April 2020 General Conference - Reflections from an outside perspective
Just as a disclaimer, this post may be more honest and blunt about my current feelings as someone who no longer believes in Mormonism. While my intent is not to offend anyone, if anything I say is triggering to you, feel free to close out and mute me on Facebook for a month - I respect that decision and would not hold it against you.
Recently, I've done a few public blog posts on learning about other faiths - reading the Bhagavad Gita, visiting a Buddhist Zendo or meditation hall, touring the Sri Ganesha Hindu temple in Utah. These experiences have been transformative in my recent spiritual journey, and I love having the opportunity to share some of what I have learned. While the responses I've received have been overwhelmingly positive (I welcome constructive conversations or criticism, but I assume those opposed mostly don't respond, which I also respect), one well-meaning distant relative was quick to point out on one of my posts that her "biggest wish is that [I] would give equal desire to prayer about the faith [I was] raised in."
And she's right in that my recent spiritual focus has not been on Mormonism. Other than my post about my faith transition, my other public blog posts have deliberately focused very little on the faith I was raised in. I also try to avoid posting publicly about controversial current events in Mormonism. At some point, I would love to be able to do a blog post exploring the depths of Mormon theology and the beauty that can be found in many of its teachings, just as I have strived to do with Buddhism and Hinduism recently.
But I'm not there yet.
While I strive to be positive in all of my public communications and try to be particularly sensitive when it comes to topics of religion, the truth is that beneath the facade of perpetual optimism, I still at times have very strong negative emotions toward the LDS Church. To be perfectly honest, while I love and deeply respect many members of the Church who are wonderful, honest, kind-hearted individuals, I see the preponderance of the evidence as overwhelming pointing against the unique truth-claims of the Church. (Others, looking at much of this same evidence through the lens of their own life experiences have not come to the same conclusions. That's ok.)
For me personally, I have felt betrayed, lied to, and manipulated by the institution that I also deeply loved. And in my faith crisis, I felt abandoned by a God who either would not or could not answer my honest and sincere pleadings. I know many others who feel the same - some of which have reached out to me privately about their own struggles but feel they have no one to turn to, in most cases, not even their own close family members. You may have some individuals like this in your ward, who outwardly seem like any other believing member despite deep internal conflicts and concerns that they keep hidden to avoid confrontation. These aren't decisions I came to lightly, and took literally years of study, heartache, prayer and desperate pleading, and so comments on how I should have just prayed more, while well-meaning, are ignorant of my actual spiritual journey and still trigger negative emotions.
General Conference - April 2020
This year's general conference has been hyped up perhaps more than any in recent history. While the First Vision was probably not even in my top five concerns around the Church's truth claims, there are certainly problematic elements surrounding the First Vision accounts, its prominence (or lack thereof) in the early Mormonism narrative, as well as significant problems with the narratives and timeline surrounding the restoration of the priesthoods. Being the 200th anniversary of the First Vision, I anticipated that the conference would likely be triggering for me, and as such, I chose to mostly avoid it for my own mental health.
So, I made deliberate actions to make the most of the weekend. We tried to spend a lot of time outside on Saturday, including a family rollerblade/bike ride on the Jordan River Trail. Toward the end of the Sunday morning session, I went for a run (I don't run much these days - it hurt - but was nice to enjoy the fresh air). I made a brief Facebook post on our enjoyable family activities, trying to maintain a positive attitude. Overall, it really was a good weekend.
But perhaps the lesson I learned this weekend is that as much as you try to run away from your problems or mask them with other distractions, at some point you have to confront them. Despite my efforts, this weekend still ended up being triggering. Even without watching conference, I still caught glimpses of it through Facebook comments, Whatsapp family conversations, and private messages from a friend who is secretly struggling with the Church and with letting all his very believing LDS family know that he is gay. My post about the family rollerblade ride, which made no references to conference, resulted in comments from my distant relative about how I "missed an unbelievably great General Conference" but that I "could watch tomorrow (fingers crossed emoji)." I understand that this is how she expresses her love for me, but passive aggressive prods simply aren't helpful or productive.
Another closer relative reached out and very kindly said she had been thinking about me during general conference and wanted to know my thoughts. I appreciated her seemingly very genuine love and concern. The reality is that my thoughts are complicated and may not be thoughts that others want to hear. And so, this blog post is my means of sorting through my thoughts.
