The church promised me that I would be happy if I was living according to the Gospel, but I wasn’t. It didn’t work for me the way it did for so many around me. There came a time when I could no longer believe the truth claims of the church I had dedicated my life to. Instead of giving up, I tried for years to regain my testimony. This endeavor gave me a great deal of spiritual anguish. I showed up week after week in my ward, read scriptures daily, family home evening weekly, fulfilled my callings, supported my spouse, taught my children, etc. Meanwhile I was going through the greatest trial of my life, suffering silently as I wrestled with my faith, yet I couldn’t tell anyone, I knew the stigma on doubt. The moment I admitted it to my spouse and parents, I was told Satan had power over me, that I was deceived, and that I was in darkness headed toward the great and spacious building. Those words hurt. I was sincerely seeking, studying scriptures, carefully reading trustworthy sources, praying, and soul searching like never before. I trusted that God was not the author of lies and confusion, but truth. But the truth I was uncovering was deeply troubling. I wanted God to reveal to me that it was true, to dispel my doubts. Ultimately, it was a new question – whether it was okay to step away – that I felt was answered. That was answered with great peace and finally a feeling of hope.
I stepped away from the church according to the ‘unspoken order of things’ — if you’re going to leave, do it quietly. I knew if I was telling people about the things that bothered me, I would incur the scorn of members I still loved and respected. Even though I quietly stayed home from church there were many members who felt threatened and stopped talking to me and even decided not to let their children play at my house.
I had to consider what kind of God I could believe in, and go with that. I had to believe in a God who would not curse me and punish me for my doubts, but see my honest intent and the pain I went through, and love and lead me still. It is not easy to rebuild your entire worldview at midlife. It is not easy to learn to trust yourself when your family and community are telling you that you can’t, when you grew up being fed the questions as well as the answers and being told only to accept certain sources of information and how to interpret that information. I found I hadn’t been taught actual spiritual autonomy and growth, but mostly loyalty to a system that in the end rejected me.
Since I stepped away, I have become sensitized to the continuing attack on people like me by leaders chosen to represent the church. In the last 10 days I have listened to two talks given to young adults where doubters are caricaturized as petty, immature, fault finding, complainers who are deceived and distracted. Doubt is presented as something of no value, a sin, rather than a normal part of adult faith journeys which can bring to greater spiritual growth. It is said to make people stagnant and unwilling to make the effort for divine discovery, to get them to replace reason with ridicule, replace labor with indolence, makes them blind like a mole in his burrow, a lazy scholar, hard-hearted. If you admit you have doubts, suddenly you are a ‘perpetual doubter’ who ‘let’ uncertainty occupy your mind. This is laughably far from the truth.
What does it say about an organization if you can’t walk away from it with dignity? If the organization is going to tear down individuals that choose a different path? Is it fair to say we are captive by the devil?! The speakers ignore the pain of betrayal many people go through upon learning the church lied to them their entire lives, the hurt of rejection of loved ones who choose to put the church before relationships. Most of the people I know who have left the church have had experiences like mine, that included years of study and soulful attempts to seek divine guidance. I think blind certainty is much more likely to lead to spiritual stagnation, lazy scholarship, and lack of empathy. Why keep blaming the individuals who are sitting in pain? If you say the church brings you joy and peace and helps you be a better person in the world, I trust you. If I say it brings me pain, and I find greater joy and peace and can become a better person on a different path, won’t you trust me? I am learning, growing, working, and experiencing a newness and fullness of life. You don’t get to tell me that I am stagnant and lazy and miserable and unhappy.
The church has an article of faith that says “We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.” They rejoice when someone has doubts in another church and comes over to the LDS church. They lambaste members who have similar doubts about their own church and consider going somewhere else. What happened to allowing all men the same privilege? If I exercise my conscience and it leads me away, shouldn’t this article of faith lead members to support me rather than condemn me?
The church has made a lot of mistakes. It continues to whitewash history to try to appear acceptable. These speakers also choose to define which questions are primary or secondary, meaning which questions are okay and which aren’t. As well as which answers are okay and which aren’t. I think that is something individuals should decide for themselves. Elder Corbridge dismisses the questions he categorizes as secondary, including questions about Church history, polygamy, blacks and the priesthood, women and the priesthood, how the Book of Mormon was translated, DNA and the Book of Mormon, gay marriage, differing accounts of the First Vision and so on. Many of these issues are things I never heard about growing up extremely active in the church, and attending BYU. I found it necessary to study these questions to determine the answers to the kinds of questions he denoted as primary — ‘was Joseph Smith a prophet? And Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the kingdom of God on the earth?’ I understand if some issues aren’t important to someone else, but I don’t think it’s fair to say something is wrong with me if I find them important. I also find it deeply troubling that the church wants to tell me the hard work of studying these issues has been done by others and I should accept their interpretation that they are no longer issues. Some of us want to look at primary sources for ourselves and draw our own conclusions. Some of us want to come up with our own questions. An important one might be “If the church isn’t what it claims to be, would I want to know?” What are your questions? Which are the most important? I trust you to determine that for yourself.
