Why I Left the Mormon Church

In a comment on Monday's post Dayanna asked me about why I left the Mormon Church. Monday's post wasn't about Mormonism and I thought I would post my testimony here and then if there are follow-up comments and questions they will relate directly to Mormonism.

I was a member of the Mormon Church for 14 years, and find myself frequently disappointing people when I tell them that I enjoyed being a Latter-day Saint. You will understand that people expect to hear a little scandal with my kind of testimony, but I have none to offer. My wife was a member for 18 years in all, and we left together in August of 1986. Our time in the church was mostly happy. We started a family there and have much for which to be thankful, and very many happy memories. The church was good to us, being supportive through some very difficult times.

I served in various capacities including various clerical duties. I served as Sunday School teacher, Seminary and Institute teacher, teacher in both Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood quorums, and Ward Missionary Leader. At the time of my leaving I was Elder's Quorum President. Up to the time of my leaving I was a temple recommend holder and regularly attended the London Temple (right).

Why I Joined the Mormon Church

I remember my first contact with Mormonism, and the elders who taught me. I remember vividly the conviction with which I embraced the church and it's teachings. I recall experiencing a burning in the bosom, not just once but many times, and can picture to this day where I was kneeling when it first happened. I could barely contain my excitement as I discovered more through the missionary discussions. This revolutionary message that the heavens were not sealed and that God spoke again through living prophets. I recollect my baptism  at the District Centre then, before Wales had a Stake; It has two now.

In the Mormon church I met some of the most wonderful people you could wish to know. I remember my wife and I being prepared for our first visit to the temple by one of the counsellors of the District President. He was a lovely man, larger than life and full of love and encouragement. I remember the young people we grew alongside in the church and the times we had at District and Stake meetings, Gold and Green balls, temple trips, Fathers and Sons camps, even a visit to London to see Spencer W. Kimball (left). We married and grew up and had families and knew tragedies and triumphs, disenchantment and inspiration.

When we left, we left behind a full life, cherished friends, and good memories. Believe me when I say that our decision to go was not made lightly. And unlike some you might come across, we had nothing against the church, no complaints. Our friends were shocked at our leaving - so were we.

It took less than a month for us to make our momentous decision and, whilst this may seem hardly enough time to fully consider the issues, I assure you we were convinced and had no doubts. I realise now that that month was the culmination of a longer period of questioning and seeking. In the end ours was a real "road to Damascus" experience and, like Saul, it was as if scales fell from our eyes.

Contrary to what you might think, I am not part of an anti-Mormon group. I am not an anti-Mormon at all but a Christian. I am a member of a local Baptist church and my life is taken up with full involvement there. My time is not spent pouring over anti-Mormon literature, nor is it spent finding ways to "get at" Mormons. I do, however, share my experiences and findings with others in the same spirit in which Mormon missionaries go around the doors. I have found the truth and, especially in relation to Latter-day Saints, wish to share it.

I am sometimes asked why I now "fight" the Mormon Church. Mormons I meet ask why I try to convert church members who are, after all, already Christians. I might ask the same question of Mormon missionaries. When they find a Christian on the doorstep do they back away saying "Oh, you already know Jesus"? They do not, because they believe that there is no salvation outside the Mormon church. I believe there is no salvation inside the Mormon church and so, by the same token, I proselyte Latter-day Saints.

Why I Became a Christian

I have already said that I was happy as a Mormon and that I have no complaints about the way the church treated me. The inevitable question is, "Why, then, did you leave? There must have been something wrong".

I recall it was one Friday evening, the children were in bed, and there was a quiet moment when we looked at each other apprehensively. We had not been discussing church, either that evening or that week, except in the general way. I remember how we tentatively but finally agreed that there was something wrong. There was an unspoken, undefined, significance to that word "something" precisely because we had nothing to complain about.

