pre-exit 6: some small things

There were also a whole slew of smaller issues that bothered me too, but took fewer mental gymnastics to deal with. These were things like superficiality and hypocrisy of church members; inequality of young women and young men programs and resources; rote saying of prayers and bearing of testimonies; boring church meetings; policies that made sense only to white, male, America; stupid lesson manuals; church dress code; Right Hand Only sacrament-taking; the Super Mom syndrome; etc., etc.

Most of these were quite easy to talk away by making some divisions in my mind between the gospel, the church, and Mormon culture; and doctrine, principle, policy, and practice. These lists are both on the same spectrums from Most Important and Unchanging on the left to Least Important and Changeable on the right.

I might have classified, for example, priesthood as gospel and doctrine, denial of the priesthood to blacks as church and policy, and lingering racism as culture and practice. Not everything fit in this way, but it worked for me for a while.

Because I had this system of compartmentalization, I could take just about anything I didn’t like and label it “Mormon (or Utah) culture” or a church practice that would change eventually. Thus, I was able to preserve my positive attitude, and keep my testimony strong and untouched by all the many problems that plague Mormonism.