How/why did/do you stay in the pew?
My parents forced me to
bakiraka01I was a closeted non-believer for several years. I attended only because I didn’t want my wife to be exposed to the kind of treatment I’ve seen other have when a sister comes to church leaving their non-believing husband behind. Eventually she told me that she could deal with it and I didn’t need to keep coming. Sure enough they started treating her exactly like I’d feared. Our last bishop told her that she needed to “get off the fence” and decide whether she was gonna let my then 12 year-old son get ordained. In my experience when you push somebody off a fence they end up on the other side. That’s exactly what happened. She kept attending because she enjoyed her calling with the YW but never went back once they released her.
michael-taylorI kept going to church for 9 months after losing my faith just to observe. And because losing faith in Mormonism was easy. Having the courage to fully detangle all the pieces of it in my life was hard. It was fascinating going — well, it was at best boring and at worst disturbing. So many people internalize the most horrid things from this church. Why does Relief Society always devolve into trauma sharing hour?
bparks898I was hopeful that things could evolve for the better, that apologies would be made, that no one in need would be denied assistance.
serene