Aleah at 18

 

The missing circle or Where is God

One thing noticeably absent from my last post was a description of how my belief in God and the downstream beliefs about Jesus and Christianity have changed.  What surprised me about the response to my last post was that no one really asked about that either, except for my friend Bro. Dunstan.  (Embarrassingly I misspelled his name in the first version of this posted.  Fixed.)

In general, I have been deconstructing not only my relationship with and understanding of the LDS Church, but also God.  I am not sure I am quite ready to label myself as an atheist, but don't know of a theistic tradition I want to adopt. 

So in the same spirit of my last post, I will try to explain my thoughts around this starting first with four modifications of my original Venn diagram - because everyone loves a Venn diagram!  For simplicity, each of red ellipses represents "God". I also am avoiding parsing Bible or Book of Mormon verses or scripture intentionally in this post.  This is just how my brain has been obsessing about this topic recently. 

LDS doctrine 

What I taught as a missionary and believed as a member is most succinctly summarized in the missionary manuals - Link.  

Basically, God is both our creator and father of our spirits.  Definitely we also believed that God was male - not as much open discussion but loudly whispered beliefs that there was an unnamed female wife/mother as well.  Or multiple heavenly mothers... That we were created/organized as spirits first in a premortal life and then the world was created for us by the gods so that we could be born in a fallen mortal world, get bodies, be tested, and then return to heaven as resurrected, perfect beings eventually to become like God. LDS doctrine usually describe God as having a physical perfect body because he was also at some point in the eternities on a planet like earth, lived life, was resurrected and now promoted to God.  

Christ is a separate being that started as the first spirit created and then born on earth with a mortal mother and God as the physical father.  His role is to mediate between us and God and to overcome death and sin so that we can return to wherever God is.  He also has a physical immortal human-like body after his resurrection.  Post-Talmage Mormon Doctrine links Jesus with Jehovah before his birth and that he was a part of the godhead before and after his life on earth, but is not the same being as God.  

The Holy Ghost is like a third member of the godhead as a separate being of spirit because he hasn't been born yet and exists to influence us for good.  The devil is also a spirit creation of God but rebelled before creation and exists as a spirit to tempt and test the rest of us to do evil. 

In my diagram, I would say this is actually most like the top right diagram - Universe independent of God.  Maybe better said - God independent of the Universe, because God created the universe and It operates following the laws of nature and he/she/it exists outside and beyond those rules.  Humans have free will and operate independent of God.  In Mormon doctrine, He has a human-like physical body and exists somewhere kind of outside the temporal universe or on a planet near a sun called Kolob.  He existed at some prehistory/precreation point on his own world and was part of that creation.  That could be illustrated with a fifth diagram where the red ellipse representing god is part of the world, but would need to have a series of Venn diagrams representing that he progressed from being part of the world to being something more than that and that he was created by some other god.  Maybe an infinite number of Venn diagrams inside of other Venn diagrams and multiple gods.  It's Venn diagrams all the way down.

He can influence and impact the world and humans - but within the laws of nature and free will, subject to the laws that were set up before we were created.  In the Mormon world view that is why we have scriptures, angels, prophets, and the Holy Ghost - all ways that God can influence us in the world without taking away our independence from Him. The LDS church exists because of Him trying to restore the right ways to worship and follow him before the end of the world so that we can have faith, repent, etc to be judged worthy to return to live with Him. That is why they have missionary work, temples, new scriptures, etc. 

To be blunt, I don't believe in this God anymore.  I don't think this is how the world works.  Back to the diagram starting with:

Universe as God

God is not just the creator of the universe and doesn't exist independently.  He/She/It is the universe - a pantheistic interpretation of God.  I am imagining this view of God as a god of nature and forces and kind of incorporeal, but also that we are a part of God in that everything is part of God. In this description of God, God is to the parts of the universe almost like our cells are part of us.  The entirety of creation is part of this organism that is God.  Maybe that is too biological of a metaphor.  In this view if there is an afterlife it is becoming more indistinguishable from this Universal God.  

Do we have free will in this scenario?  Not sure.  Do our cells have free will?  Do red blood cells ever have an existential crisis about their job ferrying oxygen around the body and want to be more? I don't know, but we and other creatures all feel like we do - we think we have free will.  All other life is part of this living universe and is part of God somehow.  Humans are not a separate community from the world - inspiration tends to be in this world view about losing sense of self and belonging to the unifying bigger existence.  

