NoCoolName Blog

I used to work for the Church. Now, before you start imagining anything, it wasn't a very important job. I worked retail at one of the Church's now-defunct Distribution Centers; our purpose was to sell items produced by the Corporation of the Presiding Bishopric. We sold Sunday School manuals, scripture sets, Church videos and audio media, hymnals, pictures, and a host of other publications. We also sold garments.

The garment is an article of clothing given to endowed members of the Church upon their first time through the Temple rituals. The garment is produced by another branch of the CPB, Beehive Clothing, and was sold through Distribution Services.

Working a job with garments really gave me a new perspective on them and how to treat them. Before working at the Center, I enjoyed using the full name of the garment, the Garments of the Holy Priesthood, whenever it seemed appropriate. However, after only a few months of stocking garments, selling garments, dealing with irate customers trying to return used underwear, and (most fun of all) throwing dozens upon dozens of boxes of garments around the back room (go long!) it became difficult to mentally treat them with such a separate respect. My respect for garments became far more personal; they were part of the purpose of my employment. Though inanimate pieces of clothing, we had a relationship, an understanding between us. Using the full title became like calling a close friend by their family name: it felt wrong. Today, every time I hear someone using the full title I can't help but smile: I suppose it's good that they have respect for something their view as sacred, but for them the garments are still something “other” and “distinct” from their lives. Which isn't always a bad thing: many people view the garment as a constant reminder of promises they've made with God in the Temple. Perhaps too much familiarity with the garment would diminish their effectiveness as such a reminder. I don't know: I can only judge myself.

However, for an article of clothing that is related to the Temple, there is a certain paradox surrounding the garment. Most aspects of the Temple are easy to not talk about, because they stay in the Temple. Special clothing, ritual language, and other aspects don't ever have to leave the Temple, and thus are relatively easy to avoid in conversation outside. But this is not so with the garment: you bring it with you from the Temple and devout members wear it daily. It becomes part of daily life, and yet it still carries with it the sense that conversation about it should be avoided. Thus, it becomes the subject of quiet conversations between members. Their presence is openly acknowledged and simultaneously avoided.

One of the benefits of working at the Center where the garments are so central to our operations, is that this wall of paradoxical avoidance/interest quickly breaks down. And it's not just a question of employee culture: we receive training on how sell the garments, how to talk about the garments with customers, how to answer questions, and so forth. For us, avoiding the topic simply isn't possible: the topic of garments is part of our purpose as a Center.

There were a number of interesting things I learned while working at the Center. Because everyone seems to always have the same questions, let me approach it in the form of a question-answer session.

Can I try the garments on before hand? Can I see what the garments look like?

No, you can't try them on beforehand. The garments are a type of underwear and you cannot try them on without purchasing them first. Nobody else wants to wear used underwear. For this reason it's very difficult to return opened packages of garments. If you have garments you don't want/need, get in touch with the local Bishop or Relief Society president; perhaps someone in your ward has a need. Deseret Industries will also refuse to accept underwear of any kind, so don't bother.

As for seeing the garments beforehand, it used to be the practice of Distribution Services to have a garment without the marks that people could look at. They took this away a long time ago. My personal opinion: if you're really that curious and haven't been through yet, Google will probably be your friend. I'm not saying that I support the existence of such images, but the LDS Church can't do anything about them. The garment may be sacred, but it ceased to be secret a long time ago.

The sizing for women seems messed up. Why?

Obviously if you can't try them on beforehand, you need to rely on the sizing information. Men have sizes that are correlated to standard American belt sizes and shirt sizes, so for us it's easy.

Women, unfortunately, have it much worse. The sizing chart was updated at least three times while I was employed at Distribution. There are a number of problems in assembling the sizing charts.

One of the biggest problems, apart from the typical problems for women's clothing (dealing with waist and hips, various bust sizes, etc) is that there exists a very clear generational difference in how the garment is worn. Older members of the Church enjoy wearing garments a bit more on the larger size of the sizing charts. They like having loose, flowing garments. Younger members enjoy having a tighter fit for their garments and tend to wear a bit smaller on the sizing charts. The problem comes to the forefront when you realize that Beehive Clothing, who runs the surveys to determine correct sizing, favors the older generation style, so the sizing chart tends to run very large when members purchase according to what the charts tell them to buy.

Until Beehive Clothing begins to acknowledge more the younger style of wearing a tighter fit (which is beginning to happen, especially with the popularity of stretchy fabrics), the sizing chart will remain problematic.

Do they need to go down to my knees?

This is a very common question. Both men and women have asked me, very concerned, if there is something wrong with them because their garments don't come down to their knees. In trying to be respectful to the subject matter, I'll just say that one of the marks on the garment is called the “knee mark”. The plain fact is that the short style of garments in use today are not designed to extend down to the actual knee. Those who are truly concerned could wear the ankle-length garments that the Church produces, but those are meant for cold weather and would probably be unbearable during the non-winter parts of the year. The simple answer is: no, the garment does not need to extend to your actual knee.

A similar issue that came up often for us employees was the issue of tall people purchasing the shorter “petite” cut. Every few months we had to be told again that members of the Church are allowed to purchase whichever garments they want to purchase. If a tall individual was purchasing petites, even if for his or her own use, we were not the gatekeepers of the garments and there was nothing wrong with such an individual purchasing and wearing their garments. Still, we'd occasionally get some of our older employees telling customers that they “shouldn't” buy the smaller garment bottoms, and eventually Salt Lake would tell us again that everyone is allowed to purchase and wear what they want.

The only rule is that members are not allowed to physically alter the garments by hemming or trimming them.

I don't like the crew necks because they peek up over my collar, but I don't like the scoop-style necklines. Do I have to hide my garments?

This is a question that is more often asked by women, but some men are concerned about it, as well. It comes from the popular belief that in order to treat the garment with respect and to not defile it that the garment must be protected and hidden from the world. Yet, male endowed members quite often can be seen with some of the garment showing above their collar.

The better answer can be found in the new military garments, however. As the American military has spent the past several years in active duty in the Middle East and Afghanistan, it became very burdensome for LDS servicemen and women to have to wear an additional layer of clothing. In the mid-2000's, a new garment arrived in the store. Tan now, instead of white, to match the BDUs of the American Army, the garment tops did not have any marks sewn into them, but instead had the marks silkscreened on the inside of the fabric. When worn, the garment tops appeared the same as any other military T-shirt and could be worn without anything else on top. In fact, that's all that the new military top is: a military T-shirt. The only difference is the marks that have been applied inside. In fact, other branches of the armed forces, as well as police and fire, can send in their official uniform T-shirts to have them silk-screened (this can be especially useful for the Navy uniform, which has a V-neck that no garments are produced in and often was difficult to wear with garments).

The end result is that endowed military now have garment tops that they can wear publicly without anything covering them up. Only the marks are obscured by their placement on the inside (this also marks a change from the marks on other garments which are made by tearing the fabric and then sewing the tears back up).

So the long and short of it is: if the military can honorably wear their garments completely in the open as long as the marks are obscured, why would there be a change for civilian garments as long as their identity as garments is similarly difficult to detect? For this reason, Distribution Center employees have received explicit instructions to never counsel anyone about the propriety or impropriety of wearing the garment as a “layer” in clothing styles.

I think I'd like one of the styles carried for the other gender. Can I wear garments that are not my gender?

Yes, you can. There are no rules that garments marketed towards one gender can only be worn by that gender.

I like one fabric as a bottom, but I like another fabric as a top. Can I purchase and wear different kinds together?

There is no requirement that garments must be purchased or worn together. Purchase the fabrics you want to purchase and feel free to mix and match to find the fabric combination that best suits you.

My garments are starting to turn yellow. I tried bleaching them, but the problem just got worse. How non-white can they be before I have to replace them?

The color of the garment is actually not important. Chances are if this issue (yellowing garments) has occurred to you, it's because the artificial fibers have been dyed white (they're naturally yellow) and bleaching them tends to remove the dyes and actually makes them more yellow. However, there is no reference anywhere to the garment having to be bleached white in color. In fact, a hundred years ago the garments would have been made of fabrics that would have seemed off-white to us today. The color is not important. Don't replace your garments until you want to replace them.

The following is my own opinion that I developed while working for Distribution. I think that much of the cultural assumptions related to garments have been picked up in the Church by well-meaning members who've looked to the US Flag Code about how best to treat fabric items (flags or garments) with respect. Flags, according to the flag code, need to be retired when their colors start to fade, when the fabric starts to fray, or when dirtied; they should not be placed on the ground, etc. Most of the “rules” members follow in how they treat their garments come from the flag code and while those rules certainly impart a great deal of respect to the garments, they originally appear in LDS church culture during the 1950s and the Cold War. Pioneer descriptions of how to treat the garment do not match how we treat them today, but instead show them being treated as an article of clothing. Still treated with respect, of course, but not anything on a level like how most members today treat their garments. In Distribution we never tried to offend people, but we didn't tend to follow most of these “rules” in our back rooms. Boxes of garments often rest on the floor, and throwing boxes of garments like footballs while unloading trucks is common.

The eternal debate for women: does the bra go on top, or does the bra go underneath?

Again, you won't find anything about this officially. It come from the popular belief that the garment must touch your skin, but this belief is not official. Those who are truly concerned about this can call their local Temple matron and ask her (it's her responsibility to manage the temple workers who will be explaining how to wear the garment to members going through for the first time). While she'll probably try to impress upon you the idea that there's a “recommended” way, she'll have to agree that there is no way to wear a bra or panties with your garments that is somehow “dishonorable” to your covenants. Wear them how you want, but understand that changes occur slowly in the Church and while it's perfectly fine now to wear them how you want, the local culture still thinks that you need to wear the garment underneath everything.

Again, the best example for this would be female servicemen wearing the military top: do they wear their other undergarments over their garments? Nope, they wear them under. If you want to do the same, feel free to do so. You will not experience any negative official response.

I'm inactive and haven't been to Church for a while; my garments are starting to get nasty. What do I have to do before I can get new garments?

Actually, as long as you're still a member and have not yet resigned, you are allowed to purchase garments. A current Temple Recommend is required to purchase other Temple clothing, but garments can be purchased by anyone who has received their endowments no matter how long it's been since they've been to Church.

If you don't have a recommend and don't plan on getting one there is a computerized system in place at the Distribution Centers and on the Distribution web site that will look up your endowed status by your name and birthdate. The cashier will not see any other information except for the date when you were endowed.

I always loved it when “non-typical” Mormons came through the line to purchase garments. Multiple piercings, colored hair, off-color T-shirts: they made me happy to see such a variety of people who still wanted a bit of Mormonism in their lives. Just as there is nothing you can wear that will keep you out of the Temple (which by the way, if you thought they'd ever turn you away for what you were wearing, they won't; they only care that you have a valid recommend), there is nothing you can wear that will keep you from being able to purchase garments.

If you want to buy them, go ahead and do so.

I have some old garments that I hadn't opened until now and they're smaller than the same size garments I purchased recently. Do the sizes change? Have the garments gotten longer?

I have no proof of it, but it was an open secret in the Center among employees and management that garment sizes were not constant through time or around the world. Different areas of the world produce different sizes of garments, and the styles themselves do undergo changes every few year. Women's garments seem to have gained an extra inch or two in the past decade among the same size., both on the bottoms as well as on the sleeves. We had members come in more than once asking about this problem who brought in their garments so that we could compare.

Again, there's no proof of it, but even members of management at our Center were not quiet about their assumption that these changes were introduced purposefully by Beehive Clothing in an attempt to try to influence clothing styles among US members. European garments tend to be a little shorter, but there was no real explanation as to why that would be.

All of this was the case during the mid-2000's. If things have changed now so that worldwide styles and sizes are now the exact same, I can't say. Some of the new tops introduced in the past year for women have extremely large sleeves, so it seems that the process is continuing.

But the answer is yes: the garments have gotten longer, but there's no official explanation as to why.

