As I reflect back on my life, I’m reminded of several opportunities I had to see the church for what it is. I now view these moments as opportunities lost...opportunities I let pass...because I was afraid of what the results of a critical examination might bring.
The first missed circumstance occurred while I was serving my mission. An investigator family decided not to take my companions and my word on the historical claims of the church and did some additional research at the local library. The result of this research was the total rejection of the church by this family. Needless to say my comp and I were devastated. We had labored hard to teach this golden family only to have them discover lies about the church. When I pressed this family on their so-called research, they challenged me to read what they had discovered. I agreed to do so. I had a perfect knowledge that the church was all it claimed to be...nothing could dissway me of its truth...or so I naively thought. They presented me with a copy of the Tanner book “Mormonism: Shadow or Reality”.
Nothing in my years of seminary, institute and other church education had prepared me for what I found contained within the pages of this book. To be honest with you, its contents sent unbelievable chills of fear and pain up and down my spine. Every page I read presented me with information that caused my mind to react in a manner I had never experienced in my life. I felt my world literally collapsing in upon itself, literally imploding. Like a car quickly entering a dark black tunnel...yet there was no light at its exit, the foundational basis of my life had disappeared in a flash. I remember the room I was in literally spinning out of control around me. I closed my eyes to gain my balance; my world had turned to blackness in an instant. Looking back now I know that what I was experiencing was a major case of cognitive dissonance.
My young Uber TBM mind could not even fathom the alternative truths contained in that book.Within a split second my life had forever changed...my innocence was gone...despite my denials I knew in my heart that there was something very very ugly and very very secret at the core of Mormonism.
I was an extremely focused, Uber missionary at the top of my game. I was the senior zone leader and I had loved every moment of my mission up to this point. But dear God was it all a lie? How could this be? I turned to God for an answer. I fell to my knees and prayed with ever fiber of my being, demanding that God send me a sign that what I had discovered was not real...I demanded that God put my reality and life back together. At the very moment I was ready to accept the truth, pack my bags, return home and confront the people in SLC who had lied to me, my years of programming kicked into action. And God answered my demand for a sign. I told God that He must move the Tanner Book across the room from where I had placed it prior to my entering my prayer. Upon completion of my prayer...God had in fact answered my prayer...when I entered my bedroom the book was in fact across the room (in the hands of my companion) But holy shit God does work through natural means doesn’t He?
That experience didn’t answer any of the problems I discovered in the Tanner book, but it was enough for me to discard everything I had discovered. I dismissed all of it as anti-Mormon lies. It was my first missed opportunity to discover the truth behind Mormonism. But a seed had been planted.
The second missed opportunity came a few years later during the Mark Hoffman fiasco. Following my mission I had successfully placed all of the difficult discoveries in an airtight compartment in the back of my mind. I had effectively sealed it up with no intention of ever having to repeat that awful experience I had survived as a young missionary. But little did I know that there were microscopic fissures in my testimony and reality was about to make another major frontal attack on those weak spots.
I was serving as a fanatical Elders Quorum President when Mark Hoffman's story erupted or should I say exploded into my life. But this time I was somewhat prepared for the assault to my faith. Those who remember these short but difficult months will remember that we as members of the church had to redefine just about everything we had believed about the foundational claims of the church.
Thanks to Mark Hoffman, church members now had to adjust our understanding of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. It was my first exposure to the folklore, back woods occult and magical worldview of the Joseph Smith Sr family. As members we had to somehow find a way to assimilate and accommodate a new worldview, the “White Salamander” changing into the Angel Moroni. All of the “Cog Dis” I thought I had safely placed in the far distant back recesses of my mind were starting to bubble and ooze forth and rumble in the pit of my stomach like a bad Mexican dinner with each new Hoffman discovery. I decided then and there that I had to know the truth, church be damned.
I started on a new mission to discover and examine the foundational claims of the church. I bought and started to read Michael Quinn’s “Early Mormonism and the Magic World View” and I booked tickets to Nauvoo so that I could explore and see first hand what the historical claims of the church were.
My wife and I arrived in Nauvoo on a beautiful October afternoon. The fall colors were at their peak and as fate would have it...the local newspapers were awash with a major breaking news story. Mark Hoffman had just blown himself up in Salt Lake City. Police where pointing their finger at him as the perpetrator of other bombings that had plagued Salt Lake City throughout the preceding months. With this revelation his whole fraud/forgery scheme was exposed...my testimony dodged another bullet and lived to testify another day. The seed, unbeknownst to me, had spouted roots, but would take another 18 years to bare fruit.
I often wonder what might have been had I focused then on church claims and started my discovery of truth. Maybe I could have had a greater influence on people I love...maybe I could have lived a more fuller life...but there is no way I can ever know what might have been.
I now live my life as true as I can... with the heartfelt desire to face reality, enjoy this earth and humanity, be sensitive to others in need and show true compassion and understanding to those who are seeking the truth about Mormonism.The transition out of Mormonism has not been with out its trials...but by “standing for something” (as Gordon B. Hinckley has stated) I hope to set an example for generations to come...that sometimes being “true” is more important then caving into social and cultural norms.
5 comments:
My husband had one of his investigators give him a copy of the Tanner book “Mormonism: Shadow or Reality”. He had a whole different experiance and decided that that was the real Mormonism and that like the Book of Mormon tales the church had apostasized.
It lead him and eventually I joined him, on a search for authority and eventually after 22 years of research we had to give in to reality and admit to ourselves that none of it made any sense. That it was all a scam all along. That Joe was a con artist and so were the rest of the gang that followed.
It was extreemly difficult to rebuild out lives after that realization. We are finally happy now, about 5 years later.
I am glad to have found your blog.
Peace to you and yours - Kita
Being confronted with the Tanners' book and you still stayed in. It shows how effective the chruch program is that even staring the truth in the face many just choose to ignore it. Hopefully someday our families will join us on the outside, but that is not our decision.
Thanks for sharing your story here, Craig. It's really amazing to me that we as LDS people are so able and willing to discount other views. Yet we call ourselves open minded and giving and loving. It's very interesting.
Keep up the great writing, please!
The 'sign' that you received, of your companion picking up the book, made me laugh. If only because I had a similar 'sign' occur in my own life involving a person calling me. It's like being stuck in some superstitious era, interpreting coincidences as spiritual signs.
awesome blog! great story Missed Opportunities is. My BF of 4 years is just now learning the truth, I learned it 4 years ago when he and the mishies were teaching me.... I did not drink the Kool aid, but tried to share Tanners info and lots more with him, he did have deaf ears until about 6 months ago, sitting at Porters Inn in Lehi Utah, reading the placemat about Orrin Porter Rockwell being a murderer but seated in heaven with Joe SMith because he was "always a friend of the church" A MURDERER!!! This along with the fact that Smith and Young were both married to 8 or 9 women who had other husbands on top of the polygamy thing was enough to put out his fire. I gave him under the banner of heaven to read along with One Nation Under Gods, He is now on his way out and I am pretty sure will never go back. His entire family is TBM. They no longer speak or call.
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