My Introduction, Take Two

[Anonymous]

I’m trying to trace my disaffection with the church so that I can face the issues and make choices about what I believe and how I want to live my life from here on out. When there are many issues involved, it can seem like a big complex ball of gunk. I’d like to try to deconstruct it a little bit.

I felt pretty good about church until I left Salt Lake City six years ago to pursue a doctorate. At the time, I was a 32-year-old single adult, never married who had a fairly decent support structure and social life. Moving to the most liberal city in Colorado (also the most beautiful city in Colorado, I’ll let you figure out where that is on your own) was a shock and a half. I clung to the Institute program even though I had technically aged out. I developed a very close relationship with the Institute director there, and he asked me to consider going to the single adult Ward, explaining that it wasn’t really like the wards in Salt Lake City – it was more of a student Ward plus a young single adult Ward. I was reticent, mainly because I had already gone through the process of leaving the young single adult scene, and I didn’t want to have to go through it again. After a few weeks, I decided I’d try it out.

This Institute director challenged me to probe my assumptions. I quickly began to realize just how steeped I was in Marxist thought and critical theory. I guess I had never really allowed myself to see it, having lived most of my life in Utah. I had a wonderful year nerding it up, learning about various research methodologies, and discussing theological issues with my new friend. Unfortunately, after a year of living there, I still felt very lonely. I didn’t really have any close friendships with people my own age, who I could hang out with.

During that time, I tried with yet another LDS therapist to work on curing my homosexual attractions. I feel like we accomplished some good things, but she was pregnant at the time and after only a couple months, she had her baby and went on maternity leave. At the end of the school year I left Colorado for the summer to spend time with my parents in Idaho. While I was there, I received news that the bishopric had changed. I felt very discouraged, because I really liked my old Bishop, and I would be put in the position yet again to have to explain my situation to another ecclesiastical leader. After long thought, I decided to give this guy a chance.

I ended up liking my new Bishop very quickly. By the end of the semester, however, I had finally come to two very depressing conclusions about my life in the church: after 10 years of therapy I realized that my homosexuality was not going to be cured, and that I might have to leave the church; and secondly, I realized just how rotten the church treats its single membership, and I knew that I might be single for the rest of my life. Before I left Colorado for Christmas vacation I met with my Bishop and had a very frank conversation with him about it the possibility that I might have to leave the church. To his great credit, he was very compassionate about it. He suggested that I have a conversation with the stake president – not because he just wanted to kick it up the line, but because he genuinely believed that the stake president was a compassionate and good man who could help me. So I met with him before I left. We had a wonderful experience. I talked with him for a couple of hours, and the crisis felt averted for the time being.

At the end of my Christmas break, I was visiting with some friends in Salt Lake City. I used to enjoy going to Deseret book, and I felt very strongly that I could find something there that would help me feel better about staying in the church. After searching for over an hour, I couldn’t find anything. I said a very desperate prayer to heavenly father, telling him that I only had a few more minutes, and that I really needed to find something that would help me. I quickly stumbled across a book written by Kristin Oaks, entitled A Single Voice. In this book, sister Oaks writes about her six decades of single life, and how she developed a thicker skin and found a very satisfying and full life as a single member of the church. The book is written primarily for single women, but I felt like a lot of it apply to my situation. I felt renewed for the challenge of continuing to find ways to remain and serve in the church.

My final year and a half in Colorado was very satisfying. I made a couple of very deep friendships and served in Ward leadership, magnifying my talents and compassion helping other members of the church. However, the first theological cracks in my dam began to form as I began to critically examine the facsimiles in the book of Abraham and realize there was a huge problem there. I search the Internet and found an apologetic article by John Gee, and it was enough for me to re-shelve the issue.

At the end of my third year in Colorado, I found a job in Ohio. It felt just right for me, and I felt that I was being led there because everything happened so effortlessly. I had a very difficult year being a first year professor. I was also very very alone. I began to feel bitter as I realized that the program of the church is almost exclusively for those who are married with children. I began to see all of the little and big ways the church excludes single people, especially men. It was not okay for me. Additionally, I could no longer hide from the fact that even though I have never been sexually active, I am a homosexual. And the church and homosexuals don’t mix very well. I was also very highly stressed because I was working full-time and finishing my doctoral dissertation. At the end of the school year, I had received my second semester of negative course evaluations, and was gently put on notice that I needed to change some things if I wanted to stay in my job.

