I Left the Mormon Church

 Life Update 2: TL;DR - I am no longer a ‘Mormon’ (member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). I resigned completely from the church and have had my records removed. I actually made the decision to leave about a year ago.

OK, I realize that header is going to provoke a lot of questions and a myriad of responses. I realize many already are aware, or probably arrived at this conclusion based on not-so-subtle hints I’ve given from time to time. Either way, I’m just making sure the air is clear about it. Read on if you’d like to know a bit more. Or don’t - just be respectful of me and of others in the comment section is all I ask. 

First of all, why am I posting this? I shouldn’t need to justify why I’m posting this on my OWN page - nonetheless, I’ll give some reasons. Firstly, I think it’s important for others who have gone through or are going through a faith crisis and/or transition to know that they are not alone. It is without a doubt one of the most difficult things I have gone through and I want anyone in a similar boat to know that you are loved, your views and doubts and experiences are valid, and that I am somebody you can talk to or vent to judgement-free about your experiences, doubts, etc. You are NOT a “lazy learner” or “lax disciple” as a certain LDS leader recently called those who have doubts. No matter how many times your family and/or friends try to invalidate your feelings, saying things like “deep down you know it’s true” - it doesn’t matter because ultimately only you know what you feel and think. Pay them no heed!

Secondly, the act of openly declaring where I stand is incredibly cathartic and empowering to me, personally. I also feel like it’s necessary - I spent so many years declaring (pretty loudly, I might add) that I “knew” the church was true. Hell, I spent 2 years as a full-time missionary preaching that. I used to make big public Facebook posts declaring it. I bore my “testimony” of the church/gospel frequently in church and other settings. I have no way of knowing exactly who or how many people I’ve affected through those public declarations of “testimony bearing”, so this is the best way I have of publicly refuting things I once preached but no longer believe, apologizing to anyone I unintentionally caused harm to because of those beliefs/actions, and basically just righting any possible wrongs.

Now, before I delve into any specifics: I want anyone reading this who is a believing member of the church to know that I am NOT attacking you personally with anything I say here. Much of my family, both immediate and extended, are practicing church members. Owing to the fact I’ve grown up in Utah since I was 6, was a member of the church, served a mission, went to BYU, etc - many of my friends are practicing church members.  I STILL LOVE YOU JUST AS MUCH AS BEFORE! I have some serious and deep ideological differences with the  church, yes - but being part of a religion does not (or should not, in my opinion) define a person completely. That is actually one of the many differences I developed with the church - I feel that it became too much of a defining and controlling part of my person when I was a member. Maybe it’s not that way for you. But I do remember how people saying things contrary to or critical of church teachings or the church itself often felt like a personal attack to me when I was a believer, so I just felt I should add this disclaimer before getting into the “meat” of this post. 

On the other hand, the feelings I have about the church now are probably just as strong as the feelings I had back then - only in the opposite direction. I’ve always been a bold, outspoken, and opinionated person. I was that way as a mormon, and shocker: I’m the same as an ex-mormon! It’s like I’m still the same person or something, who’d have thought… 

So anywho, please remember I’m not attacking you, but I AM trying to concisely and clearly tell a bit of my story and give some of my reasons for such a complete change in belief and perspective. You can think of it as if I’m bearing testimony of what I’ve discovered for myself to be true, if that helps you to be respectful in the comments and/or my DMs…

WHY did I decide to leave the church? There are a lot of reasons. I will do my best to sum up some of the major ones. There are some personal details that of course I am leaving out for a public post of this nature - please respect my privacy in that regard!

• I simply don’t believe anymore that there is a god. Over the course of a couple years leading up to my decision to leave last year, I stopped having those feelings of what I thought were “the spirit” in years previous (which is supposed to be the basis of a ‘testimony’ - confirmation by the “spirit”). I was still living church teachings - I hadn’t done anything to “lose the spirit” as is talked about in the church. This led to a lot of introspection, research, and reflection on previous “spiritual experiences” I’d had throughout my life. I arrived at the conclusion that every single “spiritual experience” I ever had was simply “elevation emotion” (which is a whole other subject on its own), coincidence, scientifically explainable, or some combination of those things. I prefer not labeling, but if you MUST put some sort of label on what I “believe” now, I guess you could call me atheist or agnostic. I do not believe there is a god, higher power, etc. I also recognize I don’t know everything so I recognize the possibility, however infinitesimal, that there COULD be a god - but an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence to back it up, and in my experience there is no such extraordinary evidence. 

