America, Chris Columbus, The Bundy's, and Sorrow
Jan 6

America, Chris Columbus, The Bundy’s, and Sorrow

I live in East­ern Wash­ing­ton. The Bundy’s mis­guid­ed and atro­cious take-over of a Fed­er­al vis­i­tor’s cen­ter in East­ern Ore­gon has got me think­ing on one of the most fun­da­men­tal issues of the Book of Mor­mon, that Native Amer­i­cans are some­how sup­posed to be con­nect­ed to the awful God of the Old Tes­ta­ment through Israelite blood­lines, were…

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Riding the Wake of 60 Years of the Good Ship Zion
Dec 20

Riding the Wake of 60 Years of the Good Ship Zion

It’s Christ­mas­time 2015. I’m 61 years old, a lov­ing hus­band, father of four, grand­fa­ther of nine and — eight months into the Post-Mor­­mon por­tion of my life. The past two years of tran­si­tion have been painful, ter­ri­fy­ing, embar­rass­ing, dis­ori­ent­ing but ulti­mate­ly lib­er­at­ing. I am an active, faith­ful, life­time mem­ber of the L.D.S. Church. I was married…

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An Evening with Zhenya
Dec 16

An Evening with Zhenya

For the LDS Ven­tu­ra Cal­i­for­nia stake Relief Soci­ety on 17 March 1992 In com­mem­o­ra­tion of the 150th anniver­sary of the Relief Soci­ety Writ­ten and per­formed by Eugene Kovalenko — Lis­ten to the record­ing of the event using the play but­ton below — https://​mor​mon​band​wag​on​.com/​a​p​p​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​m​p​3​/​A​n​E​v​e​n​i​n​g​w​i​t​h​Z​h​e​n​ya.mp3 Pro­gram notes for: A jour­ney home to Lia­hona­grad In song, verse, and sto­ry [2015 Note 1: This pro­gram was…

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The 'wrong' answer to prayers
Dec 9

The ‘wrong’ answer to prayers

This is the let­ter I wrote to my fam­i­ly telling them I was leav­ing the mor­mon church and why. I post­ed it to Face­book so I did­n’t have to explain it 13,000 times. I have decid­ed to leave the Mor­mon church and I would like to explain why. I will not be bash­ing the church…

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FairMormon Inadvertently Discredits First Vision Accounts
Dec 5

FairMormon Inadvertently Discredits First Vision Accounts

A com­mon obser­va­tion of Mor­mon apolo­get­ics, and Fair­Mor­mon in par­tic­u­lar, is that their expla­na­tions are rarely inter­nal­ly con­sis­tent. The expla­na­tion for one issue con­tra­dicts or con­flicts with the expla­na­tion for anoth­er issue. Some­times, it does­n’t mat­ter much that they con­tra­dict each oth­er. Oth­er times, they real­ly do dam­age to their argu­ments. One case in par­tic­u­lar is when Fair­Mor­mon addressed…

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Born to apostatize
Dec 5

Born to apostatize

From a very ear­ly time, every­one in our ward knew I was going to hell. I tried to live up to the teach­ings of the church, but peo­ple could just look at me and see I was a born apos­tate. It must have been my sense of humor. For years I thought “sac­ri­le­gious” meant “hilar­i­ous.” When someone…

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No longer a member
Nov 18

No longer a member

I grew up in Utah in a Mor­mon house­hold. I was one of those who always asked why and was always told you just need to believe. That nev­er worked for me. When I went away to col­lege, I stopped going to church all togeth­er. I could nev­er believe in a church that was found­ed by a…

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Meeting with Maxwell, the Special Witness
Nov 18

Meeting with Maxwell, the Special Witness

In 1993 I per­son­al­ly asked Neal Maxwell a ques­tion: “As an apos­tle of the lord Jesus Christ, have you seen the sav­ior?” He was embar­rassed and could not answer that ques­tion, he final­ly told me to read an arti­cle about some­one else’s dream. Many in high posi­tions feign author­i­ty from a self pro­claimed impor­tance. Neal…

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Four Alternatives to Church Policy in Handbook 1, Section 16.13 with "Clarifications"
Nov 17

Four Alternatives to Church Policy in Handbook 1, Section 16.13 with “Clarifications”

Over the last two weeks, the LDS church has had their new pol­i­cy on LGBT and LGBT chil­dren leaked, pro­vid­ed an expla­na­tion by Christof­fer­son, then final­ly “clar­i­fied” through a state­ment from the first pres­i­den­cy and com­men­tary from Church Pub­lic Affairs. The church stat­ed that the “ques­tions” regard­ing the pol­i­cy change was caused by “incom­plete news reports, tweets…

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Letter to Bishop & Stake President
Nov 14

Letter to Bishop & Stake President

This is my first post so I should intro­duce myself. I met my wife to be, in the last year of high school and mar­ried her when we were both 19. My wife came from an LDS fam­i­ly with her father serv­ing as Bish­op at the time. I was bap­tized into the church about 6…

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