I have a need for a style or fabric of garments that don't exist. Can I get them made for me?

You can... but it'll cost you. Garments are subsidized by the Church in an attempt to make them more affordable. They'll be able to help you at any store that sells garments (most of the Distribution Centers are gone now, merged with Deseret Book). It'll take a while to get them, and it'll cost a lot, but it it possible. If you have a genuine need for custom garments, such as a medicinal needs, the added costs might be waived, but that'll have to be dealt with on a more individual basis.

Can I purchase the military-style garments?

Only if you're currently in the military. If you're a hunter, a private contractor like Xe, or if you just like the idea of wearing combat fatigues, you can't purchase them.

Best advice I have for you: get a military friend to hook you up if you really want them, because you're not gonna get them otherwise.

What's the best type of garment for (insert activity/location here)?

This is by far the most popular question asked of us in the Center. We received a lot of training on how to answer this question without actually answering it because Distribution Services felt that it was very important that the employees not limit the options available to customers. If there was a style or fabric that would work best for an individual they didn't want that individual to not find it because of something an employee said.

All that aside, I don't work there anymore, so let me give my honest opinion on all of this “wicking” nonsense: some of the garments suck. There's no other way to say it: some of them simply stink and will literally make you stink. The nylon blends are horrible in terms of holding onto sweat: I'd recommend avoiding them. Cotton is a good choice, and the expensive blends also tend to operate well. Anything that is 100% nylon may seem like it'll feel nice (since they feel like silk underwear), but they'll probably be nasty after a while. The garments don't really look very appealing anyway, so don't shop based on how shiny the fabric is. Find the fabrics that are functional and keep you dry and not stinking (and these tend to be the cottons and the expensive blends).

Anything else?

That's about it that I can think of right now. Any other questions? Remember that Distribution Services used to also sell much of the publishing and merchandise that was directly Church-produced (this means that we sold Jesus the Christ and Miracle of Forgiveness, but we did not sell Mormon Doctrine or The Origin of Man, thank goodness).

#Mormon #Garment #ChurchStore

I wonder if I'll be able to put a date to when I broke the camel's back: will it be September 4, 2011? I'm probably over-reacting, but if that's so, at least I'll be happy about what I did: I got the kids some Bibles. They've always really liked my little pocket-sized KJV that I bring with me to Sunday School. They like the red letters for whenever an author has Jesus speaking. They like the size. They like the self-pronouncing names.

So I went and got a bunch of KJV bibles from the Internet: they were cheap and seemed like a good idea. Then, as I was ordering, I thought a bit about what I was getting them and decided to order a handful of similarly sized NIVs. Yes, I know that the NIV isn't the most accurate translation (trying to determine what is would be an exercise in futility and argument about the purposes and limitations of biblical translation), but it's certainly the most popular English version and one that any non-Mormon Christian is going to be very familiar with. Besides, almost anything would be better than the KJV (well, possibly not The Message, but that's my opinion).

The lesson was on Galatians and some fun chapters in Acts, which really ticked me off. We're going to be spending three weeks on the Corinthian letters, which are mostly rambling letters that address a multiplicity of topics, but for Galatians and Romans, where genuine Paul attempts to explain his complex theological model of Jesus as Messiah we get less than a single class session each. Why is that? The cynical side of me is actually rather convinced that the grace message of both Galatians and Romans is troubling to the Correlation Committee. Both of them are rather unapologetic in their approach: faith is what Paul feels starts the whole process of justification and salvation. Works don't ever enter into it.

Being an agnostic does not mean that I somehow shouldn't spend time trying to puzzle out what Paul is saying. I may not view Jesus of Nazareth the same way as Paul, but that doesn't mean that it's a waste of my time to try and understand Paul. It's intellectually lazy for some to approach Paul as though their belief system (or lack of one) somehow informs them better of Paul's points before they even read him. Mormons are certainly guilty of this as well. The lesson on Romans, for instance, attempts to push the teacher to tell the students that Paul is all about grace and works, which is like saying that the American Revolution was all about taxes on tea.

My own research on Paul is strongly influenced by the recent “New Perspectives” movement, especially the writings of N.T Wright. In fact, Wright's most recent book about Paul, Justification, is a fantastic exploration of genuine Paul's beliefs about God's plan for humanity. I think that Mormons are missing a huge opportunity by refusing to deal with this grace/works issue. As I keep studying the New Perspectives, and especially as I read Wright, I am constantly surprised by how my Mormon upbringing helps out in dealing with concepts that are apparently more foreign to traditional Protestants. Wright in particular is a fan of approaching Pauls arguments from a “covenantal” perspective. Mormons are all about covenants, and yet I see Wright go through some detailed discussion of suzerainty contracts to explain the concept.

I hope the kids weren't too bored with my attempts to cover the material of Galatians from a New Perspectives perspective :–). We'll see if it was helpful at all when/if I teach the lesson on Romans, which is basically a continuation and expansion of the themes explored in Galatians. AS it was, I know they at least enjoyed my telling them that Galatians is the “angry” letter, that Paul at one point in it is so angry that he expresses a wish that his enemies in Galatia didn't just stop as circumcision but were themselves mutilated (I didn't mention, however, that the footnotes' explanation of the phrase “I were that they were cut off” as a reference to excommunication is quite anachronistic and not nearly as likely as Paul actually calling for his opponents to cut off their own penises), and Paul's description of his dressing down of Peter due to Peter's failure to continue treating Gentile Christians the same as Jewish Christians. Seriously, I love Galatians because the veneer of the stoic “Saint” Paul falls away and we see a human being who can get seriously ticked off (at the end of the letter he even grabs the paper from his scribe and finishes the letter on his own ending with a terse dismissal of his opponents and a plea to “let no one trouble me”).

During the discussion I made sure to mention how for Paul, entrance to the new covenant community between God and humanity is based upon faith in Jesus. It's not based on doing anything in particular, and when Paul does mention things that Mormons would call “works”, such as avoiding contention (ironically) being unified, he does so more from an honor perspective. In other words, entrance to the community of Christians is based on faith, and once we belong to this community we should act like it. Paul nowhere says that bad behavior within this community will eject us from it, but rather asserts that the faith necessary to truly enter into the community and enter a justified status before God is a transformative faith. Once we are dead to sin Paul encourages us to leave it alone. That's what all of the stuff about fornication and other stuff is about.

Paul opponents accused him of being an antinomian, or a person who encourages lawless living, because of his assertion that sin is conquered by faith in Jesus and not through ritual observances as found in the Torah. Paul agrees with them, but denies being an antinomian. His constant expression translated in the KJV as “God forbid”, or more modernly as “hell no!”, is applied to the idea that a person should expand the miracle of being saved as an unrighteous human by being even more unrighteous and thus making grace abound even more fully. Paul's response is to reiterate that entrance to the community of Christ should create a yearning to live better, but he does not ever say that his opponents are wrong in their reductio ad absurdum. For Paul, faith is an “is”, and works are an “ought”: faith is the principle of salvation for God's community, and good works are how members of that community ought to behave.

We'll see if this lesson is the one that finally gets me kicked out, which would then free me to actually speak my mind even more fully in the adult Gospel Doctrine class! (Hmm, maybe that's why the Bishop lets me stay where I am?) Oddly enough, I was telling the kids that Paul, in Galatians, is all about faith instead of works, but if this is the end, I'm pretty sure it'll be because of the Bibles. And yet, I only got them the Bibles because I want them to read the Bible and the KJV is crap. Besides, once they actually start to read the New Testament, especially one without the thought-limiting “study aids” found in the LDS standard works, they'll already be in a better position to evaluate the faith claims of the LDS Church. As I've said before, I'm not trying to produce a class of future ex-Mormons, but rather a class of future well-rounded Mormons with a tolerance for the beliefs of others. As the LDS Church continues to retreat more towards fundamentalist in regards to feminism and homosexuality I'm sure that such an approach will probably force more young people with such a view point to not comfortably remain within the LDS Church, but that's up to them.

So that's how the week went: explaining to the kids how the modern faith/works debate is influenced by 450-year-old arguments of the Protestant Reformation, what Paul's actually saying in Galatians (which is still faith and graced, but not so much anti-works as anti-Torah), and giving them pocket KJVs and NIVs.

I'll let you when/if the hammer falls. :–) I hope it doesn't fall before the end of the year. There's still so much to try and work into the class: the hopeful Christianity of Romans to combat the guilty, neurotic Christianity of modern Mormonism; the pseudo-Pauline letters and issues of Pauline authorship (I actually covered a little of this already when trying to get them excited about reading 1 Thessalonians, the oldest book of the Bible [“What's the second oldest?” “Well, if Paul wrote it, then 2 Thessalonians, but there's some serious doubt that Paul actually wrote that one”]); James and his misreading of Paul in trying to respond to Paul's apparent antinomianism; and of course the craziness of the Revelation of John (not to mention all of the equally-crazy Mormon cruft that has accumulated around the Revelation and is in the manual). I hope I can get to all of it.

Thanks for keeping up with the posts if you're out there reading.

#Mormon #SundaySchool #AcademicBiblical

Back again! I didn't teach Sunday School this week, so there's no real new updates there. When I'm not teaching I tend to take a support role; I don't appreciate when a team teacher tries to hijack my lesson, so I feel it's appropriate for me to show the same courtesy. I try to give factual information when I can, however, as well as summations of what the kids read.

Speaking of summation, it seems as though a large part of each lesson I have is me merely summarizing the proof-texts in question instead of the class reading them for themselves. It bugs me each and every week when these kids struggle to try and read the language of the KJV. As adults who have been raised in the LDS Church we've all suffered through it and have overcome. We've learned the rhythms and idioms of Jacobean English, so for us reading the KJV isn't actually that hard. Sitting with these kids who are still in the middle of their Seminary years really brings me back to how horrible the KJV is and how dense and foggy the text seemed to be as a youth. Seriously, we read through the Saul on the Road to Damascus pericope and, while these kids knew the story well enough, when pressed for details they had trouble even finding those details in the narrative! Yet there I was sitting with my NSRV (like I'm going to actually use a 400-year-old text) knowing that if I simply read out loud from my text they'd follow it quite easily. Maddening.

I've promised the Bishop that I'd used the King James Bible (I can't remember when it came up, but it did at one point) in class, so while I prepare and get ready with my Greek New Testament and bring my NSRV to class (because I'm not that good with Greek yet), I'm still stuck referring them to their woefully antiquated King James scriptures. I've made my dissatisfaction with the KJV quite clear to the class (as well as its limitations upon me as a teacher), but so far nobody has taken me up on my challenge to purchase a modern Bible and bring it to Church. Oh well, at least one change that has occurred is that they're aware of the many different English translations and that they're not problematic for Mormons to read after they asked me one day which translations I have read and liked (answer: NIV is the most readable, NSRV tries to be the most true to the text, Jerusalem Bible is the most thought-provoking, etc).

Yes, I've read all of those versions (and portions of many others). I like the notes for the NET Bible (though they're far too conservative on controversial issues), and I always enjoy reading the Skeptic's Bible (and the Skeptic's Book of Mormon, for that matter). I'm not afraid to say it: I love reading and studying the Bible. Doesn't mean I believe it, to be sure, but belief and enjoyment do not have to go together.

The Bible is an old book. It's from a different culture (actually, it's from many different cultures and is influenced by Babylonian, Persian/Zoroastrian, Greek, and even Roman culture and beliefs), and it's not a modern book. It usually doesn't care about issues like slavery, the rights and equality of men and women, or such things as tolerance for other people and beliefs. It's often violent, vindictive, and presents worldviews that are dangerous when fully followed in our modern world. Why do I like it?

Because that's not the whole story. Liking the Bible is not a binary thing: acceptance of one part of it does not require acceptance of another unless you feel that the whole work is linked together by divine approval. If you believe in an inerrant text that is “God-breathed” or “inspired”, then you'll probably be interested in the countless apologetics that have been written over the millennia to explain the real shortcomings and problems present in the Bible.