I slipped into a deep depression. I decided that I needed to spend a month back in Colorado to recharge. It was at this time that I discovered the bloggernacle. I began searching for every entry about the plight of single people in the church. I ran into quite a bit of discussion about Nicole Hardy’s New York Times article “Single, Mormon, Female, and Alone.” If you haven’t read it, I think you should. It’s a very frank discussion about the social and emotional consequences of decades of celibacy. I began to realize that my singleness and celibacy was keeping me emotionally stunted and infantilized. I just didn’t know what to do about it.

For the first time in my life, I began to read the experiences of gay and lesbian Mormons who chose to leave the church and follow their hearts. I began to realize that their decision was much more complex than “they just wanted to sin.” It was at this time that I discovered Stay LDS. I lurked for a while before joining. I began to realize that my problems with the church vis-à-vis the treatment of single members and homosexuals wasn’t just in my head. I continued to read Mormon blogs that unflinchingly faced real issues in the church. I began to listen to Mormon Stories. Reading about the experiences of other people disaffected with the church by their various experiences opened my eyes and my heart to the real possibility that the church does not equal the gospel, otherwise the church could not be God’s one true church, because God is good. Unless God isn’t good, or isn’t there…

For the first time in my life my fairytale version of God was deeply challenged. If God was good, and if he loved me, then why am I gay? Considering the Church’s teachings and position about homosexuality, the church must certainly love gay people less than straight people. (and to be perfectly frank, the whole “it’s ok to be gay, but don’t act on it” thing can only lead to lonely, broken, empty shells of human beings). If the church loves gays less than straight people, does God love me less than others? Does he just not love me as much as all of the heterosexuals in the church? My LDS therapist at the time admitted to me that of all of the issues of his clients, homosexuality is the most unfair condition considering current Mormon theology. I was faced with the problem of evil for the first time in my life. With all of the suffering in the world, how could God be good? The whole “all these things shall give thee experience” thing just didn’t cut it for me anymore. In my mind, no omni-benevolent God would allow the sheer amount of cruelty and human suffering that flies on this planet. For the first time, I began to seriously entertain the concept that may be there is no God.

Ironically, my faith in Christ became much stronger than my belief in God. I know that sounds crazy. But I really feel like I could believe in a God who would descend into the world, put on the flesh, teach true principles, alleviate human suffering, and suffer and die for the human race. I still feel much more attracted to the belief in Christ rather than the belief in the father. Perhaps I am beginning to feel that they are one and the same. I don’t know. All I know is that I no longer feel genuine praying to God the father. But I certainly feel like a direct appeal to Jesus is much more satisfying and efficacious.

Now that the existence of God was on the table, I felt I could now begin to examine the nature of Scripture and of prophecy and of priesthood. During this time, I have been attracted to the faith development model of James Fowler. The transition through stage four into stage five began to make sense to me. I have been demythologizing my beliefs and moving my spiritual locus of control back inside myself. I feel like my anger and frustration is beginning to abate, and I see the grand universal reality of human spirituality and that its goodness is not dependent upon its literalness.

So where does this leave me now? I believe that much of Scripture is allegorical. I used to really love Isaiah, because of its combination of spiritual truth and poetic beauty. I still think it’s beautiful, but I don’t believe it’s all true. Most of the Old Testament no longer appeals to me, and I find myself not wanting to believe in its conception of God. With the exception of Psalms, I no longer intend to use it as a spiritual text anymore. The New Testament on the other hand, is very satisfying to me. I find myself loving the sermons of Jacob, Mormon, and Moroni from the book of Mormon (not Capt. Moroni). I think Nephi is a prick. And I don’t really intend to spend much more my life reading his work.

I love the book of Moses. I don’t care that Moses didn’t write Moses. I think it’s an especially beautiful work, particularly its expansion of the Enoch narrative. I like much of the Doctrine and Covenants. I find the concept of Zion to be an especially beautiful and compelling idea in latter-day Scripture. I have come to accept that Joseph Smith is a highly spiritual, but deeply flawed individual. I believe that he was a theological genius. Considering my spiritual witness of the truth of many of the principles in the BoM, and the preponderance of scientific, historical, and linguistic evidence against it, I’m agnostic about the historicity of the book of Mormon. But Joseph somehow produced this text. We have not had a prophet like him since. In spite of all of his great work, however, I think the book of Abraham is baloney. I feel the church made a mistake canonizing it.

