asked if I would come back the following Wednesday to talk about my list of concerns. I agreed, and had a list very similar to the information on the very first post of this blog. To his credit, Bishop Niceguy didn't try to convince me I was wrong, but just listened and asked questions. I had been thoroughly convinced that he actually kept confidential things to himself (unlike Bishop Coach and his wife).

We slowly "came out" to various friends and family in different ways. Most of my family said nothing other than my mom (who said that it was our choice and she still loves us) and one of my brothers, who asked a few questions before basically throwing the Top 5 Myths at me in rapid fire fashion (I had been reading "anti" material, I had allowed Satan in my life, I am not humble and think I'm smarter than "god", I didn't have a testimony, etc.). Other friends who were long inactive or never members rejoiced at our choice. All of Anne's family is either inactive or not members (with her sister and mother being the only exceptions), so we only caught a little flack from them.

After ward members had asked us if we had joined a polygamous sect, or joined a devil-worship church, or a few other things, Anne decided to post why we left on our family blog, and later start this blog. She sent it out to all of her ward Facebook friends just so we wouldn't have to explain it multiple times, and soon after  had several ward members unfriend her from Facebook. Then we got a call from the Home Teachers, and also a call from the Ward Mission Leader to help the missionaries teach a lesson to a neighbor across the street. I briefly contemplated saying yes and then sabotaging the lesson, but I told him I couldn't in good conscience teach things I don't believe in. Apparently, "No Contact" means something different to some people.

Summer came around, and Avery graduated from Cub Scouts. At that point, we decided we might as well resign from The So-Called Church (TSCC) so we would stop being bugged by them. We wrote up letters based on ones that others had used, printed them in triplicate and sent them off: One to Bishop Niceguy, one to President Shore, and one to Membership Records in SLC via registered mail. Soon after, we got a visit from Bishop Niceguy and President Shore to confirm that we had indeed written these letters, and a couple weeks later got a confirmation letter from SLC that our names had been removed. A special meeting about apostasy was held in our old ward soon after that, but you can read about that here.

The Future

Since leaving, there have been a lot of improvements and changes to our lives, all of them positive. Anne wrote about them in this post. There are times that we feel like we just want to move on and forget that part of our lives. However, we can't just erase part of our cultural and family heritage like that. It is at times frustrating to live in the Mormon Corridor (or Morridor) and be surrounded by TSCC. Sometimes we feel that it is our duty to expose the fraud and "save" others. I would liken it to someone who was fooled by Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme, and is now warning others not to give him money. Or like Morpheus trying to free the minds of those still caught in the Matrix.

But possibly the most aggravating thing is that a lot of the time, people don't want to be made aware. It's like learning that Santa Claus isn't real, or learning that the Great and Powerful Oz is just a man behind a curtain. The magic goes away, and the illusion is dissolved. Movies like The Matrix and V for Vendetta, 1984, the Village, and Pleasantville have a whole new meaning to me now, due to their portrayals of people who want to keep living the comforting lie because it's easier than learning the disturbing truths.

We found a support group of ex-mormons who meet a couple times a month for coffee. We get together, tell our exit stories, give and receive advice, have a few laughs, and give some informal therapy to each other. In fact, we now are sort of in charge of the Ogden Post-Mos group. Together, we help soften the blow from waking up to the reality about the church. You might say it's our "new calling" :)

The Tale of Sir Joseph: Part 2

Previous Entries in this Series:

Anne's Journey
The Tale of Sir Joseph: Part 1

On to Married Life

When I got home from Japan, I bought a replica of an original copy of the BoM from Deseret Book. I read from it for a couple nights in family scripture study, which was kinda fun because I would have to keep reading until someone told me to stop since there were no verse divisions. I had earned my way back to Ricks by virtue of serving a mission, but I didn't want to go back there. I soon moved to Utah, went to a singles ward, and like my time at Ricks, went to church faithfully. Not long after, I met my future wife, and got married all within about 6 months. For the first few months of our marriage, we went to the temple almost every week because Anne was convinced that she was clearly missing something in the temple that everyone else seemed to understand (I didn't know this at the time – I assumed she just really liked it).

We got callings in the Primary and felt that we went above and beyond the call of duty for our little class. Like always, we went to church every week and a lot of the “extras” like temple dedications and firesides.

One day while driving home from work, I saw “josephlied.com” written in cups in an overpass chain link fence. I visited the site, and was a little surprised at some of the “anti-mormon” information. It had a list of the significant changes to the BoM, as well as significant changes to the temple ceremony. Just then, my memory of my mom talking about removed penalties resurfaced and gave a little credibility to this “anti-mormon” webpage. Some of it made sense, some was quite shocking, and I had heard about very, very little of it. I talked with my cousin about it and he had visited it too. We were unsure of what to think, so we just changed topics and moved on. I didn't share it with Anne, out of fear of divorce, and didn't want to appear as though I was questioning. I knew I had to be the strong priesthood holder and couldn't show any signs of wavering. Though I felt a “dark” feeling when reading that information, I now realize that it was just cognitive dissonance - when one's beliefs don't match up with reality. I had been taught to recognize this feeling as "Satan" (or Stan, as we now call him).