But the Bible does present, at times, some very interesting questions to be answered. In opposition to the Book of Mormon's “Pride Cycle”, which features an an integral part of the process the doctrine that God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked, we have the dual knockout punch of the Hebrew Bible books of Job and Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), both of which have as their central question: Why does life allow the wicked to prosper and the righteous to suffer? And both books refuse to answer the question, instead choosing merely to fling real life into the debate: all of us have suffered when doing what God “wants” us to do, and all of us have been blessed when going against the “commandments”. The solution found by the time the Christian New Testament rolls around is the dualistic idea of heaven and hell: the discrepancy will be made right in the next life or that this world will shortly be remade into a new world where such injustices no longer occur. For the majority of the New Testament authors this new world is coming quickly and the transition will not be pretty. When Jesus came the first time it was to start the ball rolling in bringing the Kingdom of God to earth; when Jesus comes again, he will finish the job and the world will be made anew. No more death, no more evil, and no more injustice. (Note: this is not unique to Christianity and is known as “apocalypticism”; however, it is certainly from apocalyptic ideas that Christianity formed.)

All of this gives a sense of urgency to much of the New Testament. The central message of most of the New Testament is not “Come Unto Christ because it's a Good Thing and you'll Feel Happy,” it's “You'd better be ready NOW, and the only way to be ready is to make yourself right with God through his Messiah”! The New Testament is not a pro-family collection: there's not enough time to worry about that sort of thing. The New Testament is not a pro-peace collection: war and peace will distract us from focusing on what's important.

I won't disagree that this can be a very discouraging and unloving message, but it is a very passionate message. It is a demanding message. It is a loud message. The focus is not on the Atonement of Jesus (a doctrine that, when it is present at all, is never really agreed upon by the various writers). The “atonement”, if discussed, is usually what begins the process: Jesus's death allows his followers membership variously into a covenant with him or simply directly into the kingdom to come, and his resurrection is the first crack in the barrier between this world and that barrier is about to collapse completely.

This is possibly very interesting to you as a reader (or not, I don't know), but if you're much like me, which should you care? I'm a psilanthropist, which means that I believe that the historical Jesus (yes, I think there was a historical Jesus, but I don't know much about his actual life) is the son of Joseph and Mary. If there was anything supernatural about him, I would count myself as an adoptionist, which means I find myself in the camp that believes that the “Christ” came upon Jesus at his baptism where Jesus became God's son. But frankly, I simply don't care about the issue as I find the idea that an all- powerful God is powerless to allow sinful humans to be in his presence bizarre: the very idea that an atonement is necessary is very limiting to me (this probably represents a failing of my own to fully understand orthodox Christian theology; I'm sure they have very detailed reasons).

But I still like the New Testament because, to me, it represents the thoughts of some very intelligent people even if they believe in some rather fantastic claims. Following the complicated, yet well-organized, reasoning of Paul takes some real work and effort; examining the differences between Mark and Matthew can be very illuminating about the beliefs of some of the early Christians. I find the collection fascinating for the window it opens up to the ancient world. It's a loud conversation that occurs as you read it. Just look at James responding to Paul about works: he's not exactly disagreeing, not exactly agreeing—-instead he changes the meanings of the terms and moves the focus of the argument. Fun!

An analogy I've employed with friends is that the Hebrew Bible is like a house a few hours after a huge party has occurred. The whole place still smells kinda odd, but it's been mostly cleaned up. There's still evidence of the mess, but it's in the process of being cleaned (just don't go looking in some of the closets like Judges). But the Christian New Testament is like coming into the house mere moments after the last guest leaves: it's messy. It hasn't been entirely cleaned up. There's still stains on the walls and lampshades on the ground. Between the few people left in the house you'll not get the same story about what happened between any of them. All that the writers of the New Testament can agree upon is that God has been interacting with the world recently, and it has something to do with this Jesus guy.

Of course, some of that is taking the New Testament writers at their word, which is tough to do. I'm not saying you have to (I don't), but I'm saying that part of the fun is doing so.

And there are parts of that message that can be beneficial for humans. Sure, there's better formulations of ethical behavior than the Golden Rule, but I'd argue that the Golden Rule is generally a great idea. Yes, the New Testament writers often approach the end of the world and the destruction of the wicked with an uncomfortable excitement, but they also do preach about the need for tolerance, love, and respect within the community. It's not perfect (it'd certainly be better if it were more about love for everyone more often than it was about love for other Christians), but it's still good.

And that's one of the reasons I teach the class right now. The LDS Church can be very harmful in how it approaches its own doctrines. The idea of eternal families can often be used as a hammer to beat people into submission with the threat of losing their eternal family. The debate between James and Paul about “works” is often turned into a discussion about “ordinances” by Mormons, with the assumption that the Christian New Testament is somehow clear and obvious about the necessity of things like baptism or the Temple rituals (hint: it's anything but). These approaches, and other like them, to the Christian Bible can produce horrible results in some people: guilt, anxiety, perfectionism, depression, and worse. Adults and youth within the LDS Church are often sold a false bill of goods when they're told that the New Testament presents a unified voice on LDS doctrines that is always in agreement with modern prophets. And then, when they believe that the New Testament is “Mormon” in its outlook, they simply help perpetuate that view for others.

But the New Testament is not clean, and it is not Mormon. In some ways, it's almost against Mormon ideas: Paul clearly believes in the importance of grace (hopefully more on that later in a few weeks when I finally get to cover Romans in class and can report on it—-if there's one thing that keeps me going, it's the idea of talking about the genuine and pseudipigraphal epistles of Paul), the apocalyptic focus on the coming-right-now-better-be-ready End of the World means that it's remarkably anti-family, and the idea of the gifts of the spirit being tempered by a need for authority is held by only a very small part of the New Testament.

Within these differences, though, lies the solution to many of the cultural problems created by current Mormon thought, I believe. Within the chaos of so many different ideas lies the opportunity to present an alternative interpretation that is just a valid as the traditional Mormon one. There's enough to focus on within the book that presents a narrative against guilt, against anxiety, and against bigotry. You can show people a New Testament that is kind, soft, and loving; you can show the importance of inclusion, of equality, and of respect for others. You can show the importance of questioning, and you can show the importance of rejecting blind faith.

Is it really what the New Testament preaches? Debatable, but it's at least as valid as the Mormon view, but with an end result that is healthier. Instead of view the New Testament as a secret book that only Mormons truly understand and that supports all aspects of Mormon culture and doctrine good and bad, we can approach the New Testament as a piece from history that needs to be engaged with and that presents things both familiar and foreign that don't always line up exactly with what we were raised to believe.

For instance, I tried to emphasize last week that the entire community was presented as selecting the Seven (Acts 6...), that the Apostles were not administrators but were missionaries and that they wanted nothing to do with running the Church. I emphasized that what is arguably the first Gentile convert to the Church (the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8...) was a man who was part of a marginalized sexual class in both Jewish culture and religion. Because of the sexual class he occupied he was not allowed to participate fully in Jewish rituals (he could never be a priest in the Temple) and was viewed as not being a complete man in typical Jewish culture. (I figured it was enough of a comparison to not have to ask the kids, “Can you think of any social sexual classes in the LDS Church who occupy a similar role? What do you think you could learn from this story in Acts?”) I've been very vocal before about pointing out the presence of women in the narratives we've been reading and about their full participation in the stories we read. Hopefully it's enough to at least get them thinking about those areas where the LDS Church simply doesn't measure up when it comes to issues dealing with women and homosexuals.

I should probably stop there because I could easily keep going, but that, for me, is why I think it's still beneficial both for me to teach this Sunday School class as well as for an agnostic theist such as myself to continue to appreciate this first-century collection.

#Mormon #SundaySchool #AcademicBiblical

Again, the standard explanation: I'm not really writing these posts to be read, but more because I want to just talk. Thanks for listening; I'll try to fix the more egregious spelling/grammatical mistakes, but in the end I'm not too concerned.)

So one question I have had from people who both know of my lack of belief in the LDS Church and my calling as a Sunday School teacher has been, “Don't you feel like you're being misleading?”

Yes, I do. All the time. But for different reasons for different people. My students think that I'm a good Mormon, but at least they know that I value scholarship beyond stupid LDS sources because of what I try to bring up each week and because of my blatant ecumenical approach. My team teachers think that I'm supportive of the Church because I usually avoid the few difficult topics that they know about. Only one exception comes to mind:

Once a student in our class who enjoys reading obscure Mormon stuff (seriously, he brings up the Journal of Discourses about one a month!) mentioned an odd doctrine (I can't remember what it was, but I think it was about every human planet having its own savior) and thought the source was Brigham Young. I wasn't teaching, and my team teacher was a little flustered by the idea of Brigham teaching something like that. Trying to help, I tried to laugh it off with “Oh you know, Brother Brigham taught a lot of odd things about the nature of God and there's quite a few of those that the Church simply doesn't believe nowadays; you're free to disagree with Brigham if you want to.”

She got an angry look on her face and said simply, “No, people just wrote down what he was saying incorrectly.” I couldn't really say anything else after that without starting something that I couldn't control and I wasn't sure what lay down that road, so I just let her stick with that line of apology. However, I have a lot of difficultly controlling my face, so I'm sure my discomfort with such an idea was pretty apparent. Though it's a common apology about Brigham's Adam-God doctrine, it's simply not true. He taught it often, not just one time where his remarks were incorrectly transcribed. He even included it in the Temple drama, for Pete's sake!

But, getting back to the topic of me teaching difficult topics, there's one person that I really felt needed to know what I felt, and that was the Bishop. I didn't know what would happen during the year (still don't), and I knew it was a real possibility that something might happen (political event, apologetic crap in Elder's Quorum, conference talk, etc.) that would expose my beliefs more publicly than they are now known. When/If that happened, I wanted to have my ass covered if anyone thought that I had snuck in like a wolf in sheep's clothing to tear apart the youthful sheep of the ward. (Which, if you've been reading, wasn't my intention at all and is not how I approach the class. I know plenty of other Exmormons who are more than a little annoyed that I don't take such an approach.)

Actually, when I was first called, as I said previously, I told the counselor who called me that I wasn't sure I could do the job the ward/stake/Church wanted due to the (unspecified) doubts I had. He told me to just teach around the thorny issues and if I didn't believe it, to not teach it. He said that he had doubts he struggled with, too. Getting set apart was a little different. In the Bishop's office I felt the need to be honest with the Bishop, too. I know I stood a good chance of losing the calling before I even started, but I didn't want the local leadership to feel fooled if I had to come out as an unbeliever during the year. So I told the Bishop before the setting apart occurred that I really wanted to teach, but that I had doubts that might affect what I would teach. I wasn't lying, technically, but I certainly could have said more.

The Bishop turned to the counsellor. “Did you know about this?”

“I did. We talked about it when I first offered the call. I have doubts, too, you know, about some things. But I feel that this call would be good for everyone involved.”

The Bishop looked at me. “I don't know about this.”

You must understand that I've always wanted to teach Sunday School, and I wanted to fight for that opportunity even if I no longer believed. In retrospect, I'm still not sure this was the best thing to do. “I may have doubts, sir, but I know that I can teach the material well. It's not that I'm worried I'll teach them things that are false, it's just that I have trouble with some of the more 'Mormon' assumptions that we bring to the text.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for instance, we tend to view the Gospels as unified, but they're four distinct works by four distinct people. They were never meant to be read in parallel or harmony; each of them is meant to be read instead of the others. When they're aware of each other, they tend to edit each other to more closely match the message they individually want to convey. But as LDS we tend to adopt a very Protestant view of inerrancy except where the JST indicates an error. But if we really believe in the Bible insofar as it is 'translated' or transmitted correctly, we shouldn't be afraid of this stuff. It shouldn't bother us that John has a different focus and belief in who Jesus was and what his purpose was than Matthew or Luke, or that Matthew and Luke rewrote Mark to remove or alter things they didn't like or understand. Approaching each Gospel with an attempt to understand them internally from their own point of view means that we can gain a better appreciation for them.”

