Leaving the Church

I want to start off with a disclaimer. If you're an active, believing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this might not be a post you want to read. While I don't intend to harp on anything specific or attack the Church, I do intend to explain some of the thoughts I had that ultimately led me to decide the Church wasn't true (and ultimately that there isn't a God, at least not a God that takes an active interest in the affairs of humankind).

As detailed in last week's post, I spent most of my life as an active, believing member of the Church. My first encounter with what I would consider to be anti-Mormon information came my first year of college, amid one of my first forays onto the Internet. I remember being in a computer lab at Utah State and opening a web browser (Internet Explorer, probably, but possibly Netscape) and being impressed that I could search for information on any topic, innocently typed "Mormons" into the search box (since Google didn't exist yet, must've been AltaVista).

I was initially shocked by some of the information I read that day. While I guess on some level I obviously was aware that not everyone believed in Mormonism, I don't recall ever having contemplated that people took exception or questioned specific claims that the Church made. Seems naïve to me now.

I remember returning to my apartment and just feeling sick. I didn't feel that I had ever had my faith questioned in this way and I wasn't ready for it. I even remember questioning if I would be able to serve a mission. But over time, and with scripture study and prayer, I overcame these doubts, and ultimately followed through with serving a mission, which I'd always thought I would.

To some extent during my mission and to a greater extent after I returned home, I became interested in apologetics. I spent time on the FAIR Mormon site and took comfort in seeing the scholars who would give necessary context to explain the claims made against the Church.

But as I became more educated, my faith was forced to evolve. When I was younger, I rejected evolution. But as I learned more, I adapted my views and decided that God used evolution to bring about the creation of the animals. When I was younger, I believed that the Prophets and Apostles talked directly to God as they would do another person, but as I got older, and looked at some of the mistakes made by church leaders, I adapted my view and decided that it was just as hard for Prophets and Apostles to receive revelation as it was for the rest of us. I would say that pattern continued for many years, with me continually learning new information and then me trying to fit that information into my belief system, adapting my beliefs in God and the Church to fit with the scientific information that I also believed to be true. I considered myself an informed member of the Church. I was familiar with many of the issues raised in the Gospel Topics Essays and had made my peace with them, and was able to continue living my faith.

Sometime in 2013, the doubts I had became more intense and I had a harder time reconciling my secular knowledge with my religious beliefs. While I had doubts about some specifics of Mormonism, my doubts were really broader than that. I found myself continually revising my concept of God, trying to make Him (or Her) and His attributes make sense with the realities in the world. So I imagined a God who had set these natural laws in place (or perhaps was subject to some natural laws) and for the most part allowed those to play out. That is why there was so much suffering and tragedy in the world. At certain times, he would intervene with the natural laws and cause something different to happen. Why or under what conditions he would intervene, only He knew.

But ultimately these explanations fell short of giving me peace of mind. This life seemed too chaotic and full of contradictions for me to believe that it was all the plan of an omnipotent, omniscient God. Under God's plan, why would it be most beneficial for some people to never hear the Gospel and spend their lives suffering while for others it would be better for them to hear the Gospel and live their lives in relative comfort. I became familiar with Occam's Razor (the simplest explanation is usually the correct one) and realized that a simpler explanation for the realities we observe in the world was that there was no God, rather than that there was a God, but He helped some people find their car keys while he allowed others to die of disease or starvation.

From there, I started thinking about Moses 1:39 "For behold, this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." If that was God's whole purpose, why did he create a universe and allow it to sit empty for billions of years before man even came on the scene. And if the universe hadn't really sit empty for billions of years, why did God try to make it appear that it did? Was he trying to deceive us? ("I'm going to make it look like everything happened naturally, but then if you decide not to believe in me, you're damned!") I also thought about 2 Nephi 2:25 - "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." If God wanted man to be happy and happiness came from living the Gospel, then why did God's plan result in the vast majority of humans who lived not ever even hearing about the Gospel. We're talking about a God who is omnipotent and omniscient and this is the best he could come up with?

Either there was a God who had this amazingly complex plan for the benefit of His children that only He could understand or there was no God. I ultimately decided that the universe and the world made more sense to me if there was no God than if there were a God.

