Main Street Plaza
If you haven't already, do head over to the Main Street Plaza, a nearly-started hub for all things post-Mormon. It strives to be a place comfortable for post-Mormons, alternative Mormons, and faithful Mormons who want to engage with the likes of us. They also have an amazing blogroll, including bloggernacle (mostly faithful Mormons) and outer blogness (mostly ex/former/post Mormons) blogs alike.
I have contributed one post so far, staking a claim.
I'm reproducing the post below, but to see the comments others posted, follow the link above.
Since moving away from the LDS church, I’ve explored how I feel about my new identity. Am I still Mormon? Do I want to identify as Mormon? Even if I deny that I am Mormon, am just lying to myself? Will I always be Mormon, somehow? It is, after all, not just my upbringing, but my heritage. I grew up in Utah county, daughter and granddaughter to many generations of Mormons.
People who are from other faith backgrounds still think of me as Mormon, just non-practicing. Some faithful Mormons still think of me as Mormon, just not active. Still others would say, “She’s most definitely not Mormon” because I believe and act so differently from the “ideal Mormon.”
There are many ways to describe me and people like me. Ex-Mormon, cultural Mormon, secular Mormon, non-believing Mormon, ethnic Mormon, former Mormon, post-Mormon. Notice I can’t get away from saying “Mormon”?
As much as I’d like to erase that part of me some days, I realize, too, that I am Mormon. Part of the spirit of this blog is, I think, to stake a claim in Mormon-dom for those of us on the fringes. We are Mormon, too.
As my spouse said cheekily, “Hey, there are 8 million of us. Only 4 million of them.” We count for something.
2 comments:
It's hard to know what to tell people.
I tell Mormons that I meet that I'm "Mormon, but hideously inactive."
I tell non-Mormons that I meet that I grew up Mormon.
I suppose if I had a replacement religion, I would identify as that, but in honesty I would just probably say "Yeah, i'm a Sikh (or whatever), but I grew up Mormon!"
Welcome, Kullervo.
I use different definitions of Mormon all the time. To non-Mormons, I usually do as you do, and say I was raised Mormon. Sometimes I play with secular Mormon or ethnic Mormon, but most people don't understand that. Because to non-Mormons, Mormon often means "wacko."
To faithful Mormons, when necessary, I'll say "I'm not Mormon." Because Mormon means something very specific to them--and I'm not that.
To liberal Mormons, non-orthodox Mormons, non-believing Mormons, etc. Mormon is more freely interpreted. That's the crowd in which I'm most comfortable "staking a claim."
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