Pondering on my feelings of betrayal

"Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice." (https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/od/2?lang=eng).

The above quote will sort of outline this entire post. And hopefully I'll keep it sort of short and to the point. During this faith journey, I have learned a lot of things. I've also learned to see things in new ways. My eyes have been opened to things I probably should have seen before, but didn't. And I've discovered things that I thought were one way, but are really another. A lot of this discovery is making me a better person (I hope). But some of it has caused me some grief. I feel betrayed, but by whom or what?

I always thought I was learning all the correct things while growing up in the church: Jesus is the Savior; God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are separate beings; Joseph Smith was the prophet through whom Jesus restored the priesthood power; The Book of Mormon was translated by using a breastplate and the Urim and Thummum; Temples are for redeeming the dead, and binding families for eternity; Etc. You grow up hearing this stuff; it's a narrative that the entire <correlated> church follows. It was drilled into my head to believe every Sunday as a kid. Eventually, it becomes what you believe. (In Utah especially--it's what you believe because it's all you ever hear and everyone around you seems to believe it too.) I never really found a reason not to believe, or even to question any of it while growing up. You hear it at church, and all of the people you trust believe it, so why wouldn't you? You hear it in seminary, and you feel good while going to seminary, so it must be true. You go on a mission, and these 19 and 20 year old KIDS are all preaching the same thing and swapping the same stories and sharing answers to the same questions--answers which sometimes turned out to be made up by one missionary or another. Eventually, I came to realize that going to church can be like taking Mormon 101. Every Sunday. Month after month. Year after year. Never graduating, just repeating the same survey course, over and over again. Hearing the same lessons. Giving the same "Sunday school answers." Until you stop going, or until you die. OK, I might be being slightly dramatic, but it really does feel like taking Mormon 101 and never graduating beyond the survey course.

At this point in my life, I've been sort of caught up in a whirlwind of thoughts. My mind is more open, more willing to hear truth. I'm inquisitive and curious. I thirst for knowledge, not only about my church, but about the world at large. I'm a biology major so I'm adept to using the scientific method and there has been some carry-over into religion, which doesn't always work but I try to apply it as much as possible.

Now, I'm only going to use this one example; there are more than a handful of other examples but I'll stick to this one for the sake of brevity. (Though don't hesitate to bring anything to the table if you leave a comment.) BLACKS AND THE PRIESTHOOD. You've probably heard of it; or you've heard someone refer to it like that. For those of you who are unfamiliar, I'll give you the cliff notes: In the early Mormon Church (1830 ish), under Joseph Smith, ANYONE worthy could hold the priesthood. But not a long way down the road, that was changed and from that time until 1978, the priesthood was withheld from Black people. The policy was undone via a revelation given to President Spencer W. Kimball, the prophet at the time. Most presently, the statement I quoted at the top of this post was given. To me, it reads like a little kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but shrugs his shoulders when his mom/dad ask, "Who ate all the cookies?" Now, anyone who likes to read church history books, or who likes to use Google, can find many quotes from Mormon prophets and general authorities--perhaps most notable is Brigham Young--stating the reasons for the ban on conferring priesthood on "the Negroes." ( "Those who were LESS VALIANT IN PRE-EXISTENCE and who thereby had certain spiritual restrictions imposed upon them during mortality are known to us as the NEGROES." LDS "Apostle" Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 527, 1966 edition. A similar statement by Young was recorded on February 13, 1849. The statement — which refers to the Curse of Cain — was given in response to a question asking about the African's chances for redemption. Young responded, "The Lord had cursed Cain’s seed with blackness and prohibited them the Priesthood." Brigham Young also said there could be no intermarrying between Whites and Blacks, or God would punish someone with "death on the spot." Etc...) However, this history is not generally talked about at church. Now that being racist is out of fashion, it's uncomfortable to discuss this uglier part of Mormon history. And so we don't; it's generally swept under the rug; avoided and ignored.

I served a full-time mission. Two whole years in the California Los Angeles Mission, both English and Spanish speaking. I LOVED it. I really did. Not always, and not everything. But I loved it and will always have fond memories of that time.

In Los Angeles, I spent most of my time knocking on doors and talking to Black people. And I gotta say, it was the first time where I was confronted with this whole "Blacks and the priesthood" issue. I was very much a correlated Mormon and I had never given it any thought. I remember thinking how cool those seminary videos were; the ones that showed the happiness of the African people to hear that they could receive the priesthood in 1978 and eventually go to the temple. But I hadn't considered the history of a policy I now consider nothing short of religiously justified racism. (And hey; who really had to justify it? The whole country was pretty racist during that time, right?) But as a missionary in Los Angeles, serving in areas like Long Beach, Compton, Norwalk and South Central, that whole Blacks and the priesthood thing scared me. I couldn't explain it. I had never really talked about it. And so I DEFINITELY wasn't prepared to talk about it with anyone I was teaching! I would avoid the subject. I hoped it wouldn't come up. I hoped I could get them baptized into the church before they'd ever find out. Once they were baptized, they'd have enough faith, and it'd be a while before they'd ever find out, right? Ugh...I have so much shame and regret over the way I handled such a dilemma. I was supposed to be there to serve the people of Los Angeles. I should have loved them enough to be completely honest. Sure, I had good intentions. But to me, the ends did not justify the means I often used.

