My Mormon Era

I had my experience with Mormonism (actively) for about 5 years starting when I was 21, converted by missionaries with the help of my already converted older brother. He was converted about three years prior when working in rural Australia by the Utah salesmen who did a top job with him. When he returned home, he made the proud announcements that he had been baptised into this wonderful church and we all should have a look and do the same. I went through two years in the Australian Army as a Mormon, that was tough. Some inspiring stories and many typical victim-of-mormon-bashing stuff. But I was young and full of faith and armed with all the stock answers that I had learned. Also, I simply hung out with other mormons, not that there were many in the army, but it was the only way to go.

I joined the church for all the wrong reasons – my older brother, whose opinion I respected so much, wanted me to join. I know that he was instructed by the church leaders that it was his solemn duty to convert me and the rest of the family, failure in that task no doubt would have denied him the Celestial Kingdom. I went along to lots of social occasions of the church with him and met so many others who showed so much love, friendship, fellowship and interest – you know that whole scene. I never bothered to read much of the actual scripture but did believe that all these intelligent people, especially my brother, could not be wrong, and their faith spawned mine. I guess you could say that I fell in line on borrowed faith, but that was good enough for everyone else, and it pleased everyone else so much, so why not? I don’t think that I ever had a real testimony of my own, just a borrowed one which after a while I could no longer sustain the interest payments.

Next on the list, of course, was my girlfriend, later she became my wife, and my parents. My sweetheart was brought up as a Presbyterian, her father a lay minister, and she, while not super religious, was simply not interested in getting into all that mormon stuff. My father would not accept any of the teachings, but was quite happy to have the missionaries in our home. Mostly this was because he felt sympathy for them. He thought they were just brainwashed religious zellots but he saw that they were just nice young guys a long way from home. We welcomed them on many occasions and my father was proud to show them genuine friendship and give them the comfort of our home and genuine home cooked food at least once every week. All that stopped when my father asked one missionary (who was always trying his sales routines) how he would describe faithful, but non-mormon Christians. The missionary replied that they were really only psudeo christians. Dad was outraged, and no longer felt any sympathy for any missionary and would not discuss anything on the topic ever again. Such bigotry was not something that he was about to tollerate.

However, I did continue with the church at that time, and it really did take up all of my time and committment. I followed the church teaching that you did not question things too much, just follow the gospel principles and everything would be fine. But then I saw some things going on within the church when I got deeply involved that I was not really able to accept. I had really deliberately ignored some things that often did not sit right with me because that would not have been in line with the way of being a good mormon. But gradually, these things were mounting up in my mind to the point that they could not be ignored any more. Given that I was not that sincerely converted anyway, I just fell away from the church. By that time I was an elder, doing all the elder things of priesthood, meeting after meeting, teaching, lots of callings, driving lots of people all around to church meetings and so on. Many attempts to reactivate me failed as I really could not just go along any more. By this time I had read quite a bit of the Bible and had already found problems that I was not prepared to argue about, it was just easier to go my own way, and let the true believers in mormonism to go theirs.

Strangely, the whole thing keeps rattling around in my head even after all these years. Now I am older, maybe a little wiser, certainly more worldly and street wise, and hardly ever take anything at face value any more. Maybe this is something that I do have to thank that church for. Recently I have started to read lots of scripture, but not mormon stuff, just the bible, and doing some resesrch generally about all the questions. I have lots of questions, and the more answers that I find, the more questions that come out of that new knowledge.

I have seen the mounting evidence against the mormon church and, quite frankly, I think that I always knew that it could not be true – well, that is how I feel now. With the advent of the internet it is now so easy to find so much information so fast, it is impossible to sit back and not make those simple enquiries. I have found that it is quite Impossible to believe the church published stories and doctrines. The internet and modern ease of access to information will surely bring many many others to be similarly enlightened about what is the real story.

As for Joseph Smith – I conclude that he was a most amazing individual in that he had a triple gift. He had the combined gifts of near perfect recall memory, brilliant imagination, and story telling ability that would put all the best selling novelists in the shade.

What is my religion now? Well, as I have said, I am now spending time doing research and study of my own – forming my own opinions and making my own interpretations of the texts that I read. I don’t think that I fall completely into the classification of athiest, not yet anyway. Perhaps agnostic is close, although I prefer not to consider myself a number in anyone classification. Further observations I will be posting here over time.