A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.
I have thought of my “exit” story as boring. Boring, but different. Rather than a narrative of the Once-Happy-TBM who unwittingly came across a troublesome theological or historical issue and lamented as it gobbled a once easy faith, my story has from early on featured something amiss…but what I’ve thought to be amiss was something […]
Continue ReadingThe other day, I wrote on my blog about how I continue to find that even as intellectually and ideologically, I’m moving farther (bad typo; I wish I could move my father past the church) past the church, I realize from a practical standpoint, I’ve still got a lot of Mormonism in me yet. But […]
Continue ReadingI 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 of conversion as a socialization […]
Continue ReadingI’ve been reading an article at Mormon Matters about More Open Mormon History, and it seems to me there is a fundamental idea at play here: if you hear about “true Mormon history,” you’ll lose all hope and faith and then apostasize. OMG! The author, Mormon Heretic, tries to deflect this claim. He posits that […]
Continue ReadingAfter years of talking with current and former mormons, I am well aware that the reasons for people leaving and becoming disaffected are as different as snowflakes. Everyone has a different story and takes a unique path. I didn’t get a chance to listen to John Dehlin’s mormon stories podcasts while they were still available. […]
Continue ReadingAccording to the philosopher Mircea Eliade, of whose work I learned at BYU, every community, tribe, or nation requires an origin myth. The account of a community’s or practice’s origin has far reaching consequences because it implies how they relate to the cosmos, which is necessary for human beings to imbue their world with shared […]
Continue ReadingWhen I read a lot of ex-mormon accounts, some of them turn me off. I know there’s ill will and perhaps downright hostility to an entity you feel has essentially lied to for years of your life, but I’ve always felt that it would be counterintuitive to react so hostilely. Life’s hard enough as it […]
Continue ReadingIf you are into Mormon stories, you might enjoy Jodi Mardesich’s essay in Salon. Growing up in a part member family, Jodi had to overcome the resistance of her father to get baptized. She relates how Mormonism made her feel special as a child, how her boy friend died on his mission and how she […]
Continue ReadingI have been miserable at Church ever since my mission. I still couldn’t get out because I had to act on my testimony even though I experienced Church as toxic every Sunday. To me, the mission experience was dehumanizing and sacrilegious reducing converts to trophies and missionaries to tools. Any amoeba will leave an inhospitable […]
Continue ReadingThen I allowed myself to ask the one most forbidden question of them all: What if it’s not true? It was hard for me to ask myself this because I had been trained that doubting the truthfulness of the gospel is itself a sin. Yet I couldn’t escape seeing this as the only possible conclusion. […]
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