You've Been Charged With Hypocrisy: How Do You Plead?

As a New Order Mormon (a Mormon who does not believe in the church but still attends), I get a lot of ex-Mormons and other Mormons who don't really understand why my husband and I are still attending church. Sometimes they argue that we're being hypocritical by continuing to attend church and support an organization that we no longer intellectually affiliate with.

That's a fair charge. And you know what? I plead guilty. I do often feel like a hypocrite and I experience a great deal of stress and cognitive dissonance every time I interact with the church in any kind of official capacity or whenever I interact with TBMs (which is fairly regularly).

So, you might be asking things like how can I sleep with myself at night? Well, the reason is that right now I prioritize other things over my personal integrity and the consistency of my public appearance. Right now, I'm placing a higher priority on my relationship with my family, friends, and neighbors than my personal integrity. Personal integrity is of course important to me, but right now it's being placed on the back burner next to weightier matters such as my relationships with other people.

Let me state up front that we intend to ask for releases from our callings and gradually slide into inactivity between the months of April to July. It's all part of the plan, so don't get too worried.

Allow me to explain our past and current reasons for continuing to attend church as they've evolved over time:

1. We wanted to give our family members time to get acclimated to the idea that we would eventually leave the church. The whole time we were struggling with our faith crisis, we kept it strictly between ourselves. We didn't tell our bishop or our family members because we wanted to work through the whole thing on our own. If we ended up continuing to believe the church was true, then no harm would have been done. If we ended up losing our faith, then we wouldn't hurt anyone else in the process. (Going through a faith crisis is incredibly painful and I don't feel that I have the right to foist that upon anyone else. If someone is already in a faith crisis, I'll be happy to help them work through it---and I have no personal commitment to whatever the outcome of their faith crisis is. Everyone has to decide whether their life is better inside or outside of the church for themselves---and I'm not going to judge them either way.)

After we had concluded that we had officially lost our faith in Mormonism and were going to leave the church, we didn't want to scare our family by just suddenly leaving the church. Our faith crisis had happened over the course of a year and had involved long, intense moments of deep introspection. But to an outsider, it would appear as though we had made a very sudden and rash decision. We knew that would confuse and hurt our family members. And since they are very important to us, we wanted to gradually get them used to the idea that we might leave the church. We hoped this would subtly communicate that we had not made this decision in haste and that we had given the church a fair chance (notwithstanding the 30+ years of giving the church a fair chance prior to our faith crisis). Now that more than a year has passed since we first clued our parents into the situation, the time is ripening for our departure.

2. We wanted to build a social network outside of the church. One time when I was in the middle of my faith crisis, I took a look at the statistics of my social network using Facebook. At the time, 82% of my social network was LDS. And of the 50 or so individuals who comprised the other 18%, only 1 or 2 of those were very intimate, close relationships. (I plan to do a longer blog entry discussing the unique social network of Mormonism, so stay tuned!) This was a bit of a problem for me because that meant that if I were to suddenly leave the church, I would be jumping into a new world with almost no social support. I'm an introvert so I suppose it wouldn't have been that bad; nevertheless, it didn't seem very healthy to me. We wanted to make sure we had some good friends outside of the church before we left it completely. Nowadays, I'm happy to report that we have established some very good relationships with ex-Mormons and never-Mormons that are richer and more meaningful than our relationships with people inside the church. Again, the atmosphere for our departure is getting better.

3. We want our departure from our ward to be a quiet one. I must admit, I do see the appeal of this particular approach to leaving the church:

But setting aside the sheer coolness factor behind leaving the church in a noisy (and speedy) way, the "live out loud" approach advocated by John Larsen (and others) is just too costly for me.

We like our house and we don't want to move. Nearly all of our neighbors are members of the church and we don't want to burn any bridges with any of them. If we are seen as being full-blown apostates to our neighbors, we will begin to be treated differently by them because we'll be viewed as a threat. We won't be able to maintain our relationships of respect and trust with them. Our kids might not be allowed to form friendships with the other kids in our neighborhood. And worst of all: we'll lose all of our baby-sitters.

We think it's better to be viewed by our neighbors and ward members as inactive. If they want to conjecture that we stopped attending church because we were lazy or something, I'll be fine with that. I'll know in my heart that it isn't the truth and that's enough for me. I'm happy to sacrifice my control over my public reputation in order to maintain peace and good will with my neighbors. (Besides, I think it's silly to imagine that I ever had full control over the way I am perceived by others to begin with.)

4. I prefer to keep my religious beliefs private so that I don't hurt the people I love and so that I can keep myself from being hurt. I've come to find profound meaning in Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall." The poem is about a pair of farmers who go about repairing the wall that marks the boundary between their property. The narrator of the poem says, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." On one level, he thinks it is silly to build and maintain the walls that separate their farms---especially in places where the wall is unnecessary, such as in their orchards. I agree with the narrator's perspective. I think honesty (the removal of walls) is preferable. I wish we could all just be real with each other, that we could all live without facades. Then we could realize that we are all pretty normal human beings and that we're not so different from one another. We could work through our issues together and reach a mutually agreeable understanding about our differences.

Last weekend, I was talking with a non-traditional Mormon who had just discovered earlier that week that her younger brother hadn't believed in the church for nearly 4 years, but had kept it to himself the whole time. That's the cost of building walls: you can't help each other in moments of pain and dissonance because you're too busy hiding from one another.

But, at the same time, I see the wisdom behind the narrator's neighbor too. The narrator's neighbor simply states: "Good fences make good neighbors." He has a good point. I've been burned quite a bit by being honest with my parents about my faith crisis. We've had some intense exchanges that have resulted in tears and have caused week-long spells of deep depression for me. I've realized that I can't be fully honest with TBMs because it hurts both them and me in really painful, almost unbearable ways. I would love it if only they could understand me, but I think there is some futility in trying to force that understanding prematurely. I think that some day, when we're ready and our relationship is in the right place, I'll be able to be honest. I'll continue to hope and have patience for that day---and if it never comes, I'm resigned to that possibility. But for now, I'm building a few walls to keep both my family, friends and myself safe from pain. I've set some boundaries about what I will and will not share about my personal life. And that's because I want to minimize the collateral damage associated with my departure.

Right now I just focus on expressing myself in forums like this blog or on Mormon Expression or private Facebook groups. And that's good enough for me. I don't think it's unreasonable to keep some aspects of your life private from some of the people around you. That's how all healthy human relationships usually work: you wait to reveal intensely personal things about yourself until you have developed a certain level of intimacy and trust in your relationships. You can still maintain a healthy, casual relationship with people without telling your neighbors, or your co-workers, or your former college roommates everything about your personal religious beliefs.

5. It's hard to reset your life to zero all at once. It should be noted that up until 2 years ago, I had fully bought into Mormonism for most of my life. I sincerely believed in it. I kept all of its rules. I was heavily active in the church because I loved it. It was a very big part of my life.

When something is an integral part of your life, you can't just press the "erase" button and expect it all to go away without a hitch. It has taken quite a while to de-program Mormonism out of our lives. For example, we kept praying over our food long after we stopped believing in prayer because it was a life-long habit. Eventually, the only way we could get ourselves out of that habit was to replace it with a new habit: the Japanese ritual of saying "Itadakimasu" before eating. And that was something as silly as what to do before eating---let alone bigger issues like drinking and what not.

We started by dipping our toes in the waters of ex-Mormonism, and now we're taking gradually wading into the deep end as opposed to jumping head-first into the water all at once. We're getting experienced enough now to where we can probably get rid of the flotation device and start swimming on our own now.

