A Mormon Boy That’s Not Sure He Can Stay LDS

Like many of you, I’m a “born in the covenant” Mormon. Like many LDS families in Utah, our lives revolved around FHE, Primary, and the 3 hour block. As the oldest of 5 children, I sang along to “My Turn on Earth” and “Saturday’s Warrior” with my little sisters. I remember tearing up in primary while singing “I Wonder When He Comes Again.” I was baptized in the baptistry at the Tabernacle on Temple Square.

My parents are about as faithful and true to the church as anyone can be. They love the Gospel. They’ve lived it. They’ve sacrificed for it. They raised us on next to nothing, living in tough neighborhoods and cheap apartments while Dad finished college and graduate school. He’s since served in major leadership callings in the Church. He’s had my mom’s constant support, even though his “priesthood work” frequently took him away from her and the young children. “Family and Faith” has been their motto.

After Dad finished school “in the mission-field” we returned to Utah and lived next to my grandparents. They had a “missionary wall” showing where all 6 sons served missions, adorned with handsome photos and a favorite scripture. Around the corner was the “marriage wall”, replete with large pictures of all 10 children accompanied by their temple- married spouse. Very respected in the neighborhood, Grandpa served several times as bishop and Stake President. During the same time, my dad served as a “perpetual Bishop” of a string of student wards at the university.

While in grade school, grandma taught me to sing “I Am a Mormon Boy.” A trip out to the Salt Lake airport was practically a bi-annual tradition with all those sons of hers; uncles came and went from LDS missions to Argentina, Wales, Germany, Japan, and other faraway places. I loved carrying their bags and brimmed with pride as they put their badges on my pocket. “Your turn is coming up!” they’d all say.

A prominent LDS apostle was a close friend of my grandparents. When I was in 5th grade I remember him giving me an imperious look and saying, “You get ready to serve a mission young man.” I felt destined to share in the “marvelous work and a wonder” that my uncles talked about so much.

Although my childhood was steeped in Mormon tradition, I always had questions that popped up. I was 12 when they gave black men the priesthood; I remember thinking, why didn’t they have it all along? I tried working things out in my little mind, but I wondered about God and revelations and Jesus.

I was a dutiful deacon, but got a weird reaction from my advisor once when I said, “Well, if the church isn’t true, it’s probably a pretty good way to live anyway.” I thought that seemed like a pretty reasonable thing to say, but he responded, “How dare you even question that this is the one and only true church on the face of the earth.”

During my late teens, I met James; a very intelligent young man that was not LDS. He challenged me on everything. The simple doubts and questions I had spiraled into a hundred more. We had very spirited discussions. We eventually took some college classes at the University of Utah together. We discussed Plato and Shakespeare and argued about ethics, science and religion. Although we came from different backgrounds, we just clicked. We embodied David Hume’s truism: “Truth springs from argument amongst friends.”

We made plans to study together and go to graduate school. It was a wonderful time of my life. Everything seemed open to me. The world of ideas became my playground.

However, about this same time the ever-present “I’ve got to decide about a mission” pressure came to a head. I’d recently received my patriarchal blessing after all and it confirmed what I had to do. How could a “Prince in the house of Israel” do anything but “follow the example of father and uncles and serve a mission?”

Although the family had “certain expectations”, I think it surprised some a little when I said “I’m going on a mission.” In hindsight, I think I simply followed the “path of least resistance.” I didn’t want to disappoint those I looked up to. A Mormon boy can’t “not go on a mission.” It’s about the most un-LDS thing you can do.

So I decided to give the church my whole soul and see what happened. Well, what happened was that family and ward members seemed to love me just a little bit more, their eyes gleamed just a bit brighter when they talked to me, their hugs felt just a bit warmer, their confidence in me just a bit stronger, as if to say…”we’re so glad you’re one of us know.”

I admit it; that felt wonderful. James, and the world of ideas we were just beginning to explore, would have to wait. Doubts would have to be resolved later.

I dropped my college courses and went to institute classes and read the standard works. It really felt good to do what I was supposed to. Missionary prep classes got my enthusiasm up, though in hindsight, my conversion at this time was mostly social, not intellectual. I loved singing, “Because I Have Been Given Much” at the classes. I remember crying tears of joy (and dread) as I opened my letter from Ezra Taft Benson calling me on a mission. I entered the MTC with some misgivings about the priesthood, buried plates, and visions etc., but I side-stepped these and gave it my all.