He still didn't look convinced, so I continued to talk. “Look, sir, I'll promise you: I'll always start from the manual. I'll keep on track with what the lesson is supposed to cover. I'll use the approved manual in preparing the lessons, but it's just that there are occasional things the manual presents that I cannot in good conscience teach as though they're actually part of the New Testament. It's not that I have anything to teach instead of those parts, but I'd be much happier just skipping over them.”

He was quiet for a bit, and then said, “Well, okay. We'll give it a try, but you let me know if you're having trouble.”

I agreed and sat down to get set apart. The feelings I had were very mixed as I sat with their hands on my head with my eyes open to the room. I didn't believe in the “Priesthood” authority that was setting me apart, but I had to defer to their decision and basically beg to teach. And I was begging because I'd always wanted to do this job because I love learning and knowing things and thought that I could help excite people in the same way. But I knew things and had learned things that had led me to secretly abandon the faith that I was supposed to be instilling. In short, I wasn't sure whether or not I was being a compete and utter fraud in going through with this.

But class started, I started having fun, I was teaching New Testament studies and scholarship, and the kids were having a complete blast. We had discussions, we got off topic into some of the more bizarre aspects of the New Testament Gospels, and in short I began feeling better about things. The Bishop even sat in on one of my lessons and complimented me on it afterwards. (It was about the parables. Factoids dropped: John has no parables, Luke has the most. Matthew's parables are more focused on the law and keeping covenants with God. Luke's parables tend to be more focused on other people and in promoting social justice. Mark's parables are almost exclusively about the coming kingdom of God and the end of the world. Parables themselves are not pretty little stories and they are not meant to teach complicated doctrine; they are not allegories where every little detail contains meaning. They can have many multiple meanings and there's no one “right” answer. Their purpose is to get into your brain and force you to look at the world in a slightly different way; they're like political cartoons where you have to puzzle out the meaning for yourself and when you do, you end up teaching yourself. Parables can get around the initial defensiveness of a person in this fashion far more effectively than a sermon. If the parables don't challenge you, you aren't really reading them correctly [but that doesn't mean you have to agree with them]) Things were going great.

Then the Bishop asked if I could meet with him one Sunday after Church.

He asked me to sit down and asked how things were going. It would have been easy to lie to him, but I really do respect him as a person. He's a military man, and is someone I'd actually consider to be a friend.

“Things are going great, sir, but I'll have to be honest with you: I'm going to miss doing this next year.”

He looked confused. “Why? Are you moving?”

“No. It's just that next year's topic is the Book of Mormon. I won't deny that there's a lot of interesting things that we could discuss about it as a class, but I cannot teach it as a historical work. I can't teach the Book of Mormon as though I believe it to be antiquitous. (Is that even a word?)”

He got real quiet for a while. My gut was wrenching. “I'll be honest, sir. It's your ward and your call. I've not been teaching anything that I believe is actively against Church teachings; I've tried to avoid that for this reason. You asked me to teach Sunday School, and I've been teaching it. The kids like it and are learning.” This is one of those “problem” classes and it really was a good thing that the kids enjoyed coming and were involved. “You've even been in there once or twice; I've tried to keep those lessons the same as the other ones. I want to keep teaching, but I can understand if you need me to step down.” Truth be told, my Mormon instincts started to kick in and I felt the tears starting to well up (male crying is not just a Glen Beck thing in the LDS Church; pretty much all Mormon men are trained that crying is an acceptable show of emotion within a Church setting). They were real tears, though. I wanted to keep teaching, but I also wanted to be honest.

“So what do you believe, Tom?” He asked. And I couldn't help it: it all came flooding out. The Book of Mormon is 19th Century pseudepigrapha. The modern, SLC-based Latter Day Saint church is far different from the organization that started in New York in 1830, or even the 19th Century church of Brigham Young and his successors. I had real difficulty believing that God was in charge of this particular branch of Mormonism rather than any of the others, especially the polygamous break-offs who at least have prophets who still publish “revelations” in the voice of God. The Salt Lake Church hasn't received any published revelations of God's voice through its President/Prophet since 1846, instead canonizing personal visions recorded in journals or even simple pronouncements of policy changes that are more press releases than scripture.

“So you believe in polygamy?”

“No, not at all; I don't even think that, assuming the LDS Church was led by revelation in Nauvoo (which I find to be a big assumption with major problems of its own), polygamy was ever a commandment from God. I think it began from human desires and grew to eventually become a part of the movement.”

He was quiet. “What about the Temple?”

“I used to enjoy going, but now every time I'm there I can't shut off my brain. I see the masonic symbols and ritual in everything. I could tell you about the masonic history or background of nearly every aspect of the Temple drama. I do not believe that the Temple rituals are unique or special. I can appreciate the quiet within as a great place to think and meditate, but I don't believe in the special privileges the Temple is supposed to provide.”

“You don't think they're holy?”

“I do think they're holy because the people inside them approach the buildings and their rituals with awe and respect. I think it's the same with many cathedrals, or many temples of other faiths. I doubt God values them any more or less highly than other buildings constructed for the purpose of human communion with deity. Though I'll be honest, I'm not sure why the Church builds so many when it doesn't even have the active membership to support the ones it already has. The ornateness of the buildings is troubling to me.”

And so we went on for about an hour. It was the first time I'd told anyone besides my wife and a few close friends about what I believed and didn't believe. I'll admit it: I cried. It's tough to admit this stuff. And besides that, I knew I was tearing away at the fragile foundations of my call.

So at the end I reiterated again that I understood if he wanted to take away my calling right then. He thought about it for a moment.

“No, I don't think I will, Tom. I don't agree with you on these things, but I can tell you want to be honest. I'm grateful you feel you can talk to me about these things. We'll just have to find another teacher for the class next year.” Then he bore testimony to me that the Book of Mormon is an ancient work, that is was translated by Joseph Smith, and that the Temple is a holy place. I had nothing to say in response that I hadn't already said, so I tried to be polite and nodded. Then he encouraged me to go to the Temple again. After the stress of the previous hour, I agreed to, though I knew it wouldn't do any good in rekindling my faith. That fire would have to burn through too many facts I'd learned. I knew that could work for other people, that some people had the ability to know the things I knew and yet continue to believe, but I didn't think it would for me. The problems with cognitive dissonance were too difficult for me to personally deal with.

And so, here I am, still teaching Sunday School. The ward leadership knows I don't believe in most of the “Mormon” stuff (hell, I don't even know if I believe in God anymore). And yet I'm still teaching. I'm certain now that I'll be let go at the first screw-up, but until then I feel much freer about my position vis-à-vis the Sunday School class.

My apologies for the length of these posts; I'm not very good at keeping things succinct. Hmm, next time? Unless anyone wants to know something else, I guess I'll talk about why I even care about the New Testament itself since I am no longer a Mormon, no longer a Christian, and am nearly an atheist. And probably some other stuff from class that I've enjoyed and why I think it's worth my time (and theirs) to continue being a teacher.

#Mormon #SundaySchool #AcademicBiblical

Wow, I forgot that this blog was part of an aggregator (sorry, Main Street Plaza). I kinda thought my words were just flying off into the private, digital realm of the Internet. Silly me, nothing on the Internet is ever private. If you're reading this, please understand that I'm pretty much approaching this as a rant flying off into teh intarwebs. Make of it what you will (along with the constant grammatical mistakes where my fingers fly a little bit ahead of my brain). If you have questions about my teaching Sunday School, go ahead and ask them and I answer them as best as I can.

Well, continuing the posts about my teaching of class, I'm not sure what anyone else is expecting. I'm not even sure what I was expecting when I started. Part of me wanted to teach these kids critical thinking skills and an approach that would lead them to understand how non-divine the Bible is. Another part of me still wanted that “Mormon Pride” of being an awesome Gospel Doctrine teacher: to fill these kids with what they would feel was the Spirit of God and would lead them to be good Mormons.

So far now, about halfway through the year I think I'm still somewhere in the middle of things. I don't believe that God, if He (or She, or They) exists, really cares much about my little old classroom, and I doubt that “the Spirit” people in the LDS Church claim to feel is anything more than a good feeling. Thus, it's something of a fool's errand for me to teach in such a way that my class can “feel the Spirit”. But that doesn't mean that I don't know the process, the intonation, and the subjects that would cause my class to feel, for themselves, that “something special” was being taught. I can't say that I've avoided it. There have been some weeks where, after class, the kids will tell me that they “felt the Spirit really strongly.” I always smile to them and thank them, because from them it's really a sort of praise and it'd be pretty rude to shoot that stuff down. But in the end, I've tried to keep away from the emotional theatrics and I don't think anyone has minded.

I've also not been able to keep things in a purely secular sense. As a Gospel Doctrine teacher, I “team teach” with another teacher. We take turns with a lesson every other week and assist each other on the other week. I've had a few different “team teachers” and I know well enough that while the 16-17 year olds I teach are open to simply learning for learning's sake, my team teachers are actually the people that I need to watch myself around. Each TT has, at different points, come up to me after class and mentioned that they're grateful for the historical and linguistic knowledge I bring to class, but that we need to prepare these kids spiritually as well as mentally. Usually this comes up after I say something that, while unnoticed by the kids, catches the attention of the TT in an uncomfortable way. “The author of Mark says...” “Well, we shouldn't be surprised to find this here; remember that the author of Matthew is a very Jewish Christian and loves the Law of Moses...” “The gospels are not histories, they're testimonies and tracts. We shouldn't be surprised that they tend to use history as a tool to tell their story and bend it to fit their purpose when they want to.” (I should note that each of those comments was made in response to a question from the class, by the way. I'm not one to make waves for the fun of it.)

In the end, I seem to have adopted a middle road of radical ecumenicalism. The kids know (and have commented to be about it, positively) that I'll make use of other Christian religions to make my points often. For myself, if we're talking about the Christian New Testament, then we shouldn't behave as though people only started trying to figure this stuff out after 1820. There have been two millennia of Christians and they have wrestled with their texts for countless centuries. In my class, those debates count. We've talked slightly of Pelagius, Augustine, and Original Sin (for a while they knew what the word “Semi-Pelagian” meant). We'd discussed Luther and the roots of the Protestant Movement. We've discussed modern Christianity's approach to the Trinity, as well as Mormonism's bastardized version of what “those Christians” believe.

In fact, that was probably the first time when I thought that I could keep doing this job. It was only a few weeks after I had started, and I was still trying to get into the swing of things. I'd established my preparation methods: look up the scriptures in the manual, read them, prepare my own lesson based on the scriptures read, and (finally) look at the LDS Sunday School manual to see what their recommended lesson suggested. Usually I covered many of the same points, but my own preparations avoided a lot of the “LDS-ness” that the manual seemed to convey. The lessons were fun, but I was still struggling with my purpose, as a closeted non-believer, in teaching a class that was supposed to be about “Gospel Doctrine”. Just the mental masturbation about being flattered as “so smart” by everyone wasn't going to cut it (and it's not that I'm smart —– I'm not any smarter than plenty of other people within or outside the LDS Church —– I'm just more well-read in archeological and theological materials and have good retention of what I read).

The lesson was on the Baptism of Jesus. I started off by mentioning that this is one of the parts of Jesus's life that everyone, whether Christian or not, believe occurred (well, assuming you believe that Jesus of Nazareth existed, but I have little patience for Jesus Mythicists, but that's a question for another time). I went over the “Criterion of Embarrassment” for a bit (not by name, of course, because that's a mouthful), but I mentioned that few people felt that starting off your gospel by having Jesus receive baptism from someone else really put Jesus in a good light, but actually made him seem somewhat subservient to John. Then we got to the baptism, and I pointed out the various accounts from Mark and John (pointing out that they were probably the only unique authors, since Matthew and Luke were pretty much re-writing Mark for their Gospels). As we started to move away to the next point my TT (team teacher) stopped me.