My general thoughts are that Mormonism is no longer my spiritual home. While I once found great peace and solace in the Church, the unique messaging of Mormonism around a One True Church and the Restoration simply does not resonate with me. For me personally, the messaging does not inspire meaningful action as I no longer see the claims to unique authority as reasonable assertions. I do see that there is beauty in the world's religions, including Mormonism, in that they have a means of bringing people together to unite for common goals of loving our neighbors, but also that religions are unnecessarily dividing people into "us versus them" tribalism with distinct lines of beliefs defining who belongs and who does not.
More specifically to the messaging of this general conference, I think it was great that President Nelson acknowledged in his opening remarks that he did not see the global pandemic coming and that it negatively impacted his plans for the special conference (Hosanna shouts are so much better with large in-person congregations). And, while I personally have my doubts around the efficacy of a second global fast around the Coronavirus, I also see this as a beautiful invitation for people to focus their minds on the collective good and helping others. And that's not a bad thing.
That being said, from what I've heard, the first day of talks were remarkably unremarkable - almost completely ignoring the global pandemic other than brief mentions in the prayers and opening remarks by President Nelson and instead going with the pre-determined scripts with the same messaging that could have been pre-recorded 10 years ago and have been as applicable. In the midst of a global pandemic and the resulting economic recession and mass unemployment that are occupying everyone's minds, announcing that the Church has a new logo seems a bit anti-climactic and significantly missing the mark. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against the new logo or the associated symbolic interpretations, just to me personally, I don't see why that was the big announcement of the special session of conference. I think, likely, this session was meant to be more celebratory in nature similar to the Church's "Be One" celebration. But no one predicted the Coronavirus outbreak that has now consumed the world and drastically changed our methods of going about our daily lives (except Bill Gates, maybe?), so such a big celebratory meeting was no longer possible.
It sounds like the Sunday morning session was a little better. Elder Holland apparently gave a great talk about coming together after this pandemic to solve world problems such as poverty, hunger, disease, etc. I'll probably listen to that one as some point. Elder Uchtdorf apparently made an unfortunate reference to those who leave the LDS church as "like a headstrong, unruly child, [who] become angry with God and His Church, pack their bags, and storm out the door proclaiming that they're running away and never come back." I sure hope that's not how others see me. It's certainly not how I see myself and doesn't seem to appropriately characterize anyone I know. Though, honestly, I don't see myself as ever coming back, and I'm not sure that's a home I would want to return to if that's how I'm portrayed. Comments like that serve to bolster the pride of the members at the expense of those not present.
The Sunday morning session led up to a "solemn assembly" and Hosanna shout. Since solemn assemblies are usually held for a new prophet or canonization of new scripture, some were worried (or excited) they would officially canonize the Family Proclamation. My closeted gay friend mentioned that he felt he would need to resign if that were the case, and I couldn't blame him. On the progressive end of the spectrum, some thought maybe women would finally be given the priesthood and have equal opportunities for leadership as the men, and not just "separate but equal." There even seemed to be some hinting at this in the Church's e-mail the day before conference with instructions to the sisters to study about the priesthood.
The reality was that it was leading up to a pre-recording of President Nelson in the sacred grove issuing a new "proclamation" about the restoration. Similar to the logo change, this one had me scratching my head and bit perplexed as to what exactly this was trying to accomplish. Wasn't that already proclaimed back in 1842 when the not canonized account of the vision was published? I thought that was something I had proclaimed myself already as the first lesson of Preach My Gospel in thousands of lessons as a missionary in Honduras. A very similar "proclamation" was issued in 1980 as well apparently. So, I don't quite get the point of the proclamation and see it largely as much ado about nothing. I'm sure it will get a lot of hype on social media, and there's nothing wrong with the hype - people have every right to be excited about their beliefs and share them. If it motivates them to meaningful action, that's wonderful. So I don't see a need to directly respond to any of them or pick any fights, similar to how I have no intention of responding to my distant relative who insisted on pointing out that I missed the "unbelievably great" general conference announcing the new logo on my post that had absolutely nothing to do with conference or the Church.
I found it interesting that a few minutes after the Sunday session with the proclamation, I received two very different messages on my phone almost simultaneously.
From a family member, "Wow. President Nelson's whole beautiful hopeful message, the Proclamation, and all that followed were very moving to me."
From my anonymous closeted friend, "Yeah, I'm just angry again now... How did I used to buy all this... Gonna have to skip the afternoon session."
Both had just watched the same exact addresses with very different outcomes. I see both opinions are equally valid and coming from vastly different lived experiences with the Church.
This post has probably been more raw and blunt than I am accustomed to, so I apologize to anyone who may read this and take offense. This is just one person's perspective and not meant to attack others who saw so much value in this conference.
