Transcript of the podcast Mormon Expression Episode 268: What To Do If You Decide To Leave The Church. Featuring John, Robin, Rich, and Terrell.
John: All right, welcome back to another edition of Mormon Expression. I'm your host, John Larsen, and we're here tonight in beautiful Salt Lake City on this summer's afternoon—evening—in Studio Fist in your Face, with another beautiful studio audience. Welcome guys. [Applause]
John: I took a week off last week; hopefully you guys didn't burn the podcast down or anything like that. The world does go on without me. All right, so let's jump right in and introduce our panel! First of all, to my left is the ever-gracious and kind Robin! Hi Robin. Welcome back.
Robin: Hello! So happy to be here again.
John: Thank you. It's good to have you. And returning again is, um... I have my Utah syllables all mixed up; is the emphasis on the first syllable, or the second? Is it Ter-RELL or TER-rell?
Terrell: It's TER-rell, in the first syllable.
John: Terrell. Okay. Welcome!
Terrell: Thanks, I appreciate it.
John: We're really happy to have you back. You did a great job the first time. And of course, our old friend—and sometimes nemesis—Rich Rasmussen.
Rich: Hello John.
John: Hello, Rich, welcome. Rich's band... I was going to say whiskey tango, but that's not it... it's Whiskey Bravo.
Rich: Whiskey Bravo.
John: You've been playing around town, right?
Rich: Yeah, we have.
John: Well, this isn't going to be released 'till next week... you have any gigs coming up that we can empower for you?
Rich: We're going to be playing at the Royal—ah, shoot, I don't even have the date in mind—but it's too bad because by the time you hear this, we'll have played at Piper Down. That's going to be a show that we're really looking forward to.
John: That's this week... that's on Thursday, right?
Rich: Yeah, this Saturday. Yeah.
John: Oh, Saturday? Oh, I might be able to make it then!
Rich: You should, it's my birthday!
Robin: Happy birthday! Can I put in a plug?
John: Um, sure...?
Robin: For those who are interested—
John: The last time somebody said, "Can I put in a plug"...
Robin: Oh, gosh, John!
John: I'm just, I'm a little skittish... [Laughter]
Robin: You turn something so nice and wholesome into nastiness! That deserves something in the swear jar... or the nasty jar. Okay. So, for those who are interested, the Ex-Mormon Foundation conference is in October. So please go to exmormonfoundation.org and get the information. It's mid-October and I love to meet new people.
John: That's here in Salt Lake City, no?
Robin: Yes.
John: Yeah, Sue Emma runs the company and it's always a fantastic time for those who can come in and make it. Excellent, thank you Robin. And good luck, Whiskey Bravo.
Rich: Thank you John. Appreciate that.
John: Can you get us a cut that we can end this podcast with?
Rich: Sure!
John: Randy? You guys all over that? All right, we'll get one on the end here. For our news—we haven't been doing news for a little while—a few stories to catch up on. First of all, of course, we covered, ad nauseum, Kate Kelly and her debacle. Well, recently, the Research Information Division of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints—the Mormons—sent out a survey to, I think, a thousand members in good standing about the role, responsibility and treatments of women in the Church.
John: And the survey also dealt with how the Church, how these members define apostasy. One of the questions were talking about public issues and controversies about the Church's response, doctrine, and this sort of thing. So yeah, it's a fairly interesting maneuver.
John: And I think the survey—I haven't seen a copy so I've only read stories about it, but—it specifically referenced things that have happened in the last six months. Obviously the Church is responding, almost real-time, to things that are going on, no? Which seems sort of odd for a church driven by "revelation." In all fairness, you know, it's like City Creek. My criticism of the critics of City Creek is that City Creek just replaced the ZCMI center, right? This is nothing new. And the Church has been doing these surveys for a long, long time.
Rich: When was the last...? To my memory, the last big one was the temple changes in 1990. I'm sure there's been one after.
John: There's been several since then, but yeah, that was a big one. After the 1998 temple changes where they kind of—well, it happened before that, I think the one that you're referring to—there were probably surveys after, but there was a survey that went around to kind of ask what people were creeped out about.
Rich: Right, right.
Robin: Oh yeah. And there was a survey, I think it might've been after that, about "please sew up the poncho... It's really creepy, all the almost-naked touching..."
Terrell: The poncho of the garment...?
Robin: When you got the...
John: The shield. The shield.
Robin: Oh, yeah! Oh, sorry. Yeah. That's a little far removed! So I guess it's sewn up now.
John: Yeah, for those who aren't familiar—and this has changed, actually, in 2005 again, but—the first part of the endowment was what Mormons euphemistically call the "initiatory," or what's called washing and anointing, where an individual would go, they would take off all their clothes... so they were naked for this, because they'd be clothed in the garment, but they would wear what was called a "shield," which, as you described, looks like a big Tijuana poncho, except it's made out of, like, a white polyester... so think of your grandfather's polyester suit, bleached white, in the Tijuana stylings, and you got it.
Terrell: That's such a good picture.
Robin: But no hood!
John: But you're bare-ass naked. No hood.
Terrell: Oh, there's a story about that for me. [Laughter]
John: Um, so... they don't do this anymore. You don't have to be naked anymore as of 2005. But the shield was to protect you as you walked from the locker room over to the washing and anointing. Now, in the olden days, they had a tub up in Nauvoo, and the men and women were separate, and you would have just disrobed and then stood in the tub and been washed there.
Rich: Terrell and I are laughing 'cause we're both, uh, of large stature, and those little ponchos didn't cover a lot of our goods... at least mine.
Terrell: It definitely did not cover my goods either.
John: Wait, wait, what are we talking about here? You're wearing the poncho wrong!
Robin: Okay, now we're curious here!
Terrell: No! I didn't even realize that was supposed to be naked underneath. I was so confused. That was the weirdest day.
John: Somebody just walked in right now, and they heard immediately, "I didn't realize that I was supposed to be naked underneath." I just want to point that out. [Laughter]
John: So what were we talking about? Oh, we were talking about surveys. Yeah, so the Church is going to find out what the members believe. So yeah, congratulations to the Church.
John: The next story to cover is the intrepid Cliven Bundy, down there in, um... he's in Nevada, right? I think so. Yeah.
