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When I was Mormon, I gave 100%. If you were in my ward you can attest that I knew you by name & always said hi. I did my home teaching, did multiple callings at once, & felt personally responsible for not letting a single sheep get lost on my watch (A bit pathological, yes) 1/16
When I made the decision to step away, to truly experiment on the word and see what would happen to my life if I excised the church from it, nobody came looking for me. I never got a call, never got the visit I'd made myself a hundred times to make sure everything was ok. 2/
I simply vanished. In my own eyes and in the church's, I stepped out of the light and ceased to exist. It was the Mormon concept of Outer Darkness instead of the Christian Hell, and it was worse. 3/
Had I been so deluded? Was I the only one who'd been playing that hard the whole time? Was all my effort, my self-flagellation for every my
mistake, all my sacrifice really so inconsequential, not just in the cosmic scheme of things but also to the people I'd sacrificed for? 4/
mistake, all my sacrifice really so inconsequential, not just in the cosmic scheme of things but also to the people I'd sacrificed for? 4/
Eventually I had a former mission companion try to bring me back a few times. Nobody from my ward. My name is still on the records and I'm somehow on an email list about activities and time changes. No other welfare checks. No home teachers. 5/
And here's the thing. I refused to remove my name from the church records. I gave everything to this church and in the end it was not a safe place for me. I won't let the narrative be that I left. Like the saints of Far West, I was driven out. 6/
As my distance from the church increased, my perspective became clearer, and of course I became angrier. The church had manufactured shame in my soul and charged me with stoking it. Like many weak and dangerous men before me, I obeyed. I'm sorry. 7/
The angrier I got, the more vocal. I wrote articles helping to expose the church's deceptions. I got gay married. I waited for my disciplinary council. I wanted a formal record of the violence they were inflicting upon me. I wanted them to have to tell me I didn't belong. 8/
Instead it's passive homophobia, unchecked comments in Sunday School and Conference, ever-changing prohibitions against different aspects of my identity. Then I get facebook invites to come back to church from "progressive" LDS people in groups like Mormons Building Bridges. 9/
All of this adds up to THEIR story, in which I'm a tragic character: the doors are always open, visitors welcome, it's such a shame when the wicked don't take us up on our generous offer of redemption from themselves. Or, put another way, "He chose to leave." 10/
But that's *not* story. Church was unsafe. Whether my formal excommunication ever happens or not, the church cast me out. It was an act of violence. No, it was an unending stream of violence for decades. A culture of violence. But to let me fade away means it never happened. 11/
And so we're at a stalemate. They can't excommunicate me without admitting this is their fault, and I can't remove my name without allowing them to pretend it's mine. God's just keeping me lukewarm in his mouth, and I hate him for it.12/
I know that excommunication and the hearings are so painful for so many, especially for women who aren't represented by the groups of old men who hold their fates in their hands, and I want those who suffer that to know that I'm so sorry you are experiencing this. 13/
The church is imperfect. The members are not. You are lovely the way you are, and if their God doesn't see that, he's not perfect either, nor worthy of you. Don't let them pretend any of this is the other way around. 14/
As we have another very public and heartbreaking church disciplinary council in the public eye right now, I thought I'd throw in my 2¢. Excommunication is violence, and it is a microcosm of what the church does to its queer, female, minority, heterodox members every day. 15/
And every time I hear of someone going through the excommunication process it does make me a little envious. I wish the church would stop pretending they aren't the bad guy in my life. I wish they would just brand me. I want the closure. I'm raring for this fight. 16/16
