Wow, so much in this article. After reading it, I went and got it from Audible and I've started listening. Fascinating stuff. I am a Missoulian, and I also read your book about the terrifying culture of rape in the University system. I grew up LDS, and left the church when I was 15. Did you know that kids are never told about polygamy, and most of us find out when kids at school say that their parents told them Mormons have multiple wives? I was pretty pissed at the church that day in fifth grade, but I stayed in until I found at that black people were kept from holding priesthood until the 70s. I started lifting the thin veil of racism from the Book of Mormon, realizing that they were telling us that native Americans were white once, and turned darker skinned as a punishment. I was afraid to leave, but eventually realized that religion wasn't for me at all.
The church is growing very slowly, and if the trend continues, it will finally be in the red.
It started when The Profit, Russel Nelson, told Mormons that they aren't allowed to use the nickname Mormon; To do so, he told them, would be a "win for Satan." They weren't even allowed to call themselves LDS, and could only accept "latter-day saint" or "member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."
It may seem like a silly thing to leave your community over, but when you're already the weirdo at school for being the "can't-drink-soda-several-wives church," spitting out that mouthful anytime you speak about what you are doing every Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday at school or work takes its toll. The no-more-mormon thing was in 2018.
You may know about the more recent mass exodus. It started when the church buried some officially held belief-related essays in the depths of their website. You could find them, but only if you knew what you were looking for. One of them told members about the fact that men probably didn't get their own planet?
WTF, thought every single Mormon, err latter-day-saint, who stumbled upon everyone's favorite piece of doctrine. (Well, those of us who were assigned the "wrong" gender didn't love it, but we still liked the idea that maybe women could, too. We knew better than to ever let that belief be known, but anyway...)
The other piece of hidden-essay-w-t-f was the "rock in the hat" thing. We were all taught, as children, that Joseph Smith got the golden plates from the hill, and used the urim and thummim (usually believed to be old world glasses) to see the translation of the plates, which became the Book of Mormon. Now, the church admits to understanding that ol Joe put his seer stone (a fecking rock) into a hat, stuck in his FACE, and told his scribe what he saw.
That was shocking to Mormons. To someone who has been out of the church for years and years, I know the outside world thought both origin stories seemed dumb. But we saw artwork of Joseph Smith translating the plates. We sang songs in primary about the plates and their translation.
Another part of the exodus was the CES letter. It was originally sent to the church education system but its author, who hoped for his doubts to be dismissed with plausible answers. It went unanswered, so he published it. Other members saw everything in it, used the internet to research all of its points (there were no horses in America during the supposed time of the Book of Mormom. My favorite is that the whole book of Abraham is BS. Joseph Smith bought some papyri off a guy travelling around showing mummies and their papyri. He super conveniently realized that God put that guy there just to deliver Smith the message of the Book of Abraham. It talks about the pre-existence [we all lived a full life before coming to Earth, and Mormons were the most righteous] It talks about creation, Adam, etc. But I bet Joseph is glad he is chilling in the Celestial Kingdom, instead of being embarrassed by the further understanding of the Rosetta stone. Now we know that the papyri were just regular funeral text. ) The CES letter hastened the big exodus, and more people had time to hear about it and research it when covid kept church services from happening for awhile. It was all helped along by how much free time church members found out they actually had when they had no church services, callings, family home evening, talks to plan, necessary volunteer work, cub scouts, boy scouts, young women's, and temple work.
Oh, a word on temple work. As a Mormon kid, I was taught to revere the temple, and to understand that when I went as a young woman, I would experience the most spiritually fulfilling thing ever. I could hardly wait. I had to let that go when I was 15, and I felt I was really missing something. Years later, I found a YouTube channel called NewNameNoah. When I saw "temple work" for the first time, I heard myself whisper, "Oh my god! I was in a cult!" I already knew that, but I thought it was mostly that kids dont know about many of the church teaching until years after they promise their eternal soul to the church (when they are 8!) I also knew it was culty that you had to pay 10 percent of your income as tithing in order to enter the temple, and you have temple privileges when you die in order to reach the celestial kingdom.
But when I saw people dressed in all white, with insane looking hats and veils and with green aprons (fig leaves, of course) and doing "secret handshakes" I was pissed. I mourned this "sacred, not secret" ritual?
My stepdad's mom, my grandma, brought me into the church as a very devout child-convert. She passed several years ago, but I cannot think of her without seeing that freakin wacky shit on, even though I never actually saw her in it. I've had dreams where we are both standing around in those wackadoodle threads, and I mouth, "What the f***?"
Oh well, at least I know she isn't a sister wife goddess, sitting at the feet of her husband-god of another planet. She is resting peacefully. Apparently wearing the wackadoodle threads. I recently learned that Mormons are buried in the temple clothes, they just tuck the fig leaf down far enough so you don't know its there, but you know its there, if you've gone through the temple...
I just found out that Under the Banner of Heaven is going to be a V miniseries, and I can't wait. I'm trying to get a screener of it so I can review it before anyone else, and even if not, my first one will be here on Medium.
I never meant for this comment to ramble like it did, but I guess I had to spill some stuff triggered by the article and book!