One of us, I don't now remember who, said, "It's not working, is it?", and the other one agreed. Again an unspoken understanding of something we had never discussed or given the vaguest expression to, yet we each knew what the other meant. Our faith was not "working". What did we mean by that? We didn't then know or understand, but we felt an earnest desire to put right whatever it was we felt was wrong because our church membership was important to us.

It was then that we made a decision that, to this day, makes people stare. We turned to a Christian friend. It seems almost inconceivable, especially since we had no reason to shun our church friends, that we should do such a thing. I believe God was in all this. Of course I would say that, wouldn't I?

I believe our friend John could barely contain his excitement at being presented with such an opportunity. He did hold himself back, however, and simply invited us to church. "Come and see" he said to us. It was in that church that we experienced such a love for God that we were left wondering what it was that we thought we had been experiencing for all those years. Don't misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that Mormons are loveless, or that they have no genuine desire to serve God. But this was different.

So far we had seen something special in our friend John, something that had caused us, inexplicably, to trust him. We had experienced something amongst John's friends - an intensity of love and devotion that was so new to us as to be heady, like new wine. Now we wanted to understand. If this was right how did it square with what we had experienced and understood until now? If this was wrong how did these poor people come to be so deceived?

John gave us a modern translation of the Bible (NIV) and encouraged us to read it without any commentary or Bible study aids. He suggested we start with Paul's letter to the Romans. It was important to us that we should gain an understanding of things and so we now decided to review what we had already experienced, and what we could say for sure we knew, before we went any further. We had already agreed that God would not condemn us for honestly seeking his face and striving for a better understanding of his will. We now agreed that we would trust God to answer our prayers and resolve for us the, so far undefined, misgivings we had about our faith. Not about the Mormon church, but about our faith.

A Message of Grace

The thought that the Mormon Church might not be true had never entered our minds. No-one had spoken against the church in our hearing and we had not looked at any anti literature. Our struggle was not over doctrine. It was about our experience of God. In this spirit, then, of seeking God and trusting him for direction in a very personal pilgrimage, we read his word. It was here we discovered grace.

For all the Mormon church had going for it there was one area in which it singularly failed me. I was looking for something when I joined and I began to see that it was the one thing the church was incapable of delivering. Peace with God. When my wife and I became troubled we really did not understand why. We just knew - I knew - that something fundamental was missing from our spiritual experience. It was only as we began seeking with a determination we had never known before that we saw how radical would have to be the change in our lives if we were to go on with God.

When I set out to read Romans I was looking for a solution to the problems of my faith as a Mormon. I was not trying to sort out the Mormon Church. I was trying to sort out Mike Thomas. I wanted to get right with God so that I could be a better Latter-day Saint. Now you might say that I had a peculiar way of doing this. After all, going to a non-member etc. But God was in this from beginning to end so how could I do otherwise?

It was now that I did the one thing I had never done before. I knelt before God and asked Jesus to be my Saviour. I had believed in him for years, but I had been taught that the way to salvation was by obedience to the Mormon church. The church had effectively stood between me and God.

I came to see that there is only one mediator between men and God, the man Christ Jesus. I realised that the head of every man is Christ, not an organisation. I saw that all who came to him would not be condemned but would receive eternal life. I had an assurance of eternal life, something I had never known before, something no Mormon knows because the Mormon church teaches that salvation is by obedience, and so it is arrogant and presumptuous to say that you know. The Bible told me that I could know, the Mormon Church told me that I couldn't. I chose to believe the Word of God.

Now I was faced with a dilemma. Could I give up all those things that had been my life up to now? Leave my church friends? People think that obedience is all about the ten commandments and that sort of thing. Really it is about attitude. What really is the most important thing in your life? Put like that there was no other choice. I left the Mormon Church and embraced my newly discovered joy. My life since really coming to know Jesus bears no comparison to all those years when I only thought I knew him. Iremember the sobering realisation of what was happening when my wife one day said, "You realise we can't go back?"

