In the days and weeks following Mike Lee's infamous posts, the Mormon Church's Headquarters stayed silent. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. No official press release. No tweet from the General Authorities. No letter sent out to all U.S. wards to be read from the Bishop on Sunday condemning the behavior. From what I can tell, the only thing the church did was put out this article through their propaganda arm, the Deseret News editorial board.
Jeff Holland Offers Non-Apology For Musket Speech, Seeks Sympathy For His Own Hurt Feelings
Jeff meanders through his experiences and others' before moving on to discuss a concerning letter he received from someone he won't mention. Are they a leader within the church? Part of the faculty BYU? Just some Mormon out in the world somewhere? Are they in the room with you now, Jeff? Is the anonymous person just a place holder for pseudonymous Jeff speaking in the third person? Only corporate white Mormon Jesus could know.
Acceptance
The sturdy oak breaks resisting the pounding wind, but the willow bends easily until the wind subsides. As the Borg from Star Trek say, "Resistance is futile."
Response to Deseret News opinion piece “Perspective: Don’t believe the headlines. Few people suffer trauma from religion in childhood”
You may have noticed that the Deseret News article references other churches' scandals rather than the plentiful scandals of its own Utah-based church. 'What Mormon church scandals in recent headlines?' you might ask if your only source of news is Zion's own Deseret News. Here are just a few you can find with your own modern-day seer stone called Google that happened within the last two years:
The Perfect Storm of Conditions For Apostasy – Part 6 Rebuilding A New Life
In 2016 I found myself in a similar position as I had in 2013, but the rule of sequels is always go bigger with the sequel. And that's exactly what my wife did. She successfully pulled off a double life for several months. She did enough this time to surely be excommunicated, but she'd also …
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The Perfect Storm of Conditions For Apostasy – Part 5 Permission To Question
With the demands of my three callings and my leaders asking me to spend money I didn't have for my callings, I was feeling very burned out and frustrated. One November evening in 2015 I was watching TV and doom scrolling (looking at social media on my phone). I saw someone post on Facebook about …
Continue reading The Perfect Storm of Conditions For Apostasy – Part 5 Permission To Question
The Perfect Storm of Conditions For Apostasy – Part 4 Disillusionment at Church. Again.
For a church that preached how important family is, I couldn't believe how often I was being expected to spend time or money away from my family. I was burned out and angry that so much was expected of me, and I didn't ask for any of it. Church responsibilities were demanding more and more from me all the time, and I was nearing my breaking point.
The Perfect Storm of Conditions For Apostasy – Part 3 Cognitive Dissonance
When I returned from the mission field I had a completely different belief in God than I did when I left. He was not as involved in the church or my daily life nearly as much as I'd been taught to believe. No, He would pop up for the real important things, but otherwise leave us free to exercise our judgement as best we could. That was a major takeaway for me. So it continued to bother me when others at church would tearily blare their testimony about the so-called "God of lost car keys". The God who cares so very much about you that He guided you to your missing car keys so that you wouldn't be late to work. The personal, coddling God, by whose grace it is you scored a touchdown. The vending dispenser God who would shower you with blessings if only you would but ask. The God who solves mundane, unimportant, banal first world problems in such a miraculous way, that one can't help but bare testimony of it at Open Mic Sunday.
The Perfect Storm of Conditions For Apostasy – Part 2 Disillusionment As A Missionary
In the church, and especially in the mission field, there's a lot prosperity gospel being preached if not outright, then subtly. Prosperity gospel is basically the idea that if you're super righteous and work really hard, God will dispense blessings from the Eternal Vending Machine in the sky. You will baptize people, you will become District Leader, you will train a new missionary, you will become Zone Leader, you will transcend all other missionaries to become the coveted Assistant to the President. All that is to say, that if you have a divine calling from God to serve as a leader in the mission, you achieved that title because of your obedience to the mission rules, the commandments, and God is pleased with your service. The unspoken understanding of the opposite is also true: if you're not advancing it's because you're lazy, disobedient, and out of favor with God.
The Perfect Storm of Conditions For Apostasy – Part 1 Disillusionment in Primary
The first time I can remember becoming disillusioned with church was in primary between the ages of 9-11. Because my family was so devout, even at a young age I was developing an encyclopedic knowledge of church history (the official whitewashed version), scripture mastery, and quotations of apostles and prophets. I knew the church was true because my parents told me it was. I knew almost every answer to every question the teachers asked because I was practicing at home for the Final Exam for when I stood at the Judgement Bar of God at the last day. I wasn’t going to allow my own ignorance to be the reason my ascension would be delayed, so I had to know everything I could to be as prepared as possible.
My Absurd Dream Sums Up The Mormon Experience
I had a strange dream last night, and the more I think about it, the more I realize it sums up perfectly the Mormon experience.
Tithing Is “Voluntary”
Tithing is voluntary (if you don't mind being locked out of Heaven or being burned up in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ).
Sexual Abuse In The Mormon Church: Oh Discernment, Where Art Thou?
If the Mormon church really is the only true church on the face of the earth as they claim it to be, wouldn't an omnipotent loving Father in Heaven be able to achieve His purposes without harming children? Is He unable? Is He unwilling? Is He really worthy of worship?
A Response To Gogo Goff’s “Why Ex-Mormons Can’t Leave The Church Alone”
Why are many Ex-Mormons angry? Why do they leave blistering comments in the comment sections of news articles and on social media? Why can’t they just walk away and disappear?
I’ll tell you why I get angry about the church from time to time. I don’t live in a constant burning rage, but there are things that set me off. Here’s a few of them.
The Existence of the SCMC Proves The Mormon Church Is Not True
Most members of the Mormon religion have no idea that their church has a team of spies looking for potential troublemakers to silence them. No, I'm not talking about the Danites. Or your home teachers. Sorry, ministering brethren and sisteren. The group is called the Strengthening Church Members Committee. The existence of the SCMC became known in 1991 …
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An Open Letter To Elder and Sister Renlund
A letter concerning the belittling, shaming, and dismissive attitude towards those with doubts and those who leave.
That Moment in the Barn is One She’ll Never Forget
In Exmormon circles on multiple social media platforms, people were sharing the image in disbelief and mocking it, and for the same reason. From the title, many assumed this was an article about Fanny Alger and Joseph Smith who allegedly had a bit of, ahem, an incident in a barn.
DezNat Smackdown
But more than just Digital Danites, these Mormons see themselves as doing God's work to decry feminism, diversity, and inclusivity wherever they can. They proudly boast bigotry, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic vitriol with gusto, and have quite the echo chamber of insecure Mormon incels who scour social media looking for slights to be corrected with harassment. They frequently will pile onto social media posts or message boards to harass, insult, or condescend to marginalized groups, victims of Mormon malfeasance, or their favorite enemy, the dreaded exMormon.
I Know Cognitive Dissonance Is True 