Green Oasis

[I have the distinct feeling that I've said this all before. If that's true, just chalk it up to early onset senility and take it as a reminder.]

Some may question why I criticize the heartfelt beliefs of others, even those who are closer to me than anyone else in the world. I do it because I am mindful of my legacy.

I often hear stories about people whose parents or grandparents were Mormon but who left activity in the church. These people learn about Mormonism, join the LDS church, and are left wondering why their parents or grandparents left such a wonderful institution. I hear other stories about children who grow up without religion but find it later in life.

In short, my reason for criticizing religion is that I don’t want that to happen to my descendants. If they choose to follow religion, I want them to know exactly why I chose not to do likewise. I want them to hear my reasons and thoughts on the subject. I don’t want them to stumble blindly into faith. If they believe in God, I want them to understand exactly what my thoughts were on the subject. If they come to a belief that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, then I want them to also know that he married dozens of women, some polyandrously while their husbands were away on missions that he had called them to, some as young as fourteen, for example. I want their faith to be tempered by all of the evidence available and by asking tough, critical questions. I don’t want them to come to their beliefs through indoctrination, and I don’t want my lack of faith to be an enigma.

[The following is an email message to the Curriculum Development department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in response to their request for comments and suggestions on the new Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith manual.]

Greetings,

I am grateful for this opportunity to offer my feedback on the
Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith. I hope that
what I say will be helpful to you.

It seems, from what I’ve read, that this manual follows a pattern
established in the other lesson manuals. The manual portrays Joseph
Smith as monogamous, mentioning only his marriage to Emma Hale. This
one example represents in my mind a general pattern in materials
published by the church: presenting only a selection of the available
historical facts. I imagine that this is to avoid presenting
information that will damage the fragile faith of new members and
those who waver, those who “cannot bear meat now, but milk they must
receive” (D&C 19:22). I had once accepted this rationale with the
expectation that the meat of LDS history was available in official
church materials to those who sought it.

Having graduated from the church’s seminary and institute programs, I
believed that I knew the important facts of LDS history because I had
exhausted official church materials. All the same, I felt that I
should be more familiar with the details of church history, so I set
out to study church history with greater focus. Little by little, I
began to realize that certain materials from the church’s history that
could be seen as unflattering or doctrinally unorthodox were missing
from all official publications. I felt disappointed and a little
ashamed to learn that I was unaware of these facts because I needed to
trust that the church was providing me with all important information.
I also wanted to believe that my faith was founded on good
information. This feeling of disillusionment led ultimately to my
choice to renounce my faith.

I wonder if the leading councils of the church have hoped that the
general membership could avoid coming across bits of troublesome
history. I believe that the increased worldwide attention on the
church and wider availability of information on the internet makes any
such hope unfounded.

I have always valued the pursuit of and loyalty to the truth. I
treasure this as a legacy of my Mormon pioneer forebears. I want my
family who choose to actively participate in the church to have all
the truth. I worry that if I try to present the historical truth to
them that they will either perceive it as an attack or believe that I
am lying because their church tells a different story. I hope instead
that they can come to rely on their church to provide that history
openly and honestly, even when it isn’t flattering to the church’s
public image or doesn’t support its current doctrinal stance. I hope
the church can find a way to openly address the uncomfortable parts of
its past.

I ask that you consider making more of the troublesome historical
facts available through official church publications. Perhaps you feel
that the Melchizedek Priesthood/Relief Society manuals are not the
appropriate place to present troublesome history, but please find a
place somewhere in your curriculum. If you are already considering or
implementing this, please consider this message a voice of
encouragement.

Thank you for asking for comments and for taking the time to read my
message.

I never really got angry. Who could I blame? Every individual Mormon that I could think of seemed to be sincere. We all did what we thought was best. If we withheld information, we did it out of concern for the fragile testimonies of others. Milk before meat and all. I got angry at God for a while, but I couldn’t sustain anger against something that I thought was imaginary.

Even now, I’m not angry at the LDS church members and leaders. I still believe in their sincerity. The only people I have reason to blame are Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Both seemed to have abused their power for personal gain. Perhaps others in church leadership have done the same. I don’t know. I find it hard to be angry at dead people, too.

