March 21, 2020
Brandon K. Singleton
Like many individuals born and raised in Utah, I was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 8 years old, served a two-year proselyting mission ages 19-21, attended the church's private university (Brigham Young University), and was married by church officials in a church temple of worship. My Mormon ancestry is several generations deep. I participated in the church's Castle Valley Pageant as a boy and I went on a youth-group church history tour across the country in high school. After my mission, I taught future missionaries how to proselyte in the Missionary Training Center at Provo, Utah. I even wrote a song in 2005 for the 200-year commemoration of founding prophet Joseph Smith's birth. The church paid the fees for a recording studio to cut the track and sent a videography team to film my friends, siblings and me singing and playing the song for release in a regional devotional tape. The song led with the lyrics:
There once was a boy
Who knelt to pray in the Sacred Grove.
He did not know he would be
A prophet to the world.
He was just a 14 year old boy.
The song commemorated Joseph's "First Vision" in which he conversed directly with God, was chosen to restore the true church of Christ to earth, and opened the concluding chapter of world history in which the true gospel would spread over the whole earth in preparation for Christ's second coming.
Suffice it to say, I was a pretty good little Mormon boy. I participated actively in the church all of my life.
Until I turned 32.
I have withdrawn from the childhood church I was raised in and cherished. I am not alone, as mormonstories.org can attest.
The Obligatory Explanation
Informing loved ones, who believe in the church's doctrines, of my decision was, and is, difficult. Church members believe that this life is preparation for eternal life after this world. The afterlife has a ranked hierarchy of attainment levels, each level having corresponding degrees of glory, power, and happiness. To get to the top, you have to believe church doctrines, live church principles, obey church leaders, and physically receive all church ordinances (such as baptism) by sanctioned church authorities. Announcing withdrawal from church participation means endless separation from the faithful saints in the highest degree of heaven. It means breaking generational family bonds and settling for a dim flicker of heavenly glory at best. No wonder the news can be devastating.
Ultimately my decision needs no explanation other than it is right for me. I am living my truth. I feel more peace, light, confidence, and purpose by respecting the validity of what I know and feel.
But that doesn't solve the problem of the enormous gulf between two versions of myself: the former faithful and devote latter-day saint Christian, and the current secular and agnostic one. Few people, if any, know both versions intimately. It has been my experience that those who know one version find it difficult to understand and accept the other version. If I used to be so faithful, why did I leave? Or, if I am now agnostic toward God, how was I faithful and active for so long into adulthood before changing my mind?
Even if I don't owe anybody an explanation, the situation itself seems to inevitably call for one. My two selves are inconsistent with each other. One self must be legitimate, the other disingenuous, and an explanation is required for how I made the transition between them.
There are suitable explanations to avoid having to fully accept both versions of myself simultaneously. On the faithful side, the explanation goes something like this. Godly truth comes exclusively from Godly sources. As soon as you consult any source that weakens faith or questions church authority, regardless of its historical/scientific (i.e. secular) validity, your mind is filled with darkness and your thinking is clouded by the deceptions of the devil. You recede from the path of light and truth toward God, and you suffer self-doubt, confusion, and pain. The agnostic version of myself is a misguided and lost one, acknowledged only with regret and pity. The solution to rescue such a lost soul is to return to basic prayer to God, read scripture, remain active in church services, maintain social ties with the saints, and trust one's feeling of purpose and security conferred by the faithful path regardless of any lingering reservations, which will be worked out at some indeterminate point in the future.
On the secular side, the explanation is a depreciation of faith. The implicit attitude is that religious life is viable only under conditions of indoctrination and ignorance and that sound education will eventually root out the vices of religious fundamentalism. The explanation invalidates the authenticity of religious experience. It discounts the deliberate choice by informed and educated individuals to be both religious and intellectually honest. From the wholly secular view, the second version of myself is the one that finally came around, that woke up and smelled the coffee (and drank it!) and is free of the former confines imposed by strict social norms and irrational beliefs.
I'm not satisfied with either of these explanations. I take ownership of both versions of myself; they both deeply inform my current identity and values. Each one of the prior explanations alienates at least half of my core self. That is why I reject both of them. To understand why I left The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is necessary to understand that I didn't put two versions of myself at war with one another to see which one would emerge victorious. One self did not vanquish the other. I asked both selves to talk to one another, to see one another's points of view, and to negotiate a harmonious and integrated synthesis.
