I've left the Mormon church for good this time...Yes, I've left before but not with any real conviction to stay out. The first time was in college and I stopped going to church because I wanted to sin (the number one reason why other Mormons think you would leave the Mormon church). Actually, I was sinning, enjoying it and wanted to continue sinning. After college, I moved across the country to live with my boyfriend and enjoyed living in sin for about 5 years. It wasn't exactly easy because I did feel a bit guilty about sinning. But just a bit. I had come to the realization while I was in college that I really didn't know for sure if the Mormon church was true or not which is really important if you are Mormon. Since I didn't have that testimony, keeping the other rules didn't really seem as important. What really bothered me more was that I was lying about my life to my entire family. That's right, they did not know I was living in sin. They probably could have figured it out but I don't think they wanted to know the truth so they just didn't bother to look. For some reason, I value my own honesty very highly and I really didn't like being dishonest. Perhaps because I've had to keep dirty little secrets all my life and I hate it. So, I didn't go so far as telling my parents that I was living in sin but I did tell them I wasn't going to church. Based on their very poor reaction to that revelation they will not ever get the rest of the story.
My love and I finally got married (it was our own choice) and with the stigma of sin removed, there wasn't really any reason for us to not attend church which would mean so much to our families. We'd really caught some flack for not getting married in the Mormon temple so going back to church was one way to appease the parents. For a while, it was OK because we'd moved again to where the rumours of our past sins did not follow us and found a very friendly congregation. We liked it so much that we actually looked for a house to buy that would keep us within the boundaries so that we could keep attending that congregation.
Unfortunately, about every six years or so in Mormon congregations the leadership changes. Since all Mormon leadership are lay ministers it's kind of hit or miss whether or not you get a good set. The next set was not as good and we quickly started to see the "personality" of the congregation change. Because of our lack of a temple marriage, we became the charitable cause for people to try and get us to the temple. We also didn't have children and soon I was asked to work with the nursery aged children (as if that would convince me to have children). Then my husband got laid off and choose not to go back to work for awhile. He didn't have to, I was making enough. However, he was constantly pestered with people trying to find him a job. He stopped going to church. I know that none of this sounds really bad, it's almost something that you had to experience to know how demeaning it was. No one bothered to ask how you were doing. They all assumed you must be so unhappy because your life wasn't what it was supposed to be in their eyes. We constantly felt looked down upon.
Also, during this time the lessons that were being taught in church seemed to be changing. Instead, of lessons that were well thought out and inspired one to do better with their lives using teachings from Jesus and other scriptures, they were propaganda-style recitations of why everyone should go to the temple and avoid sin. Then the politics came in. It felt like we were being told in church who we should vote for. One person even said over the pulpit that we should all vote the same way that the president of the church votes and he's a registered Republican. Most of the other comments were only slightly more veiled. Like, the church does not support abortion so you shouldn't vote for anyone who isn't pro-life. The Mormon church's support of banning gay marriage in California was another big problem for me. I wanted to just scream "Separation of Church and State is there for a reason!" Then there was the invasion of Iraq, I kind of understood Afghanistan but there really was not a good reason for Iraq and it really bothered me that Mormons were so supportive of the invasion of Iraq. It felt like a betrayal to Christian ideals to be so damned blood thirsty. Besides the scriptures in their own Book of Mormon that seemed to caution against this war...of course, everyone else interpreted those scriptures differently.
This was about the time that I started this blog because I needed a way to vent and I really didn't have anyone in my real life who would understand. Either they were fully Mormon and wouldn't understand my doubts and problems with the church or they were never Mormon and couldn't understand why this religion had such a hold on me. I also started reading about some of Mormon history focusing on topics to support my feminist leanings. I was looking for anything that would reassure me that women had hope that eventually they would be treated better than they were currently in the church. Instead of finding hope, I just found even more abusive and demeaning treatment of women in the church's history and I stopped looking. Besides, life was getting better for me at work and at home and who wants to spend time obsessing about something depressing when you can be enjoying life.