John: What's interesting now is he's, of course, been LDS, and been in this sort of gangster standoff with the Feds in this role of, like, double incompetence, like, um... no, I'm not gonna go there. [Laughter] Um, but he appeared on KUER. The fabulous silver fox, Doug Fabrizio, interviewed—
Robin: ...Oh...
John: ...was that a little moan!? [Laughter]
Robin: He's fabulous.
John: He is fantastic. But he brought Cliven in and interviewed him, and Cliven cited the 12th Article of Faith to justify his actions. Cliven has now escalated this to a Holy War on Mormon theology against the federal government. He said, Cliven said, "We are to be subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magistrates, as they honor the Constitution." And I had checked my copy of the 13 Articles of Faith, and that clause, um... you know, it's kind of like "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance; it hasn't been inserted quite yet. But I'm sure the Eagle Forum is working on it! [Laughter] And then he added. "But if they don't honor the Constitution, we don't have no obligation to 'm."
John: So there you go. Yeah! It might turn hot! The Article of Faith that says "We believe in being subject to government" might, in fact, lead the revolution in Nevada.
Robin: Government's going to hang by a thread, right? Oh, no, maybe that's the Constitution...
John: Yes, it will. And the elders of Cliven Bundy will save us. So, the question here is, you know, the Church has done some notable action in the past on liberals who are pretending to speak for Church doctrine. I've always noticed, when I go to Deseret Book, that there's a lot of conservative writers and conservative pundits who are not LDS who appear in Deseret Book. I think, here, you have a blatant example of where... compare Cliven to Kate Kelly. Kate just wants to sort of be recognized as a human being, and Clyde wants to, like, drop some slugs in some federales, and he's going to be passing out the hymn books with the elders quorum next week.
John: Yeah, so, the problem the Church has is when... okay, I know you guys listen to me. And I heard a rumor last week about somebody listening to me who was—I was actually quite surprised—"Hey, let's do lunch. In the COB." So, to the Church: if you have a heavy hand, if you discipline all the time, then when you don't discipline, it becomes notable by your absence of discipline. So you can't come in and strictly enforce some things, because it will be noted that the other things you're not strictly enforcing. So because you're willing to take such action for petty things, when you take no action against Cliven Bundy, it becomes a tacit endorsement. Just write it down, guys. Another free piece of advice from your friend John Larsen. That's the news; anything I missed?
Terrell: No, I want to say it's been a slow week, but that's so much stuff! The Church always has their hands in things.
John: It's all good stuff.
John: Okay, well, let's start. Oh, my friend Christian—a good friend—he sent me a message and he said, "There's some people who listen to the podcast who don't want to listen through your announcements, and you're starting it like you start the elders quorum, and the news... so just tell us when you're going to start." So, Christian, I'm starting now.
John: Our topic for today is, "What to do if you decide the Church isn't true." We've had other podcasts in the past where we discussed what not to do when you leave the Church and there's lots of those sort of "how to handle things," but I kind of wanted to, from my experience, from talking to hundreds and thousands of people who have made the transformation, kind of give you a guideline for how to do this in what I would consider the most painless way.
John: Now, that being said, I was talking to a friend just this morning, dealing with a relative, and oftentimes... there's no "win" scenario. You have to remember that the Church has schooled its members, from the time they're very, very young, to do things that are socially inappropriate, to cross boundaries, to say things that they shouldn't say, and to take any sort of pushback in the slightest as a great offense to them. And so, really, most of the conversations you'd have with other people can't be pulled off successfully. It just can't be done. If you make it happen, wonderful, bless your heart. But I think, you know... keep your expectations set realistically.
John: Okay, so I've got 10 steps. This is a 10 step program. We should add two more on so we can re-edit it and make it a 12 step program.
Robin: Oh no, that's horrible! I cannot stand 12-step programs. Heaven's sake to people who make it work, but, eww!
John: Which step do you always burn out on? [Laughter]
Robin: I don't burn out, but I don't believe you can truly progress if you acknowledge you're powerless.
John: Well, that's why we have 10. We dropped the "acknowledging your divine power" or whatever.
Robin: Okay. Thank you.
John: All right. So are you guys ready to start?
Rich: Ready.
Terrell: Let's do this.
John: I gave these guys this list like six seconds before we started recording the podcast. So if their performance is lackluster, it's my fault. There you go, I covered your ass. Thank you.
Robin: This is the way you come across looking so good! They don't realize... well, you do anyway. You're awesome.
John: Well, I don't prepare either. Okay. Um, all right. First of all, the question is, "What to do when you decide the Church isn't true." The first thing you got to give up is this fucktard definition of "truth" that the Church uses. It's not real, okay? And I'm not saying that there's no such thing as truth or that truth doesn't matter. But when you say a church is "true," that's utter nonsense.
John: I want to point out from the beginning that, right there in the premise of this whole podcast, is baloney. Because there's no such thing as a church being "true." And this is part of the reason that the Church is hard to leave, because you've bought into this concept that's undefinable and unverifiable... which means it can't be disproven. How do you prove a church isn't "true?"
John: Like, imagine if somebody was walking around saying, "the Lakers are true!" You would just say, "What are you talking about!? Did they win? Did they lose? Do they have a full team?" It doesn't make any sense to say "it's true." And the same equally applies to a church. A church is an organization's collection of doctrines and history. And even if it has God at the lead, and prophets are real, and all that stuff, to say that it's "true" is still nonsense.
Terrell: Like you're saying, it's the first thing you ever say as a child, right? You've seen this in sacrament meeting. You go up: "I know the Church is true." That's the first thing. "I love my mom and my dad. But before that, I know the Church is true." And you're right, it's nonsensical. It's cyclical in its own three words. It's just weird.
John: ...You know what I don't really understand about testimony meetings, is why they want to bear their testimony in the name of my son. Because he's not a real religious guy... they say "thy" to me when I'm there—last time I was there they said, "I say in the name of thy son, Jesus Christ"—and...
Terrell: Oh my gosh, John...
John: This is the kind of comedy gold that I've been delivering for years now, and it's free because of the wonder of the Internet.
Robin: And isn't it really informal when it comes down to it? I was trying to explain that to my family.
