I have been following Johnny Harris for over a year now.
Johnny Harris is an American filmmaker, journalist and YouTuber, currently based in Washington, D.C. Harris produced and hosted the Borders series for Vox.

I was pleasantly surprised when he recently posted a video called "Why I Left The Mormon Church". Even though I have been out for twenty years, I found his story very close to my own.

https://youtu.be/aTMsfOcHiJg

I just finished this video, very good. Ex-Mormon videos are typically done poorly and usually just a complaint session and they started a new religion. This video was very articulate and well thought out. Well worth the time to watch.

I liked it, but this guy is wired totally different from me. What did it for me was the lies. The church set out in 1967 to prove the BoA true. They did the opposite, so then they knew it was bogus. They sat on that except for an essay buried on the LDS website where nobody would see it unless they were looking. Kind of shady, right? The church has been mighty shady since 1830.

My faith was completely based on the BOM. As Gordon said, either the BOM was true or it was a huge fraud. Was he dropping hints? I went down the rabbit hole. It wasn’t “wow, it isn’t true, everything is hunky dory now”. It was a high speed train wreck. All of the sudden I didn’t have an identity. I didn’t know anything anymore. These assholes I trusted my life to were deluded inmates running their own asylum.

Most of all, I had been living a lie. I’ve since figured out that we all live some lie or another. It’s the nature of Maya, so not the big deal I thought it was. But that doesn’t make church culture less unhealthy. There are lots of reasons to leave the church, not least of which is the kind of person it turns you into. You don’t want to be that.

Highlights the constant, constant pressure on members to believe. Or at least act like they do.

Excellent video! One of the best ‘Why I left the Mormon church’ videos ever. Speaking extemporaneously, calmly and honestly, Harris focuses on the damaging psychological effect of the church on members.

Some quotes (preceded by the time stamps) to which many of us can relate:

13:04 “I came to understand that I had some deep problems and anger toward the church and what it instilled in me. I had anger and resentment toward a lot of the authority structures that made me feel unclean or dirty.”

13:33 “I developed a resentment against the church… that purports to love everybody but deeply condemns certain people because of who they love.”

15:30 What I was fleeing when I left the Mormon Church was a structure that I felt put down who I really was… It was harmful toward me and it was harmful towards others. And the consequences were severe if you spoke up and you challenged the status quo. The culture is not one of discourse and debate; it is one of obedience. Obedience, obedience, obedience… and as a member, you feel it.