A Grandfather today
This story is used with the writer's permission. The
writer is a grandfather living in the West. Dated: 95-12-10
I wanted desperately to be loved and liked my Mormon friends
in the small Mormon town of my youth. I felt I had big obstacles to overcome, however,
since my parents did terrible things like drink beer at family picnics, open their grocery
store for business on Sunday, and drink coffee every morning for breakfast. Then my mother
brought real scorn upon me when she started smoking; first secretly and then semi-openly.
Probably one of the first Mormon women to smoke in my small town. My closest Mormon friend
discovered her secret while playing over at my house. He taunted me with his knowledge.'Na
na na na naa your mother smokes." I wanted to die.
I felt like I needed to atone for the sins of my parents.It
seemed to me that becoming a super Mormon was the only way I could be accepted by my
Mormon friends and neighbors. I was determined to be a saint. I attended church every
Sunday, went through four years of seminary even though only three were required for
graduation, begged my dad to close the store on Sunday, tried to get my mother to quit
smoking, read the scriptures regularly, prayed about everything, and dreamed of the day I
could go on a mission.
I was planning to go to BYU but won a scholarship to the
University of Utah. My first two years were an eye opener. I learned in sociology classes
that there have been hundreds of groups started by charismatic leaders who claimed to be
representatives of super natural beings, I thought the Mormons were unique. I learned in
psychology classes that the emotions I assumed were testifying to the truthfulness of the
church were also reported by people of almost every faith and cults. I took a church
history class from T. Edgar Lyon and learned that the sanitized version of church history
that I'd been fed as a seminary student was not as pure and clear cut as I'd been taught.
I took an archeology class and learned that the Book of Mormon was not taken seriously as
a guide to South American ruins by any reputable archeologist. I'd been led to believe by
BYU apologists that the archeological evidence supporting the Book of Mormon was
overwhelming. I took a world history class and realized that contrary to what I'd been
told, a great deal was known about the Aztec ruins in 1831. I took a philosophy class from
Waldemar P. Read and discovered a whole body of scholarship dedicated to the question of
how people know a thing is true. It made me rethink my claim that I knew the church was
true beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Had I been a little more critical of the church as I was
growing up, I may not have been so shocked by these alternative explanations, but I'd
embraced the church with total dedication. I believed every word every church leader had
told me. When a person has that type of belief, even the slightest chink in the armor
raises serious questions.
My faith was so seriously shaken by those first two years of
college that I probably would have left the church or at least become inactive had it not
been for Lowell Bennion. He said, "look, the important message of the church is love
it's main mission isn't proving that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that the Mormon
church is the only true church on the face of the earth, it's about loving our fellow man
and Christ. That has to be our highest priority at all times." That made sense, he
had given me a rationale for staying in the church.
I accepted a call to go on a Hawaiian mission. While there I
tried to make love the focus of every decision I made. I was a very successful missionary
by any standard. Even though I loved my mission president and he loved me, I irritated him
because I wouldn't say that I knew the church was true. I would say I believed it was true
with all my heart, but I wouldn't say I knew it was true. I also irritated him because I
was always quoting Brother Bennion, instead of the standard church
line. My mission was one
of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
When I returned home I began to look at my parents
differently. I asked myself how could I have been so hard on them when they were such
absolutely supportive, wonderful parents. Yes, they weren't active, yes they had a drink
once in a while to relax , yes my mother fell for the advertisement that said reach for a
cigarett instead of a sweet, but they had so many other wonderful qualities as human
beings and parents. I felt like I'd betrayed them as a teen-ager to gain the approval of
my Mormon friends and neighbors. I also realized that I'd had a double standard for my
parents. I'd pleaded with my dad not to open the store on Sunday, but when I was 16 I went
to work for the bishop in our ward. He raised fruit and sold it at a fruit stand on the
highway. You guessed it. He kept the stand open on Sunday. I also realized that I'd
idealized the lives many of the neighbors. I later discovered that under the surface of
several of these Sunday perfect families existed a cauldron of anger, tension, and abuse
that did not exist in our home.
When I returned home from my mission, I returned to the
University of Utah (1956). I married a wonderful woman and we began to raise our family.
About that time the church had begun to organize student wards to better serve the needs
of those who were in college. In the first few years of that program great leeway was
afforded the questioning student. I was called to be a member of the YMMIA stake
presidency. When I went in for my interview, I told the stake president that I had serious
doubts about the truthfulness of the church. He said, "So what , half the students I
interview hold a similar position." That attitude allowed me to stay in the church
until I finished graduate school.
During this time a group of scholars dedicated to proposition
that a person could be both intellectually honest and true to the church, published
research that to my mind totally undermined the claims of the church and confirmed for me
the hypothesis that Joseph Smith was a charismatic con man. Much of that research is
published elsewhere on this web page. This conclusion was extremely painful for me. So
much of my identity was tied to the church. I half expected to become invisible if I ever
decided to leave.
I remember asking Oscar W. McConkie what he would do if I
presented him with irrefutable evidence that Joseph Smith was a fraud. He
answered,"It would not make any difference to me whatsoever since my testimony is
based on faith not reason." His answer crystalized the choice I had before me. Trying
to carry water on both shoulders was not really an option. The choice was clear: Did I
want to live by faith or reason?
Shortly thereafter we moved to Southern California and joined
a very conservative ward. Our questioning style was totally out of sync with the other
ward members. When the time came for us to baptize our oldest child, we agonized over what
to do. We finally realized that no matter what we said, he would know that we didn't
believe the church was true. So why make him go through the pain that we'd gone through.
About that time, 1966, we moved to a different ward. We've not been back since.
We chose to live by reason, not by the type of faith that was
required of us in the Mormon church. And that has made all the difference.