Almost every Mormon does the best they know how. Like worker ants, they take care of their small tasks largely unaware of what the whole community is doing. Even the queen of the ant hill just does her one thing: laying eggs. There isn’t a central mind that can take responsibility for the actions of the whole. Individual Mormons might not intend to deceive anyone, but the cumulative effects of all their individual labors deceives.

The church as a whole hides from its dirty laundry. The idea that God directs the LDS church prevents most Mormons from admitting the mistakes of the past. The church has painted itself into a corner. I has taught its members to expect nothing less than a church lead by God. The leaders of the church must never lead the people astray. Yet the members discover more and more each day that the LDS church doesn’t meet their high expectations.

Leaders carouse with and marry other men’s wives. They lie to the public about polygamy. They prophesy falsely. They change scriptures. They never publicly disclose their financial dealings. They disagree about fundamental doctrine. They intentionally distort the presentation of church history in order to make it as favorable as possible. They try to silence critics.

All this and I’m still not angry. Call me naïve, but I still think most of them believe in the divinity of the LDS church. I still believe that they think they act in our best interest. “We know the Gospel is true, so everything we do to build up the kingdom is justified.”

I have a hard time empathizing with those who get really angry. For those of you who went through some anger while leaving the church, what got you angry? What do you think about your anger now?

I’m going to tell a little bit about why I left the LDS church, but this time the gloves are off. I’m not going to be vicious, but I’m in a mood and I will be completely forthright. Don’t read it if you’re going to allow yourself to be offended (Elder Bednar’s got by back on this one). If you think that you will allow yourself to be offended, please content yourself with the more palatable recounting of my story. Be doubly forewarned.

As I sought a greater connection with God through study and prayer, I learned that the history of the Mormon church isn’t what it is portrayed to be. I have encountered anti-Mormon literature throughout my life like most members of the Church. It caused me some moments of panicked doubt, but through study and the help of others, I was able to see through the spiteful lies and return to faith.

Things were different when I read Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman, currently serving as a Stake Patriarch. This book wasn’t filled with lies from the anti-Mormon crowd. It presented what the historical evidence seems to say without bias for or against the LDS church.

It became clear from this book and others that the Mormon religion wasn’t founded by a heroic, almost god-like prophet of the last days, but by a deeply flawed human being. Brother Joseph may have had experiences which led him to feel a divine vocation, but I saw little evidence that the Church was actually led by the hand of God. Joseph lived as a human being, full of pride, anger, and lust. He fell victim to his own power. He seduced young women and other men’s wives into sexual relationships through charisma and the promise of eternal salvation for themselves and their families. Only after his first affair did he mention to anyone the doctrine of polygamy. In case it didn’t come through the first time I said it, Joseph Smith was married to other men’s wives while the men were still alive and married. In a handful of cases, Joseph Smith practiced polyandry. That was news to me.

There were missteps, blunders, and doctrinal reversals at every step of early Church history. Joseph’s inept leadership culminated in Joseph and Hyrum’s assassinations and the exile of most of the Saints into the Rocky Mountains. The Saints were not strictly innocent victims as we often see portrayed by the LDS church. They provoked some of their own troubles.

I next read Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930 by Thomas G. Alexander. This was another scholarly work which presented a balanced history of the Mormons in Utah during this pivotal time. The book treated many themes, but the ones that stuck with me concern:

1. the radical changes in doctrine during this time like the abandonment of the Adam-God theory which had been taught in the Temple Endowment for a time
2. the continued, secret solemnization of polygamous marriages by members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve well into the twentieth century despite public avowals to the contrary
3. the consolidation of centralized priesthood authority in the church which removed the autonomy of the Relief Society and the other auxiliary organizations (the Relief Society had been a parallel organization to the priesthood)
4. the change in emphasis from worship centered around gifts of the Spirit to attendance at the temple (this change also further reduced the autonomy of the Sisters of the Church who were probably the most fervent practitioners of the Gifts, who for example, would often heal members of Church through their spiritual gifts)
5. the nascent development of a literalist orthodoxy which changed the original, freeform, creedless Mormonism into the more authoritarian, exclusive religion we are familiar with today

I next read David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Gregory A Prince and Wm Robert Wright. This book tells the story of how Mormonism was transformed into something that is easily recognizable to modern members. It traces the continued consolidation of power and authority and the continued creation of an LDS orthodoxy. It also portrayed the machinations and politics at the highest levels of the Church which betrays the image of calm unanimity which is portrayed to the public. It only added another damning witness to the previous two books in my eyes.