“We should also point out that all three members of the Godhead are present here.”

Me, uncomfortably knowing where this is going, and trying to keep it within the text: “Yes, they are. We have God the Father speaking from heaven, God the son (in John, at least) in the water, and God the Spirit as a dove appearing. This is the beginning of Jesus's ministry, and we can see that he is sent by God because of the miraculous beginnings described by the authors here.”

“But it's also important to note that all three members of the Godhead are present here. Some people would say that this would be impossible.”

I really don't want to go there. “Who specifically would say that?”

“Well, all of the other Christians believe that God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are all the same person.”

“I guess none of those billions of other Christians throughout history ever thought to actually read their Gospels and discover the truth hidden in plan sight within this story here?”

Uncomfortable silence, which, in retrospect I probably deserved for throwing down the gauntlet so hard. Well, time to pick up the pieces. I turned to the class. “Since I'm not technically a 'traditional' or 'orthodox' Christian, I'm probably not the most qualified person in the world to tell you what they believe, but I guess we could talk a little bit about this, if you'd like?”

Since my class, being teenagers, is always up for a tangent to the lesson, they readily agreed. So I began by explaining that Christians were, of course, very well aware of the Baptism of Jesus. So how to they deal with it? They deal with it well enough, it's not some horrible problem they don't know how to resolve.

The problem, I continued, is that we Mormons have a very poor understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. In Greek, the Trinity is described with the word homoousia, which can roughly mean “the same being” or “the same nature”. Ousia is much like our English world “being” if looked carefully at it as a verb: “present tense 'To be'” (though note that it is an adjective, not the actual “to be” verb of Greek; it's just that ousia covers a similarly wide range of meaning). What does it mean “to be”? Existence, nature, substance, essence, and so forth. The classic definition of the Trinity, as set forth in the 1st Council of Nicea (and I also pointed out that Nicea nearly always get's a bad wrap among us Mormons unnecessarily [I plan on writing a series, if I ever get time, going over the history and context of the early councils for the purpose of presenting them to Mormons accurately instead of the jumbled anti-Catholic and anti- Trinitarian 'just-so' stories that LDS like to tell themselves about Nicea.]), was that all members of the Trinity were of the same ousia, or “being”. At different times through history that has been interpreted strongly, as though they shared the same experience and were nearly the same entity, but other times that has been interpreted loosely, as though they shared merely the same divinity and purpose. I've heard the Trinity described by some loose Trinitarians as a sports team, a single unified team of individuals that work towards the same goal. I mentioned as well that among traditional Christians “Modalism”, or the belief that there is only one God and that He expresses himself at various times as either the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost was actually a heresy (a word I also had to define, as they'd never heard of it before). Thus, Christians have to walk the knife's edge of doctrine between Modalism and Polytheism; they've had a few centuries to figure it out, and they're pretty good about keeping their balance collectively, though you'll certainly find individuals who are modalists or polytheists. Mormonism ignores the problem by simply declaring itself polytheist, but even for us it's not that simple: even the Book of Mormon sounds, throughout most of its pages, like a modalist document. Much Mormon Apologist ink has been spilled trying to recover the Book of Mormon from modalism, to varying levels of success.

So in the end, I told them, the Trinity is actually a somewhat complicated belief. Many Christians love and adore the complexity and incomprehensibility of it. I mentioned that we Mormons also have our own mysteries that we love where the very mysteriousness of the doctrine makes it seem greater to us, with the best example of this being the Atonement. We routinely hear from various people that how the Atonement actually occurred at one time for all people is a mystery beyond understanding, and yet nobody in the LDS Church seems to find this problematic. Instead, many Mormons love the idea all the more for not understanding it (I'd even argue that the doctrine isn't all that difficult to comprehend, but that we enjoy the mystery of it so much that we actively play it up amongst each other). The Trinity is the same way for many Christians; they love it and treasure it.

And then at the end of my ecumenical rant, an interesting thing happened. One of the kids raised his hand.

“One of my friends at school is a Christian. Well, I mean a non-Mormon Christian. I don't know what he believes about the Trinity. I've never actually asked him. I know he's gotten made fun of because of it before, but he's never actually told me what he believes. I'm going to go and ask him about it.”

Suddenly the class was all talking amongst themselves about their Christian friends at school (I didn't know that there were enough non-Mormons in Utah Valley for everyone to know someone, but I guess there are). And this wasn't in the typical, “let's get to know you just enough so that we can convert you”-type discussion. These kids were actually talking amongst themselves in pure curiosity about a doctrine that none of them had been raised to believe in, but that perhaps some of their friends believed. It was, even for someone like me, who no longer believes in the LDS Church, or even in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, a truly heart-warming experience.

Perhaps that was the Spirit then? I don't know; I personally doubt it, but that doesn't mean I'm correct in doing so. I think it was an honest pride in these kids being willing to explore the ideas of others. When we got to class next week I asked if anyone had talked to their friends. Only the one boy had, and he said that his friend wasn't really that religious and didn't actually know what he felt about the Trinity. But he apparently appreciated someone asking him about his beliefs because that never happened; it was usually the other way around.

And so this is the middle road I currently try to travel. My goal in class isn't to help these kids be better Mormons and get to some “Celestial Kingdom”, nor is it to be better biblical scholars. Instead, my goal is to give them the tools to become the people that the LDS Church, one of the most disliked minority religions in America, needs: open to others, open to discussion, open to research, open to debate, and, above all, open to loving their fellow humans. My lessons, when I can get them to be applied to to us modern humans, tend to focus on helping others, on the messages of inclusion, assistance, and grace that are in the Gospels (yes, there's plenty about “justice”, vengeance, punishment, and other horrible things, but these kids are going to hear enough about the “justice” of God as they continue in the LDS Church).

Next post, I'll talk a bit about how the bishop's felt about all of this as I've talked with him more than I imagine most teachers do.

#Mormon #SundaySchool #AcademicBiblical

I've wanted to write this for a while. I'm not sure how interesting it will be for anyone else, but I keep wanting to tell someone how much fun I've been having teaching Sunday School, as well as rant a little bit.

In November I finally got fed up with the crapologia and insipid approach our Sunday School was taking towards the Hebrew Bible. From the constant Book of Mormon-inspired Christological approach to texts that have nothing to do with a Messiah viewpoint to the horrible misrepresentations of Jewish beliefs I was tired of it. I study this stuff all the time; it's not that hard to do a little research outside of the Sunday School manual. I love the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament! They're so deliciously messy and human. They're worn down by time and are written by dozens of real, and different, human beings. It argues against itself constantly and consistently challenges the reader to understand it both as individual works and as the artificial whole we tend to view it as. It's fun!

So I finally did it: I asked the bishop to let me teach. I've got the chops for it: I've read the books, I know the current scholarship relatively well, and gosh-darn it (because I'm talking to the Bishop) I've even put the effort into learning Ancient Greek and can read the New Testament (admittedly, I can read it far too slowly to actually do any real translating in class) for cryin' out loud. I can do this!

And so they actually called me. I wasn't actually expecting them to, mind you. Mormons are trained very early that there's two things to understand about callings: you don't turn them down and you don't seek for any calling.

So I actually told them I'd get back to them and waited a bit. I wrote my friends on reddit to ask their opinion. They seemed to be, for the most part, of the opinion that it would be a bad idea: I'd not be able to continue teach if I gave my full beliefs about the LDS Church in class and if I taught things that the parents didn't like I might get in trouble.

So in the end, I decided to be honest. I told the second counselor who had extended the calling that I really wanted to teach, felt that I could teach the New Testament quite well, but that I personally had many doubts in relation to Mormonism itself and wasn't sure that I could teach the class everything I would be expected to teach them and remain honest to myself and them. He told me that he had some serious doubts himself and to just teach around what I had doubts about. “If you don't believe it,” he said, “then don't teach it. If you still think you can provide a good experience for these kids, then do it.”

So I did and started. Thankfully, I was able to skip the first lesson on the “Pre-existent Christ” and we started off with the two nativity stories (Matthew and Luke) and how they were the same and how they were different. I went into the meaning of the word κατάλυμα (kataluma) and explained that it didn't have to mean “inn”, but instead could also mean “guest-chamber” or “special room” (this is the same word used by Luke for the “upper chamber” of the Last Supper). So you see that in all likelihood, if the nativity story as Luke wrote it occurred as written, then Jesus could have been born in a stable not because there was nowhere for the family to stay, but in an attempt to give them some privacy in a very full house. It's even possible that the manger that Jesus was laid in was a centralized stable within this very full house and that Mary had no privacy whatsoever. It was also fun to explain to them the differences between the gospel writers (Matthew's nativity does not mesh with Luke's and instead looks to have been based very heavily on the Biblical life of Moses; we're not even sure how historical to take any of it), their traditional authorship (and their actual anonymity), and to see these kids have fun actually learning something about the Christmas stories.

I'll keep talking about the rest later. I need to go to sleep now.

#Mormon #SundaySchool #AcademicBiblical

My Experience

When I was growing up in the Church, long before my crisis of faith and eventually admitting I was an Exmormon, I discovered the famous Liahona-Iron Rod belief labels. I loved the idea; I could instantly see in my mind where the various adults and friends I had lined up between these two positions. I was a Liahona Mormon, no question, and I could easily see most of my Seminary teacher and other leaders as Iron Rodders. When I got older (probably in college) I realized the limitations of this particular schema; it's actually too limiting to place an individual into one of two groups. Everyone overlaps each position in various aspects of their life. But I continued to use the term because of its usefulness in providing a shorthand in discussions. “Liahona” may not fully describe a person, but it describes enough to give a rough picture. The same can be said for “Iron Rod”.

Since then I've found another separation used, with the same limitations, in regards to how Mormons approach the difficulties of their religion against modern science and scholarship: the Chapel (or traditional) Mormons and the Internet (or non-traditional) Mormons. Unfortunately, these terms are often applied by those who don't feel they belong in either group and have some serious negative connotations. Unlike “Liahona” and “Iron Rod”, the Chapel- Traditional distinction is usually applied in a divisive fashion meant to provide a negative view of another person. For this reason I try hard to refrain from using it, but it also continues to provide a cool short-hand in describing aspects of Mormon belief and approach.

In recent years, for various reasons, I have decided that I no longer believe the truth claims of the LDS Church. I was mentally a NOM for a while, but the mental difficulties of trying to support half of the truth claims of the Church without supporting the other half was a tiring exercise that ultimately was not sustainable for me. So I finally bit the bullet and accepted myself as an Exmormon. Around this time I found my browsing habits pulling naturally away from the traditional “Bloggernacle” towards the famous sites of the “Outer Blogness” (I love those names). Reading about others who had left the Church, some only mentally and others fully, filled me with a sense of camaraderie that I had been missing since I decided I no longer really “belonged” with my fellow Latter-day Saints. Most of these blogs approached the Church with a sense of caution and respect. Acid and flames were certainly given towards the very real failings and weaknesses of the Church. There exist many doctrines and practices within the LDS Church that are emotionally and mentally harmful to individuals, especially those who are effectively second-class citizens of “Zion”: women, children, homosexuals, intellectuals, feminists, etc. But, on the other hand, most of these individuals were also able to give a textual “high-five” to what they saw as successes for the Church. Even in the midst of the difficulty of leaving—-losing friends, family, respect—-there was still an attempt to be objective about the subject.

I thought that this objective approach was the norm. I figured that most people who came to their beliefs through rationality and critical thinking would continue to apply that critical thinking towards their now lack of belief. I thought that people who had realized that most of their faith as a LDS was based on emotion would realize the dangers of continuing to depend on emotion. Just as many who left the Church held serious and honest beliefs before they left, so too was it often assumed that those who remained probably held similar honest beliefs that had simply not been closely examined. (And even now, I find the idea that all people within the Church don't rationally examine their beliefs to be far too simplistic; many do and still do not leave. I refuse to categorize them as simpletons or just plain evil. It can't always be that simple. Maybe for some, but I agree with Kathryn Schulz: that's probably just a mental coping mechanism to explain why others don't believe the way I do when they have similar data. It's important to reserve judgment toward myself that I still might be wrong about everything. I feel that certainty of any kind is dangerous, even a certainty that the truth claims of the LDS Church are false. I reserve the unlikely possibility that, given further evidence, I might have to one day change my opinion one way or another.)

