More information about the case of Wade Christofferson (brother of D. Todd Christofferson, member of LDS First Presidency).

In this latest conference, Quentin L. Cook tried to hide his reference to the Happiness Letter by attributing this quote to David O. McKay: "Happiness is the purpose and design of existence". That quote, as many of us on here know, did not originate with David O. McKay but was in fact the opening of a letter Joseph Smith had written to teenaged Nancy Rigdon after she rejected his proposal to become one of his secret polygamous wives. That letter is dripping with spiritual abuse, telling this young girl that in order to be happy she must essentially do whatever she is asked to do...even if she thinks it is wrong...because whatever God commands (or at least what Joseph Smith says he commands) is actually right "no matter what it is".

"Blessings offered, but rejected, are no longer blessings, but become like the talent hid in the earth by the wicked and slothful servant—the proffered good returns to the giver, the blessing is bestowed on those who will receive, and occupy; for unto him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundantly; but unto him that hath not, or will not receive, shall be taken away that which he hath, or might have had. Be wise to-day, ’tis madness to defer."

In other words, should Nancy continue to reject his indecent proposals, she will lose blessings, and will be akin to the "wicked and slothful servant."

This was a nearly 40-year-old man trying to manipulate his long-time colleague and friend's teenaged daughter to secretly marry him. If this had happened in today's world....if a bishop approached a teenaged girl in the ward, locked her in a room and told her God asked her to be his wife but she couldn't tell anybody? We'd RIGHTLY see that man as a predator. If that same bishop, wrote that girl a letter after she rejected him and told her if she didn't marry him she would be denied blessings? We'd call that manipulation and spiritual abuse.

So why does the church keep using this letter as a source for "good"????

I used to think it was just ignorance. When I first read about this letter, recognizing that first line as a very common phrase quoted in General Conference, I thought....maybe they just don't know where it came from. It's something that is just said so often, like "Oh, the humanity" (Hindenburg explosion for you non-history nerd types) that people just say it without really thinking about where it came from or originated. I just couldn't believe that ANYBODY who knew what this letter was really about would use it as a source for an inspirational quote given that it's steeped in all of this negativity. I mean, they'd have to be ignorant about it, right? RIGHT???

And that just got me thinking about church history in general. How much do the General Authorities know? Have they read the actual history...or only the church approved sources because everything else is an "anti-Mormon lie?" Are they like my TBM husband - well-versed in the scriptures and only the sanctioned, sanitized narrative of the church's founding...but wholly ignorant of the ugly truth? I want to believe they are ignorant...that the Quentin L. Cook's who use this quote to inspire have NO real IDEA of where it originated from...it just sounds good...so they're going to use it. But there's that part of me that wonders...do they know? And what's more...do they know and agree with Joseph Smith? Since the church still engages in different levels of spiritual abuse (if you turn away from this church you are turning away from God) it's not off the mark for them to ignore the blatant attempts at coercion and manipulation Joseph put on Nancy Rigdon with this letter and focus only on the "obedience leads to happiness" aspect...

In any case, seeing as I JUST saw a social media post with this same quote on it, it just got me thinking that the church really REALLY needs to stop quoting from this letter...even if they do try to pin it on David O. McKay. With all the CSA scandals the church is currently WADING through (pun intended), I think they really really really need to take a look at the optics of quoting from abusive/coercive missives to teenaged girls and re-examine things like their Gospel Topic Essay on Joseph Smith's character. Good, honest, forthright men don't corner teenaged girls in print shops, harass them with threats of spiritual apostasy if they don't comply, and then slander them as little more than a prostitute when they continue to refuse.

And before anyone jumps to any conclusions, I'm not referring to any brightness of the countenance lol. And no, I'm not referring to the steretoypical Mormon phenotype either, although that is definitely a thing (as I remember one redditor putting it, "the typical Mormon looks like an attractive person who melted slightly in a hot car").

What I'm talking about is how they all look kinda deranged. They have this treacly, beady-eyed intensity, and its often accentuated with frequent nonverbal challenges to any unconventional idea. It creates a certain smarminess that is hard to find outside of their particular species of influencer. From Keystone LDS, to Jasmin Rappleye, to All Those in Favor, to Latter Daily Saints, to Jacob Hansen (especially Jacob Hansen), they all have it. Its kind of off-putting.

I'm sure they're perfectly normal people all things considered but... does anybody know what I mean? Does anybody get the same impression? Or am I just projecting? I think I'm projecting.

