I, Jesùs Hector Christ, having been born of brainwashed Mormon parents, therefore I was taught well in all the twisted, pseudo-intellectual learning of my parents. I have seen many afflictions in the course of my day such as abandonment and physical, verbal, and psychological abuse handed out by my parents at the behest of an axiomatic, false, gold-digging, narcissistic institution with 501 (C) 3 tax-exempt status called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

That was easy making that verse up, perhaps because most of it is all true except for my name. This is my story of coming out of the LDS church, and yes it does include at least one example of pious fraud on my part; after all, we learn early on that we are to follow the prophet.

I was raised in a large Mormon family. Having children was overly stressful to my parents, so they turned to the church as a way of having psychological stability by being told what to do and not worrying about reality. They didn’t give it much thought, as both were raised in the church to some extent, both coming from inactive and part-member families. It was disappointing to think that my grandparents on both sides essentially rejected the church, gave my parents a free pass to be inactive, and yet they chose the “gospel” of their own free will. When my parents went back to church, my dad didn’t even hold the priesthood—that’s how inactive they were. As an adult, most of the disappointment I feel is in the fact that my parents chose to remain ignorant, magical-thinking members of the church instead of becoming educated and critical thinkers—it would have saved us children a load of misery.

Growing up, my dad lacked motivation to make our lives better. As a matter of fact, as I get older I realize that his philosophy was just to endure to the end. I hate the idea of enduring to the end; first of all, this life is really awesome (“endurance” frames the experience as painful), and secondly, there is no mention of striving, or trying to make your lot or the lot of others better. Enduring is depressing and self-centered.

My dad even told me that not to worry about taking care of my own children as much as I did, “they will be out of the house soon enough, and then you’ll have enough for you and your wife once they’re gone” (social security, I presume) “the Lord will provide. Your worrying shows a lack of deep faith”. I was appalled. I finally understood why we, his children, had grown up so poorly; education and excellence were not stressed or taught. My dad believed that he could go from factory assembler to godhood in one powerful move, but he just needed to get through this life and on to his wonderful, glorious death and then he would have his own worlds without number. All of us children belonged to him, he was our god on this earth, and he would be over me and my children forever and ever. In fact, most of his pleasure in life came from thinking of the temple and that he would be a god under the patriarchal order of heaven. No wonder Mormonism is such a death cult; it’s after death that you get paid your [gloriously eternal] dividends.

We gathered night and day for prayers, daily scripture reading, paid full a full tithing, went to the temple--framed prints from the church’s own distribution center of Jesus, temples, and the 12 apostles adorned our walls; we were Mormon in every way. The majority of our conversations centered around the church, not necessarily god or Jesus. We spent a good deal of time talking about how it was the last days, and the world was shortly coming to a horrific end. God, our loving father, would unceremoniously burn off all the flesh of non-Mormon, non-tithe payers in a brazenly, fiery death. The Mormons would escape the catastrophe because they were god’s chosen, peculiar people.

My grandfather was an amateur scientist. I spent a lot of time with him, so I did get some doses of reality. I would spend hours talking with him, and would just know that the church could not be true. I was adamant that it was not true because, after all, science went along with reality. Besides, when my dad would get off on a didactic oration on the church, it just wasn’t interesting the same way science was. Religion was flat, tasteless, lacked interest and color, and had no ring of truth to it. Religion didn’t prompt me to ask questions that excited me, and I did notice the difference. After spending time with grandpa, I would go home and get confused with the daily rituals of righteous living, feeling sinful, and ultimately “repenting” from my unbelieving heart. Deep down I knew that if I could free myself from this crazy dogma that life could be so much better.

I was not completely critically minded, I must admit. For example, there was a time that as 12 year old boys, deacons, we were asked to read the entire Book of Mormon. I began, and I had read it several times through with the family, but that was not good enough for my militant leaders. It’s a very long, boring, almost incomprehensible harangue. It was as painful as hell to get through it, so I would skip whole chapters of it and claim to be much further ahead than I really was. Sadly, this is the only time in my life that my dad showed any interest in me. I remember driving down the road, his eyes lit up, asking me to recount my favorite or the most spiritual stories of that infernally awful book. So I, wanting and needing his approval, flat out lied. That is pious fraud.

Another case of pious fraud happened around this same time, stemming from the forced reading of the Book of Mormon. A couple of us deacons began to feel a spell of trumped-up concern that is often infused by “concerned” [nosy busy-bodies] leaders. Another deacon from a broken home was having troubles reading the Book of Mormon because it was unbelievable. So we constructed a “stone box” with fitted lid using cement and wood forms in the woods behind a friend’s house. We even engraved letters of “curious workmanship” into the wet cement and let it dry.