6. I don't want to burn any bridges permanently. One thing that's important to keep in mind about my faith crisis is that it has resulted in being pretty comfortable with uncertainty. I've realized in a very profound way that it's possible for me to be wrong---dead wrong---about really important things. It's a very humbling experience. But I've come to feel okay with it because I've realized that I'm making the best decisions and reaching the most reasonable conclusions with all of the imperfect information that I currently have available to me. I believe it's important that I never keep myself from feeling too certain my current position is right because I've learned that my sense of certainty is almost always misplaced. I want to make sure that I'm always questioning myself and that I never stop searching for truth and more information. I'm comfortable with remaining flexible, with a willingness to update my perspectives in the future as more evidence becomes available. As the famous economist John Maynard Keynes once said when he was accused of hypocrisy: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

Maybe things will change in the future as more information becomes available to me or as my life circumstances change. Maybe I'll move on to a Fowler Stage 5 and become one of those Mormon Stories/Mormon Matters people. Or maybe I won't. Either way, I want to be humble enough to give myself room to change my mind in the future. So, I don't want to burn my bridges with the church in the process.

***

At the end of the day, I've reached a place where I love myself and I love everyone else---no matter where they're at in their own personal faith journey or where they stand on the spectrum of Mormonism. I believe that everyone is making the right choices for themselves based on their own personal circumstances. I respect their right to decide the path for themselves in their own way and on their own timetable. I just hope that other people will extend me the same courtesy.

Fostering a Good Environment for Independent Thought (and Why the Church Fails to Do It)

I liked a blog entry posted by A Mormon in the Cheap Seats on the Doves and Serpents blog not too long ago. It flowcharted the epistemology (e.g. method for discovering whether something is true or not) that is taught in a traditional Sunday School.

I've modified the flowchart a little bit to discuss why I don't think the church fosters a very healthy level of independent thought---meaning that the church doesn't provide a safe environment in which its members are free to reach their own conclusions on important matters. The key feature of independent thought is being able to question authority figures or express ambivalence, skepticism, or dissent.

I like the way the Jesse Tahrili expressed the value of independent thought in his Growing Up With Scientist Mom comic strip:

Being told how to do something can be great. To bypass that initial struggle for information, to instantly understand that fire is hot without having to burn yourself. Today, you could learn more about gravity in one day than Isaac Newton learned in an entire lifetime! This method of passing down information to younger generations is something that has allowed humanity to thrive and progress for centuries. But this reliance on second-hand information is also one of our greatest downfalls. We live in an imperfect world, and to blindly trust everything we're told can be dangerous. Falsities, especially ones that we'd really like to believe, can infect our collective knowledge and proliferate like a virus. We must constantly question ourselves and seek to ensure that what we believe as truth always has a firm grounding in reality.

With that in mind, let's talk about how the church tells us to do in response to what authority figures within the church say. This is the classical epistemological model of Mormonism, as based on Doctrine and Covenants section 8 and 9:

That all seems pretty straightforward, right?

In its ideal form, I don't have too many qualms with this model of verifying whether our leaders are speaking truthfully or not. Although I don't really think that one should rely solely on emotional instinct to determine the veracity of a particular statement, it's not a bad place to start the process of critical inquiry. I also like that this model places the locus of control within the individual rather than in the authority figure; it's ultimately the responsibility of the individual to seek for and verify truth. This ideal model also suggests a fairly healthy system of “checks and balances” within church government, if you will. Every church member is taught that they have a right and a responsibility to ask the Lord whether our leaders are inspired and that they are entitled to an answer through personal revelation.

The problem is: this flowchart doesn't actually describe the process of revelation in the lived reality of most Mormons' experience. Here's the way the process of personal revelation actually works for most members of the church:

If it isn't immediately obvious, there are a number of problems with this model. The central problem is that there is only one possible conclusion: what the leader has stated is true. Although this process may superficially appear to open up the possibility for dissent and doubt, it ultimately denies it in the end. The only possible outcome is that what the leader has said is true. And if that is the only option, then it negates the possibility that this is a system in which independent thought can be cultivated in healthy ways.

This has a host of negative consequences. A few that I can think of are:

• Sexism. This is a big one for me. If only males are in positions of power (e.g. they make the bulk of the decisions for the organization and interpret church doctrine) and if these male leaders can never be in the wrong or can never be questioned or criticized, then that's deeply unfair to women in the church. It makes it impossible for women to have any kind of real influence or power within the church, which has serious consequences for women's mental health and for the overall health of the organization in general.
• Lack of accountability. When leaders cannot be questioned or criticized without fear of negative consequences, that creates a system in which there is no process for people to address grievances, to express valid concerns, or to enact necessary change. When people in an organization feel that they have no control or no voice in how the organization is run, it has the potential to create psychological problems.
• Low self-esteem or depression. In the flowchart above, you'll notice that the only possible explanation for why you can't seem to agree with your leaders is that there is something flawed with you as an individual. I bristle at the arrogant idea that the church organization and its leaders are somehow above reproach and that all of its problems lie in its inherently weak members. It's reminiscent of abusive relationships in which one person always gives and the other only takes. A relationship in which one party is always right and the other party is always wrong is NOT a healthy relationship.
• Intolerance. Most importantly, it creates a lack of support for people who do not fit the standard model in their beliefs, behavior or lifestyle. It promotes conformity to the group at the expense of the individual. It creates rigid, inflexible systems that do not adapt well to changing conditions and environments.

That's just a brief laundry list off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more potential negative outcomes that I may not have thought of. But, of course, one of the most serious consequences is that this model shuts down independent thought, moving the locus of control away from the individual members and onto the leader---who is prone to fallibility, short-sightedness, and possible corruption (even when his intentions are good).

The majority of members don't even bother to go through the classical process of asking the Lord whether the things their leader has said are true. Since it's obvious you'll end up in the same place anyway (the leader was right), why attempt to ask God directly in the first place? You might as well just save yourself the pain and skip over the whole critical thinking and evaluation process in the first place. But this is not a good option because critical inquiry and research has been the primary means through which human civilization has been advanced. Organizations which create environments that are anathema to critical inquiry are an impediment this kind of progress on a macro and micro level. This has extremely far-reaching moral implications. As painful and messy as open dialogue and skepticism can be, nearly every individual or society is much better and more healthy after having gone through the crucible of argumentation.

Now, to be fair, I want to point out that nearly all human institutions (governments, businesses, universities, families) have the potential to create environments that are not conducive to independent thought. It's probably an inevitable part of any human organization. But the fact that the church is prone to the same kinds of problems that are exhibited in other "worldly" institutions is probably yet another piece of evidence that it's just another flawed human construction---no more special or divine than any of the rest.

To the Souls of All Those Who Drink: That They May Have This Spirit to Be With Them

Last weekend my husband and I took a very big step in our journey away from Mormonism: we tried alcohol for the first time. From a purely academic perspective, I had stopped believing in the Word of Wisdom a long time ago (especially the version of the Word of Wisdom as interpreted by the contemporary church). But doubting the Word of Wisdom on an intellectual level is fairly different from experiencing it first-hand. I tried tea for the first time on my anniversary trip to Las Vegas last August. (I know, I know... It's pretty lame to go all the way to Las Vegas just to try an iced tea.) And I had tried coffee for the first time during Conference Weekend last October. Neither tea nor coffee had felt like that big of a deal. But alcohol? That was taking it to a new level.

So, last weekend we gave it a shot (pun intended). Read on if you want to see how the whole experience turned out and what I learned as a result.


The Context
By now, my husband Chris and I have been in a few different social situations where people were drinking and where we could have joined in if we had wanted to. There was a dinner party back in July with Chris's coworkers and I felt acutely awkward being the only couple who weren't drinking. Ever since then, I had thought a lot about if, when, and how I would try alcohol for the first time.

I hate to admit it, but fear was the driving motivation behind choosing to abstain from alcohol for so long. It's a very scary thing to try alcohol for the first time when you've been programmed your whole life to view alcohol as something evil and sinful---a slippery slope into Satan's open arms.