Which religions fit in this category? I think a lot of new Age beliefs approach this.  Also religions where nature itself is god and communing with those forces is how we get closer to God.  In some ways this is an attractive idea - the world can have purpose and meaning, but that meaning is mostly that we are part of this bigger universal thing.  I like that idea.  Not sure I believe it really is true, but I do like it. 

World as God

I think the biggest difference with the last scenario  is that in this view of God - humans are kind of a special creation from the rest of the world.  We have free will and are more independent of God.  Also that the world was created for humans.  Our communities can exist independent of God, but there are interactions where some groups are inspired and led by God and others may not be.   God in this case could be like the Universe as God. Inspiration I think still tends to becoming one with nature.  

Is this a Christian God? Possibly there is a flavor of this somewhere, but it doesn't seem to be to me.   I think you could also capture a lot of nature polytheism into this kind of description of god where each god is a component of the world maybe?  I don't know.  Venn diagrams don't capture all the complexity of world religions I guess. 

I like this even less.  Because it still has a deity that is essentially integral to the nature around us, but we are independent of it?  What would that kind of God want from us?  

Universe Independent of God

This version of God is outside of time and the Universe.  He/She/It most likely created the universe and us.   So many different versions of God could be described this way.  In part I think this also implies that there is one god or set of gods that is universal for the world and all humans.   In a pantheon, those gods interact with each other and individuals, communities, and the world.  You could envision this universal god many different ways and it could have different level of interaction and control of the physical, human, and personal life. 

I think that this is the kind of God most Christian church's really believe in when they think of God - an "Omni" god - omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient that is also perfect, eternal and more than anything Good. There are a lot of variations in beliefs about the specific nature of this god and how that relates to Jesus, Holy Ghost/Spirit - whether trinitarian, binitarian, nontrinitarian, etc. but this god is not part of our world.  It is outside and supreme over the world.  

Like I described above, this to me is the way LDS church sees God, with some caveats.  I think one of the things that is a Mystery about the nature of god is that we talk about God being at the same time personal and impersonal - a judge and a comforter.  Maybe that is why trinitarian or not, the roles of Jesus and the Holy Ghost are important to be able to have a vision of a God that is incomprehensible, yet also something/someone that people feel like they have a close personal relationship to.  I certainly yearned for that and maybe as someone that is a little bit apostate now I have lost really my understanding of how that works.  I don't feel that personal connection now to God.  Did I have it before? At times I felt this strongly, other times I definitely did not.  Like when my son died the Idea of a all powerful personal god was not comforting - it made me angry.  And I didn't see how the vision of this god fit with that grief and loss. 

God of One Community

This is more common than I thought as a Mormon.  I think a lot of the historic gods of a specific culture and people including Judaism and early Christianity fit actually in this category - with the caveat that the same time God's nature may be that God and the community are part of the world or independent of the world.  My illustration is not complex enough to capture that.  Missionary work in this world view is adoption into the community of that God and membership is defined by that belief.  It also can be a pluralistic world view in that different communities could have different Gods that coexist potentially to rule and modify the world.  Exaltation is leveling up that communion with God and leaving the rest of the world behind. 

Even though I think most Christians, and certainly Mormons, would not accept the pluralistic implications or limitations to the scope and role of god that this implies, Christianity and Mormonism have echoes of this in how we talk about membership and conversion  as adoption into the community or family of the church.  Judaism is an ethnoreligion like this and I think the Old Testament and even most of the New Testament show this kind of view of God.  It comes through I think in how LDS leaders and members talk about being part of "Israel" - representing God's community and Gentiles - not god's community.   Patriarchal blessings have echoes of this too where each one declares the member's "lineage" as a tribe in the house of Israel.  It is behind the racism of the past LDS church teachings and leaders as well that excluded black people from being members of this community with varying justifications for why.  I think pairing this view of the community and God together with a patriarchal history and description of god, a strong single leader/prophet, and a doctrine of becoming like that patriarchal-potentially-polygamous God - whammo you get polygamy and misogyny. 

This was a part of my faith crisis.  I began to feel that if God was more than the god of our community that we wouldn't have the messy doctrine and uncomfortable history of the church.  And if we were God's special community that He was not actually doing a good job of leading this community or we were doing a bad job at following.  I worried about leaving this community because it meant rejecting the community - which I didn't want to do, and also it's god.  And maybe that fear was justified because that is part of what still bounces around my head a lot.  

