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Hi All, I am new here, I dont know if this is the place for me or not but hopefully there is no harm in trying. I am a 7th generation, RM married in the Temple; I have always been a feminist and loved to research. I consider myself a Secular Humanist with Mormon Heritage. There are many tenants of Mormonism I still love and believe but I definitely have a non-traditional life. I am not a practicing Mormon.
I have a big family and married into another big family, many of my family and in-laws are still practicing LDS. I have seen too many friends leave the Church over Church history/doctrine and really self destruct. Sadly their lives, their marriages, children, careers and internal moral compasses have not survived so well. They have only traded down,it is my intention to never lead someone away from the church.
I have quite of few family members who are on the brink of leaving or jumping off a cliff of Mormonism. I feel very conflicted with my family; I empathize with those who are in crisis. I want them to know they aren’t alone, I am afraid that many will leave and self destruct and then I will be scapegoated as the reason they left. So I am hopeful that this site may can serve as a resource. I dont want to pass along any information that is considered apostate. None of my family blogs, they are mostly work-a-holics. I have told them to visit this site. None have, so here I am, hoping for some non-apostate quotes and stories that focus on the positive and how to approach life.
Welcome Humanist. If you are interested in the idea of staying connected to the LDS Church and culture, or are interested in the process of it, you are in the right place. We’re a little different than other sites along the same line in that we actively explore using Mormonism in our continued spiritual life journey, not just trying to tolerate it. Nobody here does things the same, and our views are often different. We also don’t have some new “one and only true” way of practicing/believing in Mormonism. It’s a deeply personal journey at this point for most of us.
I do enjoy sharing and learning from everyone here. It is fascinating, uplifting and enlightening for me.
Hi Humanist Welcome to the site and I think you may well find a lot of support and suggestions. I would add immediately that you seem to be undertaking a big load if you are working with an entire family clan and worrying about how they are approaching their own issues with the Church. So the first suggestion is that you don’t have to own other people’s problems, that is too big a responsibility. I think you are responsible for sharing with them honestly and hopefully but don’t take on any guilt they are all in the end responsible for their own decisions.
I suspect that the root of the difficulties is that the whole clan lives in a black and white world, the old “it is either all true or not at all” and that is a very difficult process because as you noted in your intro often when a black and white thinker falls out of Mormonism they still have the same approach of black and white and go to the other extremes very easily.
For yourself I suggest that you explore this site’s converstions on James Fowler’s Stages of Faith as it puts this whole process into perspective and also highlights that life is a journey, a process and that this “dark night of the soul” is NOT the end of the line but a true beginning of a possibly much fuller and deeper spiritual life. The fuller spiritual life, however, can only be reached by each person themselves, they can’t depend on the Church, its policies, its programs etc., they have to work out their own salvation with real fear and trembling.
One approach you might take with them is that this time in their lives is the real “test” of mortality, they need to really work with the Holy Ghost to understand that we are all human, we all make mistakes, Joseph Smith was not perfect in everything he did and never claimed to be, and we need to reach our own peace with Heavenly Father.
Again, welcome, the strength of this site is that we are all struggling, we are all in pain and working out the issues, historical, organizational etc. but it is all done in a process of caring.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention this. I feel often like I am in a similar situation as you. I have 7 brothers and sisters. All but 2 my siblings (that I know of) are having or had issues with the Church and are not completely active (if not totally inactive). Two of my brother-in-laws also have problems. I am the “big brother” of the clan at this point. My parents are wonderful people, great parents and all that, but not really capable of dealing with this issue. They are very faithful members and serve weekly in the temple, in addition to service missions and all that. So I feel for you in your situation.
Welcome! I hope you find some of the things here that you are looking for! 
Welcome, humanist – happy to help! A couple of good sources for non-LDS spiritual material that might be useful if you have relatives considering trading down: Paolo Cohelo’s The Alchemist, Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements, Joseph Campbell & Bill Moyer’s The Power of Myth, and Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. But obviously, it depends on what their experiences are and their predispositions. So, feel free to post about those issues, and we’ll see what we can do to help.