The result of that process isn't easy to explain. And I'm glad about that.
"Why did I leave?" is the wrong question
Typically, a major event such as leaving the church occurs on the heels of some trigger, even if it was only the culminating straw that broke the camel's back. When one tries to explain a change in religious belief or behavior, the explanation often centers on these triggers or events.
Some of the triggers behind a Mormon exodus are discomfort with past or current doctrines and practices, taking offense at church policy and administration, and disillusionment with church truth claims that conflict with authenticated historical records.
When someone asks, or tells, the reasons for defecting from the church, I believe it is done with good intention and goodwill. Both parties desire to increase understanding and to preserve whatever social and emotional connection that has existed prior. There is a gulf, and people want to build bridges. But it's not easy.
I've come to realize that talking about "trigger" issues when trying to bridge the gap is not very productive. The goal is to increase understanding and maintain or mend social bonds. The question, "Why did I leave?" is the wrong one to obtain this goal for several reasons.
The two parties are usually operating with a different repertoire of baseline facts and knowledge. Talking about facts underlying the decision to leave can cause discomfort and disengagement if somebody does not already know about or mistrusts the unfamiliar facts introduced by the other.
The decision to stay in or leave the church is not actually caused by the trigger. Different individuals who share the same experiences could arrive at different conclusions or interpretations and make entirely different decisions. If the trigger is put forward as the explanation for the decision, the discussion can become an insurmountable disagreement about whether the decision was actually warranted from the trigger.
Focusing on the outcome of leaving traps the conversation as a problem-solving exercise, where the goal is to reverse the outcome and restore affairs to their prior state. Seeing another person as a problem to be fixed and offering solutions does not leave room to respect and validate his or her perspective, and it typically worsens rather than improves the relationship.
Focusing on the outcome (leaving the church) instead of the process (seeking truth and fulfillment) exaggerates differences and obscures commonalities. Chances are, everybody is navigating difficult waters, possibly about very different issues, but the process is similar enough to build common ground. Have you ever felt confused and uncertain, looked for answers, and found peace and purpose? Me too! Perhaps our journeys led to very different destinations, but the paths we traveled are otherwise indistinguishable. Why not celebrate that?
"What was it like?" is a better question
If I shouldn't explain reasons why I left the church, what should I do?
Attaining the goal of mutual understanding and connection is more likely when the conversation focuses on feelings and processes rather than facts and outcomes.
Taking my own advice, I'm going to describe what it felt like to me to reinspect my religious identity and reconstruct it. To make it feel more like a conversation, I'm going to pose questions to myself and then answer them.
Q. How has religious inquiry been an important part of your identity?
One thing I've always valued about my religious upbringing is that spiritual inquiry is central to it. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints traces its founding back to a truth-seeking story by its first prophet, Joseph Smith. I honestly tried to emulate his pattern as I sought out different opinions and points of view and developed a unique, individual, personal conviction. That aspect of me has never changed, even if my conclusions about various topics have.
Joseph Smith also faced a great deal of resistance as he lived out his unpopular convictions. He did not cave to the social pressures attempting to extinguish his radical movement. I take inspiration from that type of cavalier independence and resolve on the part of an impudent, ignorant, ill-reputed farm boy. The Joseph Smith story, as it was rehearsed to me in my youth, reinforced the principle that the quest for truth is much more important than worrying about what everyone thinks of you, and that meaningful ripples or domino-effects happen when regular people stay true to themselves and confront adversity with action.
Only a faith with genuine conviction that arrives by intellectually honest inquiry is worth defending. The church genuinely teaches and promotes that principle, and that principle is what enabled me to have the courage to deal with some disconcerting issues rather than coast along the simpler path of least resistance.
Religion was never something to carry on for the sake of tradition. Religion was supposed to mean something, to be renewed afresh with every generation.
Q. Why was it important to gain a conviction for yourself rather than depend on the convictions and expectations of others?