At some point around here, Bishop Librarian apparently went nanners. According to my mom, he started getting revelation about taking on a teenage bride or something. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this information as I got it second hand, but she described his countenance as dark and depraved, and it was visibly obvious that he had lost the spirit (paraphrasing her).

Around age 25, I started on serious studies of Physics, math, and science in general as my major. I learned about scientific method and inquiry, and learning to question reasoning and see false reasonings. I grew accustomed to using logic and deduction to figure out what I needed to know. I also read about the research and evidence concerning evolution and Big Bang theory and how it was reasoned out.

I felt huge amounts of cognitive dissonance as I was trying to reconcile all of this solid evidence with what the church and scriptures taught. At some point, it finally occurred to me that the Old Testament can’t be correct. Since the church stands by it, it can’t be correct either. That realization suddenly made everything make sense. This gradually grew into a questioning of the church as a whole, and I started to see some of the problems. I again sporadically found sites discrediting the church. I found that the temple ceremony had changed several times, and a page online had the old and new versions.

Soon after, I heard the Initiatory ceremony at the temple was also changed. We went to the temple to confirm it and found the sides of the “shield” sewn up, and that now the washing and anointing to be done symbolically with none of the creepy touching that I remembered (later I would find out that it used to be an actually washing/scrubbing, and then was changed to be the symbolic creepy touching that I remember at 19 yrs old, only to become even MORE symbolic – sorta what the mormons accuse the Catholics of doing with baptism).

There were a couple of things that started to bother me about the church. Their involvement in Proposition 8 in California really rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed to go against church policy to stay out of politics. Also, when we heard that they were building a multi-billion dollarmall, I wondered why Jesus would need such a high-end shopping center. But for the most part I kept quiet, occasionally discussing it with Anne. Every once in a while we'd notice that information that should have been kept private was spread to the Ward Gossipers Council. We knew details about the private, personal lives of members of the ward that we really didn't need or want to know. Much of it came from Bishop Coach's wife, who apparently thought that her thinly veiled "anonymous" stories were okay to share as lesson examples in Sunday School.

Throughout all of this, I kept going faithfully to church for family/cultural reasons. I was terrified to tell Anne, and worried about the impending divorce if I were to do so. I served in the Elder’s Quorum Presidency because my good friend James and fellow Japan RM was the president. I did my home teaching during this period like I never had before because I had to set a good example. I taught lessons, I went to Ward Council a couple of times, and I called guys about their HT numbers for the month. Had it not been James who asked me, I might have said no to it. I had already turned down being the EQP once before years ago in our old ward. Actually, I accepted because [stake] President Blowhard wouldn't take no for an answer, so I said yes then wrote a letter turning it down. Anyway . . . after James was done being the EQP, I was called to replace him. I again turned down the calling but this Stake President was gracious about it.

Soon after, Anne was in the Primary Presidency and they discussed getting a new Cubmaster for the Cub Scout program. She suggested me because I was an Eagle Scout. I took that calling and ran with it. In fact, it was a combined Pack so I had 3 wards to deal with. But I soon grew to love it and went to any training I could, including Woodbadge. If there was a definition of “magnifying a calling,” I’m pretty sure this was it. In addition to not wanting a divorce, I stuck around to be “The” Scout leader of the ward. I really wanted Avery to have a good Cub Scout experience, so I used this opportunity to make it the best Pack I could for him. But I felt that I was doing some good in the ward by being a dedicated scout leader, and I like it, so that helped me get through things. During church time, I often brought Scout manuals/information to read as a way of passing the time during the boring services.

The Beginning of the End

All of this experience culminated in October of 2012, when I was 33. By now, Anne was the Young Women President and in charge of lessons and such. While she was on Facebook one day, she clicked on a link posted by a friend to Feminist Mormon Housewives about the church’s stance on modesty. I read it, and read some more on the site. I discovered a whole online community that, while members of the church, didn't subscribe to everything they had to sell. In my mind, you were either a completely faithful member, or you were some form of inactive. It sounds funny to say now, but I didn't realize you could disagree with the church!

After reading some of the things and talking about it with Anne, she didn't like where the conversations were leading, so she asked me to stop reading it. I agreed, but I remembered a site from several years ago, and went to there instead. It was Exmormon.org, and then later, MormonCurtain and Mormonthink. The more reading I did, the more it made sense. I couldn't stop reading. I spent my lunch breaks reading, as well as staying after school for a couple hours each day.

