Honesty is the best policy. It’s often the first moral lesson we’re taught as children. So what happens when the institution that has been your primary moral instructor from the time you were a baby turns out to have serious honesty problems?
The LDS church has been a part of my life since the beginning. Even before that. The vast majority of my family tree goes back to pioneer days, back when Brigham Young was beckoning all members to Utah.
Since my childhood, I always had a strong testimony of the restored gospel; it was possibly my single most prized possession. And as long as I can remember, I took great pride in my pioneer ancestry. I didn’t fully understand it, but I knew enough to understand that my tribe was made up of people who were so devoted to the truth that they sacrificed everything to come be a part of God’s one true church.
How cool is that? And how important then were the truths of the gospel that compelled my family to uproot their entire lives to embrace them? I remain in awe of my ancestors and their faith.
But what happened when, as a missionary, I came across things that made it seem as if my church wasn’t as honest as I had always been told? It was simple: The same church that taught me “all truth” convinced me that those “anti-Mormon” claims were of the devil who is the “father of all lies.”
And of course I believed them. For heaven’s sake, they were the ones who taught me the importance of honesty in the first place!
However, as the years passed, some of those devilish claims turned out to be true. And the evidence was so overwhelming that even the church began admitting to them. It turned out that, actually, Brigham Young wasn’t a particularly moral man. Far more surprising (to me, at least), Joseph Smith wasn’t either.
There are many contradictions in the teachings of the prophets. Failed prophecies. Blatant lies. Cover-ups. Scandals. Malice. Greed. It turns out the people who taught me morality had serious morality issues. They taught me the truth will set me free, then they “lied for the Lord” (and then lied about those lies).
It’s hard for me to explain what happened over the next few years of my church membership. You could easily boil all of it down to cognitive dissonance (and you wouldn’t be wrong), but living through something as complex as all that can’t always be encapsulated into simple terms.
Like many who have gone through a similar faith crisis, I was in a lot of pain. So, I tried to minimize the pain as best as I could so that I could hold onto my testimony. I reminded myself that God’s ways are not my ways. He could see eternity, while my vision was very limited. And I added nuance to my belief system. Lots and lots of nuance.
Every time I saw another problem with my church, I just kept adding nuance. One small example: The Book of Mormon teaches — and my conscience agrees — that polygamy is immoral, but maybe the Lord allowed early church leaders to do it because he wanted to show just how much he values our free agency. See, nuance!
Eventually, my belief system became a labyrinth of nuance.
For many years, I lived in this labyrinth. It worked for me, but barely. My subconscious was screaming out with doubts, but I wouldn’t listen. I’m not unique compared to others raised in orthodox religions in that I was completely indoctrinated, so I “doubted my doubts” at every turn for as long as I could.
I clung to the things about the gospel that I loved without ambiguity: Jesus Christ and his teachings, love for all people, family, and proclaiming peace. These things I knew were good, so I focused on them to keep my testimony intact.
So, when I came across more church history or teaching that went against these core beliefs, I merely added more nuance to my labyrinth. I honestly thought I would remain in this labyrinth for the rest of my life, and I was determined to never give up. Ever. I even took pride in how much nuance I could embrace, as if I was building a maze so complex I could never escape it (or, using another analogy, as if I was the Simone Biles of mental gymnastics).
But “nuance” can only cover up so much, and a labyrinth created by my own mind can easily be solved by its creator. So, in the early hours of June 30, 2021 (17 years to the day I returned home from my LDS mission), everything changed.
The night before, Tara went to bed early but I wasn’t tired at all. So, I thought I’d work on a script. But first, I thought I would check something real quick on social media. You know how this goes. What started out as a quick diversion meant to take a couple minutes turned into hours and hours of something else.
I came across an article that made me address my nuance labyrinth for what felt like the millionth time. I had read (or, more accurately, skimmed) this particular article before. But this time something entirely unexpected happened.
I was so tired of the pain that I found myself willing to read it with an open mind. In other words, for the first time in my entire life I humored the notion that the church just might not be true. Or, at least, I dared ask “What if?”
