Hi,
Since you asked what we thought, I’ll give you my long story in a nut shell.
I’m a Catholic–born and raised (although my parents are not very devout). I fell in love with a Mormon guy, his family, his values, and even started to fall in love with his religion. Looking back, I think his family did not see our relationship progressing far since he was on his way to BYU, so they never encouraged my interest in their fatih. So I did the research on my own.
The whole apostacy thing bothered me at the beginning. We expect captains to go down with their ship, but God jumped ship so soon? But it didn’t bother me too much, I put that concern on the back burner and continued to research.
I went to church with this Mormon boyfriend and his family, but truthfully, the boyfriend wasn’t that into it. I was more interested than he was. I think his parents wish they had taken my interest seriously back then when I was more impressionable.
The lovey-dovey wonderfulness of being “in love” kind of wore off. I saw that I do, in fact, love the BF and his family, but I really needed to investigate the Mormon faith, not just rely on “warm fuzzies”.
This also leads me to reinvestigate my own faith. What a wonderful spiritual walk I had. What did I choose? Catholicism. (Oh yeah, that bf is now my adorable, technically still Mormon, but Mass-attending husband).
I really had to understand the history before I could make the decision. The Mormon church presented their theology to me as brilliant and new (or restored) insights into God, religion, American history–all eminating from God via Smith, the prophet. Then I found out many of the “revelations” were actually human theories that recently preceded Joseph Smith. (lots of info out there if you are interested, but I’ll let you do your own reading–I’m not here to convince you one way or the other) So, although I love many things about the LDS faith, I just found I couldn’t believe in it.
So why do I think Smith did it? I’ve thought many different theories: maybe he was some sort of a fallen prophet, maybe he was a con man, maybe he had a disorder that made him an ego maniac, maybe he was genuinely trying to a lead a flock towards God. I tend to think he was so troubled with doubts about which religion to join, listened to so many revival preachers, spent so much time trying to piece together the answers that he started to believe his own thoughts were divinely inspired. Once you go down that path and bring your family with you, it’s hard to step back, self-realize your mistake & say, “Hmmm, I think maybe I was just dreaming/hypothesizing that. Forget what I said/wrote.”
Why put his family through all the turmoil? That’s an easy one for me. People do this all the time–think of terrible hazing rituals of fraternities. The more pain you experience, the more your brain desires to make it “worth it.” So, if you say, “I heard God talking to me in a grove,” and your friends laugh, you have 2 choices: 1. you think, “That was embarrassing, I must’ve been wrong.” or 2. you think, “They don’t know what they are talking about. Now I’m really convinced it was God and this ridicule is a test of my faith.” The next time your friends don’t laugh, they kick you out of town–now you are more strongly convinced that you are being righteously persecuted, and so on. . .
And about the statue burying–strikes me as wrong, too. But I’ve heard enough Mormon stories about Garments protecting people from fires, missionaries scared of swimming because of some sort of spirits (my in-laws refuse to associate with bodies of water on Sundays???), that I think all religions have to be mindful not to fall into the trap of superstition.
Good luck on your journey. Don’t be discouraged by what you find about either religion. Keeping seeking Him and you’ll come out of this journey better for it.
Peace,
SJ
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