Awards
Lists of Brodie award winners:
X-Mormon of the Year 2012: David Twede
X-Mormon of the Year 2011: Joanna Brooks
X-Mormon of the Year 2010: Monica Bielanko
X-Mormon of the Year 2009: Walter Kirn
A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.
The Happiness Factor
Over the years, I’ve watched former mormon blogs come and go. And posters on various former mormon boards join and leave. (Kiley recently talked about it here). From what I can discern, there appears to be a cycle that some former mormons run through. At first there can be a lot of emotions; hurt, betrayal, anger or fear. But generally, after some time, people stop posting. In the least, they stop posting about mormon culture, leadership, history, etc. Why is that? My theory can’t be Read more [...]
Posted in Blogroll, Deconversion, Divorce, ex-Mormon, Family, Mormon Studies, Moving On, post-Mormon, RfM
The Emotional Apostate: The Case for Leaving to Sin and Offense.
Within the ex-Mormon community…or at least, the ex-Mormon community as it thrives online, on websites, blogs throughout Outer Blogness, forums, etc., there seems to be this common exit narrative. (Daymon Smith has a post deconstructing the synthesis of this new identity, but I couldn’t decipher his blog post well enough to summarize the findings for you.) Here’s my attempt at a summary:We were (collectively or generally speaking) righteous, serious folk, who lived our religion to the best we could. Read more [...]
Posted in DAMU, Deconversion, ex-Mormon, Uncategorized
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Where Have All the Mormons Gone? Edition!
More and more Mormons are leaving the church — not exactly news, but it hit the news in a big way last week!! This is largely because an important LDS leader admitted to Reuters that “attrition has accelerated in the last five or 10 years” — while refusing to give any actual numbers. Dan complained that Reuters didn’t name the sociologists who estimate the CoJCoL-dS active membership at approximately 5 million worldwide. Fortunately, lifelongguy is there with some helpful details! You can Read more [...]
Posted in Deconversion, Sunday in Outer Blogness
Why are Ex-Mormons So Angry (and other questions)? Part II
This is the second part of what has turned out to be a surprisingly lengthy two-part series on the perception of ex-Mormons as being angry and causes and reasons for anger that may exist, originally posted at Irresistible (Dis)Grace here and here. Please read part I (if you haven’t already) here. 3. Why do ex-Mormons appear to be angrier than we are? If you’ll notice my phrasing of the previous question (in the first part), I wrote thatsomeex-Mormons will be angrysomeof the time. But what outsiders Read more [...]
Posted in DAMU, Deconversion, ex-Mormon, post-Mormon, Uncategorized
Why are Ex-Mormons So Angry (and other questions)? Part I
A while back on reddit, aMormon stumbled into the popular (and still growing) ex-Mormon reddit to ask the ex-Mormon denizens a few questions. Many of the questions were quite patronizing (despite the poster’s stated desire to “support whatever [our] beliefs [were] in a non-patronizing way”), and the proceeding conversation was less than pretty. However, it was a good chance for me to formalize some little-known dynamics of the disaffected Mormon underground that explain why some questions come up Read more [...]
Posted in DAMU, Deconversion, ex-Mormon, post-Mormon, Uncategorized
Why I Left the Mormon Church
It’s been about a year now since I realized that the LDS Church isn’t all it claims to be. Having grown up completely devoted to the church, my transition out of it became a time of immense growing and learning for me. Yet despite all the changes, or maybe because of them, I am now happier and freer than I have ever been in my life, and so is my family. I’ve been invited to post my story here, which explains how and why I left the church and how I came to the conclusions about it that I did, the Read more [...]
Posted in Deconversion, People Can Change, Testimony
the Big Exit Letter (BEL)
Thanks to chanson’s weekly round up, I read this post about Carson N. leaving. It reminded me of my own experience. My wife and I didn’t send emails, we sent letters in the mail. But the anticipation of the response from family was pretty intense. And one family member’s response was exactly what we feared – my mother called after receiving our letter and yelled at me for about 30 minutes, saying all sorts of horrible things, then hung up on me. We’ve never really talked about that phone call, but Read more [...]
Posted in Authority, Deconversion, Freedom, Membership in the CoJCoL-dS, Mormons, Moving On, Power
What is Truth: Gays, Believers and Apostates
As has been pointed out by numerous commenters throughout the (relatively short) life of my blog (at http://invictuspilgrim.blogspot.com), a gay (active/post/ex-/inactive/anything in between) Mormons relationship to the LDS Church is often complicated. The reason for this should be obvious (but perhaps isnt to many members of the Church). Many gay Mormons (I use this term to refer to any gay person who is or has been a member of the LDS Church) go through intense agony as a result of trying to remain Read more [...]
Posted in Boyd Packer, Deconversion, Homosexuality, LGBT, Mormon Doctrine, Mormons, Uncategorized
Why Would Heavenly Father Do That?
This now-infamous question (slightly paraphrased) posed by President Boyd K. Packer at this past October Conference will, I think, reverberate in the minds of many church members for years to come and not just with respect to sexual orientation. I cant help thinking that Elder Packer may for many members have, in a moment of startling but unintended candor, inadvertently let the genie of existential doubt out of the bottle of complacent certainty, and that it may be impossible for some people to Read more [...]
Posted in Boyd Packer, Deconversion, Divorce, Family, Marriage, Mixed Orientation Marriage, Mormons, Parenting, Uncategorized
Forever vs. Family; Rules vs. Relationships
By way of introduction, I am a gay Mormon, who also happens to be (currently) married and a father. I started the coming out process last fall, and my wife and I are currently in the process of separating with plans to eventually divorce. Even before recently coming to terms with my sexual identity, I had been doing a lot of thinking and re-evaluating about just what role the Church should play in my life and in the life of our family. We, my wife and I, ever since our (temple) marriage had Read more [...]
Posted in Deconversion, Family, Mormons, Uncategorized
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