How can I NOT End Up Apostate Like You?

This is one of a series social media posts that I wrote in 2021 during the height of my Faith Transition. Because I was publicly deconstructing in front of an entirely faithful network of friends and followers, I received a lot reactions, questions, and backlash from people I loved regarding my journey. Many of them were dismissive or hostile towards me because they had been trained to me as a “defector.”

Since an overly long response in a comment or personal message would have been seen as aggressive, I took quotes from these reactions to write these public posts in response. I never attributed the person who asked the question since I didn’t want anyone to feel specifically blamed or called out for having the response. The questions are also not unique. They are part of the scripted response we were taught to have as members of the “in-group.” Still, each post begins with a quotation because it is a question I personally received during my Transition.

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I hope everyone is grateful that I haven’t gotten more messages like this. Because I would probably not choose my words as carefully as I have so far, if I had. Anyway, I recently received this:

👹 “All I want to know is–How can I NOT end up like you?” 👹

Still, I’m feeling a little salty over the Judas-stuff. 

But you know what? Sure, I’d love to help you avoid some trauma. 🔥

Here’s what I did that directly contributed to my faith crisis. So take notes so that you can avoid as many of these things as possible.

I foolishly got myself into this mess of a Faith Crisis because I…

1. Assumed the Church was True. 
2. Assumed the Prophet, Apostles, and other General Authorities were telling me the Truth and that they would not lead me astray
3. Attended all my Church meetings (even the inconvenient Saturday ones, even on vacation). 
4. Served an extremely strict and demanding full-time mission
5. Graduated from BYU (twice)
6. Married in the Temple
7. Had Kids in the covenant, and was raising them in Zion
8. Stayed home to be a Mom
9. Framed the Family Proclamation, read it often, & internalized sexism and homophobia
10. Memorized the Living Christ
11. Indoctrinated my kids by naming them after Biblical figures, singing them primary songs, and sitting them down for FHE lessons, even before they couldn’t speak. 
12. Asked for, received, followed, and justified all kinds of Priesthood Blessings  
13. Did my own genealogy work, from original documents through Temple Sealings for many ancestors
14. Attended the Temple at least monthly, often weekly
15. Listened to all Sessions of General Conference, every time 
16. Spent most of my free time reading about Christianity, Isaiah, correlations between the BOM and the Ancient native peoples of America and Polynesia, the Last Days, and apologetics
17. Studied the scriptures, words of the prophets, and Joseph Smith
18. Prayed for and developed my own relationship with the Spirit (as per the instructions of RMN)
19. Assumed I was wrong about those feelings and thoughts that were not aligned with correlated Church material. 
20. And asked this key question: “How would I know if they Church were NOT True?” 
21. Oh, and I actually cared about being like Jesus (classic mistake)

🃏 If you avoid just one thing, definitely make it #20. That is most effective-ever question at introducing critical thinking in this arena and it almost always proves fatal to the house-of-cards testimonies that most of us have built. 

…But actually, #20 and #21 are both basically guarantees that you’ll wend your out eventually. You really have to commit to being a lukewarm thinker and lukewarmly Christ-like to be truly aligned with the Church. 🤷‍♀️

🫧 If you try to avoid just a few of these things, you’ll probably be able to preserve the bubble of plausibility longer as a nuanced member, but no guarantee as to how long that will be do-able. 

👔 If you can skip #1 and #2 and only half-engage with the rest, you’ll probably be able to jump the shark and keep your community benefits and only believe the good parts of Church doctrine (no promises on what your kids will absorb, though).

🤑 If you avoid everything except the one involving attendance and make a butt-load of money (meaning: if you pay a butt-load of Tithing), though, you might be promoted to General Authority! You lose your soul on the way, but meh–what is exaltation with sacrifice, right?

👹 If you try to avoid everything I did wrong though, then you’ll be labeled inactive and apostate, anyway.

Darn. 

Good luck, though.