Last week I was was chatting online with my friend Brad (a long time ex-Mormon) about alcohol. I mentioned that for most never-Mormons, your first alcoholic drink is probably fairly unremarkable. On one level, it's a rite of passage. But on another level, it's also kind of mundane and ordinary---the sort of thing everyone does, so it's ultimately not that that big of a deal.

It's anything but ordinary for a Mormon. For a Mormon, it is the psychological equivalent of losing your virginity---with nearly all of the same psychosocial ramifications (only to the nth degree). When I mentioned this, Brad fully agreed. He said that having his first drink felt much scarier than having sex for the first time: it was taking your status outside of the church to a whole new level.

My conversation with Brad eventually drifted over to how Chris and I were probably going to try alcohol soon at a future dinner party this month. Brad started giving me some advice about what to try first and what things to avoid, how to drink appropriately, etc. But the more he was talking about the finer details of alcohol, the more I started to feel overwhelmed by the entire prospect.

Since it became apparent that it was going to be a psychologically difficult thing to do, I began to realize that I wanted my first experience with alcohol to be under ideal conditions. For me, that meant:

• It needed to be in a social or psuedo-social situation. Alcohol's main function is to be a social lubricant, so it wouldn't make sense to try it in total social isolation.
• But it needed to be a safe social situation. I didn't know how I would respond to alcohol in my system. Would I be friendly and sociable under the influence of alcohol? Or would I be really embarrassing or annoying? I needed someone who wouldn't judge me either way.
• At the same time, I felt I needed to be introduced to alcohol by someone who came from Mormonism---someone who would understand if I wanted to take it slow because they knew what a big step it was emotionally. I needed someone who wouldn't get mad if I decided to chicken out. And someone who wouldn't get upset if I took a sip of $60 wine and said, "That's disgusting!"
• Lastly, I needed someone who could humor my husband's need for scientific experimentation. I definitely wouldn't be doing any drinking unless my husband Chris was with me, but he had always insisted he wanted his first experiment with alcohol to be under controlled conditions in which he could closely monitor the effects it had on him. In other words: he needed it to appeal to his intellectual side (which is where he feels most comfortable and safe).

As I thought more about it, I came to the conclusion that I needed my friend Brad to help introduce me and my husband into the world of alcohol. He was the perfect one to do it: he and I had been friends for more than a decade, he was an ex-Mormon and had supported me during my entire faith crisis, he was a connoissuer of fine wines, and he was spontaneous enough to be willing to fly over to Utah to share my first drink with me and my husband. When I mentioned it to him, he was totally excited about it and booked the next weekend flight out from California.

I felt enthusiastic about the decision at the time, but that enthusiasm quickly started to wane and turn into anxiety in the 48 hours leading up to our little alcohol party. Visions of disapproving parents danced through my head. ("You'll become an alcoholic after just one drink! It's in your genes!") I started seeing the signs that I was getting stressed: my muscles tensed up, I started getting migraines, and I began yelling at my kids more frequently. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to go through with it.

The next afternoon (Saturday), Brad showed up on my doorstep with more alcohol than I had ever seen in my life: two cardboard boxes and 6 grocery bags worth of beers, wines, and liqueurs. The alcohol he brought filled up my entire kitchen counter. There wasn't room in the fridge for much else after putting away all the alcohol that needed to be chilled. I was awestruck by how much cold, hard cash Brad had invested in my first experience with alcohol. (THANK YOU, BRAD! That truly was a beau geste.) And while it was thrilling to see all that alcohol, it was emotionally overwhelming at the same time. (Incidentally, Brad didn't intend for us to drink all of it: just to experiment with the full range of alcohol to see what we liked. See: I told you he understood my husband's scientific mind.) Eventually, I couldn't put it off any longer, and it was time to begin...


What We Tried and What We Liked/Hated
We started drinking around 7:00 after our kids went to bed. Chris had made an elaborate Japanese dish called Nabe that is eaten over the course of an hour. We ate dinner and sampled a few different wines from the gamut of white to red, light to strong. I wrote down that we tried:

• Frog's Leap - a classic Chardonnay (white wine)
• A to Z - an unsoaked Chardonnay from Oregon (white)
• Ridge - a Sonoma County (Geyserville) Zinfadel (white)
• Riesling
• Caymus - an expensive Cabernet Sauvignon (a strong red wine; this was Brad's drink of choice for the rest of the night)

Chris hated all of them. The smell and taste of the alcohol was just too strong for him. For me, the taste was just fine. That's probably because I've always had a very open palette. (I absolutely loved sushi the first time I tried it, for example.) For Chris, some of the wines caused an intense burning sensation going down. I didn't really experience that. I had a light burning sensation, but it was much lighter than the burning sensation I get from drinking something like Coke (which I drink on a fairly regular basis). The only drawback was that since the wines were young, they had a really strong finish. This made it so that the wine tasted stronger (and therefore not quite as enjoyable) with each sip for me.

Later in the evening (like around 9:00 and going as late as 1:00), we moved on to hard liquors. We tried:

• Amaretto Sour (Amaretto with Sweet and Sour mix; had a sweet taste)
• Buttery Nipple shots (Buttershots liqueur with Irish cream; had a butterscotch taste)
• Red-Headed Sluts (cranberry juice and Jagermeister; a drink that tasted like black licorice)
• Long Island Iced Tea (a variety of alcohols in this one such as tequila and gin; imitates the taste of tea)
• Caribou Lou (pineapple juice, coconut rum and 151 proof alcohol; had a tropical taste)
• Lime Ricki (we did it with grape-infused vodka, lime juice, etc.; had a sweet taste)

As for me, the Amaretto Sour was my favorite drink of the night, but I appreciated the taste of all of them (for the most part). The Long Island Iced Tea was a little too much for me because the gin was too strong. Since I have a sweet tooth, I probably would have liked the Lime Ricki a lot better if we had used regular Sprite instead of Sprite Zero.

Chris ended up having a sensitivity to the taste of alcohol and didn't enjoy any of the drinks. He preferred shots because they were over quickly. The Caribou Lou was his favorite drink of the night because, although the 151 was (obviously) a very high proof, it wasn't as noticeable since the alcohol ratio was fairly low compared to the pineapple juice.

We never got around to trying any of the beers Brad brought, so I'll have to report on those later when we get around to opening them.


How We Acted While Under the Influence
Brad talked about the different levels of intoxication. Here's how he defined it:

1. Sober: Little to no alcohol in your system
2. Buzzed: You can start to feel the effects (such as a slight buzz), but they will be fairly light
3. Well-lubricated: You can't concentrate as well and the effects become stronger
4. Drunk: You'll have trouble with coordination and the effects will be fairly strong
5. Blitzed: Your brain won't be in control of your body very much (for example, you'll want to walk one direction and go the other)

Chris and I floated between level 2-3 for most of the night. Brad broke some of his personal rules and floated between 3-4 for most of the night.

It had surprised me how easily and how quickly you could increase your level of intoxication---and also how subtle the differences were from one level to the next. In that moment, it made a lot more sense why alcohol could potentially be abused if you were not trying to deliberately remain in control of your rate of consumption. That being said, I didn't think it was that difficult for me to drink smart and responsibly. I think I will be able to maintain control of my alcohol consumption as long as I make the decision beforehand how far I will and won't go in general.

Going into the evening, I was very nervous about what kind of drunk I'd be. I was really hoping that I would be a happy drunk as opposed to being a quiet drunk, an angry drunk or a sad drunk. Although I'm sure that I might act differently in a different social context, I was pleased to discover that both Chris and I were happy, sociable drunks. I became a lot chattier, I laughed at jokes more easily, and I just generally became more relaxed and laid back. That was fairly pleasant.

