Poll: What was your shelf-breaker?

The idea of the overloaded shelf works so well because there is not just one thing. Some “heavy” items for me included the messy practice of polygamy, and believe it or not the idea of a 6000 year old earth. I was fascinated by the Ice Man that was found and other evidence of much older civilization. Too many things in our history combined with science that didn’t fit into the paradigm that I had acquired/built.

If I had to pick one category I would say contradictions between scientific and historical evidence and what the scriptures (especially LDS) say. For example, passages about “no death before the fall”, a global flood, and the tower of Babel in LDS scriptures. I guess you could call it current doctrine that I disagree with (especially the claimed reliability of revelation and prophets) but I think this could be a specific category by itself. With the Bible I could separate the New Testament and Old Testament and shrug off some of the older stories as myths and legends similar to the Trojan horse or that kind of thing but the way the Church claims scriptures like the BoM, BoA, Moses, and D&C were delivered through revelation to prophets it didn’t seem like there was that much wiggle room to work with. Once I started to pay close attention to several of these contradictions at the same time that’s when I really started to think what is more likely that God was revealing what he wanted us to know through these supposed prophets or that JS or whoever else around 1830-1844 would feel safe repeating and building on stories like this from the Bible only to have them increasingly discredited as people’s overall knowledge of science and history progressed?

I’m testing the theory that people here are less likely to have experienced the Church history flavor of faith crisis.

For me, I’d say that while certain aspects of Church History deeply trouble me, there’s nothing I couldn’t have lived with if only the Church had been open about it. What hurt the most was feeling like I was lied to, decieved, and manipualted.

Everyone, thanks for your responses so far. Y’all never disappoint.

I realized that I skipped a step in my reasoning. (Gotta show my work!) There are usually many factors in a faith crisis. It seems there’s usually a catalyst. I’m asking about catalysts specifically because I think they have much more to do with our emotional reactions to various aspects of Church activity than the other factors.

I already knew most of the crazy Church history thanks to a friend’s weekly inoculating lunch discussions. It definitely was a big factor in my faith crisis, but none of my triggers have much to do with it. My triggers tend to have to do with God and prayer, which have to do with my catalyst, which was the hidden god problem getting really real.

If the factors had come the other way around, I think my triggers would be Church-history-related. Gospel Doctrine this year would be unbearable. Everything from HQ would be not just suspect, but anger-inducing reminders of deep betrayal. I’d have many more reasons to want to leave.

I think the key to every shelf breaking is “What were my expectations?” We don’t think of it very often. But the church, even if we were born into it, offered us something. A dream, a desire, a guarantee – one day that thing didn’t match. It no longer worked or applied. Everything fell. Only those who have had it fall know how hard and fast it can go. But my reason isn’t anyone else’s. So even if my reason were history, there is no guarantee that my explaining history to someone would make their shelf break.

I know it seems trite, but I think its a deeper bottom line than we ever look into.

The behavior of leaders and members is what broke my shelf. So, my shelf was not a shelf of unanswered questions. It was a shelf of repeated inconsistencies between the values we hold as an organization, and the behavior of our leaders and some members. I had high expectations of an organization that claims to have a divine head, inspired leaders, etcetera. As I believe we should given their truth claims. And I expected a lot of myself accordingly.

I quickly learned that the church tends to act like any other temporal organization when there is conflict between temporal and spiritual interests. At least, that was my experience on deeply personal, and important issues. History seemed to confirm this to me in certain ways as well. Issues such as liability, money, covering personal pride — all these things tended to eclipse doing what was right in the support of selfless members like myself who were giving with all their might.

Added to that were feelings of being used as a volunteer. I saw that when they were trying to draw you into the circle of commitment, they were nice. They were accepting and disarming and inclusive. But when they “had you” (serving with your might), they would take long hours of service for granted. If you wanted out of a calling, they would lose interest in you, and treat the request with indifference. Some leaders would even chastise you for wanting out. Love from the organization appeared highly conditional and self-serving.

Given the lack of acceptance I felt in my home Ward, I turned to the internet. I was spurned at a site for traditional believers. I was very surprised how these faithful members there would be so openly mean and full of vitriol when I shared my concerns. I eventually quit that forum and found StayLDS.

At StayLDS, I found open-minded people who were not judgmental about my pain. Brian Johnson made a comment that as soon as I could get “on my own clock”, the happier I would be. That was a turning point, As a result, I started using StayLDS as a place to discuss what I believed about the church, deconstructing every major assumption and reconstructing it again. During this time, I was exposed to the historical concerns of others, and saw the panorama of leadership behavior people reported when they shared doubts with the BP and SP.

These historical concerns, and behavior of various BP’s and SP’s seemed to encourage my reconstruction. They were like fuel that kept the train moving. But my concerns were still, primarily centered again, on the ego-centric, temporally driven church that seemed to sell out its values whenever the chips were down (based on some life events I experienced over 25 years).

It’s strange, you can have spiritual experiences in the church. You can testify that when you taught a lesson on JS, the Spirit was present. But without commitment, those experiences don’t carry enough weight to encourage textbook gospel behavior. Even recently, I found I could teach with the Spirit even when I was teaching without much testimony. I have started questioning whether the Spirit really testifies of what we think it does — or if attribution theory applies. That we tend to attach whatever meaning that suits us to the spiritual experiences. Therefore, the Spirit of Truth is not so much as Spirit of truth, but a spirit of attribution….And here I sit…

Heber13 wrote – Not really a shelf break. I still consider myself a believer. It was more along these lines mom3 wrote…the expectations that the church and gospel were something that didn’t line up with my life and what was happening. To adjust my expectations, I dove into studying and as I did saw things in a new light (hence the prism in my avatar)…the source of light didn’t change, the truth didn’t change…but the color I was seeing was different then before and realized there are many colors that can differ about the truth, depending on your point of view.

So…I didn’t have everything drop. I purposefully clung to truths I still believe in. I just shed the non-truths (to me) like layers of an onion until I was at the core I was comfortable believing in to stayLDS.

This. Yes. Me, too. It’s why I can stay and my spouse can’t. I am not lying.I just shifted as knowledge and understanding grew. The church does this all the time. But no one really notices. https://bycommonconsent.com/2017/04/27/how-much-mormonism-has-changed/” class=”bbcode_url”>https://bycommonconsent.com/2017/04/27/how-much-mormonism-has-changed/ It’s like tectonic plates. We don’t feel them until there is an earthquake.

Love these Heber –

But none of those ever made me feel I had proof that the church was wrong, or lied, or was false, or was a waste of time. It was just different. So, I adjusted my sights, and re-engage in a new light. All the problems of history or other things, they are neither true or false.

I had a shelf reshuffling and purging, not a break. Today…I still believe the church is true. In so many ways that means something completely different than 15 years ago, I’m not even talking about the same things.