Hi, I'm Andy

Possibly like many wasmormon members, I had questions about many aspects of Church history, doctrine and practices that often gave me pause from the time I was a young missionary, but, good Mormon that I was, I dutifully blamed myself for questioning the Church and the Prophet, repented and shelved the questions.  My faith was shaken many times along the way as I grew older and started to realize there's no real, spiritual power in the Church, or in any religion made by men, other than what its members all agree upon, or, rather, what the leaders tell them they need to agree upon in order to please God, which often has the added benefit of enriching the Church through greater tithes and donations.  Home church meetings through Zoom during COVID provided further opening for me, as it did for many members, to put things into proper perspective and reexamine many of those old questions remaining on my shelf.  I had reached a point where the only thing keeping me in the Church was my wife's unwavering faith, in which I noticed a few small cracks appearing post-COVID.  Basically, I love(d) her and didn't want to hurt her or our marriage of 40+ years, so I kept quiet and acted like a faithful member.  I didn't like my own inauthenticity, but figured I would eventually come clean when the time was right.  Besides, I still appreciated the support and community aspects of the Church, and 90% of my friends and family were all active members, so I played along.  

Then she died.  My world was shattered. For me, part of grieving was realizing that I needed to let go of many things in my life that no longer served me.  It was scary, but necessary for my future well-being.  Now, I was free to approach my life in completely new and authentic ways. Along the way, I started watching MormonStories videos and other exmormon podcasts, reading things that I had previously put off reading because, well, they might be of the devil.  Reading the CES Letter was a key event for me in putting my faith crisis in perspective.  I finally gained the assurance that I wasn't alone in my faith deconstruction journey.

So, my conclusions:  If God loves all of his children, why would s/he reserve his/her highest blessings for an infinitesimally small number of those children, i.e., those who wear funny underwear, participate in Masonic rituals and pay money to a large religious corporation.  Those who support a church that lies about its members' $100+ billion tithing monies, spends less of that money on charitable work than does Walmart, keeps a bevy of highly paid (with tithes) lawyers to protect child abusing leaders and pay hush money to their victims.  A church who lies to its members about its own history.  A church founded by a gold-digging sexual predator, who, though a sort of religious organizational genius in his own right, concocted an elaborate tale of seeing God and Jesus, digging up gold plates, peep stones, and fake "reformed Egyptian" writings to make members believe in his Book of Mormon.  A church that, despite so much evidence to the contrary, insists that the Church's credibility and all its claims of being the one true church depend on the reality of Joseph's (final) first vision story, and upon the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.  If either or both of those two things fail, then the entire structure fails.  The Church's patriarchal gerontocracy knows that evidence for such truths is very thin, so they insist that members ignore it and live by faith alone.  This, of course, is done by following the living prophet and conveniently ignoring many of the words of former prophets, an arrangement that results in continuing tithing revenue for the corporation.

These are just some of the things that I have struggled with, but despite losing my faith, I still feel the church does a lot of good in the world.  I love the community.  It was an important part of my life for over 65 years and most of my family and friends still believe it.  Now, I am finding new paths to spirituality and discovering new ways of thinking about "god" and death and meaning in my life.  So far, I am finding it exciting, even mind-bending.  I feel a new sense of freedom and authenticity.  I'm glad groups like wasmormon are here to help me.