• Church history. There are a LOT of problems here, not the least of which being Joseph Smith marrying child brides and other mens’ wives. The church has also exhibited a pattern over its history of changing its doctrines to conform to social pressures/changes over time (polygamy, blacks and the priesthood, ever-shifting stances on LGBT-related issues, etc). It didn’t make sense to me that an “unchanging god” would allow his “prophets” to spout such bigoted things from the pulpit or in their books published by the church, and then rescind those things later on and make excuses for it such as “they were only speaking as men” or “prophets aren’t infallible” or “we need to use the spirit to discern if they’re speaking as prophets or as men”… If we can use the spirit to discern that, then why have prophets to be “god’s mouthpiece” in the first place?! Let’s cut out the middle man and speak with him ourselves!

• Church doctrine/policy concerning LGBT humans is completely wrong, abhorrent, and damaging. I don’t know if I have the words to condemn strongly enough what is preached by the LDS church (and many churches, to be fair - but the LDS church is much higher-demand than many religions) regarding homosexuality and LGBT persons. I want it absolutely clear that I am opposed to the notion that homosexuality is a “sin”. I want it absolutely clear that I condemn the church’s teachings that it is a “temptation” or a “choice”, and want to make it clear that I condemn things the church has done and supported over the years in attempts to “change” LGBT people and youth (conversion therapy, electroshock conversion therapy at BYU in the 70s/80s, etc) If you are an LGBT person reading this, I want you to know that I am an ally. I am a safe person to come out to. I am an imperfect man still re-learning a lot of things that I once thought were ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, but I am trying. I am willing to listen and learn from you. I am so sorry that I believed and even taught that who you are was a “sin” and a “choice” when the reality is the exact opposite. I hope that my efforts to be an ally and publicly denounce and refute those previous beliefs can make up for any damage I ever caused. 

• Church doctrine concerning the “law of chastity” and the purity culture that infects Mormonism is reprehensible, archaic, and has personally damaged my life and the lives of many others in innumerable ways. Teaching that sex outside marriage is a “sin” is absolutely wrong - teaching that it is a “sin” almost as bad as murder is even worse. I’ve been out of the church for a year and I’m still unpacking the intense and complex trauma I carry because of these god-awful teachings. I guess I will be for a long time seeing as they were hammered into me from as early as I can remember. Things like: being told that masturbation was a sin when it has been scientifically shown to be healthy and a normal, natural developmental stage of human life and healthy for adults, also. Being shamed for kissing girls in high school. Being shamed for having a girlfriend in high school and forced to go on dates with other people when I didn’t want to. Being shamed for looking at pornography. Feeling guilt, shame, and suicidal ideation I didn’t need to feel after I was sexually harassed and assaulted on my mission. Being manipulated into thinking that I’d be sent home if I told anyone about it - and subsequently cast out from the Mormon society I grew up in if I came home early. Hearing church leaders say things like “young women, please understand that if you dress immodestly, you are magnifying this problem by becoming pornography to some of the men who see you”, (Dallin H. Oaks) - statements which contribute to rape culture and shifts blame from perpetrators to victims. I could go on and on. 

• The Book of Mormon is a work of fiction. This book, which I was brought up believing was the word of god and the ‘keystone of the religion’, has zero evidence for its veracity and soooo many things showing it to be false. It’s basically plagiarized from several other books before it, such as ‘View of the Hebrews’, ‘The Late War’, ‘The First Book of Napoleon’, the King James Bible, etc. Moroni’s promise is a simple play on emotion. I’ve read it many times and yeah, there are a few good things taught in it here and there about treating other humans, getting through hardship, etc - but nothing unique to it that isn’t already in the Bible or many other religious texts. I used to feel so inspired by Jeffrey Holland’s conference talk about the BofM where he basically said that Joseph and Hyrum Smith and their followers wouldn’t have staked their lives on the claim of the book being true - but that is literally what countless humans of many varying religions have done in the name of their beliefs for thousands of years, and still do to this day. From extremist muslims being willing to commit suicide bombings in the modern day to Catholics such as Joan of Arc refusing to renounce her beliefs to avoid being burnt at the stake, doubling down on beliefs or truth claims to the point of being willing to die for them is nothing new or unique to mormonism, and it has never made something true. 

