DiscussMormonism.com

It’s often said by church apologists that members can leave the church, but they can’t leave it alone. Of course, no one sees all the members who leave and do leave it alone. Because they don’t say anything on their way out and they never look back. They never say another word about Mormonism.

But there is real value in speaking up once you leave. If you can do it in a way that doesn’t re-victimize you. If you can do it in a healthy and constructive way, then you can create a community of ex-Mormons that stands as a lighthouse to guide people out of the Mormon church.

I think no other place online exemplifies this better than Reddit. It’s difficult for younger people to remember what the ex-Mormon community was like before Reddit. It consisted of a couple message boards. The recovery from Mormonism one looked like it hadn’t been updated since dial up modems were still ubiquitous.

But once Reddit came around, the ex-Mormon community exploded. People were sharing podcasts, criticizing the brethren, heckling general conference and every stupid policy blunder and PR nightmare the church made. In real time.

Very often, members would post their faces to the board to show everyone it’s ok to be ex-Mormon. It’s ok to show the world how much happier you are. It’s ok to drink tea and coffee. It’s ok to wear normal underwear.

You can leave the church, and you can have it both ways. You can move on with your life, and you can still add your voice to the growing choir of angels leading people out of the cult. I’m grateful to live in a time when so many of us can find community and support leaving such a toxic religion behind.

I bear you my testimony in the name of RFM, John Dehlin, Bill Reel, BYP, and reason and sanity. Ramen!

We should take some parts of the D&C quite seriously:

Doctrine and Covenants 88:81 wrote: ... it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor.

I rarely initiate a discussion with a committed member, but I'm prepared to argue my right to comment on Mormonism with anyone.

Ardis Parshall once attacked me in the comments section at Times & Seasons and suggested I had no business commenting on Mormonism as a non-member. This pretty much set off a dogpile of Mormons nodding their heads that a non-Mormon shouldn't comment on Mormonism (I doubt any of these people had even known I was a non-Mormon until Ardis made it an issue).

I pointed out that I was married to a Mormon and raising a daughter in both churches, so that gave me pretty reasonable outsider personal interest in how the Mormon church treats women (the topic of the thread).

Someone basically said, "People in interfaith marriages shouldn't comment on their spouse's religion." I said, "Oh, what kind of interfaith marriage are you in?" Of course, they weren't in one. So the logic of "only insiders should comment on things" unraveled pretty fast.

Which is all to say, it's not just ex-Mormons they do this to. And it's not surprising. Mormons have been solving their problems with censorship since about 1844.

By the way, the Mormon church has changed a number of things that I've criticized over the years: the age being held higher for female missionaries to discourage them from serving missions, women not praying in conference, the one-year-wait non-temple-wedding policy, women not being allowed to witness baptisms, and the temple liturgy towards women. I can't prove that anyone in SLC reads my work, but by all means, ex-Mormons and interested non-Mormons should speak up.

MsJack wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:45 pm

Ardis Parshall once attacked me in the comments section at Times & Seasons and suggested I had no business commenting on Mormonism as a non-member. This pretty much set off a dogpile of Mormons nodding their heads that a non-Mormon shouldn't comment on Mormonism[.]

Next time, please respond with, "So only Nazis have any business commenting on Naziism?"

Discussing Mormonism is fun. Don't let this apologetic tactic dissuade you otherwise.

The only reason to give it a rest is if you are creating a backlog on the Freeway from watching Mormonism.