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  • (piano music)

  • - I grew up Mormon.

  • (speaks foreign language)

  • I was Mormon most of my life, up until a few years ago.

  • - Hi.

  • - I then left the Mormon Church, and that is a whole story

  • that I want to talk about today with all of you.

  • My purpose in doing this is to share my perspective

  • so that anyone who is in a situation like I was

  • a couple of years ago, who is questioning and wondering

  • can have another perspective to lean on.

  • I'm not looking to get into debates

  • or to talk about the history or the theology of the church.

  • I'll do that in future videos.

  • Today, all I want to do is tell you the story

  • of how and why I left the Mormon Church.

  • 23rd of May, 2000, 2009.

  • What are we even doing out here, man?

  • I grew up Mormon.

  • Both my parents were Mormon or LDS, Latter-day Saints.

  • I grew up going to Mormon youth camp.

  • I then eventually served a two-year mission

  • in Tijuana, Mexico, where for two years, I went around

  • and spoke to people in Spanish about the church

  • and learned a lot, learned to speak Spanish fluently.

  • (man speaks foreign language)

  • - [Man] How you feel?

  • (speaks foreign language)

  • (man laughs)

  • (speaks Spanish)

  • I then went to the Mormon university

  • called Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah,

  • where I graduated.

  • I went through all Mormon rituals in the church and temple.

  • I worked in the temple as a volunteer for a time.

  • I was very, very Mormon, and I believed it.

  • I believed deeply in the unique doctrine

  • of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

  • which is a Christian organization

  • unlike any other Christian organization in its doctrine.

  • (heartfelt music)

  • The story of how I decided to leave this

  • really begins with the birth of my son.

  • Isabelle, who also grew up Mormon,

  • and I got married in the temple,

  • which is a huge Mormon ritual.

  • It's a huge part of being in the church.

  • We got married in the temple.

  • We went back to BYU together,

  • and a few weeks before we graduated from BYU,

  • we had a baby, or Ize had a baby.

  • I didn't have a baby.

  • She had a baby.

  • Then we took finals and graduated, like,

  • literally two weeks later.

  • Here we are literally in our cap and gown

  • with Henry, who is, like, two weeks old.

  • After we graduated, we moved out to Washington, DC,

  • and that's when my wheels really started to turn.

  • I started to think, you know, I have a child now.

  • I have to decide how I raise this child

  • and what I teach him about the world.

  • (rolls tongue)

  • Da, da, da, da, da.

  • I think having Henry really made me wonder

  • and think about how I should teach him about the world.

  • I'd grown up with this firm conviction of the LDS doctrine

  • and its beliefs about the world,

  • which are very specific and very peculiar.

  • And I really started to question,

  • is this what I want to teach my son?

  • And the answer initially was yes.

  • I want to teach him everything that I know about this faith

  • because I really believed it.

  • So, we're moving out to Washington, DC,

  • and I realized that if I'm gonna teach this to my son,

  • I need to double down on my faith.

  • I need to go deeper than I ever have

  • and really, really establish a strong foundation

  • and conviction around this doctrine.

  • I had one, but I knew it needed to be stronger

  • if I was gonna teach my son this.

  • One of the things I loved about Mormon doctrine at the time

  • was that there was always a push to ask God if it was true.

  • Not to trust any people or any organization,

  • but to, like, get on your knees and say, God, is this true?

  • Is this church actually real?

  • Is all of the things that they say actually the real deal?

  • I had kind of taken advantage of that promise before,

  • but never really.

  • I'd always been in a setting of pressure,

  • whether it was my home as a kid or my mission or BYU.

  • In other words, there was always an incentive to believe.

  • So I'd never really been in a situation

  • where I could truly ask this question

  • and not feel like there was some price to pay

  • if I decided I didn't believe.

  • Being in Washington DC with my child out on my own

  • in the workforce was my opportunity,

  • so I spent an entire year

  • reading the "Book of Mormon", going to church.

  • I had a responsibility at church

  • that I was putting a lot of work into,

  • and praying every morning and every night

  • for some sort of conviction.

  • I said, I am more earnest and sincere

  • than I've ever been about this.

  • I'm willing to listen to any answer.

  • I just need an answer.

  • I spent a year doing this.

  • A year.

  • That's a long time.

  • And then I remember this day,

  • I was biking into Washington, DC,

  • on a sunny, like, spring day,

  • and it just hit me in some really strong way

  • that no, this isn't working.

