Unwavering Faith

I l istened to another exit story found here , and this was about a guy who left the church and redefined his Christian views which aligned more like those of the Baptists.  While listening, there were a few things he mentioned that resonated with me at this time: Mormons teach that grace is sufficient before, during, and after all we can do (talk by Brad Wilcox). However, the Bible teaches grace is sufficient when we accept Christ without any further actions on our part. He called this the Impossible Gospel concept, that through Mormonism, you need to be constantly moving or doing something to qualify for this grace whereas in mainstream Christianity, it is available to you at the mere mention of Jesus' name.   “ No success can compensate for failure in the home .” A classic Mormon quote that hurt this man when his marriage broke down as he navigated his conversion.  Whilst the spirit in which this quote is given highlights the family’s importance, the secondary and impl...

The Stories of Others As I undertook my own faith transition, I began listening to the stories of others and how they felt during the process. I found this helped me because all I wanted to do was talk to people about the experience I was going through, but I didn’t know who to turn to. I didn’t want to stir up problems with believing members, and I didn’t want to explain the nuance to people who hadn’t been in the church.  This video here was  about a bishop who  didn’t consider himself to be a spiritual person, who  read the gospel topic essays , and found them to be deeply troubling. This was one of the first times I heard about these essays , which are written by anonymous authors and published on the church website in a not-so-obvious  place. I heard someone mention that it’s the church’s liability protection for when people say, “Hey, the church never taught that.” The topics range from the wives of Joseph Smith, the translation process of the Book o...

I knew that making the decision to move myself way from church was probably going to mean I would have discussions with certain people, and that I would have to answer the question “why are are leaving the church?” I had a dinner organised with a close friend that night and had a feeling that this topic would come up at some point. And so, I began reflecting on what the exact reason was so that I could in a simplified way relate that to them. At this stage, I did not have a summed up response. I then got a phone call from an old coworker where this question was asked. I ended up using this conversation as a test run  for how the coming dinner might go. I even said this to him, to which he laughed. Our conversation was extremely civil and was largely centred around the guilt and shame cycle that I experienced particularly as a youth around masturbation, which again, I believe is a normal thing and something that is the business of a young person. Something surprised me in his respon...