The Book of Hotchkiss: Chapter 1

Cracking the Shelf

"Well, we have nothing to hide. Our history is an open book. They may find what they are looking for, but the fact is the history of the church is clear and open and leads to faith and strength and virtues."

President Gordon B. Hinckley

To be honest, I haven't written anything personal in years and I haven't really written anything in any sort of capacity in about 19 months.

It's been 9 years since I've left the Mormon Church, otherwise known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Lately I've been feeling a little contemplative and maybe just slightly disheveled as I consolidate the past, find closure, and draw new conclusions to everything I have learned these past 9 years.

I've been pondering over the recent decline in church attendance within the United States, a decline that was expedited by the pandemic, and how that decline in church attendance is amplified in the LDS church.

I can't help but feel a little relieved. But I am also more so relieved to discover that younger members appear to be a little more laissez-faire and less rigid in belief in comparison to older generations. Though I think that some members could find the happiness they were always promised inside the church in a place other than Mormonism, the idea that members are becoming more liberal gives me hope in a better, more inclusive, happier, and more nuanced LDS Church.

True believing Mormons often say that people can leave the church, but those people can't leave the church alone. But how can we? The church was the most important thing in our lives and for a lot of us the Church took up a lot of space in our hearts and minds - that space doesn't simply evaporate overnight when we leave the church. There is a phase of heavy and thoughtful reconciliation and grief, perhaps after a more heavy period of anxiety, despair, anger, and depression. Like losing a loved one or going through a divorce, there is a process of healing that occurs. A very real grieving process, a period of grief over identity loss.

The Mormon Church took up 20 years of my life - more time than I have committed to anything else in my short time here on earth. That's about 66.66% of my entire life. That includes all the formative years of my childhood and adolescence. Mormonism was written into the very fabric of my existence. From the day I was born till the day I decided to leave, the church invaded every sense of what I considered to be "me", and the church directed every decision I was to make as a child and young man, as well as directing the decisions of my family around me. Things others have the privilege of choice like: like Sunday activities, what we could wear or not wear, what we could drink or not drink, read or not read, and even major life decisions like missionary work, mandatory church tithes, and marriage.

Though I have not been a believer in nearly a decade, Mormonism still lurks in the background. It's in Facebook feeds after General Conference and family conversations at gatherings, it's in politics and it sometimes affects family opinions of other family members. Not to mention all the social media trends that flood the internet when church leadership asks its members to participate in a new campaign. Or in my cellphone when missionaries attempt to solicit me for a lesson.

The LDS church isn't going anywhere, and I don't really expect it to. It may be very accurate to say ex-Mormons can't leave the church alone, but it may be just as accurate to say that we can leave but the church, but the church won't leave us alone either.

Before I fall to deep into what will sound like a negative story at first, I think it's important to start with some positives. To be entirely honest, I really enjoyed being Mormon.

I recently went through old year books and while reading the notes left by classmates in the back, I am being addressed as "hey Mormon" and "hey Kyle the Mormon." But this wasn't a slur, and my peers hadn't used this term to cause insult. It was a badge of honor and kids new that I came from a straight edge family. I didn't drink or do drugs, I spent a lot of time in church, and I know that sort of lifestyle sometimes got attention of my peers. I enjoyed the questions they would frequently ask; my religion was my identity and one that I was not ashamed of.