Our Mormon Story: An Open Letter to Our LDS Family, Friends and Acquaintances
Dear Family and Friends of Natalie and Chris,
We belong to a beautiful tight-knit Mormon community. We feel so lucky
to know you and have your friendship and love. The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints produces some amazing angels as its members, whatever its
faults may be. We will always embrace our Mormon culture and heritage and
always consider ourselves Mormons for the rest of our lives. We will miss
seeing you as frequently at church functions but we still want your friendship
and love. One challenge to being a part of a tight-knit community is that
rumors tend to swirl in the "small world" and there is so much stigma when
members decide not to attend church, that there is seldom truth and
transparency around the talk of an individual's personal reasons for leaving
the church. Whatever you have heard or not heard, we want to make one thing
clear which is that our opinions of all of you have not changed! We continue
to love and respect our dear family and friends.
Chris and Natalie did leave the LDS Church and here is our story.*
*Disclaimer: this story is not meant to try to persuade others to walk the
same path as us. We are NOT in the business of de-converting anyone. We
simply want a means to explain to people WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED to us &
the church, because we know we have friends or acquaintances who are
wondering.
Contents
Natalie's Story
I always had confusion about some of the contradictions within scripture and
doctrine. I remember asking my mom questions about an abundance of topics back
in my teenage years. Many of them surrounded the status of women. This
continued into my adulthood. I remember fervent prayers that sounded like,
"Why don't you love us (women) as much as you love men? Why do you hide your
wife?" A few years ago a woman prayed in General Conference for the first time
and it was so moving to me that I wept.
As you may guess from my having gone to law school, I have an analytical mind.
I have struggled to reconcile the ideas of science with the ideas of the
church. The leaders of the church past and present seem to take many if not
all biblical stories literally. This just does not square with facts that we
know. The earth is not 6,000 years old. We really did evolve from apes. There
is no possible way the Red Sea was parted and the Earth was flooded and water
was turned into wine. Since about 2012, the cognitive dissonance in my mind
was practically screaming at me every time I went to church. It would say, "It
makes so much more sense that there is no God rather than that I have
imaginary friends in heaven who answer prayers when they feel like it, in an
incredibly random and unfair way, and require us to jump through paperwork
hoops on the earth like baptism and temple ordinances!"
However, I always listened to the excuses made for these inconsistencies and
unlikelihoods and set a standard for myself that if the church was "true," I
would follow the plan with exactness. I sacrificed a career in law to stay
home with my kids. I read the scriptures frequently for 90 minutes per day.
There was a point in time shortly before I left the church when I had read
every standard work and every church manual used at that current time from
cover to cover. When I was a young adult, I fasted once a week (!!) and went
to the temple. I even worked in the temple as a young adult during the night
shift!! I went on a mission and worked at the MTC. I only dated Mormons and
married in the temple. I would go into DEBT in order to pay tithing. Ten
percent of my GROSS income for LIFE!! I now think I may have had a clinical
problem with religious scrupulosity. But I say all this to say: I AM NOT LAZY.
I DID NOT SUDDENLY GET TIRED OF KEEPING THE CHURCH STANDARDS!!!
Did I get offended?
Yes and no. In 2013 I read
the official church "gospel topics essays" (every single one of them) and understood the tip of the iceberg about
the problems with LDS truth claims, yet this did not cause me to leave the
church. The policy of Nov. 2015 regarding the church refusing to allow
children of LGBT people to not get baptized was incredibly mean-spirited and
nonsensical to me. Yet this did not cause me to leave the church. Back at BYU
a male student sexually assaulted me while I was on study abroad, and the BYU
professor viewed it as me causing trouble, yet this did not cause me to leave.
Local church leaders who I will not name have been inappropriate to me in
years past but this did not cause me to leave. Disdainful "popular" cliques of
LDS women have been rude to me in years past on more than one occasion but
this did not cause me to leave.
So what happened?