John: You mean informal as in formal and informal logic? Or informal as in, "hey dude, what's up?"
Robin: Well, "thee," "thou"... if you're really looking at the old English... okay, anyway, that's an aside.
John: So: “let go of the illusion” I have as step one. And the illusion is that the Church is either "true" or "not true." It's a bullying definition, because what it does is it's forcing you, as a member, to try to accept everything as a consequence of that. "Well, if the Church is true, then Joseph Smith must be a true prophet, the Book of Mormon must be a true book..." And you start going through all these binaries, and that's what the Church wants. Because what the Church wants, in this thinking, is for you to not get out of the cage. So when you find something wrong, you say, "Well, the Church is true, therefore men are flawed." So if the Bishop makes a mistake, it's not the Church making a mistake. If there's a mistake in the book, it's, "Well, there was a mistake in translation because it's true." So you have these definitions where things are both true and false at the same time... but they're still defined as true.
John: And I'd say the first thing is, that construction can turn you on your head as you leave the Church. Because your tendency is to keep it. So now you're going to go walking around like an asshole, telling everyone the Church is not true, which is equally fallacious, right? To say that the Church is "not true" has exactly the same problem in it. It's just nonsensical.
Terrell: I was just going to say... just accepting the fact that what you've learned, what you've gotten from it, as far as the moral aspects, has some value to you. Maybe not "truth" completely, but it does have some value to you. And so, from there, accepting that and saying, "Well, it's not per se not true or it's not completely true, but I have gotten something from it," I think is where I would go.
John: Absolutely. That leads to the second point. So, the first thing, once you let go of that idea of truth—and again, you've stumbled onto something to decide that it wasn't what it represents itself to be—so, our next step is to study and pray.
John: What you're doing, when you're in the Church, when you're "studying"—and I said this before, the last year I was in the Church, I became utterly amazed at how much "studying" Mormons do without ever learning anything at all—the whole study paradigm is defined. Can you imagine anything else in your life that they'd say, "Read this 10 minutes a day?" Not read to the chapter, not read to the end of the sentence... just read 10 minutes a day. It's nonsense! Right? And it's a nonsensical way to study.
John: So once you let go of the idea that it's "true"... because when you're "studying" in the Church, what you're doing is you're trying to contextualize everything. That's what "studying" in the Church is, is finding a way to fit it, in or fit it out. It's in the paradigm of truth, or it doesn't belong, it's a lie, it's the world, it's Lucifer, it's whatever else.
Robin: And that way of studying, it makes it very easy to cherry-pick.
John: That's what it's all about. Yeah, you're absolutely right. So step two is, now you can study! And pray! And ponder. And seek understanding, like the Mormons claim they're doing. Now you have the leisure to read whatever you want, on your terms.
Rich: In the information age that we live in, if you want to find out what kind of car to buy—and that pales in comparison as to, like, what kind of destiny you want for yourself and your family—you open yourself up to so many different resources and so many different outlets of information. So... Yeah! Think about it. Maybe buying a car is a bad example. Think of it like that, though!
John: Was it Ballard—I guess I'm thinking it's Ballard 'cause he used to be a car salesman—one of them said, "If you wanted to buy a Ford, would you go to the Chevy dealership and ask them?" Hells yes you would! And then you'd go look at the Internet, and you would ask everybody! You don't just ask the dealer!
Robin: Anything I search on, I always start with "whatever it is, fraud" or "complaints," and read all of that first, then read the positive, and hopefully, at some point, with your own logic, you can come up with the preponderance.
John: Yeah. The goal here is, you're driving it. You're no longer beholden to that idea of "the Church is true." And, don't fall into the trap of having to disprove everything in the Church. The Church, to me, is a human institution. As is everything else, right? So, as a human institution with intelligent people, it's going to stumble on—if just by chance—positive things. I think, because of this paradigm, people come out of the Church and they say, "You know, I feel like Joseph Smith was a fraud, but, the Primary is good for my kids, and I have friends in the ward, and this helped me get an education, and I had a friend who was an alcoholic and it set him on the right path..." and all these things. And I would say, “Yeah! Why not?” You know, the Church of Satan had fellowship activities, right? Like, they got together and drank and howled at the moon or whatever... there's nothing in the world, really, that's wholly positive or wholly negative.
Rich: And maybe just a side note on that—this is something I found very interesting and helpful—just the idea of whatever it is, whether it's a church or anybody making some kind of claim... they're the ones that own the burden of proof. They're the ones that, since they're saying it, they have to show you how it's true. And take them up on that! I mean, that's universal, whether it's the Church or your car. Take them up on that.
John: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I've kept throwing the word "pray" in here... if it works for you, it works for you. You don't have to throw the entire baby out with the bathwater here. It's not a binary. Even if you decide there's not a God, you can still keep praying. It works exactly the same, right? [Laughter] Just... don't feel rushed. And we'll come back to that in a second.
John: Okay. Number three. Let yourself mourn and be happy simultaneously. Because you're going to probably need to go through these emotions. When you leave the Church, even if you leave it and stay going—like, you leave a fundamentalist view where you accept everything—you're giving up dreams. You're giving up these hopes. You're giving up this pattern of living and this hope for the future, and you're going to have to mourn those dreams to some extent or the other. But you're also happy, because you're not constricted by some of these failings.
John: You know, a lot of people who leave the Church feel this great sense of relief, because there are many people, if not most of the Church, who believe that they'll never make it to the Celestial kingdom, that they'll never be successful. And it's this burden they're carrying around the whole the whole time, that they're always failing, they're always going to be miserable. That's a great thing to let go of.
John: I think people get confused on the fact that these two simultaneous things can exist, and that's it's okay. It's okay to both despise the Church and miss it at the same time. I think those people who've gone through a divorce maybe understand this a little bit better, where you have these two simultaneous feelings of mourning this thing you were working on, and at the same time moving on to something else. Everybody's going to experience this in their life even if they don't leave the Church. They're going to leave a career that they devoted a lot of time to. They're going to mourn the death of a friend. They're going to get cancer... there's going to be something. And it's okay to feel those things simultaneously and you don't have to rush through them.
John: The critique that I give of the Ex-Mormons is trying to prove to themselves and everybody else how happy they are, and how there's nothing sad about this... They act like they've won the fucking lottery. And it's okay to realize that this sucks! It's not fun to lose your identity and your sense of self, especially if you've been invested for a lot of years.
Terrell: I was going to say, for most people—I mean, I'm a convert to the Church so I didn't have that connection at the very beginning, but for most of the people who join the Church from birth—it's like they have spent their whole entire lives with this religion. Everything’s wrapped around it. So it's a child-like... it's part of who you are. And so, definitely, I agree in the sense of mourning. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to be angry, a little bit frustrated with the Church at that point, and say, "Hey, you know, I felt like you've been dishonest to me a little bit. You've completely broken my heart." And so I think that it's okay to mourn like you were saying.
Robin: And I think it's okay to acknowledge problems. I think some people, especially with their believing family members, are nervous to admit, "You know, I'm the same person in, basically, as I was out. I have the same failings, the same challenges, the same..." It makes you nervous because sometimes you're expected to fail now that you're not in the Church. So, you know, maybe come up with what you'll say to your family. Life is still life!
John: And on that point, you probably will have new problems. You're going to do or say something drunk sometime that you're going to regret, I promise you. [Laughter]
Robin: Oh yeah.
John: And it's true that Mormonism will keep you from doing that. I've been around long enough to know that there were Mormons, there were people who were stalwart Mormons, who left the Church, who become alcoholics. I was contemplating this the other night: I am for sure that if I had never left the Church, my first marriage would still be intact. But that doesn't mean that's the right thing. Now, if you frame marriage as saying "The success of a marriage is longevity, period..." which is what our culture does, right? When somebody says, "Oh, I've been married 45 years!", we all say [applause noise]. We don't say, "45 years... was it good?" We don't want to ask, "Is that how you tell? Is that a good thing?" We just immediately start cheering. "Woo! You did it!" You know?
John: There will be things that happen, after, that the Church would have solved for. So what? It takes a long time—it took me a long time, years—to own that I felt an extreme pressure to be successful and to show people that being outside the Church wasn't detrimental in any way to my life. But it is! it is detrimental in some ways. But for me, the benefits of being outside the Church outweigh the benefits of staying in by a long shot.
RIch: And there's no way you can can see that until you've gone through that journey. And, I don't know how many—you've seen so many more people than I have, John—but I don't know... we've kind of used the word, it's "okay" to mourn. It's "okay..." I almost think it's necessary. It's healthy. It's unavoidable!
Terrell: Yeah, it's healthy to mourn.
John: Absolutely. And it's great to feel elation in the morning and, you know, feeling terrible about the whole thing in the evening... that's okay. That's normal. And it's like you say, it's healthy. And it does get better over time. Point three is just, free yourself up just to feel these things, even if they seem contradictory.
Robin: think, basically, what we've been talking about is acknowledging the impact on your life. And I think what we pair along with that—which is one thing I'm learning from you, John—is also acknowledge the impact on your family members and those around you. So not only be gentle with yourself, but try to be gentle with them as well.
John: Absolutely. Okay. So this leads to my next point, which is relax. It all doesn't matter. And what I mean by that is, one of the ways Mormonism controlled us is by having all of these things that mattered, right? You could be 100% home teacher or visiting teacher, go to all your meetings, pay your tithing, keep all the commandments... but if you didn't do your genealogy, there were people on the other side suffering and you would be going to the terrestrial kingdom because you are not a valiant servant... right? There were just hundreds of these things!
John: The great thing about what to do when you decide the Church isn't true—now, keep in mind, to go back to the top of this list, this isn't what to do once you leave the Church. This is when that epiphany comes on you—now you can suddenly relax. You're able to go through and say, "I don't have to do all those things." Because there's so much, as a Mormon, that you're trying to do and trying to be successful at. And it's just so wearing on you.
John: If you go through a crisis of faith and return, you're going to be a rock star! They're going to love you; you're going to be a favorite speaker. And if you don't... you won the lottery! [Laughter] So either way, it's great, and you can take this time as a time to breathe.
John: When I first had a crisis, my first crisis of faith, when I was first going through it—I mean for real; I had many, many mini-crises of faith as I grew up—I felt—and I didn't even realize this till later—I felt a strong drive, if the Church wasn't true, to figure out what was true. And what I realized later, and I don't know where I got this and maybe none of the rest of you have this, but there was some narcissistic element way down in my psyche that had me believing that my belief in something, my sincere belief in something, made it true.
Rich: Mm-hm! Yeah! I mean, that's Mormonism 101.
Robin: Especially if you get warm fuzzies.
John: So, when I was struggling with whether or not I believed in the afterlife... I didn't, but I didn't like that. I wanted to believe in the afterlife! But the epiphany came, and I realized that the afterlife either exists or doesn't exist, completely independent of my narcissistic musings. Right? There's no thought that I could have that would make the afterlife either exist or not exist.
John: And while it was this path that made me feel peace... like, if I could just solve this problem, if I could just figure it out myself, then suddenly the universe's meaning would fall into shape... bullshit. If the universe has a meaning, your either comprehending it or not comprehending it has no consequence on anything. And I tell you just to realize that your belief or lack of belief in the Church neither makes it true or false.
John: The Church, on the other hand, wants as many people to believe it as possible, because in their paradigm, that makes it true. The more people they can parade around in the "I'm a Mormon" commercials, makes it more true. That's simply not true.
Terrell: Yup.
Robin: Amen.
Rich: Yep.
John: The next step, step five, is highly related to my "relax" one, which is, realize that you now are on your own schedule. There's no hurry. And I have this as number five, but when people come to me and say, as they do, they say to me, "I just found out," and I can see the anxiety, my answer's always "There's no hurry. You've got all the time in the world. You don't have to decide anything anytime soon."
John: Relating to the "relax" and "no hurry": you're calling all the shots now. You're in charge. So advice like: If you don't want to have your callings, just go to the bishop and say, "I am going to do my calling for the next 30 days and then I'm out." You don't ask him, you tell him.
Terrell: Or you could just say "no." If they ask you for a calling.
John: You can say no! And you can say, "I need to think about it." Those in my generation who went through the MTC learned the “commitment pattern,” which is trying to force people, socially, to make decisions: to construct a socially awkward situation that forces somebody to make a commitment one way or the other. Knowing that they don't want to say no, they'll say yes.