I made the right choice and discovered a God who truly proves his faithfulness. So many scripture promises came true for me when I sought him and and discovered that "if you seek him, he will be found by you" (1 Chron.28:9). Coming from a system that saw obedience to law as the way to God I was brought to rejoice in the fact that "a righteousness from God , apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify" (Romans 3:21). The assurances of God's Word are a blessing to me beyond anything I could hope or ask. I know that through faith in Jesus I have eternal life as a present possession and a guaranteed inheritance (John 5:24). I just thought you would like to know.

What we Discovered in Romans

What did we find in our reading of Paul's letter to the Roman? We travelled what we later found was called The Roman Road. It is one of many journeys through the Bible designed to help us understand the fundamentals of God's Word. I reproduce it here:

THE ROMAN ROAD


This is a simple explanation of the gospel, using scriptures from the Book of Romans - hence the name. It can be easily marked in your Bible by writing the first reference at the beginning of Romans, and then in the margin by each reference writing the reference which follows. Thus when you want to share the gospel message from the scriptures, you do not need to remember a string of references, you just need to look at the book of Romans and follow the road through it. The references and a brief description follows. Feel free to explain them in your own words.

3:10 - There is no-one righteous, no matter how good we are or how hard we try.

3:23 - All have sinned and fallen short. It is impossible for us to measure up to God's standard.

5:12 - Death came to all men, because all sinned. It is our nature to sin.

5:8 - Because of God's love for us, he sent Christ to die for us - while we were still sinners, not because we had done anything to earn it.

6:23 - The wages of sin is death - wages are what you earn as a result of what you do. The gift of God is eternal life - you do not earn a gift, or deserve it. God gives the gift because He loves us. We do not need to work for it, only accept it.

10:13 - Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, regardless of who they are or what they have done. You only have to call.

10:9,10 - True, heart-felt confession of faith in Jesus is what it takes to be saved, not works.

In Memorium

I went down to the Cenotaph today and thought how you would have enjoyed the walk down to the seafront past the park where the small concert hall stands to where a group of people were gathered to remember the dead of war. We would have talked of many things on that walk, from anticipating the turnout; through the way the place has changed since you were young to those comrades you would personally remember at that emotive 11th hour, of the 11th day of the 11th month.

I looked across the bay and thought you would have appreciated the view of the distant headland, and I remembered how you always seemed to thrill at the promise the sea brought of distant lands, romance and adventure. And surely you would have pointed out the late autumn dog-walkers nervously eyeing each other’s dogs for signs of trouble, the kind of quirky detail you would be bound to notice and chuckle about.

As I stood with the crowds I saw a late and solitary bee land on a beautiful white flowering shrub and kicked myself because I couldn’t remember the plant’s name. I knew it would be familiar to you though and had a wager with myself that you would probably have had the Latin name on the tip of your tongue. Your critical eye would have passed over the small, neat flowerbeds and found some small fault as well as plenty to generously praise.

As the hour approached I saw the uniformed men and women, boys and girls with their flags and regimental colours and recalled the Remembrance parades of my own boyhood with the local silver band, the families standing self-consciously outside the parish church because they were chapel but just this once they sort of forgot about all that and stood around dutifully. The self-conscious church-goers would walk out into the autumn sunshine, the silver band would strike up again with familiar military marches and then all would parade through the town to the humble Cenotaph and memorial garden typical of a small town - to remember. I learned then that no place is insignificant that has given of its best for the future of its children.

Just as the hour was upon us it began to rain a fine drizzle given greater force by the wind that blew the rain into our faces. I thought how you would have enjoyed that rain on your face and how you would have stood with a ramrod back and determined look, “getting your priorities right”. Then, when the wreaths had been laid and a piper had struck up to mark the end of the official ceremony the rain stopped and the sun broke through the clouds and I pictured you looking up into the sky, as you often did, as though a promise was about to be fulfilled.

