what does "ex-Mormon" mean, and what does that make me?
Following up from my post about the label "Mormon," I want to discuss the label "ex-Mormon."
Ex-Mormon
Someone who once was, but is not now, Mormon, usually by self-identification.
Someone who has been excommunicated from a Mormon church.
Someone who has resigned from a Mormon church.
I only fit into that first category. I haven't resigned. (Why? I'll save that for another post. But the short answer: Beats me.)
The major problem with the label ex-Mormon is that the person is defined by who she isn't, rather than by who she is. As someone of the old Foyer once said, (and I'm paraphrasing) "I don't think of myself as ex-Mormon any more than I think of myself as so-and-so's ex-girlfriend."
Some consider it a transitional label, somewhere between Mormon and post-Mormon. Post-Mormon being someone who was once Mormon, but is not now, and is okay with having once been Mormon. A well-adjusted, no-longer-angry ex-Mormon. (Or ex-Mormons who aren't angry because they didn't get screwed by the church, or they didn't have a difficult time leaving because they were less invested, or had "less" of a testimony in the first place, and can't really get why anyone would be angry. I'm thinking specifically of the guy who claims the invention of the term post-Mormon.)
I now label myself an ex-Mormon, because a significant portion of my time is spent thinking about leaving the church and the aftermath thereof. I'd like a better label, but for now, it fits. Not that I go around telling people, "I'm an ex-Mormon." No, I say, "I was raised Mormon" or "I used to be Mormon" or "My family is Mormon." The label ex-Mormon doesn't fit my normal day-to-day life. But it does fit this blog.
5 comments:
Hi there. I have just found your blog and am wondering if you could explain how exactly excommunication took place. Did the Church contact you and why?
I'm fine with the both terms ex-Mormon and post-Mormon. I wouldn't say those who self-identify as exmormon or exmo are necessarily less well-adjusted about the whole thing than people who refuse the label. Mormonism has had a far bigger impact on making me who I am than any one relationship, so I don't think this label can reasonably be compared to self-identifying as so-and-so's ex.
In all honesty, a lot of people take on the label "exmormon" simply because they were got involved with the post-Mo/"cultural Mormon" community through exmormon.org. I wouldn't tell such people that they must be angry or fixated on the past to choose such a label. There seems to be almost a weird animosity between the foyer/NOM crowd vs. the "exmo" crowd, and I don't think there's any good reason for it.
I discussed this a bit in my post Recovery, Self-Discovery, Community.
BTW, I haven't been excommunicated or resigned either. I've explained that as well: my excommunication. ;-)
maryam- I have not been excommunicated.
CL- I agree that the labels are problematic. I'm not comfortable with saying ex or post. (In my post, I was actually a bit sarcastic about post-mormon.) The uses I listed are ones I've heard. I think you're right in that there is some bad blood between Foyer/FLAK and exmormon.org, though there are some people that post in both places comfortably. The fact that RfM uses ex-mormon in no way makes it harder to label myself that.
I like both communitites as well, which is why I'm willing to identify myself with a variety of different labels.
The funny thing is that these labels mean so many different things to different people. I generally try to be respectful of how people prefer to identify themselves if they're picky about the label ;-) That's why I changed my Outer Blogness sidebar label from "Exmo blogs" to "Exmo/post-Mo blogs".
I've been thinking about your comments all day, and have hand-written a new post about labels and Mormon identities. I'll get it up soon.
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