Conclusion

I wrote the last blog post so that people who know me would understand some of the reasons why we decided to leave the church.  There was a real comfort in feeling like I had those answers and I am the first to admit that with this change in my life, I don't have them any longer.  I still study the scriptures, but I don't believe the stories they tell about Jesus, the prophets and the church are a clear message like I once did. I don't really know what God is like anymore.  

 
If there is a god though, I think God is bigger and more than I was taught in the church.  It’s a big universe.  If there is a grand design - a plan that we are all part of, then the LDS church is just one player - and a relatively small one with 16 million/8 billion people - less than 0.2% of the world. This is an old world with life that has been evolving for billions of years. I don't know what is before or after this life, but I think it is myopic to think we are in the end days. One planet in a big solar system.  One solar system in a galaxy with billions of stars. One galaxy in a ginormous universe. It is billions of years old and will keep on spinning for billions more.   It makes me feel small - but small I think in a good way. 
 
If there is an eternal design, inevitably I am a small part of it, but still a part of it.  I was as a member of the church, and I still am.  Like the metaphorical Adam and Eve, I choose to step out of the sheltered garden of the church and into the world.  When I was on my mission, attended BYU, married Leila, and had my family - I felt strongly that was where I needed to be. I feel the same about this decision. I am part of the rest of the 99.8% of the world - that is what I am joining. Intentionally.  I really feel like that is where, if there is a grand design, I am supposed to be. Even if that means losing my faith.

18 months later - Update after leaving the LDS church

As I was riding in to work today, I was thinking about trying changes in my life this last year and about what I needed to do today. Maybe it was the procrastination talking, maybe it was the beautiful cool morning ride with almost no traffic, but I had kind of this moment of inspiration, where I thought of how to talk about changes in my life since leaving the Mormon/LDS/Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Just before Easter, Mar 2021, we went to church - like we pretty much have done all of my life, every single week. The year before had been disrupted by covid and we had been mostly attending zoom sacrament meetings, but things were opening back up. The Stake presidency/High Council talk that week was about being “All the Way In.” Leila and I went for a walk afterwards and I wanted to know what that meant for us. I had been having a faith crisis for a while - and wasn’t sure what that meant for our family or for Leila. In a life changing moment we decided that we were actually out. We would leave the church. We talked and talked about why and what that would mean for a week or two before deciding to tell the kids at dinner on my birthday. Why on my birthday - I don’t know. It made the day kind of weird. Certainly not the conversation we usually have after cake and presents.

From there we talked to the bishop, people in the ward, and our families. But I haven’t written about it for social media, in part because I didn’t want to be confrontational about it and I wasn’t sure how to put it all in context. So here is my attempt to do that.

First, because I am me - a diagram, then definition of terms and then a FAQ like explanation.

Definitions

Self	Community	World
Identity	Family	Nature
Morals	Intimate partners	Environment
Feelings and Thoughts	Friends	History
Actions	Colleagues	Culture
	Neighbors	Economics
	Parasocial/online community

Examples of interactions

1. Self x Community - How we act and what we choose to do with other people. How we act in relationships, friendships, work relationships.
2. Self x World - Where we live and work, decisions about how we interact with the natural world. What we value and choose to do with resources - agriculture, development, garden, house, how we travel, where we travel, hobbies, etc.
3. World x Community - Stuff the community does to influence the world, or things that the world influences the actions of the community. For example: Governments, politics, culture, language, selection, adaptation, technology, history, pollution, agriculture, climate change.
4. Self x Community x World - That is all the things I do or have done - a combination of interactions between inner and external life. Who I am at work and school and home. If there is an answer for how and why I act the way I do it hides in this combination of my self, our community, and our world.

Why did I leave the LDS church

1.         Self - Ultimately, my identity, morals, thoughts and feelings began to be in conflict with the doctrines of the church. I no longer was able internally to “doubt my doubts” - I began to see things in the church and its teachings that conflicted with what I understood was true and right. The process of this faith crisis/deconstruction and the details of this I am happy to talk about for hours and hours, but isn't particularly unique to me.  The things that I struggled with were things a lot of people are challenged with - the history of racism, patriarchy, and polygamy, the truth claims of mormon prophets and scripture, my belief and doubts about god, and what I believed was right and wrong. 

        I can remember the moment where I felt like I was breaking - I was standing in our room, next to the closet, crying, trying to tell Leila about my concerns and my feelings about the church, and she told me - you know, it is OK to not believe.  And once I let that be an option, that I knew that was what was right for me now. 