I have a lot of trust in myself to arrive at proper conclusions through independent thinking. That's been a quality that has propelled me to succeed and has also gotten me into trouble. I used to correct my gradeschool teachers whenever they produced an error on the board. If my math teacher solved a problem one way, I'd try to find a different way, a better way, that squared with my understanding better. When I got into graduate school and critiqued academic literature, I probably took too much satisfaction in questioning prevailing wisdom and striking out in independent directions. At any rate, I trust myself and I reject anything that is not personally meaningful or compelling. I value convictions nurtured in an environment of personal autonomy.
My individualist qualities were both encouraged and suppressed in the church framework. My individualism was encouraged insofar as church members are taught to obtain their own testimonies of the church's truth and authenticity instead of relying on outside authority. Scholarship and study are highly encouraged, and individualized revelations from God are promised to every member who seeks them. I remember working very hard as a child to experience personal conversion independently from my parents. As a missionary, I concluded every lesson with an invitation to pray to God and ask if the teachings were true instead of just taking my word for it. The bottom line is, faith should issue forth from personalized, independent conviction and testimony, not from social conformity and pressure.
In practice, though, my individualism was highly suppressed in the church. Individuals are expected to generate their own convictions, but they are not free to determine the ideas that they will have convictions about. Criticisms of sanctioned doctrine and church authority are forbidden. There are strict templates for what should or should not be expressed in a public testimony of conviction. So, I suppressed many of my individualist qualities in church, keeping my criticism and skepticism private. In theory, my convictions were autonomous, but in practice, they felt non-negotiable. Asking a child to arrive at a personal conviction is a long way from producing the conditions necessary to enable a genuine personal conviction.
Deep down, I wasn't being honest with myself about what I was covertly noticing and deliberating. Even if the church encourages individual inquiry and conviction, I perceived it as a closed rather than open process. The legitimate methods to use, the trustworthy sources to consult, the correct outcomes that measure success, and the acceptable interpretations of those outcomes were rigidly scripted and prescribed. Thus, my inquiry never was as genuine in religion as it was for me in school. At school, I didn't feel as pressured to arrive at foreordained conclusions. Insightful critique was celebrated as creative and productive. Sharing a dissenting point of view was rewarded rather than discouraged as uncomfortable or illegitimate.
When the discrepancy between the open intellectual freedom I enjoyed in school and the closed intellectual framework of the church arrived at a climax during the late years of my doctoral studies, I finally gave myself permission to be the same self-determining thinker in religion as I was in my scholarship. This moment was empowering but also terrifying. In every prior situation, I'd known what I needed to feel and conclude as I prayed about the legitimacy of the church. This time, I was committed only to authenticity and integrity in the pursuit of truth, regardless of the outcome. I wanted the church to be true because my whole life had been intertwined with it, but I preferred to come to an independent conclusion rather than to deceive myself and others for mere convenience or external expectation.
Q. How did social relationships play into your religious journey?
It is a paradox that I am incredibly independent-minded, but I am also overly sensitive to others' appraisals of me. I guess that there exist some people who are really happy in their own skin and can effortlessly blurt out any opinion on any matter in any social setting. That is definitely not me. I need approval and validation. My inner thoughts are always heavily censored depending on my conversational partner or social setting. I take others' perspectives very seriously. I try to understand what they think and why, and I try to adapt my own thinking in order to incorporate that outside view.
Throughout my life I understood what others thought of me and expected of me, and that social outline constrained my self-concept. The external definition of myself as a faithful latter-day saint was so internalized that even into adulthood I would censor my own thinking to conform to expectations. I wasn't giving myself permission to think for myself, or I didn't know what kind of self I was if I abandoned the externally provided self-concept. In forming my own opinions, I'd implicitly be thinking, "How would my mom and dad think about that?" and so on. I did this with teachers and mentors I admired, too, which contributed to an internal conflict of identity when social influences didn't align. I didn't want to disappoint anybody that I respected and was close to.
I remember when my grandfather Sam passed away, he was somebody who had been really close to me. He lived in town down the hill from me, and he'd really shaped my idea of what a good, loving, faithful, joyful, selfless person should be. He was a bedrock to the whole town and community. During my youth he'd been really proud of all my accomplishments, in school and church. I couldn't stand the thought of letting Sam down.
