Brett's Faith Transition

I have officially resigned from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Here is my story:

I was born and raised in the church. I was taught its doctrines, lived its teachings, and enjoyed its fruits. I served a mission for the church and had a positive experience doing so. I met Kellie at the institute of religion and married her in the temple. We had children and were doing our best to be faithful members.

There is an analogy frequently used about a ‘faith shelf’ we have. Occasionally I would have a question or observe something that I couldn’t reconcile with my beliefs. I would take this ‘item’ and place it on my shelf with a plan to revisit it later. I would shrug to myself and think something like, “That’s odd. This doesn’t make sense. Oh well, I guess God will have to explain it to me when I meet him.” After these shelf items begin to add up, the shelf is strained by their weight. If I have too much weight, the shelf will break and my faith will be lost. I had many small shelf items but nothing my shelf couldn’t handle.

Many items hailed from the domain of science such as the age of the Earth (more than 6000 years) and evolution. I would rationalize these away. “Science has been wrong before. It must be wrong now.”

Other items came from discrepancies in the doctrines of the church. Every time I read from the Old Testament I would see there are teachings in there that do not align with other church doctrine. For example, slavery and concubines were approved by God. Changes to the temple ceremonies were very odd to me as well. Why didn’t God reveal it correctly the first time?

And then there are questions from church history. Joseph Smith had some shady practices regarding polygamy. Brigham Young had many questionable teachings, including blacks and the priesthood. Patriarchal blessings for many people stating that they would live to see the Second Coming yet they did not.

Again, these were smaller items and I would brush them off, relying on God to give me understanding in the next life. However, they were starting to add up.

I decided I needed to start strengthening my faith from the most basic foundation: Does God exist?

I felt that I was an agnostic theist in that I believed in God and that He could not be proven or disproved. I would hear atheists claim, “You can’t prove God exists.” and I would think, “Well, you can’t prove He doesn’t!”.

I was taught that God loves us and answers our prayers (Moroni 10:3-5). I wracked my mind to figure out why He was not answering mine. I prayed frequently and fervently, yet all I received was continued silence. Why would He not answer? I felt nothing from Him. Why would others receive answers and revelations but not me? I could only imagine it was because I, being imperfect, was unworthy. Even though I was also taught that all sin and fall short, I must be worse. This brought me much guilt and shame throughout my life. Kellie would occasionally ask me to pray with her regarding life choices and I would dread these moments because they would inevitably reveal my failure to communicate with God and provide me with additional guilt and shame.

Similar to prayer, I would also dread giving priesthood blessings. I would never receive any guidance from God on what to say and feared I would be revealed as a fraud. Priesthood blessings were a bit different in that I could view their effects on the lives of others. From my perspective, it appeared that those who received blessings would often recover (or not recover) from their ailments at the same rate as those who did not receive blessings.

I thought back throughout my life, searching for experiences that I could not deny were God speaking to me. I had a few experiences that I attributed to Him, though even at the time I felt it was 50/50 that they were from God or just from myself. I tried to follow the adage “Fake it, ‘til you make it” and I got pretty good at faking it. I was really trying to be a good member but was not receiving much help from the Almighty.

I did something that I had never done before: I allowed myself to really ponder the atheist perspective. What if God does NOT exist? How would these questions fit together under this thesis? I was surprised to find that all the pieces fit together.

My shelf had broken.

Coincidentally, Kellie had been struggling at the same time with her own shelf items. Mostly regarding church history though you’ll have to ask her for details. So we decided to leave the church together. I feel stronger in my new beliefs as an atheist than I ever did as a theist. I also feel more free and happy.

It was, and still is, a difficult transition for us. Almost all of our family and friends are still believing members of the church and most have been loving and supportive. I know what members must think about us because I passed the same judgments about other people who left the church. To those I judged, I want to say I’m sorry!

“He left the church because he wanted to sin.” FALSE
“He never had a testimony in the first place.” FALSE
“He didn’t read the scriptures, pray, attend church, etc.” FALSE
“He’ll return to the church someday.” FALSE
“Deep down he knows it’s true.” FALSE

I understand that my decision may cause grief or pain because you believe I’m losing my eternal life and the eternal lives of my children but I do not believe there is an afterlife. I believe this life is the only one we have and we should make the best of it. I also see there is some good that comes from the church but I also see there is a lot of harm as well. If I get to the other side and find that there is an afterlife, I’ll have some poignant questions for the Man Upstairs.

Finally, I would love to have a polite discussion with anyone regarding these topics. I’m glad your religion brings you joy. My new beliefs bring me joy as well.

With Love,
Brett