NOM

I remember a few years back there was a hot issue in the news, stem cell research or something, and I remember going to lds.org to see what I believed vs examining internally what I personally believed.

I had been led that the church has the answer to everything, and as the only true church, I was expected to sacrifice my entire belief system to the church, and look to the church for ALL answers, instead of thinking for myself.

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On r/exmormon, the users are pretty much half and half: members and nonmembers. But I have noticed in some other forums that there is a visible divide: Between the people like me in the paragraph above and people like me that now think for themselves.

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For many reasons, the church has itself is to blame for this (the prophet will never lead you astray, he knows the way, etc.).
But because of this, when the church responded to the plural marriage essay media coverage with “The fact that Joseph Smith had plural marriage relationships is not new, of course.”
“Much of what you’ll find in the essays on polygamy has been published in diverse sources and known among long-term and well-read members, historians, and Church leaders for many years.”
They gave members license to judge, ridicule and ostracize the members that had not known about it.
The church essentially created a reverse large and spacious building; A them and us culture, when in fact the Mormon spectrum is just that, a spectrum.

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I know that many people have been hurt by the church’s Culture of Concealment before me, and many will be hurt after me.
But I, personally, am dealing with this right now.
The concealment of Joseph’s plural marriage has hit me particularly hard.
And for me, I need to do something about it.

In responding to the media coverage, the Church inadvertently exposed a secret combination that may be exploited for the benefit of NOW Mormons and the world in general:
When there is enough uncomfortable publicity, the Church responds.

Yes, I served a two-year mission, but now I have a new mission:

-Promote and secure acknowledgement and validation from church leadership of NOW Mormons
-Promote and receive compassionate public recognition, remorse and regret from church leadership for the Culture of Concealment historically perpetuated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
-MAKE THE ABOVE HAPPEN DURING GENERAL CONFERENCE, OCTOBER 2017.

Maybe this will be an epic fail.
Maybe this will be an epic success.
But either way, I need to try.

Enough publicity is needed so that the church feels it needs to respond, as it should.

And since I know that I am not alone, I can’t do it alone. I need your help and ideas.

--

I have created the following:

Website: mormonwounds.com
Twitter: mormonwounds
Instagram: mormonwounds
Email: scott@mormonwounds.com

Take a look and remember, this is a work in progress.
Don’t judge me, just help me.

When we fail to stand for truth, we betray.

One voice may not be noticed, but many voices beg acknowledgement.

The church must acknowledge the hurt.

NOWmormon wrote: ↑Sun May 07, 2017 3:54 pm The church must acknowledge the hurt.

Oh wow. Where to start....

First of all, I admire you for what you're trying to do and for the extreme amount of time and effort you've put into this. I remember when I learned the truth, I wanted to shout if from the rooftop. I thought, "I've got to tell everyone and wake them up....I need to warn them so they don't keep paying money to these guys...etc....etc....etc...

But, you learn pretty quickly that no one wants to hear it and no one at the top really cares that you've discovered what is going on.

And, it doesn't work to even attempt to talk to members who are still faithful and believing. They don't want to hear anything from someone who is struggling or has stopped attending. They really don't even want to talk to you. Period.

I believe that each one of has to be triggered. Everyone's trigger is different and can happen at any time or simply may never happen no matter how full your shelf gets. My trigger was polygamy. I have a family member who was triggered when Monson became the Prophet (she firmly believed he would never be allowed to be Prophet because he was so full of fluff and no doctrine...just full of it, in her eyes)....but it made her open to search outside the Mormon box and discover the truth when he became the president.

My brother's trigger was the Book of Abraham. He doesn't really care about polygamy or church history much at all.

I cannot trigger my kids. I have a pretty good idea where their "weaknesses" are regarding church belief, but it has to happen when they are ready and they hear something at just the right time.

Yes, sometimes we can influence others by sharing information....but they still have to be ready to hear it and believe it.

Anyway, I do know what you're going through. Good for you for taking action too. But I do believe in the end it'll be more for you than for anyone else.

But, please keep us posted and stick around for support. We're good at doing that around here.

