I was deeply saddened yesterday when my wife told me that some friends from our time in Texas had just announced via Facebook that they have left the church. This is a tragedy (in the most Greek sense of the word) involving families and children, so it's not something that I take lightly or wish to mock. This then will be less of a rant than an opportunity for me to express my thoughts and make my case for what some few at least must perceive as my poorly thought-out membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Any time someone you know leaves the church, it's jarring. I get a sick feeling inside and can't stop thinking about it (thus this post). But announcing your exit in a ubber-public forum like Facebook is problematic. In this case, our disaffected friends offered to answer any questions that others might have, then posted a link to an article that they said fairly captured their reasons for leaving.
But to my friends in Texas, I would say, what questions can I really ask? If I disapprove and ask challenging questions, I not only force you to defend your position (thus becoming further entrenched in it) but provide you the opportunity to publicly (if unintentionally) proselytize against the church.
I read through the article you had linked to and it was the standard roll call of complaints against the church by the disaffected: The church is not progressive, too secretive, down on women, down on gays, down on dissenting opinion, anti-science, anti-social, etc. Not a single nuanced argument, which truly surprised me. I thought, Seriously? You left the church because of that? No, you're not the only ones, but that's a lemming argument.
As I think about it, I wonder what you must think of me. You must think that I'm an auto pilot member of the church, a creature of habit, attending church without thinking too deeply about it, animated solely by "the traditions of [my] fathers," largely unaware of the bigger picture, having never grappled with the substantial issues with which you've grappled. You must, in short, think that I'm a churchgoing zombie. Or just not very smart. I couldn't have seriously and intelligently thought about the things you've thought about. Couldn't have truly and fairly considered them. Couldn't have ask the tough questions. Because if I had, I must have arrived at the same inescapable, painful conclusions as you.
Or perhaps you think that I have a higher threshold than you for what you perceive to be the obvious problems in the church--that I'm a bottom feeder, willing and able to sit in the dirty bathwater of Mormonism while you take the high road of principal?
Oh no, you say, you don't think that! You certainly don't think I'm stupid, and if the church works for me then that's great. For me. Except that it's not. It can't be. Because if an intelligent, principled adult has diligently considered the same evidence and arrived at a completely different conclusion and subsequent course of action, then your departure is, at best, premature.
For your decision to be right, I don't have to be a bad person. Nor do I have to be mentally deficient or even delusional. But is sure would help your cause if I were wrong. For whatever reason. We can't both be right; and if I'm right, then there is a way forward for you in the church.
In my experience, people who leave the church do so because they've taken offense with other people in the church. They seldom see it that way. They maintain that they disagree on principal with a doctrine, policy or program. But in reality they disagree with one or more of the people in the church who are attempting to interpret a doctrine, implement a policy or teach a principal. Ironically, this is at its heart the same flawed but superficially effective method employed by the anti-religion, atheist movement: They take what they perceive as God's standard, measure it against the actions of religious mortals, then present the delta as proof of everything from hypocrisy to intentional malfeasance. Mere mortals always falls short of God's standard. Case closed.
Or is it? So my BYU professor tells me to stop reading scientific journals. So what? Am I seriously willing to abandon my testimony and membership in the church for him? What if he told me that science was awesome and I should learn more about it? Would I build my testimony on that? Of course not. When I was a teenager, my Stake President told us (from the podium) that the second coming would happen between 1996 and 2004. Well, he was wrong. And my testimony is just fine. And so is his.
The point I'm trying to make is that we're drawing the proverbial battle lines far from the true battle front here. Activity in the church is not a matter of perception, or your pain threshold vs. mine, or what this leader said, or how that program appears to exclude a group of people, or how a certain policy is behind the times.
The true measure and foundation of membership is testimony through revelation--everything else assumes a subsequent position of relevancy.
Is the Book of Mormon true? How do you know? Do you know because your mother or your bishop told you? No, you know the Book of Mormon is true because, like me, you read it, thought carefully about it, believed it, then prayed sincerely and asked God if it was true. And, like me, you received an answer. That happened. You can choose to deny that it happened, or rationalize why it wasn't really an answer from God, but that is a completely and remotely different issue than the church's position on marriage or whether your Sunday school teacher believes that the earth is six thousand years old.
It is both possible and of paramount importance to gain a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. That simple testimony becomes the foundation and context through which all other issues are viewed. You may not know all the answers--I certainly don't--but you know that the church is fundamentally true. And you proceed from there.
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