Rich: Here's a perfect example: "We're going to be back in your neighborhood this Saturday, between two and three. Is two better or three better for you?"
Robin: Ooh...
John: Yes. It's the same—no joke—it's exactly the same thing that's in the "How to Raise a Three Year Old" books. Give the child the illusion of control by offering them two choices, of which you're fine with them choosing either one.
Robin: Yes. Love & Logic. Absolutely. You know how you were saying number one, as far as that idea, John, I absolutely agree. And as a victim advocate, where I dealt in that line of work for about 12 years, that was number one when you have a trauma of some sort. Saying, "Don't make any really big choices right now. Give yourself a chance to cycle through that trauma, because you may find that that isn't the choice you want to make over the long run."
Robin: One thing I can think of that seems to be pretty common with people who have left the Church, is some people go out quite quickly and get tattoos. Of course, I have no problem with tattoos. But I have some friends who picked out tattoos—they were really excited to go get them—but it took a little longer than they expected to go get the tattoo... and they never have, seven years out. I'm guessing that that as she had time to sit with it, she changed her mind. So just give yourself a chance. See if you still want that tattoo in three years... or a year.
John: Yeah, I've seen more than one person, on the element of tattoos, who got a tattoo that was kind of smarmy and attacking the Church... I've seen those and I'm like, "Ohhh... That looks nice. You're going to hate that in 10 years." 'Cause every time you look at it, it's going to be this visceral, real reminder of this segment of your life that you kind of want to move on from.
John: I think that "don't hurry"... I'm not even thinking so much on the things you want to rush out and do, like go to a titty bar or something. I'm more thinking about things like, you don't have to make these decisions inside the Church very fast. You don't have to rush out and tell everybody.
John: We've talked many times about the Ex-Mormon tendency to promiscuous disclosure, which is a reflection of the Mormon control of information, where you have to tell everybody everything. Home Teachers and bishops and bishoprics will ask you inappropriate questions... and you suddenly have control over that again. You don't have to tell anybody fucking anything. It's none of their business, and they can't ask you and bully you around.
John: Which leads to number six, which is regain your own privacy and boundaries. I was just talking to a friend recently who was talking about a close relative they were going through issues with. And the thing that went through my mind is, "This is just nuts!" Like, this person would ask these questions or say these things... and once you start detaching from the Church, you're going to see this all around; one of the reasons that Ex-Mormons tend to move away from these relationships is because Mormons have very poor boundaries.
Robin: Like, how many neighbors would get away with, in a different context, asking you what kind of underwear you wear? Or if you wear them day or night?
John: Yeah, absolutely. It's okay to not answer some of these questions. It's okay to set boundaries. Oftentimes on the forums or whatever, people who are fresh out, they'll say, "The executive secretary just called me and the bishop wants me to come over on Thursday and interview with him! What do I do!?!?" It's like, what do you mean,"what do you do?" You hang up the phone! You don't answer it! This is my favorite answer: "Yeah! He can come over on a Friday, we'll be having some drinks."
John: You're into those patterns so much that you really have to push back on all those. And I give you permission to tell white lies. You can tell anybody that you have a date with me, and I'll back you up.
Rich: I've used that twice, John. [Laughter]
John: It's okay to say, "no, I'm busy." And you want to push it back in their face, but they don't understand. You know that, um, what's that movie? The parody of Star Trek?
Rich: Galaxy Quest.
John: Galaxy Quest! Where the—I'm gonna butcher it—but there's a group of people, they're an alien civilization that have an inability to tell any lies. And so when one comes in, he says, "When you talk to them, you have to talk to them as if you're talking to a child." And in social situations, when you talk to Mormons, you have to talk to them as if they're children. And this, this is... I'm not being a dick right now!
Robin: Yeah you are!
John: This is really honest! Because they don't have any kind of social bearing on this front, and they don't know how to interact. And you kind of have to just push back. And they won't understand, is my point. If you try to do normal, polite demuring, they won't get it. They're not good on subtlety. So you're okay to lie. I give you permission.
Robin: Well, and John, one thing I've found that is really helpful with all sorts of inappropriate questions, or things that are very personal, is simply to say, "Why do you ask?" with curiosity. You don't need to assume why they're asking, because very often, when someone will ask... maybe they're curious! If they say, "Oh, why did you leave the Church?" "Well, why do you ask?" "Well, because I had some doubts and I really would like someone to talk to." I mean, you don't...
John: It could work, with rational people.
Robin: And then a lot of times, if they are overstepping boundaries, then they go, "Oh, yeah... why do I ask?"
John: Um, I've found that any kind of, in my experience... I don't think your advice is wrong... with normal people... [Laughter]
Robin: Hey, but how can they be normal if someone doesn't start treating them normal?
John: You remember that woman that you grew up with at Church, who talked to everybody like they were six? And everything was special? That's what you need to become. [Laughter] So whenever anybody comes to you and says, "We realized that your child's gonna be turning eight, and we'd really like them to come out and see the baptism of their peers," you say, "Oh, that's so special. That's so precious. We'll see what we can do. Thank you so much for inviting me. We love you guys. Sure appreciate 'cha."
Robin: Okay, okay, that does sound a little bit fun. But at some point show them respect and speak to people like adults.
John: You're speaking to them in their language! You don't go to Zanzibar and speak French! You go there and do what the, uh, Romans do, right? ...Or did I mix my metaphors again? It's okay to Mormon them in their speaking. Praise the hell out of 'em and don't give them any commitment! But make sure to tell them how special everything is. If they bring brownies, don't say, "Whyyy, I put my fucking name on the no-contact list...!" You just say, "Oh, that's so sweet. How's Freddie? Bye now! Bye bye."
Robin: "And next time I want banana bread! Thank you!"
