Over the years, I’ve watched former mormon blogs come and go. And posters on various former mormon boards join and leave. (Kiley recently talked about it here). From what I can discern, there appears to be a cycle that some former mormons run through. At first there can be a lot of emotions; hurt, betrayal, ...
Within the ex-Mormon community…or at least, the ex-Mormon community as it thrives online, on websites, blogs throughout Outer Blogness, forums, etc., there seems to be this common exit narrative. (Daymon Smith has a post deconstructing the synthesis of this new identity, but I couldn’t decipher his blog post well enough to summarize the findings for ...
More and more Mormons are leaving the church — not exactly news, but it hit the news in a big way last week!! This is largely because an important LDS leader admitted to Reuters that “attrition has accelerated in the last five or 10 years” — while refusing to give any actual numbers. Dan complained ...
This is the second part of what has turned out to be a surprisingly lengthy two-part series on the perception of ex-Mormons as being angry and causes and reasons for anger that may exist, originally posted at Irresistible (Dis)Grace here and here. Please read part I (if you haven’t already) here. 3. Why do ex-Mormons ...
A while back on reddit, a Mormon stumbled into the popular (and still growing) ex-Mormon reddit to ask the ex-Mormon denizens a few questions. Many of the questions were quite patronizing (despite the poster’s stated desire to “support whatever [our] beliefs [were] in a non-patronizing way”), and the proceeding conversation was less than pretty. However, it ...
It’s been about a year now since I realized that the LDS Church isn’t all it claims to be. Having grown up completely devoted to the church, my transition out of it became a time of immense growing and learning for me. Yet despite all the changes, or maybe because of them, I am now ...
I have to say that, a year ago, I knew of only a handful of LDS families that were said to have gay members, but I knew nothing of any challenges they may have faced because of this. I had no knowledge of damage that had been done to families by the Church’s involvement in ...
The answer is yes. If I could have been a liberal, non traditional mormon, I might have continued to be mormon. There is no space for openly liberal mormon in the Utah LDS church. There certainly wasn’t when I left. I did not see then (over fifteen years ago) anyway to be a liberal, feminist ...
LDS, Inc. is hemorrhaging members, particularly young people, and they are trying to adjust their organizational structure to stem the tide. The recent change in ward structures in Salt Lake is a direct response to the mass exodus of young people out of LDS, Inc. When I saw the initial announcement about the reorganization, my ...
Thanks to chanson’s weekly round up, I read this post about Carson N. leaving. It reminded me of my own experience. My wife and I didn’t send emails, we sent letters in the mail. But the anticipation of the response from family was pretty intense. And one family member’s response was exactly what we feared ...
As has been pointed out by numerous commenters throughout the (relatively short) life of my blog (at http://invictuspilgrim.blogspot.com), a gay (active/post/ex-/inactive/anything in between) Mormon’s relationship to the LDS Church is often complicated. The reason for this should be obvious (but perhaps isn’t to many members of the Church). Many gay Mormons (I use this term ...
This now-infamous question (slightly paraphrased) posed by President Boyd K. Packer at this past October Conference will, I think, reverberate in the minds of many church members for years to come – and not just with respect to sexual orientation. I can’t help thinking that Elder Packer may for many members have, in a moment ...
By way of introduction, I am a gay Mormon, who also happens to be (currently) married and a father. I started the coming out process last fall, and my wife and I are currently in the process of separating with plans to eventually divorce. Even before recently coming to terms with my sexual identity, I ...
My world changed forever on Sunday, October 3, 2010. That morning, I heard four sentences that wrecked my faith in Mormonism, shattered my marriage and destroyed a false persona that I had carefully maintained for most of my adult life. These words, which quickly became infamous, were uttered by the second most senior apostle of ...
Box Turtle Bulletin: “I Am An Ex-Mormon” AmericaBlog: Ex-Mormons Sharing Truth about Mormon Faith BabyCenter: “..and I’m an ex-Mormon” Seething Mom: I defend the Mormons no more One Utah: Some Powerful Words I guess we’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, here’s the latest rebel transmission from ice planet Hoth. And the text of ...