When I created this site I sent a note to Bill Reel, podcaster extrordinaire, to get any feedback he may have. He was very supportive and gave some awesome feedback. He said, “I love it. An ‘I was a Mormon campaign‘ Ha ha ha! But I love the concept. You give people a place to share their stories accurately. People have a right to their story and they also have a right to not have anyone else tell their story. There is a significantly and exponentially growing segment of former Mormons and former believers.” When I invited him to create a profile on the site he said “I’m planning on it.” Then he offered to share it on ex-Mormon Reddit too. At this point, I still hadn’t even looked at Reddit for processing my own Mormon exit. I thanked him and his response was “I’ll have it done by the end of the day!”
True to his word, the same day he promoted wasmormon.org in a post on exmormon Reddit saying “I thought this was awesome. I think you each have a right to your story and I believe you have a right to tell your story. And more importantly, you have a right to not have others tell your story inaccurately. Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were 100,000 post-mormon profiles on here?!”
The LDS Church has no healthy story of people who leave. Thomas Marsh, Symonds Ryder, Oliver Cowdery. Our manuals diminish anyone who questions the truth claims or who loses belief in and steps away. Anyone who is different is less than. Any one who questions is less than. Anyone who leaves is less than. We need healthy stories. A listener to the podcast created this: https://wasmormon.org
I thought this was awesome. I think you each have a right to your story and I believe you have a right to tell your story. And more importantly you have a right to not have others tell your story inaccurately. Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were 100,000 post-mormon profiles on here.
Bill Reel
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/b2lj9i/wasmormonorg_and_why_such_a_thing_should_exist/
He continued his post by sharing his own story from his wasmormon.org profile! He also offered to include links to the site from his own site, which he did. Through Bill’s support and publicity, dozens more added their faith transition story to the site. He later commented, “I truly think it is important that the myth that post-Mormons are less happy die. I love my life and most post-Mormons claim to be happier!” He even shared a survey he’d run in Southern Utah with the results summarized in a chart where “only a sliver reported being less happy”. The number one complaint is the family fracture that results when leaving the church.
Since then, we’ve featured Bill’s story in a social spotlight post. Join Bill and the rest of the contributors on the site by telling your own story. We each have an important story to tell and a right to tell it. If we don’t tell it, who will?