Ex-Mormon Stories

In case you missed yesterday’s post, be sure to check it out here: My Life as a True Believing Mormon.

When my husband DJ and I moved, it took us away from our comfort zone.  We knew no one - Mormons or otherwise - and we slid just a little when it came to attending church.  We wouldn’t come until Sacrament Meeting started (since it was last in the block schedule).  Or we would come for the whole block, but we’d sit in the back of the chapel.  Sometimes, we would skip the week, especially if one or the other of us was conveniently “not feeling well” that morning.

Don’t get me wrong - I was still as strong in my belief that the LDS Church was true as I had ever been, but I was not (still am not) a fan of the morning.  It was SUCH a struggle for me to get out of bed; I was a huge night owl and some Sundays it was just easier to sleep in a little.

Eventually, we started to get better at attending, especially after they gave me a calling to work in the Nursery.  Now I had to be there, because the kids depended on me.  My husband was always the one to do whatever I did, so when I started attending every Sunday, he did too.  He got called as the Sunday School President, and it looked like we were back on track to attaining the Celestial Kingdom.

Except I got a job at the local library, and being the readaholic that I am, I started bringing home all sorts of books that looked interesting to me.  I am fascinated with history, so I spent a lot of time learning about various time periods.  I read a book that talked about different cultures throughout history who have had a flood theme sometime in their past, where a large flood played a big part in the story.  I was surprised to read that this wasn’t just an idea that the Judeo-Christian community has (with Noah and all that) but was instead a fairly common story line through different cultures.

I then started to investigate Noah’s flood in particular, and I found out that there was no geological or archaeological evidence for a worldwide flood in 3000 BC (or even anywhere close).  I had honestly never thought about it - Noah’s flood was just a story I swallowed without thought, like Mary being impregnated without having sex, or Joseph Smith seeing God and Jesus at age 14.  It was just something that happened.

But I read and I read, and I realized that Noah’s flood may have been “just a story” but instead of being a nonfiction one, it was most definitely a fiction one.  I was floored.  I started looking at other scientific ideas, like evolution, and I found that there was a lot of evidence for it.  Like overwhelming amounts of evidence that no sane person could ignore.

Questions went around and around in my head.  If the Bible isn’t true, then Christianity can’t be true, which means the Mormon Church can’t be true.  I couldn’t see myself becoming a Buddhist, so where did that leave me?  Without some sort of Christian base, I couldn’t believe in God at all.  It was either Christianity or atheism.

I was lucky enough to have a brother, Bruce, who had left the Church before I did (the proverbial black sheep of the family).  I called him frequently throughout this (along with sending him lots and lots of emails) and he spent countless hours going over different points of doctrine with me, and why the scientific evidence pointed to it being false.

Eventually I told DJ what I had been doing and the conclusions I had come up with, and he flipped out.  He kept saying that there had to be some sort of an explanation, and that there were a lot of smart people in this world who believed in all of this, so I needed to go find out what their explanations were, and get their side of the story.

I promised him I would, so I called my true-believing Mormon brother (John) who I knew had spent a lot of time investigating the history of the LDS Church, and had read all of those boring books by Hugh Nibley that I could never get into.  I knew he’d be someone who could explain “the other side of the story” for me.

John and I talked for hours that night, and he told me that although the LDS Church doesn’t teach evolution in Sunday School, that there has actually been different talks by different authorities about evolution, and that the Church’s stance on it was that they were neutral.  He said they are neither for nor against it, and so me believing in evolution didn’t actually mean that I couldn’t believe the LDS Church was true.

He also told me that the common belief is that Noah’s flood was just a localized thing, like a valley or something, and that Noah didn’t realize that the flood did not cover the whole earth.  I was relieved to find out that all of the things I had been so worried about were non-issues.  How wonderful!  I could have my testimony back.

I finally told Bruce and although he said he understood, I could tell he was disappointed.  I was just relieved to not have my entire life turned upside down.  I liked my life just the way it was, thank you very much.

Then it all fell apart.

Check back tomorrow for part three: Couldn’t Leave Well Enough Alone.

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