After dinner, we played karaoke until 2am. I have a lot of fun playing karaoke when I'm sober, but I would say that alcohol probably made it 10-20% more enjoyable. (The highlight of the night was the hilarious trio while singing Lionel Ritchie's "All Night Long.") I noticed that I paid significantly less attention to the scores I was getting on karaoke (I'm normally very competitive), but I was still able to sing pretty well. Strangely enough, I had a much easier time sustaining the really long notes without running out of breath (or even getting remotely close to running out of breath). That probably means I was singing with my diaphragm a lot more (which makes sense since it's natural to sing with your diaphragm but somehow we get unconsciously socially programmed out of doing it). That was pretty awesome.

One thing that surprised me was that even though I could feel the effects of alcohol on my body, I didn't feel like I wasn't me. I felt mostly normal and able to concentrate (for the most part). My whole life I had thought that being drunk was like this:

Since I had never aspired to be Homer Simpson, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it wasn't really like that. At the same time, I found that what Brad had said was right: it was much easier to see how alcohol was changing the people around me than it was to see it in myself. I could see how that aspect of feeling mostly normal while intoxicated (when you really weren't) could also lead to potential alcohol abuse or to poor decision-making even though you feel as though you're fully in control. But again, I think if you exercise self-discipline and try to remain self-aware, it wouldn't be that difficult to keep your behavior in check. Better yet: ask your friends to help you remain self-aware.

My social inhibitions were definitely reduced while drinking. Chris looked way more attractive to me---and something that surprised me was that I also perceived myself as being more attractive when I looked in the mirror (during my many trips to the bathroom during the night). Maybe it was that slight flush in my cheeks---I don't know. I also became a lot more open to the idea of having sex and I consequently became more openly affectionate with Chris, which is probably something I wouldn't normally do in the presence of friends while sober (or at least not to that degree). I think for that reason, it's important to make decisions beforehand about what kinds of behaviors you will or will not do while you're intoxicated. It would be slightly harder to make good decisions in the heat of the moment. (But only slightly harder.)


Reactions from the Following Day
Even though we drank a fairly substantial amount, I didn't have a hangover the next morning. That's because, per Brad's advice, we kept ourselves well-hydrated with lots of water (hence the many trips I had to make to the bathroom). We also spread out our drinks over a long period of time which gave our body enough time to metabolize it at a reasonable rate. So, physically there were no problems.

I wasn't really in the best mood the following day, but I'm not certain whether that was a direct result of the alcohol or because I was running on a meager 4 hours of sleep. (The kids got up at 6:30am, the little angels!) Also, in the morning I didn't feel like I was fully able to concentrate yet, but I was well enough to be functional.

The only really negative aspect of it all was that I hadn't been able to find a substitute teacher for my Primary class. I was in a pretty sour mood just by virtue of having to be at church (which generally bugs me anyway) and I didn't have much patience with the kids. It didn't help that I felt pretty hypocritical sitting in church when I had been drinking the night before. Now, when I use the word hypocritical, I'm not using that term to imply that I was experiencing guilt or regret---I didn't feel any of that. It's more like I just felt really lame that I was still stuck in church performing Mormonism and keeping up appearances. I wanted to stop living a double life, to just be out and be done with it. (For the record, we've resolved to leave officially some time between April and July, depending on the circumstances.)

But more importantly, I felt like I had reached a new plateau in my journey out of Mormonism the night before. I felt like I was genuinely not a Mormon any more. It was like an anti-baptism, in some ways. (Heh, heh... Baptism by spirits.) In a certain sense, drinking alcohol for the first time seemed like a symbolic action on par with a religious ritual---entering into a different way of life with different expectations for myself.

I also felt very empowered. I felt like I could exercise constraint and good judgment despite what my mother believes. (Her first accusation upon discovering I wasn't wearing my garments was that I must have started drinking and was on the verge of becoming an alcoholic.) I felt that I no longer had to be motivated to avoid alcohol because of fear or shame, but that I could control my alcohol consumption through self-knowledge and experience. It made me feel a little bit more mature.

The fear of becoming an alcoholic is still in the back of my mind, but it's not a very serious threat to me any more. The only reason it's on my radar at all is because I pretty much enjoyed the taste of alcohol and liked the effect that it had on me socially. But I think that I have the self-discipline to keep from drinking excessively. One reason I think I'll be okay is because I was older than 25 before I started drinking and so my brain is fully mature and more averse to risk-taking than a teenager's brain is. Another reason is that Chris honestly doesn't have a desire to do very much drinking since he strongly disliked the taste of alcohol. So, I won't have very much pressure from him to drink---and he'll be a pretty good watchdog. Mostly I just think the occasional alcoholic drink will help me loosen me up at large parties when I'm in the company of new people---since I tend to be fairly slow to warm up in new social situations. That seems pretty reasonable to me.

The biggest surprise for me was that alcohol is really no big deal. It does help life seem a little bit nicer when you're intoxicated, but it's not like it's a life-changing, mind-altering level of pleasure. It was just nice. And it's not all that horrible and evil as I had been led to believe most of my life. If anything, the effects of alcohol were underwhelming. This weekend I saw first-hand that the church fetishizes alcohol, over-exaggerating its negative effects and making it more important than it needs to be. (A problematic mindset that can actually make you more prone to alcoholism, in my opinion.)

All in all, my first experience with alcohol was a positive one. To be honest, it's how I would want my kids to be introduced to alcohol when they're older, if I could choose the perfect world for them. Thanks again, Brad, for a great weekend!

Now the real question is: where will we hide all the leftover alcohol when my mother-in-law comes to visit in two weeks?

Gospel Principles #1 - Our Heavenly Father (NOM version)

See my previous blog entry to read how I taught this lesson in Relief Society.

For most of my adolescent and adult life, I had a strong belief in God. When I was 14, I had a transcendent experience (probably what some Christians would call the sensation of “being born again”) in which I prayed to God and felt strongly that he was real and that he loved me deeply. I remember feeling like I was on a spiritual high for nearly an entire week---just so utterly happy to feel God’s love and see his hand in my life.

For most of my life, I saw God as a loving parent who knew me more perfectly than I knew myself. I believed he was intimately aware of every detail of my life and that he regularly intervened on my behalf. And I furthermore believed he did this for everyone else on earth too---but not all of his children were fully aware of his love and his presence. This belief gave me a sense of purpose, an elevated self-esteem, and a feeling that everything would turn out okay for me in the end.

Those days are over now. It's interesting how far I've come from that too. I recently became a member of a private agnostic/atheist Facebook group for Mormons. (Funny---the person I was 2 years ago could not have even conceived that such a group existed, let alone become a member of one.) This morning a group member posted an interesting question:

Hey everybody, I was just curious about the spectrum of belief/disbelief in this group. Where do you guys fall on this 7-point scale? (Borrowed from Richard Dawkins.) All viewpoints on the issue are welcome. I just think that it might be interesting to clarify what each of us means when we say we are agnostics/atheists/nonbelievers, etc.

1. Strong Theist: I do not question the existence of God, I KNOW he exists.
2. De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain but I strongly believe in God and I live my life on the assumption that he is there.
3. Weak Theist: I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.
4. Pure Agnostic: God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.
5. Weak Atheist: I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical.
6. De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life under the assumption that he is not there.
7. Strong Atheist: I am 100% sure that there is no God.

I thought about it for a long time, and eventually I responded: "To be honest, my answer would probably change depending on which day you asked me. But on most days I would put myself at a solid 5. On my darker days, I'm a 7 and on my more optimistic, socially-amenable days I'm a 3."

Simply put, although today I am highly skeptical of God’s existence, I am willing to make room for the possibility that God might still exist. I do, however, feel confident that if God exists, he/she is probably very different from how I used to imagine him/her to be when I was younger. I'll explain why I've come to feel that way in this blog entry.

NOTE: The topic of today's blog entry is of course a very sensitive issue. It was actually very difficult to write this post since I knew so many people would see it differently than I do. So, let me just make it clear that I am in no way advocating that others adopt my views on God. You are welcome to retain your particular beliefs and I will respect them and even validate them. I just want to explain what my views are in order to make sense of it for myself. Also, I will refer to God using the male pronoun "he" for the sake of convenience---but not because I actually believe God is a male.