I started having other doubts as well. I read part of Richard Bushman's biography of Joseph Smith, "Rough Stone Rolling." Bushman is an active Church member, but also a good historian. He would write the factual record, but then try to put a positive spin on it. For example, he talked about Joseph's treasure hunting and his family's spiritualism, but then opined that he needed to have those characteristics in order to be open to the experiences he would have. I found myself surprised by the facts and unconvinced by the spin.

Other items have bothered me. The Church's opposition to gay marriage. The priesthood ban. And I also began to question, if we are actually a Church of continuing revelation, why does it seem we are always on the trailing rather than leading edge of social change?

I also began to question the Church's epistemology (way of obtaining knowledge). We're taught that we can know if something is true by the Spirit, but ultimately we can only experience the Spirit through our mind. And being told we're supposed to feel a certain way in certain situations can have a powerful effect on our minds. I've certainly had experiences that I would describe as "feeling the Spirit," but have reached the conclusion that the emotions I might feel about something has very little to do with its veracity.

Despite deciding the Church wasn't true, I continued to participate in the Church. It was all I knew. I was the ward clerk in the bishopric in Elwood and then when we moved back to Grantsville and were living with Jefferies I again served as the ward clerk in the 5th ward. I started to pay less tithing and never attended the temple, but I still went to church every week.

It wasn't until we moved into Carriage Crossing and I met with then-President Collings and told him my feelings that I began to really step away from the Church. To his credit, he was somewhat supportive and suggested I tell my family how I felt (meaning my parents and siblings, my wife and children already knew where I was religiously, or at least Jeanell did). I met with Bishop Allred on multiple occasions and talked through what I felt with him. I taught a youth Sunday School class for a time. But we separated ourselves more and more. Lila chose not to be baptized, and we supported her in that decision. Tyler and Brayden both briefly flirted with the idea of going on missions, and Jeanell and I tried to support them while they considered it, but when they ultimately decided not to, everyone stopped attending but me. I only continued to attend because I still had a calling as a youth Sunday School teacher. I would go and teach my class and then leave for a while, but finally Bishop Allred released me in the summer of 2017 and I haven't been back (other than to support family when the occasion arises).

Having said all that, something that separates me from a lot of the fo-mos (my preferred term for those of us who have left the Church) I interact with is that I don't hate the Church. I'm not resentful of the money I paid in tithing. I don't regret having served a mission. I don't think the Church is a scam. I think even Joseph believed (or at least came to believe) in his own prophetic calling (Joseph is tough for me. I think there had to have been times when he knew he was deceiving people, but I also believe that on the whole, his life (and death) make more sense if he truly believed in his prophetic calling). I think Russell M. Nelson really believes the Church to be true. And I'd go as far as to say that even as an atheist, I think living a life that follows the principles of the Church is a perfectly valid way to spend mortality, especially if it provides purpose and makes you happy. Most of my extended family continues to participate in the Church and I don't try to dissuade them from doing so. If it makes them happy, I support them in that.

But I don't believe that living the Gospel is going to result in any reward in the hereafter (nor do I believe that there is a hereafter) so if participating in the Church is not how you want to spend your time, money, and energy, then I don't think you should. That can be tricky if different partners in a marriage have different feelings on the subject. (Jeanell and I were pretty much on the same page when we left). If Jeanell had wanted to continue in the Church, I would have tried to support her in that because ultimately my marriage and my family is more important to me than being in or out of the Church.

I feel like I'm basically the same person I've always been. I'm still happy. I still find purpose and meaning in my life. The people I loved when I was involved with the Church, I still love. And as far as I can tell, they still love me. I still try to be good and kind. I still have standards as far as what I consider to be right and wrong. I'm still just Rich(ard).

I guess if there's anything I hope to achieve by writing this, it's just that we should love and respect each other, regardless. In the Church or out of the Church shouldn't matter in our relationships. If someone decides to leave the Church, don't assume they are weak or that they have failed, and if someone decides to stay, don't assume they are uninformed. Ultimately, we're all just trying to figure life out and find happiness for ourselves and those that we love. Let's focus on helping each other do that.

And whether you've left the Church or you are still in and have someone you love who has left or you've left and are concerned about someone you love who is still in, just love and respect each other and I promise you it's going to be ok.

I love you all.

(I didn't have a good picture to accompany this post so I had Meta AI generate this image of me leaving a church building. I don't think I'm that tall. Don't zoom in on my eyes).

(Alternate image that my son Brayden created, using AI to merge my face with Ryan Reynolds').