I have a complicated relationship with holidays, one that predates my abandonment of religious belief. I have a hard time understanding rituals; I need to understand the logic underlying the holidays. The link between Christmas trees, gifts, and the birth of Jesus always seemed too tenuous for credibility. In graduate…
Author: postmormongirl
Book Review: Book Of Mormon Girl
In the first chapter of her book, Joanna Brooks writes “I grew up in a world where all the stories I heard arrive at the same conclusions: the wayfarer restored, the sick healed, the lost keys found, a singular truth confirmed. And an orthodox Mormon story is the…
Book Review: Sweet Land Of Bigamy
Miah Arnold, the author of “Sweet Land Of Bigamy” is not an ex-Mormon but rather the descendants of ex-Mormons. Her great-great-grandmother was a second wife, disowned by her husband when Utah became a state. And so Miah grew up in rural Utah, in a home attached to the Three-Legged Dog…
On Having An Article Published In Salon
A few days ago, I was contacted by the editor of Salon – he wanted to know if he could use my story about attempting to resign from the Mormon Church for Salon’s main page. I said yes, typing out a reply as quickly as my fingers could manage. But…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Fourth Of July Edition
postmormongirl here, filling in for chanson as she prepares to go to the Sunstone convention. It was a good week in Outer Blogness with a lot of very spirited and varied conversations. There was quite a lot going on today in Outer Blogness this week, some of which hit the…
A Frugal Education
I am a rare specimen; I am a person that graduated from college without receiving financial assistance from my parents and without taking out student loans. When my classmates were taking out loans to afford on-campus housing and meal plans, I was living in the sketchier area of town, wearing…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: SLC Gay Pride Parade Edition!
So the big topic of the week was the SLC Gay Pride Parade, which happened last Sunday. The big news-line was a group of 300 active LDS members that chose to skip church and march in the parade. Outerblogness this week was full of accounts of the parade, as well…
Brother Selected For The “I’m A Mormon” Campaign
A couple months ago, the Mormon church decided to profile my brother for their Im A Mormon campaign. A camera crew came to his house for an interview; now his profile and testimony are listed on the www.mormon.org website. My brother was thrilled about the opportunity — he saw…
A Child And The Big Scary Apostate
As a kid, most of the General Conference talks didnt make much of an impression on me. I was sitting in the pews listening, but I was also a kid with a short attention span. Beyond feeling a sense of reverence for the guys on the screen, most of the…