We took our friend to the box and told him that we had found the box, and it was proof to his questioning heart that Nephites had indeed inhabited this land, and probably placed that box there, knowing that some little boy a thousand years in the future would need it to build his testimony. He must be some special boy for god to fit his needs in such a special way, we pretended. Mormonism tries to make each person feel completely unique and special so that the act of conforming will not be as bitter. My other friend even testified that an angel had told him that he could see the plates taken from the box when, and if, he finished reading the Book of Mormon. Who knows, maybe they would even translate this ancient record just as the boy Joseph translated the Book of Mormon. Talk about letting inspiration loosen you tongue! We felt great about our fraud and knew that heavenly father approved; any tactic justified the means of bringing souls to Christ. And our faith might even justify god sending down an angel with plates of gold to fulfill our prophecy; after all, we had more of the power of god in our little deacon fingers than the rest of the combined heathen world, and the Aaronic Priesthood held the keys to the administering of angel. Angels, even armies of awesome destroying angels, were at the whim and beck-and-call of us prepubescent boys.

I did end up going on a mission. I should have stayed home and finished college because it would have been easier than missing time on a mission, losing a full ride scholarship, getting married young, having kids and trying to finish college then—it was a real bitch. Besides, I did nothing of importance on my mission. I did baptize a lot, mostly cougars who were interested in my body (sorry, but it’s true, or was true). I accumulated some ultimately useless and pretentious titles: district leader, zone leader, branch president. I learned that the church is actually ran much differently than most run-of-the-mill Mormons believe it is. The church is run by power-hungry people who are not filled with the spirit as most believe.

On my mission, I spent a lot of time studying counter-arguments to Christian claims against Mormonism, and from there I learned a lot of shocking information about the church. I was very uncomfortable teaching many things, especially asking for baptism and full tithing from poor strangers who had no clue about the whole operation. I did spend a good deal of time with some very powerful anti-Mormon preachers in several of my areas. They were fascinating to me, and although full of theological shit (just as the Mormons are too) they did make more sense in the fabricated, mythical reality of religion. Somehow I actually thought I could impress them with knowledge of the bible and theology. I went home disillusioned by the antics of the one true church and the ladder climbing of my mission president.

I married 8 months after getting home, mostly from the indoctrination from the church and my mission president. It was a potentially stupid mistake. Luckily, my wife is a wonderful and beautiful woman—but that was luck, and I know I dodged a bullet by being so reckless with my future.

We were inactive for several years after getting married, but the guilt my wife felt was unbearable. We went back to church and were sealed in the temple. We stayed active for mostly 15 years while I served in several bishoprics, high councils, gospel doctrine teacher numerous times, in-service teacher, etc.; I was not a back row joe. Unfortunately, I kept so busy that it kept me from examining my doubts.

Then I was called to be the high priest instructor. I did this for several years, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was when I had to teach “The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith” for two years straight. I was also taught Sunday school for those two years and taught the Book of Mormon and D&C at the same time as I taught Joseph Smith. I had shitloads of studying to do about Joseph Smith and his pious fabrications. I learned a lot of new, startling information. The Prophet was not the good, vitreous man that the church claimed him to be. He was narcissistic, horny, lying, mean and dishonest.

Going to church got so bad that it would make me physically ill, and it would take an entire week to feel better. I would feel better just in time to go back and teach the next set of lessons. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, I called in sick several Sundays in a row and the ward scrambled to get my callings filled.

My wife was sensing that something was wrong, maybe it was because I couldn’t read from the Book of Mormon without laughing out loud! We took the next Sunday off and flew several hours away from home, just to get out of town. We drove around in a rented car and she began asking me questions about the church. But I was so distraught over it that I felt she would leave me because she was TBM. I told her whatever she asked, but my heart was beating like thunder with the idea that my marriage could soon be over.

We couldn’t talk on the way home because of the loud sound of the double prop plane that we were flying in, and I didn’t want other passengers to here that conversation. It gave us time to think. I knew my life would never be the same once that plane touched down in my home city. After we left the airport, I stopped at a convenience store to buy drinks. As I was getting out the car, my wife asked, “So, is the church true or not?” I decided to tell her what I felt regardless of the consequences. She deserved the truth. “No,” I said and walked into the store alone.

I was in the store looking at the drinks and wondering how I had messed up my life when my wife walked in. She had the look of extreme happiness on her face—the type of beaming we hoped to see in investigator’s faces on the mission when we shared the “truth” with them. She asked, “So does that mean that I don’t have to wear these stupid garments?” “I guess not,” I responded. “That makes me feel hot,” she said in a sultry voice. I was on the right track. We went home and my wife’s garments went off. She has been 100% supportive. We left the church that night and haven’t been back in years. I praise my wife’s name; because of her I am free and happy. Going out of the church together has made my life so much better than I ever could have imagined it to be.