Hi. It sounds like you know what you are doing/dealing with. That is a great start. You mentioned having a few family members on the verge of leaving the Church. The only advice I can give is there is nothing wrong with suggesting some type of counseling for them. I personally would recommend a non-lds counselor, if the family member is self destructing and losing all “Morals”. Simply b/c an outsider can easily point out unhealthy organizational “Issues” rather than maybe reinforcing the issues, then again each counselor is different. I can honestly say I wish …. So badly that I had spoken to a (non-lds) counselor back last December .. when I was a breastfeeding new mom. I was very depressed .. To add to that my DH was in Iraq. I believe it could have decreased my anger and depression significantly..If someone would have just said..Look there is nothing wrong with you..There might be some unhealthy co-depedent issues you have been taught..here is how to fix that..by the way who’s fault is it? .. Well the fault can not be pinpointed..etc. Hopefully your family members will eventually be spiritually and emotionally mature enough and responsible to make it clear to who ever may question them, that YOU are not to blame for their personal life journey.
LaLaLove wrote:Hopefully your family members will eventually be spiritually and emotionally mature enough and responsible to make it clear to who ever may question them, that YOU are not to blame for their personal life journey.
Bill Atkinson wrote:So the first suggestion is that you don’t have to own other people’s problems, that is too big a responsibility. I think you are responsible for sharing with them honestly and hopefully but don’t take on any guilt they are all in the end responsible for their own decisions.
Super insightful guys! Absolutely great advice.
@humanist:
Welcome! My guess is that you might find this forum/site extremely helpful. I feel very similar to you as well, being the first of my family to leave and then others followed. Ironically, I’m the one “staying”, if you can define that in an infinitely broad way.
I agree great insights from all! I know my families problems are not my own. I had some wise, sage advice that kept me focused and positive while I transitioned my life. Looking for the positive instead of anger was like looking for a needle in a haystack I am glad this site is here. For the most part my family members are huge readers and researchers. I am not up on the latest LDS Current events or literature so I am hoping you can be my Amazon. If you like book ABC …. you may like book XYZ or article 123. I am looking for ideas and ways to stay positive and honest within a LDS context. Hawkgrrl “The Alchemist” is on all time favorite. I first heard of Fowlers book from the Sunstone Symposium, “For Better for Worse for Apostasy,” Great book and great talk
Humanist, there are 3 internet sites I can suggest to help you keep up on Mormon current events & culture. 1) MormonHaven.com is a collection of news articles selected from the internet updated almost every day. It generally is positive, but doesn’t avoid negative stories. 2) MormonTimes.com is a Deseret News production that predictably minimizes negative stories but does a professional job of reporting LDS stories, most of which are original with them. 3) As a columnist in MormonTimes, Michael Ash addresses some contemporary issues facing the Church that you or your family might find helpful. His series “Challenging issues and keeping the faith” may be of particular interest. Find his articles at http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/michael_r_ash/?showAll=1 Some books by non-Mmormons on spiritual issues include “Chop Wood Carry Water, A guide to Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Everyday Life”, by Rick Fields and others. “Faith of a Heretic, What can I believe? How should I live? What do I hope?” by Walter Kaufmann. The Philosophy of Martin Buber, by Hilary Evans Bender.
I also recommend one book by a Mormon is “Believing Christ, Parable of the Bicycle and other Good News” by Stephen E. Robinson. IMO, he gives the most understandable explanation of how we might relate to Christ and the Atonement. He is professor of Ancient Religion at BYU & has also taught at Duke Univ, Lycoming College & Hampden-Sydney College. He talks in language doubters and skeptics can understand.
I hope this helps.
BTW, the guy who runs mormonhaven.com is on vacation so only archives for previous days are available now. I suspect he’ll be back on the job after Thanksgiving. Until then he lists search tools and news sources you can wonder thru. humanist wrote:so here I am, hoping for some non-apostate quotes and stories that focus on the positive and how to approach life.
Welcome! That is what I like about this community as well…no angry apostate trash being thrown around or battles to win arguments…just sharing ideas and supporting each other, even if it seems our group has many differing opinions on things.
Glad your opinions are here too!
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