Today I wrote this:
Dear Bishop,
Thank you so much for your kind text. I was touched that you would thank me for serving in this ward because, in all honesty, teaching Relief Society has grown me and blessed me in so many ways. I loved getting to know the sisters in the ward, learning from their experiences, and getting a sense for what lessons they have learned from their lives. I will miss this part of church.
I will also miss seeing the people in our ward. These are my neighbors, and I love them and care for them. Connecting lovingly with my neighbors at church nourishes my spirit and gives me a sense of place in the body of Christ. I have felt that I belong, and even though I sometimes give strange comments or wacky talks and testimonies, people have been so kind. This ward has been a spiritual home for me.
I feel deep sadness at the thought of taking a break from church. Even though I feel compelled in this new direction, I grieve the loss of my place in this community. I grieve the loss of my Mormon identity. I am not sure how to live a life without it. I leave the door open for God to tell me to return, but I know in my heart that no matter where this new path leads–even if I find myself back in that same church pew– I will never feel wholly Mormon again. Even though this knowledge broadens my capacity for experience, my first instinct is to mourn it. I once loved–truly, deeply loved–being a Mormon. This feels like divorce, or death.
At the same time, I need space from this community. I long for a church community that will not only give me a sense of human connection, but doctrinal nourishment and spiritual freedom. I want a church community that will honor and respect those who take personal responsibility for their own moral agency. This is something I feel I have done.
Up until my experience this past Sunday, I have been operating under the assumption that my presence at church can broaden the tent, that I can “be the change I wish to see,” as you said in your text. I had a personal resolve to vocally make space for the marginalized, especially those most vulnerable to harmful church policies. I did not want the suffering or blood of these dear people on my conscience any longer. I thought that perhaps if I committed to speaking up even when I felt personally uncomfortable, my voice might make some small difference.
Even as I worked within that context, I had my doubts. It seemed to me that the Church is actually getting more rigid and hostile to nuanced believers like myself, attempts at inclusionary rhetoric notwithstanding. My husband and I would lie awake at night debating this point. He would list open-minded progressives in the ward as evidence that there is hope for our specific community and for the Church, and I would point out that the people who think this way are a minority. I just finished Jana Riess’s new book where she writes about the mass exodus of millenials from the Church, which left me with the impression that people who think like I do tend to give up and leave instead of trying to change the church from within. It left me feeling certain that the Church is alienating all who can no longer allow the institution to constrict our impulse to love everyone unconditionally.
I speak, of course, of those who would allow our LGBTQ members to live the full, abundant lives Christ died to give us, and also of those who feel desire to fully accept, love, and authentically respect their unbelieving family members and friends. There is no theological space in our doctrine to respect someone who has decided to leave the Church, or indeed someone who is not a member of the Church. There is personal space and certainly through revelation many are able to come to this place of respect, but when we hammer home our Church’s truth claims in the way we so regularly do, we leave no room for the theological possibility that a spiritual life outside of the Church can ever compare to the spiritual life found within it.
As another recent data point that felt personally significant, I had an online conversation with many of the women who served missions with me on Temple Square. I analyzed the tone of comments from both those who have decided to continue in the church and the tone of comments from those who have left. I was left reeling from the discovery that, generally speaking, those who have left write with noticeably more love and compassion than those who stay. It was disquieting.
The recent excommunication of the Ohio couple who started a support group to minister to people on the edge of the faith (like me) also deeply shook me. I too have started a support group, and as a person who can’t seem to stop reading and writing about my own faith journey, I feel vulnerable. I have discussed having my records removed as a form of self-protection, more for the reputation of my children than any fear I have of being personally stigmatized, but this idea makes my husband uncomfortable. So for now, my records are staying. This scares me, but for the love of my family, I deal with that fear.
These recent data points accumulated on top of two years of study. I have studied church history, Christian theology, and also the present configuration of the Church. At this point, it is painful for me to sit through fast and testimony meeting, wherein I feel like a witness to a collective conditioning that strips us of individual moral agency. When someone says, “I know the Church is true,” I think many things at once. My first thought is that this statement is clearly factually unsound. Our church is, as you probably already know, organized as a corporation, not, in fact a church. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints” is the trademark of a business entity, not the title of a church. So therefore, I have issues with the statement “I know the Church is true” on technical grounds.