  • I've put in the years of asking

  • and the effort towards (sighs) making this work,

  • and it wasn't working.

  • This isn't true for me.

  • And like a switch, it just so much came out of me,

  • and I quickly decided that I was done.

  • I don't think it was all at once.

  • I think I had been slowly moving in this direction

  • for a long time, but in a moment of clarity,

  • it clicked for me in a very satisfying and, like,

  • very true way.

  • So Iz, who, Ize, Isabelle,

  • whatever you want to call her, my wife,

  • it didn't click for her.

  • She was not on this journey that I was on.

  • And I came back and I told her.

  • I said, I think I am done being Mormon.

  • And I had always been the sort

  • of more devout, convicted Mormon.

  • And she was just like, "What?

  • "Like, you just, like, have decided

  • "to be out of this church?" And she full on said, like,

  • "This is gonna end our marriage.

  • "Like, you can't just leave the church."

  • And I just told her.

  • I said, "This is where I stand and this is what I feel,"

  • and I felt very strongly about it.

  • Luckily, soon enough, Ize was on her own path

  • of reconciling her thoughts about the church,

  • her qualms with the church,

  • and soon she would join me in this path

  • towards leaving the church.

  • Now, I call it a path because that's exactly what it is.

  • Leaving any Orthodox religion is not easy.

  • There are layers and layers of psychological

  • and cultural conditioning that you don't even realize

  • is there until you start to peel it back.

  • So, even though we started to leave the church,

  • we were still going to church every Sunday,

  • which I don't really understand in retrospect.

  • All I can say is that, like, we were just,

  • that's what we did every Sunday.

  • We went to church,

  • and there was some guilt if we didn't go to church,

  • and so we went to church.

  • But we slowly started to feel an emptiness towards it,

  • and over the course of six months,

  • we finally decided to stop going to church.

  • My behavior didn't change all of a sudden.

  • Like, I didn't leave the church

  • so I could start drinking alcohol or coffee or smoking.

  • Like, that was not a part of the agenda for me.

  • I kind of just carried on exactly how I'd always been,

  • except for now I looked around in the world

  • and I didn't have a doctrinal theological framework

  • to understand it, which was at once exhilarating

  • and horrifying at the same time.

  • My existential view had been so neatly packaged

  • by the plan of salvation,

  • which is at the key doctrinal framework

  • within the Mormon Church, and that was now gone.

  • I had no plan.

  • I had no framework to make sense of the world.

  • Exhilarating, but horrifying.

  • There was also a deep fear

  • of the cultural and social repercussions of my decision.

  • Most of my friends were still LDS or Mormon,

  • and, of course, my family was, too.

  • So was Ize's. And let me just try to give you a perspective

  • on why this is such a big deal.

  • A quick primmer on Mormon theology

  • is that our whole purpose in life

  • is to come down here to Earth to learn and to grow

  • and to progress and to attain knowledge,

  • and to fulfill certain we call them covenants or rituals.

  • There are four of them that are really important

  • to do while you're on Earth, baptism, confirmation,

  • this hour-long ritual inside the temple,

  • and then, called the endowment,

  • and then the ceiling or marriage.

  • If you can do those four things,

  • then you're in really good shape.

  • You have the knowledge necessary

  • to go back and live in the top tier of heaven.

  • And yes, in Mormon theology,

  • there are multiple tiers of heaven.

  • If you're not able to get these rituals done

  • while you're on Earth, no worries.

  • When you're in the next life, people on Earth

  • can do all of the rituals for you when you're dead,

  • and then you can have those,

  • the chance to accept those rituals or those covenants

  • when you're on the other side.

  • It's a huge deal.

  • I had gone through all of the rituals.

  • I had accepted all of those covenants,

  • which are very serious covenants.

  • You wear undergarments that are symbolic

  • of those covenants that you've made.

  • People call them, like, secret underwear or whatever,

  • but it was just religious clothing

  • that symbolizes your commitment to these doctrines.

  • And the beauty of all of this within Mormon doctrine

  • is if you do this and everyone in your family does this,

  • then all of you are sealed together

  • in this never ending chain of eternal family

  • that is at the epicenter of Mormon doctrine.

  • If you know Mormons

  • and you know that they are family-centered,

  • it's because of this.

  • The whole doctrine is based on creating family units

  • that are all tied into this covenant,

  • these promises that bind you, that seal you together

  • for time and all eternity.

