A preamble:
I’ve had this nagging feeling to write a letter telling the story of my progression from devoted but troubled believer to being so filled with shame that I turned to atheism for relief to back to devoted and no long troubled believer to the bishop. Below is the email I sent and below that is his reply that came a nerve racking 36 hours later.
Dear Bishop,
The story I’m going to share has not been shared with any other living person, not even my wife, but I feel a pressing need to share it with you and I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s to clear my conscience or just a need to share with someone.
It wasn’t that long ago I was in your office and you asked about temple and tithing. I gave you an honest but incomplete answer, I told you there had been a faith crisis about the very existence of God. That is true but what went unsaid was why and what lead me there. Confessing the faith crisis was the easier path, it was far easier to simply say I’m not a full tithe payer to escape a temple recommend interview. I am in a place now where I no longer feel plagued, no long feel as if I am sinking ever deeper in quicksand, in short I no longer feel condemned to hell, so I write this with a clear conscience knowing it’s behind me.
I grew up blurring the line between normal healthy functions of the body and what is lustful and sin. I didn’t know what I didn’t know but assumed I knew it all. My concept of Christ’s atonement was equally flawed, forgiveness for me was only available if I stopped sinning and became perfect on my own, only then would the atonement apply to me. These blurred lines and narratives, in my head, began at a very young age to fill me with shame. To feel attraction was to me the same as lusting. There was no escape for the teenage me. Growing up parallel was the idea of me always being watched. After all, I am an example of the church and Christ and people will judge one or both based on my actions. This second one gave me a real fear of being seen doing anything wrong. This idea was reinforced by the numerous times I had been caught doing extremely mild bad behavior.
While I was serving a mission I found myself fighting those same feelings I had growing up but now there was often a temptation to buy a magazine surfaced occasionally, but I didn’t for fear of getting caught. It wasn’t until after I returned home that I had my first real encounter with pornography and masturbation and began to actively seek it out. The internet was still new but I knew where to go.
I spent 10 years in the shame spiral believing I was unredeemable and destined for hell before confessing to my bishop. He told me he wanted to meet regularly and warned me that if I persisted in the behavior I could be excommunicated. He gave me a priesthood blessing before I left his office. I didn’t have another conversation with him about it until one of my daughters was “touching herself” in primary. Then the question “Could she have found one of your magazines?” I was dumbfounded, what part of 100% secret did he miss? I curtly told him no there were no magazines and that I hadn’t done anything since confession. A lie. I didn’t talk to him again till he was called to the high council. He stopped me in the hall during church and asked if I was still looking at it, to which I lied and told him no and continued feeling like a plow was running back and forth over my body.
I spent 5 more years in my secret inner turmoil before I really came to realize my story wasn’t so in common. That I wasn’t alone and the feelings I was feeling were the same that others experienced. That realization was a small ray of light in an otherwise very bleak hole. This sent me down a philosophical, religious, and psychological journey. Along this road, I heard someone say, “The only reason pornography is wrong is because of God, if there isn’t a God then there is nothing wrong with it.” It was in that moment God died in my heart and with him all that shame began to melt away.
I continued down the road of philosophical, psychological, and religious study. I told myself that just because there was no god didn’t mean there wasn’t value in religion or the scriptures. That brings this story to where I was in your office and confessing to not being sure that God even exists and allowing you to believe that is why I didn’t pay tithing.
I still had a problem. If God was dead or didn’t exist then I could view as much pornography as I wanted and not feel shame. That often used quote by that German philosopher Nietzsche came to my mind paraphrased, “God is dead, you’ve killed him, now what?” I was faced with this proposition, did I really want to be the kind of guy that looks at pornography and masturbates? The answer to that was a deafening NO! Without the shame cast on me from a now dead judgmental god I found it easier to walk away and not turn back to it. I could quit. It was no longer about trying to please someone else and became about pleasing myself. There was no force from outside of me casting judgement, I was quitting for me. I did quit for me.
Between that first conversation and now I’ve made great strides. The temptation to view pornography has practically vanished and should it return I’ve learned tools to help me process the feelings of the temptation without succumbing. I started paying tithing again primarily because I found value in the church and wanted to continue using its facilities and the gospel library app and figured it was worth paying something just for those. That has since changed a bit more since then (still a work in progress there).
I was starting to feel the embers of belief in God in my heart and that scared me because I didn’t know what was truth and what was fiction. One morning on the way to work I was listen to the next chapter in queue in the Book of Mormon and we came to Mormon chapter 9 verse 10, “And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then have ye imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles.” The part that stood out to me was “imagined up unto yourselves a god.” For whatever reason this felt like permission to imagine a god I could believe in. Right around that same time the thought struck me that god didn’t just die in my heart, I snuck up on him, put a covering over his head and murdered him on the alter of my heart to escape the shame and guilt I felt.
Then came our next conversation where you counseled me to not dismiss blessings from God as just a coincidence. I walked away unconvinced but it stuck with me. I heard someone quote Alma 32:28 and one line stood out to me, hitting me with great force, “if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief.” I realized that was exactly what I was doing. I was looking to disprove God not to prove Him. I think I realized right then more than any other time in my life that you find whatever it is your looking for. If you want to find evidence that god doesn’t exist you will find it, if you want to find evidence that Joseph Smith was a pious fraud then that’s what you will find. At the same time if you want to find evidence of God’s existence you will find it. If you want to find evidence of Joseph Smith as a prophet you will find it. It is far easier to rationalize away anything that is inconvenient than to persist and choose to believe God is there. Leading me to conclude that God is ok with us explaining him away so easily, who he is isn’t dependent upon our thoughts of him. It was then that in my heart I chose belief and God came back.
That’s it, we’ll that’s the short condensed version anyway. Like I said in the beginning no one not even my wife knows any of this. It has been a secret quicksand pit I stepped into as a child and spent the better part of my life struggling against. The irony here is that just like quicksand the more you struggle the deeper and harder it is to get out. It wasn’t until I quit struggling and relying on my own strength and will power that I found healing. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers on our behalf.
-Signed-
PS I really struggled to hit the send button because once I do I can’t take it back.
Reply to the letter.
Brother -,
Thank you for sharing this. I am so grateful for your faith to persist. You were on a journey. I feel like you did what was said in Alma 32 and you nourished the word so it could swell with in you. Thank you for trusting me with this and having the courage to push that send button. It is a testimony to me that tho we may set aside God at times, he remains. Your are correct Satan has used the same tactics on many, you are far from alone. Thank you for your Willingness to Share this testimony of God power in your life. It brings me strength and is an answer to my prayer on your behalf and your family. I have Had faith crisis at different times in my life that helped me to justify my actions and all it did was bring me misery and unhappiness. I hated that I couldn’t believe. It was only through a desire to change, trust in God and Belief that the Atonement was real that I was slowly pulled from my wreckage. Then came the steady progression where I could recognize Gods love for me. It continues to this day. Thank you for your continued service to our ward. I appreciate you and you family. I thank God for answered prayers. I look forward to see how he continues to bless you and your family. Have a wonderful week.
Best regards,
-Bishop-
A Man’s Belief 