Christian apologists should be like, "Oh, yeah, we're really sorry about that. That isn't right. We're gonna fix that right away."
#exmormon
I realized recently that I don't think I've seriously revisited my scripture writing project since my dad died in 2023. I tried to get back into it a couple of time, but omg that place I came from and how sick I was. Considering that I *wrote it* while sick in the first place is a real testament to how awful things got.
I had all but 3-4 planned chapters finished, with even a few edit passes. (I need to keep re-reading it as I pick it back up, and just edit as I go.) So like, it's *almost* ready for people to see it. So close.
I had tried to sell it the season before dad died, but there's really only like, one place that would be a good fit for this weird little gremlin. And they rejected it.
At this point, I'm kinda sorta thinking of just putting it online. I've been thinking about doing an indie web site anyway, and this is just the sort of weird little text you could easily find on the 90s internet.
I just read chapter 2 and it's solid.
idk. I felt called to write this thing to express the insights I'd gained while trying to stay alive enduring unbearable pain for so long. And as a project to see if I could untangle the authoritarian aspects of Mormonism, to see what a truly expansive, inclusive, diversity-embracing version of Mormon doctrine could look like.
It's my Secular Woke Hermeneutics of Mormonism in the vibe of Alan Watts and Carl Sagan. My speculative theology. My sequel to Recovering Agency after deconstruction. It's the "So now what?"
It feels right. It feels like a calling. I feel like I'm coming up for air now and want to do something with it.
Digging in to Season 3 of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and I've got to say, most of these women are extremely capable of growth, and it shows.
It's been good practice for me to test my ability to spot red flags of people who are genuinely toxic, and probably always will be, vs. those who are just mimicking unhealthy behavior they learned within a toxic culture.
And when people do change, seeing if it sticks or if they're just manipulating people.
And I'm watching passive women conditioned to capitulate and defend bad behavior eventually come into their power.
I'm really proud of most of these kids as they come into their own. I'm cheering them on. Yes, even *that one,* who is maybe(?) starting to show some glimmers of self-awareness and being genuine.
These are the kinds of cultural forces swiftly changing LDS culture, and why I say Therapy Culture is the biggest secret threat to the institutional abuse culture within religious authoritarianism and fascism.
Though it often makes me uncomfortable, I unironically love this show.
🧵
#RealityTV #SecretLivesOfMormonWives #MomTok #RVLife #exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma #AbuseCulture
🎶freedom's just another word
for nothing left to lose🎶
#solarpunk #exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma #exvie #exvangelical #USPol #Antifa #resist #humanism #atheism
There definitely seems to be a vibe shift. From powerlessness and helplessness to empowerment and determination
I'm not the only one. And it's not just here on Mastodon.
Nothing is forever. No trend continues ever upward. We're learning the skills and fortitude we need. We're self-organizing against the shape that collective trauma has forced us into.
This too shall pass.
Then imagine the world we'll be able to build with the momentum.
#exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma #exvie #exvangelical #USPol #Antifa #resist #humanism #atheism
A study on how media coverage of cults affects the recovery of former cult members. Via the ICSA.
https://icsatoday.substack.com/p/cults-and-media-stereotypes-does
Wow. See here is why I love the Mormon people. When they end up cutting past the propaganda that keeps them hampered, they show up with the kind of energy and moral correctness that we were taught to have, that surpasses any modern church I've ever seen.
LDS Corp has left the ICE issue up to individual wards to decide. The wards that have decided to protect their own are *going hard*. This is a fantastic model for mutual aid. This is some City of Enoch level bravery and righteousness.
They're protesting detention centers, holding services online, locking down church entrances against potential ICE raids, planning escape routes, providing information about rights and how to handle ICE, feeding people, picking up kids,
“It is my divine obligation to … be politically aware and pass along information,” [Osorio Reyes] said, “to make sure the people in my ward are informed and safe.”
The Stake President is collecting extra fast offerings to help affected families with material needs.
This is the shit I was raised on. This is the shit I was told we were to be doing. And then... we simply never did. Our energies were redirected to useless time-wasters, and more priority was placed on "sexual" righteousness and whether or not someone drank Coke. Our minds were filled with barely coded racist interpretations of the world.
This is why, for my activism focus, I chose to work with exmormon populations. Because for all the dysfunctional ways we were conditioned to be, we were also instilled with a fire. Helping exmormons (and open-minded progressive Mormons) dump the dysfunctional baggage frees us up to be a real force for good in this world. We gave a majority of our time and money to the LDS Church, so when we stop doing that, our energies are free to go elsewhere.