  • If you've accepted those covenants, and then you leave,

  • you break away, you reject those covenants,

  • you take off your garments, you say I'm done with this,

  • that's a pretty big deal within the LDS framework.

  • You are no longer able to be with your family

  • in the celestial glory of the top tier of heaven.

  • So if you believe that, and you're a parent,

  • and you see your child rejecting those covenants,

  • rejecting that eternal ceiling to the family,

  • you're basically seeing your child go away,

  • and you feel like you're losing them.

  • So unsurprisingly, people leaving the Mormon Church

  • creates huge upset within families,

  • like many other religions.

  • It's not just an insular cultural experience.

  • It is a deeply held doctrinal theological belief

  • that if you leave the church, there are major consequences.

  • Luckily, I had parents who, by the time I told them

  • that I was leaving the church, were very open and loving

  • and accepting of my decision.

  • Certainly, it was hurtful for them,

  • but they did not project that onto me

  • in any way that made me feel ostracized.

  • Unfortunately, that is not the case for a lot of my friends

  • and a lot of other people who have left the church.

  • But even still, with parents who were accepting

  • and loving despite my decision, I still had years of purging

  • and processing to do, something that continues

  • to this day now four or five years later.

  • What I didn't realize is that I had internalized

  • a lot of assumptions of shame and guilt

  • and fear and judgment that I didn't even realize I had.

  • And for the years following leaving the church,

  • it was a process of slowly purging

  • and peeling back and processing those things.

  • I went through the Mister Nice Guy phase,

  • which is a very common thing for people

  • who leave the LDS church, which is like,

  • I'm just leaving the church nice and peaceful.

  • I'm gonna not be mean.

  • I'm not gonna be spiteful towards the church

  • because in the church, when you're in it,

  • there's sort of this, like, archetype

  • of the spiteful, angry anti-Mormon who goes out

  • and spreads lies about the church,

  • and they're just offended and angry.

  • And I didn't want to be that person.

  • I don't want to be that archetype.

  • And so I tried to maintain

  • very cordial relationships with everybody.

  • I tried to be super nice.

  • Like, you know, the church was really great for me

  • and yet I just, you know, disagreed with it,

  • so I walked away.

  • I went through that phase for a couple of years.

  • But through therapy

  • and through a lot of thinking about this,

  • I came to understand that I actually had

  • some deep problems and anger towards the church

  • and what it instilled in me.

  • I had anger and resentment

  • towards a lot of the authority structures

  • that made me feel unclean or dirty.

  • I had anger towards the systems that made me feel

  • like obedience was the most important thing,

  • that submission to a law from God was much more important

  • than self-expression and self-actualization.

  • I developed a resentment towards the church structure

  • that has very homophobic and heteronormative

  • and misogynistic structures

  • that taught me to think in those terms.

  • A church that purports to love everybody,

  • but deeply condemns certain people because of who they love.

  • I had to rewire so much of that upon leaving,

  • and perhaps most frustratingly,

  • and maybe this is gonna be hard to communicate the nuance to

  • to someone who's not LDS,

  • but I felt deep frustration at the church's claim

  • to have a monopoly over the fullness of truth,

  • that the few million members are the only keepers

  • of the real truth of what God wants today for us,

  • and that everyone else has truth, too,

  • but through prophets and apostles and modern day revelation,

  • the Mormons are actually the ones who have the full picture.

  • They know what's going on.

  • I believed that they had the truth

  • that was going to deliver me and my family

  • to eternal bliss in celestial glory.

  • I believed that, and I modeled my life around it

  • deep into my adulthood.

  • And I feel resentment that I did that,

  • and that the stakes were so high for leaving,

  • for expressing myself and my qualms for this doctrine.

  • Because after all, if you question it,

  • you're questioning prophets, people who are talking to God.

  • You can't do that.

  • It all left me very confused

  • and required a lot of healing and processing,

  • and that is still going on.

  • And let me just be clear about something.

  • This isn't my millennial brain

  • trying to reject authority structures

  • and subvert old institutions like is happening

  • in a lot of religious contexts right now.

  • A lot of people are leaving religion.

  • I wasn't trying to get away from some disciplined structure.

  • My life is still a disciplined structure.

  • I still have a lot of the artifacts

  • from my Mormon upbringing.

  • What I was fleeing when I left the Mormon Church

  • was a structure that I feel like put down who I really was,

  • made me cover it up in the name of a broader vision

  • of what righteousness is and what Jesus wants me to do.

  • It wasn't me.