I also struggle with the statement metaphorically. If we are, in fact, not referring to the technical church/business as “true,” then I personally assume the next line of reference would be the body of Christ. So then the statement, “I know the Church is true” becomes a statement about how we are the true body of Christ. However, in this thought vein even the hard line, orthodox members of our church would probably admit that the body of Christ extends beyond our institutional boundaries. And therefore, this statement makes no sense metaphorically either.
When people say, “I know the Church is true,” I have concluded that this as a practical statement communicating their comfort with turning over moral agency into the hands of the institutional church. They trust that God speaks directly with our leaders, and therefore they trust our leaders to guide our hearts and minds in directions that deepen our connection with God.
In my personal, obsessive study of both history and theology, I have concluded that nothing could be further from the truth. Prophets are clearly fallible, whether it’s my beloved Paul telling first century Jesus-following women not to talk in church, or Brigham Young taking away the priesthood from black people and sealing Jane Manning to Joseph Smith as his eternal servant. It is not uncommon for us to comment on the concept of prophetic fallibility in church, but when we counter that by repeating “I know the Church is true” as a mark of unconditional trust in our leaders, we undo any possibility of internalizing prophetic fallibility as true doctrine.
When I see children stand up to say, “I know the Church is true,” I die inside. That we would teach our children to say “I know” something that is legally, technically, and metaphorically false appalls me. But to condition young children to turn their pure intelligence into the hands of fallible leaders (who I consider at this point to be whitened sepulchers full of LGBTQ bones) feels like a violent affront to humanity itself. I point out to my own children that they have excellent brains in their heads, pure hearts in their bodies, and souls that can commune directly with God. But still, I question if my words carry enough weight to counter the full force of the institution and the LDS culture we live in.
Therefore, on Sunday after sitting through a doozy sacrament meeting filled with “I know the Church is true” statements, I arrived in Relief Society already questioning whether it is emotionally or spiritually healthy for me to attend church, at least on fast Sundays. To my immediate dismay, I discovered the lesson for the day was Dallin Oaks’ talk about how heterosexual marriage is God’s Plan of Happiness. The lesson shook me to my core, and by the time it was finished I was literally trembling from head to foot. My friend, Jill, was also battered and quickly walked outside with me afterward to hold me and comfort me while I sobbed. Even though I have attended church for years as a nuanced believer and regularly handle statements with which I personally disagree (such as the entire fast and testimony meeting right before), I have never experienced anything as traumatic as that lesson.
The teacher started out with an anecdote about how she had to physically restrain herself from shaking a teenage girl who had the audacity to tell her that people should be free to marry whom they choose. Now, I understand that we belong to a church that loudly, vocally supports heterosexual marriage, and I respect the religious freedom of speech this teacher exercised in teaching Dallin Oaks’ (albeit horrific) talk. At the same time, this anecdote set the tone for the class. It clearly communicated how she would feel if anyone voiced an opinion contrary to hers or the Church’s. It did not create a safe space for dialogue. Considering this is THE issue prompting our LGBTQ sisters and brothers to commit suicide, I think whenever we teach this topic at church, the least we can do is make absolutely sure that everyone in the room feels safe to at least discuss this authentically. Not everyone in the room supports the Church’s stance here. We need to acknowledge this reality as fact going into these discussions and figure out a way to make this space safe in both directions. Orthodox members should feel safe vocalizing their opinions, and nuanced believers should also feel safe in vocalizing theirs. Creating a safe space for discussion here is admittedly extremely difficult, but starting off by reflecting on the time you wanted to shake someone who thought differently than you is one way to ensure failure.
I was hoping for spiritual relief from the next anecdote in the lesson, which was about how the teacher did the temple work for her nephew, the son of her aetheist sister in law. Unfortunately, this anecdote was used to illustrate how we as church members hold superior beliefs to our unbelieving family members; we need not grieve the deaths of our children as deeply as they do because we have hope in the gospel. At this point, I believe the room started swimming for me. I could not believe that the legitimate grief and trauma of a family member would be exploited in a church lesson to illustrate how superior our faith and Church are. It seemed like a mockery of Christianity itself.
