On the Sickness of Doubt: Notes From a Lapsed Mormon

Not all who wander have a temperature of 103

There is an interesting thing that happens when you stop going to church. First, people think that they offended you. They offer apologies, they get skittish and mousey, like they don’t want to come out and ask why you haven’t come to church. I think this is generally because they don’t really want to hear the answer. They’re just hoping that it’s some temporary illness that you have and that it will pass naturally like a spicy Mexican dinner.

Then when it sinks in that you’re not offended by any particular incident, they start to offer remedies to your predicament. That is, they begin to talk to you like you have some sort of sickness or as if there has been a death in the family. They offer condolences like, “Well, I know you and your family are going through some struggles right now” or “I notice you guys have been going through a tough time recently” or “I’ve heard you’re just not feeling like yourself lately.”

But I’m not struggling or going through a tough time. At least not since I decided to leave.

The struggling was the sinking feeling of emptiness every time I was sitting in sacrament meeting. The tough time was trying to justify spending so much time away from my family while in leadership positions for the greater good of the church—if not to the detriment of my family.

When my wife and I decided we weren’t going back to church, it was like a huge weight was lifted off our shoulders. We no longer had to be perfect. We didn’t have to hide that fact that we had large doubts about things that seemed to come to other people so easily. We could finally talk about the things that had always eaten away at the back of our brains but we knew could never be spoken aloud without being socially ostracized or having the bishop send the home teachers after us.

I guess, if anything, we felt like we could finally live in the gray area between belief and doubt and that it wasn’t a sickness. We could admit that we believed the way Mormons treat homosexuals is mostly horrible, and that there is rampant sexism in the church, and that there is a hush-hush culture that stifles questioning the socially accepted ways of worshiping god that has always made us uncomfortable. We could admit that we felt god—whatever that meant now—was telling us something different.

But LDS culture is not a place to explore those opinions and criticisms—even if they feel right. It sees doubt and intellectual discussion as something that needs to be cured, not explored. Just this month, an LDS leader reminded church members to “first doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.”

Keep in mind, he seemed to say, before you start entertaining questions about your faith, it is probably you who is wrong, not the church. Is it any wonder, then, that church members view doubt in and of itself as a sickness?

Because of this pervasive belief that non-believers are defective, when you start to question your beliefs, you have a difficult decision to make: Either you are defective or god is.

As Alan Watts observed,

“It is one thing to feel oneself in conflict with socially sanctioned conventions, but quite another to feel at odds with the very root and ground of life, with the Absolute itself. The latter feeling nurtures a sense of guilt so preposterous that it must issue either in denying one’s own nature or in rejecting God. Because the first of these alternatives is ultimately impossible—like chewing off one’s own teeth—the second becomes inevitable.” (The Way of Zen, Pg. 11)

So it is that in denying the natural desire to question one’s own beliefs and assumptions, the Church opens a larger chasm between itself and its “struggling” members. Because it is expected that members swallow the entire gospel at once or risk being at odds with god, one doubt becomes the foundation of questioning the entire cannon of doctrine—or further, the concept of god itself.

Shushing debate does a disservice to both the church and its doubting members. Doubters have to hide their shame and take to the internet to gain advice from questionable sources or read through the vitriolic rantings of anti-Mormons, while the Sunday-going members lose the opportunity to take part in open and productive debate that could strengthen their own faith.

It’s a shame that it is this way. It seems that the church would like to be a place for people with doubts and question to come and discuss together. But too often, the idea of open debate is stifled by the preaching of truth. And the valid concerns and perspectives of others are discounted and dismissed as foolish delusions to be swept under the rug and dismissed.

As a result, it is through invalidating other shades of belief and different perspectives that the LDS message loses its power. If Mormonism is truly for everyone, than a wide array of perspectives and degrees of belief should be present in every meeting. They should be out in the open, not hidden away and ignored like a leprous vagabond.

How much more would the halls of the local meetinghouse fill up if questioning members felt comfortable discussing their concerns in open debate? How would the numbers of the church swell if doubting members we’re not made to feel like they were sick or defective?

I hope that one day we will find out.

But for now, I am not sick or struggling. I am simply between belief and doubt. And I feel just fine.