When I met my mission president he asked me was, “Elder, why are you here?”

I said, “I want to serve. I have a testimony and I want to share it.” I had a wimpy, happy sort of “serve the people” kind of attitude I guess. That wasn’t good enough.

His rejoinder, “Wrong! The only reason you are here is to baptize.”

I felt a bit puzzled and taken aback by his sternness, but I went forward, putting my whole heart into the work.

“Obedience is greater than sacrifice” was our mission theme. As a result, I tried to do everything to the letter. I followed my Biblia Blanca with exactness; I always had it with me, stuck in my pocket, now under my very own missionary badge. By following the missionary routine, my testimony seemed to solidify somewhat. Some things were still a bit iffy for me though.

After I taught an investigator the First Vision, for example, my Idaho “born and raised” trainer complained, “I’m going to have to teach that part next time. I can tell you don’t have a very good testimony of it.” I was crestfallen. I wanted him to have confidence in me, so I read and re-read Joseph Smith’s History in the Pearl of Great Price until I’d convinced myself it was true. I buried my doubts and just plowed ahead.

The social dynamics of missions are amazing to me when I think back on it. Conformity is very comfortable, especially when you’re in foreign, and perceived hostile territory. Eventually I got caught up in working my way up the mission leadership ladder. I worked hard and had hopes of being a zone leader. I really piled it on at testimony time in zone conferences. Other Elders started to say, “Man, you’re gonna be AP for sure.”

This later turned out to be the case. While I was AP, I got to see a different side of my mission president. When I was a greenie, he flat out scared me, but fear was soon superseded as he awed me with his knowledge of the gospel and speaking ability. He hinted to me that he had conversations with the prophet Lehi in vision. It felt special to work shoulder to shoulder with a “visionary man.”

In my mind, my mission president could do no wrong. I thought he walked on water. I felt certain he would someday be and Apostle. I really would have gone to war for him. I believed him. I knocked doors all day long and did my best to convert the lapsed Catholics and agnostics of Spain. (Although I only had 1 baptism my whole mission, a 12 year old step-daughter of an American Serviceman serving at Torrejon air base, I felt like my mission was successful.) After 2 years of hard, if futile labor, my mission president and I said a tearful goodbye as he told me, “Go home and get married.”

When I returned home James was well on his way to a PhD. I tried to rekindle our friendship, fueled by the vain ambition of converting him. No surprise; my proselytizing bothered him. He was a good person; he really cared about the world and making it a better place, but that wasn’t good enough for me. He had to “be Mormon.” I remember bearing my testimony to him during one of our increasingly less frequent conversations. He said, “Can’t you do better than that? You’re just appealing to emotion and giving me a testimonial, a believer of any other religion could do the same.”

In hindsight, I should have apologized to him, but I didn’t. Somehow the words of the song my Grandmother taught me echoed in my head:

I’m proud to know that I was born

Among these mountains high,

Where I’ve been taught to love the truth,

And scorn to tell a lie;

Yet I’ll confess that I am wild,

And often do annoy,

My dearest friends, but that’s a fault

Of many a “Mormon” boy.

We had little contact until recently at our 20 year high school reunion. I’m a different person now, having shed the major Mormon predjudices, but he just doesn’t seem interested in me anymore. I’m afraid I really hurt him.

In my hubris, I had basically pushed him out of my life. He was interested in exploring and learning and engaging life as it came, while I insisted on “defending the faith.” We were once best friends, but I closed myself off to his ideals: to reason, to reality, and intelligent conversation. As an RM, I scuttled anything or anyone that didn’t fit the Mormon paradigm, and in so doing, lost his friendship. This is one of my deepest regrets.

I met my wife at an Institute activity at the UofU. I fell hard and fast. Her smile just melted me. We married at the zenith of my intoxication with the Church. Even though we’d just been married a few months, I remember walking her up to meet Elder Backman after a fireside about missionary work. I asked him if it was possible for us to do a couples mission before we had children. Seriously!

Later I served as Elder’s Quorum President in my student ward. Our bishop, a kind and intelligent man, told me he was “grooming me to be a bishop someday.” The first of our children was born. I loved being a dad. Everything seemed to be on track.

As I finished my undergraduate degree, however, my doubts bubbled to the surface again. I studied biology, chemistry and physics. Doctrines that seemed to make perfect sense to me on my mission started to really bother me now.