Contradictory Premises
As I already mentioned, I used to see God as a parent figure who was actively involved in my life. If I were to summarize my previous views on God in the form of a theorem, it would look like this:

1. God is a loving being who is fair and equitable, who wants the best for all of his children.
2. God is an all-powerful being who is capable of influencing the world and human events on both a large and small scale.
3. God is aware of each of his children’s lives and is actively trying to nurture them and influence their lives for the better.

While I feel it is possible for God to have any one of these three qualities, I’ve realized that you can’t have all three---you have to pick two. As soon as you choose one of those qualities, it immediately nullifies one of the other two.

Let me illustrate my meaning. Let’s take Theorem #1 which says that God is a loving being who is fair and equitable and who wants the best for his children. If that is true, it becomes very difficult to make sense of the extremely stark inequities and brutalities that exist in the world.

Take, this image for example:

This is a picture of thousands of shoes that used to belong to the Jewish men, women, and children who were systematically murdered in concentration camps by the Nazi soldiers during the Holocaust. When you watch films such as Night and Fog and read other accounts of the atrocities of the Holocaust, it is quite natural to ask: how could a loving and equitable God allow an estimated six million individuals to be heinously tortured and murdered solely because of their ethnicity?

The Book of Mormon attempts to answer this question in Alma 14. In this chapter, Alma and Amulek witness believing women and children being burned to death by the wicked unbelievers. When Amulek pleads with Alma to let them intervene using the powers God has given them, Alma replies in verse 11:

The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.

In other words, the righteous and the wicked will have their just rewards in the after-life. By that same logic, God doesn’t intervene in egregious human events such as the Holocaust so that Hitler’s wicked deeds will serve as a testament against him in the next life.

I suppose I could logically accept such an explanation (even though it is admittedly very unsatisfactory on an emotional level). However, this explanation makes Theorem #3 impossible because it suggests that God does not intervene in our lives for the most part (even though he has the power to do so). Perhaps he does so out of a respect for human agency or something to that effect.

But this is a bit of a problem for contemporary Mormons. If you visit a ward on any given Fast Sunday, you will hear many Mormons who provide anecdotal evidence asserting that Theorem #3 is most definitely true. Mormons are fond of sharing stories in which they could see that God had intervened in their life in some way. Probably the most typical example of this is when someone gets up and talks about how they lost something like their car keys, and then they miraculously found them shortly after praying to God for help. I used to enjoy both hearing and telling those kinds of stories because I saw it as evidence of God’s love for us and his personal involvement in our lives. But those stories make me cringe now; I just can’t see how Theorem #3 makes any sense at all when taking into account all of the suffering in the world.

If you have the stomach for it, take a look at this Pulitzer-Prize winning photo, taken by Kevin Carter in 1993:

[Click on this link to view the image]

Truthfully, this image is so disturbing to me that I can’t bring myself to feature it directly on my blog. The picture shows a starving, emaciated Sudanese girl being stalked by a vulture. Carter said the girl was on her way to a feeding center when he took the picture. Fortunately, he chased the vulture away after snapping the picture and the girl eventually made it to the center, but the photograph haunted him so profoundly that he committed suicide in 1994. Looking at the picture, I can understand why.

To put this image into relief, let's contrast it with a personal story told by Elder J. Devin Cornish in the most recent General Conference. He talks about how he was riding his bicycle on his way home from medical school when he felt incredibly tired and hungry. He decided that he would feel better if he could get a piece of chicken at a nearby fried chicken shop where they were having a sale on drumsticks for 29 cents. When he looked in his wallet, he saw he only had a nickel. He states:

As I rode along, I told the Lord my situation and asked if, in His mercy, He could let me find a quarter on the side of the road. I told Him that I didn’t need this as a sign but that I would be really grateful if He felt to grant me this kind blessing. I began watching the ground more intently but saw nothing. Trying to maintain a faith-filled but submissive attitude as I rode, I approached the store. Then, almost exactly across the street from the chicken place, I saw a quarter on the ground. With gratitude and relief, I picked it up, bought the chicken, savored every morsel, and rode happily home.

Why would God help an educated, white, American Mormon doctor find a quarter on the ground so that he could buy a piece of chicken while simultaneously allowing this little girl in Africa---and countless other children---to nearly starve to death?

To answer that question, you need to drop one of the three theorems. One possibility is to drop Theorem #2 and say that God is a loving and equitable being who is fully aware of this child, but he is not all-powerful and is therefore incapable of intervening on her behalf. Mormon doctrine is probably flexible enough to allow for this possibility, but it is certainly not a very popular view of God among mainstream Mormons. For example, Elder Cornish interprets his story this way:

In His mercy, the God of heaven, the Creator and Ruler of all things everywhere, had heard a prayer about a very minor thing. One might well ask why He would concern Himself with something so small. I am led to believe that our Heavenly Father loves us so much that the things that are important to us become important to Him, just because He loves us. How much more would He want to help us with the big things that we ask, which are right?

Assuming that Elder Cornish's logic is sound (doubtful---but I'll play along), then perhaps God can only help the girl if she prays to him for help. Perhaps she didn't pray? Or maybe if she did pray, perhaps she didn't use the appropriate format and structure---using "thee" and "thy" and closing in the name of Christ. Ugh... I really don't like that thought at all. I really chafe at the idea of a legalistic God who needs you to perfectly perform some ritual in order for him to have the power to help you. Because that just leads us back to inequity again since this Sudanese girl didn't have the good fortune to know about the proper way to pray---through no fault of her own. She just lost out on culture roulette.

Let's see what happens when we drop Theorem #3 instead. Perhaps God is a loving and equitable being who is all-powerful, but he is no longer aware of this girl’s adversities. This view of God would be at odds with Mormon doctrine. It's more like in line with the Deist view of a God that initially created the world but then left it alone to its own devices. If this is true, God doesn't intervene in our lives because he is not in our corner of the universe any more and he isn't aware of our needs. If we adopt this view of an absent God, then Elder Cornish was using flawed Post Hoc logic to falsely see a causal link between his prayer and finding the quarter (which is a fairly plausible explanation, actually). The problem with dropping Theorem #3 is that you have to completely realign what it means to pray and what kind of a relationship you can have with God. It just opens up a new can of theological worms.

The only other possibility (and by far the most disturbing) is to drop Theorem #1. Perhaps God is not a loving and equitable being after all. Perhaps he really does favor the rich, the white, the beautiful, the heterosexual, and the male over those who are not. Perhaps God favors these lucky individuals because of the remarkably good decisions they made in the pre-mortal existence. This view of God frankly disturbs me and I cannot accept it. If it is true, then God would not a being that is worthy of my worship.

I guess my point is that it really is impossible for all three of these theorems about God be true. You have to pick two of them. For me, it's a Sophie's Choice to have to decide which two are more to my liking. I wish God could be all three at the same time. But I doubt that he can.

The Historical Development of Monotheism
Although it really does pain me to say this, I find it more logically plausible that God doesn't exist at all. One reason why I find the existence of God to be implausible is because the historical and archaeological evidence seems to suggest that God is a man-made construct. My study of Biblical scholarship has lead me to this conclusion.

For a really fabulous introduction to the current views of Biblical historians and archaeologists about the development of the Old Testament, I'd highly recommend watching an episode of NOVA entitled The Bible's Buried Secrets on the PBS website. I'd also recommend reading Richard Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible for a more in-depth examination of the scholarship mentioned in that documentary.