  • It was harmful towards me,

  • and it was harmful towards others.

  • And the consequences were severe if you spoke up

  • and you challenged the status quo.

  • The culture is not one of discourse and debate.

  • It's one of obedience,

  • obedience, obedience, obedience.

  • Obedience is a hallmark belief

  • and tenet of the LDS experience,

  • and as a member, you feel it.

  • Leaving the church is painful socially, mentally.

  • You experience a cost for doing so.

  • And if you're in that situation now,

  • which I know some of those watching are,

  • where you know that your family and your peers

  • will think differently of you if you decide to leave,

  • just know that it's a lot better on the other side,

  • if you choose yourself

  • and you choose your personal experience

  • and your personal expression, and you honor that,

  • as opposed to honoring the fear of obedience.

  • There's some years of pain and adjustment,

  • but there is a sense of freedom on the other side.

  • This is uncomfortable for me to say.

  • Even right now, I'm imagining

  • whether it's family or friends

  • who are still active believers in the church watching this.

  • I can feel that discomfort, even now, years later,

  • of what are they thinking of me making this video

  • and effectively talking to others who might be in the church

  • and telling them to leave.

  • That old archetype of the bitter ex-Mormon

  • who's polarizing and extremist is ringing in my ears.

  • And yet, day by day, those voices and those old models,

  • they dissolve more and more, and they become less loud

  • and they become less part of my identity.

  • I, for many years, did identify as someone

  • who used to be Mormon and now I'm not,

  • but yet, with time I'm slowly developing

  • my own new identity that isn't pinned

  • to my reactionary experience with the church,

  • but is just pinned to who I am, what I love.

  • I'm a father who loves my children.

  • I love to learn about the world

  • and explore and explain things.

  • I love film, I love animation.

  • I love moss, I love cooking.

  • I love reading stories to my boys

  • and teaching them about the world.

  • I love traveling.

  • I love trains.

  • I love science.

  • I love the beauty of our world and the mystery that it is

  • and the mystery of life and cultures.

  • That appreciation is enough for me.

  • I don't have a spiritual framework to fill the vacuum.

  • I haven't joined some religion.

  • Maybe someday I will.

  • Maybe I will develop that, but for now,

  • the wonder of the world, outside of the plan of salvation

  • and God looking out over his children

  • for this big plan of obedience,

  • outside of that, I feel like there is plenty

  • to stand in awe of and love

  • without a God and a savior to create meaning for me.

  • And yet, there's a strange paradox within all of this

  • that I have to talk about,

  • which is the Mormon experience also gave me so much.

  • My mission, while I feel conflicted about what I was doing

  • and how I was doing it, I learned to work hard.

  • I learned to speak Spanish.

  • I learned to navigate in cultural experiences

  • outside of my own.

  • I was in Tijuana for two years

  • next to a giant international border,

  • one of the most violent and intense borders on Earth,

  • and that instilled a love for the stories

  • of people who live near borders,

  • which helped create my career.

  • My parents raising me in that environment

  • gave me beautiful experiences and community,

  • taught me how to be industrious

  • and hardworking and disciplined.

  • It taught me how to care and love and serve others.

  • Those are all good things.

  • So how do I reconcile the pain

  • and the psychological confusion

  • that this organization brought to my life,

  • packaged tightly with the reality

  • of all of the beautiful things that it brought to my life?

  • The good, the community, the memories,

  • the values of honesty and service and love?

  • That's a paradox that will probably be with me forever.

  • It's impossible to summarize this experience as one thing.

  • good or bad, and that's okay.

  • That dissonance is okay.

  • So, that's a little bit of my story and my thoughts

  • around why I left the Mormon Church.

  • I wanna hear from you,

  • especially those who have experience with this

  • and can speak about the complexities.

  • I also wanna hear from those who have questions

  • and are worried or scared.

  • This isn't an easy decision.

  • I also want to hear from those

  • who have experience with this,

  • whether it's from the Mormon Church

  • or any other Orthodox insular religion or culture.

  • Breaking out of those systems is hard

  • and sometimes not worth it, but sometimes it is.

  • Sometimes it's worth it.

  • And sometimes on the other side of that hard journey,

  • there is a much brighter future.

  • Hey, thanks for listening, everybody.

  • Before you go, I want to thank today's sponsor, Audible,

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  • and thank you all for watching this more personal video.

  • I hope it was helpful to some of you,

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  • which is going to be an explainer, so buckle up for that.

  • See ya.

(piano music)

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