- DaveW on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “I think Stephen’s point is that people who leave have some vested interest in telling themselves that they were always uncomfortable with certain things in the church, that they never were all that convinced it was true, and that certain bad experiences were really bad. All those things justify their current choice to no longer affiliate, or to affiliate differently than they used to. So, we should keep that in mind when listening to their stories. The converse is obviously also true. Active members have an interest in limiting their personal investment in complicated history, placing things “on the shelf” that aren’t to be worried about, to fondly remember past spiritual experiences, to minimize stories of people who have left, and to minimize our own past negative experiences with the church. We all do these things because they reduce the conflict between our understanding of the church and our current actions and situations. Human brains get overwhelmed if they are constantly fighting with conflicting views, so to keep our whole species from anxiety-induced paralysis, we evolved to pick narratives that lesson that discomfort. This is good to the extent that it lets us function in the world. It is bad to the extent that it locks us into our current beliefs and shuts us down from considering other experiences. And none of this is unique to the LDS church or religion. We clearly see it politically. We see it in rooting for sports teams. We see it in relationships, decisions at work, and everything we do that gets messy. I think the point of this post is just to be aware of this. We have biases, and sometimes they need to be broken down and eliminated. But there’s a limit to how much we can do that, and there will always be remaining biases. But in being aware of our bias, we can hopefully not let our lives be ruled by them.” May 20, 15:51
- on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “RLD: My grandfather-in-law had a memory of meeting Albert Einstein when he was at Princeton for a conference–and then he later somehow found out that Einstein demonstrably wasn’t in the area during the conference…. But yeah, a lot of fun cases like that. Kay Cookie: I think the idea that people largely simply leave when they stop believing makes sense–no reason to overthink it. (And, to Jonathan’s point, it’s more difficult for people to believe exclusivistic religious truth claims nowadays for a broader set of reasons). Dave B: That’s reasonable. However, I do suspect that the total mass of memory-shaping energy from online fora and popular culture far, far outweighs the effect of once-a-month testimony meetings. It reminds me of a point somebody else made that religious parents relying on Sunday attendance are nuts if they think that the one hour of religious socialization a week would be able to hold a candle to the deluge of what’s coming out of their kids’ phone. Jonathan: Amen Seth: “That seems to be entirely opposite the charity we’re expected to strive for in living through gospel.” Sure, but I’ll push back a little bit when it seems like the appeal to charity is being weaponized. “You have to change X, Y, Z because I’m hurting, and if you doubt my diagnosis for my hurt then you’re being uncharitable,” is often used as a way to use the principle of charity to coerce a particular prescription. I can be sympathetic to your hurt and recognize that it’s real while still disagreeing about your take on what its implications are for Church culture and policy.” May 20, 15:44
- on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “I’m not sure what truth you’re looking for here, Stephen. If someone decides to leave because their temple recommend was revoked for what they felt were unreasonable causes do you expect telling them not to feel that way is standing for the truth? That seems to be entirely opposite the charity we’re expected to strive for in living through gospel. And that’s not an example chosen at random. The person I know in that case stayed in the church, not even a consideration of leaving as far as I know. And that is in every regard as valid of a response. People have different backgrounds, different needs, and different abilities.” May 20, 14:29
- on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “Of course it works both ways; that was Stephen’s point. That means that we should try to rely on more than just personal memories, for example. And it also means that often it comes down to a choice: if we choose to believe, we can find ways to interpret our life stories and church history in line with that. And it breaks down the idea that believers are just brainwashed sheep. People who leave also have motivated memories (to see themselves as victims, for example), because otherwise they look like garden-variety covenant-forsakers evading their responsibility to the community that helped form them.” May 20, 14:25