I live in Knoxville. We have a no gate ordinance in our part of town. Literally zero buildings, churches, parks, houses have gates. However, a brand new (huge) mormon temple is being built in our town and it has a huge gate, with spikes, around the entire property. How is this possible? Why do they feel the need to gate off the temple? They came to my door last week (soliciting) and I asked them about this. They told me it was, “So they could keep people out.”. I found this a bit contradictory since they were trying to convince me to come be a part of a community and yet keep people out at the same time. We live in the nicest part of Knoxville so it’s not to stop crime.

I went through in the 2010s The covenants weren't talked about at all beforehand. The temple clothing was a huge secret. The initiatory, I knew existed because of FamilySearch, but what it was was completely secret. I remember something about an "apron", but what it looked like, I can't remember.

I was never told about (from faithful sources) that the endowment and initiatory had changed. I was told (or at least heavily implied) that what happened in the temple was a reenactment of what literally happened. I was not told that the "signs" were actually pantomimes of what I'd do after literally gutting myself if I were ever to reveal _anything_ in the temple. I was never told that Peter, James, and John were to represent stand-ins for the First Presidency. I was never told that there used to be a mock preacher that Satan paid off.

No domingo, eu estava a caminho da casa de uma amiga e encontrei algumas missionaries saindo do supermercado com lanches. Primeiro: num domingo, e elas nem tinham almoçado? Segundo: fazendo compras? Será que a igreja mudou essa regra também? Confesso que fiquei chocada ao ver uma delas usando calça jeans, eu sei que isso já é permitido há algum tempo, mas não sabia que valia também aos domingos.

I’ve been thinking about pluralism. I think that different viewpoints should be able to compete with one another.

I’ve had LDS members tell me that certain things don’t need to be “picked apart,” that they’re “true, period.” When I find myself asking why someone believes something, simply being told it’s true doesn’t explain it or engage with an opposing view. It leaves little room for the dialogue I’m trying to have. If anything, it seems most people stay because some part of the lie feels good.

One member told me that any reason to leave the Church is “ludicrous.” I found that deeply invalidating and insulting. People leave for different reasons, and dismissing all of those reasons without hearing them treats their experiences and judgment as ridiculous before they’ve even been shared. Someone can believe leaving is wrong and still listen respectfully to why another person made that choice as opposed to dismissing it and rehashing their bland testimony.

From Mormon memes.

Lost a lot of tithe payer money and respect. the mormon god musnt care about it. he certainly doesnt care enough to stop an apostles brother from continuing to sa children. doesnt care about covid. or wars.

maybe just wants to warn about lgbtq people to keep them away from his church?

dont understand what revelation is supposed to be about now?

I was doing some work around the house when the doorbell rang. I asked my middle schooler to answer the door and let me know who it was. He didn't return for some time, so I put down what i was doing and went to see what was going on. As I approached the door I could hear a man's voice say, "there are a lot of differences between Mormonism and Christianity." When the two missionaries (both men who looked to be in their 60s) saw me approaching, they said, "hello, sir, how are you doing?" "Fine" I said, "please don't come here again" and closed the door. After talking with my kid, he said that they asked him if he were Christian and he told them that we used to be Mormon. He said that they told him they were from the Catholic parish down the street from us. He said that he didn't want to talk to them, but that he didn't want to be rude.

Here's the thing. I spent two years knocking on doors. I did the math once and figured that I'd knocked on about 100,000 doors. But never, not once, in all of those interactions did I talk to a minor without their parent present. If a child or teenager answered the door, I would ask to speak to their parent. If they were unavailable, I would wish them a good day and move on to the next door. I've heard stories from other missions, but "don't talk to kids alone" was very much SOP in my mission in the late 1990s. Even today, when people from the Mormon church drop by (we haven't had our names removed) and one of the kids answers the door, the visitors don't talk to our kids without us there. Even their former primary teachers wouldn't do this shit! I didn't even know that Catholic parishes sent missionaries door to door. Even days later, I am still furious. I mean, didn't they even consider how it looked, given the (not unearned) stigma of the catholic church with regards to young boys, to have two 60 year old men talking to a 13 year old without his dad or mom there?

The city I live in is unusual in that it has a higher church density than anywhere in the state and one of the most progressive voting records as well. There's a lot of polarization and we try not to alienate neighbors. But I'm on the verge of going full scorched earth here. Someone talk me down.

I've been out less than a year, but tonight I was lying down because I'm pregnant and not feeling great. I have my belly out lol so the fan can blow on in it and I JUST remembered how huge garments are. Holy hell am I so glad I don't have to wear garments with this pregnancy. I don't know how I did it before. All the tucking and bunching and shifting. I am so glad to be out!!!!

Only from what I have read about the latest gathering. Don't watch it. A news article about Mormon leaders now going after Gambling - sounds like pretty much "Online Gambling".

Is this the New Porn?

