All the latest on Hiram

It seems like forever and a day since I last posted anything. Much has happened in that time too. First of all, I started a new job, and that job is very time consuming. But the BIG news is that I stopped going to church at my LDS ward.

"How did it happen?," you might ask. Or, "it doesn't surprise me in the least," you might say. Surely someone who complains about the LDS Church as much as I do can't hold on for long. Perhaps, but then there is Robert Kirby, who has done plenty of complaining and finds himself returning week after week--as far as I know.

To answer that one person out there who might both read this and ask the first question, I was not the one who motivated the big exit. It was instead my wife, who, upon taking our daughter into nursery one Sunday, felt a wave of nausea overtake her as she recalled all of her unpleasant experiences as a young woman in the LDS Church. Very soon she contacted a member of the bishopric to explain how she could not continue, and she had me deliver up her temple recommend.

So, I was shocked. I mean, I had been complaining and criticizing for years. Here my wife, moved by deep-seated pain, decided to put a stop to her participation in the Church abruptly. It took this to get me to stop too. I have lived in paranoia and fear for some time that I would get delivered up to the powers that be--as if they really care. Now, unless I break the 11th commandment ("thou shalt not publish") I should be, like many other disaffected LDS people, just fine in my apostasy.

Now, oddly, I find myself in mourning. I guess it isn't so odd really. A child can mourn the death of an abusive parent. I can mourn my partially self-imposed incarceration in the LDS Church. I say partially because I did not choose to be raised as a Mormon. Neither did my parents. My 19th-century ancestors thought it was a good idea.

Many of them had lived under an English monarch, so perhaps the freedom to have Joseph or Brigham as a king didn't seem like such a bad idea. Now, I understand that the decision they faced wasn't exactly put in those terms. Rather, they thought they were off to join the people of God in building His kingdom--Zion. To achieve that goal they were willing to sacrifice. Unlike me, they did not have such a radically individualist concept of freedom to make some of these sacrifices seem odious.

As I have grown older and looked on as the Reagan Revolution aged into the would-be hegemony of the Religious Right--as I have seen us endure humiliation and shame ourselves in the quest to rid the world of evil by throwing billion dollar weapon systems and innocent lives down the tubes, settling for the illusion of security and selling our birthright for a mess of pottage--I have come to value my dissipating personal freedom.

I believe in having a say and a stake in my personal future, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant it may be. I feel damn fortunate to have had what little freedom I have enjoyed. I believe that people can govern themselves. It is my hope and ideal to see more people empowered to govern themselves. While this may be overly optimistic, it is an optimism I believe we must indulge. Considering the alternatives is simply unthinkable.

This faith in humanity is precisely what has affirmed our decision to quit attending the LDS Church. The idea that God chooses another person to rule over me and to speak the divine Word to me is no longer acceptable. This is, simply put, a spiritual monarchy. Inculcating in people an unquestioning obedience to arbitrary authoriy is a great way to transform adults into spiritual children and slaves. It does nothing to bring about the avowed goal of eternal progression to divinity. Correlation has brought hierarchical control so close to the average member that there is no longer any room to breathe.

Oh, I still consider myself Mormon. I am a Mormon inasmuch as I believe that progression toward better things is a worthwhile ideal. I am a Mormon inasmuch as I believe that it is vital to search after further light and knowledge. I am Mormon inasmuch as I believe in the value of cultivating a polite and respectful environment. I am Mormon inasmuch as I value the adventuring spirit of Joseph Smith, even though he clearly went too far when he sought multiple wives and a Mormon monarchy. I identify with the restless creativity of Joseph Smith and his audacity.

Today that adventuring spirit has departed. The audacity has hardened into arrogance. The Joseph Smith of today's LDS Church never existed. His image is a whitened sepulchre. He has been reduced to a palatable and quantifiable object of devotion. St. Joseph of a Bransonized Nauvoo.

How do I hold on to my Joseph as I let go of the Church he founded? I hope it is in continuing on the quest for more wisdom and knowledge. I hope it is in my pledge to be a friend and brother with a determination that is fixed and immovable. I hope it is in my cultivation of the Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism. I still seek for the kingdom, but the kingdom I am seeking has no kings unless all are sovereign over themselves. It is a unity of heart and mind that comes through love, persuasion, and toleration, not compulsion or constraint.

In recent days I have read about Elder Holland working to drum up support for Mitt Romney's presidential bid. I have seen the Church's refusal to comment on what is happening with all those pine benches in the Tabernacle--of all the silly things to hush up. I have read the racist comments of a BYU-Idaho professor and the hateful taunts thrown at a little child because his mother is a Democrat in Rexburg. I have read with sadness the parting comments of BYU's one black, female law professor, who discovered that the LDS Church really does not support women in the workplace when it has a say in the matter.

In short, I have discovered that this is not my Church, and that I do not want the people who actively seek after these things to be my people. Do I hate them? No. I am simply choosing what I hold to be the better part.