So, I raised sheep for 4-H growing up. For the market lamb project my brothers and I would exercise the lambs, which consisted of halter training them and running them 2 miles every day. Obviously those sheep did not want to do it so it largely consisted of me dragging the sheep 2 miles every day. It was a work out for me more than the sheep. Often those sheep would just collapse on the ground and refuse to move. This caused me much consternation. If I were a TBM giving a talk I would now go in a considerably different direction with this story, but we are going to make a hard left turn here.
Most of the time this would happen I would be so mad I would start kicking the sheep. I know, I am not proud of it. It is really one of my biggest regrets from my childhood. But I tell you what, it never helped. It never made the sheep get up. It always just laid there with a miserable expression. After a while I would stop and sit down, and the sheep would get up.
I am not discouraging you from doing what may be something that gets you through the night. By all means, holding the church's feet to the fire may be a worthy cause (unlike kicking a sheep when he's down). But sometimes when I get on reddit, mormondiscussions, and some of those websites, I feel like we are just kicking a sheep. Beating a dead horse. Its not gonna get up.

Hi Scott - I think you've received some good advice from AllieOop and Emower. I understand your desire to make COB accountable but I caution you to slow down and assess your approach carefully. I have a family member who stumbled upon some key issues in the early 2000s. He corresponded with a GA for a time and got so frustrated by the lack of transparency that he posted his letters and the responses on the Internet. He was interviewed by the local paper and it was picked up nationally where he spoke openly about how the Church had lied to him. He tried to rally his family, friends and TBM business associates. All he did was alienate people. His parents and TBM siblings were very hurt by his public condemnation of something that they held sacred. Over time the family has rebuilt their relationships and are now close again. As the years have passed, several siblings have followed him out of the church.

I don't know if you remember the story of the sun and the wind having a bet to see which could get a man to remove his overcoat. The wind blew as hard as it could to get the man to take off his coat but it only made him hold tighter. Once the wind was done, the sun began to shine on the man and it drew him closer. As the man warmed up he undid his coat buttons and eventually removed his coat.

My cousin accomplished nothing but alienating the people he loved the louder he was. Once he stopped trying to force people to listen, they went to him to talk when they were ready.

I know that your life feels like it has turned upside down and you are likely questioning everything you were taught and everything you believe. Be kind to yourself and give yourself time to adjust and reassess.

Can of Worms wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2017 6:43 pm Hi Scott - I think you've received some good advice from AllieOop and Emower. I understand your desire to make COB accountable but I caution you to slow down and assess your approach carefully. I have a family member who stumbled upon some key issues in the early 2000s. He corresponded with a GA for a time and got so frustrated by the lack of transparency that he posted his letters and the responses on the Internet. He was interviewed by the local paper and it was picked up nationally where he spoke openly about how the Church had lied to him. He tried to rally his family, friends and TBM business associates. All he did was alienate people. His parents and TBM siblings were very hurt by his public condemnation of something that they held sacred. Over time the family has rebuilt their relationships and are now close again. As the years have passed, several siblings have followed him out of the church.

I don't know if you remember the story of the sun and the wind having a bet to see which could get a man to remove his overcoat. The wind blew as hard as it could to get the man to take off his coat but it only made him hold tighter. Once the wind was done, the sun began to shine on the man and it drew him closer. As the man warmed up he undid his coat buttons and eventually removed his coat.

My cousin accomplished nothing but alienating the people he loved the louder he was. Once he stopped trying to force people to listen, they went to him to talk when they were ready.

I know that your life feels like it has turned upside down and you are likely questioning everything you were taught and everything you believe. Be kind to yourself and give yourself time to adjust and reassess.

Having conversations with my TBM friend right now and this was timely-thanks!

Thank you for your comments, they really help.

Well, you gotta do you. Do what you have to do, but good luck! Remember all Jeremy Runnells wanted was answers and look where it got him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUJns80itNE

ETA: I guess I just mean that we all have our own journey and we never know where our journey is going when we start out. I don't think you will get the church to recognize anything, but I would LOVE to be wrong friend!

I'll share with you my experience of hoping for an apology from the Church and not getting it.

So I'm gay, and was completely obedient to the elders of the Church. As soon as I got home from my mission E Oaks had an article on "same gender attraction" in the Ensign. I decided I would go the therapeutic approach since that seemed to be what the Brethren "knew" people in my situation should do. LDS Social Services (now Family Services) operated an agency in downtown Salt Lake City with a staff that was confident it could "cure" people of their homosexuality. So I signed up. The therapy wasn't really anything objectionable; in fact it helped me a lot with my self image, anxiety, and depression. The problem was that I sank fifteen years of my life into pursuing the Church's cure.