I read all of it. Word for word. All through the night. I checked the sources. I re-read it. Re-checked the sources. Then, like any good Mormon boy, I prayed. As I knelt down, I had a single question in mind: Is it not true?
Looking back, I thought I was recreating the famous Indiana Jones “leap of faith” scene. My desperation was so high, I was prepared to fall off the cliff for the Lord. What happened next entirely depends on what you think of the Mormon church.
If you think the church is true, you think I fell to my demise. If you don’t, you think my foot landed safely onto an invisible bridge that carried me across to safety.
Here’s what happened. The scripture in Matthew came to my mind: “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” Suddenly, and to my horror, the polygamy, racism, homophobia, mysogyny, greed, corruption, patterns of deceit, blatant hypocrisy — they were all there in front of me as the fruits of the church I had devoted my life to. There was no nuance to be found whatsoever . . . just rotten, damning fruit.
And I became certain that the church isn’t what it claims to be. It felt like a punch to the stomach. A straight, thick line cut through my whole labyrinth and the full truth was laid out before me. That was the good news.
The bad news was that whatever pain I had been in the past few years was dwarfed by a new pain. If you know me, you know I’m an emotional person. I keep my heart on my sleeve, and I’m the kind of guy who is comfortable crying. So, I cried myself to sleep for the couple remaining hours before morning.
The next day I went to work, and my “allergies” were out of control. I got in my car during lunch and drove around for an hour and bawled. Nothing sounded good for lunch so I didn’t eat; I just drove and cried.
It went on like that for days. I grieved the loss of my faith just like I would the loss of a loved one. But it was different. Added to the grief was a sense of betrayal, abandonment, fear, shame, the occasional surges of joy and liberation, and a whole lot of heartache.
It was a lot to take in. It still is.
So, why am I writing all this? I know if you’re still in the church, you might be very upset with me for being this forthright about my apostasy. I get it; I’ve been where you are. If you’re not in the church, you might think this whole confessional is melodramatic. You’re right, it is. But it’s something I felt I needed to do.
I proclaimed the truthfulness of the Mormon gospel for about three decades. In worship services, to friends and neighbors, during my two year mission in Alaska, and occasionally on social media I have acted as a voluntary salesman for the LDS church. I feel the least I can do now is publicly acknowledge that, after receiving additional information, I retract what I said.
But most importantly, I want to send out a beacon signal to anyone else who has also gone through a painful faith transition (or anything like it). I want you, my friend, to know that you’re not alone.
I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am for my friends (in and out of the church) who made my transition less painful. You stood by me, you hugged me, and you performed a miracle on my behalf: You made me feel less alone. Never in my whole life have I ever felt as alone as I did when I decided to step away from my tribe. But your love lifted me up, and I want to be that person for someone else.
To my friends who remain in the church, I want to make one thing clear. I have no hard feelings towards you. What kept me in the church for so long was the many genuinely good people I know in it. The best person I know is a member of the Mormon church. I may no longer like the institution to which you belong, but I love you.
(Speaking of people I love . . . if you’re curious, my wife and I are doing well. Candidly, I’m more in love with her now than ever before. Mixed-faith marriages are challenging, but Tara and I have always been very different people. Just as always, we build on common ground and focus on love in our home. … And yes, I’m still a BYU fan. Weird, I know.)
One of the many truths that I learned in the church is that love is always the answer. Always, without exception. For that truth, and many more, I will always be grateful.
I don’t know what’s next for me. Like other ex-mormon pilgrims, I feel lost sometimes. I’m working hard to regrow trust. I still believe in the divine, I still love the gospel of Jesus Christ as I understand it, and I still believe in the sanctity of family (in all its shapes). But I’m far less certain than I used to be that I know all the answers.
I’ve had a year now to figure out what I believe, and I’ve spent much of that time trying to shed the biases and misinformation that made me who I am. As scary as this will sound to some, I can gladly report that, well, I don’t know much. But I’ve found how incredibly liberating it can be to simply live with the mysteries of the world and appreciate the beautiful things and people in it.
One thing I’m certain of is that I will try my hardest from this moment forward to have no hard feelings.
(This text was published as a Facebook post on June 30, 2022)