Rather than rehearse the whole argument here, I'm just going to cite a comment I made on someone's blog entry since it mentions a lot of the scholarly concepts that inform my current views about Biblical history. The blog entry I was responding to was partially about how the Mormon concept of Mother in Heaven has fallen by the wayside. A commenter on the blog argued that Catholics were responsible for removing the theology of Mother in Heaven from Mormonism. I know it's both lazy and pompous to quote myself, but here was my reply:

"I apologize in advance for leaving such a long comment, but I want to respond to what an earlier commenter said about the Catholic church (aka the Apostasy) being responsible for getting rid of the theology of Heavenly Mother. It's not my desire to be contentious, but I want to point out that this idea is not supported by the historical or archaeological record. The removal of female goddesses from Judeo-Christian theology could instead be traced to Old Testament times---specifically to the period in which Jews were in Babylonian captivity beginning around 600 BC. Most Biblical scholars agree that it was during this time period when the theological concept of monotheism (one God and no other Gods) was first developed.

"What is important to know about the Iron Age is that they had a very different concept of God than we have today. Most cultures during this time (including the Jews) believed that each kingdom (each nation/group of people) had their own god. That god was believed to fight with them in battles with other nations (other gods). When your god won, it meant your god was superior to their god. It was also customary for defeated nations to stop worshiping their nation's god and begin worshiping the god of the victorious nation.

"The god of the Jewish nation-state was Yahweh. But it is important to note that the Jews would not have believed Yahweh was the only god. Not only did they believe other nations had their own gods, but the Jews also believed in other minor gods whom they worshiped. (Such as female goddesses.)

"All of this changed in 586 BC when the Jews were defeated and captured by the Babylonians. The Jewish priests and scribes did not stop worshiping Yahweh like they were supposed to. They retained their own religious traditions and theology in captivity. It was during this time that they developed the idea that Yahweh was the one and only god. And the Jews reasoned Yahweh had allowed them to fall into captivity because he had been angered by their worship of false gods. And so Jews began to strongly discourage their worship of other gods (such as female goddesses). That's why the Old Testament has so such so many proscriptions against worshiping false idols throughout it.

"I know it's uncomfortable for Mormons to think of Judeo-Christian theology as being something that evolved over time (continuing revelation?). And it's equally unsettling to imagine that the Bible wasn't really written in Moses' time but rather in David's/Isaiah's time, but that's what the general consensus is among Biblical scholars and archaeologists.

"It is the memory of my recently deceased Catholic grandparents that motivates my desire to make this comment. They lived in Utah from the 1950s until this year. Unfortunately, they were often badly mistreated or maligned by their Mormon neighbors---in large part because of strong anti-Papist sentiments that existed in Mormon culture (fueled by frankly wrong-headed statements from LDS leaders from the 1930s to the 1980s).

"I should also mention that I recently attended my Catholic grandmother's funeral and I listened intently as a priest recited the prayers of the rosary on my grandmother's behalf. Most of the prayers in the rosary are offered to the Virgin Mary. Although she is regarded as a Saint (not a God), Catholics pray to her for intercession and see her as a model of holy femininity. I can’t help but feel that Mormons lack something their Catholic sisters have. Mormons have a female goddess in our theology---but we are not allowed to pray to her or to even speak about her in public. There is something to be envied in Catholicism.

"When we speak of the Apostasy, I hope we will be sensitive to our fellow Christian brothers and sisters---even if they do not always extend the same courtesy to us. I think we would be better served by building theological bridges rather than theological walls."

Concluding on a Hopeful Note
This blog entry has probably been a total downer to read. But I wanted to end with a note of optimism since I don't completely reject the idea of God. I'll close by (sigh) quoting myself again from a recent email conversation I had with a friend from another faith:

"I think that if God exists, I feel confident that he has created multiple paths through which we can find him. And maybe God is flexible enough that he can be for us what we need him to be. For example, my sister prefers the Mormon version of God who is intimately involved in every aspect of her life and who guides her every decision. That thought gives her a sense of self-esteem and direction in life. But I personally don't find that kind of a God very appealing because I don't want God to micromanage every aspect of my life; I would prefer a God who trusts me to make my own decisions based on my own sound reasoning on the matter. And perhaps God is both of those things at once. Perhaps God is the loving 'parent figure' my sister needs him to be and the observant, but distant 'supervisor figure' that I need him to be for me. Can God be big enough to be all the things that we as individuals need him to be? My hope is that he can."

Perhaps God is an important part of the human psyche---evolved through cultural and biological processes in response to very real human needs and concerns. As I've said elsewhere on this blog, God might be a blank screen onto which we project an image of our ideal selves. As we look at that ideal image, we are possibly inspired to become better than we already are. And maybe we can achieve more as humans than we ever could have without that distant ideal to guide us.

And so, on that note, I'll close this blog entry with the immortal words of Cake: "Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps."

Gospel Principles #1 - Our Heavenly Father (TBM version)

Since I no longer serve as a Relief Society teacher in my ward, I'm going to start retroactively examining lessons that I taught in the past. I'll start at the beginning with my first lesson from the Gospel Principles manual.

This blog entry will examine how I taught this lesson originally in church. I'll post the "NOM Version" of this lesson in a few days. At the time I originally taught this lesson, I was a fully believing church member. My crisis of faith began about two months after teaching this lesson.

For reference, see Our Heavenly Father in the Gospel Principles manual.

Who is God?
I started the lesson by talking about how when my husband served his mission in Japan, he struggled to teach with the old-school missionary discussions because the first discussion operates on the assumption that you are already familiar with the Christian concept of God. For most Japanese people, their concept of God is so different from our own that it was difficult to even fathom what the missionaries were talking about. I then asked the sisters how they would explain the concept of God to someone who had never heard of him before---someone who has absolutely no concept of God. I listed the sister's responses on the boards. (I don't remember what they were any more.)

We then read the following paragraph from page 5 of the manual:

The prophets have taught us that God is the Almighty Ruler of the universe. God dwells in heaven (see D&C 20:17). Through His Son, Jesus Christ, He created the heavens and the earth and all things that are in them (see 3 Nephi 9:15; Moses 2:1). He made the moon, the stars, and the sun. He organized this world and gave it form, motion, and life. He filled the air and the water with living things. He covered the hills and plains with all kinds of animal life. He gave us day and night, summer and winter, seedtime and harvest. He made man in His own image to be a ruler over His other creations (see Genesis 1:26–27).

I emphasized that God is the creator and that Jesus Christ created the world under God's direction.

God is Our Spiritual Father
We then read the following passage from page 5 of the manual:

God is the Supreme and Absolute Being in whom we believe and whom we worship. He is “the Great Parent of the universe,” and He “looks upon the whole of the human family with a fatherly care and paternal regard” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 39).

I reiterated that God is our Father. Because he created our spirits, he is our spiritual father in heaven.

I then had a few people in the class read Moses 1:27-33, 37. You can read it on your own if you want to, but it's basically God speaking to Moses saying that he created worlds without number, but "The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine." I talked about how there are so many people that they are numberless like the sands of the sea, but God knows each one individually and cares about them. That says a lot about our relationship to him.

God Has a Body of Flesh and Bones
We then read from page 6 of the manual:

Because we are made in His image (see Moses 2:26; 6:9), we know that our bodies are like His body. His eternal spirit is housed in a tangible body of flesh and bones (see D&C 130:22). God’s body, however, is perfected and glorified, with a glory beyond all description.

To add a little bit of humor to the lesson, I talked about how the first time I learned this principle was when I watched the Cecil B. DeMille movie The Ten Commandments and my parents took me aside to tell me that God actually has a physical body that resembles a human's---not like the pillar of fire depicted in the movie.

I then said to the class: "So, this is something that puzzles me. The doctrine that God has a human body is unique to our church. Joseph Smith learned this from the First Vision and we emphasize it heavily in our church. Why does it matter that God has a tangible body? Assuming he could still love, guide, and protect you without a body, what difference would it make if he were only spirit?"

I used the sister's responses to have a discussion about it. I don't remember what was said, but I have in my notes that one point I wanted to bring out was that it tells us about God's past and about what we each have the potential to become.