At first I was a little skeptical, so I checked on the references to the Journal of Discourses and some of the early mormon newspapers. I also remembered my original copy of the Book of Mormon, so I checked it against some of the changes it was supposed to have and confirmed them all to be true.

It was at this point that my shelf came crashing down. It had been straining all these years under the load of the issues that I did know, but I wasn't prepared for the mountain of things that I was completely ignorant about.

And here was all this information that was clear proof of not only the church’s claims being frivolous, but of the intentional, willful omission of this information. I had considered myself to be fairly knowledgeable about the church. I have a fairly good memory, and had only missed church meetings and seminary a handful of times, and I had NEVER heard 95% of this stuff. About the only controversial issues I knew of were Polygamy and the fact that the 3 Witnesses left the church. I had never heard that there were multiple, conflicting versions of the First Vision (LDS.org's essay on it). I had heard that there were changes to the Book of Mormon, but I was certain they were all punctuation/grammatical in nature. I had no idea that there were about a dozen changes that seriously affected doctrine and fixed some goofs that didn't jive with the story. Likewise, I had no knowledge of the numerous anachronisms in its text, nor that it had 1769 KJV Bible errors in it. I learned about the fact that multiple Native American DNA tests showed no relation to Jewish DNA, but confirmed what anthropologists and linguists had thought all along: they came from Asia many, many moons ago.

I had thought that the South Park episode about the Mormons was pretty accurate except for that bit about Smith putting rocks in his hat. Turns out, they knew more about the translation than I did, and they aren't even members! I didn't know the church had suppressed information on a whole slew of things: The Mountain Meadows Massacre, the finding of the original Book of Abraham papyri, the Kinderhook plates, Polyandry, Elder Poelman’s 1984 conference talk, Hinckley lying to TIME magazine and Holland lying on camera to the BBC, the Second Anointing, how it's actually a corporation masquerading as a church, the Strengthening Church Members Committee, and a whole bunch more. Answers to certain church history items that had always bugged me suddenly became very clear, and I figured out why I had never been told the truth. A guy named Jeremy Runnells had a similar crisis and was offered a chance to ask a CES director about them. He made quite a list that's a good read.

After a few weeks of this, it was very, very apparent that the whole church was a fraud from the very beginning. I recalled that the Book of Mormon was the "keystone," and as its credibility fell, so did the entire church's. I felt sick to my stomach. Then the questions of, “What do I do now?” and “How do I tell Anne?” started to trouble me. I latched onto a few of the exit stories that were listed on the Recovery from Mormonism board. I printed two of them out and highlighted the parts that I felt resonated with me. Simon Southerton’s story in particular was especially relevant to me because of his scientific background, but there was another one that was also helpful.

I had planned on showing them to Anne, and had them in my backpack, but she forced my hand and confronted me about all the extra time I was spending at school. I told her the news and pulled out the stories for her to read. She didn't want to read them that night but we ended up reading them the next day.  We’d had a couple of tithing checks we had kept forgetting to turn in and she asked if I wanted to keep them and stop paying tithing on my money. I said yes, but she said she’d still pay tithing on what she earned.

The next few days I walked on egg shells because I had caused a major disturbance in the force, and didn't want to push my luck. To her credit, she decided to sincerely investigate the issues. She would read MormonThink, then read FAIR. She found John Dehlin’s site StayLDS and learned about “cafeteria mormons.” In a matter of days, I saw her go through what I had been through over the course of 10 years. I had been a closet unbeliever for the better part of a decade and slowly come to terms with it, but didn't realize how deep the rabbit hole went. I had felt the usual feelings of betrayal that most people get when they discover the fraud, but to some degree it wasn't as much as a shock as it could have been because of my years of unbelief. But Anne got all of this compressed in about two weeks. It is quite literally like going through the stages of grief, only instead of the loss of a love one, it's the loss of the elaborate fantasy that encompasses one's life.

Then Anne came across Brandon Pearce's experience. It matched up with mine so much that it was scary. About the only thing that he and I differed on is that I didn't move out of the country, and didn't get involved in some of the "New Age-y" type stuff.

At this point, we realized the Emperor really was naked. We had come out of Plato's cave. We took Morpheus' red pill and woke up in the real world. Our eyes were opened, and we could not un-see the things we now saw. It was a systematic cover up of troubling history and purposeful deception put out by the leaders. The terms mind control and cult came to mind. Everyday that we read something new that we didn't know, we realized how much we had been taken in by the bamboozle. It was sickening that we had given so much money in tithing to a church that can literally support itself on its for-profit enterprises alone, in addition to any additional donations we made. The amount of time we wasted doing things for callings and church-related activities became abundantly clear.