Terrell: I've had a recent experience with this. I was an executive secretary in a BYU ward. [Applause, laughter] So, John, I see what you're saying, with the polite thing, but at the same time, when you're dealing with your peers you can be direct. I was actually over at a friend's house, as a matter of fact drinking, and I got a text on my phone. Now this is the third or fourth text I've gotten, and they're saying, "Oh, Terrell, we'd like you to come in, and we were wondering why you've been so distant, and you know, we noticed that you moved your records out of our ward, so we were wondering what's going on..." And I was just like, "Listen. I know that you are the stake executive secretary. I had the same position. You are getting told to do these things... listen. Leave me alone." Like, just tell them to stop. And eventually, they'll get it. They really will understand. You could be nice about it, you could say it in a respectful way to them, but eventually just be upfront and be like, "No, that's just something that I won't be doing. I won't be meeting with that individual."
Robin: Oh, yay, Terrell!
Terrell: And I get what you're saying, 'cause probably in the home ward it's a little different, but when you're in a student ward, if you're a student, definitely, the whole concept of, like, revelation, and, "Oh, the Spirit tells you this..." You can definitely just come at that straight and tell them no, that's not happening.
John: I think you're right. That's the better way to do it. The point I'm trying to make, in a roundabout sort of convoluted, retarded way, is, when I'm saying "honor your own privacy and boundaries," is oftentimes they'll use these things to be intrusive. And I'm just saying, it's okay to set up a boundary yourself around that. And if that's talking firm, then that's the more adult way to do it. If it means just kind of in a polite way saying, "that's none of your business," that's okay. You don't owe them any answers or any explanation. A lot of people feel like they have to. And, I mean, to this point: the executive secretary calls you up and says, "Will you meet with the Bishop on Thursday?" "Nope!" [Silence]
Terrell: Exactly. Exactly. And see, I knew that, and I was like, "No, I'm not going to meet with the Stake President! No!"
John: You don't have to explain to them why! "Um... why not?" [More silence]
Terrell: And it drives them nuts, too. They're over the phone, like, "Why!?!?!?"
Rich: If you can last more than five seconds of silence with anybody trying to do their calling... it's gold. It's gold. That's the game I played. Someone would say something—like, it would work in this scenario too—and I would just follow up with silence. But I would give them this look, right? This won't translate well over the radio. But like, they'd say... ask me a question. Something silly, you know, like, invite me back to Church or something.
John: [In a very soft, gentle voice] Elder... have you had any problems with self-abuse? [Roaring laughter from everyone in the room]
Terrell: Oh my gosh.
Robin: Works every time!
Rich: And then, you just go, [silence as he makes the gesture] And in my head I'm saying—because that's a ridiculous thing to ask somebody on a normal plane—there's gotta be a follow-up statement on your end, right? So on my end, I just wait for the follow-up statement. In all cases. If this makes sense... I'm kind of butchering this...
Robin: No, it makes sense!
John: I'll give you the translation for it. What Rich did, is he cocked his chin up a little bit, raised his eyebrows, paused, and then squinted.
Terrell: He really did! That was very accurate.
John: And then— I assume because I actually got this from Rich, so I know what comes next is—you just slightly shake the head.
Terrell: Shake the head in disappointment.
Audience Member: Going along with this point and the previous point, when me and my husband were going through our final crisis of faith, we were engaged. We felt like we did kind of have a deadline because... temple? No temple? Whaaaat are we going to do? And everyone's looking at us like, "So, like, what about those plans?" And we're just like, "ohhh my God, what are we going to do?" And we felt like we had to make a choice immediately. Otherwise, you know, what would happen?
Audience Member: But then, after a while, we just thought, "Wait a minute, we really don't have a deadline. We don't have to do anything that we don't want to do. We don't have to explain anything to anyone else. Even family members. Whoever is going to be there is going to be there and whoever's not is not. And that'll actually probably make it better than before... rather than people trying to slip weird Mormon stuff in there, they just don't have to come at all. "
Audience Member: And so really, even if you do feel like you have this deadline, like some big life event is coming up or something, and you feel like you do have to say something to other people or prove something... you really don't. Because your life is your life. And it took a lot of thinking to realize that was an option, because in Mormonism they teach you that it's not, you always have to explain yourself because "What are other people gonna think of this Mormon not doing something on the straight and narrow!?"
John: You're absolutely right. And when I say you can take back your own set of rules or whatever, I mean it! Which means, if you're in your situation, you're trying to decide whether or not to stay in the Church, and you have a temple marriage coming... go ahead and fuck! What you do, is you get married in the temple, which of course, 25% to 50% of everybody who goes to the temple did already. Then you wait five years, or 'till after you've had your first baby, and then you confess. They're not going to do a damn thing.
John: The trick to confessing is, you can confess whatever you want, you just need to wait enough time. I'm going to put an actuary table up on the Mormon Expression website which will have the sin, and the amount of time you have to wait before you confess said sin, to get full absolution and no disfellowship. Maybe I'll print it up in a little card that people can put in their scriptures in Seminary!
Rich: It'd be right next to our online store's bumper sticker that says "Just go ahead and fuck!"
Robin: Oh, John, you worried me. I thought you meant other people! Without an agreement with your partner.
John: That's a different podcast. [Laughter] Let's see. Okay. Number seven. Now we're getting into the last important ones. Take responsibility for your own life. Immediately. Seize that. Because it's easy to fall in the paradigm of saying, "Well, I didn't get an education because, you know, the Church said I should be a stay-at-home mom..." or, "I didn't go to grad school because I had to support my kids..." These things are all true, and I don't mean to belittle those things, but they're all in the past. The more you let the Church, and what it did, and how you reacted to the Church in your past, define your present, the less happy you're going to be in your present. And the world is your oyster, especially today. You can do anything you want, you just have to grab ahold of it.
Rich: Absolutely. Underline that. That is such an important point. I think taking responsibility for your actions, for yourself, is one of the basic requirements of maturing. Whether you're 18, moving out of a house, and you're leaving the organization, and you've got to all of a sudden take responsibility for yourself, or you're 40 and you're leaving the Church, or you're 80, you're going to go through that. You really don't start living that part of your life until you make that commitment to yourself. And it's hard, 'cause you're the bottom line. But also, going back and looking at it, it's just so not worth living in the other paradigm.
John: Well it's not useful, in the truest sense of "useful." It may be completely true that you gave up opportunities. You didn't go do things, you didn't travel, you didn't... but that doesn't fix it. And we all have to deal with the hand we have at any given time. And once you learn to accept that, then you can learn to play that hand the best you can. Fixating on the Church and how the Church screwed up your life just gets you nothing. The sooner that you can take responsibility for it and wrestle that out of control of the Church, the sooner you can start doing awesome, awesome things.