One note on the geopolitics of the situation: unlike other brands of Christianity in the US, the LDS Church is interestingly torn on the immigration issue, because outside of the USA, their majority membership is in Latin America.
I've got one more thing to say about top-level leadership, next post.
Archive:
Original (paywalled still):
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2026/02/03/how-latter-day-saints-la-responded/
I'm listening to @sltrib's #MormonLand because I knew John Gustav-Wrathall in civil rights activism circles in #SaltLake.
I'm #exmo #ExMormon now, but I grew up and was Mormon most of my life, so I'm still culturally Mormon. My only question for #TaCOJCOLDS is, you have half of your adult members in an organization literally called the "Relief Society". Where is the relief for the society your immigrant and targeted-by-racists neighbors live in? They should have all the food/rent/gas they need to not need to leave their homes until this stops. You have hundreds of billions of dollars.
Update: now halfway thru scene 3, slightly more subtle that scenes 1-2 but only slightly.
Scene 3: Bring Me to Life/"is there no other way", in which a Mormon stake president gives a temple recommend interview and accidentally assumes the role of Satan to the congregant's Eve
Pic for attention, taken yesterday by my child
#workinprogress #musical #composer #writer #exmormon #beachgoth
Woman claims to have impregnated herself with Epstein's semen and sent him a pint of mormon blood from her youngest daughter every week in exchange for her school funding
And about a year, (I'll have to do some birthday math) I will have been out of the Mormon church for as long as I was in.
I have finished my final draft of Sexcommunicated!
This is, oddly, within two days of my 25th anniversary of deciding to be done with the LDS Church for good, on Jan 26th 2001.
Natasha Helfer, my client, has lined up a publisher! Her and the publisher will do the final edits. It should be a printed book within a year or two. I will have co-byline.
That's about all the details I'm authorized to release.
Sexcommunicated tells the story of Natasha's life, her journey towards becoming a sex therapist, the splash she made in the Mormon world with her therapy blog in 2012, and the events that led to her excommunication in 2021.
I will keep you updated on publishing news as the manuscript rolls through the process.
Tldr: im a fkn chicken but we need more protest art, so... im putting on the audacity of a mediocre white dewd and doing the thing, fear of failure be damned [boosts & encouragement appreciated 🙏]
On top of my myriad other #protest projects, im now also writing a protest #musical:
"Our Girl" is a rock musical retelling of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, set in modern-day Santa Cruz, CA. Theodore "Feo" Allen, a man with Down Syndrome, becomes unlikely allies with Beatriz "Bea" Paz, a young mixed/Latina dancer, as they both contend with #ICE, the police, and the Machiavellian machinations of His Honor, President Cameron Campbell, an immigration judge and leader of a local Mormon congregation.
Ngl im fkn terrified to be writing this
Im terrified of being seen/known in the way that just writing this show could cause me to be
Im afraid of ICE, the church, and people who support both
Ive never written something this ambitious
Its been a long time since ive performed my original music, tho the reasons for that are poor at best (im scared even tho im good)
My impostor syndrome is trying to convince me that this is not important and that no one will want to participate or see it, that the risk of writing and producing it will be for nothing
If youre the sort of person who agrees/believes that protest art, esp of this kind, is still as important as it ever was, id very much apppreciate some words of affirmation or encouragement 🙏
Tell me that the only reason youre going to bang on my door and yell at me is to tell me not to fkn stop writing, and to make sure this thing gets produced bc its important for stories like this to be told, and that my devastatingly astute teenager was 100% correct when she said that, when it comes to #writing #music and #storytelling, i "know how to cook"
Spent the week running on adrenaline, grief, terror, reading, and singing. Somewhere in there I put out this episode about mutual aid.
My community feels like all I have right now. Andrea taught me a lot about how to make community happen.
CW: mentions Child sexual abuse, leaving Mormonism, death, systemic abandonment of folks without housing.
https://untanglingourselves.com/episode/5da8f247/mutual-aid-with-andrea-schrimp
Learn more about Dandelion Seeds:
https://sacdandelion.org
(part of @ARG )
If you get through Season 3 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, you might be tempted to think that Mormon men are disproportionately more likely to be controlling and abusive towards their wives.
And you'd be right.
The LDS Church is like, "Nooo, we never said the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon were Native Americans! How shocking and insensitive, and historically inaccurate and difficult to prove given the ample scientific evidence otherwise! Wherever did you get THAT idea??"
But then they still illustrate children's stories from the Book of Mormon like this.
#exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma
(I don't typically go looking for this stuff. I just stumble upon it while looking up other things.)
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