Continued in Our Journey Together.

The Tale of Sir Joseph: Part 1

Previous Entry in this Series:

Anne's Journey

This is my story about how I got to be where I am today. I've seen complaints from people who read these types of stories that, “they all start the same,” referring to the fact that most people set forth their Mormon Pedigree. But let me tell you why we do this: because there are common accusations that are lobbed at people who leave the church. The most common of these epithets are that “they never REALLY had a testimony,” or “they just didn't read their scriptures and pray enough,” or “they were just too lazy to keep the rules,” or even, “they just want to sin.” John Dehlin (who has gotten much more famous recently due to his pending church discipline) interviewed over 3,000 people who recently left the LDS church and polled them on their reasons and summed it up in a very informative YouTube video. The reason we set this forth is to show that we really gave Mormonism a fair shake, and really believed it until we found out the truth.

So on to my pedigree/story. It’s quite long because I am including a lot of details that were “red flags” even though I didn't recognize them at the time. Camilla Kimball introduced the concept of "the shelf," where good latter-day saints put their unanswered questions and concerns to worry about later (by which she meant the afterlife). Things that went on my shelf will be in red. Also, I mention several different bishops and stake presidents, so I've named them something that distinguishes them from each other, but obviously not their real names. 

My Story

I was born in the covenant (BIC) to a good, multi-generational LDS family of 5 boys. Both sides of my family were LDS, and for the most part active. Family gatherings often involved the usual discussion of their respective wards/stakes and the church as a whole, infrequently mixed in with the latest faith-promoting lie. Occasionally the family history charts would come out, or a very interesting discussion on any recent fulfillment of any “signs of the times,” which more often than not were just rumors that scared people into being more faithful. Growing up in eastern Oregon, there were enough members around to have multiple wards, a singles branch, and a Spanish branch in a small town of about 10,000 people. A rough estimate puts my town at about 7 to 8 percent active LDS members. We were prevalent enough to warrant a dedicated seminary building across the street from the only high school in town, complete with release-time seminary so we didn't have to get up at the butt crack of dawn.

That’s not to say that Mormons were welcome in every setting. Prior to the seminary building being bought, apparently there was a public showing of The Godmakers in the high school gymnasium, for what I assume was for the purpose of preventing the seminary building sale from going through. Also, after being built there was a threat phoned into the seminary’s answering machine stating that any high school students caught wearing a CTR ring would have that finger cut off (though this story may have been embellished by my seminary teacher – I have no proof of it happening or not).

I would say that I was somewhat naïve and sheltered, and didn't learn much about religion other than my own. I always had a liking of science, and like any boy, immersed myself in the world of dinosaurs. One day while watching a video on them, I experienced some cognitive dissonance with how the ages of the dinosaurs fit with what it says in the Book of Genesis. I was always an analytical thinker and came up with a solution that solves the issue and presented it to my mom. I was shot down pretty quickly, and thought I needed to go back to the drawing board on that one. I continued to work on the problem of reconciling a young earth with what science said about the Big Bang, evolution, paleontology, and geology until my early twenties (but more on that later). Each time I think I had a way of keeping both beliefs it was usually dashed to pieces by something said in General Conference.  

When I was around 10, one night my family was watching Jeopardy! A question came up on a religion founder who had multiple wives. The contestant responded with, “Who is Joseph Smith?” When Alex Trebek didn't correct the man, I looked at my parents like, “WTF?! How can they let that show get away with spreading lies about him like that?!” Instead they confirmed that Smith had, indeed, participated in Polygamy. Later I told that to some of my friends at church but some didn't believe it.

One day while looking at the religious awards in my Cub Scout book, I found out about the RLDS church, but learned no details other than it was a “splinter” group.

I had been "inoculated" against a few of the typical "anti-mormon" lies and common criticisms of the church. I learned to tell people the temple was "sacred, not secret," and that we didn't have horns on our heads. Multiple times I had learned about the Three Witnesses leaving the church, but it was not a big deal because they never denied their testimony of it. I refuted that pioneers used to throw their extra wives off the temple roof into the Great Salt Lake. That was about the extent of what I assumed the outside world thought of the mormons. Other than that, we were a great, family-first church with nothing to hide.

I occasionally asked questions to my church leaders and parents that didn't have good answers. I kinda perused through books like The Miracle of Forgiveness for the story on Cain being the Sasquatch, or through McConkie's Mormon Doctrine. I also remember asking the question about the word, "Adieu" being in the Book of Mormon, but being reassured that it's because it was the best word that Joseph Smith could think of for the Hebrew word that was originally written.