Robin: And you may not be able to recover some of those things that you grieve over.
John: There is no "may" about it. If you were in the Church for any more than three or four years, you suffered a loss in your life that you will never get back. Let's be clear. It took a pound of flesh.
Robin: Yes, good point. Although, I guess, in taking responsibility: is there a piece of the pie? You may not be able to get the whole pie, but is there a piece of the pie that you can now take advantage of?
John: Can you use it to your benefit?
Robin: Yes.
John: So, for example, you may not have finished school when you were 20 because you started having kids when you're 20, but now you're a nontraditional student. So now there might be scholarships or there's a nontraditional student office. There are resources that are available now that weren't available then. Would it have been better for you if you had done it then? Maybe. But now, if you're going back to school as an adult, you'll realize: "these kids are all, like, morons." Right?
Rich: Right!
John: Like, when I went back to school, older, what I really knew, because I was older, I knew when the teacher was full of shit. So I would tell the other kids, "Oh, no, no. He's not serious. He doesn't want to grade those papers on that day. There's no way he's doing it right then." And I was always right! Because you start thinking of them as an adult, you know. So I'm just saying, there's advantages to other ways. You have life experience, and you can take that into new careers and things like that. The experiences you learned in the Church: the Church, like we said in the beginning, isn't all bad, and a lot of these things can be used in new ways.
John: Number eight: reset your relationships. I would say a huge part of this is discarding the ones that don't work and working on the ones that do. But when I say "reset," you're going to have to redefine all of your intimate relationships, every one of them, once you leave the Church.
Terrell: And may I add: give them time.
John: Yes.
Terrell: I think that is a really important aspect of this. Because, you know, we may have decided, and it may have taken us time, too, but think about that. It took, for some of us, years to figure this out. And now we're just like, in one day we expect them to be fine with it. It may not happen for everybody. For some of them it might work, but for others it might not. But just give them time.
John: I agree. And when we take into account everything we've talked about so far—you know, setting those boundaries and that sort of things—is realizing that some of the relationships are going to fall away, and it's going to hurt. But some of those relationships, things were baked in... I mentioned, briefly, divorce. I don't know if if Ex-Mormons have an elevated divorce rate; I would assume that they do based on my observation. And part of that is because the definition of being a Mormon, and their relationship, was highly configured around their membership in the Church. When you change that, the relationship either ends, or it redefines itself, or it hobbles along in a terrible way for years. So those are your choices.
John: And hopefully you can reset them. You can build your marriage based on common interest, and love, and affection, and your children, and your family, rather than around the Church. And that same thing has to happen with every single relationship. And it's okay to let some of the relationships go, even if they're family members. Now, that doesn't mean you refuse to have Thanksgiving dinner with them, but you realize which ones to put energy into and which ones not.
John: And those can change! I've heard these stories from people who've left the Church and their brother or sister was a colossal asshole around it—and they probably were an asshole too—but 10 years later, this person who they thought would have never left the Church, leaves the Church, and suddenly they bond over Mai Tais in Puerto Rico, you know? So it can happen.
John: ...Um, I've never been to Puerto Rico, and Mai Tais are overrated. [Laughter]
John: All right. Number nine: find what matters to you. This is one I harp on all the time. If people listen to the podcast, you'll hear me say this a lot, but: find something other than the Church, or not being the Church, or bringing the Church down, or helping other people leave the Church, or going back to the Church, or helping the Church realize that women are equal, or helping the Church realize that homosexuals are friends and have great fashion sense or whatever it is that you want to do...
Terrell: Thank you.
John: ...no stereotype too small for Mormon Expression podcasts. So... find out what matters to you. I just think that's key. And it might exist in the Church! It might be genealogy. Maybe you love genealogy! Great! You don't have to throw it away!
Rich: I imagine that can be a challenge once you leave the Church because in the Church, you know, you have this whole world of things that you do and what you're told is important to you. I'm trying to think of it in myself... I kind of jump from important things or things that I consider important... but yeah, that must be difficult. I bet you there's lots of people out there thinking, "What is it that I like to do?"
John: This is the big problem.
Terrell: Do it on a Sunday because you have your three hours back.
John: You have a whole day! And a weekend! Because you don't have to jam all of your cleaning into Saturday. Do you remember how exhausting weekends used to be? They were terrible.
Robin: Yeah, Saturday was the special day.
Rich: [Singing] "It's the day we get ready for Sunday..."
Terrell: I remember while I was at BYU there was a rumor saying that you shouldn't do your homework on Sunday as well. Oh my gosh.
Rich: Yeah... I had that too.
John: All right, number ten is sort of a accumulation of all of this stuff, and I kind of added it here as a review: phase out what doesn't work and enhance those things that do.
John: Oftentimes, you feel this pressure to make decisions, to decide if the afterlife is true, to figure out which friends are really your friends, which people are going to love you no matter what, to figure out what you're going to do on Sunday, to figure out what all the ways of fraud... just, phase it out. Just discard the stuff that not working. Find the stuff that works for you and build on that.
John: I think if you go back to this point when you decide the Church is not true and you're still going to Church, if you take that philosophy—"I am going to slowly phase out the things that don't work for me and I'm going to enhance things that do,"—you'll arrive at a healthy place! I guarantee you you're going to phase out home teaching pretty damn quick. [Laughter] But you don't have to make that decision on the same day that you decide the Church is not true. It can come bit by bit.
John: I think a lot of us felt this compulsion to really move fast. On some things I did, and others I didn't. And I don't regret anything I took slow. It took me a long time before I even took a sip of alcohol. It took me a long time before I took off my garments. I used to swear when I was a Mormon, so that wasn't hard, but you know... luckily I didn't feel that pressure. And those things are ones that didn't cause me a lot of bumpiness.
Robin: John, I just wanted to do a little bit... when you were talking about taking your time, with visiting teaching, I had some really awesome gals. So when I decided to leave, I let them know, I set my boundaries: "You know, I don't want to give lessons, I don't want to pray, and I recognize you aren't here for me, wholly, so if it's okay with all of you, I'd like to keep coming with you, I would like to keep having visits without prayer or lessons, as long as that works for you and you're willing to do that." And they all were wonderful. So I kept with staying involved with visiting teaching in that way. And about the year mark, I called them all and said, "You know, thank you so much. Um, I'm good now!"
