Note: This is the latest installment of “Leaving the Garden,” a weekly series in which we ask someone to reflect on their journey from religious conviction to uncertainty, from dogmatism to doubt. Religion is filled with stories of faith; here we collect narratives of unbelief. Some are lifelong atheists who have flirted with religion; others are still deeply embedded in their faith, but are learning to challenge authority and embrace uncertainty. Today’s post comes from Lessie, a brilliant and thoughtful woman who cares about many of the same things that concern me and whose virtual path I have been fortunate to cross.
Bio: I live in south eastern Idaho, I’m on the downhill side of my twenties, I’ve been married for almost six years, have two boys, am recovering Mormon, feminist, humanist, wannabe philosophy professor, generally interested in unmarketable skills like dead languages, philosophy, literature, etc. I have a bachelor’s degree in English/Creative Writing (another mostly unmarketable skill), but am currently working out issues so that my agenda don’t poison my stories (hence blogging).
While I certainly wasn’t aware of this at the time, I’ve been a philosopher from a very early age . . . and a doubter (in repressed form) since high school. I remember asking the metaphysical question of “what if life is a dream” at the ripe old age of four and later wondering how God could be omni-everything and still not meddle with my ability to choose. I had questions like these all through high school, but questioning on such a level was unfit for a good Mormon girl (and indeed, I rarely acknowledged these questions—the implications of the answers scared me). Religion had been a world view that I had accepted without question, so it was beyond frightening to explore other ways of looking at the universe. With these repressed thoughts at the back of my mind, I went to an LDS university for my undergraduate work.
The May after my sophomore year, I got married in the temple to an apparently worthy young man. Relatively quickly, I realized that neither of us really reached the standards of worthiness that were expected of righteous young couples. I sucked at domestication, and he sucked at priesthood leadership in the home. I was embarrassed by my own short comings and angered by his. After the birth of our first son, the details of which can be found here, our marriage began a slide into pain, anger, disillusionment, and apathy. We decided to go ahead and try counseling before calling it quits.
The counseling (while working wonders on our relationship) taught me to question key ideas about authority, priesthood, and leadership in the church. I was also taking philosophy classes that taught me to carefully examine the basis for my beliefs. I was so excited by those different schools of thought. It was so liberating to finally be able to ask all those questions in the back of my mind (and also somewhat irritating to see the resistance that these questions garnered from the more devout).
A year later, there was a museum exhibit in a near by town about the history of literacy and the Bible. I was overcome by the excitement of seeing things like fragments from the Dead Sea scrolls, twelfth century Hebrew manuscripts, early Christian writings in Greek, and early editions of the Bible in English, Spanish, and German. I was simultaneously inspired by the dedication of the men who had kept the Bible safe and dismayed by the bloodshed inflicted by differing factions of Christianity. The pain others suffered as a result of extremism and dogmatism began to bother me on a much deeper level.
Eventually, I stopped going to church. I felt that the church espoused harmful ideas of exclusivity. Ironically, the integrity that the church had taught me was what made me decide to leave. I could no longer be honest with myself by going. I found that I had fallen out of love with religion and in love with humanity. Right now, I consider myself agnostic. However, if salvation means separating myself from others rather than engaging with them, then I decline to participate.
9 responses so far ↓
1 xJane // Feb 15, 2008 at 7:49 am
A beautiful discussion of what I think all of us who have left religion struggled with: inability to ask questions that were important to us. Whether or not it is true, this always left me with the sense that the reason we’re not encouraged to ask/doubt is because religion has no good answers.
I love this: “I could no longer be honest with myself by going.” Here’s to honesty in all things.
2 chandelle // Feb 15, 2008 at 9:38 am
lessie, wonderful post. i wanted to comment that i think it’s so interesting that your chosen method of therapy was a catalyst for the questioning that ultimately led you away from the church. that is, after all, exactly what the church fears about psychiatry/psychology, outside of LDS SS. you’re just proving a point for them there, sister.
i wish you lived closer to me.
3 Lessie // Feb 15, 2008 at 10:42 am
xJane, thanks. I agree that the discouragement of questions is somewhat puzzling–can’t their god take a little bit of questioning?
chandelle, to further the irony, the councilor was LDS and worked on campus.
4 wren // Feb 15, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I used to see a therapist at an office in which I saw a lot of lds people in the waiting room. Most of them I didn’t know, I’d either seen them at the stake center or had a feeling and saw the tell tale g-lines. I found this odd given that it’s not as though the midwest has a high concentration of lds. So to see so many there (and there was no lds therapist there) was strange. I brought up that, along with Utah’s high rate of women on anti-depressants with an lds friend. Where I wondered if there was a correlation with religion, she spun it as the lds were possibly more pro-active in taking care of their health. There may be some truth to that but I certainly never found a leader who supported therapy unless it was with someone affiliated with lds social services.
I once brought up the number of lds I was seeing at the office with my therapist. That’s when I asked her if there was a Mormon working there. She said no and went on to say that a lot of women in therapy were/are in very “dogmatic” churches .
5 D'Arcy // Feb 15, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Lessie, Thank you for your beautiful life stories. I happened upon this blog after reading Exponent II. I am currently active in the LDS faith, meaning I attend my meetings and perform my calling, but have been widely questioning the whole process of why I shouldn’t be questioning. I don’t understand the fear behind the questions, and feel that my whole life I have questioned authority, women’s roles, and especially my seemingly sole call to be a mother and a caregiver to others. I think any religion or non-religion, should embrace the questions and not fear them. I’m figuring things out on a whole different level lately and appreciate people who can be honest and real about the paths their lives have taken. Thank you.
6 Lessie // Feb 15, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Wren, I’ve heard that the idea of Utah’s antidepressant rate doesn’t really have to do with LDS women, but I don’t have a link to the article that supposedly debunked it, so who knows. I think that dogmatic religions cause a lot of cognitive dissonance for women who know inside themselves that they have a lot to offer the world but who are told that their salvation rests in repressing those things.
D’Arcy I’m glad this was helpful to you. I hope your questioning eventually brings you peace–regardless of where it leads you.
7 Elise // Feb 16, 2008 at 5:33 pm
“Ironically, the integrity that the church had taught me was what made me decide to leave”
I’ve felt exactly like that!
And, I think it is beautiful what you said about choosing to be engaged with others rather than salvation, if the choice had to be made….more people in the world who felt that way openly is probably the best way to save the world in the end, anyway.
8 Lessie // Feb 16, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Elise, I’m glad I’m not the only one. I just don’t know how to explain it to people who don’t seem to see the same problems.
9 wren // Feb 16, 2008 at 8:38 pm
I second that about the church teaching me things that ultimately led me away. One thing I’ve found is more “true” for me outside than in is that I feel honestly free to embrace this from the 13th article of faith: “…If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”
Some years back I owned a compilation of talks from BYU women’s conferences over the course of 25 years. I was surprised to find references to non-KJV bibles and encouragement to read various non-standard works literature in early talks. There was nothing of the sort in the 90′s and 00′s talks.
As the education counselor in RS, I was told to make sure I told those called to teach that it was best to stick with church approved materials for lessons. So much for seeking.
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