Why I Left the Mormon Church – Part 1

Why I Left the Mormon Church – Part 1 - My Family Roots

“Why I left the Mormon Church” can be summed up in one simple, profound statement: 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints literally broke my heart.

But where can I begin the story of how this happened, how the Mormon church was such an unhealthy, damaging part of my life? How do I describe the deep disappointment and even anguish I have experienced? How do I describe the growing peace that I am now experiencing having left the Mormon church? How do I tell a story this personal?

Well, I can only give it a try. And with every true life story of tremendous change and healing, there is always a vital and far-reaching back-story. In Part 1, I will begin that back-story, and there will undoubtedly be many more parts I will share with you, which will fill many pages of personal, heart-felt reflection.

The purpose of this background is to summarize how invested I was in Mormonism. And it all starts like the stories of many life-long Mormons: with family.

I am very fortunate to have a very good family. I write that with the clarity that I have seen enough good and bad in the world and in the lives of people I know at this point in my life, to know the gradations of good are sometimes very difficult to discern, let alone appreciate.

For now, I will focus just on my side of the family, and save the discussion of my wife’s family for later.

Time, the great teacher and healer, has given me the following perspective about my family: I have excellent parents, wonderful siblings, and a great extended family overall. We’re all responsible adults now, most with our own families, and we all get along quite well, generally speaking. Notwistanding normal personal differences, issues and classic family frictions that come up, it is obvious that we love each other. For all my parents’ self-admitted shortcomings, they did a good job, and everyone in the family knows it, deep down. My parents’ hearts were in the right place, and that matters a lot to me, no matter what I thought (and think) of some of the decisions they made.

Everyone in the immediate family has grown up to be respectful, hard-working, decent, loving, intelligent and reasonably open-minded people, each with distinct personalities and talents that I appreciate and more often than not, also treasure. Yes, it’s a remarkable family. A good family.

You might consider us a model Mormon family in some ways. Or at least a model of what a “good Mormon family” can ultimately produce for society, and the goodness keeps coming. With each passing year I learn new things about my siblings, and I am honored to be counted among them. To top it all off, we support each other well, even in areas that some other Mormon families might be surprised at. So to some, this is even more reason to think of us as a Mormon success story. Of course, that depends on your perspective.

On my father’s side, my family has been Mormon for generations, basically from the beginning, back to the pioneer days. On my mother’s side, we have a story of sincere converts. That says a lot right there.

The typical multi-generational, deeply-rooted Mormon family has many similarities to mine. The committed brand of convert family also has many similarities to mine. A history of service and dedication, tradition and even respect, mixed with recent-generation trust and faithfulness make for a potent combination. There is enough Mormon family history here to have generated a reinforced, embedded heritage, along with the added bonus stigma of having typical ”leaders and scholars” in the family along the way. Add that to enough fresh-blooded (and often, unfortunately, blind) hopeful enthusiasm and it is easy to solidify the perception of the Great Truth our family had embraced.

I love my family. No doubt about it. And that includes grandparents, parents, siblings, their families, and so forth. And I have nothing but the best hopes and wishes for them, and wish for their profound happiness and satisfaction in life, whatever paths they choose. I feel this way even for those who take the traditional paths in Mormonism, no matter how unhealthy and even damaging I believe it to be for most people. 

Some might stop right there and say to me, “So why did you leave the Mormon church? How did you lose your faith? Was it sin? Did someone offend you? How could it have been so bad? Where’s this so-called unhealthy, damaging Mormon church? Just look at your family… they’re good people, so how can Mormonism be bad? No, I don’t buy it.”

The self-proclaimed “scriptorian” variety might add something like this oft-misused maxim, “By their fruits ye shall know them,” and continue, “so there’s no way Mormonism could have been bad for anyone in your family… just look at the fruits of your collective upbringing, what it brought into your lives. You should be grateful for all the good things Mormonism brought you. Your family is made up of good people doing good things, therefore Mormonism must be good.”

Right?

Not so fast.

It’s not that simple, and there’s so much more beyond that to explore. But if you want to stop here after this initial background summary of my family, be my guest. If you want to avoid looking at some much more difficult relationships, realities and history, and don’t want to attempt to understand my story at all, please, stop reading now. If you want to dodge the hard questions, and avoid considering a far more challenging logical and emotional arc than crediting Mormonism with the goodness of my family, go ahead. If you want to gloss over everything here with the veneer of saccharine cause-and-effect reasoning, please don’t bother with this story.

Unfortunately, I know far too many people, including confident so-called intellectuals, that will stop right here on an intellectual level. Case closed. Mormonism is fine. See what a good family so-and-so has.

Of course, things weren’t perfect, in the family or in the Mormon church. Of course life has difficulties. Of course there are challenges, and the normal tough blows of life from time to time. Of course. Life can be hard for anyone, whatever the back-story, whatever the upbringing, whatever the religion.