God is the Source of Everything Good
We then read from page 6 of the manual:

God is perfect. He is a God of righteousness, with attributes such as love, mercy, charity, truth, power, faith, knowledge, and judgment. He has all power. He knows all things. He is full of goodness.

All good things come from God. Everything that He does is to help His children become like Him. He has said, “Behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39)

I had the sister's pick out the key words from that passage that told us about God's attributes and we listed them on the board: perfect, righteous, all-knowing, the source of everything good, etc. Once those were listed on the board, I talked about how these attributes were the reason why we worship God and also why we desperately need God's guidance in our lives.

Coming to Know and Love God
The final section of the lesson talks about the importance of coming to know God. We read from page 6 of the manual:

Knowing God is so important that the Savior said, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).

The first and greatest commandment is “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart” (Matthew 22:37).

The more we know God, the more we love Him and keep His commandments (see 1 John 2:3–5). By keeping His commandments we can become like Him.

I then said: "So, we need to know God better in order to become more like him and to learn how to love him. It's probably safe to assume that all of us in this room do believe in God. I want you to reflect for a minute on why you believe in God. What experiences have shaped your testimony of our Heavenly Father? What methods have you used that are helpful for drawing you closer to Heavenly Father?"

I just let the sister's share their experiences for the remainder of the lesson, building on what they said to bring out the four suggestions given by the lesson about how to come to know God:

1. Believe that he exists and that he loves us
2. Study the scriptures
3. Pray to him
4. Obey all his commandments

For #3, I had a note to myself to read this from the Bible Dictionary: “The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them.”

I had also written my own ideas for how to come closer to God:  writing a journal, being a parent, giving service, putting our wills on His altar, removing anything from our lives that can distract us from God.

I then bore my testimony and concluded. Pretty standard stuff. I seem to recall that it went well.

Weighing in on the Podcast Wars: Mormon Expression vs. Mormon Stories

Mormon Expression did a podcast last week in which they responded to criticisms from people who said their tone had become too negative lately. It unleashed a lot of strong comments from listeners (both those who agreed with the criticisms and those who wanted to defend Mormon Expression). A lot of the defenders said some unkind things about John Dehlin (who runs the Mormon Stories and Mormon Matters podcasts), prompting another Mormon Expression listener to call them on the carpet for that.

I'm going to go Swiss on this whole debate. I'm neutral on this matter because I like both of these podcasts. (I'll go ahead and lump Mormon Stories and Mormon Matters in together.) I'm a paying subscriber to both, giving both an equal financial contribution. I like them both for what they're trying to do. And I would defend both of them from criticisms if the opportunity arose.

But how do they each stack up in terms of their credibility? Read on to find out...


Criteria for Evaluating Resources
My main responsibility as an educator at UVU is to teach students how to think critically. One of the key tasks involved in critical thought is learning how to determine whether a particular source is credible and trustworthy or not. Since your argument is only as strong as your evidence/sources, you need to make sure your sources are reliable.

I teach my students that there are seven criteria for determining whether you should use a source to support your argument in a paper:

1. Authoritativeness - The root word of "authoritativeness" is "author" and it therefore refers to the background of the author and the reputation of the publisher. Is the author an expert (an authority) in their field? Do they have some sort of strong educational or personal background that qualifies them to make an informed statement on this topic? Does the publisher have a good reputation for publishing trustworthy materials?
2. Quality of Research and Methodology - Are the sources that they use to back their argument reliable and trustworthy (preferably scholarly and peer-reviewed as opposed to being journalistic or web-based)? Did they include formal citations accurately so that others could verify their resources were credible? If they conducted an experiment, were the conditions of the experiment sound, using basic scientific principles to control for all factors?
3. Objectivity and/or Degree of Advocacy - This refers to whether they are adopting an objective tone or not. There's nothing wrong with arguing a particular position, but are they doing so in a way that is respectful of counterarguments or of alternate viewpoints? If they are arguing a position, how strongly are they arguing for that position? Are they using black-and-white, polemical language or are they showing the complexity of the topic by examining all possible viewpoints on the matter? Are they pushing an agenda or are they willing to let the audience reach their own conclusions on the matter?
4. Timeliness and Currency - Has the source been published in the last 5 or 10 years? Does it reflect the most current research and perspectives on this topic? This is especially important when researching medical topics, as our academic knowledge about human health becomes updated very rapidly. This is less important when studying historical topics, but it is till a good rule-of-thumb.
5. Aimed at a Scholarly vs. a Popular Audience - Is it written for other scholars who are experts in the field or is it written for a mainstream audience? Scholarly texts can be more challenging to read and understand, but texts for a popular audience can sometimes water down the information or accidentally distort the information in the process of making it more palatable. Another important consideration is whether they are trying to make a profit off the information or not. Are they publishing it for the purpose of advancing scholarly knowledge on the topic or are they publishing it for a more self-interested purpose?
6. Primary vs. Secondary Source - Primary sources are documents created by people with first-hand experience with a topic. Secondary sources are created second-hand. The authors were not directly involved in the topic themselves. In academia, a primary document would be a scholarly article reporting on the results of an experiment conducted by the authors. A secondary document would be a journalist who is reporting about that experiment in a magazine. In historical research, a primary document would be a letter, journal entry, interview, or some other record from a person who experienced that historical event first-hand. A secondary document would be a person writing about the event afterwards who did not experience it first-hand. Whenever possible, primary sources are preferable because secondary sources can sometimes lose something in translation.
7. Usefulness - This is a catch-all category. How useful is the source to what you are particularly trying to accomplish in your research? That can vary from source to source depending on what you're trying to do.

Now, just because a particular resource is weak in one of those areas doesn't necessarily mean that you should throw it out. Think of these seven criteria as being seven channels of input that you can use to determine the resource's overall credibility, kind of like the buttons on an audio equalizer:

If a particular resource is high on all 7 channels, it's definitely a good resource. If it's mostly high, it's probably still reliable, but you should take it with a grain of salt. If it's low on most of these channels, you should probably avoid it.

With that in mind, let's pit John vs. John and evaluate how both Mormon Expression and Mormon Stories/Matters stands up to this criteria.

Mormon Expression

Authoritativeness: I give them an A or an A- on this category. Mormon Expression features a lot of interviews with scholars and others who are authorities in their field. Either that or the interviewees have studied the topic personally in a great deal of depth. When the podcast is a panel discussion, all of the panelists are expected to have heavily researched their topics beforehand or to have some extensive first-hand experience in the matter. Some panelists are occasionally weaker than others (depending on the topic), but all in all, they are generally well-informed.

Quality of Research and Methodology: I give them an A- or B+ on this category. I probably would have given them a higher score on this, but one complaint I have about Mormon Expression is that they don't always indicate where their information comes from. I prefer going to primary sources when I can so that I can study the topic further or determine whether I agree with the panelists' interpretation of the evidence. But they do sometimes cite their sources informally and, when they do, the sources seem relatively credible and scholarly.

Objectivity and/or Degree of Advocacy: This one is difficult to quantify, but I think I'd give them a B+ on this one. It's difficult to evaluate this because I think they make a genuine effort to have balance in the panelists that they invite to discuss topics on the show. I like the new believing voices they've been having on the show (like Brandt and Jessie) because they do a good job of arguing for their position while still being respectful of divergent viewpoints. However, John Larsen is usually the moderator on Mormon Expression and, as such, he exerts some control over the conversation. This sometimes makes the conversation weigh in favor of the ex-Mormon position a little bit. Plus, John has been ramping up his use of polemical language a bit more lately. I generally agree with his arguments, but the use of polemics is occasionally troubling because it reminds me too much of the black-and-white thinking that I distrust (whether it's coming from the church, from FoxNews or from the Internet). Any time I hear an extreme position being taken, it sets off my internal warning bells. It doesn't mean I throw it out, but it means that I proceed with caution. I've learned that every issue worth talking about is more complex than absolutist logic allows for. Mormonism is no exception.

