Jana and I have left the Mormon Church and are in the process of becoming Quakers. This has caused some confusion (and concern) among our LDS friends, family and former leaders. Normally I try to work things out on this blog, but I’ve held back out of respect for Jana’s privacy. She’s given me the go-ahead to write about our experience, so I’d like to write a series of posts describing and analyzing our journey thus far. Through this process, I hope to illuminate our actions for those who may be hurt and confused by our actions and to show solidarity with others who are struggling with the same. One of the struggles of being different in the conformist Mormon subculture is the loneliness; the panacea for this isolation can be found in blogs like ours and by other New Order, post- and ex- Mormons.
In a nutshell, we left because the Church was suffocating our souls, stunting our spiritual growth. While we loved the people at Church, so much of the doctrine, institution and culture was in dissonance with what was dear to our spirits. LDS meetings often left us angry and emotionally exhausted. Quaker meetings, by contrast, left us feeling a deep, abiding peace (for you Mormons out there, President Monson has said that peace is the one feeling that Satan cannot counterfeit). We found our core values in sync with the Quaker testimonies:
Simplicity: While Mormon teachings aren’t in conflict with the value of simplicity, the current Church culture in America most definitely is. We have felt very little support for our single-car, small apartment lifestyle from Church members (some have been openly critical). This is definitely one of Jana’s fundamental values, and I struggle to follow her example.
Peace: There are few pacifists in Mormonism. There are few non-pacifists in Quakerism. Again, this is another value that Jana embodies more deeply than I do, though I try (I’m a pacifist, but a cynical one).
Integrity: My personal experience of Mormonism is that it does not support integrity. It’s easy to be honest when you agree. The Church cares more for the health of the institution than of its individual members. It demanded my docile agreement, my silence, or my absence. It got the latter. Quakerism has plenty of room for disagreement, within and without.
Compassion: Many Mormons are wonderfully compassionate. Many of its teachings, however, are exclusive. Quakerism is both compassionate and inclusive. Quaker people are pretty cool, too.
Equality: Men and women ARE NOT EQUAL in the Mormon Church. Any suggestion that they are is short-sighted bullshit. Women confess only to men; men sit in ecclesiastical judgment over women; fifteen men control the coffers, policy-making, doctrine and wield the bulk of the symbolic power in the Mormon Church. Also, the LDS Church has a well-defined hierarchy. Quakerism, by contrast, is radically egalitarian, and this is definitely visible in our local meeting.
Where Jana may emphasize the peace and simplicity testimonies (and the nature/environment testimony that is often added), integrity and equality are the big ones for me (she’s asleep right now, or else I’d ask her to confirm this–I may be editing this post later). It’s amazing to me how invisible structures of authority pervade the LDS Church. This was especially visible to us when we were called in to a meeting with the bishop earlier this year. Even though Jana and I agreed that we needed no human intermediaries between us and God, we felt ourselves deferring to the bishop’s authority. When we sat in his office, we were complacent; truer to how we thought the Church wanted us, but false to our best and truest selves. The hierarchy impeded integrity.
After assessing this experience, Jana and I felt that the best thing would be to cut ourselves off from any authoritarian reinforcement that illicited such conditioned responses. We carefully composed an email requesting “no official contact” from the Church and sent it to the bishop. It is one of the most productive decisions we’ve ever made. It gave us room to manuever. It also empowered us to define the terms for any potential contact with Church officials (and such a meeting may be in the works).
I think that one of the hardest things for (some of) our LDS friends to understand is that we are living richer, more satisfying spiritual lives as Quakers than as Mormons (though a number of people have commented on how much happier Jana looks now). Those who know us best, however, have been very supportive, and I am grateful.
