The purpose of this blog is to record my thoughts about the Mormon Church and life after Mormonism. I am motivated to do this for myself, but I hope that my writings will help someone navigate their own faith journey. Some of my writings may be controversial to Mormons, ex-Mormons, never-Mormons, or all of the above. Some of my writings may resonate.
I mentally left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over a decade ago, in 2006, and I formally resigned my membership in 2008. Most of my family members were aghast at the beginning of my faith transition, but they have eventually come to accept my choices. For me, there was no choice but to leave. As you get to know me through my writings, you will understand why.
I am grateful that I am no longer burdened by the emotional trauma that comes with leaving the Mormon tribe, but I still get angry over the culture, the doctrines, and the actions of the Church. You will notice that indignation surfacing in my writings. If you are a Mormon that is sensitive to criticism of the Church, and particularly of its leaders, please be forewarned. There are many other spaces on the internet for more mild renderings of Mormonism. This space is mine.
My writings are directed to readers both inside and outside of the Church. Some posts will speak directly to Mormons or former Mormons, and some posts, like this first one, will speak to a more general audience. If you are already familiar with the Church, please be patient with some of the background explanations.
I wanted to start this blog by talking about the Holy Ghost, the third member of the Mormon Godhead. In Mormonism, the Godhead is an analogue to the Catholics’ Holy Trinity. For you non-Christians, the Trinity is a three-person entity that consists of God the Father, the Son of God (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Ghost. The precise nature of the Trinity has been a central debate in Christianity for centuries.
When a Mormon is baptized and confirmed, male members of the Church lay their hands upon the head of the newly-minted Mormon and confer the “gift of the Holy Ghost.” It is a spiritual gift that dwells inside you, is always present, and acts like an inner voice that allows you to discern truth from error and good from evil. Because it is always with you (as long as you are avoiding sin), Mormons often refer to the Holy Ghost by its faith-based alias, “The Constant Companion.” More often, the Holy Ghost is simply called “The Spirit.” The Spirit is the guiding conscience that leads you through life, like a persistent candle in a dark cave.
Though the gift of the Holy Ghost is reserved for confirmed members of the Church, Mormons believe that the Spirit can be felt, to a lesser degree, by anyone. The Spirit speaks to all of God’s children through feelings. Mormons describe these feelings as much more than mere emotions. The feelings of the Spirit can manifest as a “still small voice” that quietly communes with us, or it could be a more powerful “burning in the bosom” that fills us with transcendent feelings of joy or harmoniousness with God. Since words do not adequately describe these feelings, Mormons often say that the Spirit is something that can only be experienced firsthand.
As a lifelong member of the Church, I believed that I possessed the gift of the Holy Ghost. I believed that the Spirit was leading me through life as long as I remained worthy of the guidance. I remember vividly when my father placed his hands upon my head and conferred the gift of the Holy Ghost upon me. It happened in the mid-1980s when I was eight years old. I remember feeling that my life was now free of sin, and that I needed to keep myself clean from that day forward. I believed that I had just acquired a new power in my life. Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost is like upgrading in the spiritual app store from “Spirit-lite” to “Spirit-pro”. You have the privilege to the feel the Spirit at all times and in all places, rather than in fleeting moments.
On the first Sunday of each month, Mormons are given the opportunity in church services to “bear their testimony.” This is essentially open-mic Sunday, where any member of the congregation can walk up to the pulpit from the pews and express their thoughts and feelings about the gospel. More often than not, a Mormon will tell a personal anecdote about how the Spirit guided them in a challenging life situation. The anecdotes range from the laughably trivial (the Spirit helped me find my car keys) to the meaningful (the Spirit comforted me after the death of my child). The anecdotes are accompanied by declarations of belief (I know the Church is true and is guided by a living prophet who speaks for God). The intention of these meetings is to strengthen the testimony of the members.
By listening to the bearing of testimonies throughout their lives, at home and in church, children who grow up Mormon are trained to rely on the feelings of the Spirit to discern truth from falsehood. They are taught that the Spirit leaves them when they are engaging in sinful behavior. They are taught to avoid non-wholesome environments where the Spirit cannot dwell. When children reach adolescence, teachings about the Spirit help to control teenage behavior and morality by warning them that the Holy Ghost does not dwell in unholy temples. Forbidden activities like alcohol consumption and sex are punished by the loss of the Spirit. It is a powerful control mechanism.
The Holy Ghost is the sole driver of Mormon belief. Whereas evangelical Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses are biblically oriented, relying on the Word of God as the foundation of their truth, Mormons rely mostly on the Spirit. Scripture reinforces belief, but it not the rock upon which a Mormon testimony is built. Mormons believe in Mormonism because they feel the promptings and the voice of the Spirit in their hearts that tells them that the Church is true.
I was a missionary for the Church in the late 1990s. The goal of a missionary is to make a potential convert feel the Spirit. During the conversion process, when an investigator is asked how they are feeling, missionaries will typically identify positive emotions as originating from the Spirit. This strengthens the perception that God is behind the message. There is a connection that is drawn between the truthfulness of the doctrines and the positive feelings that come from hearing the message. Missionaries dole out reading assignments from the Book of Mormon and ask the investigator to pray to God about what they are reading. The hope is that the investigator will convince herself that the Mormon Church is God’s true Church by making a positive connection between the feelings and the veracity of the belief system. Though the missionary program has changed since then, this process was called Helping Others Feel and Recognize the Spirit, or HOFRS. It was a technique that the Church trained us to use to improve our chances of selling the message.
The most-read passage in the Book of Mormon is in the very last chapter, the book of Moroni, chapter 10, verses 3 through 5:
3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
Book of Mormon, Moroni 10:3-5
Anyone that is even vaguely familiar with Mormonism knows that there are a lot of bizarre beliefs that come with it, and I might talk about some of the specific beliefs in a later blog post. For now, it suffices to say that the above verses are the key to understanding how someone can read the Book of Mormon and convince herself that the Church is true, despite obvious evidence to the contrary. The truthfulness of the Church isn’t grounded in objective fact. It is grounded only in the “power of the Holy Ghost.” As you progress in the Church, you learn to ignore contrary evidence and to rely on the Spirit to guide you.
All of this reliance on the Spirit opens up Mormons to an obvious criticism: that the feelings they are having do not originate from an external source (from God), but are produced by their own brains in reaction to faith-promoting activities. After all, the experience of feeling the Spirit is entirely subjective. There really is no way to know whether the experience comes from God or whether it is a product of one’s own consciousness. When one reads and ponders the words in the Book of Mormon, the resulting spiritual feelings are interpreted to mean that the book is the word of God. But of course, it takes a certain leap of logic to make that connection. Why would we assume that spiritual feelings necessarily mean that the book is true? Because the Book of Mormon says so in the last chapter (quoted above). But how do we know that the Book of Mormon is telling the truth? Because the Spirit has given us a witness that the Book of Mormon is true. Anyone with basic reasoning skills (including Mormons) can see the circular logic that is required to jump onto the Spirit train. There is also the problem that spiritual feelings are universal to all religions. If we had to accept the Mormon church’s model for establishing truth, then all religions would be true.
This doesn’t seem to be a problem for most Mormons, however. They rely on their personal feelings, and they keep the faith. They acknowledge that they don’t have all the answers, and they cite the New Testament’s definition of faith: it is the evidence of things not seen.