John: That's okay! And, you know, your visiting teachers are people! And this goes to that... you can have friendships with people in the Church, you know, and it's okay. It's just amazing how the Church co-opts everything and puts its stank all over everything. And once you start hosing that stuff off, it's not all bad, but some of it just goes down the drain.
John: Yeah. So, bottom line: there is no hurry. Don't feel any rush.
Terrell: Can I add something to that?
John: Please.
Terrell: There's no hurry to tell people, too.
John: Oh, please, yes, go on. This is important.
Terrell: Um, it seems like people are always... you mentioned that at the beginning, John, you were saying you don't have to just become an extremist and be like, "I have to tell everyone now!" That's one of the hardest things for me, telling people that "Hey, I'm no longer active in the Church." It's so difficult because... let's say you're out with a friend that you know is really, really active. There will be a time... I felt like there was a time for me to kind of tell my friends, slowly but surely, "Hey, you know, I'm actually not attending church at all. It's been about three months or so." Sometimes you'll get the time to react; you'll be able to feel that out. But there's no rush to be like, "All right, I decided the Church isn't true. Tomorrow I have to tell everybody! I have to announce this on Facebook."
John: if you get outside of Utah and this culture, or other fundamentalist cultures—I mean, the Jehovah Witnesses and the Evangelicals and Pentecostals are all the same—what you realize out in the real world is you'll have friends, sometimes friends you've had for a lot of years, and you won't have any idea what they believe about religion.
John: Matter of fact, when I moved to North Carolina, we had some friends, and he had been a Catholic, rather staunch Catholic, and he had left the Catholic church, so he kind of got where we were coming from and we got where he was coming from. His wife though, was nothing. And she was raised that way. She wasn't an atheist, she was just nothing. And so if you asked her—I thought it was fascinating—I would say, "Well, you know, when did you decide you didn't believe in anything?" And she would just screw her face up... "I dunno." And I'd say, "What did your parents teach about religion?" And she would go, "...we didn't talk about it?"
John: And so this is a normal thing. You can have intimate relationships with people and not know what they believe about any of the gods. And it's okay! Because we feel this Mormon compulsion; we suddenly don't believe, and we have to tell everybody that! Everybody needs to know exactly where we stand all the time on this stuff! ...And it's not necessary. Believe it or not—I know you don't believe it—but people who interact with me, not in the auspice of the podcast, they don't know what I believe about religion unless they go and Google me, because I don't share that and I won't get sucked into those conversations either. They can be sitting there talking about it at the table and I'll just be eating my burrito, because I don't think it's appropriate. You passive-aggressively record it on a podcast and then push it out to the world, you don't... [Laughter] ...That's appropriate!
Rich: Here's a little tip too. If you find that you have to confront the issue—'cause that happens—you know, you'll be, "Well, here's the reason why, like I don't, whatever..." As hard as you push, you kind of set the parameters for how hard you'll get pushed back on it. So if you send this big email to your family and your extended family, and it's just this slandering, like, "Here's 45 points..." ...for me, I constructed it in a quiz. You guys can all take it. [Laughter] And I didn't send that, didn't do anything like that. I absolutely didn't. And I'm glad I didn't, because, yeah, you push hard, you get pushed hard back. Because you force them to deal with you, rather than allowing them to adjust to the way that you're adjusting... 'cause you don't know what you're going to be.
Robin: Excellent point, Rich.
John: And oftentimes people just don't like thinking about these things. So even if it's not about you, you're putting them in an uncomfortable position. And by the way, that's not the first time you've said "Here's a little tip" to me...
Rich: The second date!
Robin: Uuugh... [Laughter]
John: Thanks, thanks. I'll be here all night. Any other, um, any other thoughts on, um...
Rich: So I'll just say this, 'cause it's been burning a hole and we keep on revisiting it, and I'll leave it alone. But if you're going to take away anything, I think the message—and you'll see this online, the mantra is—go slow. If that's all you can remember from all this; if you think, "What did John say about, you know, drinking Mai Tais or..." No. "Just go slow." That's the big takeaway. And that—here's another little tip for you, John—that was an epiphany for me...
Robin: Okay, now it's the swear jar!
Rich: ...So, basically, think of it like this. In almost any interaction where there might be perceived conflict, or it's just not sitting right with you, almost always there's a variable of time. Sometimes it's the only variable that you actually can control. It's very infrequent in life that, "Oh, I just don't have control over time right now." So just take a minute. Think. Breathe. Don't send the share message. Don't forward the email. Don't do that stuff. Just think. Anyway, there you go.
Robin: And if you can't hold yourself back, get a therapist! So you can hold onto it and then share it in a more appropriate setting.
John: Yeah. And there are, like, closed Facebook groups, and different ways you can find community, and you can go to the coffees or the local post-Mormon groups and vent there. That can be really cathartic and helpful. But you know, whenever anybody comes on to one of those groups and says, "Should I put this on my Facebook main feed!?" the answer is always "No."
Terrell: I was going to add, for the LGBTQIA-etc community... just understand that you have a lot to think about. So going back to what everyone has said... go slow, okay? Separate, first of all, your sexuality from the religion, and then, once you've dissected and you felt like the religion is not there either, accept that, accept who you are completely, and then kind of figure that out. That's going to take a while. If it's not something that you can just do overnight. It is not something that is easy to do—it's going to be very hard—so understand that aspect as well.
Terrell: But I do appreciate these 10 steps 'cause they do go through the process; at least, for me, they went through the processes that I went through when I was figuring things out.
John: Excellent. All right, well, thank you to the wonderful panel, and, uh, good luck out there leaving your religion. It'll be okay. It'll be great. I one time read this study on stress and they said that people recovered to normal for a lot of stressful situations. Like, if you got amputated, it took you four or five years, but you recovered back to normal in terms of happiness. The only thing you didn't recover from is a commute. People never adjust to commuting to work. So... At least this isn't commuting to work. You will adjust from this.
John: All right. Thanks everybody. Good night.