One of our kids had been receiving counseling by an LDS therapist, and an
issue came up which caused our therapist to recommend a podcast by Mormon
Mental Health. The podcast was INCREDIBLY helpful and solved the issue our
child was having. I got curious about the podcast, which was under the Open
Stories umbrella of podcasts and I looked into another podcast in that
umbrella, the Mormon Stories podcast. This led me to an episode list
recommended for people trying to STAY in the LDS church. This included an
interview with an author, and active LDS member, a patriarch at the time of
the interview, one of the scholars and heads of the Joseph Smith Papers
Project, Richard Bushman. This led me to investigate some troubling facts
about Joseph Smith. In addition there was an avalanche of troubling
information starting to come into my radar about a host of other issues.
At this time I was on summer break from school and I had 2 kids at Mormon
youth camps. Chris worked all day, so I had the entire day to study like a
full time student. I estimate that I spent 8-12 hours a day studying and
reading for 2 months before Chris asked me, "Do you believe the church is
true?" and I said, "Well I HOPE that when we die we discover that it is. But I
suspect that maybe it's not."
I kept attending with Chris for about 6 more months before I finally felt I
couldn't attend anymore without sitting in the hall and not even listening to
it. This was December of 2017.
I felt incredibly outraged and betrayed. I felt that I had given the church
EVERYTHING just for them to have lied to me about its origins. They even speak
frequently about asking the church members to give up everything including
their lives for the church and yet I as a member up until that point had NO
IDEA WHAT I WAS AGREEING TO OR WHAT I WAS GETTING INTO.
The more I read apologetic arguments for the church the more I felt I was
being manipulated and asked to do mental gymnastics when the answer was so
plain and simple to me- there was no inspiration in this thing, and this thing
had a dark, shameful past and an embarrassing present day reality. I was not
willing to give myself to its cause anymore. I viewed it as illegitimate and
false.
Did I become deceived by Satan and start believing anti-Mormon lies?
I mean this question is pretty condescending and insulting to me. Don't you
think I would be able to tell the difference between something Satanic and
something just factual? And if you are just asking about veracity and not
implying anything diabolical, the answer is yes, I fact checked. I can relate
to the fact that some problems with the church feel like outright lies to
active members. I would sometimes feel that way during my search for the
truth, then I would fact check and then be devastated to find out, "Oh no.
It's actually true." I am the world's most skeptical person. I went to law
school. I can fact check the daylights out of something.
What else do I want you to know?
First of all- I am the same person I always was.
Nerdy, generous, cynical, sassy, passionate, anxiety-ridden, conscientious,
happy, painfully honest, good-hearted.
I WANTED the church to be true. It just wasn't. I was terrified to let family
and friends know. I had nightmares about hurting people deeply. I hid in the
"closet" for a long time before I even let those closest to me know. Chris and I grieved and wept with sorrow for the
loss of the beliefs we had had for 45 years and the fear of loss of
friendships, community, lifestyle, and structure. But at the end of the day,
it's not my fault that the founders of the church made the choices that they
did. It's not my fault. I'm just a victim of this.
Chris' Story
I loved studying church history. The Nauvoo period was particularly
interesting to me. In fourth grade, when all had to do reports on U.S.
Presidents, even with all the interesting ones (Lincoln, Washington,
Jefferson, etc.) I asked if I could do my report on President Joseph Smith
Jr. After a moment's hesitation, my teacher, bless her heart, allowed it. I
was hooked ever since. Incidentally, Ms. Hearst, if you're out there, I've
made up for the deviation from curriculum by listening to the
Presidential Podcast
from the Washington Post. Throughout the years I also read the Storm
Testaments and The Work and the Glory.
I loved, loved, loved BYU. It was such an exciting time to explore interests
and broaden horizons. I loved learning about science, the arts, technology
and religion. I loved singing in the choirs and working at the Missionary
Training Center. I loved the people I met and learned with. I loved the
football games. I loved my church history 1830-1844 class.
So when Natalie started researching church history, I thought, "What could
it hurt?" and "This could be fun". When she worried that it might not be
everything the church's correlated materials make it out to be, I thought,
like J. Reuben Clark, "If we have truth, [it] cannot be harmed by
investigation. If we have not truth, it ought to be harmed." (J. Reuben
Clark: The Church Years. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1983,
p. 24)
Each podcast Natalie asked me to listen to, I told her I would. I needed to
know what she was listening to so I could have a basis of common
understanding. How can you have an intelligent discussion if you don't start
with the same basic set of facts, or at least claims? I had to admit that
they were troubling. But there had to be an explanation that would allow me
to keep my faith in tact, right?