2.         Community - I have heard people say that the people in the church aren’t perfect, but the church is. I think the opposite may be more true. I love the people and community that I had in the LDS church and there were points in my life where they were life saving and essential. For example, when my parents were divorced and we needed help - our ward was there for us. BYU was good for me. My mission in Nicaragua was a lot of things, but I met so many people that I loved there. Then, I met my wonderful wife and we had a family together. Our wards have been safe places where I found a lot of friends and support my whole life. I felt like I owed the church allegiance for all of that support in my past.

        But, there were problems in the church and its community, like misogyny, racism, and intolerance, from the institution and its history that began to erode that allegiance. My children did not feel that same connection, especially my LGBT children that did not feel like they could be accepted there. I could see the strain on my wife and daughters from patriarchal gender roles and expectations. I didn’t fit those either. I found I disagreed with the leaders of the church about gender, sexuality, and how it defined itself as the “one and true church”. I started to feel like it would be better to leave than stay.

3.         World - There is a scripture in the Book of Mormon that says that all things testify of Christ and sometimes that is what I was taught to believe about the church.  But many things in the world didn't fit with the teachings and actions of the church. Evolution made a lot more sense than the creation myths.  The Book of Mormon, Abraham, and Moses - uniquely LDS scripture's truth claims weren't supported from all the things I learned about the world. The history of the church was not as simple and faith promoting as I learned in the church.  I found the stories of polygamy and the beliefs of the prophets really hard to support.  The culture of like Utah and Idaho Mormons is sometimes criticized, but it grows out of the doctrines and teachings of the church that I didn't like.  The economics of the church's finances was a huge blow to my testimony.  When I learned the extent of church's reserves of stocks, real estate, and for profit business, I was shook.  

Why did we all leave the LDS church

Everyone has own story that I am not sure is my place to tell here.  That is why I just talked about my thoughts and feelings. In general, the older kids all had their own issues with church doctrine, practices and history. Some had already decided that they didn't believe, and just hadn't told us.  Once we were at dinner and one of the girls asked kind of out of the blue, "Was it OK that Joseph Smith married someone that was like 14 years old?" I said I didn't think so and they kind of nodded and dinner conversation wandered back to normal small talk. Others felt as LGBT youth that the church wasn't an accepting place for them.  For others, it was a lot easier to do other fun things on Sunday instead of church.

In March 2021, when Leila and I started intensely debating whether we would stay or leave and what that meant for our family and when we talked to the kids, we allowed the kids to choose their level of activity, but we wanted to also set some boundaries.  That was mainly what we had to talk to the bishop about.  Mostly, the ward has been great at that.  I can tell at points that there are questions about what is going on with the Gardunia's and some leaders really would like to try and reactivate the kids, but for now none of us are attending. 

What has changed?

1. Self - It has been the biggest of changes, and the smallest of changes.  Mostly I think my identity, morals, ideas, etc. haven't changed, but internally I have spent a ton of my brain space deconstructing and thinking about the church and what I still believe and what I don't.  A huge part of my identity was defined by being a member of the church and my roles that I played there and I still carry all those past versions of myself. The biggest revelation is that even with abandoning those roles, that I am still me and a me that I like.  My sense of right and wrong is mostly the same - although I have started drinking tea and coffee regularly and occasionally alcohol.  I realize just how judgmental I was of others and it is freeing to let that go.  That has helped I think improve my relationship with my children - especially Emily and her girlfriend, and reveals some painful shortcomings that I have had. My core values though are the same -  I still want to be the best father, spouse, friend, and plant breeder in the world. 
2. Community - I miss my friends from church and that community.  I don't think it is intentional on anyone's part to grow apart, but the church keeps everyone so busy and I am busy.  There just isn't time to add extra effort to keep in touch the same without the weekly and regular touchpoints that came from activity in the church.  We have tried to be better connected to people in the neighborhood and our family.  A huge part of my time is still swallowed by work unfortunately.  I still consider myself in a way part of that community of people and this hasn't changed that.  So please don't let this change in my life deter you from reaching out or connecting. 
3. World - in the end, the church is just a small fraction of the world, although it felt like a huge percentage when I was in it.  Me leaving the church hasn't seemed to make much impact either way on either the church or the world, but the biggest change is trying to reevaluate my interactions with the world of history, philosophy, culture, and economics.  For a concrete example - where to donate money now.  Most of my charitable donations went to the church for 45 years.  Do I donate the same amount to other places? if so where?  Still trying to figure that out but mostly supporting environmental and social organizations that I think are doing some good in the world.  

Monastery - St Anselm College

 

Album - Water To Drink Not Write About

Testing.  Will probably pull down.