The Middle and High School Years

When I turned 12, I faithfully did my church duties, and never complained about passing the sacrament, prepping it, or blessing it. In fact, I was usually the one to do most of the prepping and blessed most often because my dad liked to get to church early. Like all the LDS kids in my ward, I had regular interviews with Bishop Postman, some of which included asking me about masturbation.

I Went to Boy Scouts, and earned my Eagle (with the push of my mom, like a lot of LDS boys). I went to seminary every day except a couple days my freshman year and never missed after that. I saw some of the less devoted kids skipping class, or pulling the usual shenanigans and couldn't understand why they didn't want to be there. I know some of them felt forced to attend, but I never felt that way. During my time there I was made Class President one year, and later appointed to be a member of the Seminary Council.

In church, I was taught about how what a good mormon girl wants is an Eagle Scout, faithful Aaronic (and later Melchizedek) priesthood holder, return missionary, and temple marriage, and that I was to control the “factory” going on inside of me. By saving myself (kisses included) I would be a “great catch” and should have girls swarming all over me once I got home from my mission.

Around age 15, I started reading the Book of Mormon on my own (in addition to the regular family study we did). I had a pretty good understanding of the narrative, and soon had no confusion about which characters were where, and how all the different plates fit together. I prayed about it and got what I assumed was the answer. It was odd, though, because my answer felt just like when I pulled the Master Sword out of its pedestal on the Legend of Zelda games, or (later) when Rudy took the field for the final two plays of the game, or when Sauron’s Tower was going down. Why is it that these movies and games could so accurately mimic the spirit, if that’s what it was? Every once in a while I would have a thought that would trouble me based on the Book of Mormon text. I used scriptures in Third Nephi to base my opinion on abortion (Jesus talked to Nephi the day before he was born). I also came across a scripture that started talking about Jesus' ministry in the past tense, only to read the next sentence that said he was talking about things as though they already were (Mosiah 6:16).

At school, I had a few of different “cliques” that I hung around with. One was the really good mormon kids who went to seminary, one was a group of good Christian kids who all went to different churches, and occasionally it was the boys from my ward. But mostly I hung out with the Christian kids and was the token Mormon in their group. Occasionally religion would come up and we’d discuss the differences and similarities of our denominations. Several times they drew a chart that showed which churches split off from which and when. I thought it funny that they all knew their church wasn't the original (Catholic) but didn't think that it implied theirs wasn't the “one, true” church. The concept of the “one and only, true, living church upon the face of the earth” had been taught to me so much that I assumed everyone felt that THEIRS was the only one. Later I would learn the folly of my naiveté when I researched other Christian faiths. They never attacked the church per se, but had questions that I tried to answer and defended it as much as I could.

As a way of extending an olive branch to 2 of my friends, I would accompany them to see their Youth Minister at their church which happened to be right behind the school. Once I even gave him a copy of a triple combination because he was curious about the Book of Mormon. I had hoped that they would return the favor and come see the Seminary building/teacher (they never did). But I always remembered to put the best spin on everything because it was my responsibility to bring them the truth. It wasn't like I was a completely different person around “non-members,” but there were a couple things that I would let my guard down about when I was hanging out with the boys from my ward or whatever. I also never drank a caffeinated drink because it was impressed upon me that it was against the Word of Wisdom.

When I was 16, I got my Patriarchal Blessing. I was curious about the process, and was going to use it as a way to “test” his fortune telling abilities. I hadn't planned on giving him information beyond the normal pleasantries, but my mom had accompanied me and in the course of our conversation revealed quite a bit to him that magically appeared in my blessing. I've since learned about what hot and cold readings are in the psychic business, and this was definitely a hot reading. (Years later, my brother was kind enough to type up all of the Patriarchal Blessings for my family, and oddly enough, they were all pretty similar. By contrast, my mom and dad’s were both different from ours, but similar to each other's because they had the same patriarch, naturally.)

My dad started going less active, after having been a strong member (in the YM and SS Presidencies most recently). I'm not really sure what started it all, at some point I felt that it was my duty to be a good example to both him and my brothers. When my brother turned 8, I performed his baptism ceremony. 

I had the opportunities to go to EFY and such, but never wanted to. I was dedicated enough to attend church/seminary faithfully, Mutual/Scouts almost every week, as well as the youth firesides they held every once in a while, but going to even MORE church didn't seem like a lot of fun when compared to a Super Nintendo. One fireside I remember had Del Parsons, the painter of the most famous picture of Christ in the LDS church, speaking about his experiences as a church artist. He told us flat out that the faith-promoting lie about the unveiling of that painting was utterly false. This was a little disconcerting, since I had felt the Spirit™ when I had heard the story originally. Also, during that time period, I became aware of the Facsimiles in the Book of Abraham and looked at them during sacrament meetings and wondered deeply about their interpretations and the parts that had not yet been revealed.