But of course my walk to the Cenotaph was solitary; my gaze across the bay accompanied by memories alone; Came the hour I stood alone in the crowd, with a straight back and determined look that I hoped you would have been proud of. Alone because it was you I had come to remember. You, who mattered so much, made my world better by being in it, and then made “the ultimate sacrifice”.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning we will remember

Form and Substance

Thinking further about being in between churches at the moment and ‘visiting’, and struggling with an issue that has bothered me for some time. I know what and whom I believe, finding no problems with my faith as far as that goes. I am finding the whole churchgoing thing a problem however and think I may have put my finger on why.

There is a trend today toward the new, the innovative and much of what used to be ‘mainstream’ church is cast aside and considered ‘traditional’, as though it was merely form and lacked substance. This has resulted in a shallow church experience as people constantly seek God’s immanence through innovative and experimental worship but neglect God's established Word. My argument is that it is the form that gives shape to the substance and that the formless, liquid ambivalent experience that calls itself ‘church’ today is proven insubstantial for the very reason that it lacks form!

As an example, young people seem to have an ‘experience’ of God but haven’t the first idea about how to talk to him. They don’t know the thrill that a developed prayer vocabulary can give you when talking to God, often falling back on the old saw about the Spirit speaking for us when we run out of words (Romans 8:26). I observe that these days they run out of words because they had so few to begin with and, far from needing help from God's Holy Spirit, they need help from God's Holy Word to educate them in the profound language of prayer.

The names of God are not pressed into service, the exploits of God are not recounted, the declared purposes of God are not repeated, the prayers of God's people do not reflect the heart of God as revealed in Scripture.

Worse, when people come into church they are often disillusioned with the world but are often disappointed to find the world in the church! I think of the great cathedral builders who constructed edifices made to reflect the experience of stepping out of the kingdom of this world and stepping into the House of God. Is that our experience today? All too often the answer is no.

Driving Faith

I am currently in that position euphemistically known among Christians as "in between churches". In other words, there are times when a Christian who thinks about things wonders, "what am I doing among these people?" I have thought of it in terms of the cars one might drive.

Once I drove a Fiat Mormon because I was attracted by the exotic and mysterious. But it was empty promise more than 'eastern promise'.

Then I drove a Chrysler Charismatic because I was impressed by the chrome and the speed. But it was unreliable, stalled a lot and proved difficult to control.

I then drove a Ford Baptist because I was looking for something more dependable and familiar. But it wasn't very fast and didn't seem to go anywhere.

I am now test driving different makes but find them all lacking somehow. What I feel instinctively is that I need a Renault Fundamental or a Citroen Orthodox but they seem hard to come by these days.

Costa-conscience books

I have been thinking today about a good friend who has very serious psychological problems caused by barely treatable chemical processes in his body. He is obsessive/compulsive and depressive and occassionally books himself into a local mental hospital for his own safety when things get too much. Medicine can do nothing more than give him drugs that achieve some degree of stability but bring him nowhere near the ability to live a relatively 'normal' life.

I haven't seen him for a long time because he simply disappears from the radar then one day there will be a phone call or something and he is back. I know if he is around however because of a peculiar 'arrangement' we have that he knows nothing about but from which we both benefit in a strange way. You see, his obsessive/compulsive character makes him buy books, books on the sciences (especially mathematics and physics) and books on the Christian faith (especially theological/apologetic) and philosophy. These are not good for him because, rather than simply interest and inform him, they make him worrisome and distracted. Nothing I or anyone else can say will distract him from this obsession even though it would do him good to put the books down and go out more.

Occassionaly, however, he impulsively decides to dump a load of books, giving them to a local charity in the name of his late wife (a wonderful and long-suffering woman when alive) as a sort of bequest. He benefits from this inasmuch as it does him good to clear some of this stuff out of his life. I benefit inasmuch as I happened upon his charitable treasure trove and have been able to purchase at charity shop prices almost new books that I could not otherwise have afforded to think of purchasing. The charity also benefits, which is his intention, he benefits, which his friends are glad to see, and I benefit too, both in having the books cheap and in knowing that he is around and making some right decisions for himself.

So why do I feel the need to justify this happy exchange to myself? Maybe I should call him and have a chat.