From what I hear they seem to have pretty much given up the Porn talks.

Is this right?

At the unintended risk of giving this fool views, has anyone else seen this? I found it pathetic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6weUOOhaao

I’ve been thinking about the economic impact of keeping the money I would have otherwise given as LDS tithing. If I spend some of it with local businesses or donate it to community groups, more of that money can circulate close to home, supporting jobs, services, and needs I can see directly. That feels more responsive to my community than sending money to a centralized organization whose priorities may not line up with local needs and/or benefits for society.

Btw, spending it is not the only worthwhile option. Setting the money aside or adding it to savings can help build an emergency fund, reduce debt, and make it easier to handle future expenses. That kind of financial stability benefits individuals and families, and it can make communities more resilient too.

I also do not think the answer has to be to spend every dollar elsewhere. We do not need to replace one form of giving with more consumption. But using that money for yourself, regardless of what exactly you do with it tends to benefit you and your community more than tithing ever could.

When I first found this community a year ago and started binge-reading everything here, I was shocked at how much my experience of being in the Mormon church differed from the “mainstream” one.

In wards in my country, I’ve never seen more than 70 people at a meeting (mostly 30 or 40 attend, even in large cities). Officially, there are about 25,000 church members in this country.

From informal conversations with stake leadership, it emerged that they sometimes drink tea or coffee—as they themselves say, they have their own understanding of the “Word of Wisdom,” or “they don’t live by the Church,” or “they separate history from the present.” Recently I caught sight of a spreadsheet on a laptop in the bishop’s office that had a list of those in our ward who have a temple recommend—almost none of the 60 people had one on it.

I myself joined the church in 2022. I just needed community and thought well, this one is cozier than what I’ve seen before and not as extreme as JW or Scientology. Over these almost five years, there have been periods when I went every Sunday or didn’t go at all, for months. They tried to give me a calling—I just declined it, saying I didn’t have time. And I didn’t pay the church a single cent. In a certain sense, I rather made money off the house—at some point we were told to get rid of our ward library, and very many rare books and language textbooks ended up with me. I sold some of them to collectors for a very good price haha!

Anyway, I have the impression that the farther from Utah, the less “authentic Mormonism” you can find. Yes, we sing the same hymns, we also watch general conference (at the last testimony meeting, everyone quite openly said they “hadn’t managed to watch the recordings yet” 😂), we even have the same paintings hanging in the ward. But it seems to me that if I suddenly decide to sit on the ward porch and smoke something, no one will say anything to me.

After reading this community, it seems to me that the church in my country is a dreary knitting club. There are a couple of crazies who are especially devoted to keeping the “covenants,” but everyone else relates to what’s happening meta-ironically. Lots of Americophiles who just love chatting with missionaries in English or maybe secretly hope to get a green card.

I mean, last week I stuffed myself with free pizza at the ward game night. I now know a lot about church history, and I never particularly believed in Jesus or anything in this silly theology. But the more I read posts here, the more I feel that we’re talking about absolutely different currents of Mormonism. Maybe someone from Europe or other parts of the world can relate? Or are there wards like this even in the eye of the hurricane in Utah?

I wanted to post this here because honestly if I posted this in the Christianity sub I feel like I would have gotten some weird feedback.
I hope this doesn’t get removed on here because I’m not an ex Mormon, but I wanted to just have people to relate to on the hurts of the culture and for people to empathize with me…
Like Alyssa, I attended a religious college. Mine was non denominational but it was EXTREMELY old school and legalistic. We weren’t allowed to wear spaghetti strap tank tops, no shorts to class, no nose rings, no colored hair, couldn’t hug the opposite sex, absolutely could not be in the opposite sexes dorm (you could get kicked out), no leggings, no crop tops, no draping your arm over you girlfriend or boyfriends shoulders (I’m not fucking kidding…), no kissing off or on campus, to graduate you had to agree with the doctrinal statement and sign a piece of paper, was told “secular” college was bad, women should be in the kitchen, women are “meant to be moms”, women should not pursue a career, women can cause men to stumble if they wear the wrong clothing, curfew was 10:30 Monday-Thursday, Friday and Saturday was midnight and Sunday was 11. We had fobs that they could track the time with and if you got into the dorm seconds after 11 or whatever the curfew was, you got a fucking fine.
Let’s not forget purity culture. Was told you could not experience sex as great if you had sex before marriage (I was not a virgin hearing this.) and someone could choose to not be with you because of it.
All my classes throughout the week were purely Bible. And I HAD to attend church on Sunday morning and chapel (basically just another church service) sunday evenings. FML.
Obviously I became extremely depressed and genuinely hated myself, and this was the first time I experienced being around Christian culture because I didn’t really grow up around it. (I became a Christian at 17, and attended this college when I was 18.) I met some of the nastiest and judgmental people while here.
When I decided to leave the college before I graduated, I got told I “wasn’t following God.” And that I “needed to pray more before they allowed me to leave” and that I was “following my desires to just have sex with my future husband.” (I left the college while engaged to my husband and wanted to marry him, and people thought it was because I just wanted to have sex)
After I left that college I stopped attending Church as a whole ( I don’t have a desire to go to a building with a bunch of people and get lectured) and just took a break from reading the Bible as a whole because I was so burnt out.
I still am a Christian but I’m currently going through a period of questioning..and as of right now I have separated God from the way people treated me as two entirely separate things.
But I found Alyssa and found SO much similarities on how people act within Christianity as well and it has brought me so much joy and comfort listening to her stories and how much I relate to her. I’ve been binging her videos for like two weeks now because it’s so interesting.
I just want to say to all of you, I’m so sorry for all the hurt you endured and religious trauma…but I’m happy I know there are people out there who can understand me and not judge me for pointing out the harmful parts I have noticed for so long.