At this point, I was on pretty shaky ground. I was a member of a church that I no longer recognized. I didn’t know whether to give up on Mormonism entirely or to become a fundamentalist Mormon in hopes of regaining something which was lost.

Enter the new crop of atheist authors, stage right. I never read any of Dawkins’, Harris’, or Dennet’s books, but I became familiar with their ideas through snippets of text and video on the internet.

I don’t think I’ve shared this anywhere else yet, but the following two sites were a central turning point when I became aware of how absurd a belief in God looked when observed objectively: Why Won’t God Heal Amputees and Kissing Hank’s Ass (video inspired by Kissing Hank’s Ass). The first asks a very provocative question. Had I ever heard of an amputee made whole through prayer? Why not? I thought I had a good answer to this challenging question, but as I read through that site, I realized that my answer was only a weak rationalization to preserve a belief which seemed more and more like simple superstition.

It all comes down to this: what the atheists said made sense on a level that all my religious training did not. My experiences, when I looked at them honestly, confirmed the atheists’ viewpoint much more than it confirmed the Mormon doctrines. I had never seen God or felt any special communion with Him. I never had a witness of the Holy Spirit that could be distinguished from a simple emotional response. I had never witnessed any miracles. Answers to my prayers had been sporadic and indistinguishable from natural phenomena. The leaders of the LDS church seemed like nothing more than sincere men who acted with no more insight than other intelligent managers in the business world.

My world under the burden of my religious faith had been filled with guilt, fear, and superstition. If you had told me this at the time, I would have denied it. The world was peachy keen from where I stood. I was a fish swimming in an ocean of water, ignorant of the true nature of my surroundings. I must say the following exactly as it is: the Mormon church laid a mighty awful mindfuck on me. It’s only now that I can see that.

Giving up on Mormonism, Satan, and God has made the world make sense. I was always struggling to reconcile my beliefs with what I saw in the world around me. I never dug too deeply into religious doctrines because it only ended in paradox and infinite regress. My mind is now unfettered by filial, cultural, or dogmatic constraints. I feel no obligation to believe anything that isn’t reasonable to me.

All the days of my life I had never known the pleasure of pure intellectual integrity. Now that I’ve tasted that fruit which is most precious and sweet above all that is sweet, I will not be easily persuaded to turn back to the pandemonium of the great and spacious houses of religious ignorance and pride.

My wife and I watched an ABC Primetime program on plural marriage as practiced in Centennial Park. I was impressed with the coverage though it was a bit sensationalist in its promotional materials. The subjects came across as normal religious folk (if LDS are considered normal ) with just a slight twist on the traditional American family. I imagine that this would be how the LDS church would look if they reclaimed polygamy, right down to the testimonies of polygamy in testimony meeting and the Young Men/Young Women looking forward fondly to the day when they could marry plurally.

My only real concern is that, for the Centennial Park group, it seems that polygamy is still a requirement to get into God’s Kingdom. It just doesn’t work out sociologically if the number of boys and girls born are roughly equal. The show didn’t delve into the issue, but I don’t see how they can avoid the lost boy problem if polygamy is truly a requirement as it was portrayed.

I commented to my wife that it is only a matter of time before gay marriage and polygamy are both legalized. (She warned me not to put too much hope in marrying a plural wife.) Public opinion in this sphere is becoming much more libertarian. Even though it is still very polarized, the balance is tipping. Now if we could only get marriage completely deregulated. But that’s a topic for another day.

It would be interesting to see how the LDS Church would handle the situation if polygamy became legal in the United States.