What I was learning “in the real world” really didn’t jive with a literal interpretation of the scriptures, but I figured there must be some reasonable explanation. I thought, “There’s all those really smart professors down at BYU who’ve studied everything I have and they still believe.” FARMs started publishing stuff about this time. I subscribed and read Hugh Nibley’s books. It was enough to keep my teetering testimony from crumbling completely, but the seeds of disbelief had been sown.

My doubts about Mormonism had their roots in my youth, resurfaced in my college days, but really blossomed during my years at medical school. Medical training demanded more rigorous thinking than I was accustomed to as a missionary or even as an undergraduate student. Here I learned how to judge evidence and assess probability. During this time, I read a lot of Mormon history and re-read the scriptures, this time with a bit more critical eye. Just as I’d done to diagnose a difficult medical case, I let the facts of Mormonism speak for themselves, went where the evidence led, weighed the probability of each possibility, then made my call.

I found many problems; more than I could have imagined even. I didn’t know how to handle the angst this caused at first, and like many of you, I figured there must be something wrong with me, not the doctrine. Initially I tried to derail my apostasy with extra callings, going on splits with the missionaries, and taking on extra home teaching families. I was praying 24/7. Try as I might to shake my doubts, I couldn’t.

We came back to Utah after med school. During this time I slowly distanced myself from orthodox belief in Mormonism. I stopped going to the temple and wearing the garments. For the last 10 years, I’ve taken callings I thought I could handle without feeling too uncomfortable: things like nursery, scouts and preparedness coordinator. All in all, however, I just felt like a hypocrite. About a year ago, I told my leaders I couldn’t do callings anymore.

5 years ago we adopted 2 beautiful children. This has been wonderful for me. I love them as if they were my own flesh and blood. The adoption process was difficult, during which my wife showed incredible courage and resolve. I’d love to get through a temple recommend interview and fulfill my wife’s desire to have them sealed to us, but I can’t get through the first four recommend questions without outright lying.

Just recently, my bishop had a visiting General Authority interview me prior to our Stake Conference. It was a short interview. There was no time to lay out my concerns or challenge his statements. He told me that I simply needed to realize that I’ve always really had a testimony; I just needed to remember it. He gave me a list of scriptures and a prayer schedule to follow. Then the Stake President and Bishop took turns sharing somewhat “weepy” testimonies to me, which really impressed my wife, but I left feeling more like my old friend must have when I bore testimony to him all those years ago. Emotional testimonials don’t really do much for me anymore.

Of course my fall from activity breaks my beloved’s heart. She’s fearful I might share my doubts with our children. She can’t see that any good would come from that. She feels the need to protect them.

I know my wife feels deeply threatened by my loss of faith. She gets very upset if I say anything negative about the church. She must feel like the floor has dropped out of her life. She’s had some health issues. She’s afraid she’ll, “die before me and infect our children with doubts.”

She blames me for dashing her dreams an eternal family. She’s angry that I’ve “changed” while she remains “constant.” I can certainly sympathize with her, yet I feel powerless to fix things. I’m trying to “go slow”, but it’s hard.

Over time, my loved ones seem loath to talk to me about anything substantive. Our talks are pretty superficial. Sometimes I feel like the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.

I’m so sad about the loss of closeness and belonging. I’m a mature, thoughtful, good, intelligent person that just happens to have studied hard and thought hard about my beliefs. As a result I lost my belief in Mormon doctrine. Unfortunately, as such, I’m a person that the Church can only treat as a fool or a sinner. As much as my wife and family love me, I think they share the sentiment.

It’s ironic that Mormonism, something I’ve given so much of my life to, now stands like a brick wall between me and those I love. I’ve done my best to live it. What has the Church given me in return: a lost friend, a wounded marriage, and children that don’t understand why Dad doesn’t wear garments or do priesthood blessings anymore?

As much as it would make my life easier, I’m not sure I can stay LDS. It would be akin to crawling back into Plato’s cave after seeing what the real world is like. Life is grander and more complicated than Mormonism can handle. There’s so much more to learn and explore, so much to enjoy and appreciate, so much more to experience. I tired of feeling it’s my fault that Mormonism isn’t big enough to contain all truth.

I can’t live a fake life. I can’t live with blinders on. I can’t live in a cage. There’s a journey out there that I’m ready to take. I just wish those I love best… could share it with me.