I thank you for thanking me. And thanks again!
Just don't get discouraged and give up. I collected over a hundred rejection slips before I made my first sale. Best of luck.
So is your choice of feminine hygiene products, but that doesn't make it wrong for their manufacturers to advertise. See, if you're trying to tell me that it's wrong for me to talk about why I don't like the Mormon Church, then by your own lights it's just as wrong for Mormons to talk about why they do. So unless you'd advocate calling the missionaries home, you have to let those of us on the other side have our say -- and you shouldn't whine about it.
I guess that brings me to the thing I've been the most curious about. Some Latter-Day Saints discover that the church just isn't their dance. Okay, whatever. It happens. But why doesn't anybody just say "no" and walk away quietly. I should think these folks would want to celebrate their newfound "freedom" by exploring some of the former taboos. Try some coffee. Go waterskiing on the Sabbath. Treat yourself to an orgasm or two, whatever turns your crank. But instead they'd rather devote hours, days, weeks of their lives to stomping the church into the ground. Why? Does the world really need to know what goes on in the temples? Are we really some great social evil that needs to be exposed? I don't mean to compare you to those dorks that try to pass themselves off as the Salman Rushdie of Utah. I know you're different. But come on, dude. Do you really believe one of the largest churches in the world would change its priesthood policy because ONE university wouldn't play football with us? One more note about myself: I'm not an overtly spiritual person. I don't rush up to the pulpit every fast and testimony meeting, and I lack the ability to cry on command. Yet, what few spiritual highs I've gotten felt nothing like the highs I get from my favorite movies, music, or even martial arts. They are as different as day and night.
Despite my comments, I must add my voice to those lamenting your decision not to finish "The Road to Apostasy". I found it very touching. Even if you don't do a single thing more on your site, couldn't you just finish that story? Please? Not that I'm eager to hear the church get slammed some more (hey, I can take it), but it would answer so many questions. It feels weird to know so much about someone I've never met, but why stop now?
I know you get a lot of mail, but could you please answer mine? I am dying to know your thoughts on my thoughts. I have a nagging fear that your only reply will be an invitation to "fuck off" or get off my high horse. I hope that will not be the case, as I don't feel I even own a high horse. Despite my earlier rantings, I'm want to come to you as a friend. I believe that if we met in real life, we would really hit it off. Although, as I've stated before, I'm no spiritual giant, I feel very inspired to reach out to you. I'm not going to argue doctrine or try to win you back to "the fold". What would be the point, right? It's just that I identify with you so much. It seems our lives followed the same road until we hit a fork somewhere (yet our roads still merge together in a few places). I think a friendship would be mutually beneficial. Please contact me (although if you don't write before May 28th, you'll have to wait until September for me to reply).
Wow, where to begin? Let's start with the football question. One of the basic Mormon beliefs is that the greatest effects can be produced by the smallest causes; e.g., a 14-year-old boy beginning the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Stanford's refusal to play sports against BYU kicked off a discrimination furor that ultimately threatened the Church's status as a tax-free entity -- a small cause with a potentially far-reaching effect. I believe the Church extended the priesthood to blacks to head off this situation, and so, yes, ultimately I believe that one university's refusal to play with BYU caused a huge policy change. It's not such an absurd premise.
Does the world really need to know what goes on in Mormon temples? I believe that it does. I don't think anyone can make a truly informed assessment of whether or not they should join the Church without as much information as possible at his or her disposal. I sure as shit wish I'd known beforehand that I was going to be asked to swear blood oaths in the temple. That would have given me severe pause.
Of course, these beliefs don't preclude the possibility of friendship -- you've approached this invitation with sincerity and intelligence and thoughtfulness, quite unlike the woman I told to fuck off. Write to me again and bug me if you haven't heard from me by September.
Utah is not so strange in that it's a place where great wealth sits cheek-by-jowl with great poverty. Utah is strange and reprehensible in that it's a place where the myth that wealth is a sign of faithfulness to God holds powerful sway. I'm sorry you've had such bad experiences there, but yours is unfortunately not a unique situation.
Odd that I could do that, when the same decision has obviously cost so many others so much. I wonder what it means.
Rather recently an event reminded me of my Mormon background. By accident I ran across a website that mentioned that a former friend of mine had become a dean or some-such at Ricks College. I sent him a congrats e-mail, and he responded warmly, telling me much about his life and his family in the interim 20 years, and asking if we couldn't stay in touch. I answered positively, describing a little of my life, noting that I was now a university history professor, and that mine was a "nineties" family -- two divorced people who had remarried, and brought their children into the relationship. I did not mention leaving the church.
I never heard from him again.
Later a mutual acquaintence told me that he had had me "checked out" and decided that pursuing an old friendship with a person who had left the church, had divorced, had married a non-Mormon, and was an historian besides, was too risky for someone in his position. I felt very sad.
In light of this experience -- and what it indicated about the church -- I decided to look into Mormonism again, to catch up on what has been happening in the last fifteen years. I find that the pogroms have become even more blatant and the agendas of church authorities like Boyd K. Packer more divisive and destructive. I find intellectuals on the run, or, more likely, eliminated or marginalized as a serious element of Mormon culture. And I find a great deal of bitterness, on the part of those who have left the church, and those who desperately defend it. That is most disturbing of all, although I think I understand the reasons, and it's certainly not my place to judge.
I am very sorry about the whole business and what it seems to have done to so many people, Mormon and not. It's a world that seems alien to me now, as though I have lost basic instincts, survival patterns, or behavioral characteristics that defined me as a part of it. My own ideals and self-definitions do not include Mormonism anymore, but instead focus on fatherhood, scholarly principle, creativity, and respect. It's strange to look back, as though I have identified a true discontinuity in my life, and I was really someone else.
I'd like to thank you (and others of all persuasions and opinions) for the opportunity to rediscover and update some the issues. It has given me pause to personally reflect, and that is valuable. I wish you all the best.
It's certainly a sad time when colleagues in a scholarly discipline are afraid to fraternize for fear of reprisal. Thanks for writing.
P.S. HOW CAN THE CHURCH NOT BE TRUE AND BYU FOOTBALL END UP FIFTH IN THE NATION? (BA HA BA HA BA HA HAHAHAHAHAHA!)
I seem to recall that the BYU football team won a national championship back in the eighties. Does this mean the Church is less true now than it was then?
Gee, only close friends of Bob Heinlein got to call him "Heinie." I'm jealous.
