by Johnny Townsend My mom had few friends in her life. As a kid, I watched her interact with neighbors just twice. My parents never hosted parties, never invited anyone over for dinner, rarely let my sister or me bring any of our own friends over. Once, on a visit…
Category: Converts and Conversion
Paved with Good Intentions – Part II
In our last episode, we intrepid converts were transitioning from Germany back to the states for Larry’s back surgery. Little did we know as we packed to leave that the next eighteen months would find us in four different states (geographical, not emotional). Getting back to the states was a…
Paved with Good Intentions
With the release of Larry’s novel – Dark Deception – earlier this year, we’ve fielded numerous questions about our experiences as adult converts to apostates. Thanks to chanson, we have a chance to bring some of the highlights of our seven years in the LDS church to Main Street Plaza….
When Religious Naivety and Ignorance [Hurts]
I’ve said some naively ignorant things in my time. But, then again, I’m nearing my mid twenties, so I’m sure I’ve still yet to see the rest of the iceberg. Nonetheless, regrets are worth analyzing for the lessons they teach to help avoid the same mistakes in the future, so…
About those International Conversion Rates
Church spokesman Michael Otterson wrote recently about just how white the Church is not. Although, naturally, Utah will always be associated with the church … today there are more Mormons outside the U.S. than in it. Today, Mormons are Bolivians, Ghanaians, Koreans and Russians, all an integral part of the…
Sorry, Mormons, but this is nuts.
The Boston Globe: The Mormon image campaign And here’s my dozen reasons why: (Memo to the Mormon leadership: Diverse teams cause people not to revert to stereotyping.) Plus one for a baker’s dozen. Local Mormons weigh in: Im a Mormon and I am here in New York and I really…
Knowledge, Community, and Relationships
Over at the faithful Mormon blog Faith-Promoting Rumor is a discussion enticingly titled “Do Relationships Make the Church True and False?” This post is a short enough one that you should just go over there and read it, but I guess I will still highlight some points here…when I was…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Personal Entrance/Exit Stories!
This week we have had a bonanza of personal conversion and deconversion stories! Naturally, you probably noticed Saganist’s story posted here yesterday. But there are more! Check out the Urban Koda’s funny story When I knew…. Greenish Blue reposted a fascinating mini-series recounting his personal history with Mormonism and belief….
Calling all ex-mormons: the Great Mormon Novel?
So, I’ve been reading a series of articles about the possibility of the Great Mormon Novel (the great fantasy of all Mormons since Chaim Potok came to the Jewish scene or since we all fell in love with that dairyman Tevye and his daughter)…some say that the Great Mormon Novel…
LDS deconversion is a process
I was reading this news article the other day, and it just seemed so obvious. It was a study that found that LDS conversion is a process. What made it seem so obvious to me was that as the article went on, it seemed clear that the writer was speaking…