On not leaving the church alone

I first became aware of Holly Welker this past summer. A friend sent me a fantastic piece she wrote for The Huffington Post for Pioneer Day, in which she celebrates modern Mormon pioneers like Carol Lynn Pearson, Dustin Lance Black and others. When I went to the Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium in August, I saw that Holly was presenting a paper on the Twilight books. I read her bio that accompanied a description of what she was going to present. Her bio listed the publications that she has been published in and the list started with The New Era and ended with Bitch. That kind of sealed the deal for me.

Holly came up to the Sunstone Symposium in Seattle/Portland a week and a half ago where we met and chatted. I felt an almost instantly comfortable connection with Holly, which is kind of a strangely beautiful thing for me because there was a time when she probably would have scared me. I used to be incredibly uncomfortable with anyone or anything that was even slightly critical of the church and its leaders. I most definitely would have been found nodding in agreement when someone would state the oft repeated phrase about how people who leave the church can’t leave the church alone.

Now I realize that it’s much more complicated than that, and that subtle brand of condescension doesn’t do anyone any good. There are many varied and valid reasons why people leave the church and I think it’s important to know and understand those reasons and the people who do choose to leave. And the seeking to understand shouldn’t come from a place of superiority or from a place of trying to manipulate them back into the fold. I think it should come from a place of exploring how another person’s experience can inform and shape and instruct my own.

One thing I’ve noticed with my friends and family, who have left full activity in the church, is that well meaning people try to minister to their needs and questions without being willing or able to fully explore the reasons why they left in the first place or without seeking to know and see them. It sends the probably unintended but still insulting message that their status with the institutional church is more important than their actual well-being.

Holly recently wrote a great piece for Religion Dispatches. She doesn’t discuss why she left the church, but she does a beautiful job of explaining why she wont’t leave the church alone. If you read it and other things she has written, you may not agree with everything she says or how she says it, but I’m willing to bet that your experience with Mormonism will become fuller and more three dimensional as a result, whether you have left the church or are a true believing member or fall somewhere in between.

I should mention that O-Mo also recently wrote a terrific blog post about leaving the church but not leaving it alone. Check it out.