I was determined to go through all the original sources so I could
understand the context of the claims and debunk them. I quickly found that
there was a lot to sort through and therefore decided to follow my
interests. I read Rough Stone Rolling, No Man Knows My History, Mormon
Enigma, The Making of a Prophet and others. Remember, I loved the Nauvoo
era.
Disturbingly, I found some pretty damning claims in these books. How was I
to determine the capital "T" Truth? The professional historians were
telling a much different story than the church's correlated curriculum.
Were the things I felt a valid way to determine what is Truth? What about
the contradictions? Can both be True?
I remember an experience on my mission in which a young Jehovah's Witness
bore a powerful, sincere and tearful testimony of her church, and told me
how sad she was that the people she was teaching were not in the truth. I
could sense her conviction. I looked her in the eye and told her I felt
the same way. Her testimony seemed as sincere as mine. Could
we both be in the Truth? Are
we both being deceived? How was I to know that it wasn't
me being deceived if we were both relying on the same criteria for
attempting to discover truth? I began to understand that actual physical
evidence was a more powerful evidence of truth than my own feelings.
The professional historians who wrote these books applied academic rigor
to their historical analysis. They cite journals, court records, newspaper
articles and other evidence that can be independently validated to the
degree that anyone with any intellectual integrity cannot ignore them with
a straight face. Historians lose their credibility and often their jobs if
their work cannot be independently verified. They typically have the
incentive to follow the truth wherever it leads and when their conclusions
are independently peer reviewed and validated, they cannot be dismissed
out of hand.
I have come to the conclusion that the LDS church is not everything it
claims to be. For over 40 years I gave my time, talents and treasure to
the Church and if it's not what it claims to be, it's harmful, even
immoral for me to continue to support it.
The other thing I listened to voraciously was Mormon Stories Podcast
episodes about mixed faith relationships. I love Natalie and wanted to make
sure above all things, that I treat our relationship with the utmost care. I
learned that many marriages in which one partner has a faith crisis do just
fine as long as they give each other the space to follow their own faith
journeys. She was giving me that space and I gave her hers.
For two and a half years, I continued to attend church and serve faithfully
in callings. I was the ward finance clerk and loved helping the Bishop to
assist those who were down on their luck. I enjoyed the company of the men
in the bishopric. It felt comfortable and safe. Even though I was learning
these things that didn't fit with the church's correlated narrative, I was
still inspired by hearing the experience of people trying to humbly live the
gospel.
When Natalie was a teenager and went to get her patriarchal blessing, the
stake patriarch asked her some questions about herself to get acquainted.
One of the things Natalie mentioned was that some people thought she should
be a lawyer when she grew up because she was good at debating in an
argument. Then during her blessing, the patriarch told her she needed to go
into the field of law. When Natalie and I met, she was following the
patriarch's advice. She hated law school and several times wanted to
quit.
Around the time she was in law school church president Gordon Hinckley gave
a talk in which many women, including Natalie, were led to believe that they
were bad mothers if they worked outside the home. To follow the directive of
the prophet, she stayed home during our kid's pre-school years. While we're doing fine now, this caused painful financial damage to our family that will be felt for years to come.
Fast forward to December 2019. It was revealed that the church had over
$120,000,000,000 in investment funds. These funds were not going to help
people in the church. In fact, during the Great Recession the only
disbursements from that fund, according to news reports, were to prop up the
church's for profit businesses. The church's comparatively meager charitable mission comes from the operating budget, not from this amassed wealth. They seemed to be acquiring wealth for
wealth's sake. The church's operating budget according to documents filed
with the SEC was around $6 billion and the church's income was about $7
billion leaving $1 billion every year to rack up money for the church's
leaders to swim in like Scrooge McDuck. If I were to make $3,500,000 per
year, it would take me 27,000 years to make that much money. And the damage
that this money did to our family was going toward this. In my view, sacred
tithing funds should go to a sacred purpose -- like helping people and it
wasn't. The church's humanitarian efforts came out of the operating budget,
not this massive investment fund. By what my research could find, the Mormon
church is the most wealthy not-for-profit organization of any kind in the
world. I felt, and still feel, that it is immoral for me to continue to
contribute my time, talents and money to support this irresponsible
acquisition of wealth that serves no good for humankind upon the backs of
many who cannot afford it.