Now, I feel betrayed. Betrayed because neither my primary teachers, nor my Sunday School teachers, nor my priesthood leaders, nor my bishops, nor my seminary teachers, nor my mission presidents, nor any general authority I have heard in my lifetime has tackled this issue with the candor and the forthright honesty it deserves. But I don't feel betrayed by those individuals. Most of them were just as oblivious and lost as I was. Most of them were just following protocol; teaching out of the Mormon 101 curriculum and textbooks. (That doesn't ACTUALLY exist, but...it kinda does.) And tonight, as I write this and get it off my chest to you (I soooo wish I could go to Los Angeles and meet with every person I ever taught and tell them that I'm sorry I didn't have more integrity than that) I realize I was betrayed by myself, I was betrayed by the general authorities who knew the answers--at least to a good degree--and I was betrayed by what I describe as the cancer of correlation; I was betrayed by a system that pushes for group-think, and a system that says: "Don't think; just believe."

Fast forward to right this minute: I have made peace with my own understanding of "Blacks and the priesthood." It was a racist policy, implemented by prophets, seers and revelators, who were also mere men and subject to being human. It wasn't from God and I'm glad, for whatever reason it took, that the policy was undone.

**I will probably cover the other handfuls of issues like this one at some point. And I will soon blog about why I should never have held the prophets in such holy regard; I should never have put them on the pedestals that I did. They aren't holy. They are mortal men, who God figured he could make a little useful.

Peace.

(This photo is to announce that my next entry will be about Ravens and how that relates to my spirituality.)

The Majority

It's Fathers' Day so, before anything else, let me wish all the daddies out there a GREAT one!


You're probably all wondering, "Did the unchurched Mormon attend any church meetings today?" No, I didn't. (That's not to say I'm against attending, mind you; it only means I usually want to spend my time in some other way.) I spent the morning hanging out with my wife and little boy. They got me an awesome gift for Fathers' Day: new undies and a box of Charleston Chews! (By the way, if you've never had a good, frozen piece of candy, run right down to the store and get a box of Charleston Chews, and then throw them in the freezer for a half hour. Mmm!--(And I don't even like candy most of the time.) After a few moments of "Happy Fathers' Day!" and "We love you, Daddy" I went outside and mowed the grass. When I came back in the house, my wife was complaining that she had a headache (NO--I wasn't trying to ask her for some "action" at the time), so I tried to make her a frozen chai. (Perhaps caffeine would do the trick.) I couldn't find the blender top, so I got a little chai all over the counter top. HATE that! After I finally got it made and gave her some, I realized it wasn't all that tasty--not like the girls down at Joe's Coffee make it ( https://www.facebook.com/joecoffeeandespressobar?fref=ts ). Then, while trying to drink some, I spilled a bit down my chest. GRRR!!! Hey, maybe God is punishing me for drinking the tea. Nah, it was COLD tea, after all. ;)
(* In Mormonism, there is a RECOMMENDATION that was given through revelation, most often referred to as The Word of Wisdom. The general Mormon gist of it is that Mormons are not to drink coffee, tea, alcohol, nor are they to partake of any tobacco or harmful drugs. The Unchurched Mormon gist is that it's not that simple and it requires a little more thought than simply to read a short list of DON'T's.)



With that unnecessarily long introductory paragraph, let's get onto this blog post.

I grew up Mormon. In a Mormon family with a long line of Mormon ancestry. In a highly Mormon town. In the most Mormon county and in the most Mormon state --> Utah. Mormons were the clear majority of Utah's populace then, and they're still the majority today, though by a slighter margin. (According to Wikipedia, the last census shows 63% of Utahns reporting to be Mormon--that includes unchurched Mormons like me.) To simplify my point, growing up Mormon in Utah didn't take a lot of extracurricular thought, or courage. If being in the majority made you cool, I was WAY cool!

Mormons tend to be more conservative, politically --> between 80-90% of Utah's elected officials are of the LDS/Mormon faith. In 2004, for example, Utahns gave Bush his most decisive margin of victory of any state; every single county in Utah voted for Bush, Jr. Keep in mind, that's AFTER the 9/11 Attacks, and after we're already at war with Iraq. In contrast, only 34.22% of Utahns voted for Obama in 2008. This could be all because Obama ran as a Democrat, or partially because of the color of Obama's skin. But I'm not going to go there in this post. (By the way, LDS and Mormon are one in the same; I may use them interchangeably.)