Mine was a family I could basically take great public pride in while growing up, even with the periodic flashes of total lucidity I had when I noticed the common dysfunctional elements that were there as well. We were, after all, imperfect, and there was always room to improve. That’s what I said to myself growing up when I noticed that some things going on in my family and in the church were just not right for me, on a visceral level.

Oh, I knew we were good people, but there was something on a very deep level about my family’s investment into Mormonism that didn’t resonate with me. And like any good Mormon, I internalized my glimmers of rational, heart-authenticated clarity with a dose of dutiful guilt, then smothered it over with a redoubling of my righteous, sometimes self-righteous, and yes, even humble and sincere Mormon efforts.

My family, like every other family out there, was (and is) a flawed family. It wasn’t a big surprise when I finally, really understood that truth in all its simple beauty and humble, life-affirming fragility. Yes, my family was flawed, but oh so good. For all that innate goodness, for all that intelligence, for all those bright aspirations in my family, Mormonism was the fog in our lives, the heavy grease that stalled and even sometimes choked the limber, graceful motions of our beautiful lives. Mormonism subtracted from us, and gave us little in return but more of itself.

Now, some (or many!) in my family may completely, utterly disagree with that point of view, and I respect that they have their opinion about it. To phrase it honestly any other way than the way I phrased it above would be disingenuous of me. But out of respect for their point of view, I’ll simply add: This is how I perceive it. This is how, after much reflection, I experienced it. This is how it was for me.

And I am of the opinion, that it was this way for several of my family members as well, quite literally. I’ll save the examples for another day.

And again, I come to another point in my story where I might lose more readers. If you have a profoundly different experience with Mormonism, and you consider my description above to be the complete opposite for you, that’s perfectly fine. I understand where you are coming from. I never imagined I could be where I am now. I didn’t think it was possible to think and feel the way I do now, even in my glimmers of lucidity growing up. If you can’t possibly entertain that someone might experience Mormonism the way I have without the result of sinful thinking, “something wrong with them,” or allowing myself to be tempted by The Adversary, lulled away by worldly, rational thoughts, then this story is not for you. At least not at this time.  (Which, by the way, you haven’t even read my story yet so how can you really know?)

If you have a single, judgemental thought or assumption about my story so far, or even a phrase that begins like this: ”Well, he must have…”, then you might as well stop now. There’s not much point for you going on.

But for those of you who might want to continue, I can say I will try as hard as possible to explain how I came to this point of view. And while you may not agree with me, I’m certain that by the end of this story you’ll at least see why Mormonism was and is utterly incompatible with me, and how it was inevitable that I started a journey into a new life outside of Mormonism. And if you listen, yes, even to that “still small voice,” you might actually agree that my choice to leave the Mormon church was indeed good for me. In fact, my journey out so far has been one of the most healthy, peaceful, enlightening, life-affirming and good things I’ve ever done.

What got me here to this profoundly better state that I am in now, was in spite of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Furthermore, what roots my family in goodness, love, support and kindness isn’t anything unique or special that Mormonism brings to the table, and in many cases, has nothing to do with Mormonism at all. And in fact, the deepest problems and challenges I’ve faced personally, and some of the hardest things some of my dearest friends and loved ones have dealt with are directly because of or were exacerbated by the Mormon church, its culture, doctrines, and even some of its leaders.

Indeed, my fine “Mormon” family is fine in spite of Mormonism. This is part of the back-story. This is part of what makes me who I am. This is part of why it took me so many years to see what Mormonism had done to me, to some of my friends and family, and why it was so difficult for me to stand up and leave.

Having said that, by the time you finish my story, you might also come to the understanding that I believe my chosen path is not necessarily the best choice for everyone. Shocking. Well, for me, anyway. Coming from the old point of view of the “one true” way, I have been pleasantly astonished at how many beautiful “ways” there are in my new view in life.

Yes, there are other paths, and I’ve come to appreciate that there is more beauty, more wisdom, more inspiration in the world than I ever dared allow myself to imagine… and there is much more goodness out there for one human soul to experience. It may be that via unique paths through or out of Mormonism, some of my own dear friends and family might arrive at a similar place that I might arrive at, wherever that may be in the distant future.

And so, even from a family momentum and family pressure standpoint, my investment in Mormonism was deep. To leave Mormonism, to even consider it, was tantamount to rejecting charished and long-revered parts of my deeply-rooted family history. And to add to that difficulty was the simple fact that I had such a good family. Even with a rough sense of our natural, human, imperfect nature, I knew my family to be good, and that obfuscated and compounded the complexities of the parts of Mormonism that were hurting us, and setting the stage for some deep damage and disappointment from the Mormon church, its teachings, culture and some of its leaders.

And I’m certainly not unique in this situation. My wife experienced some similar things with her good family. In the next installment, I’ll briefly summarize my current understanding of my wife’s family roots and the similarities to mine. Then, over the subsequent pages, I’ll describe the path that led me to my life-altering decision to officially leave the Mormon church.

Sincerely,
My Life Discovered