During my senior year at Seminary, my seminary teacher was teaching about the New Testament. We ended up discussing the conception of Christ and he told us that God works in natural ways, but not to think too deeply about it. Meanwhile, I had started learning about the internet worked. I found out about mIRC, a chat program. I quickly found the #mormon channel and started participating in the board. Occasionally I would help defend the faith when people would come on asking questions or trying to “bible bash” with us. I made quite a few good online friends that way, and one of them was a man named Demosthenes, who was a virtual walking church history book. But I later found out that he claimed that he was Mormon, but not LDS. He belonged to The Churchof the Firstborn, another splinter group that didn't come west. I didn't know about any splinter groups other than the RLDS, so I was confused and asked Bishop Librarian about it. He went into some deep doctrine from the D&C which confused me more until he realized I was talking about a splinter group.

My Seminary teacher started the concept of “Missionary Week,” where we would wear church clothes to school all week long as a way of getting our proverbial foot in the door. The plan was that when people would ask us why we were dressed up we could use it as an opportunity to tell them about the church and seminary. I’ll admit that I wasn't looking forward to it. I liked the concept of sharing the gospel, but I was always worried about rejection or what someone would think of me that I never wanted to make the first move.  I figured once I was in a foreign country that fear/concern would go away (it did). Anyway, the first day I had a classmate who started making fun because he noticed it was the three mormon kids in class who were dressed up. He asked sarcastically if it was Joseph Smith’s birthday or something. My teacher (non-member), to his credit, stepped up and ripped this guy a new one. I liked that this kid got put into his place, but it further served as proof of the “persecution” I was told to expect. I’d had a few other experiences like that, such as when someone made fun of the kids who were walking across the street to the seminary building. Other times there wasn't really persecution, but I saw it as such because I had been conditioned to look for it. All of those experiences confirmed that this was, in fact, the Lord’s true church™ and that is why Satan is persecuting it.

One night during the summer, I was up late watching whatever was on basic cable TV and came across a curious program. It was about Mormons, and had video footage of ultra-righteous members talking about the “weird, deep” doctrines like Polygamy in the afterlife and being eternally pregnant and seemed to be oblivious that it seemed weird to the world. It also showed some of the Freemason rituals and talked about how the LDS church uses them as well. I realized that it was an “anti-mormon” program, and I saw how this was not the best spin on things, but what struck me was the mason stuff. I had never heard about it but they were making these claims. I figured it was one of the “lies” told about the church to discredit it. I had learned about Ed Decker's methods, and figured that he epitomized all anti-mormon tactics. 

I had come into contact with “anti-mormon” literature when I happened to be in a Christian bookstore one time. Like a lot of it, it was geared towards telling an already Christian believer why they should never join the LDS church because it goes against the bible in a bunch of ways. It didn't do any good to a Mormon audience as far as convincing them they were wrong; all it did was further enforce the persecution complex and cause them the dig their heels in deeper. The TIME article concerning the church’s finances came out, further entrenching my persecution beliefs.

Ricks and Mission to Japan

During the summer after graduation, I got the chance to meet some of the online friends I had made. In one case I had to ditch a family reunion to do so, but I did it and made my way from Bountiful to Provo using the bus system. My mom wasn't terribly thrilled with me on that one. But I think I latched onto these online friends because we shared religious beliefs (obviously) but they were more like me than most of my friends back home were. Geek hadn't quite come to be chic yet, but here were people who accepted me.

The next fall, I enrolled at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho (now BYU-I). I had a blast, and like high school, had 2 or 3 groups of friends I hung out with. I went to the weekly devotional with them as well as football games and other activities. I have fond memories of “Killer Uno” games in the girls’ dorm, and all-night sessions of Goldeneye 007 in the boys dorm. Through sheer coincidence, 4 of the girls from my home ward were also in my Ricks ward. I continued to meet with online friends in roadtrips to Provo, and my online girlfriend would occasionally show up and stay with one of my female friends when she was in town. Incidentally, this is where I first learned about the “mormon spy network,” when my mom left me a message that she knew my girlfriend had been in town.

One interesting thing I noted about being absorbed in a totally LDS environment is that I wasn't required to keep my "armor" on all the time. I wasn't in the mode of constant defense of the church or being a "light unto the world," and I felt my testimony shrink a little. My friend from Montana told me the same thing, as if a significant portion of our testimonies were based on fighting the perceived persecution and the need to constantly reassure ourselves that we were fighting the good fight. 

Other than coming back a little late for curfew a couple of times, I never broke the rules/honor code at Ricks, nor did I complain about them like a lot of people did. I had friends whose church attendance was spotty or non-existent because they didn't have a parent present to force them to go or to be their alarm clock. I only missed once, and that was because my roommate had locked me out Saturday night and I had to sleep in the laundry room (don’t ask).