So, with the birth of my first child I had another excellent excuse to stop going to church... It was a difficult pregnancy, I had an autoimmune disease and I was just too blasted tired for church! Looking back on it now, I'm surprised that I actually spent 9 years back in the church. At the time, I never really felt fully part of the church. Always a bit outside by asking the controversial questions and calling male leaders on sexists behaviors. It just didn't seem like that long until I did the math and then I thought "No wonder I'm tired, fighting against that culture for 9 years is exhausting!"
However, because I didn't leave at that time thinking I'd had enough but instead just thinking that I need some time to adjust to my new normal, I went back. Again, we'd moved and I had the hope that this new congregation wouldn't have the same issues as the old (re: politics, sexism, etc.). I couldn't bring myself to attend all the meetings so I just went to the nursery with my son. Pretty soon, they asked me to teach in the nursery and I thought "why not" if I was going to be there anyway. They had a new nursery manual but after my previous experience of teaching in the nursery I really only needed to know the title of the lesson to be able to deliver it. These were 3-year-olds after all. However, some of the lessons had changed and I was appalled to see lessons about how God loves us replaced with lessons that said God loves us when we go to the temple or pay our tithing or some other such thing. They were basically teaching these kids that God's love is conditional. The more lessons I saw like this really troubled me. Probably the kicker was Mitt Romney as presidential candidate and seeing everyone go all goo-goo eyed over him. Nevermind whether or not he was a good candidate he was Mormon and Republican. I first came to accept that all the things that I didn't like about church were things that were inherently ingrained in the church. I had accepted them as a child because I didn't know any better. That first congregation which started off as a good experience was likely just an extended "honeymoon" because we liked the people and appreciated having a ready-made community (makes moving easier). So, we overlooked the things we didn't like because there were things we did like. Now, the curtain had been pulled back and I couldn't pretend anymore that the problems were going to go away. The church leadership certainly showed no signs of reform or even a desire to acknowledge any problem. I also realized that if I continued to take my son to church I was inadvertently telling him that this Mormon culture is OK. My attendance was a form of acceptance. I was not OK with my son learning to be a misogynist and I was not willing to let him believe that he had to do all these ridiculous things to be loved by God... or by me. Soon I was going to church less and less and finally told the church leadership they'd have to find someone else to teach the nursery. It was kind of anti-climatic, I just disappeared.
About the same time, another family member went public about his disbelief in the Mormon church. In his case, he'd studied the history of the church and had shown Joseph Smith to be a fraud. As he shared with me what he learned, I felt a great sense of relief. I was leaving the church because it didn't feel right but not because I knew that it wasn't true. I'd accepted the possibility that if I was wrong and the church was true that I'd rather live true to my beliefs than live miserably trying to make it work. I would accept the consequences even it that meant going to hell. Besides, I figured real hell couldn't be as bad as the heaven that Joseph Smith described. It was a relief to have tangible evidence that the whole Mormon church was nothing but a cooked up scheme by Joseph Smith and his cohorts. Now, I could essentially throw out anything I'd been taught in that miserable church and start over from a more loving and accepting place. Yes, I'm quite pissed off about how much I got screwed up by this church. Nearly half of my life spent feeling guilty about things that were just made up stories.
I'm still sorting through my feelings about the Mormon church and my decision to leave it and I debate on how much I want to reveal to family and friends. On one hand, I don't really want them getting nosy about my life which they would if they knew. I'd need "saving" or something. I tend to lean to "live and let live" and expect the same from others but the chances of getting that from my overly controlling family is slim to none. On the other hand, I don't like seeing my loved ones get screwed and see younger generations get exposed to the same hurtful teachings that screwed with my head. I'd really like to stand up for what I believe is right but I question how effective it would be and if the personal ramifications would be too great. As you can see, I may have exited but now the real journey begins.
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