Identity Mormon OR In CHRIST Part 2

Your right and what would you say what time you were an adult was part of your identity Mormon, like I've been talking about and you know how strongly did you have a sense of yourself as Mormon as an adult.

Yeah, it was his one is preparing for my mission. Sorry my mission and returning home from a mission where I did feel that that sense of this is who I am. This is my identity.

I think it's interesting that how you describe how you felt like you're in the Mormon anti-Christian was trying to think did I did. I feel the same way I do. I do have similar feelings like you seeing the lights at Temple Square in select city and and I just always love Christmas time just that the weather I love snow except driving in and hated and just you know the time season where you're reading about Jesus or any from the Gospels. Usually, you know you're not really usually reading from the book of Mormon doctrine: something like that your reading that Matthew Mark Luke and John yeah charger for my mission and I was active for several years so all life through from probably to page 20 and onward that's can how I saw myself as a share that others like the ends and and began to my mission so I talked about going to the square scene lies before and then the first Christmas after I came home from my mission. We went to my great aunts and uncles were Methodist church for a Christmas Eve service and that was one of my first experiences with a Methodist Church. They had a female pastor and I remember coming out of the service and it was a beautiful service and it was a Christmas Eve service. So of course I felt like I could partake in, and be a part of that right because I'm hobbling as a Mormon. I was a Christian to you and my member coming out sitting outside after the service. Send know that the pastor came out and was saying goodbye to your congregation and shaking hands and my aunt and uncle worse in my family. My mom and dad and my siblings were all standing around, just kind of talking and remember in amendment I mentioned before my my great aunt was. She was from Brooklyn.

She was outspoken. She said to my dad. You know something about winter when you can come back to the Christian faith is his family was always kind of mock giving him a hard time about that number thinking at the time like man you know why can't that Christmas Eve service.

Be a time when we can come together with other Christians was the way I was thinking about things right and not realizing that there were mythic addict. I didn't realize there were doctrines that set Latter Day Saints apart in vast ways from the, the broad swath of Christianity, but as a Latter Day Saints.

I didn't see it was a significant anything that's weird good on the one hand, I do see them is significant because they were supposed to be important right this distinctives. Else why would there be a need for restoration, but from for my sense of self. I think I didn't see them as significant. Like why should they separate us from from people who should share our beliefs and so by the time I was an adult.

Being Mormon was definitely entrenched as part of my identity of mission gave me this feeling of being both different and special.

And yet there was this desire within me to be accepted by broader Christianity.

When I got when I got married. I married into a Southern Baptist family, and I think I talked about earlier in another episode about how the southern Baptist held their convention in Salt Lake City that year I was leaving on my mission so I had the sense that the southern Baptist student like us right and so member the first Easter that Angela and I were together, I wrote an email to my future mother-in-law to Canada make that case, you know, Easter Sunday is coming. We both celebrated the resurrection of Jesus.

I know there's some doctrinal differences between us, but I think this is a time we can come together as a family and and celebrate together and I don't remember exactly how I worded it with that that was what I was going for right and yes I said this this desire to be accepted by Kush and other Christians and is funny but at the same time I was I was I was fully in missionary mode when I was at work and stuff north. I told everybody at work. You know that I was a Mormon.

Every chance I got it give away copies of the book of Mormon to coworkers and then you know when I when I transferred to a different division within my company in 2006. I remember talking to somebody and mentioning that I was Latter Day Saints. And then they told someone else in the company that I hadn't met yet that that I was Latter Day Saints Mac I came around my cubicle and was like a you know we do this Mormon scripture study every Wednesday morning if you want to come in a little early. Will you know this is interesting to there's like this group of Mormons doing their thing. You know that the company was working for an remember one time in a business meeting. We were doing intra-introductions going around the table and you know business meeting.

Your introduction should be kinda focused on what's important you know what what your role is within the company that kind of thing and I remember introducing myself and saying yeah I'm a Mormon, but I only have one wife, and I think about that now. It is so crazy they left without a relational life you have more than one way is really awkward. It was really awkward because you know what is that have to do with with what I was doing at work.

Nothing you know it was such a part of who I was, that you know is like everybody's thinking about us. I got a make a joke about it. You know that it would just end up being really awkward time after Michael what about you okay so by the time I left my mission.

I definitely view myself as being Mormon. I really couldn't separate myself from that identity. I wanted to pretend that I can separate myself from that identity because you I would I would constantly just feel like I didn't belong in the culture. There's just a huge part for several years after my after the mission I like to scan affiliated belong for whatever reason, but I did love the doctrine so in a sense, I kind of felt like you know how in the church you call everybody your brother or your sister because you know were all children of God in a sense, I felt like I was sort of just their half-brother. Eventually the board that I was in started to view me as scabbing a really good speaker and being the smart guy and they wanted me to give presentations, and especially after I published my first book, a biblical defense of Mormonism you really want me there take to present and people would ask ask me questions a lot more like in church and things are, soften the blow.

I felt a little bit more like I'd been accepted by the ward and I guess once that happened, you know, I was pretty much content to be Mormon in every single way. And as you know Paul what that led to do was basically me using a huge swath of my time defending the church and I did that online for the most part and you got to see that this I'm sorry that you had to deal with me is is a Latter Day Saints apologist. You are one of the better ones to deal with for sure. Just your your your personality and the way you handle yourself with people in this not like dealing with some other other psychologists. All he asked I do I do it. It's really interesting for me now to interact with LDS apologists. You know I don't.

I do see a difference with kind of the personality. You know that they have as opposed to what I had but I do think that their convictions runs just as deep as mine did. The difference with me is that I I think I just learned to play a part or just to be more polite about it and kind of almost act like I was open to the idea. You know, or that I was open to something else being true.

Like so that I come off as being more fair and unbiased, but deep down inside you know I really believed that even if the whole church fell apart and it was just a few of us laughed. I would be one of those select few that nothing on earth was going to separate me from the church so that's that's how entrenched I was with it and I just, you know, we spent every waking moment during those years just you know thinking about arguments that people and made an just trying to think about every single angle and how can I come up with something to beat this argument and I remember I was actually this only was really proud of it. The time but I was debating Rob Bowman, Junior in one of the one of the forums and heated up kind having to tell me like what Michael just because your creative doesn't mean that what you're defending is true and I'm totally took that is, you know being like oh, like she's basically admitting that I know like she's he's backing down from the fight because he can't take lots of talked about the essence know, but I was such a brat. I mean I just look back at myself and like what the crap Michael light one when I think so highly of myself but I don't know but I remember seeking a round woman Junior and he's awesome by the waves had to throw that disclaimer out there right now because there's this secret group on Facebook with all the Mormon apologist you know it. It's called the anti-Mormonism unveiled but yet you basically talk about all the anti-Mormons. There can make fun of them and in their arguments is payment for this for guys like hey guys did you know that there's a biblical prophecy about about Robert Bowman and the like what you talking about, you know, as I pull up the Genesis account where Joseph is blessing his son Ephraim and his former Latter Day Saints history remember this this blessing because you basically take it to me like all his branches run over the wall.

You know like that's he's going across the ocean and that's the Nephi's descendents, but it says that the archers have shot at him sorely and hated him that the guys what's another word for archers. No, that's good. Yeah there like you are soon really Michael and I just hated but I'm like yeah see like using anti-Mormon just like Genesis said that he would be useful in the grip of the I'm not no way I was kind of hiding out in there for a while but I eventually outed myself from like yeah I guess I'm an anti-Mormon other lightweight what you are like get her sleep so I heard you, I heard you reference the group before but not by name. Just as the secret LDS apologists group and so is assuming you mentioned it would because I I was brought into a group like right when I was leaving the church so we been like 2009, 2010 timeframe and I was probably stealing and I was I was brought into the group with that name. I don't know if it's the original or if it's another when the somebody started because the one I was interesting to be one person posting a bunch of stuff right. It was almost killed by you know in the Sunday sensitive because it has so I don't know if it was, I don't know if you like started his own reached made lists or if that was the actual group, but I was invited into backward by him and his is a matter for a while but that's a different group yeah okay so I never was in the supersecret okay she's sorry but I thought I was part of something. This is this is like the Eagles nest all over again.

Man said, while I should just let you live that delusion like this, like one time ever in my life that I've been a bit like I was part of the secret, exclusive club, you know besides the chess club or something but but yet what was in that group. To me that's when you know there's this is a huge secret plot so a lot of us were members of this debate group called Mormons and evangelicals at the time and we just didn't like the way that the admins were treating us. We felt like it was, we are being attacked all the time and and people started kind of talking there about taking over the group so you know that when that's heading because you know they can ascend hug me.

I was an admin in the group already but I kind of had laughed because unlike you know what my getting ascend have a little bit of a faith crisis as like this probably isn't a good place for me to be so peace out. But then I found myself drawn back and I couldn't explain why would a Mike I want to be back in my group where everybody's constantly attacking the church and out of it was just, you know, morbid curiosity or what, but I going back in the group and one of the other admins added me as an admin again without really telling the owner that he did it and since I wasn't official I kind of had this rebel mindset. Anyway, I'm like oh I'm like this renegade admin now, like how fun and as I said, talking about taking over that that group and they started telling me like all the owners MIA like nobody seen them in forever and we need to get rid of all the admins and clean house and make it you know so it's more fair for us Latter Day Saints and I totally thought into it isn't like oh my gosh like I can have them attacking my tribe when I have the power to do something about it and so yeah I went in when he went day and I kicked out all the other admins which you know is funny because I'm I own a group now evangelicals and Latter Day Saints. By the way I made that group and I was LDS and it was totally a knockoff of Mormons and evangelicals to get people to join my group instead of that one. So was it was very kind of a better thing to do so lately. Owner shows up as and for his group back in Michael my gosh she's not MIA like he's not deceased like he's really here and he wants his group back so I gave it back to him and oh my goodness, the LDS people in that secret group. They were having a heyday over what I did there just like oh my gosh this is the best thing that's ever happened on the Internet you know which I put Mark's D Lawrence Barksdale is my admin, which is crazy but you wind up giving it back in glinted kicking out like a lot of Latter Day Saints and I group, but I was really surprised as I was expecting them to give me the boot to and they kept me there.

We never booted me out of the group and they all just basically forgave me and I was like wow you know I can't. I wasn't expecting that I think is a latter-day St. when you're dealing with.

With Christians you you kinda can attest them. You try to drive them crazy so that they react like aggressively almost elite. You can see like oh you're not.

You guys are Christian, you know, you're acting like a Christian but they totally just, you know, turn the other cheek and in the extent to me as a man you know I was feel like these guys are my clan right now more than the latter-day Saints are in. It was such a turning point for me because it just made me really respect Christians and just, you know, I think you gone the other way if they just been really bitter towards me, but they just didn't mean they just did is for gave me so openly. So that was a big change for me for sure for sure I want I want to address an elephant that might be in the room if it Latter Day Saints. If there's any Latter Day Saints listing you know we we talked a lot about how the LDS church know this culture has a kind of focus on on Mormon distinctives that set Latter Day Saints apart and there's a sense in which we have described this tribe mentality right there.

There Latter Day Saints were people we were part of that group, we saw ourselves as set apart as special right as part of Lord's army and all of that kind of stuff but I think I think that there's a sense in which tribe mentality can also affect Christians in various denominational affiliations.

Would you would you say that's fair to say Matthew this case. The thing is is I don't have personally a lot of experience visiting different denominations myself just because I spent like almost a year studying everything out before I know decided to go to the church I attend now on my cannot. I was attending to churches for a while but you know I don't really have a lot a huge spectrum of churches were open to a doctor.

People but but talking to people online. You do see that there is kind of a tribal mentality to an extent and it can be either small know can be. It's is an entire business as a whole gamut of how it ranges in terms of the travel mentality. I think in Christianity was spoken previously about how there's these there are these core doctrines. These core values and ideals that all Christianity, all Christians they can rally behind. We have the early creeds like the apostles Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Nicene Creed where all Orthodox Christians not Orthodox in terms of Eastern Orthodox but within the realm of Christian orthodoxy. We all rally behind these these creeds all the doctors within those creeds, and so there's there is something that ties altogether with the same time I do feel like there is this kind of like slick friendly rivalry between denominations, and I try to keep it friendly and you know not too serious.

I think it's okay to debate these types of things and you'll see a lot of Christian debates about baptism no seekers in debates about gifts of the spirit about worshiping all church structure out like all these different aspects of church life and Christian life will debate and naturally when you study the Scriptures and you studied out the arguments and you've come to your the conclusion that you feel is biblical you and you want to unite with the denomination that that lines up with how you view Scripture you feel the least. I can understand the feeling of feeling like your home and feeling like this is how you know this is this is the way that were supposed to view Scripture on on these particulars and I feel like this is true and that's why mining up with this denomination. But it also requires a lot of humility to recognize know I don't know for certain if I'm right on all these issues, we really have to humble ourselves.

Remember that and remember that what matters is Christ but yet we do see you do see kind of rivalry, some friendly some not so friendly between the denominations of the distinctives and sometimes it can get ugly and I and I really don't like it, especially because I go to a reformed Baptist church. We feel very strongly about what what's commonly called to talk to… Calvinism the doctrines of grace.

There's different names for it, but dismiss or tear this material logical view of reform Baptist and similar denominations like reform Presbyterians, Dutch reformed, etc. so we feel we feel very passionately about these distinctives are these these this view of Scripture and how God sovereignly decrees all things for his glory and choosing his people to glorify himself in his mercy and his love and demonstrate that the world we feel very passionately about that because we filled Scott's truth and I think whenever you find something to be true and something to be important something that you hold close to your chest, your be passionate about it and when you find someone that disagrees with you.

I think it's natural to find that you get into conflict with them to a certain degree together. There is, there can be a tribal mentality and and so I am one to try to on the I don't always do it but if I have a brother that's reformed and we know where were criticizing someone's arguments on the other side I tried to think about this and step back and say okay we got a remember were all in Christ there.

There are men who are that I disagree with firmly about certain things in certain ways they teach teach certain things I will mention her name specifically, but their public figures and they they go vehemently against the doctrines of grace and the reformed theology and have real problems with them, but I also recognize that that they don't really believe anything that's downright heretical. You know they they accept the deity of Christ.

They believe in the triune God.

They affirm that were saved by grace under faith alone in Christ alone. So even though we disagree on these things. After recognize that he's my brother, Christ, and that I need to love him as a fellow brother, but so we don't always do that in order for sinful beings even after been justified. We make mistakes and we we can be taken over by pride at times and we also get shortsighted and are still humans, we still think our way is the best way and it's hard sometimes for us to put in our ourselves and other people shoes and understand their situation or their understanding or their walk with the Lord. So it's really long answer out that addresses it, but yeah, basically. Ms. Long agreed yes those hooligans who would give Michael how would you address the elephant in the room.

Well you know I seen about back when I was in Elliott's apologists when my favorite tactics to use, especially when started getting painted into a corner was to find something to make the Christians argue with each other and it was really effective back I hide I could be yeah I number there is one time where I had two people in my in my form to to debate, you know, probably for a couple hours and you know I was back in that secret group and were just lounging around like okay you know who's making the popcorn basically like you think we just want because were making them argue with themselves and had extrinsic that in real life too. Because after that first discussion I had with Eddie Knox.

I ended up going back there and talk to them a couple more times I went over one time and was was reformed and in one day one over that he had a Greek scholar with him a Christian. And so you he was all happy because he's like organa were granted safety Street now and so they started talking and they started telling me about predestination like okay you know. So I grab this whiteboard and I like tended to remark on it and threw the marker down like you know real chaotically and on like was that predestined and they both answered at the same time, but the answer differently. One of them said yes and the other said no and so then they looked at each other and we started arguing with each other, for you know a couple of minutes.

I mean, they're just going to add it and then you know they're like little we really like the Mormons are here. You know and and then they stopped you know and like kinda reposition themselves. They just all that stuff really reinforce the notion that you know there is a great apostasy in the church is fractured, you know it's not a cohesive unit anymore after coming out of the church and seeing things from my new point of view. I do have to say that it doesn't look like it's is fractured to me as I thought it it did arouse a latter-day St. because you know there are these unifying doctrines and for the most part I feel like you know people on the different sides of the divide.

Do you view each other's Christians. You know it's not a dealbreaker again.

I can get heated but at the same time I realize now that you know debate is a lot more of a Christian cultural thing. Then it was a Mormon cultural thing because last morning I saw people debating on Michael my gosh, it's you know the contending in anger you know this is the devils in other servants of the devil, or whatever. Now Mike know this is just a normal thing that the people do and I do think you can get a little bit.

She didn't like Matthew said, there can be some some tribalism you know it's it's like you have Simonson some Calvinists in my family and it's like I just got out of the church and and they'd be asking me in all the time like so view you become a Calvinist. Yet you know and I'm just like really should like give me some time, guys, I just left you know the church is I would just kind of like it would come back like I don't know if you asked God about you, something like that.

But so yes, sometimes I would. I just feel like you know people are just trying to drag you into a certain position a nerve or something like that and it's like you know I think it was for an hour and I've said in the past that I would never be Protestant that I would never leave the church and things like that is using every time I say I'll never do something and ends up happening so at this point I just say you know I don't know what the future's going to bring you. I may become Calvinist.

Someday I may become any number of things. I don't know but I'm I'm pretty accepting of of any any position you as long as somebody is a is indeed a Christian and they they hold to the orthodoxy your Christian orthodoxy then yeah it doesn't really matter to me thereafter. This this question and because sooner. Were talking about identity and that Beverly goes to talk about personal sense of self and how they feel about themselves will know the view they have of their beliefs are values everything so I know a lot of times is latter-day St. You know I I internalized the way other Christian denominations would interact with latter-day Saints and I took it at times as a personal attack because I listen before I wanted to be one to be Mormon and have those distinctives, but I also wanted to be accepted within the broader river of Christianity, and you see that a lot talking to Mormons online where the question will come up.

Why can't you just accept that were Christian and you know the debate rages and goes on and on about our Mormons Christians.

How do you define what a Christian is and is not that kind of thing and so wanted to throw this question and because you note sometimes will see the argument made by Latter Day Saints all Protestantism is so fractured there's 46,000 and how many ever know whatever number there throwing out these days denominations. None of you are aligned in and there's a sense in which they feel like. I think that hey we custom distinctives you have some distinctives. Why can't you just accept us as Christian writer and no Matthew touched on were not aligned on the essentials and that's that's where there is alignment between you Christian denominations with each other and there is not alignment with Christian denominations, and in Mormonism and but I did want to throw this question in there because I think it's fair to say you know a tribe, tribal mentality can affect Christians in various denominational affiliations. I remember when I was coming out of Mormonism and into Christian church in the Christian church affiliated with the American restoration movement, I'm really going to the Sunday morning Bible study and one of the elders in our church was in the class and another of the elders of the church was leaving the Bible study and the unit was a discussion going on an end and I could Skype a sense like the church was going through transition and lead pastors right.

The guy who'd been leading the church for a lot of years and think like 30 years was retiring and a new young lead pastor was taking over right at the time when we were coming in and so there is that transition taking place, but there was also no kind of like a cultural shift taking place which which you learn, sometimes happens when there's a change in pastors and with her. I kind of sense that there was maybe a shift taking place away from away from some distinctives towards a more evangelical stance because within the Bible study that one Sunday morning, the one Elder was asking the other about some of the distinctives of the restoration movement like the other being in view of the comes from a broader Protestantism of their having been a great apostasy and baptism by immersion as being that the proper method for baptism. Some the other distances and just kind making the case that some of those distinctives seem to be taking a back burner and, where does that leave you know the church and there was discussion going on like I kind of felt like an outsider. Listening in, because I was new and I was also fascinated because I was trying to understand what what was being talked about and then as I went on to study in seminary, you know, I read books, you know, like evangelicalism, and in the restoration movement. Where was Kenneth and became clear to me. There were couple books like that and it became clear to me that Kenneth the late 90s, early 2000's.

Maybe there was a focus on kind of a shift towards a more evangelical stance within some restoration movement, churches and I asked the trust pastor friend of mine about this this morning because I wanted to get his take on it is he corrupting the American restoration movement churches in and he said valiantly when he was when he was a youngster, like there was definitely a more focused on on restoration movement distinctives than there is today and I will have been wondering and thinking about this question, you know, if it's not maybe just a product of Mormonism couldn't talk a lot about help the LDS church instills his distinctives and in young people, children, and wondered if that wasn't just a product of Mormonism.

The may be a product of of early to mid 20th century approaches to denominationalism within the US and in the maybe since you know the rise of modern evangelicalism since the Jesus movement of the 1960s that may be that you not more broadly within Christianity from a sociological perspective is kinda shifted and I think that's probably the case but like I said I wanted to ask this question and throw it out there so that any Latter Day Saints listening you will feel like were saying hey you know the fact that Latter Day Saints focus on distinctives and we all kind of had this feeling like we were Mormon. It was a part of our identity. That's nefarious in some way because I don't think it is, but I thought it was fair just throw this question in their have a thought when you're talking about. Then I lost it again.

I swear getting orgasms or give me second say that if your man will do not have the same load. Grandma yet.

Secondly, grandma targeting you as a CPA, Leo Lewis just argument distinctives there is. There is one quote that I really like from Spurgeon for something to share that and I clicked out of it and I lost okay so Charles Spurgeon he is a reformed Baptist pastor and England is funny because he's quoted by many Baptists and they don't even know he's Calvinist so when they find that outcome was surprised but anyway the short quote said before, but that's when I really enjoy these as I do not ask you whether you are a Wesley and a Baptist or Presbyterian.

My only question is are you born again and I thought it was a good quote. To reiterate, just because I think it sums up a lot of what we've all been saying is that I think I think Christianity is all that's interesting because I think Christianity is a whole really needs a second Reformation in the sense that we need to go back to biblical doctrine because so much of it is straying away from that and at the same time, but at the same time not sacrificing.

Not big, not watering down the gospel are watering down Scripture.

If you see what I mean. I don't know if you guys noticed you guys really know CS Lewis more than I do. I've only read a little bit of some of his works, but he he wrote the book on mere Christianity and I'm a knight I hear what other people say about it. I've written myself.

But, this idea of saying we need to boil it down to the basics, you know, we need to go back to this this this core of Christianity. That's what we need to focus on and I wondered, and I was thinking about that wondering if that ties into what you are saying all about the sociological shift in terms of how we view each denomination and how we share the gospel because I don't I'm not I would call just with the liar when he said all those people back in the 19th century were fighting over each other over the topic of religion. You and I believe that was certainly the case, they called the bring over district for reason.

So I mean we can't we can't just watch percent under the rug and say all know Christians have always gotten along with number 529. Everything's going great so exactly that that is the elephant in the room right. The three of us on on the podcast we talk about how we have Christian unity between us and we do know you and I met you and Michael. We don't agree on everything, and we found that out is because we talk about we talk and review each other's as brothers in Christ and we treat each other with with Grayson and try to have an approach towards one another.

That's that's humble and you know I just want to make the point that yeah I recognize that made maybe no earlier in the last century there there was more of a focus within denominations on distinctives in the maybe that's fading a little bit but that doesn't mean that we give up biblical principle principles you said and the dozen image about the essentials so just just a nod to to any letter since the maybe listing that that the other there there probably has been some some disagreement, but the essentials have always been part of the faith and you know not just not just since they were enumerated at the beginning of the 20th century as part of the fundamentalist movement even before that the essentials were part of the Christian faith so and if I can just jump in here to this, but that really brings to my mind is having some differences is a really positive thing. If you ask me because I can see some of the different thought processes and I think that they're good for different people and was in the church.

It was a one-size-fits-all and if you didn't completely agree with something that it was just a nightmare being in the church so I it's great to have that freedom to you know longer denomination that fits fits your beliefs and in your personality, even an still be that part of the body of Christ, so as you made your fair transition. Did you experience a disturbance in the full students are you experienced executor or the phone dear experienced disturbance in your sense of self, and if so, what was that like so you earlier Paul, you said you were content with that song I'm a child of God, and those one of the things I just gave me my my sense of identity to growing up is you know I'm I'm a literal child of God and all the things that that entailed. You know what it meant, like my father told me when I was young. You know, is a literal child of God I had the potential to become a god myself. One day I was something that was really cool. I thought of that. That brought me closer to Ghana Michael while I'm I was literal child, but as time went on, and as I came closer to my faith crisis and I think would really brought me into it was was studying Grayson and trying to answer the impossible gospel approach, which says you know that if were not perfect than we are not worthy of grace and so is trying to to be worthy. And I was really watching myself and I was seeing that I was not that I wasn't perfect. I was even close to it and I was getting closer to it every day like a lot of Latter Day Saints claim that they are and because of that unite is also, looking back in is really far and few between. Whenever I would receive revelation from God or feel like the spirit was talking to me as I really felt like I was. I was a child of God, but I was estranged child of God is again by blind, I'm his child. But because I'm not worthy. He doesn't want to have anything to do with me here or talk to me. I just didn't feel worthy of that distinction. Most of the time and and then when I started going to the faith crisis.

You know I I started to really question my identity because it was completely wrapped up in the church. I mean I think have talked about it before, but I would just I wake up having panic attacks and just not knowing where I was, you know what what year it was almost just like it and wake up thing in the dumps. I'm still warm and are many get sucked back into the church so it is just is just I guess in unraveling the you know the velocity mind control.

It made us of the appropriate word to use, but just everything everything that been tied into the church in my mind and I remember calling my my pastor year after I left the church. I have issues trying to piece my identity back together and calling my pastor and he help me out through a lot of that.

But as you think they were there be layers of me trying to put myself back together because I did go through something that I think that I was okay and then I start falling apart again. So just really tedious time of trying to reestablish myself because it's like you know you leave the church and like if the church is part of my life than who am I even now that definitely Matthew yeah sure. I think I think my eye I really agree with what Michael said that I can connect to, he was feeling us the sense of just you feel like your entire world around you starts to to you start to see cracks in the wall.

You know, and you start to see those cracks grow and so you try to get some spackle and try to cover up the cracks, and other cracks grow elsewhere and try to fix those answers like this never ending just like the whole house. A shattering around you and you have no snow or to go for safety and is just like a terrifying experience, but I think it really for me. I kinda started right after my mission because I was so pumped for my mission. You know it took me a long time to really love my mission because I was in France and I could like everybody always told me all you speak ritually well you know like we can understand what you're saying. Most missionaries you know they struggle and I'm like okay cool, but my my speaking I guess was okay but my comprehension was just terrible. You know like I could read with my eyes I could see the words but French is so fast in the words flow together that I couldn't parse out the words in my mind, so like literally for six months. I would ask them a question on the street they would spit out a whole bunch of stuff and I would say oh okay cool so do you like your family, you know, I would anyone from where I hope they had answered, and for six months. It was just a nightmare and so I just didn't like it always did like not understanding people that want to start understand I really loved and I wanted to stay and want to go home within my mission and coming home is just rough because to me, that was my whole life.

That's why was a missionary and I just didn't want to do anything else.

I wanted to stay out there and I've mentioned before, but I still have dreams. Occasionally, where like I'm I'm in my dream and I wake up and I'm on a train getting off at some train station in France and like I can visualize the street where I lived in a little town called on entire bay to my first town and I go and meet the missionaries were going out.

You know, talk to people the street like it.

Still it still so ingrained in my brain, like theirs is part of me that light won't go away. Yeah so like when I came home I was begging and like I went to a singles words because like an item, feel comfortable going. My dad's ward and I you know it's Kiska we're go back to Valley words are going back to where there were other kids my age in colleges and goddesses little bit more cool. It wasn't super awkward like I was worried about you know that I got to singles were before my mission. It was really cool. So going a singles word was helpful, but like I was just that I remember begging my bishop is like.

Please let just give me something to do. You know, like I just felt so useless. Like I just like you know I would go to church and I was it and I will go home and I just wanted a teaching calling or something you know – member for months and months and months just begging and I never got one and it was like over a year later. I think that I got a calling finally meant that point I just didn't care anymore enough so because I always beat it in your brain. You know like you know when you go home don't stop being a missionary know Mike I talked my mom and my family.

But like they're not really interested in my dad's early Mormon so you know I'm trying but I don't know what to do.

So that's kind will not like the cracks dirt first started showing. I think in my identity was like because I feel like that was absorbed that into my identity was I'm a missionary and that's what I am and I'm gonna keep doing that of my mission and I really struggle to find ways to to continue doing that so that's what this crack started appearing and I started getting depressed and that I just had a really hard time after mission and I went straight in the college like not to three weeks after I got home from my mission and I was already taking in all intermediate calculus and intermediate physics and always different courses that were like I'm taking these, the first court and of the introductory courses for like three years because I took a year before my mission to save some money and I serve a mission. So it been three or more years before since I done this and had no time to prepare. So that was stressful and now just really difficult, and then an end but really when the cracks appeared when I start studying church history in and like I can learn to trust my my critical thinking skills because I don't read some of these issues I'd read in church history for my mission but I didn't really quite an audit really quite understand what the deal was her or I was willing to take that up. The oldest apologists answer as okay.

That's a solid answer. I'll go with that, but it wasn't until several years after my mission where I really start questioning these things that yeah you really you really do start to see it's like it's exhuming out from you know from a painting using his beautiful tapestries before painting. But then you notice almost tiny little speck in the corner to go to inspect it. A notice like an ink spot so you look at it you say oh well you know the painting so beautiful I just can ignore that that inkblot for now and then you start to notice more problems start to notice more little imperfections in the painting and then you know you pick up the painting to look at the backside and that always crumbles into pieces, think that's that's that's how it felt like for me they really help really started when I started listening to Dan Vogel. Some of his videos. Like when he analyzed the three and a witnesses thing of the restoration of the priesthood. All these different things in LDS church history and he referenced all these books he referenced how what's his name.

He teased used to be LDS. He wrote the Michael Quinn's name so we referenced you Michael Quinn you know and who is favorable towards a church out. He's not against the church at all, but he's not a member anymore reference only sources I started trying to find some of the sources and read them and distance is just like unraveling a sweater. I just kept pulling at the threads trying to find answers and I just like I was just pulling away the threat I was pulling apart myself to where like Michael's explaining each you just really start to question know who you are anymore because I said that in my child of God and a latter-day St. priesthood holder, but then when I start finding out. Well, maybe the claims to the priesthood restoration aren't really valid at all and I said well okay maybe I'm not a priest at older than and then when you start finding out that the problems with the doctrinal changes to both the book of Mormon and the changes to Joseph Smith's first vision those kinds of things that I'm started?

Maybe I'm not really child of God at all and it's really terrifying because you have no foundation does dissenting market. If you like what what the core of what I was slowly picking apart to where I didn't know what was going to end up at the ending. I was like what I was worried I might 10 years from now my coming atheist cycle where Mike and I go from here so there was not only where I was headed like what I was discovering along the way but the fear of what would end up at the end of it all. I try to have faith and just trusting God to back okay God well this would just be a trial. My faith I'll get through it will be a stronger latter-day St. for and it'll be like that testimonial bearing fast and testimony meeting where I like you know I just had this really rough test my faith. But God brought me through it and that's not at all how it ended up but I praise God for it. Despite how difficult it was at the time is good that I saw something this week. Posted by young latter-day St. the that we all know I will I will name them, but post about the pronounce the antigen through machine W you see the poster heard about before I have yes I post, but I didn't read it. Just as the antigen through machine is like an engine bids. It's sounds like an engine computer residences in ancient navigational system that uses the stars and and this and I've seen it used by latter-day Saints before, and in the ways you just kinda suggest hey you know this.

This engine computer exists and obviously is not a computer like we have today was a very complex machine that was built and used a long time ago and the suggestions hey was that there's this engine computer and because it exists and we didn't expect it to exist. Therefore there could be forthcoming.

Evidence for the book of Mormon.

So let's hold on to our faith in its general Gorman right and again because I don't understand. How does that was applicable Gorman it's a giant leap. That's what is exactly is a giant leap. But it's a bit it's so the suggestion is okay, we wouldn't expect an engine computer to exist because weeks. We expect ancient peoples to have been less sophisticated than we are, what we found. Archaeologists have found the Santa camper machine which is a very complex system to help with navigation in the ancient world and because we wouldn't expect to find something like that and we did – shows that there could be other things that we wouldn't expect to find some we currently know about the ancient world, that we may find in the future and therefore we can hold on to her belief in the book of Mormon because the evidence is still forthcoming. You know what I'm actually convinced by this that dinosaurs are still alive today but I'm serious know you know the post reminded me of of an experience I had on my mission. We used to do through contacting the like. The subway stations in Budapest were obviously underground and then you would come up a couple of either an escalator or come up couple levels to almost street-level and then under you come up on either side in either of the four corners of the intersection on street-level right wanted this underneath the intersection. There was the underground and we would go down there and do street contacting because there was always tons of people passing through to go from the bus to a subway or making a transition so it was a great place to build a talk to people, though, realizing now that most of those people were rushing to work or whatever wherever else they were going and we were probably annoying them to know and by trying to stop them and talk to them but I do stop and talk to this one guy and he seemed interested in what I was telling about the book of Mormon denies, flipping through showing them showing them the pictures that were in the Hungarian addition of the book of Mormon you know of, like Mayan ruins with Jesus coming down and teaching the neophytes write and think you're all familiar with obtaining and she was like yeah only with you guys and Jimmy know his address and we went home and looked up on a map and it was like an hour outside of the city you know we would have to take a train there and spent an entire afternoon going down the back and so we decided when things got a little slow that we would call them up and see if you'd be interested in becoming with them, so he wasn't selected a couple weeks after I had contacted and we went down there and she hijacked our entire unary government to give them our message and he hijacked our entire afternoon talking about Eric Fontana can have your heard of the sky now know he's a Swiss author that he wrote a number of books but his theory is basically that there's a lot that we don't know about ancient civilizations that they were far more complex than we give them credit for, and the result.

The reason for that is that they were taught by extraterrestrials, and she doesn't mean little in man like his theory is like, you know, extraterrestrial humanoids who came here. No astronauts from other planets who came and taught the engines, how to build pyramids and all that kind of stuff. So this guy just hijacked our entire afternoon showing us his collection of Fontana can books and talking about it, talking about how he thinks there's probably a connection you know with with what we were telling him about Jesus visiting America and what then Fontana can talks about an like I don't you guys have experience like that on your mission.

We were just like get me out of here, you know, but you couldn't extract yourself from from the conversation without assuming like really socially rude email just kinda had to sit and listen until they were done talking to direct experiences like that all yeah for sure hello Ernesto yeah so anyway whole afternoon wasted my companion and I get back on the train back to Budapest and my companion is just jazzed up about a man that was such a waste of time and beginning to give our message and and can you believe that guy like there's no evidence at all for what that guy was talking, you know, and I was submitted on the train thinking man, what would I do is evidence for what I'm trying to tell him you know I'm trying to know about the book of Mormon. I've got nothing and it was it was, one of those situations and so you don't build the whole post about the antigen through machine kinda reminded me like SME on on a journey to try to try to find evidence right and I came home from my mission and I signed up for that, the forms, Journal of Mormon studies, try to get into the into the year Mormon scholarly approaches to the book of Mormon. You know that all of the books from them. One other thing that I do my chemo for my mission as I got into an author named Graham Hancock who has similar theory about the ancient past two Fontana can accept she doesn't take it to extraterrestrials. He takes it to the lost city of Atlantis right okay so the ancient civilizations are more complex than we give them credit for the more advanced than we give them credit for. The reason is because they learned it from the inhabitants of velocity of Atlantis, which is gone now so that whole theory, but I came over my mission.

I bought a couple books by Graham Hancock, one of the rooms called fingerprints of the God's word kinda goes through his whole theory of them. The other one is called the sign in the steel where light goes on the search for the ark of the covenant in Africa and I was I went to a pioneer day dinner at my Ward freshly home of my mission and I've got my Graham Hancock book with me and I'm icing a book with me everywhere I go, which is lot easier to do without being socially awkward now that you have. We have like the Kimball Avenue but I was sitting there at this dinner reading by myself and the guy who had been my priest quorum advisor and he was now in the bishopric, approached me and asked what I was reading and I told him you know I am reading this book called fingerprint of the gods and explain to them you know who Graham Hancock wasn't what it was about, looked at me with the coenzymes like a sounds pretty apostate.

You know with me. You nobody's like the careful, you know, and I do share that because it plays into identity right because his warning is like a stay within the lines of of what's, you know, send out an circumscribed by the church. Don't go outside of that are your apostate Ryan and that that that experience kinda plagued me for the next 10 years I went to my favorite transition and I didn't want to go outside of the box. I didn't want to to look at that stuff as you were talking about Matthew, you know, the D Michael Quinn stuff you like. To this day I still haven't read no man knows my history because that's verboten.

I've gotten myself I need to redo the some point. But I still haven't because you know as I went through my favorite transition I was trying to read faithful sources, faithful LDS sources. You and I was trying to get the answers from from the horses mouth. You know, and that that experience I had with that member. My bishopric was was informative because it kept me within the lines for a long time because we all know we all want to belong right and that was my tribe know I really wanted to belong. You know when when we were on our way down there would have conversations with Angelina, Michael, you when you talk about when Romney ran in 2012, you wrote your book right will when Romney was running in 2008 in the primaries the first time I was you know in a place where I had moved on from wanting to be in a Mormon apologist because I didn't think I could defend it to him to be a cultural Mormon and I'm in the right fiction by Emma Wright the greater great Mormon novel that was where I was in my head and I would have these conversations with Angela give Elmer talk about leaving and trying something different. I do like I where we can go on the Mormon I'm always going to be a Mormon. It's who I am is my identity and so is very much a part of me into this of the outer podcast. Please visit the out of rightness podcast free to send us a message that comments or questions, send a message at the time the pain appreciated. July we also have an out of rightness and others in the pursuit can also send this out of rightness to the out of rightness podcast on podcast cast box cast cast the modifying stitcher.

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