Coming up in Utah schools, my faith and religion were NEVER challenged. As long as people from the neighborhood saw you going to or coming from the big building down the street with the shiny steeple on top, no one asked you any questions. There was comfort in homogeneity. In contrast, I'm sure there was great discomfort if you weren't "one of the fold." The thing that stands out clearest in my mind is that Mormon kids didn't easily mix with non-Mormon kids. (Oh, and we often think of the world's people in terms of A or B --> Mormon or non-Mormon.) It makes me cringe with regret that I never became good friends with any of the Catholic kids, for instance, or that the Jehovah's Witness kids were sort of isolated from the Mormon majority. It was bizarre; a kid was just...suspected of being up to no good if they weren't Mormon. Or, even if they were CLEARLY good people, they were at least "weird." The Mormon kids grew up together, went to church together, took their seminary classes together. Mormon kids understood each other. The others? Well, they weren't "like us." I don't for a second believe there was actually any ill will between the groups. I think most kids are good and nice to the core. But, as I said before, there was comfort in homogeneity, so why try and mix that up? And as a Mormon kid, I was in the majority; I didn't have a care in the world, and I certainly couldn't see the tiny problem of religious/cultural divisions, or marginalization of the minority groups.

As I said in my introductory post, I haven't been active for over a decade, so I don't know exactly how church is going these days. (I hope you'll all forgive me when you feel I get things wrong; I'll be using my own experience, mainly, to write this blog, understanding that my experience isn't necessarily universally applicable.) But I do regret the VERY limited understanding I had as a kid and as a young adult of what a Mormon was. I was very much a box-checker Mormon. That's all I could be with such limited understanding, and with what little thought I ever put into my faith. Quite honestly, I don't even think I could have called it "my faith" back then; it was, for all intents and purposes, my box of religion.

As a box-checker Mormon, I had a mental checklist of things that determined my level of righteousness in Mormonism:

1. Go to church every Sunday.
2. Don't use swear words.
3. DEFINITELY don't take the Lord's name in vain.
4. Profess knowledge in the following:
     a. The Book of Mormon is true.
     b. Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, who translated the Book of Mormon and, through whom,
        God restored the priesthood and His one and only true church on the earth.
     c. <Insert name of current prophet/president of church> is a prophet of God.
5. Don't drink and don't smoke.
6. Don't have sex until marriage.
7. Read scriptures.
8. Plan on being a missionary when old enough.
9. Pay tithing.
10. Plan to marry ONLY in the temple. Don't even date outsiders; that's risky. (My parents were     married in the temple, which somehow put me on higher ground than those kids whose parents weren't. MAN, I WAS WEIRD! And LAME!!!)
10. Etc...

From the above list, I could determine my level of righteousness and "worthiness." And I would feel justified as long as I was better than others around me at checking the boxes. For instance, if I used a swear word....well "at least I don't smoke like So-and-So does." If I didn't read my scriptures (and I RARELY read my scriptures)...well, "at least I go to church almost every week, unlike So-and-So." Or that one time in my whole life when I tried masturbation (You believe that it was just that one time, don't you?), well..."at least I wasn't feeling boobies or having sex with my girlfriend like So-and-So." These were the things I knew about righteousness; be able to check my boxes, and be better at it on some level than the next guy. I really had no concept of spirituality, let alone a personal, meaningful, intimate relationship with God.

Don't get me wrong; while I was a conscious box-checker, I also learned to be a good person and to love others, and to have compassion. I even did some really nice things for other people; maybe that'll come up later in the blog.

I've thought about this understanding, or lack of understanding, and wondered how it was that it happened? Was it just that I was simple-minded? Was it actually taught to me this way in Sunday School? Was I that insecure that I needed my mental box-checking to feel OK? Did my parents teach me this? The only one I can answer is that my parents did not teach me to box check. But the sad (though not THAT sad or depressing) fact is, this is what it meant to me to be Mormon; these were the amazing take-home lessons I learned while growing up LDS.

Fortunately, with age and life's experience, filled with joy and sadness, the mundane and the traumatic, I've been able to sort of reconstruct my Mormon belief. I'm able to start to see what is and what only seemed to be. I'm able to be real about a testimony. And most fortunately, I'm able to feel God's influence in my life on a much more meaningful level.

Question for all of you: Were you brought up in Mormontown, USA like I was? Or some place else? Was your experience similar to mine? Or was it greatly different? I'd love you to share your experiences with me. So leave a comment.