MORMON’D!

In writing about my flirting past with the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, I find almost instantly that I never really believed in the philosophies of the Mormon church.  (Mormon, LDS, and Church of Jesus Christ of blahblahblah are all the same thing, FYI)

I was baptized Lutheran, and attended a Lutheran church until I was seven, at which point we stopped going.  I think it had something to do with my siblings and me protesting, saying they didn’t like the church.  My Mom and Dad baptized us and took us there to give us all the feeling of ritual and of being part of something bigger than ourselves.  Both of my parents follow Christian philosophies and morals,  but they don’t make the supposed “truth claim” so many others do.  To them it’s all a big crap shoot.

So when we protested, they stopped making us go.

At the age of twelve, I was enrolled in a junior high where I was definitely an outcast.  I had no kind of healthy social environment outside of my house.

My sister Laura started receiving the lessons from the Mormon missionaries (she was 17), and I took them with her.  My Mom stayed nearby to make sure we weren’t getting dragged into something crazy.

It was all a fairly average, unimpressive experience until I actually visited their church and found myself wholly welcomed by a huge congregation.

Here were pleasant, smiling people (adults, children, teens) who greeted me with nothing but kindness and peace in their hearts.  I was sold.

After six months of the lessons, I chose to join the Mormon church with my sister.

And then for the next six years, I tricked myself into thinking that I really believed what they taught.  I would like to be clear about this: it is my opinion that no twelve-year-old has the capacity to figure out the truth regarding the world.

It’s all a crap shoot.

After six years of incredibly devout worship (seminary every day during highschool from 5AM-7AM; 4-hour church on Sundays; 4-hour youth nights during the week; praying every morning, evening, and at every meal; going to temple regularly), I moved to Chicago, where I found myself attracted to both men and women, and this inconvenience (in terms of my religion) allowed me to be more honest with myself about my faith: I didn’t have any.

I left the Mormon church.

Okay, the Mormon church?  It’s pretty crazy.  It’s definitely cult-ish, but no more than, say, the Catholic Faith (and as a very good friend recently said: just because something is older doesn’t make it right).  And the whole “get baptised for the dead” bit is more than a little freaky.

Having said that, I respect and admire the Mormon church and the Mormons I know/knew.  I have attended many many churches over the past ten years, and the Mormon church remains the place that was most welcoming, friendly, and honest.

I can’t ever join a religion that compares my love- and sex-life to murder or alcoholism.  My sexual and emotional health are too valuable to me to damage in such a way.  But I will say this: my experiences as a Mormon gave me a much deeper understanding of so-called fundamentalists.  Because I was one for six years.

Er, maybe really only two or three.  And even then kind of faking it.

But still.