• The church fits very well in Steven Hassan’s B.I.T.E. model for classifying whether or not an organization is a cult. One of the biggest reasons this bugs me is because of the information control and thought control which the church employs on its members and those it seeks to convert. Already, many of you who are believing members reading this have probably written me off as ‘deceived’ or ‘doing the work of the devil’ - because you have been programmed/indoctrinated by church leadership and teachings to do so! The church ‘others’ members who choose to leave, and especially those of us like me who won’t just “leave quietly”. This is classic cult manipulation. Church leaders decrying anything that critiques them or the church as ‘anti-mormon’ and telling you to not read/watch it is akin to leaders in communist North Korea controlling their citizens’ tv/internet, and telling them to only get their info from government-approved sources (propaganda). Russell Nelson literally said in his most recent conference talk to ‘stop rehearsing your doubts with other doubters’ and to only get your info about the church from ‘faithful sources’. How much more blatant can it be?! This is thought and information control 101.

• There are many other reasons I have for leaving, but this will be the last one I list in this post and it’s one that personally affected me very profoundly: mission culture. I was indoctrinated basically since birth to believe that when I turned 19, it would be my duty to leave my family for 2 years to serve a full-time mission for the church. All male members of the church are taught this. It was drilled into us from as early as I can remember. I remember during my whole time growing up thinking how I felt that I needed to do it because it’s what my church, family, and god expected of me - yet deep down how much I really didn’t want to. It was mostly in the back of my mind until I was about 16 or 17, however. That’s when I REALLY started to feel the pressure. Needless to say, as we all know, I did it. I tried my best to have a good attitude about it. I believed it was the right thing. But man, I wish I could go back and just tell my younger self, “Hey man. As much as you may think you have to do this - you actually don’t.” I wish I could give my younger self a big hug and tell him that it would be alright and that he was just as good of a man without going on a church mission. Instead, I succumbed to the church’s fear-based emotionally manipulative tactics and I went. I don’t live regretting the past - that is pointless and not at all helpful. However, I do regret preaching what I can now only describe as a massive sham for 2 years away from my family, friends, girlfriend at the time, etc. I shudder to think of the thousands upon thousands of mormon youth across generations who have been pressured into this ‘voluntary service’ (is it truly voluntary with the immense amount of pressure put on ADOLESCENTS to do it, though?) - and shamed, shunned, or isolated for choosing not to go or for coming home early. 

       All this being said, I have to look back on my time as a missionary with some degree of fondness as well - I made many friends in Brazil (both missionaries, members, non-members, etc) who I love dearly and am VERY grateful to know - please understand that me leaving the church and having some regrets about having served a mission does not in any way diminish my love for any of you! I was well-intentioned as a missionary and doing what I believed to be right at the time. I know that a lot of service rendered as a missionary did some good for some of you. However, I have to refute anything doctrinal I taught to any of you that is specific to the mormon church. It is not true. Furthermore, I want to apologize to anyone whose life was negatively impacted in any way as a result of joining the church or being involved with it. Again, I was doing what I sincerely believed to be right at the time and doing the best with the knowledge I had. I love each and every one of you deeply and hope we can all find reconciliation and peace together.

I just want to wrap this up by again saying that I am making this public because I believe it is the right thing to do in my case. I know some of you may be thinking “yOu CaN lEaVe ThE cHuRcH bUt YoU cAn’T lEaVe It AlOnE 🤪” - and you are DAMN RIGHT I won’t leave it alone! I won’t leave alone an organization that is manipulative, controlling, and harmful in so many ways which has affected me personally on so many levels. I gave so much of my life to it and so many others have and continue to do so - at the VERY LEAST, members of the church deserve to have their leaders be transparent with them and to live in a church culture/society that is welcoming to all and loving. Until this is the case, I will never stop. And I once again emphasize that this “new mission”, if you will, is not against any of you members of the church personally - it is against the harmful practices and teachings of the church itself and its dishonest upper leadership. It is a quest for truth to actually have its say. It is for you to actually have the full perspective and be able to make decisions regarding your activity in the church and beliefs with fully informed consent. To that end, I am including the CES Letter at the end of this post. You can read it online for free - go to the ‘downloads’ page. :) 

I would invite all to read and examine it as a start to your investigation into the truth claims of the mormon church. “If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.” J. Reuben Clark, a prominent mormon general authority of years past, said that. So consider the CES Letter a springboard, if you will, into a sincere investigation of truth. :)

With love and resolve,

Spartacus

https://cesletter.org/index.html