REWRITING MY HISTORY

How I left "The Church"

November 28, 2002
and April 11, 2003

I think I'm finally ready to tell my story. My name is Rick. I am 25 years old and currently reside in Kiev, Ukraine. I was born into a Mormon family (in the U.S., of course). All of my relatives from my grandparents down are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I grew up in Minnesota and Southern California, then spent a year abroad in Slovakia before entering Brigham Young University. After a year of college I served a mission in St. Petersburg, Russia (1996-1998), and returned to BYU to get a BA in Russian and minors in Math, Statistics, and Psychology in August, 2001. In the summer of 2000 I had an internship at Scholz and Friends Advertising Agency in Kiev, Ukraine, as a PR Manager. After graduating from BYU I returned to Kiev to work and live... indefinitely. For me Kiev is where it all started... and where it all ended.

Here's my resume from 23 years of activity in the Mormon Church:

• Deacons Quorum President, Fullerton, California
• Teachers Quorum something-or-other, Fullerton, California
• Priests Quorum something-or-other, Fullerton, California
• Sunday School Teacher, Trencin, Slovakia
• Sunday School President, BYU student ward
• Branch President, Pushkin, Russia
• Mission Secretary, St. Petersburg, Russia
• Missionary District Leader, St. Petersburg, Russia
• Russian Sunday School Teacher, BYU Foreign Language Student Residence
• Choir Pianist, BYU Foreign Language Student Residence
• Elders Quorum President, BYU Foreign Language Student Residence

Yes, I had a "testimony." Yes, I had "spiritual experiences." Yes, I confessed to my bishops. Yes, I believed that "the Book of Mormon is True," "Joseph Smith was a True Prophet of God," and "Jesus Christ atoned for our sins," and I struggled my best to be able to say "I know" these things are true.

So what could keep me from being a model Mormon and later becoming a Bishop, Stake President, or General Authority? Sin? Anti-mormon literature? Lascivious thoughts?

But I had never really sinned that bad or read anti-mormon literature other than what Hugh Nibley had commented on, though I have to admit having had occasional "lascivious thoughts":))

• Of course, that problem evaporated as soon as I stopped believing it was a sin.

What actually led my into the oblivion of Apostasy was the natural desire to solve my problems and improve the quality of my life. I had struggled with bad moods, social ineffectiveness, and nearly continual mild depression for most of my life and intuitively felt that life should be better than what I was experiencing. In my early adolescence (12-14 years old) I began to seriously study Mormon theology and scripture (i.e. the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price) and learned to interpret my behavior and emotional states in the light of Good and Evil, Righteousness and Sin, and many other black and white categories. This contributed to cycles of guilt and repentance that sapped my energy for many years.

• This all may sound silly, but I'm sure some of my readers know what I'm talking about. I can laugh about these things now because they are behind me.

If I was in a bad mood and didn't feel like doing what needed to be done at the moment, I would pray or read the scriptures and look for the cause of my bad mood in myself. For me my personal religion was primarily a way to regulate my psychological states and understand why things were so in the world around me. I took it very seriously. I was quite well-read in Mormon scripture and theology, and even knew a bit about its history -- from approved sources, of course:)

During my internship in Kiev in 2000 I made friends with a guy who knew all about psychological types and told me and showed me all about myself -- not what I thought about myself, but what was actually there -- my internal mechanisms. Our first meeting lasted five hours, and I objected to much of what he said. It seemed to ignore Free Agency, Good and Evil, and many other cherished beliefs of mine. I left feeling shaken, somewhat disturbed, but with the seed of a new thought that offered real hope: the idea that our psychological states are objective phenomena and have objective causes in the world around us. What I consider to be a turning point in my life is when I decided to meet with my new friend a second time and learn more about this point of view.

(...continued April 11, 2003)

This was a decision to learn about other ways to regulate my psychological states other than religion. Quite a big step for me. As I began to seriously study psychological phenomena, very soon I realized that modern science is founded upon the idea that all phenomena have natural, physical causes. In essence this fundamental meme of science denies the possibility of "super"-natural phenomena. Or at least refuses to consider them seriously. Gradually, over several months, this science meme worked its way through the contents of my conscious mind, rearranging mental connections, overturning supposed cause and effect relationships, and cleansing my worldview of any unsupportable or unprovable religious dogma. This was an incredible time in my life. I felt like my mind was expanding every day and that I could now think whatever I wanted about whatever I wanted. I remember that just a few months later I felt like I now knew twice as much as I had before these events.

