Posted by:
derrida
(
)
Date: July 26, 2013 03:22PM
Yeah, on the knowingly jumping in. I took my young family into it. Biggest mistake of my life. I knew the history was bad. I'd read quite a few things, but I saw past it all, happy to explain it away like an apologist does--bad things happen in all religions, men will be men, etc.
What I wanted was community and connection, especially for my kids. Where would they have a sense of deep connection and bonding in a world where extended family was scattered all over the continent, where we had no ties to anyplace beyond a few years. We had a couple of Mormon families we were friends with in a university town, so they were a little crunchy granola--homeschooling, home-birthing. We hung out with liberals, but we found these Mormon families in these alternative communities and thought, "Well, Mormons must be okay."
So, seeing past all the BS, most of all wanting the best parts to be true, thinking that as long as the core of Jesus and God was worth following and having faith in, the rest was just noise. Well, I was wrong. I didn't realize how all or nothing the LDS church was. It was about as liberal and forgiving and cool like that as a Brown shirted thug. And before you know it I'm trying to be "good," doing what's right, being afraid and anxious, learning to fear church leaders, dreading tithing settlement because I knew we were going to be short and we would need to write a fat check at Christmas time to be "right with the Lord."
So I finally dropped out because I burned out and because I'd had enough. The LDS church wasn't a good Christian church; it wasn't a place to grow spiritually and intellectually; it was a run-you-ragged with callings and empty things to do, feed you dumbed-down "milk" forever, shake you down for money, attempt to seduce you with leadership callings and power over sheeple, cult. Oh, excuse me, I mean a damaging and destructive "New Religious Movement."
Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2013 03:26PM by derrida.