After a lot of struggles, I began to slowly realize that the Brethren didn't know what the he11 they were talking about on this issue. Thomas Montgomery outlined what had happened to me on a blogpost he made a few weeks ago:

LDS theology extends the ordinances of salvation from not only baptism, but to temple ordinances and marriage. The discovery of a sexual orientation or gender identity that is incompatible with a ‘traditional marriage’ cuts you off from salvation. It cuts you out of your eternal family....

From the time a Mormon child can understand words, the Plan is laid out for them. It is reinforced year after year that their worth is directly tied to what their Heavenly Father wants them to do. Each stage of advancement is laid out step by step, especially for boys. They are baptized at 8. They become a deacon at 12, a teacher at 14, a priest at 16, a missionary at 18 and will marry in the temple, in a generally accepted timeframe of 20-23 years old. Each step is accompanied by an interview with the Bishop, as well as recognition by the ward and celebration by the family.

When that plan is stripped away, significant uncertainty is introduced. It is most often countered with a concerted effort toward extreme religiosity. An attempt to cure oneself. Prayers and bargains with God are often offered, “if only He will take this away.” But the true desperation comes when the devoted and sincere efforts toward religiosity end with failure. It becomes a rejection by not just family or friends, but from God

I felt that the Brethren and God had failed me. I held out for a year or two before I stopped attending church. In January of 2015 the Brethren had a very unusual press conference laying out the need for the State of Utah to lay out protections for LGBT individuals, and protections for religious communities who may wish to reject them. E Oaks was one of the four speakers at the event. He had kind of become a symbol of the Church's approach to homosexual members for me, so I felt he owed me something. Their approach with me was a failed approach, and I wanted some acknowledgement of remorse from the Brethren. They had done some horrendous things to my LGBT brothers and sisters in the decades before me--purges, forced marriages, shock therapy, Pres Kimball's "Crime Against Nature" approach. What Oaks said was devastating to me and represented the second to last straw to end my relationship with the Church:

I know that the history of the church is not to seek apologies or to give them. We sometimes look back on issues and say, 'Maybe that was counterproductive for what we wish to achieve,' but we look forward and not backward.

The church doesn't seek apologies, and we don't give them.

It was like a heavy weight descended on my heart. I knew at that moment that they weren't sorry about the years of my life I spent pursuing the cure they lead me to believe was mine if I just worked hard and followed their guidance. There would be no apologies for the results of their failed experiment. No apologies for the damage caused in my life and the lives of many others who also followed their program. In an interview given after the press conference, E Oaks continued this sentiment:

I'm not aware that the word 'apology' appears anywhere in the Scriptures--Bible or Book of Mormon. The word "apology" contains a lot of connotations in it, and a lot of significance. We do not seek apologies. When our temple was desecrated in California, when people were fired and intimidated, when a lot of coercive methods were used, we sought no apology.

I wasn't going to get anything from them. I had to reframe the meaning of my life and the place of those fifteen years chasing their cure. Once the November Policy hit later that year, I was done.

I had finally gotten to a point where I realized that they (mostly) had good intentions, they really messed me up, but there wasn't going to be any remorse for that. No expressions of regret, shared pain, etc. were forthcoming. And I guess that's the way it is.

A few months ago there was a guy, I think an attorney, who wanted to air some videos of NOW Mormons on comcast. Ultimately, Comcast turned him down and did not air the documentary testimonies of jaded Mormons. Perhaps you can synch up with that guy and come up with some ideas.

NOWMormon is my DH. Luckily, the only active member is my MIL. All of his siblings have pretty much left the church and only one niece is semi-active. The other nieces and nephews haven't attended in years. For me, I have been mentally out since August 2012. As for our three kids, they haven't stepped into a LDS chapel since December 2011. Thankfully we don't live in Utah and where we do live members are far to few between.

2bizE wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 12:18 am A few months ago there was a guy, I think an attorney, who wanted to air some videos of NOW Mormons on comcast. Ultimately, Comcast turned him down and did not air the documentary testimonies of jaded Mormons. Perhaps you can synch up with that guy and come up with some ideas.

What have I missed, what is a NOW mormon?

Emower wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 11:03 am What have I missed, what is a NOW mormon?

