What day is it? Wednesday? It feels like Thursday. Apparently the day after you explode all over your blog has a distinctly Thursday feel to it.

Thank you for the nice things that you said. I’m glad you still like me, even if I sometimes say rat’s ass. Although I’m sure that for each wonderful comment I got, there were a few people who rolled their eyes and wanted to tell me to shut up. And I love that I just don’t care.

Let’s take my list of “untouchable” items one by one, shall we? Today we are going to talk about number one on my list. A very uncomfortable and perhaps offensive subject for many of you, since I know that I am linked to by several religious websites. I left the Mormon church.

I would like to start out by saying that I have no bad feelings or resentment towards the Mormon church. I have nothing but wonderful memories of the time I spent as a Mormon, and I will forever feel enriched by that part of my life. I wouldn’t even go so far as to say that I lost my testimony. I still believe everything I was taught by the missionaries seven years ago. I still read the Book of Mormon. I haven’t ruled out ever coming back to church… but where I’m at in my life right now, I just don’t see it happening.

The reason I joined the church in the first place is because I was looking for a strong, spiritually uplifting community to guide and support me. I never went to church growing up, and I felt like I was missing something important in my life. I have always believed in God, and that faith has carried me through some of the loneliest times of my life. Not only did the Mormon church seem like a very solid and uncomplicated community, but the doctrine and teachings were very in line with the conclusions I had come to on my own while reading the Bible without a church affiliation. I had some questions and concerns about living as a Mormon, but I figured that the strong testimony I felt about the religious aspects of the church would come to override the confusion I had about the day to day Mormon life. I was surprised to find that as the years have gone by, not only have the concerns not been resolved for me, they have grown more pronounced.

First of all, I do not understand why men can hold the priesthood (the authority to perform official acts such as baptism and giving blessings) and women cannot. I heard one of the women leaders in the church say that she doesn’t have to work at a power plant to enjoy the benefits of its electricity. I think that’s a load of crap. I don’t feel that roles within any organization should be given based on gender (of course within the church it is also based on each individual male’s worthiness to accept the authority). Every woman I have ever met within the church has been just as, if not more than, worthy enough in my eyes to hold such a power. People have told me that maybe women are just innately more spiritual, so we don’t need that kind of a job to feel close to God. I think that’s a cop out and a weak justification. I have never felt that if God truly loves his children equally, he would want us to be segregated in that way. It is much too black and white, and I think it allows people to not have to examine each individual’s merits, instead filing us neatly away into the right box for our gender. I know that “sexist” is a charged word, but I think it does fit this situation. And I don’t believe that God is sexist.

Another concern of mine has been the undercurrent of judgement and comparison that happens within the church, especially among the women. I think that this is something that’s probably an issue within most church environments, it’s not just specific to the Mormon church. Whenever you get a group of imperfect people together to teach morality and spirituality, it’s going to happen. We’re human. I understand that. But there is an unwritten code of conduct for Mormon women that I never felt like I could follow, no matter how hard I tried. As a woman in the church, you’re supposed to be kind. Gentle. Forgiving. Patient. Supportive of your husband and his church duties. We’re supposed to stay home with our children. Forego our personal needs for the greater good of our family and church community. While individually, I wholeheartedly support these concepts, when they are taught and supported exclusively, without the other side of what I think it takes to be a real woman, it really gets to me. No one ever wants a Mormon wife to speak her mind on controversial opinions. We are taught that even though marriage is a partnership, we should submit to our husband’s authority as the patriarch of the home. There’s no room for personal expression in our activities or appearance that goes beyond what most church ladies find acceptable. Can you imagine a Mormon woman coming to church with pink hair, or proudly telling of her experiences as a rock climber? Oh, the looks she would get. The ladies at church would much rather talk about the newest needlepoint stitch they learned at study group, or the best way to cook a green bean casserole. As much as I know that the difficult and unusual experiences I have had in my life have made me the person I am today, I never felt like those things were something I could ever talk about with other women in the church. And going to church every week and seeing rows and rows and rows of women who were all trying to pretend to be this perfect specimen of Mormon femininity absolutely sucked the life out of me. I have no idea how I could have ever raised my girls to be the women I want them to be in an environment like that.

There are smaller things that always bugged me about the church, like wearing garments and not drinking coffee. Stuff that annoyed me, but was never a deal breaker. But stacked together with the things I have talked about here just made being part of the Mormon church a much more negative experience than I expected it to be. Like I said, I still feel like I have a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and the fundamental doctrine of the church, but I’m just not sure anymore that the way the church does things can really be considered the “true” and “only” way for me to come closer to God. I need a place that wants me there because of who I am, instead of trying to turn me into something different. Maybe someday I will come to a place in my life where I am able to hold on to my individuality and differing beliefs, and still be able to enjoy my membership in the church. But right now, it’s just not something I’m able to do. And I feel like I am making the right decision.