My name is Henning

In my youth I learned that to live standards equals standardization. In church I was taught that we are all individuals but that there is only one way to real happiness. All things that contradicted this path like certain music, movies, or just the way I wanted to dress were more or less seen as a danger to my happiness. I was not forced to follow these standards, but I had a lot of situations where I had to justify myself. Why are such superficial rules so important for some members, I was wondering?

Even though it was more a rebellious motivation during my youth it caused me to start thinking critically. After my rebellious period (from the time I went on my mission until now) I came to understand more and more the systematic mind control within the church. Especially with the youth and the missionaries.

For a long time I noticed that within the church most members think much more about what someone believes than how a person believes something. For example, living together out of wedlock is one of the biggest sins of our generation in the eyes of the church. But isn’t the way a couple lives together much more important than the formality? I noticed that most members can’t really have a differentiated view. A lot of the members become self-righteous and think very categorized which is a limited form of thinking.

My doubts grew over the years.. There were always things I did not understand in the scriptures. How could a just god curse a people up to the Third and Fourth Generation as he did in the Old Testament and Book of Mormon, especially when the church claims that there is no original sin? Why did Adam and Eve have to break the law? Why was the Pharaoh punished because of taking Sarai when Abraham just lied? Why should it be the worst sin to deny the Holy Spirit? Why was one country/land more holy than others? Why was I taught about doctrines that seemed irrelevant such as the New Jerusalem, Kolob and so on? How can the church believe in the story of Noah’s Ark? To this and many other questions I never got an answer that satisfied me. And I saw a lot of things I was not agreeing on with the church. So I put most of the stuff on a shelf because I still believed because I had felt “the Spirit”.

But over the years I got more serious questions, and I noticed more and more that my principles were not the standards of the church.

I was often concerned about the problems that the world was facing and less concerned about the problems that the church deemed to be important. I saw that due to our western lifestyle we produce a lot of poverty and injustice in the world. I noticed that the church members very often supported fundamentalist politicians with nationalist tendencies. A lot of the members supported a war that the UN did not agree to (the Iraq war). Many members were thinking that it is the way of spreading the gospel to other parts of the world, what I considered to be deep fundamentalism. A lot of members agreed with torturing people during war. The church teaches that the earth is a gift from god but most members generally seem to be apathetic to environmental movements. I noticed the church fought against abortion but at the same time most of the members opposed a medical care system. I noticed a church that wanted humility but taught us patriotism in a manner of national pride. I did not understand why homosexuals are a big problem to my marriage and thought that the church is wrong in this point.

I could continue for a long time. But to all these concerns I was told that the problem lies with myself or the imperfections of other members. And even the church leaders are only humans. My problem was that I thought that the church leaders function as a corrective. As a missionary I taught my investigators that we need prophets to guide the church by divine inspiration so that the church will not go astray. But I saw that the church ignored lots of the principles I believed in or even nourished the problems in the world. The central question to me was: Why do we need prophets when they are not talking about the things that are important (in my opinion) or sometimes even harmful? I asked my bishops, my parents, my wife, lots of friends – but did not get any answers.

I noticed more and more the contradictions in the church’s teachings. The questions got deeper and deeper and the doctrines and history of the church no longer seemed consistent to me anymore.

In university I took philosophy classes and loved it a lot. Here I could ask open questions that were not constrained. I noticed many friends and just people around me in “the world” who had very high and reasonable moral principles (personal conviction) and not only moral standards (group/institutional standards). They were not that categorized in their thinking and were mostly more open in finding good arguments for support. I noticed that the motivation model the church was using most of the time uses extrinsic motivation instead of intrinsic. The result is that people act out of fear or for obtaining blessings. I wondered for a long time how people could become a God (what always seemed an abstract teaching to me anyway) when just being motivated extrinsically. Just following rules because I wanted to receive my blessings was not the personal progress I saw for me.

What really frustrated me is that the church has no open discussion culture. You can ask questions but please the right ones! We should notice the good fruits of the church and ignore the bad ones. I thought it was a joke by Dieter F. Uchtdorf when he mentioned last year in a broadcasted stake conference for Germany that we can prove the truth of the church by looking at its fruits. That woke me up. I noticed more and more that church members ignored many global problems like poverty, environmental destruction, energy consumption, peace etc. How was it possible that Utah with about 70% Mormons has the highest online pornography rate in the US, that they have the highest consumption rate of antidepressants, the highest suicide rate among the youth, the highest bankruptcy rate and so on? Are these the fruits of the gospel?

I was told that I have to differ between church culture and the church doctrine. I was fed up being told that the bad fruits are related to “church culture” and not doctrine/institution – but the good fruits of course ARE related to the church doctrine/institution. Aren’t the church leaders supposed to correct habits and members? Who makes the handbooks and doctrine that influence the church culture?

I did not want to share the gospel with non-member friends for a long time but was not able to deny the church on the other hand because I was afraid to deny my feelings. It really troubled me to notice more and more that my belief was not as consistent as I thought it was. What made this situation even worse was the thought about Maria, my parents, my member friends inside the church and the church’s expectations in general. I knew that I would disappoint a lot of them if I left. But I knew that I had to change something in my life.

When I started to share my doubts with Maria years ago, it was not that easy. The problem was that she understood my doubts pretty well. Especially the problems the church was ignoring (look at Maria’s report) was something she understood much too well. And since she understood it pretty well, it made her even more sad. I did not attend the temple for years because I was not able to say (in the temple recommend interview) that I really believed in the prophets as men who are called by god.