My cousin courageously commented about her trans nephew and how she has had to open her mind and expand her love as he has transitioned. This comment was completely ignored, as was my follow-up comment that we need to respect each other’s religious freedom, create a church environment where all feel safe, and remember that policies have changed in the past.
I think I might have been able to recover from this *lowest-point-of-personal-church-experience-EVER* had not the Relief Society president ended the lesson by telling us, through tears, that what had been taught was the beautiful doctrine of God, that we need to take personal responsibility for our testimonies of this, and get God to tell us this is truth. This person is my dear friend. I love her. And I could not believe what I was hearing, because I felt sure that this comment must have been at least partially directed at me. I spoke up in class and marked myself as someone who obviously disagreed with this doctrine. Therefore this injunction to take responsibility for my testimony of heterosexual marriage felt like a personal admonition from my spiritual leader.
At that point, I started shaking and almost ran out of the room when the prayer finished. I barely made it outside the church before I cried gut wrenching sobs into the arm of my friend, Jill. I then spent the next several hours shaking and crying, at times into my cousin’s arms, into my aunt’s, into my husband’s, and into my mother’s. I knew I had just experienced the death of my Mormon self. As a Mormon, I am sure you can appreciate the depth of this loss. This piece of me tethered me to God for two decades, not to mention it shaped me to myself and defined my relation to the world. There are no words to adequately describe this type of death. It is excruciating pain.
But I knew from the moment I heard the words, “take responsibility for your personal testimony and God will tell you this is true,” that I could no longer spiritually thrive in this church. I have struggled with doubts on and off for almost a decade. I have had times when I have been able to successfully ignore and squash my doubts by saying “I know” from the pulpit, even though I knew I really didn’t know. God has spoken to me at times, but God has never, in spite of my best efforts, told me that marriage is for heterosexual people only.
And truly, I have made honest efforts to open a way for God to tell me specific things like that so my testimony would feel more reliable and conventional. At times I tried to fix my testimony by, as a young mother, sacrificing two to four hours a day to scripture study, one time for nine months straight (during which time I was a mother of a toddler, sleep deprived and nursing a newborn). I have prayed continually. With the understanding that faith in things that are untrue is not even real faith, I have sought true knowledge in order to purify my faith. At this point, I have read thousands upon thousands of pages of church history, the majority of which I read in the hopes that I would learn that The Church is True.
I did not learn this. God did not teach me, at any point, that my hunch that LGBTQ people should have the same freedoms and rights as heterosexual people was wrong. Instead, God has tutored me about Jesus, about universal redemption, about grace and Love so broad and wide that the Mormon in me could scarcely comprehend it, much less believe it.
But this type of spirituality, which might be nourished and even celebrated in other churches, is not compatible with a life completely inside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It is different, it is “undeveloped,” it is suspect and forever second-rate. As a member of this church holding these types of views, I might be valued as a signpost to the orthodox that the tent is actually as broad as people want to believe it is, but that is the only way my contribution is valuable or desired. My experience on Sunday taught me that, at the end of the day, I do not really have a place at this particular table.
And so I have decided to leave the table for a season. I do not know what the future holds. Ideally, I want my family to worship together. I was raised going to church with either my mom or my dad. Religion was a divisive topic in my home, and Sundays were always a sad reminder that my parents were not united. I do not want my children to navigate this type of sadness or pain. And so I do leave the door open to return to church, if no other options can be found.
I want to close by thanking you, Bishop, for being a safe space for me. Thank you for reading this. Thank you for understanding me, for supporting me, for allowing me to hold a calling even though you knew I held no orthodox beliefs. Thank you for being a kind human. If anyone could make this institution safer and better for people like me, I believe you can and do. It is with that firm hope that I have typed up my experience, so you can think about it and, if inclined, perhaps take steps to ensure others like me have a different experience in this ward. I know for a fact I was not the only person alienated this past Sunday. Several women reached out to me, and I reached out to additional friends who feel similarly. There is a small but very healthy number in this Relief Society of nuanced, liberal believers. They are in pain, and they do not feel real community is possible if they are not free to voice their beliefs. After last Sunday, they are all aware Relief Society is no longer a place to voice their honest opinions.
I believe you can make this ward better for them.
Thank you so much for reading this. God bless you in your efforts to serve and minister to this community.
With love,
Lily Darais