One of the major helps in coming to terms with leaving the Church was the YouTube series “I am an Exmormon.” More than simply a response to the LDS Church's media campaign (“I am a Mormon”) these videos were heartfelt expressions of people who finally were able to find peace, happiness, and mental stability by leaving the Church. Those interviewed rarely showed hatred toward their former faith, but rather expressed that in acknowledging the failings of the LDS Church they had found the ability to fully discover who they were. The Church had provided a lot for them and they had grown as much as they could within it, but in leaving they were unhindered from developing even further. They are a beautiful series because they present a view of Exmormons that contradicts entirely that cultural view fostered within the Church of those who leave: instead of angry, they are hopeful; instead of bitter, they are calmer; instead of obsessed, they are loving. Those videos speak a wonderful truth: you can leave the Church and not leave who you are behind. You can retain the good within yourself because that good is not a product of the Church. It may have been fostered by the Church, but in truth the good within you is your own to take with you wherever you wish to go in life.

That's what I had hoped for in the Exmormon community. And, truth be told, I saw it in a number of individuals. Are you hurting because you've been abandoned, rejected, or misunderstood by your family and friends? Many will open their arms towards you in love; many of them have gone through the same thing. Are you still in the closet, dealing with frustration and anger? Again, so many people are out there who understand you and can help you through it. For a long time I thought that the infamous rejective phrase was unfair: of course people can't leave it alone! They have friends and family who are still within the Church. You can't simply cut those ties; it's impossible. And for so many TBMs the Church is part of everyday life. It comes up at work, home, and (of course) Church. It's difficult for them to know to avoid the subject around friends and family who no longer believe. So, duh! Of course some people can't leave it alone. But I've found that there are some for whom this way of looking at “not leaving it alone” isn't the entire story.

It's one thing to discuss facts; facts are discrete points. They can be debated, certainly, but on the whole they are usually not the object of discussion or debate themselves. Joseph Smith married multiple women, some of them already married to other men. The Book of Mormon contains chiastic structures. DNA evidence for the ancestry of the indigenous peoples of the Americas indicates they originated in Siberia and Central Asia through successive migrations beginning possibly as early as 25,000 years ago. There is a location in Saudi Arabia called NHM that has been in existence since at least 600 CE. The length of the scroll of Hôr was most probably only 150 cm long. These are simply facts; they exist apart from any theories. They do not have to say anything in and of themselves. There may be some disturbing implications that extend from them, but they are not, in and of themselves, arguments.

And yet I occasionally see people maligned and belittled who attempt to bring up facts that could be used in arguments that support Mormonism's truth claims, and I also see facts that could be used in arguments against truth claims used as arguments that somehow are supposed to mean something. That would be fine, but there is often a sense of decency and respect that appears absent to me. I could easily be wrong, but it often appears that some Exmormons feel justified in not being civil because we often receive anything but civility from many TBMs. However, the rules of a debate are not decided within the conversation itself. That's Fox News crap: let the loudest win and keep the rules changing faster than your opponent can keep up. That's not about discussion and understanding: it's about winning.

And I have to admit that I just don't get it, if that's really the case (and it may not be; that's just how it looks to me). I don't understand it. I know it can be different. I know many Exmormons who deal differently. However, even knowing that doesn't mean that the people I don't understand are wrong. It just means that I don't understand them. So, after a lot of thought, and in an attempt to be fair and promote understanding, I propose a new classification, this time of ourselves—-the Exmormons. And the best way I can think of to do so is to use two films that are both awesome and exciting. So I propose the distinction between the Matrix Exmos and the Inception Exmos. Obviously any allegory or comparison will break down if you extend it too far, so let me explain it as far as I think it can go.

Matrix Exmormon

Tools of Choice: Under the Banner of Heaven, An Insider's Guide to Mormon Origins, The Book of Mammon, or anything that, while it strives to be accurate, is also hard-hitting and direct about the issues.

In the Matrix, humanity is enslaved in a particularly devious form of mind control by the machines who are exploiting them for their own purposes. However, while humanity as a whole doesn't even realize that they are being exploited and kept from the truth of their world, a small group of people who have been “unplugged” exist in a war against the machines in the hope of one day bringing down the Matrix and freeing humanity to live a life that is truly free from control. There's also a bunch of silly stuff like mechwarrior exoskeletons and an overabundance of trenchcoats, but on the whole that's the idea: a war between men and machines over the freedom of human minds. So, for the Matrix Exmormon the parallels are clear: the LDS Church exists because of the faithful support of its members; and the faith of the members is a faith both in a false worldview as well as in a dangerous set of principles. Mormonism denies full equality to women and has a history, not yet fully eradicated nor repudiated, of racism. The LDS Church consistently refuses to apologize for the crimes caused by its own inflamed rhetoric of the past (such as the Mountain Meadows Massacre) and refuses to acknowledge fault in the actions of its members today in actions that are cruel and bigoted towards many of the minorities of our society such as homosexuals and immigrants.

It spends billions on private ventures such as the City Creek Center and most of the top officials received “stipends” that mirror the salaries pulled in by heads of major corporations; meanwhile the amount spent on humanitarian aid worldwide over their entire history is a pathetic fraction of the amount the Church has spent in the past decade alone. Yet the Church continues to present itself as a champion to the poor and afflicted throughout the world. Their vast financial holding give them tremendous economic power in the Western US and the united actions of their members gives them tremendous political and cultural power, as seen in the involvement of LDS members in California's Proposition 8 decision; it is unlikely that LDS members would have mobilized with anything near the strength of cash and activism seen if church authorities in Salt Lake City had not actively encouraged it. The LDS Church, as an organization, donated very little to Prop 8 efforts, but instead asked for, and got without much question, the support of the members.

In the Matrix, the freedom fighters from Zion are engaged in constant battle with the machines. Every soul unplugged from the prison of the Matrix is a benefit, but the end goal is not to free everyone individually but instead to take down the seemingly monolithic organization of the machines and destroy the Matrix itself. For Matrix Exmormons, the end goal is not just to help individuals out of the Church, but to demolish the seemingly vast power that the Church currently controls by destroying the system of false beliefs they use to keep the members in line. And, just as in a war, the stakes are high. Facts and the arguments that employ them are not tools but weapons. Is someone starting to doubt the Church? Explain to them about Kinderhook, about Mountain Meadows, or the full extent of the Temple ban for blacks. Did the person listen? Yes? Then congrats, another human saved from slavery. No? Well, that just goes to show the level of control the Morg holds over its people. What about the hidden history, the financial dealings, the intellectual purges? The Church claims to be the only true church, but it's not. The leaders probably know this; they actively hide and distort. They employ their apologists to defend the claims with tenuous findings and reasoning and then use their influence to keep members from noticing. That's why it's okay if I'm a little sloppy in how I present my arguments, if I get my facts a little bit wrong: they do it too! This is war, man. Just as in the film, there is no middle ground. Those who attempt to work with the machines are nothing better than traitors. The end goal is what matters! This about freedom and slavery; there is no middle ground. The Church is unethical and corrupt, through and through. The reason that members of the Church are told not to trust Exmormons is because the leaders know the weaknesses we can present. They know the danger we pose to them. It's all about the power, the control, or the tithing. When the Church tells the young men to get married early, the ultimate goal is tithing. The religion and the beliefs are the tools to keep the members in line. I don't care if I offend people in the Church by what I say; it just proves that they're not ready to acknowledge the truth yet. I don't have to take a moral high ground against an organization that is evil and/or unethical.

I'm probably getting into the realm of parody, so I should probably stop here. Suffice it to say, while I'm trying to represent the views I see expressed online, I'm probably not doing a very good job because I am not a Matrix Exmormon. I'm an Inception Exmormon.

Inception Exmormon

Tools of Choice: Guns, Germs, and Steel, 1491, Who Wrote the Bible?, or anything else that doesn't explicitly discuss the Church but instead lays a foundation for personal introspection about the Church's claims and further discussion.

The film Inception does not adapt itself as well to the struggle of how an Exmormon deals with the LDS Church and its members. In Inception a small group of specialists who usually steal secrets from other people through their dreams are instead employed to try and plant an idea within another person. However, this “inception” of an idea has never successfully been accomplished before since individuals can usually recognize when the thought is not their own and reject it. Through the film, the team prepares for the inception by preparing intricately assembled dream-world through which they will take the target in an attempt to plant the idea subtly enough that the target will view the idea as their own. Of course, it doesn't go quite that smoothly, there are a lot of action shots, bizarre examples of dreamworld physics, and the threat of being lost in limbo. None of that really applies here, but the basic idea of the inception of an idea does.

To an Inception Exmormon, there is no vast organized conspiracy keeping those who believe in the Church in line. The Church is a product of itself. Perhaps there are some leaders and authorities who realize that the Church is not true, but on the whole the decisions and actions made by the Church are made by members who believe the truth claims. The nefariousness is not conscious, but is rather and accident of the Church's corporate structure and the corporate structure is itself an accident of attempts to organize the Church over the past century of growth. The LDS Church has problems. Its beliefs caused pain, damage, and limitations to its members and other people. Whatever the origins of the Church, whether or not Joseph Smith saw himself as a prophet or knew himself as a regular human, these questions are irrelevant to the Church today. It is true that most of the truth claims themselves currently depend on the authenticity of Joseph Smith as a prophet, but the behavior and actions of the Church today are expressed through people who have all been born in the 20th and 21st Centuries. While there are plenty of people who would be willing to pull the trigger if asked, there is nobody left alive today who was at Mountain Meadows and nobody today can bear the direct blame for the actions perpetrated there. The problem is that a Mountain Meadows, while unlikely, is certainly possible if it were requested by a high authority within the Church. And that is a problem that can be dealt with without the destruction of the LDS Church as an organization. There are other branches of the Latter Day Saint movement who have overcome many of the problematic issues caused by the Salt Lake church and it is not impossible that a future Salt Lake Church might look more like the Community of Christ looks today. For an Inception Exmormon, it's all about the well-placed idea. Fix the church through many well-placed ideas. Support those active members who have overcome the mental problems that plague most other members. Emphasize grace, emphasize environmentalism, emphasis egalitarianism, renounce war and proclaim peace. Close the malls and open the homeless shelters. While not likely, change is possible.

The same is true of the individual who might leave the Church. An Inception Exmormon understands that leaving the Church, as it currently exists, is probably the best decision for most Mormons (though not all Mormons; some might be better benefited by remaining); at least until the doctrines and practices change enough to soften the ills that the Church can cause. As with dealing with change in the Church, causing change with another person is accomplished through the well-placed idea. Presenting someone who is struggling with their faith with strong examples of the Church's falsity rarely accomplishes anything (though I need to acknowledge that it might on rare occasion). Just as in the film, people tend to reject an idea that isn't theirs. Helping someone out of the Church requires working with them on their level, whatever that level happens to be. There is no magic bullet; you cannot just present the Book of Abraham and watch the scales fall from their eyes. There are plenty of people who remain within the Church who know all of the dirt. They can handle the dissonance. The only real change can come individually from within by acknowledging the possibility that the Church might not be true. If you present data that is not entirely accurate then those bits of inaccurate data can be enough to cling to to reject the real facts that were presented. Attacking the individual's tribe by mistreating friends or trusted figures like GAs and missionaries will only tighten the bond the individual has towards his or her tribe. Instead the idea of the Church's falsehood must be presented carefully, honestly, and above all without an appeal to emotion. Telling someone how the Utah Boys Ranch is a terrible place (it is) and is actively populated through the efforts of stake and area leaders (it is) and then talking about how evil the LDS Church is for supporting such a horrible place is not going to accomplish anything. You cannot deal in such absolutes; telling someone that the Church is unethical for such-and-such just sets up a debate for why you're wrong.

