To faithful Saints, Moroni’s promise (Moroni 10:4-5) is a source of comfort and confidence. It guarantees that if you go to God with faith in Christ, a sincere heart, and real intent you will know the “truth of all things” (aka that the Mormon gospel is true.) The scripture is…
Category: Deconversion
The Baby and the Bathwater
When I first left the church (about 20 years ago), I kind of assumed that the experiences of people who left the church were pretty much like mine. Or, more precisely, I didn’t really have any idea of how other people’s experiences might differ, and — before discovering the online…
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…
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…
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…
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)…
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…
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,…
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…
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…