FINDING COMMUNITY AFTER BELIEFS ARE SHATTERED

Finding Community After Beliefs Are Shattered

By Max Crapo

In recent years, we've seen a surge of increasing secularism in Western Civilization.  Many attribute it to the Internet ("Religions may not survive the Internet").  The truth is, broad exposure to troubling facts, inconsistencies, double-speak, hypocrisy, scientific evidence invalidating religious dogma and many other subjects are profoundly impacting the demographics in America.

For a number of years I have considered the destruction of religion a positive thing along with a move to secularization.  There is one aspect of secularization which I do find troubling: The loss of community.

As a former Mormon and an acknowledged atheist myself, this problem of community has been a significant issue.  One of the problems of leaving a high-demand religion like Mormonism is the profound influence and scarring which occurs due to to the spiritual, financial and sexual abuse which members incur merely by exposure to the religion. Unless someone has lived under such conditions, it is very difficult to understand the profound impact it exerts on our lives.


Mormonism strongly enforces an homogeneous belief system which results in members all living to a certain standard.  Those who vary in any way from this standard are harshly criticized and judged to be unworthy.  Members in good standing must submerge their genuine personalities and layer themselves with coat after coat of Mormon dogma.  Upon my own exodus, my ex-wife made the statement, "I feel like I never knew you."  Sadly, this is an accurate statement.  Trouble is, I never knew myself.  I recognized at a young age that letting people know the REAL me was asking for social suicide. Toeing the party line was quite literally, survival, especially when your community was better than 90% active Mormon. So, I daubed the cement of dogma over my authenticity and let it harden into the person others thought I should be.  What I really wanted or thought was worse than valueless, it was heretical.


At 45 years of age, I finally could no longer endure the cognitive dissonance.  The concrete I'd armored my beliefs in began to rot and crack. I began to ask questions. I gave myself permission to look, really look at sources outside of the church and what I found vaporized my Mormon shell as surely as a nuclear bomb and was almost as devastating.  It not only destroyed my belief, but it destroyed my relationships, my marriage and my family.  It was a personal meltdown and a loss of my entire community. The falsehoods of Mormonism were unable to withstand the radiation of truth, and that truth separated me from my tribe.

Today, nearly a decade later, I still feel the loss of that community keenly. At the time I left, there was only one community that I knew of which catered to those leaving the church.  It was an online community known as "PostMormon.org," started by a man named Jeff Ricks and a person who has become a valued friend of mine.  His community was literally life-saving for me during those dark days of shunning after my belief system collapsed. I will always honor and respect Jeff Ricks for being a pioneer in an hostile environment and for being a man of deep integrity.

Today, we have Facebook with a myriad of pages providing support online for those going through the crisis created by the collapse of belief.  I'm am an active participant on those pages and excited that they exist. They are important and needed for those who are now experiencing for the first time the shunning and judgment which accompanies rejection of belief. They can be described as communities, but I think they fall short of fulfilling the need for intimate, face-to-face community.



For centuries, our religions have been a gathering place, a place where people laughed, cried,
worshiped, found marriage partners, and buried their loved ones. This was the foundation of community.




It's taken some time for me to acknowledge that religion with its dogma and exclusivity, and requirements to believe in silly things in order to take part of the community, is really only a small part of the problem.  The larger part of the problem is the abuse of "power." Any time you have a group of people with similar beliefs, goals, and attitudes, that group represents a block of power.  Eventually someone will seize that power.  Then utilizing "doctrine", guilt, shame, and fear they will twist that power into something that furthers their own purposes. It eventually divides and destroys the community.


Even Buddhism, which has long been recognized as a "peaceful religion" isn't immune to this effect. This article exposes a violent side to the religion which I found totally shocking.  Upon further reflection though, I realized that the religion is again only part of the problem.  It is the abuse of power which has turned a mostly benign belief system into something ugly.



Fundamentalism seems to require believers to shut off their cognitive processes. There is a sense of "I trust my leaders and therefore if they say it then I must follow them...even if I feel personally uncomfortable with what they said or did." Loyalty and purity are valued above empathy and fairness.  Oddly enough, even a cursory reading of the New Testament will demonstrate that Jesus valued kindness and fairness over purity, and in fact made several scathing comments about the Pharisees and their rules.

So, how do we reclaim our community?  How do we stop the subversion of our communities by those who would warp the power to personal ends?

To resurrect an old slogan, the answer is "Question Authority."  Instead of accepting the overt explanation, look closely what is being taught and ask yourself the following questions:

Who does this help?
Who does this hurt?
Who is being left out of the picture?
What information is being left out of the picture?Does this fit within your sense of justice, fairness or empathy?

For those who still believe, there is something you can do. Demand transparency of your leaders.  Require accounting for every penny taken in and every penny spent. Forbid private meetings among church leaders. Restore the practice of Common Consent. Know where your church leaders are spending money.  Never engage in blind trust of your leaders. A church which does this is going to be a lot less attractive for a power play.

Tell your leaders that they will not receive another penny of tithing until they meet these demands. Stop the secrecy.  Take back your control. They have no problem holding you accountable.



Isn't it time that you held them accountable?