Admitting that your opinion of the Church is negative because of such-and-such is a way of verbally telling them that they can hold a differing opinion and allows you to state the facts that back up your opinion or argument in a way that the facts themselves can be accepted as being true (because they are) and allows the individual to evaluate them for themselves (and, possibly, “incept” the idea to them of the Church's inability to explain the facts as they stand). It is not a war, and the default position to take with everyone is a cautious position of assuming honest intentions. You can assume that Church leaders are encouraging young men to get married because they are concerned for their eternal welfare, and you can also assume that they're simply concerned about the Church's bottom line of tithing income. Either way the results would appear the same, but one requires the devious actions of people focused on money and the other allows for people to be making honest decisions in line with the belief structure. Tithing money is the Lord's money and having more of it just means that the Church can accomplish the will of God that much better. It's easier to delineate battle lines between good and evil, or between rational and illogical, but humanity is more complicate than that. We are hard-wired through millions of years of organic and social evolution to belief in irrational things. The ultimate opponent for an Inception Exmormon is not the LDS Church but rather the genetic and social constructs that are no longer necessary in our modern culture. The war waged is not between artificial constructs like good and evil or corruption and ethics, but is rather a war within the minds of individual people to help train them in avenues of critical thinking to come to their own conclusions.

Limitations

I can guess what a few of you might be saying: the Inception Exmormon sounds a lot like a TBM to me. They “lie for the Lord”, they only tell what they want to in order to further their goals. Inception Exmormons are willing to allow some falsehoods to continue in an uncertain attempt to help just one person. There are thousands who need help, who are stagnating and stuck; we can't go one at a time. And I don't feel the need to treat the Church with the same respect I'd give, say, the Episcopalians (or perhaps all religions are undeserving of objectivity). At least the Episcopalians are advancing social change; the Mormons do nothing to advance humanity.

Well, this is less of an invitation for everyone to be Inception Exmos and simply more of an observation of where I stand (and have seen others stand) verses where the majority seems to be. It strikes me as the response to seeing a spider in the home: you can kill it on sight with a single mighty kick, or you can put it under a cup and paper and carry it outside. Either way the goal is the same; and so it is with the Matrix Exmos and the Inception Exmos. I'm not sure how effective it is to argue that one approach is “better” than another for everyone. Certainly one approach is better for a particular individual. But the important thing in the long run is to acknowledge that the other side exists and to tolerate them. I cannot see myself, with who I am right now, being a Matrix Exmo. I dislike looking at the debate that way (which is probably why that side of the analogy needs a lot of work from someone who feels that way and can be fair to the viewpoint in ways I cannot be), but I do understand that some people think it's better to just rip the band-aid off all at once. Open the blinds! Roll down the windows! I may not agree with the methods (I don't see it as two side battling against each other, but just humans acting like humans), but I hope I can understand the underlying purpose: to help people. As long as I can keep that in mind I can tolerate Matrix Exmos. I may not like them much, but I cannot claim that they are wrong in their intentions. But trust me, I understand the pain, the guilt, the grief that LDS beliefs can cause.

Obviously this distinguishing needs some help on the Matrix side. I'd appreciate what I got right and what I got wrong (probably most of it); please understand that I meant well about a point of view I find difficult to comprehend. I need your assistance to clean it up properly. And I'd also be curious as to how many who would see themselves as Matrix Exmos (if I got the analogy wrong or overly stereotyped, you know what I meant by the viewpoint, right? Just pretend I said things the correct way and go with that) who saw themselves as Iron-Rodders or Liahonas when they were TBMs. And the same for Inception Exmos, where were you before it all came tumbling down or all finally became clear (to put it in a positive light)? I have my suspicions (Matrix = Iron Rod, Inception = Liahona), but I could be so very, very wrong of course. It could be that there's no equal divide between two points of view but rather than one view is a precursor that some hold before they move to the other view (but which comes first and which comes second and can they keep switching back and forth?). I'm very interested in things like that. Are you?

#Mormon #Exmormon #BadMovieMetaphors

Um, there really isn't any too-long, didn't-read. I thought of writing one due to the oppressive length of this post, but I couldn't think of it. Maybe someone could do so in a comment if they feel this post needs one. Also, feel free to ask me anything. I'll try to respond. If this is too long, just don't read. This is about my experiences with the Pornography Addition Recovery Program provided by LDS Family Services. As you will see, if helped me cope, but it did not ultimately help me feel healthy and whole as a normal human being. Ultimately, losing my faith in the LDS Church and relying upon faith in a universalist deity who probably loved me is what helped most. ;–)

In the Beginning

I don't remember when I first actively sought out porn. I was probably around 12 or 13. I remember getting up late at night to sneak to the basement to watch soft-core pornography on the pay-per-view channels (if you watched the squiggly lines long enough you'd usually get a period of a few minutes where the picture resolved itself enough to be viewable) and over the dial-up Internet (I remember often bringing a pillow down to the family room to muffle the modem handshake). I got found out pretty early on by my parents, who were horrified. To their credit I think they were far more horrified at how the world was attacking their son than at me personally; my dad actually said he was somewhat relieved that I was viewing heterosexual pornography because I was so anti-social around girls that he was worried I was gay! Viewing pornography led to discussions with the Bishop, computer access restrictions and passwords, and increased chores. Over the years I would get found again and again, and each time would get better and better at hiding my tracks as well as getting past the still-laughable protections and walls available to prevent such access.

I'm not certain how much background information is really needed; I'll answer questions if people have them. I did not look at pornography during my mission, which was the longest time I had away from pornography. After returning home it only took two months before I gave in and started viewing it yet again.

Marriage

I was married in the summer of 2005 (and still am, thank whatever gods may be). I told my wife about my problems while driving off to our honeymoon (this is still a huge regret I have; though I feel differently about porn now than I did then, I was not open and honest while we were courting and engaged; this is never a good idea in any relationship). She was annoyed that I had waited to tell her, but said she had figured I had such a problem while we were dating and that as long as I could refrain from it in the future things would be fine.

Of course, I was found out by her eventually. It nearly destroyed our fragile new marriage; I went into a spiral of depression and came close to killing myself in desperation (and was prevented only because I'm an idiot when it comes to kitchen knives and tried to cut my wrists with a bread knife; it only resulted in some very bloody and painful wrists which mostly healed after a few days and a marriage that became even more strained and desperate). I went to talk to the bishop who, after telling me quite honestly that he was not a trained psychologist and couldn't really help me beyond offering support at any time, recommended that I meet with a psychologist and a support group with LDS Family Services. The ward would pay for the psychologist and I scheduled an appointment. I met with the psychologist a couple times (he was a guy just a few years older than myself and I only recently found out how lucky I was to get a guy with some actual psychological training and a degree; while they hire real psychologists now, there's a lot of non-professionals who continue to be employed by LDSFS as counsellors) but gave up because he could not offer me a quick fix (yes, I have met with therapists since then and understand quite a bit more what I was going through).

LDS Addiction Support Group

When I first attended the support group I was embarrassed at the campiness of it all, but I felt the Spirit telling me it was good to be there (and, if you're wondering about how I describe it I'm using the words I would have used back then; I don't believe in a “sex addiction” or spirituality the way I did back then, but it's easier for me to remember things if I just talk about things using the words I would have used there). The missionary (called by the local stake, I think) made it a point to shake my hand (commence jokes about making sure of washed hands now...) and assured me that attending would be a great benefit to my life and help me to be happier. He was the only person in a suit around. It was crowded (to be fair, this was at BYU) and the men attending filled two separate rooms (there are apparently similar meetings for women, but I can't tell you anything other than they met on a different floor than us and they did a good job keeping the two genders separate; I never saw a single woman who attended that group). There were desks in a wide circle around the room I chose to enter. We signed an attendance roll (first names only; there was no discussion back to our bishops from the meeting, everything was kept quite private) and sat down. It was apparent that some of the people had been attending for a while as they would talk and laugh with each other as others arrived and sat down. I felt embarrassed to be there; it was like giving in to being a pervert. That feeling was only intensified when the meeting began.

After the opening prayer the meeting was led by a middle-aged guy who shared his experiences going through AA to treat alcoholism when he was younger and also had gone two years without “acting out” through the LDSFS Addiction Recovery program (I soon found that the group had its own lingo to talk about certain things without having to constantly mention painful words like “porn” or “masturbation”; included in this was the phrase “acting out” which was almost always used in place of “watched porn”, “masturbated”, or both). His success at avoiding porn had helped to soften his relationship with his now ex-wife and children. He had been invited by LDSFS to continue to attend the group to aid us by being someone who understood us (while the missionaries I've seen in these groups either develop empathy quickly or leave, few of them ever admit to having ever “acted out” before; they never claimed to understand what we were going through, which I think most of us appreciated).

We then read, in unison, the step of the week (there are twelve steps; they are the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous “Mormonized”, mentioning “Heavenly Father” instead of a “Power”, etc) and somebody who had previously been invited to do so bore their testimony about their experiences with that particular step. We then started going around the group. Each person was expected to adhere to the following script:

“Hi, my name is Tom, and I am a sex addict.”

(Everyone: Hello, Tom.)

“It has been two days since I last acted out.”

(Everyone claps; the most enthusiastic clapping is reserved for long periods of time, such as over three months, and extremely short periods of time, such as days or even sometimes hours.)

“I'm working on the fifth step, but I haven't yet worked up the courage to talk with someone about my addiction yet.”

After that, you are expected to share how the past week had been for you. You're expected to discuss how difficult it had been but also to focus on any successes, even temporary ones (“even though I acted out almost every day last week I actually had luck keeping myself under control for all of Thursday. It was hard, but I gave a phone call to Brett when I was feeling weak and he helped talk me through it.” Clapping probably ensues.) Details of porn or masturbation were generally frowned upon and it was not uncommon for an uncomfortable individual to raise his hand while someone was describing their week to ask them to not give so many details. While you could decline to discuss the week, it was expected that everyone who was there would share how long it had been since they last “acted out”. The missionary would keep track of anyone who had asked to go later and the evening wasn't over until everyone had spoken (nobody pushed very hard for people to speak, but by the end of the evening everyone else in the room had spoken about the same thing so it was rare to have someone leave without deciding to speak; we were a band of brothers).

Nothing was defined for us. Some men who were there would say that they had only acted out the previous day and would share that they had merely had imagined an attractive woman nude or imagined having sex with her and that was why they were resetting their day count. Some, as I've shared elsewhere, would consider masturbation to be “acting out” on their addiction and might mention that they were addicted to both porn and masturbating. Others would just keep things vague behind a simple admission to being a sexual “addict”. We were not allowed to critique anyone else's approach to their problem, although we could share being inspired by what individuals had said during the evening. The missionary would quietly speak up to defuse problems and things rarely got out of control.