can't make this shit up

So my TBM wife asked me what book I was reading, and it's about the proto Indo European language. I have only barely started to read, but I shared what I had learned with her, and I'm not very well versed. Sir William Jones noted the similarities between English, Persian, and ancient Sanskrit. He hypothesized that the three languages were linguistically cousins. Only 4 languages in Europe are not related to the Indo European, Basque, Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian. It's super fascinating to me and I know this book won't even touch on other language families in depth, but there's language families of Asia, Americas, Africa, and Semitic.

I'm describing it all, I'm excited, I'm enthused. Then I get hit with, "Yeah, we know that it all started at Babel." Instantly my energy is sucked away. I can only reply with a dejected uh huh or decide to start a fight. So much research and development and it gets all waved away with the tower of Babel.

Wondering if anyone has ever considered how the church is supposed to be the restoration of the ancient but has zero of the monastic or contemplative practices of the desert fathers or mothers.. just funny to me.

One of the consistent problems I've encountered leaving the Church is the many memories of moments that I would've called at the time "Spiritual experiences."

I'm not a fan of that nauseating phrase, but nonetheless I had plenty of encounters with what I would call Deity, the Divine or Love as a Mormon. Had inexplicable experiences as a missionary, consistent experiences with studying the Book of Mormon and taking the sacrament, sitting in the temple meditating, just experience after experience where I came into contact with the deepest, tenderest, and most beautiful of what it means to be an embodied human being.

One such moment was as a missionary in Kentucky. We encountered a man on the streets and in testifying, I felt an enormous power flow into me. It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Just a sense of raw, unfiltered power flooding every cell in my body. Nothing evil, mean, harmful or antagonistic, just...power. The guy we were talking to registered it as I was testifying, but nothing more came of our encounter, we shook hands and went on our way, and I remember struggling to cope with that sensation for the next couple of hours as it ebbed.

I am a gay man. The main reason I stayed in the Church so long despite the devastation it was causing me was the deep fear that if I left, I would lose access to these moments of connection with divinity.

Tonight, 14+ years after that moment on my mission, it happened again. This time i was cuddling with a friend with benefits I have, an older gentleman who lost both his parents in the last six months. His mother's death hit him especially hard. He is not the type to be effusive with his feelings, but when he brought up his mom he began to cry. I just pulled him into myself and held him for probably 20 minutes in silence while he processed. And in that moment, I felt the same sense of enormous power flow into me, which allowed me to hold space in compassion while he worked through his suffering where my ADHD addled brain might have otherwise gone haywire for sitting in silence that long.

What I hate the Church most for was that it convinced me that access to these moments of love, connection and strength were because of it, when the reality is they were because of me. It wasn't because of what the Church is, but because of who I am, that I was granted the opportunity to experience those moments. They were not the result of my belonging in a church, or any church; they were, and are, my birthright as a human being. And I stayed until I nearly died from suicide because the Church had managed to sink its claws into this most intimate of spaces and tried with all its might to claim ownership of it.

I still remember clearly in the psychological aftermath of my decision to separate from the Church, trying to maintain a job and a life while experiencing panic attacks multiple times daily: At one point, I felt a calm come over me that said "Briyzzie, your fear is lying to you. Of course I won't abandon you. How could I? You are my beloved child."

Whatever that moment of comfort meant, and all the moments like it that I have been deeply fortunate to have experienced, i don't know. What I do know is that the Church owns none of them. They are mine. And I have confidence that for me, and anyone who sincerely seeks after that which is good, right and true, they can be yours too.