As I returned to Ferron, Utah for my grandfather's funeral, I had already been softening the internal censor and starting to think more freely about certain things. But returning to the social network of my childhood, being in the same old church building, praying on behalf of the family, and imagining my grandfather's expectations of me sort of dispelled my libertarian disposition for a while. The internal calibration to an earlier period of time was briefly restored. But after I flew back home across the country and the temporary effect wore off, I felt something of a relief that I could think freely for myself without having to disappoint my beloved grandfather.
That was when I appreciated how profound my social relationships were on my thinking, and I recognized the courage necessary for anybody to genuinely think for oneself when it presupposes such a high social cost. This is equally true whether someone is joining or leaving a church under the disapproval of close family or friends. I'd seen individuals pay that price to join the "Mormon" church when I was a young missionary. But I hadn't possessed that same courage when I contemplated leaving the church because I'd waited until the relationship cost with my grandfather would no longer have to be paid. There were remaining social costs, of course, and I continue to navigate those, but the passing of my grandfather lowered the threshold and made decisive action seem more feasible.
As a final comment, I've also thought about how to provide positive social support to my own children as they grow up and start thinking for themselves. I certainly don't buy into the idea that we should just keep our mouths shut and let kids figure everything out for themselves. I feel responsible for sharing my opinions and values with my children, providing a model for them to emulate or at least a productive place to start from. But I also want my children to understand that I respect their autonomy and that our relationship is not contingent on their fulfilling any specific expectation on my part. I don't think it's an easy balance to strike at all, and I admire my own parents and other parents who bravely tackled that challenge. I wouldn't be the person and parent I am today without the positive models I had from my own parents and grandparents.
Q. What challenges did you face emotionally?
Renegotiating my religious beliefs was incredibly difficult. Emotionally I felt afraid, curious, confused, enlightened, reassured, guilty, isolated, indecisive, empowered, disingenuous, hypocritical, brave, proud, disturbed, and peaceful. It was a roller coaster ride with lots of ups and downs and a lot of uncertainty and insecurity.
I kept it all to myself until very late in the game. In retrospect I don't think that was very healthy. It would have been better to have been more open and involve others in my journey. But sometimes I felt like a virus that would contaminate people who were otherwise happy and content, so I didn't want to disturb or bother them. Or I didn't feel like a virus, but I assumed that's how I'd be perceived, so I kept my mouth shut.
The isolation declined a lot as I found the right people to talk about things with. Actually, I developed a strong fan-crush on author Tara Westover when I came across her memoir. She put into beautiful prose some of the same feelings I had been experiencing. Her story gave me something to relate to when I needed validation and wasn't yet ready to confront an actual acquaintance.
It's funny to me now because as a church member, it was natural to invite people to learn about things that I believed were true and would improve their lives. It felt discouraging too, when I recognized people wouldn't believe me or didn't want their lives disrupted. What intrigues me is that I still feel the same way now as I did then, even though the message changed. I want to share things that I believe are true and will improve others' lives, particularly those who are close to me. But I also know that those people may not believe my message or trust me, and they typically don't want their lives disrupted in the same way mine has been. So, no matter where I've been on the spirituality spectrum, the missionary task to share my beliefs with others has been important for me and inconvenient for them.
Q. Are you still inquiring and working things out, or have you arrived at a point of clarity and closure?
The short answer is both. I still have many questions, especially the kind of questions that are so important that they must be answered and so elusive that they can never be answered.
One attractive feature of religion in general is the willingness to engage the fundamental questions of existence that really matter. The same is true in philosophy, literature, the arts. I like worrying about the purpose of life and the significance of humanity in a grander sense than can be found in the indulgent-capitalist state of complacency with a routine job, a comfortable income, and an idle mind with petty entertainment.
I also continue to enjoy learning more about the history of my church and other religions. There is a lot to be learned that I don't yet know. The place of religion in human history is too pervasive and important to be overlooked, and I still have loads of unanswered questions about it. The culture of Mormonism is baked into me, and I'll be continually inquiring into its place in my life.
But it is also true that I have arrived at a very stable resting place after a pretty unstable and uncertain period of transition. I'm not deliberating about whether The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or any other church, is true and valid. I'm not seeking a social outlet for religious activity and expression. I have constructed a coherent intellectual framework and religious identity that I'm comfortable with. I do feel a sense of closure. The two opposing pieces in my fractured self are reconciled in a beautiful and unique way. I am living my truth.