Didn’t Joseph Smith himself go directly to God for answers? The foundation myth of the Latter-day-Saint faith says that a boy could go into the woods and pray to God and get an answer. A lot of people ridiculed and mocked him for that, but he knew he had to follow his personal revelation. Yet, the church continues to mock people who leave, to deny the possibility that they are growing spiritually or that God could still be guiding their path. We question and we are still the same good people. We love our family and friends, though we sting at the judgement caused by a tradition that has created enmeshed unhealthy relationships where differentiation is seen as a threat. We have a deep sense of personal values and are committed to living them and raising our families as best we can. I am not ‘spiritually bankrupt’! Stop telling my story! Stop trying to destroy my relationships with my believing family and friends! I am a doubter. Leave me alone LDS church!
Talks referred to:
Elder Dale G. Renlund “Doubt Not, but Be Believing” Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults. 1/13/2019. https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/archive/worldwide-devotionals/2019/01?lang=eng
Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge “Stand for Ever” BYU Devotional. 1/22/19. https://speeches.byu.edu/speakers/lawrence-e-corbridge/
This is go good that I’m copying and saving. Thanks for articulating what I’ve gone through in the very same ways.
This echoes my feelings as well – especially as I have a young child and I worry how our friendships might change if I leave the church (even though privately I’ve felt how I have for years). Your points on worshipping according to one’s own conscience have been exactly what I’ve been considering lately.
This is wonderful. Thank you for sharing your experiences and feelings, especially for those of us who have asked the questions and been silenced, shamed, and hurt for even asking. Solidarity.
Amen sister!
Thank you for sharing. My husband left the church years ago and has been vilified at the local level. These talks from the top LDS leadership just confirms the unkind and unwelcoming attitudes of members of the church to those that speak out.
Thank you so much for writing this. I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. I also spent a long time searching and praying for answers before I felt led to leave. I also went quietly to save relationships with people I care about. I am so much happier since leaving the LDS church. I have found a new faith community I love, but I also still go to the LDS church with my family. I’ve heard a few talks since the beginning of the year that mention people leaving and making all sorts of awful assumptions about them and their faith and implying they’re being led by Satan. It is infuriating. I’m almost to the point where my family is just going to have to go without me.
There is hope in the form of Elder Uchtdorf who also spoke to BYU recently try this https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/dieter-f-uchtdorf_can-you-hear-the-music/
Thank you so much for this.
Thank you SO much for this powerful defense of our delightfully diverse sisterhood, Chiaroscuro!
The brethren who would have us all fall into line with their crazy-making policies (is just me, or are things getting worse of late?) are forgetting that they, themselves are allowed to worship how they want–THEY are allowed to re-brand the church’s name when it suits their purposes (even after convincing us to spend years promoting the I’m a Mormon campaign online),THEY get to re-christen our historic choir, THEY get to tinker with the temple ceremony when THEY feel like it and then tell us not to talk about what changed; THEY can revoke and then reinstate temple and priesthood rights to different races, and THEY revoke membership rights to children of gays and then alternate between calling it policy or revelation. These men who have the *only* true power to worship “where, how or what they may” are the ones unilaterally enacting policies that make it very, very difficult for the rest of us to do so without a difficult choice: mental anguish on one hand or scorn/ridicule/loss on the other
But we sisters who have no voice nor authority in this community, our only course of action, the only true power we hold, is to leave when we know in our hearts that things aren’t right. To obey our consciences. And if we claim revelation and spirit’s guidance in doing so, who is to say it is not of God? Surely not the very people whose actions caused us so much grief in the first place?
Thank you for this defense of so many of us who are hurting. Bless you!
This story makes me happy for a) being a convert who has joined the church at a mature age and b) living in Europe where the church has always been a minority and the education level is higher.
Thanks for sharing your opinion and for referencing the talks! This allowed me to reflect on things and do my own research. After listening/watching both talks, they helped me remember the powerful spiritual answers I’ve received and accepted regarding the truth of the Book of Mormon and of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
I’m especially grateful for Elder Colbridge’s talk because he helped me put things into perspective from a spiritual standpoint concerning secondary questions.