size of the DAMU?
A comment by Hive Radical on one of my posts mentioned his google search for references to "recovery from" various religious traditions, including Mormonism (104,000) , but also Christianity in general (30), Catholicism (60), and Jehovah's Witness (20,000). His point was that ex-Mormons write about their leaving and recovery more often than other church-leavers do, and that it's odd. There's something particular about ex-Mormons or Mormonism that urges people like me to blog incessantly about my experience.
I decided to do a little googling myself, and came up with these results. Most are markedly different from HiveRadical's numbers, though I'm not sure why (did you use different terms, different use of quotes?):
Google Search
search term/ number of hits
recovery from Mormonism 759,000
"recovery from Mormonism" 13,400
recovery from Christianity 1,240,000
"recovery from Christianity" 36
recovery from Catholicism 1,350,000
"recovery from Catholicism" 55
recovery from Lutheranism 1,060,000
"recovery from Lutheranism" 0
recovery Jehovah Witness 220,000
recovery from "Jehovah Witness" 107,000
recovery from Islam 1,200,000
"recovery from Islam" 6
"recovering Muslim" 542
Google Blog Search
(note that this would include any blog that contains the search term, and should not be construed as an accurate number of "ex-Mormon blogs")
search term/ number of hits
exmormon 57
ex mormon 4815
ex-mormon 1058
ex Christian 122,783
ex-Christian 1098
ex-Catholic 95
ex-Jehovah Witness 6
ex-Baptist 84
ex-Lutheran 30
ex-Muslim 103
Using either set of numbers from these basic searches, ex- and recovering Mormons constitute a large percentage of the online talk about leaving religions. This percentage is out of proportion to how many Mormons there are compared to members of other religions.
What does this mean? Why is that?
One theory I have is that the internet is used as the primary space for ex-Mormons to talk. Many of us are in the closet, or even if out, still feel like we can't speak freely. In some places, especially Utah, exmos are in hiding, and can only find other exmos online. We talk about it so much here because we don't talk about it so much in real life.
Another theory is rooted in the nature of Mormon culture compared to other Christian religions, such as Catholicism. While the Catholic church has rather strict rules, many members feel like they can ignore many of them, but still feel Catholic. There's more space for them to be themselves. Catholics can attend mass only occasionally, not be so sure about trans-substantiation, and still have their children baptized, receive communion, and get married in the church. This is not so true in Mormonism, in my experience.
Besides that, there are elements of cult-ishness in Mormonism, such as missionary life, and a mainstream insistence on not talking about anything outside the scriptures, Conference talks, and Sunday School manuals.
Yet another theory is the Mormon church's claim to being the One and True Church. Yes, other churches claim they are the only right one, too. But Mormonism insists on its members taking its theology and origin claims as literal, so when people decide this is not plausible, they feel lied to. Someone leaving a liberal Protestant religion, for example, which discusses theology on a metaphysical level, wouldn't feel so betrayed. Betrayal is not one generally looks for in their spirituality, and it takes some "recovery" process to work through that.
This site explains one view on why "recovery from Mormonism is often such a difficult, protracted process. "
Any other ideas as to why the DAMU (disaffected Mormon underground) is disproportionately large?
2 comments:
I should have given specifics as to what search terms I used. I believe these are what I used for--
"recovery from mormonism"
"recovery from catholicism"
"recovery from christianity"
Then in the case of JW's I couldn't pull up much at all with a specifci quote so I used "recovery from" then I put in the term -- Jehovah's Witnesses. I thought that these lines would be somewhat indicative of an entry being specifically tied to leaving the faith. To me to leave the quotes out would drastacly increase the field that would be drawing from any entry as compared to the ratio of added religion specific occurances of "recovering" from a specific religion.
Mormons are tied to each other through shared secrets (or "sacreds" if you will). It is often hard for mormons to be very comfortable around non-mormons because of the 'separateness' (in the world, not OF the world) that mormonism embraces and espouses. When someone leaves that space of separateness, it takes a lot of support and exploration. People who have been in that separate space before are the ones most likely to be helpful in the process. They speak your language. They understand.
Also, mormon families are very affected by someone leaving - the implications to eternal families and the jolt to the foundations of their relationships. Anyone going through that needs support from someone who understands. Someone who was part of your tribe can help supplement for part of your family in times of need.
Leaving something as encompassing as the One True Church, can leave a pretty big vacuum...wisely, many exiting members look to their fellow travelers to discuss what to do with all that space. So, it's also just really satisfying to share the conversation.
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