More Mormon Madness

While participating in my latest obsession—blog stalking—yesterday, I discovered a great website (blogher.org), a huge collection of blogs by women. While browsing I stumbled across one called “Agnostic Mom.” I think a lot about my future life as a parent and how I’ll handle my convoluted and fluctuating attitudes and emotions directed toward religion while raising my kids. I thought this particular website might provide some insight. Surprisingly, after reading a few entries, I discovered that the writer—Noell—is a “post-Mormon.” Veeery interesting. And, shockingly, it sounds like her children haven’t gone completely buckwild and turned to sex and drugs to fill in that God-sized gap in their hearts. Then again, it sounds like they’re all young yet. We shall see. ;)

Today I was driving my ma-in-law, who is still visiting from New Hampshire, to Budget Car Rental, and she commented:

“I would never want to live here. The church seems so different in Utah. So different.”

This sparked a brief conversation between the two of us about how, outside of what I like to call The Book of Mormon Belt, church-related attitudes are very different. Brenda says that back where she’s from people are either active or not. There isn’t really a lot of middle ground. But around here there’s immense amounts of pressure to be a good Mormon, so you encounter active members who don’t really believe or who haven’t ever closely examined their beliefs but who, nevertheless, maintain a high level of involvement in the church community. Around here, too, I think there’s a lot more pretense of piety than actual piety.

(And this is where the MIL and I’s discussion ended and my personal commentary begins.)

Take me, for example. I don’t want to be pitied or befriended or scorned or fellowshipped because I don’t believe in much of the church, so I welcome my visiting teachers and share my gospel insights with them and go to church on Sunday and cheerfully accept callings. But this pattern of behavior eventually wears thin. A mask can only stay on so long before you start to get hot and itchy and uncomfortable, and in the midst of all this pretense there’s an immense sense of isolation. I want a safe forum in which I can discuss and explore my feelings and ideas about life, the universe, and everything, but there are very few people with whom I feel free to discuss such things. Around here there isn’t a lot of open dialogue. You can bat around precious few political or social issues without stepping on the toes of some prophet or another. And that’s where any arguments end: there’s never ‘logical dictates this,’ or ‘reason would point to that,’ it’s ‘this is what [insert General Authority here] said and so that is how it is.’I hate that I have a good strong brain in my head but am continually asked to subjugate it to the doctrines and precepts of the church.

My siblings and I and husband are all similarly apostate, and they provide a great network of intellectual support, but most of the people I encounter each day make me feel defensive and secretive. I don’t ever want to let anyone know about how I “really am” in regard to the church because I don’t want to become an object of pat-yourself-on-the back acts of charity. I don’t want them to whisper about how I’m “struggling with my testimony,” and remind each other to "keep Rachel in your prayers." If there's any struggling here, it's a struggle to fit into my own community, a thing I can't seem to do as long as I'm marked with a Scarlet Question Mark.

It also pisses me off that I feel that I have no choice in the matter. I really feel like I can’t choose to be a Mormon; I have to be a Mormon. My beliefs seem to play no role in my activity—it’s all about maintaining the tradition of my family and community.

Abe’s mother recognizes this danger. She told me she would never want to raise kids in such a heavily-Mormoned area where culture speaks much more loudly than the Holy Ghost. I can see both sides of the coin: on the one hand, if you want your children to love the gospel for the gospel’s sake, and you’re truly convined of its absolute truthfulness, it’s probably a good idea to live “in the mission field”; on the other hand, if you’re less certain and mostly just want your kids to be good Mormony people, you should probably raise them somewhere within The Book of Mormon Belt. But what about the third hand that I am currently holding? The hand wherein I have no idea that the church is true and don’t intend to lie to my (future) children about it? Where I do want them to grow up to be good, strong, happy, healthy, wholesome, loving people—but don’t really feel that it’s important if they can profess Joseph Smith’s reality as a prophet? And what if I raise them one way and then change my mind afterwards? Won’t I feel like a schmuck for having ruined all their chances for happiness or salvation or good mental health?

Raising a family in a religious way seems to require a degree of certainty that seems to me to be beyond the human grasp. Take, once again, Abe's ma. This is a woman who had enough certainty in the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ to load all eleven of her children into a heater-less Volzwagon van early Sunday morning to drive for two hours (one way!) in sub-zero temperatures on snowy and drifting roads in order to attend a stinking three-hour church meeting. She did this week after week, mind you. That’s a lot of certainty, batman. If that’s not going to convince your children something important is happening, that will. My tendency would be to say, “I value the safety of my children over the importance of attending church.” And see, that’s the thing. That's where Brenda and I seem to really differ. I value nothing more in this life than my family. She values nothing more in this life than her testimony of the Church. Her family is, of course, an extension of this, but it also really really colors her interactions with them.

And here’s my secret: a lot of my problem is that I don’t want the church to be “true.” There are many parts that I appreciate and enjoy. But there are many parts of many religions that I appreciate and enjoy. I think there is great truth out there that we’re grasping at, struggling for, maybe even occasionally brushing with our fingers. But I find it greatly arrogant to say that we have all of the correct answers. Further, I’m not a big fan of many official church doctrines: I dislike its policy on homosexuality; I find little to know comfort in its scriptures, which seem to emphasize “sin” and “eternal damnation” and the Lord’s ceaseless round of “chastenings”; I hate hearing things in General Conference about how we should manipulate our sons from an early age to plan “when” not “if” they’ll serve a mission; I loathe the missionary emphasis on baptising numbers of people (rather than individuals).

Well, I think I've run myself out of steam. I apologize for the boring and poorly written and lengthy rant above.