I started a blog about five months ago called Stuff I Think About. I wanted to write about anything and everything that came to mind. I found myself writing about religion quite a lot. I started a series of posts about the Book of Mormon examining its claims of being a genuine ancient American document. I am a former Mormon and this topic really interests me. I decided that these post would be more appropriately placed in their own blog since the readership is likely to be different than for my other posts. I placed them here. Now I am finding myself wanting to write about more general topics related to Mormonism. Thus this blog.
I am still a Mormon of record, but I do not attend nor do I believe in many aspects of Mormon doctrine. So why do I still think and write about it so much? Perhaps I am one of those church president Gordon B. Hickley referred to when he said, "They leave the church, but they cannot leave it alone." However, I do not consider myself an anti-Mormon. My goal is not to harm the church or its members. My goal is primarily to tell my own story.
One reason leaving Mormonism is so difficult is that it requires so much of its members. It is more than a religion. It is a lifestyle. Those who practice the religion as intended may find their lives consumed with church. Mormons attend at least three hours of church on Sunday and more during the week. Since Mormonism has an unpaid lay ministry at the local level, members may have unpaid church jobs that consume many hours per week. Members do not volunteer for these jobs. Their leaders assign them and the members are expected never to resign until released.
In addition to the time requirements, members are expected to give 10 percent of their gross income to the church, not including offerings for the poor which are in addition to the 10 percent. Mormons live by a strict behavior code that includes refraining from alcohol, coffee, and tea. Failure to do all these things results in being banned from the temple, which means among other things not being allowed to see your own child's wedding.
Because the Mormon lifestyle is so all-encompassing, leaving can be a difficult and traumatic experience. Furthermore, Mormons who leave are likely to be demonized or shunned by believers. Mormons generally believe that only the weak ones leave and that the primary reasons are being offended or wanting to sin. This can add to the frustration and the pain of being misunderstood. John Dehlin addresses this in this episode of the Mormon Stories podcast.
Dehlin conducted an extensive survey of Mormons who have left the church. It turns out that the commonly believed stereotype is not true. Many who are leaving now are very involved and fully committed, but they discover aspects of church history or church doctrine that they can no longer accept. I will be discussing this much more in later posts.
The title of this blog comes from a Mormon passage of scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 93:36 that Mormons believe is a revelation given through Joseph Smith. "The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth." This happens to be an aspect of Mormon philosophy that I strongly agree with. I was therefore never hesitant to submit Mormon beliefs to rigorous examination. The end result was that I lost faith in Mormonism, and my believing ex-wife divorced me. I will be telling many more details in later posts.
Enough time has past in my personal journey that I have worked through much of the pain involved in leaving. I am in a very good place in my life now. However, I am still interested in watching and studying Mormon culture as an unattached observer, somewhat like a sociologist. I am interested in seeing how the church responds to the exodus of members caused by the free availability of information on the internet. I also merely want to add my own story to those that have already been told.