I believe in the power of priesthood, but I do not believe in its exclusivity. I think that the brethren are generally good men who make a lot of mistakes. I believe they have the potential to be prophets, seers, and revelators, but most of them don’t prophesy, see visions, or reveal anything but their own opinions. That’s okay. But I no longer feel that I need to beat myself up trying to live by their every word, or feel bad about myself because of their ideas about homosexuality.

I am a good person. I genuinely try to be kind and generous to those around me. I no longer feel guilty about masturbation, especially considering my relationship situation. I certainly don’t feel guilty about being gay, although I don’t see myself completely coming out, dating, or getting married. Maybe that would change if I felt my parents could support me. I don’t know. I think pornography isn’t good, and that objectification of other people based upon their beauty is not consistent with the gospel of Christ. I certainly know that it warps human relationships and creates very unrealistic expectations of sexuality. It seems to be a somewhat necessary evil in my life, although I do want to change this.

I’ve been called into two elders quorum presidencies in a row over the last year or so. I teach well, and I tend to be compassionate of my brothers in the quorum. My current EQP knows about all of my struggles and doubts, and he’s ok with this. He is happy to have me serve with him. I like my Ward. Regardless of the generally negative fruits of the institutional church in my life, my local reality is pretty good. I hope that that will continue to be the case in the future.

I really like this site. I hope to continue to participate here, and I really value all of you. If you’ve read this far, you are “an honorable tired one” as they say in Japan.

[Edits–I have to use a dictation program, so there were a few typos that changed my intended meaning. I’ve gone back and fixed those. I also changed a bit of the language]

[Anonymous]

Welcome, take two.

A touching story.

[Anonymous]

I found your logic interesting…they way various experiences caused you to question the foundations of our religion. And how you have your own views on important issues like the exclusivity of the priesthood, priesthood leadership, etcetera.

You have me on the edge of my chair about your student evaluations. As a fellow higher education professor, i know how critical they are, how they hurt academic quality (in my view), and how administrators place a heavy emphasis on student satisfaction without measuring student achievement in a reliable and valid way. I also know what to do to make them go up…I would be interested in hearing how that situation was resolved, in whatever forum you feel comfortable sharing — private message, for example. Or here. I know that is peripheral to your spiritual story, but nonetheless, I find it of professional interest as a career,teacher of over 20 years in higher education.

[Anonymous]

Go-kurosama, my friend.

[Anonymous]

You have been one of my favorite here for the last year sense I joined and I really appreciate the up date. You are a brave and good man and I feel sad because of your situation. It make me mad that the church has made you feel less then. I really hope that you know that we value all of you, the struggling member, the gay man, the leader, the loving and caring person who has reached out to so many of us when we are hurting. Thank you for being you in you current form. Knowing you and being connected in this small way makes me a better person.

[Anonymous]

church0333 wrote:

You have been one of my favorite here for the last year sense I joined and I really appreciate the up date. You are a brave and good man and I feel sad because of your situation. It make me mad that the church has made you feel less then. I really hope that you know that we value all of you, the struggling member, the gay man, the leader, the loving and caring person who has reached out to so many of us when we are hurting. Thank you for being you in you current form. Knowing you and being connected in this small way makes me a better person.

This may be the best compliment I have ever heard. I feel the same.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, guys. If I am an amazing person, I’d be the last person to believe it. I’m working on that.

I like being a Mormon. But you know, being “blessed with commandments not a few”, sometimes when our religion is practiced it’s very good at making good people feel bad about themselves. I don’t want to let that happen to me anymore. But it’s difficult to break old habits. And if there is any way I can be an influence to help other people see how wonderful they are, and stop the awful things poorly practiced Mormonism can make some people believe about themselves, that is something I can feel good about.

[Anonymous]

t, I can’t access the search option on my blog right now (using a different computer while traveling), but I would recommend going to my blog and looking up “Carrying His Load”. That thought hit me as I read your last comment, so I hope the post helps somehow.

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