FAQ
What remnants of church belief if any do you have?
We made a list of family values jointly agreed upon by ourselves and
our children (see image below). We still teach them values. We are
determined to be principled and good people.
Word of Wisdom: We believe in striving for good health and
moderating what we put in our bodies as defined by science.
Law of Chastity: We believe in committed monogamy for ourselves
but do not judge others who have a different contract within their
relationships.
Service: We believe in dedicating our lives to making a
contribution to the world around us.
We believe in honesty, hard work, love, kindness,
civility, equity.
Did you take your name off the records? Why or why not?
No. This is a personal decision.
Aren't you scared your kids will make bad choices?
No. Back in 2017 when this was all new, we sat down with our kids and said,
"You are wonderful kids. You are making us proud by how much you believe in
the church and what we taught you all your lives. We want you to know things
have slightly changed based on information we discovered. Mom has been doing
some research and has discovered that the scriptures are not literal
history, nor are the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price ancient books.
Mom has decided that believing in God no longer makes sense. She is not
planning on attending church anymore. Dad agrees with the facts that mom has
discovered but feels slightly differently about whether or not to attend
church and believe in God. You can choose."
They both went to church a few more weeks but eventually Eli realized that
abstract spiritual beliefs had always been tough to wrap his autistic mind
around and weren't worth struggling with anymore. Additionally, a church
leader let him know that he needed to wear a tie and tuck in his shirt to be
accepted. This despite us begging the leader to let him do otherwise because
of his sensory needs. So that was it for Eli.
Mia loved the community and friends at church. She wasn't ready to let the
idea of God go. However some in the youth program had a hard time accepting
her. One church leader pressured her to quit dance because it made her dress
immodestly. Even as late as last Christmas she went to the Christmas party
ready to give it another try and was disappointed by the lack of a warm and
friendly environment. I think that was her last hurrah, as well.
We are not scared of our kids' future choices. They continually make choices
that make us proud. Our parenting, plus the ethics they learn from
society/school, etc. have proved to be enough to make them deeply ethical
and moral people.
Leaving the church has EMPHATICALLY made us better parents. We are no longer
convinced that WE are responsible for THEIR choices and we no longer
continually badger them with guilt and reproach. We love them exactly the
way they are, while hoping that they always strive for self-excellence. They
no longer have to climb the Mormon ladder and checklist for their lives. We
feel it's ok if they get married or if they don't. They can have kids or
not. We just want them to be good people and contribute to society. The image above is
the brainstorm of values we created, scribed by Mia. 😊
Do you judge people who stay in the church?
No. My (Natalie's) personal reason for being in the church in the first
place was because I thought it was literally true. When I found out it
wasn't, it was a deal-breaker. Others may discover the same facts I
discovered and decide that they are in the church for reasons other than its
truthfulness. Still others are not interested in the rabbit holes I
have gone down. These are all valid and worthwhile positions. Why would I
judge someone for being an active member of the church when I was an active
member of the church for 45 years? My goal in life is to like people just
the way they are. Thank you Mr. Rogers ❤️
Are Chris and Natalie getting a divorce?
Ha! No. Since I (Natalie) was the first one to start researching this stuff,
I told Chris exactly what I was doing and listening to. At the beginning of
the journey, Chris said, "Yes, I support you in researching this. I
completely support you pursuing the truth wherever it may lead you." Back in
2017 when I got to the point that I suspected the church was really not
"true," he wept like someone had died. You can be sad and still support
someone. He started listening to every single Mormon Stories podcast on the topic of Mixed Faith
Marriage. Although he feared "eternal consequences" at the time for my leaving
the church, he said to me, "If God is really loving, he will not separate us
based on church activity. And if he does, I don't like that type of heaven,
and it won't be heaven without you." He told those above him in his church
calling, "Here is my situation. On some occasions I may be needed at home.