Timeliness and Currency: Sure, I'll give it an A. It's not really an applicable category here, but they do talk frequently about current events. And when they're talking about historical topics, timeliness is not as important.

Aimed at a Scholarly vs. Popular Audience: I'll give it an A- or B+ here. It's definitely aimed at a popular audience and it's trying to be good entertainment. Therefore, the information or the evidence can sometimes be diluted in translation. However, I don't think they have any kind of desire to profit from Mormon Expression. Donations to the podcast go to running the podcast itself and nothing else. They're doing the podcast because they find the topic interesting and they want to think/talk about Mormon issues. In essence, they really do want to advance a scholarly discussion about Mormonism---but in an accessible form.

Primary vs. Secondary Source: I'll give it a A- or a B+ here as well. It's obviously a secondary source itself, but they try to research using primary documentation whenever possible. Again, I might give them a more solid A- if they cited their research better.

Usefulness: This is going to fluctuate from listener to listener, but for me personally, I'll give it an A-. I have found that it definitely expanded my understanding of my religion. I prefer academic, scholarly examinations of Mormonism that are grounded in good research and good arguments. Mormon Expression satisfies this need for me. What I especially like about Mormon Expression is how democratic it is. If you want to voice an opinion, you can do it on Mormon Expression. They'll let anyone who has something useful to say onto the podcast. No censorship. Just democratic exchange. That's Mormon Expression's greatest strength. It can sometimes backfire on them, but it's ultimately what makes their podcast so great. It's like one giant peer review.

Overall Grade: It's in the A- or B+ range, depending on the episode.

Mormon Stories/Mormon Matters

Authoritativeness: I'll give them an A in this category. They tend to have experts on the podcast to talk about their area or expertise or they feature people who have had first-hand experience with the topic. This is a strength of the podcast.

Quality of Research and Methodology: I'll give them an A- in this category. They usually informally cite their sources and their sources tend to be scholarly and trustworthy. Sometimes they link to their sources in the podcast notes, which is helpful. It's clear they put a lot of pre-discussion and research into their podcasts.

Objectivity and/or Degree of Advocacy: I'll give them a B+ in this category. They try very deliberately to be accepting of lots of points of view and they often succeed, but it does sometimes feel like they push the "Stay LDS" agenda a little rigorously. They've also been known to delete comments and things that are not in keeping with their mission or tone. That's good for PR, but the tradeoff is that it can shut down the democratic exchange of ideas by not allowing all viewpoints onto the table. Although there is an element of censorship to it, I will grant them a pass if they are removing comments from people who are making unfair character attacks or being unnecessarily abrasive. Plus, I recognize that podcasts do have some responsibility to ensure that people who agree to appear on your podcast will not be treated rudely by listeners. Otherwise you risk of getting a bad reputation and alienating potentially good guests from coming on the podcast in the future. Good guests are the lifeblood of a podcast and a bad reputation can kill you off. (I've seen this happen with movie podcasts I listen to.)

Timeliness and Currency: I'll give them an A on this one for the same reasons I gave Mormon Expression an A too. This category doesn't apply so much when they discuss historical topics and they do a good job of discussing topics that are current events in Mormonism.

Aimed at a Scholarly vs. Popular Audience: I'll give them the same score as Mormon Expression on this one: a B+. And pretty much for all of the same reasons (see above).

Primary vs. Secondary Source: I'll give them an B+ here. Like Mormon Expression, they are a secondary source. They do draw on primary sources for inspiration, but less so than Mormon Expression does. (Like I'm thinking of how the Mormon Expression folks will actually read primary documents such as scriptures, hymns, or discourses in their discussions.)

Usefulness: Again, this will also fluctuate from individual to individual. For me personally, I'll give it a B+ at this point in time. Since my faith in Mormonism is at 1-2% (meaning, it's not very strong), Mormon Stories and Mormon Matters are not as relevant to me in my spiritual journey as they were in the past. However, they were very, very important to me at one point. They provide a safe place where people can transition to wherever it is they need to go on their faith journey. Even though they're somewhat more boring (sorry!) compared to Mormon Expression, I still think they have valid arguments and interesting perspectives on Mormon issues. And I do appreciate their attempts at balanced discussion.

Overall Grade: A general A-, possibly a B+.


Conclusion
For me, both podcasts come out equal in the end. They both have good content. They just have different scopes, purposes, and audiences. In some ways, it really does come down to the usefulness category and what you look for in a podcast. I think I personally prefer Mormon Expression because I prefer democratic exchange, because the topics on Mormon Expression are a little more interesting and also because of where I'm at in my life right now. But how lovely that I don't have to choose. I can listen to and enjoy them both for what they're worth. Mormon Stories/Matters appeals to my heart and Mormon Expression appeals to my head. That seems like a good balance.

Feel free to chime in and let me know if you agree or disagree with my assessment. As I said, I'm a big fan of democratic dialogue, so your two cents matter to me. :)

Changing Leaves, Changing Callings, Changing Feelings

This image is from a page of my journal earlier this year. It's a graphical representation of how I "outgrew" Mormonism, if you will. I recently shared it with the Mormon Expression folks as part of an episode on which my husband and I appear:

So, one Sunday about a month and a half ago, my husband and I were playing a video game in our living room when there was a knock at the door. It was the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric, stopping by for a surprise visit. It made me nervous instantly. My pulse went up; my muscles tensed. What was he doing stopping by our house for a surprise visit?

It turns out he wanted to give us a new calling to serve as Primary Teachers to the 6-7 year olds. They've been having lots of problems staffing the Primary and so we had been substitute teaching quite a bit the last year. I guess they decided to make us official members of the Primary staff. We asked the 2nd counselor if we could step into our bedroom and discuss whether we should take the calling or not.

The discussion was a vigorous one. I had previously made a promise to myself that I would not accept another calling so that we could gradually transition out of the church. But then when push came to shove, I chickened out. I didn't want to deal with the consequences of "coming out" about being non-believers at that exact moment. The timing felt too sudden. At that immediate moment, I just wanted the 2nd counselor to go away and saying yes seemed like the easiest and most direct way to make that happen. Besides, I kind of liked the 6-7 year olds, so it couldn't be that bad.

Now that a month has gone by, I feel that working in the Primary has been a mixed bag. On the one hand, it's a lot more work to prepare a lesson every week. (I'm a perfectionist, so I can't just phone it in---which makes this calling sometimes very time-consuming and occasionally stressful.) But on the other hand, it's actually been easier to just go back to the basics. I feel like I can teach general humanistic principles in Mormon terms without compromising my integrity too much. And it's been really nice not to attend Sunday School or Relief Society---where the lessons range from being mind-numbingly boring (at best) to offensive (at worst).

As a result of being in Primary, there have been times when I've started to feel somewhat complacent about being at church---and sometimes even comfortable. But just when I start to feel that way, something always seems to come along to take me out of that state, to remind me that I don't really belong here because I'm not a believer.

For example, last Sunday we were assigned a new home teacher who I'll refer to as "Brother W." Brother W. is an uber-Mormon. Very much the TBM, seminary-teacher type. He's probably the only guy in the ward who actually does his home teaching. So, why was he suddenly assigned to us? It could be just a benign decision, but part of me feels paranoid that I've said too much, that I've made it onto somebody's radar, that we're being "watched over." It's irrational and silly, but I can't quite shake the feeling I'm being scrutinized by the people around me. I was really paranoid at church this last week, watching what everyone said to me, how they looked at me, etc. I was frustrated with my own heightened sense of self-consciousness, honestly. It felt like being a teenager again.

Anyhow, since I no longer teach Relief Society, I think I'm going to delve into the archives of the Gospel Principles lessons I taught in the past and continue working through those in my blog. I'll try to shoot for one lesson a month as my free time permits. So, stay tuned!