At this time I did not know about the real story of the church but I noticed anyways the systematic contradictions. I tried for years receiving an answer from god by praying, reading the scriptures and so on but sometimes I felt even more frustrated when reading the scriptures or praying sincerely to God. When I thought during scripture study, reading on the LDS homepage and praying I noticed even more the faults of the gospel. Many member friends understood my concerns but told me to rather ignore my doubts. I had very bad years living in that ambivalence. It really depressed me. When I look back I can’t explain why I did not start earlier with my research in church “critical” literature to find out the truth about the church. I can only say that I was not resistant enough against mind control and I think if someone believes she/he is resistant she/he is probably a victim of mind control. Education and intelligence don’t protect anyone from subtle brainwashing.

When I began to study on the FARMS and FAIR websites I started to be really concerned. I knew FAIR and FARMS are not official publications of the church, but the church makes no official statements about some uncomfortable facts in order to remain neutral. Reading some of the apologetics about things I had no clue about was just shocking. When I read that the apologetics justify that the prophet Joseph Smith did not just live polygamy but also married a 14 year old girl I was just disgusted. That is a pedophile, and no excuse because he lived in another “era”! The church always claims to have higher standards than the world, and these standards are claimed to be independent of the zeitgeist. Then why do the apologetics mention the zeitgeist? By the way, today the youth of the church are not even allowed to date someone from the other gender until the age of sixteen.

That was just the tip of the iceberg and the start of researching the church without the limitations of avoiding so-called “anti-Mormon” information. Very soon I found out a lot more about polygamy, polyandry, racism, the first vision, the Book of Abraham and all kind of things I did not know about. I always had a problem with polygamy anyway, and it was hard to believe that God would allow a husband to go looking for another wife while being married. If a man was forced to marry a certain woman it would be even worse because it would contradict free agency. That the blacks were not allowed to hold the priesthood was something I never understood because as we are all supposed to be created in the image of God I wondered how the church could be so racist over 130 years?

I was wondering how we could stay in a group like the Mormon church for so long and believe still in its truth and how the group was influencing me. That is a very long topic which I will touch on only briefly.

The Mormon church uses a very intelligent balance of personal experiences we are promised to obtain through worthiness, obedience, offerings (time, money, ideology, physically etc.), trust, prayer, scripture study and so on, and the group which has lots of respectable and eloquent people who testify about their experiences. If you don’t feel the spirit it’s more or less your fault because everyone else felt it before. The testimony by the Holy Spirit is a feeling that is the highest proof of the truth, which is actually an example of circular reasoning. Real truth and real feelings are two different things! The Holy Ghost is not fail-proof as the example of Paul H. Dunn shows us (a member of the seventy who told many inspirational stories caught lying).

The influence of group emotions became more clear to me during the football (soccer) world championship in Germany in 2006. When growing up in Germany I had always a big problem with patriotic feelings because I was alarmed by our own history. While watching the games with lots of other Germans, I noticed strong emotions towards our team and our country. I felt a new spirit towards my nation I had never been proud of before. Almost everyone in Germany from a craftsman to my professors (people I highly respected) and from a native German to Germans with immigrant background were joining the new national feelings in public. We had a mission and a rival. That is nothing I think is bad (as far as the rivals are not viewed as enemies), but I noticed the group dynamics influencing me. The style and the emotions at a world championship are totally different than the spiritual feelings at church but I noticed that the feelings seemed unique and convincing (at least for the moment). I started to think again about my positive feelings towards my country and thought that I’m not better because of it but that I could identify with it a lot. But I notice always at big sport events and inside church that it is very important for some people to which team you belong. When I watched the movie “The Wave”, I thought about the Third Reich and similar examples, I recognized the danger of rituals, leaders who are “infallible”, strong and irrational opinions, defined enemies, the danger of failure, the joy about success and so on.

A movement like the Mormon church needs (trustworthy) people as examples (leaders), a goal, standards that make the members special and different, an enemy, signs (dress code, greetings etc.), and many more. (I noticed how much the church was using these mechanisms). Today I would say the Mormons do a pretty “good job” in combining group dynamics and personal experiences based on funneled questions so people think they found out by themselves. The personal experience is shared by a group of more or less trustworthy members that comfort each other. Church members may ask: How can 13 million people be wrong? I can‘t say – neither can I say how a billion other believers “know” that their religions are true or how millions of Germans followed their leaders in the 3rd Reich with the strongest trust. Who will deny that some of them had been deeply convinced to do such irrational evils? How strong they had been convinced is absolutely impressive, but the effects of their blind obedience were devastating. The degree to which people are convinced of something is not at all a sign of truth or of the good. It should be rather alarming.

Today, Neo-Nazis all over the world are trying to deny the holocaust. Many church members try to ignore or justify polygamy, racism, or changes in the history of the church. Apologetics and church leaders filter and change the history when presenting it to members. Before I will be misunderstood, I don’t want to compare Mormons with Nazis but I want to show the dangerous parallels of the mechanisms both are using. I know a lot of wonderful people including my family that are Mormon. I see absolutely no reason to see any danger in people who are active Mormons. There is a big difference between a member and a system. I’m not angry at church leaders even though I see that they deny the real history and doctrine that is not officially revised. I think that they do it because they mostly really believe in it. I don’t see myself as a victim of a bad system. Nothing is just black and white. I learned good things in church and had experiences I don’t want to miss. To work (think) me out of Mormonism really taught me things I would not have learned without all the bad and good things during my time in church.

To finally recognize that the church is a complete hoax was a wonderful, refreshing feeling of freedom for me. It is hard to describe to an active Mormon how beautiful, nice and mind-expanding that step was for me. I think this feeling can be compared pretty well to the feeling the biblical Adam and Eve must have had when their eyes were opened and they had to leave the Garden of Eden. The way out is hard but more than worth it.

My name is Henning and I’m an Ex Mormon.