If I have to choose between my church calling and my family, I will choose
my family."
It was a stunning and beautiful commitment to our marriage. In return I said
I would support his decision about the church whatever that may be.
Leaving the church has ironically repaired some long-standing issues in our
marriage that counseling wasn't able to completely help us with. We are less
judgmental of each other and of ourselves. We have more time to spend
together and are loving every minute of it.
Will you turn away missionaries and home/visiting ministers?
No. We know what it's like to be missionaries and home/visiting teachers. We
love them. They may not appreciate talking to us since at least Natalie is
not interested in talking about God or Jesus. But they are always welcome
and can consider our home a safe haven.
Well, I mean there was "that one time"... 😬 (see image above).
Why is this different? We don't want to be a reactivation project. And I
(Natalie) don't enjoy people taking interest in me when they've never cared
one whit about me before. That is not friendship and love. No, they don't
love me. They just want to mansplain church truth claims to me and make me
feel intimidated by a patriarchal power imbalance. I know what friendship
and love look like and so do you.
Our Main Issues
It is OK if you do not want to touch these resources with a 10 foot pole. However for those who would like to read or listen to what we read or listened to, some of the main issues that broke our camel's back are listed below with references to learn more. The references and issues are in no particular order.
Polygamy
The Temple
A website about changes to the temple ordinance wording over time, not updated to include recent changes to women veiling, and the lessening
of women covenanting to their husbands instead of God
Joseph Smith
Treasure seeking: 17 dig sights
First vision accounts differ in significant ways
Book of Abraham contains no mention of Abraham
Joseph Smith Translation. According to this BYU study, the JST is basically a plagiarism of Adam Clarke’s Bible commentary
First vision accounts differ in significant ways
Book of Abraham contains no mention of Abraham
Joseph Smith Translation. According to this BYU study, the JST is basically a plagiarism of Adam Clarke’s Bible commentary
The Culture of Violence in Mormonism (Joseph Smith and Brigham
Young)!!!! Please see all the cited works on this website as well.
So, so, so brave. Natalie and Chris, your stories are incredibly refreshing. Particularly, in these times, when many folks are hiding behind religion as a means to oppress, your heartfelt testimony provides a necessary glimpse into the humanistic doubt we all carry. I applaud you and encourage you to explore further. I am anxious to read your next discoveries. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteNatalie and Chris, I appreciate your candid sharing of your journey. I especially appreciate you citing your research sources. It is clear to me how you arrived at your conclusion that the LDS church is not based in truth. What is not clear is what made you decide that this also negates the existence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Isn't that "throwing out the baby with the bath water", to borrow an old phrase from my grandmother? Also, with your conviction as strong as it is, what would have been the harm in meeting with the Stake President and member of the Seventy? It seems that they were reaching out in love and had nothing to gain, personally or for the church, from this conversation.
ReplyDeleteWith love,
Shelly Johnson, former member of your ward and friend
Hi Shelly, there is no way to do the answer justice in a brief comment. I’ll just say that that conclusion of mine was decades in the making. It probably has to do with never embracing the Mormon concept of God as loving. Because of my father figure maybe God seemed always critical, judging, wiping out races of people in the Bible, fire and brimstone, demanding perfection and demanding that people worship him. The Mormon God seemed to me to be misogynistic, sexist, racist, caught up in red tape (temple work!), etc. Making up another concept of God or making up my own version of Mormonism seems to defeat the whole point of organized religion. Never getting answers to important prayers, just lost keys sort of prayers makes me not want to bother. To me the simplest explanation is that it’s all fake including the God part. What could be more fake than an imaginary friend? But I don’t judge people who do believe in God.
DeleteAbout the priesthood leaders- I had felt for a long time at that point that they didn’t have real authority & power from God and definitely no authority over me & what I should do. I had been led astray like crazy from leaders- see the law school story, and tithing. And see the mansplaining part in that section. No thank you to rich dudes coming to my house to mansplain church history.
Delete