There were plenty of odd things that were shared: revelations people had received that had helped them, miracles people had experienced through their struggles, sources of spiritual strength that had led to a day without porn (ranging from hunting to classical music), people's discussion of the power and influence of Satan in their lives in regards to their “triggers” (actions, sometimes as benign as a particular kind of smell or food, that would psychologically set them off to “act out”), and once or twice I heard men announce that God had told them they were cured and would not be coming back (they came back). While some people rolled their eyes at the more bizarre statements, respect for each other was the overarching rule and that was enough to prevent problems. The shared cross that we all shared was enough to keep that respect in place. In fact, the only people who I ever saw be openly mocked were the rare visitors we had who came to observe. One was a visiting reporter for the Daily Universe who, when it was his turn to share his problems, shared his testimony of how dangerous of a problem pornography was to feeling the Spirit; he was taken apart in later people's testimonies as almost everyone tearfully described how their relationship with God had grown stronger even in the midst of their addiction. Another, and the only one I personally joined with others in verbally attacking, was a father who came with his son (it was very apparent that if he had not come with him his son would have been anywhere but there; he walked in the room with his hand tightly gripping his son's wrist and the hand rarely left that wrist through the evening as though he somehow needed to physically keep his son in the room). He actually spoke against our sharing of temporary successes as being counter-productive to solving our addictions because we were being too accepting of our problems. He indicated that the only way to avoid the “filth” of pornography was to treat it like a “plague” that would “destroy our lives” and to avoid it and never go back; God would help us do so if we simply had enough faith. The missionary actually asked him to shut up and let the group move on; almost all of us spoke harshly against him and warmly to his son about hope, the Atonement of Christ, and the love of Christ. These meetings celebrated a gospel of grace, not a church of works (although there was plenty of bargaining with God that went on). I still love that about them to be very honest. If you want to find Mormons who preach grace just go to an addiction recovery meeting; they may not believe deep inside that such grace applies to them, but they're open to the idea theologically as it applies to their fellow men in the room.

After the meeting was over a number of men came up to welcome me as a new guy. We shared telephone numbers so we could call each other when we needed help (I took a few calls from guys sitting in front of their computers but never made any calls that I can remember).

Time Goes On

While I couldn't stick with it with the psychologist, I kept attending the meetings. I had varying degrees of “success”: at one point I was up to nearly six months without “acting out” on pornography. Meanwhile, my wife studied the dynamics of men (and women) and pornography more on the Internet and found, to her surprise, just how nuanced of a problem it is. While almost all psychologists worth their degrees do not accept the possibility of being “addicted” to pornography, they do understand that individuals can be addicted to things like deceptive behavior, secrecy, and subversive actions. Also, it can be quite common for people who are depressed to attempt to prove to themselves why they deserve to be unhappy; you can actually become addicted to hating yourself as a person and to making choices that reinforce this self-hatred. As I became somewhat more open with her about my pornography habits she became more understanding of what I was going through and how to help support me; she was also able to convince herself that my viewing pornography was separate from our sexual relationship (i.e., she read and learned that my continued viewing of pornography was not related to how much I loved her nor how satisfied I was with her sexually). Our relationship began to improve and grow stronger. While pornography is still not something she would view as normal or acceptable, it is not something against which she feels she must compare herself.

What Worked For Me

Few people lose faith in the Church for simple reasons. I know that admitting I viewed pornography and felt horrible about it is reason enough for some people for why I lost my faith, but to claim that I lost my faith because of pornography is way too overly simplistic. Even so, I'm sure it plays part of the role. I prayed and fasted often; my successes sometimes lasted longer and longer, but would always end and I'd start over. The cycle was endless: two weeks, one week, four weeks, one day, two days, one week, one month, two days, four days, one day, one day, one day, one day, two weeks, four weeks, two months, one day, one day, one day. It didn't matter how much I prayed or fasted nothing worked. Every failure pushed me back into the darkness of self-loathing. While I never attempted to take my life again my thoughts were often suicidal. Some days I thought I could feel God, and others I couldn't. For those who would claim that I let myself drift from God during this time, I would argue back: how could I be the one drifting from God? I was beating my arms and legs (figuratively) in a desperate attempt to swim towards him to gain my needed miracle of healing from him! I read scriptures, I prayed, I tried. I plead with God, I bargained with God. Each week I went to my recovery meeting and felt buoyed up far more by my association with my fellow brothers than I ever felt on my knees. The weekly meeting became a bizarre highlight of my week; it was the only time when I didn't feel subnormal and perverted. I knew these men who attended with me and shared in their troubles; we weren't bizarre, we were simply natural men trying to be godly men. There wasn't anything unnatural about our addiction, but we were striving to be more than mere natural men. There wasn't anything different between us and those who didn't struggle except that we had wandered into the trap of porn and they hadn't; it wasn't that they were better than us, they were simply luckier than we had been. At least, that's how it felt when I was at the meetings. The next day, however, it was easier to look at my problems as being my own fault again. I tried to humble myself enough to be worthy of God's healing touch.

Eventually my attempts to gain God's help just broke. One night while walking alone with my thoughts home from class I looked up at the sky and wondered how my life would be different if there was no God (this was quite separate from my research into Church history; my doubts about the Church itself were deep by this time, but my doubts about God were not). I was shocked to realize that I would still love my wife and family and, most especially, would still be a good person no matter how you chose to measure “good”. I would, however, not have a need to worry about the porn addiction because the only person I would need to satisfy in trying to be perfect would be myself. It was liberating to be able to say to myself, “I look at porn, but that's not all of who I am, only a minor part.” The feeling went away quickly and I felt horrible for doubting God and trying to give myself license to commit sin without guilt. But I increasingly found a change in my porn-viewing habits. I started mentally distancing myself from the guilt of “acting out” for longer periods of time after doing so; I refused to allow myself to feel guilty for longer and longer. I started telling myself that while I was somebody who looked at pornography I was still a good person even so. Watching porn was only something between me and God, not between me and my fellow humans; when it came to other people I am a good person. I recognized that nearly everyone who attended our meetings was the same: a good person. They didn't believe that they were, it was obvious, but I could see it in them. We were just normal men dealing with normal problems and there wasn't anything horrible about that. For some reason I began to simply accept that I would probably always view porn. Incredibly, once that happened the cycle began to change: one week, two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, three weeks, three weeks. I began to notice when I wanted to view pornography and mentally acknowledged it. By refusing to feel guilty about wanting to view pornography I was able to sit down and simply decide whether or not I would do what I wanted to do. And it was easy to say, “Well, I want to, but right now is not really a good time to do so. Maybe later.” And then I'd forget about it for another few days.

True Believing Mormons will certainly say that I haven't found a real solution: I still look at pornography. But I'd argue back: I have found a solution because I am the one in control of my viewing. Whereas before the thing that drove my pornography viewing was a cycle of guilt (feeling guilty for wanting to watch porn, eventually giving in and watching porn to feel better, then instantly feeling even worse for the next few days which probably leads to wanting to watch porn again not much later), the only thing driving me today is my own brain deciding whether or not I want to be a normal person and explore my natural urges. And the reason I'd say I've succeeded is because I'm happier with myself and I actually view pornography far less than I ever did when I was fighting myself. And since the problem for me now is to keep in control of myself, I'm happy and satisfied with where I am. I do want to lower my consumption of porn but for much the same reasons that I want to lower my consumption of meat, plastics, and Wal-Mart: my usage of all of these can result in a net negative on other people around the world through their production. Do I eat less meat? No, not really, not yet. Do I watch less porn? Well, I'm doing a better job on that than on the meat. Do I plan on eliminating these from my life? Of course not, but I'd feel satisfied with myself for making do with less of each.

I've found since that I have basically given myself a form of therapy known as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). A recent study at USU showed that for people who believe themselves to be addicted to Internet pornography ACT was far more effective at reducing viewing than attempts at thought control. I cannot stress enough the importance as well of actually meeting with a therapist as you attempt to mentally remove yourself and your actions from what you might believe is deserved guilt. However, as I started to actually improve in reducing viewing my attendance at the recovery meetings became more problematic.

Leaving the Group

The problem with the group is that, while it is usually called a “recovery” group it isn't about making a full recovery. Maybe for some people it works, but for most people the weekly meetings give you enough oomph to usually make it from one meeting to the next. The twelve steps are organized around solving your problems through numinous spirituality; they provide no alternative solutions to take the addictions out of your life. The first step is to abandon yourself to say that you are powerless, a mere human, a mere mortal. You cannot do it, you cannot solve your own problems; it is not possible. There is no “graduation” from a twelve-step program; you don't ever get a certificate of advancement to a next area with different and simpler steps. You don't ever get to acknowledge yourself as “cured” of your addiction. You just keep going and going. Maybe someday you finally “get it” and leave on your own, but most people, at least in terms of Alcoholics Anonymous, either come back eventually or find a different route to healing themselves of their addiction.

I'm not an alcoholic (heck, I haven't even had more than two drinks in my life and that's only within the past couple months) so I have no idea how difficult an alcohol addiction could be. But that's a real addiction with real physical consequences. For all of the claims you usually hear about how pornography can rewire the brain and distort brain chemistry that particular branch of scientific research is controversial and there is nothing close to a consensus against pornography among researchers (besides, it's the brain; it's constantly being rewired, that's how it works). Most people who make negative claims are published in non-peer-reviewed journals or are simply funded by conservative think-tanks like the Heritage Foundation or Focus on the Family. While some of their points might be valid, such as the impact that excessive viewing of pornography might have on an individual's ability to make and maintain intimate relationships with others, few psychologists would agree that porn is the root cause of such real problems and that solving the porn issue doesn't strike at what the underlying problems truly are. Porn is almost always a symptom of problems, and is not a cause of them. To be blunt the connections often made between deviant behavior (and Ted Bundy, don't forget Ted Bundy!) and pornography is equivalent to the nonsense of a hundred years ago about masturbation causing blindness or hairy palms. Humans have been producing and consuming pornography since we've been producing and consuming art: often they're one and the same in human culture. Is the porn industry corrupt? Hell yes, but is that corruption due to the subject matter or due to the vast amount of cash and influence? There are abuses and there are negatives; as I said these negatives are one of the reasons that I still seek towards a minimal pornography habit. But there are similar abuses in many other industries and I rarely hear people who complain about the excesses and abuses of porn complaining about the excesses and abuses of things like Fiji Bottled Water, sweat shops, African mineral and diamond mining, or third-world oil drilling. Should I feel guilty for being an over-consuming American, or should I just accept myself and try to solve the problem individually without being motivated merely by guilt?

Mormonism attaches the stigma of guilt to pornography possibly more strongly than any other activity that an average Mormon could participate in; it is certainly equal to drugs, adultery, and abuse in my own experience listening to the public rhetoric against it. Most of the talks that are given are not given by people who have ever struggled with the problem (either because they somehow never let themselves view it, or because they secretly don't care about feeling guilty for their actions). Every time I hear some moron and bastard in General Conference urge his audience to simply “turn away” and “leave it behind” as though it would be tht easy for their audience to do so I cringe because I know that, in a few hours, a few thousand men are going to retreat to their computers and fap themselves into a very dark frame of mind because they'll feel hopeless and beyond salvation because something must be wrong for them if it's supposed to be that easy to avoid something so evil (and I felt this strongly about it even when I was a TBM; most men I know who still deal with pornography feel this way even about their leaders). People who spend their time talking about the “filth” and the “plague” either have no idea what effect their words are going to have, or they're so miserable with themselves that they're trying to drag everyone else down. I know I've heard that sort of crap from both in many an Elder's Quorum meeting. Imploring men to “think of your wives and your children before you think about clicking that mouse” or sharing an experience of how pornography caused a real divorce is far more effective at getting men to watch pornography than simply telling them the web address of your favorite site to get porn at. The simple fact is that almost nobody in the Church is “addicted” to pornography. They're trapped by guilt in a tragic cycle and think that by not thinking about pornography they'll escape it but its like trying to win “The Game”: as long as you're aware of it, you're losing (although I guess Randall Munroe declared The Game over to free us from it; I hope someday TSCC will declare the game of pornography “addiction” over to free thousands of men and women from it).

And so I've left the recovery group. I did not announce myself cured; I did not receive a revelation. I didn't even tell anyone that I was leaving or why. Why would I? That group is all that some of those men have. When they leave that room they have to re-enter a world where nobody understands their struggles and thinks they're choosing to be wicked each time they “act out”; heck, they probably think it themselves. If they have nothing else for support beyond their brothers what would I have to give them? The sad part is that they are not only trapped by their own cycle of guilt, but they are also trapped because their world outside of the recovery group (the Church and its culture) refuses to let them set their guilt aside.

#Mormon #PornRecoveryGroups #PornDoesntKillLove #GuiltKillsLove