Will I ever be able to get to the point where I can take a step back and do a blog post on the beauty of Mormonism?
Maybe.
I hope so.
But I'm not there yet.
And that's ok.
Recently, I've done a few public blog posts on learning about other faiths - reading the Bhagavad Gita, visiting a Buddhist Zendo or meditation hall, touring the Sri Ganesha Hindu temple in Utah. These experiences have been transformative in my recent spiritual journey, and I love having the opportunity to share some of what I have learned. While the responses I've received have been overwhelmingly positive (I welcome constructive conversations or criticism, but I assume those opposed mostly don't respond, which I also respect), one well-meaning distant relative was quick to point out on one of my posts that her "biggest wish is that [I] would give equal desire to prayer about the faith [I was] raised in."
And she's right in that my recent spiritual focus has not been on Mormonism. Other than my post about my faith transition, my other public blog posts have deliberately focused very little on the faith I was raised in. I also try to avoid posting publicly about controversial current events in Mormonism. At some point, I would love to be able to do a blog post exploring the depths of Mormon theology and the beauty that can be found in many of its teachings, just as I have strived to do with Buddhism and Hinduism recently.
But I'm not there yet.
While I strive to be positive in all of my public communications and try to be particularly sensitive when it comes to topics of religion, the truth is that beneath the facade of perpetual optimism, I still at times have very strong negative emotions toward the LDS Church. To be perfectly honest, while I love and deeply respect many members of the Church who are wonderful, honest, kind-hearted individuals, I see the preponderance of the evidence as overwhelming pointing against the unique truth-claims of the Church. (Others, looking at much of this same evidence through the lens of their own life experiences have not come to the same conclusions. That's ok.)
For me personally, I have felt betrayed, lied to, and manipulated by the institution that I also deeply loved. And in my faith crisis, I felt abandoned by a God who either would not or could not answer my honest and sincere pleadings. I know many others who feel the same - some of which have reached out to me privately about their own struggles but feel they have no one to turn to, in most cases, not even their own close family members. You may have some individuals like this in your ward, who outwardly seem like any other believing member despite deep internal conflicts and concerns that they keep hidden to avoid confrontation. These aren't decisions I came to lightly, and took literally years of study, heartache, prayer and desperate pleading, and so comments on how I should have just prayed more, while well-meaning, are ignorant of my actual spiritual journey and still trigger negative emotions.
General Conference - April 2020
This year's general conference has been hyped up perhaps more than any in recent history. While the First Vision was probably not even in my top five concerns around the Church's truth claims, there are certainly problematic elements surrounding the First Vision accounts, its prominence (or lack thereof) in the early Mormonism narrative, as well as significant problems with the narratives and timeline surrounding the restoration of the priesthoods. Being the 200th anniversary of the First Vision, I anticipated that the conference would likely be triggering for me, and as such, I chose to mostly avoid it for my own mental health.
So, I made deliberate actions to make the most of the weekend. We tried to spend a lot of time outside on Saturday, including a family rollerblade/bike ride on the Jordan River Trail. Toward the end of the Sunday morning session, I went for a run (I don't run much these days - it hurt - but was nice to enjoy the fresh air). I made a brief Facebook post on our enjoyable family activities, trying to maintain a positive attitude. Overall, it really was a good weekend.
But perhaps the lesson I learned this weekend is that as much as you try to run away from your problems or mask them with other distractions, at some point you have to confront them. Despite my efforts, this weekend still ended up being triggering. Even without watching conference, I still caught glimpses of it through Facebook comments, Whatsapp family conversations, and private messages from a friend who is secretly struggling with the Church and with letting all his very believing LDS family know that he is gay. My post about the family rollerblade ride, which made no references to conference, resulted in comments from my distant relative about how I "missed an unbelievably great General Conference" but that I "could watch tomorrow (fingers crossed emoji)." I understand that this is how she expresses her love for me, but passive aggressive prods simply aren't helpful or productive.
Another closer relative reached out and very kindly said she had been thinking about me during general conference and wanted to know my thoughts. I appreciated her seemingly very genuine love and concern. The reality is that my thoughts are complicated and may not be thoughts that others want to hear. And so, this blog post is my means of sorting through my thoughts.
My general thoughts are that Mormonism is no longer my spiritual home. While I once found great peace and solace in the Church, the unique messaging of Mormonism around a One True Church and the Restoration simply does not resonate with me. For me personally, the messaging does not inspire meaningful action as I no longer see the claims to unique authority as reasonable assertions. I do see that there is beauty in the world's religions, including Mormonism, in that they have a means of bringing people together to unite for common goals of loving our neighbors, but also that religions are unnecessarily dividing people into "us versus them" tribalism with distinct lines of beliefs defining who belongs and who does not.