During Christmas break, my mom had pre-scheduled a bunch of meetings with Bishop Librarian and President Raconteur to get the ball rolling on my mission papers, and also got me an appointment to pull my wisdom teeth. Some weeks later, I got my call to serve in Japan in the Tokyo North mission. I was excited to go to Japan because I had wanted to ever since my freshman year in high school. But the reality set in that I would be out of the country soon, and my studies didn't seem important. I stopped going to class and failed everything that semester. Looking back, I think it was because I saw the mission as an impending but necessary obstacle I was required to overcome before being taken seriously as an adult or being able to really start my life on my own. In preparation for it, I was trying to get in as much fun time as I could because I knew I wouldn't be having a lot of it for a couple years.

I drove home to go to the Boise Idaho temple in March. It appeared that my impending mission and first temple experience was going to be what finally brought my long-inactive aunt and uncle back to full membership in the church (they had recently become active again, but not yet temple-active). But they didn't end up making it. Anyway, I thought the temple was a little weird, but comforted by the fact that I was surrounded by family who thought it was normal, so I put it out of my mind. The next day I overheard my mom talking on the phone about the aunt who didn't come and heard her mention that this aunt had been freaked out about the penalties. The penalties combined with the thought of having to pay all the “back-tithing” had kept them out. My mom said she had reassured that they wouldn't have to pay back tithing, and that they had taken the penalties out. I thought about the whole “penalty” thing but was too caught up in the mission prep that I forgot about it for about 4 years.

A week after my 19^th birthday, I entered the MTC and began going to temple weekly. I have a penchant for memorizing movies and it started to get boring at the temple. While I was there, I was able to give my first blessing, which didn't work. I soon adapted to the daily grind but had trouble sleeping because I wasn't physically tired, nor was I allowed to have my usual sleep aid (music). I tried asking about the Japanese people’s religious beliefs so I could understand them better and form more effective ways of approaching them, but my teachers told me to not worry about it and focus on my knowledge of the gospel and everything would work itself out. It also bothered my how many of the boys there hadn't read the Book of Mormon even once. I had read it at least 5 times as a family, and at least 4 times myself. I certainly wasn't going to be one of those missionaries who went unprepared. 

When I got to Japan, it was the first time I encountered a culture beyond my own. I had a little culture-shock, but I soon adapted. Truth be told, I was glad on the days when I had a sick companion and I got to stay home. I looked forward to P-days when I could relax and stay home, but most of my companions wanted to do stuff those days. I came to the conclusion that I wasn't the most dedicated missionary in the world (mentally), but I was nowhere near the least. I figured that at worst, I was being an enabler for my companion to do work. In other words, I wasn't hindering him in any way. But I did my duties without complaint and followed the mission rules as best I could and became a Zone Leader near the end of my mission.

It was during the mission that I stopped praying. I just didn't see the results or the point anymore. I looked forward to night because I could listen to my music, especially Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables . I also stopped reading the scriptures for study, and instead read books like Jesus the Christ and others because I was bored with the scriptures. I came across the “Tools for Missionaries” book that talked about how they used these techniques to make the Tokyo South mission hugely successful, but by that time I knew about the atrocities that had gone on during the “Groberg Era” in that mission. I also found a book that made a point very clearly that stuck with me: If the BoM is True, then JS was a prophet, etc. If it is false, then everything is false. It all came down to that one issue, which is why it has been called the keystone to the mormon religion.

At some point, I wrote letter to Bishop Librarian about Masons because it had been bothering me recently. He wrote me back and gave me enough of an apologist response that I was able to forget about it for a while. On my farewell address, he called me a deep thinker, and I was thinking deeply about a lot of things while in the Land of the Rising Sun. Overall, I loved my mission experience, and had slightly more success (i.e. baptisms) than most Japanese missionaries (though, some of them came just after I left the area).

Continued in Part 2

Anne's Journey

The other day I asked Joseph if it ever bothered him that none of our active LDS close friends and family ever ask us about why we left. Not that I want to be the center of attention, but I just feel like there is a huge part of our life that has changed and is now different from theirs. And it is almost forbidden for us to talk about it in front of them. Even though they are all still free to talk about that part of their life in front of us, almost as if we never left. Not that we want to start an argument but it would be nice to discuss it every now and again. I know that I would be curious. But maybe it is just because I am a curious person and like to ask questions. Anyhow, Joseph and I decided we should each share our individual stories and then our story when it comes together. Here is mine:

I was born into a part member family. My dad was raised catholic but like most, was not a practicing catholic. He did share a few stories and beliefs with us throughout my childhood. My mother was a Mormon convert who officially converted a couple of years before I was born. Her parents and brother converted when she was a teenager, but she wasn't interested at that time. My mother made sure to take us (the children) to church every week but we were never forced. My dad supported my mother and even allowed her to pay tithing on the money he made. We weren't the typical Mormon family, if there is even a typical Mormon family. For example, we didn't have weekly family nights, daily scripture study, and we didn't have to treat Sunday any different other than the fact that we went to church. We were very relaxed and church was not a main topic in our home.