NOW Mormon (Neglected Or Wounded Mormon)

According to Scott the NOWmormon's own definition. See first post here:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1394&p=14368#p14368

achilles wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2017 9:15 pm I'll share with you my experience of hoping for an apology from the Church and not getting it

Thank you so much for sharing.
Heart-wrenching.

wtfluff wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 11:24 am

Emower wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 11:03 am What have I missed, what is a NOW mormon?

NOW Mormon (Neglected Or Wounded Mormon)

According to Scott the NOWmormon's own definition. See first post here:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1394&p=14368#p14368

Also see:
http://www.mormonwounds.com/home/faq/

2bizE wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 12:18 am A few months ago there was a guy, I think an attorney, who wanted to air some videos of NOW Mormons on comcast. Ultimately, Comcast turned him down and did not air the documentary testimonies of jaded Mormons. Perhaps you can synch up with that guy and come up with some ideas.

Thank you, would love to reach out.
Can you provide more details (name, etc)?
You can email me at scott@mormonwounds.com

I applaud your efforts. I hope it works. I can't imagine it will but you never know. Eventually a straw will break that camels back. When the pain of the status quo is greater than the projected pain of change, eventually it will happen.

Scott, I grew up in an abusive household. I married an abuser. One day, I learned my father killed my mother. Killed her​ in such a was hard to detect, so we didn't investigate or prosecute--even though the physician suspected something, but didn't push it. My husband also told my of his sister being pregnant and her husband kicking her in the stomach. Her traumatized body went into a labor and she delivered a stillborn baby. I looked at all of this material and stopped making excuses for my husband. Divorced him, because he was actually a worse abuser than my father.

What triggered my religion crisis was asking the question, if my mother had gone to a bishop and told him of my father's unrighteous dominion and sought help, would she have gotten it. I knew the answer. I'd seen it happen to my friends. I'd experienced it, myself. The bishop would beg, plead, cajole, threaten, browbeat, coerce, council and command her back into that marriage (but he'd never advise whether or not to stay married or get divorced). I searched and searched for women to doctrinally have the support that she could call on in a bishop's office. It wasn't there. Know what was there? Learning how the patriarchy and the priesthood enables abuse. Learning how the obedience covenant keeps an abuse victim oppressed. Learning how celestial marriage traps abuse victims.

Let me circle back, for a moment. I personally knew of two people who had been killed at the hands or feet of abusers. What I knew could save lives! Could prevent daughters and sons from getting trapped in bad situations! This is literally vital information! Know what? No one cared. No wait. They cared. They cared enough to offer me sympathy, but not enough to say, "Oh my God! This needs to change!" They cared enough to let me know they thought it was rough, but if I continued talking about it, because I saw that they just weren't getting this and how important this is and this is people's lives! The feedback I got was they were sure hoping I'd get past the pain and negativity and get on with my life.

In short, Scott, they cared, but not enough to really go to the work to bring about societal change. This is something that can save lives and they don't care enough to implement changes into our society and system--as if women and children are Dickensian surplus population.

This is now what I tell myself. We all--all of us, myself included--are doing our best with the knowledge and skills we have at this time. I accept the situation as it is. I have learned what I can change--myself, rather than society--and I put my energies toward what I can change and accept what I can't. In the meantime, the people in my life know if they need, I have knowledge. I know who to call. I can get them to resources (if the government doesn't shut them down). I can give them support in a world where they will get precious little. They have my number and if they want my help, they'll call.

My father--yes, I'm quoting my father (take that anyone who says I need to forgive)--used to say, "every generation needs to reinvent the wheel". He's pretty close to right.

NOWmormon wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 7:25 pm

2bizE wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 12:18 am A few months ago there was a guy, I think an attorney, who wanted to air some videos of NOW Mormons on comcast. Ultimately, Comcast turned him down and did not air the documentary testimonies of jaded Mormons. Perhaps you can synch up with that guy and come up with some ideas.

Thank you, would love to reach out.
Can you provide more details (name, etc)?
You can email me at scott@mormonwounds.com

Here is a link to an article.
http://www.sltrib.com/home/4862450-155/ ... ing-mormon

NOWmormon wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 7:20 pm

achilles wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2017 9:15 pm I'll share with you my experience of hoping for an apology from the Church and not getting it

Thank you so much for sharing.
Heart-wrenching.

I appreciate that. I can say that the pain significantly reduces over time, and I think that's true for most people who are hurt and never get an apology.