Over the past several days, I read a remarkable document called the Faith Crisis Chronicles. It's a report prepared in 2013 for the LDS Church by a group of Mormon academics in which they examine the reasons for the current exodus of members from the church. It appears this report was instrumental in persuading the church to open up somewhat about its history by publishing topical essays online at LDS.org beginning in 2014.

Aside from the charts and statistics, the most compelling part of the report are the brief narratives collected from members who are or have experienced a crisis of faith. Many of these stories are heart-wrenching and illustrate that the LDS church has entered a period of apostacy perhaps on a par with the Kirtland Bank failure of 1837. Give the report a read. It’s readily available on the Internet. You may find yourself reflected in many of the narratives.

How about a link?

(I know it's on the Internet somewhere, because that's where I first read it. But I don't have the link handy)

Thanks for the link. Will read it tonight.

I really resent the new term: "faith crisis." There is no such thing. It's "discovering the Truth", plain and simple.

It's the Mormons standing in the way, covering up, lying, harassing, threatening, and shunning that turn it into a "crisis." There was no crisis, but a string of a-ha moments, in which things started making sense, at last. It was a sweet relief. Without the Mormon bullying, leaving was a mind-expanding, liberating, love-finding experience.

I'm not sure I would agree with you. Most people who suffer a "faith crisis," whether coming out of Mormonism or some other belief system, find it to be a traumatic experience -- not a moment of "sweet relief" as you described. Discovering that a major component of one's life is based upon a lie is painful as most on this board will attest.

It’s like your Mormon life is a helicopter and it crashes into the side of a mountain.

You are right that the process is traumatic for many people going through it. But the reason the term “faith crisis” is problematic is that it often entails the belief that the loss of faith is necessarily a bad thing. Faith is threatened, and that’s a crisis. If the faith survives, then the crisis was averted. If faith perishes, then it’s a tragedy. The term “faith crisis” is used by Mormons to valorize faith over other beliefs. It’s a loaded term with sickening implications, like many other terms Mormons use like “same sex attracted.”

If Mormons carry around a can of black paint, it’s the leaders who gave it to them.

Do people really lose faith? When they can’t believe in God, they find something else to believe in. Like life, each other, anything that’s genuinely good instead of made up crap. When people graduate from kindergarten, they leave. That’s only a crisis for 5-year olds.

You didn't say why you can't read it. Assuming that it is because the text is too small, how you can enlarge the text depends on the device you are reading on. Double clicking the page using the touch screen if available, or mouse, if not, might do it.

If that doesn't work, Google "how to enlarge displayed page on <your device and/or operating system>"

Once you get the page enlarged, you will have to scroll up down and across on the columns, because a single sheet of the document is now too big to fit on the screen in its entirety. A painful method of reading a long document, and this one is long.

The text might be big enough to read if you print it, but it is close to 200 pages. If you want to try printing, test print a single page to see if it is readable.

The document is what's called a PDF file (Portable Document Format), it was developed so information/documents could be exchanged over many computer systems. TMI already.

Anyway, depending on what computer, smart phone, tablet, etc you're using, if you only see one page, try dragging the page left or right or up our down using your fingers if you have a touch screen or using the mouse like drag and drop.

Hope that helps, good luck.

The term Faith Crisis is one of Mormon's best friends.

The Faith is a positive threatened by the negative Crisis.

This gives Faith a boost as the most important part of the equation. It sets up the need to see the Crisis as the enemy thereby cleverly setting up truth and fact as the enemy in Mormon eyes.

So the term "Faith Crisis" becomes a convenient enabler for many TBMs--I faced my doubts, overcame them, and now have more faith than ever.

Faith Crisis can even become a useful slur against doubters even as understanding is feigned.

My mother is one. She knows all the facts and though can't refute them, has managed to put them in the category of "suspect." That is about all it takes to hang onto her faith as she sees herself as having the greatest most unshakeable faith of all. Much of her self esteem comes from that and she is not letting it go.


Takes guts to face the truth when you know its going to be painful. That is why I love RFM'ers. Guts.

Well said, D&D.

        AND BOOBS!!!!

So it works like a monkey trap.

I had to look that up. Monkey trap! What a great observation.

I hate letting go!