- on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “Interesting post. If motivated memories or implanted memories explain what Exmos say about leaving the Church, I wonder if the same dynamic holds for conversion stories of those who join the Church. Maybe some conversion stories have grown over time or simply been implanted. Especially when they regularly hear conversion narratives recounted monthly in fast and testimony meeting, in LDS magazines, or in General Conference.” May 20, 12:44
- on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “I haven’t read Jeff Strong’s book, but for some reason (maybe a review?) I thought he approached the matter from a faithful perspective. It so, I am glad he gathered the information. I have a few extended family members who have stepped away (loudly or quietly), but really no one in the church hierarchy cares. I wish someone did. Anyway, one may leave the church, but someone who was a brother or niece or neighbor before leaving is still a brother or niece or neighbor after leaving. Regarding cafeteria Mormons, aren’t we all cafeteria Mormons? When invited to a grand buffet banquet (or even a ward potluck), I can nibble here and nibble there, or I suppose I could gorge on one thing in particular, but I likely can’t eat some of everything, and that’s okay. In the old days, I once observed that I was spending hours on Scouting for Aaronic Priesthood youth, while someone else was spending hours on temple work, and while someone else was spending hours on missionary work, and that was okay. As shown in another recent posting, for example, I’m not thrilled with including heavenly mothers in our worship meetings, but I still identify as a faithful Latter-day Saint. So yes, I think we’re all cafeteria members — hopefully, we can all sustain each other like in Paul’s parts-of-the-body expression. Last thought: I agree that Latter-day Saints are affected by broad societal trends.” May 20, 10:18
- on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “If you look at his data, the biggest reason people leave is history, not being hurt. That tracks with my experience. But honestly, I think the idea of many things all culminating in leaving is true. Probably members who stay or join the church also have many, many factors combining there. I think casting doubts on people’s stories and experiences is not a useful way to approach them. It is true that memories change over time, but so do everyone’s. A short encapsulation of my story is that as long as I believed, I could put up with all kinds of hurts and offenses, but once I no longer believed, they all combined to bring me out of the church. But the final straw was really church history and doctrine.” May 20, 10:17
- on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “I remember the day my parents and I (and my younger siblings, though I doubt they remember) learned about the revelation on priesthood. We had picked up my Dad from work, and on the way home we heard it in the news on the radio. My parents were thrilled, but they had to explain to me why, because I didn’t know Blacks couldn’t hold the priesthood up to that point. (I was seven at the time.) But…for many years, when I replayed that memory in my mind, the scenery I saw through the car window was a specific street in the city where we lived in 1977. Maybe a decade ago, we were reading Official Declaration 2 in a class when I realized that it was given in 1978, and by then we had moved to a different city. I noted it as a lesson on the fallibility of memory. But I can now add a lesson on the malleability of memory: if I replay that memory now, I see a similar street in the city where we lived in 1978. Given the drive, that probably is the street where the event took place, but I doubt my brain dug up a more accurate memory–it just substituted a location in the city where I now realize this happened. Picking my Dad up from work was a fairly common experience in both cities, and it was the same car, so the background of the event is pretty interchangeable. Yes, memory is weird and not entirely trustworthy. It’s a fun family game to compare early memories–there will be surprises.” May 20, 09:25
- on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “Just once I would like to encounter a mormon who when confronted with their bad behavior (or writing) stops and says. Hmm, maybe I am wrong. If you care at all about those members who have been hurt you might try it just once.” May 20, 09:06
- on Ex-Member Anecdotes and Motivated Memories: “You know what they say about the plural of anecdote. One issue I see in a lot of the popular research on exit is that it often proposes highly LDS-specific causes for worldwide trends. If the phenomenon you’re describing is just secularization – which it is – then the driving causes at the group level are going to be similar to whatever causes secularization elsewhere in the U.S. and globally. Was there an Episcopalian Kinderhook Plates that was just too much for a bunch of 20th-century Episcopalians? No, there was not. Individual experiences and outcomes certainly vary, but collectively, the list of historical issues for exit is just an acceptable way for people to justify their decision in favor of secularization. I’ve posted before about how we remember our experiences as teenagers or missionaries, and people didn’t take it well. But we really are terrible at it.” May 20, 09:05