In September, 2000, I returned to the U.S. and to Brigham Young University a different person — armed with new knowledge, new potential, and new psychological tools. I took an Introduction to Psychology course and enjoyed it immensely. My professor was a stimulating, highly intelligent man with a doctorate from Harvard. I dug my teeth into the subject and soon realized that modern psychology is increasingly being overtaken by evolution theory — in the form of neurobiology and evolutionary psychology (also called "sociobiology"). Our class had the standard BYU evolution vs. religion discussion. Most BYU students grow up in orthodox mormon homes believing in the literal biblical creation story and shunning evolution. It comes as a bit of a shock to many students to find that modern natural science is based on darwinism. As I sat in that lecture hall and listened to the comments people made, I could see how their religious viewslimited their ability to think about things and make many connections that seemed completely natural to me. I could see how students and the professor proposed watered-down versions of Mormon theology and evolution to try to resolve the dissonance. I could see how many students were troubled and would have preferred not to talk about these things.

Over the 2000-2001 school year, I progressed from studying psychology and social psychology to evolutionary psychology, evolution, darwinism, and memetics... Along the way I read several psychology and social psychology textbooks, as well as How the Mind Works (Steven Pinker), What You Can Change and What You Can't (Martin Seligman), Origin of Species (Charles Darwin), The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins), Darwin's Dangerous Idea (Daniel Dennett), and The Meme Machine (Susan Blackmore) — all for fun. I highly recommend all of these books.

No one knew about this intellectual journey of mine. No one knew I was losing, or had lost, my faith. At some point early on I told my bishop at BYU that I didn't want a teaching or leadership calling and told him of my experiences from the summer. He said the changes in me all sounded good to him, but that I should be careful and continue to be active in church so that I didn't go astray. That was our last conversation together. I received an appropriate calling: choir pianist. When I got a home teaching companion, I told him I didn't want to be responsible for the lesson material. I said I had a "weak testimony" or something like that. Gradually home teaching became more and more of a burden on my weak testimony, and in the summer of 2001 I told my Elders Quorum President (my former counseler when I was Elders Quorum President in the same student ward!) that I would no longer home teach. At this point I only had a few months left till graduation and was becoming more open about my inactivity. Later, just before my graduation in August 2001, the president came to my apartment and asked me some questions. We had an strained conversation where he tried to help me return to the basis of my lost testimony and I resisted his efforts.

Going back in time, for most of the fall of 2000 I continued to take church seriously, but found myself increasingly bored with meetings and church culture. At sacrament meetings I interpreted for a Russian lady, which gave me something useful to do. I did not take the sacrament as someone who was technically unworthy, but continued to pay tithing — 10% of my income. Sometime in the fall my parents found out I wasn't going to my cousin's temple wedding and asked me about it over the phone. Gradually my family members (two sisters and parents in another state) found out I was "having doubts" about the church. Some family members took this quite hard, while others simply didn't understand what it was all about. When I went home for Christmas, I had a conversation about religion and science with my dad. It seemed that things weren't quite as serious as I had thought, and after returning to BYU I began reading the scriptures again for fun — after a three-month break. I even taught a Sunday School lesson once as a substitute. However, this stage didn't last long. I soon realized there was no way back and gave up trying to rekindle my faith. I started taking the sacrament again because I no longer cared about being worthy or not. I started skipping Sunday meetings (besides sacrament meeting, where I interpreted). I stopped paying tithing. I wanted to change other moral standards as well, but didn't actually start disobeying other Mormon commandments. I was afraid of being expelled from BYU before reaching graduation later in the year.

• I hope this all is interesting. Maybe my story will help someone out there.