More specifically to the messaging of this general conference, I think it was great that President Nelson acknowledged in his opening remarks that he did not see the global pandemic coming and that it negatively impacted his plans for the special conference (Hosanna shouts are so much better with large in-person congregations). And, while I personally have my doubts around the efficacy of a second global fast around the Coronavirus, I also see this as a beautiful invitation for people to focus their minds on the collective good and helping others. And that's not a bad thing.
That being said, from what I've heard, the first day of talks were remarkably unremarkable - almost completely ignoring the global pandemic other than brief mentions in the prayers and opening remarks by President Nelson and instead going with the pre-determined scripts with the same messaging that could have been pre-recorded 10 years ago and have been as applicable. In the midst of a global pandemic and the resulting economic recession and mass unemployment that are occupying everyone's minds, announcing that the Church has a new logo seems a bit anti-climactic and significantly missing the mark. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against the new logo or the associated symbolic interpretations, just to me personally, I don't see why that was the big announcement of the special session of conference. I think, likely, this session was meant to be more celebratory in nature similar to the Church's "Be One" celebration. But no one predicted the Coronavirus outbreak that has now consumed the world and drastically changed our methods of going about our daily lives (except Bill Gates, maybe?), so such a big celebratory meeting was no longer possible.
It sounds like the Sunday morning session was a little better. Elder Holland apparently gave a great talk about coming together after this pandemic to solve world problems such as poverty, hunger, disease, etc. I'll probably listen to that one as some point. Elder Uchtdorf apparently made an unfortunate reference to those who leave the LDS church as "like a headstrong, unruly child, [who] become angry with God and His Church, pack their bags, and storm out the door proclaiming that they're running away and never come back." I sure hope that's not how others see me. It's certainly not how I see myself and doesn't seem to appropriately characterize anyone I know. Though, honestly, I don't see myself as ever coming back, and I'm not sure that's a home I would want to return to if that's how I'm portrayed. Comments like that serve to bolster the pride of the members at the expense of those not present.
The Sunday morning session led up to a "solemn assembly" and Hosanna shout. Since solemn assemblies are usually held for a new prophet or canonization of new scripture, some were worried (or excited) they would officially canonize the Family Proclamation. My closeted gay friend mentioned that he felt he would need to resign if that were the case, and I couldn't blame him. On the progressive end of the spectrum, some thought maybe women would finally be given the priesthood and have equal opportunities for leadership as the men, and not just "separate but equal." There even seemed to be some hinting at this in the Church's e-mail the day before conference with instructions to the sisters to study about the priesthood.
The reality was that it was leading up to a pre-recording of President Nelson in the sacred grove issuing a new "proclamation" about the restoration. Similar to the logo change, this one had me scratching my head and bit perplexed as to what exactly this was trying to accomplish. Wasn't that already proclaimed back in 1842 when the not canonized account of the vision was published? I thought that was something I had proclaimed myself already as the first lesson of Preach My Gospel in thousands of lessons as a missionary in Honduras. A very similar "proclamation" was issued in 1980 as well apparently. So, I don't quite get the point of the proclamation and see it largely as much ado about nothing. I'm sure it will get a lot of hype on social media, and there's nothing wrong with the hype - people have every right to be excited about their beliefs and share them. If it motivates them to meaningful action, that's wonderful. So I don't see a need to directly respond to any of them or pick any fights, similar to how I have no intention of responding to my distant relative who insisted on pointing out that I missed the "unbelievably great" general conference announcing the new logo on my post that had absolutely nothing to do with conference or the Church.
I found it interesting that a few minutes after the Sunday session with the proclamation, I received two very different messages on my phone almost simultaneously.
From a family member, "Wow. President Nelson's whole beautiful hopeful message, the Proclamation, and all that followed were very moving to me."
From my anonymous closeted friend, "Yeah, I'm just angry again now... How did I used to buy all this... Gonna have to skip the afternoon session."
Both had just watched the same exact addresses with very different outcomes. I see both opinions are equally valid and coming from vastly different lived experiences with the Church.
This post has probably been more raw and blunt than I am accustomed to, so I apologize to anyone who may read this and take offense. This is just one person's perspective and not meant to attack others who saw so much value in this conference.
Will I ever be able to get to the point where I can take a step back and do a blog post on the beauty of Mormonism?
Maybe.
I hope so.
But I'm not there yet.
And that's ok.
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