Our family was not the most functional family and we seemed to have a lot more war than peace and love in the home. When I was about 9 or 10 I decided that maybe if we were doing family night and scripture study our home would be more peaceful. So I began to plan family nights and scripture study to help bring the family closer together. I would invite everyone to come and the first few weeks would always start off well, but then family members would stop coming. I restarted this many times throughout my childhood and teenage years and there would be the first few good weeks and then it would fall apart.

When I was around 14 I was given a 40 day plan to help get me on track of daily scripture study. I started it and completed it and then continued to read my scriptures daily. I prayed to know if the Book of Mormon was true a couple of times as a teenager and never really got an answer. There were times throughout my teenage years when I felt the spirit (or what I thought was the spirit) but it only really happened when someone was telling a faith promoting story and never when I read the scriptures. So I just continued to just try to believe it was all true. Everyone around me seemed to think so and they were all good people. However, I was always bothered and confused as to why my dad and all of my extended family weren't born with the truth like me. What made them and other close friends less worthy? They were all good people. Didn't they deserve to be born with the truth like me? Many of them also seemed to be happy with their own found faith. Why was my faith really better than theirs?

I was also in a really bad car accident when I was 14. My brother and I were being driven home by one of our youth leaders. We hit the side of a hill and then rolled down into a gully about 30 feet before hitting a tree and coming to a stop. Right before it happened I had a gut feeling, it was almost like I had heard a voice but more of an inner voice telling me to put on my seat belt and to grab the door handle. I chalked that feeling up the being the spirit rather than intuition and that experience helped me exercise a little more faith in the church. But I still thought it was odd that I had never had an experience like that when reading the scriptures.

Then at 18 I moved out on my own to get away from the dysfunction at home. Moving from California to Utah was a huge shock. It was like living in two different worlds. I went from having all non-members friends to only having member friends. After about 10 or so months of being out on my own, I was sick of going to church, the cliques, and just the overall boringness of hearing the same old things over and over and thought about quitting altogether. There were a few weeks I did end up skipping with my friend Joey. But the guilt of not going and the fear that I wouldn't make it back to the highest degree of glory soon caught up with me and I started going again. A couple months later I met my husband. He was way peter priesthood so I tried to be really good around him. I watched my mouth and tried really hard to be more interested into going to Sunday activities.

After about five months of dating we went to the Temple to get married. The day before I went through for the first time to take out my own endowments, and boy, was that weird. I had hoped that questions would be answered and that I would finally be able to gain a real testimony but instead I couldn't understand why it was all just about the creation with a bunch of secret signs and tokens. But then the fear came again as people were asking me what I thought because I couldn't say what I really thought.  I just felt like I must be missing the point because everyone else thought it was great and wonderful. Plus I didn't want to risk losing Joseph. Side note: I think my biggest regret is getting married in the temple because my dad and other relatives missed out on a very big moment in my life.

Then sometime during our first year of marriage we were lying in bed at my Grandma's home and Joseph asked me to bare my testimony. I didn't want to because I had nothing to say but he kept pushing me so I just said a few of the things I had been taught and cried a bit through it to make it seem real. I cried mostly because I didn't believe and I felt terrible that I didn't. He pushed me one more time in our marriage to bare my testimony in church. I just wish I knew then that these were tests because little did I know that Joseph was a closet unbeliever and was wondering if I really believed. I could have saved us so much of our time and money, and I would have saved my children from having the church be a part of their lives.

The years of our life continued and we both served faithfully in out callings. We did have a few discussions about things over the years. For example, the LDS church’s involvement in Prop 8 bothered me a ton and I vented a lot about it to Joseph and my mom. Some of the Young Women lessons also bothered me and I would occasionally speak up. And the fact that callings were more of a, “Who do you think would work for this?” and less of inspired revelation really bugged me.  Then as I have mentioned in a previous post I was the Young Women President when we left and as a presidency we had challenged all the Young Women to read the Book of Mormon. I took the challenge very seriously and still couldn't understand why I wasn't getting an answer to my prayers.

Then in October of 2012 Joseph told me he no longer believed. At first I was in shock but after a couple of days I thought I need to finally find things out for my own. I could no longer rely on his testimony or others around me.

Continued in the Tale of Sir Joseph: Part 1