In order to leave one belief system, old beliefs must be replaced with new ones. After I began studying evolution, darwinism replaced remnants of Mormon theology as my metaphysical foundation for understanding the universe. Psychology and memetics replaced church spiritual kitsch and pop-psychology as my way of understanding social and psychological phenomenon. I felt a lot of new power and freedom from streamlining my worldview and getting rid of beliefs that had taken so much energy to maintain.

As I neared graduation, I started looking for a way to get back to Kiev, where I felt I had the best chances of building a new, religion-free life. I was able to save up money from my jobs and headed to Kiev in late September, 2001. There I established no contact with the church and finally began liberalizing my moral principles in practice — a process that is still taking place a year and a half later.

• I even stopped wearing my temple garments (though I still sometimes wear the bottoms because they're comfortable and girls think they're groovy:))

Believe it or not, until March 2002 I had never read about the Mormon church on the Internet. For over a year I had known there had to be problems with the church's portrayal of its own history, because 1) church leadership and official materials painted church history and development in a very rosy light, 2) few church members seriously studied church history, which was seen as being irrelevant to a person's faith, and 3) those that did seriously study church history often came to different conclusions than church leaders and were occasionally excommunicated. Despite this awareness, when I did finally get on the Internet and start reading about the LDS church, I was utterly shocked! I read and read and read...

• For a whole week I didn't feel like doing anything and just read about church history and theology for hours each night.

I guess up to this point I had hoped that the church was still "true" and that I had just been mistaken about some things. I desperately wanted there to be "right" answers out there to all the questions of life. But when I read everything out there on the Internet, I realized that the church could never be "true" in the sense I was used to. This led to anger from being "deceived" my whole life and growing up with an innacurate, harmful (for me) view of reality. After reading about mormonism on the web for several weeks I considered creating a website of my own to say what I needed to say. This site is the result of that process. At the same time I started correspondences with people who had shared some of my experiences or might have answers to my remaining questions.

In the fall of 2002 I started a new job and suddenly became very busy. I came to feel that I had established myself in Kiev; I enjoyed financial freedom and the support of true friends. I decided that now was the time to leave the mormon church. This was an important step in my personal journey that led to greater freedom and sense of responsibility for my life. At the same time, some of my relationships with family and mormon friends suffered as a result. It was a tough decision to make and was definitely hard on my family, though they were thousands of miles away. I try to sympathize with them. But now this chapter in my life is over.

• Amen:)

Now, nearly six months later, my life has changed in many ways, and my negative views of the mormon church have softened quite a bit. Read about the evolution of my views on Mormonism here.

HERE'S THE LETTER I SENT TO MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY:

HERE'S THE LETTER I SENT EVERYONE TWO DAYS LATER:

Dear family and friends,

I have gotten a lot of responses from many of you over the past day or two and just wanted to say a couple things. I feel as if someone has died and I am receiving condolences:) It's certainly an unusual feeling. Lots of emotions over the past few days. It is painful to read my immediate family's responses. I know that I have hurt them and disrupted their normal family life. All I can say is that life goes on and that I am sure we will have many great times together in the future -- even better, I hope, than we have had in the past. I want to live a beautiful life full of happiness, rewarding work and play, and many, many friends. This life must be my very own and I will choose my own standards, but I do hope there will be plenty of room in my life for all of you:)

A couple more mundane comments:

By using the phrase "come out of the closet" I was NOT implying that I am gay. I was just making a comparison. Sorry for the confusion:) If I were in fact gay, though, I am sure I would continue to have the support you have expressed in your letters. Thanks.

Some of you expressed regret that I didn't turn to others for help or answers to my questions or "issues." I want to clarify that during a critical period in the summer of 2000 I in fact shared my doubts, feelings, and personal experiences with my parents, a few close friends, and even my BYU bishop. These people gave me their sincere support, thoughts, and encouragement as far as they could identify with what I was going through.

Finally, at this point I am basically non-religious, though I strive for self-improvement and have ethical standards, though in different ways than before. I don't want to get into arguments over religion or morality with anybody and consider it a matter of personal choice. If I need your answers to my questions, I will ask, and likewise, ask if you need my answers to your questions, etc.

Yours,
Rick

HERE'S MY EXIT LETTER: