For most of my young adult life, I led what some people may call a double or a contradictory life. During that time, I still professed to be a Born Again Christian and I admit that I was going through the motions. I would read the bible and pray every evening and that includes when I would go out and get drunk and indulge in other vices as well. I clung onto the words in Ephesians 2:8-9. Eventually I would settle down, marriage and children so my wild days were eventually put behind me. Still, while I might not have been living wild, I was still going through the motions in regards to faith.
Then something happened that marked a turning point in my life in many ways. One day two Mormon missionaries approached me and began teaching my budding family and me about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Trust me, I was no easy convert. I remain convinced that the missionaries would come to my house dreading what I was going to ask them next as I was trying to catch the church out. Going back to my Born Again days, I was taught that the Mormons were one of the false prophets talked about in the Book of Jude. I remember it well when I worked at the bible camp. The instructor called them false prophets because they taught that Jesus went to the Americas after his resurrection. The joke was “What was he doing, preaching to the Indians?” At one point, I did ask a question where the missionaries had to get the senior mission couple to come and answer. To make a long story short, I finally ran out of things to ask and after prayer and study, I was baptised into the faith.
Some of you are probably shaking your heads in the belief that I was led astray, I believe I wasn’t. It has been said that the LDS faith was founded on blasphemies. Well, I have read the Book of Mormon and studied many of the articles and doctrines of the church and I have found nothing blasphemous. I have also read a lot of anti- Mormon literature and most of it is very comical. In fact, it’s a past time of some members to read the anti literature for a good laugh. I have also been to the temple and even though I have been out of the church for some years, I won’t reveal the sacred things within. I will say that I never saw any animal or human sacrifice take place in the temple. Yes, more anti- Mormon literature. The church has answered many of the questions that had built up inside me in the time before I joined. Questions like the other sheep that Jesus talked about to his disciples and books mentioned in the bible that don’t appear in it like the Book of Nathan the Prophet. What’s more, it has given me a more defined insight in the creation of our world. See, unlike some anti- creationists tell you, God wasn’t some cowboy builder who created the Earth out of nothing. He created the laws of science and would have used those laws in the creation. He would have sent celestial bodies hurtling across space and crash them into each other to form our world. I still take great comfort from this. For me, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was the right faith for me.
So, why did I leave? The main catalyst was the fact that my life was contradicting the things set out in my patriarchal blessing but the main bombshell there was my first marriage dissolving. For me, that was the final straw in many ways. I mean how could we reign in heaven if we split up. Plus the fact that I was finding it more difficult to live by the commandments of the Church. Again, these things began to effect my mind and instead of driving myself into a state with it, I left the church. I confess, that I got into some worldly ways and was excommunicated. Although, I have slipped on a couple of occasions, I try not to be boastful of this. One more point I would like to make here is the Mormon belief that we are all potential Gods in the making. I believe this, however, I know that I don’t want to be a God nor reign in heaven. For all the things said against God and the job he’s doing, I know for a fact that I would not be able to do any better. I don’t want the responsibility.
Though I’m not a member of the Church any longer, I still won’t hear a bad word said against it. For me, it is the true faith, I just don’t wish to follow their rules at the moment. I will go into more detail on my thoughts on this in my next post. However, I still believe enough that when my grandmother on my mother’s side passed away, I gave her name to the temple to have work done on her behalf. Yes, I believe in the Mormon principle of baptism for the dead and when I had my hernia operation, I sought a blessing from the local priesthood. So, I did gain a lot from my time in the Church but I feel less stressed now that I am out. Of course, if the Church did have a tunnel dug from Liverpool to Salt Lake City, I wouldn’t have left because of the money I would have saved travelling to the US and if temple garments were bullet proof, I would have kept mine. I will say that unlike my time as a Born Again, the LDS faith did not mess up my head.
Now the link to He Was Weird. There really is none because back at that time, I had only learned about the Mormons in Social Studies and all I really knew was that they settled in Utah. Therefore, transferring it to Mark in the story, he would not have known anything about them more that.
Next post: Asperger’s and Religion, My Final Thoughts
To buy He Was Weird, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395872371&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird