9/11 Impact on my Faith
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2020 5:54 pm
When the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were struck by terrorist-hijacked planes, I was still an active member of the LDS Church. I would remain an active member of the LDS Church for another 6 years. Sure, I was aware of problems with the history. I was already persuaded that the Book of Mormon was not an ancient text. Still, I believed in fundamental teachings about charity, forgiveness, etc. There was a lot that I liked about the LDS Church.
My departure was complicated. I can't point to just one thing. What I would like to do, however, is say something about the role that 9/11 had in my disaffection from the LDS Church. Maybe no one else looked at things in this way, or was impacted by those events in the way that I was, but in my estimation my desire to affiliate with the LDS Church was deeply impacted by the 9/11 attacks.
First, you should know that, for better or worse, I voted for George with. Bush. I came to regret that over time, and I was troubled by the events in the Supreme Court and in Florida that secured his victory over Al Gore. But, I did cast a vote for with, albeit in California, which went heavy for Gore anyway. OK, I knew that my vote had no great practical impact on anything, but I have always taken my responsibility to vote very seriously. When the Twin Towers were struck, for a while I felt relieved that I had voted for with. In retrospect I had no good reason to feel relieved by my choice. Again, California. When Bush rallied Americans and promised to strike back at the terrorists, I felt a visceral hometeam pride that we would get our revenge.
It was when there started to be rumblings about the role of Iraq in 9/11 that I was first really unsettled. Honestly, I just didn't believe that Iraq had anything significant to do with 9/11. It didn't make sense. Moreover, the thought of initiating yet another serious war on the other side of the world just seemed like a bad idea. The evidence against Iraq was dubious, the prospects for success dubious. By the time we invaded Iraq, I was convinced it was a bad idea and probably a trumped up war. I could not believe that we were doing something so risky and consequential based on such flimsy evidence.
And here is where I get to the LDS Church part. The Church, of course, was very supportive of these wars. This should be no big surprise, but I think it was my conviction that the Iraq War was such a bad idea that was founded on faulty or false evidence, that really started to alienate me from the leaders of the LDS Church and my fellow members. You see, I saw the Church cozy up to the Bush administration, and I saw conservative members of the Church increasingly as loudmouthed ideologues who were blindly in favor of a bad war and not sufficiently concerned about the impact of 9/11 and our wars on our financial future as a country and our freedoms as citizens. I recall one particular low point when BYU gave Dick Cheney an honorary degree. By this point in time, that really sickened me.
So when the Church decided to mobilize for Prop 8, I was already in a very bad place with the LDS Church. It was this further conservative political activity against gay marriage that did me in. As a descendant of polygamists, I found it the very height of hypocrisy for the LDS Church to push the definition of a "one man/one woman" marriage in a fight against gay marriage. I started to get tired of the LDS Church playing both sides of various issues. Sure, they won't repudiate polygamy, but gay people sure as hell shouldn't infringe on "one man/one woman marriage"!
If 9/11 helped significantly to erode the line between politics and religion at church meetings, then Prop 8 removed any remaining barriers. What I perceived was the LDS Church's strong alignment with the GOP and with cultural "conservatives" of the Religious Right. Obviously the members bearing testimonies of George with. Bush and against gay marriage saw exactly the same thing. Personally, I did not a person with my values being comfortable in that place. The fact that we had moved to the South did not help. Southern Mormons seemed to be a lot more like their Bible belt cousins than Mormons in other areas of the country where I had previously attended church.
I hope everyone understands that this is an autobiographical story. It is a story of my perceptions and my recollections. It is not sociological work that seeks to explain disaffection from Mormonism on political grounds as a phenomenon. All I can say is that for me, 9/11 was a significant event that put me on a course that took me out of the LDS Church. It is not the case that I felt I had ceased to be Mormon as a result. What I lost was any real sense that I needed to be concerned about the leadership of the LDS Church and the opinions of other LDS people.
My departure was complicated. I can't point to just one thing. What I would like to do, however, is say something about the role that 9/11 had in my disaffection from the LDS Church. Maybe no one else looked at things in this way, or was impacted by those events in the way that I was, but in my estimation my desire to affiliate with the LDS Church was deeply impacted by the 9/11 attacks.
First, you should know that, for better or worse, I voted for George with. Bush. I came to regret that over time, and I was troubled by the events in the Supreme Court and in Florida that secured his victory over Al Gore. But, I did cast a vote for with, albeit in California, which went heavy for Gore anyway. OK, I knew that my vote had no great practical impact on anything, but I have always taken my responsibility to vote very seriously. When the Twin Towers were struck, for a while I felt relieved that I had voted for with. In retrospect I had no good reason to feel relieved by my choice. Again, California. When Bush rallied Americans and promised to strike back at the terrorists, I felt a visceral hometeam pride that we would get our revenge.
It was when there started to be rumblings about the role of Iraq in 9/11 that I was first really unsettled. Honestly, I just didn't believe that Iraq had anything significant to do with 9/11. It didn't make sense. Moreover, the thought of initiating yet another serious war on the other side of the world just seemed like a bad idea. The evidence against Iraq was dubious, the prospects for success dubious. By the time we invaded Iraq, I was convinced it was a bad idea and probably a trumped up war. I could not believe that we were doing something so risky and consequential based on such flimsy evidence.
And here is where I get to the LDS Church part. The Church, of course, was very supportive of these wars. This should be no big surprise, but I think it was my conviction that the Iraq War was such a bad idea that was founded on faulty or false evidence, that really started to alienate me from the leaders of the LDS Church and my fellow members. You see, I saw the Church cozy up to the Bush administration, and I saw conservative members of the Church increasingly as loudmouthed ideologues who were blindly in favor of a bad war and not sufficiently concerned about the impact of 9/11 and our wars on our financial future as a country and our freedoms as citizens. I recall one particular low point when BYU gave Dick Cheney an honorary degree. By this point in time, that really sickened me.
So when the Church decided to mobilize for Prop 8, I was already in a very bad place with the LDS Church. It was this further conservative political activity against gay marriage that did me in. As a descendant of polygamists, I found it the very height of hypocrisy for the LDS Church to push the definition of a "one man/one woman" marriage in a fight against gay marriage. I started to get tired of the LDS Church playing both sides of various issues. Sure, they won't repudiate polygamy, but gay people sure as hell shouldn't infringe on "one man/one woman marriage"!
If 9/11 helped significantly to erode the line between politics and religion at church meetings, then Prop 8 removed any remaining barriers. What I perceived was the LDS Church's strong alignment with the GOP and with cultural "conservatives" of the Religious Right. Obviously the members bearing testimonies of George with. Bush and against gay marriage saw exactly the same thing. Personally, I did not a person with my values being comfortable in that place. The fact that we had moved to the South did not help. Southern Mormons seemed to be a lot more like their Bible belt cousins than Mormons in other areas of the country where I had previously attended church.
I hope everyone understands that this is an autobiographical story. It is a story of my perceptions and my recollections. It is not sociological work that seeks to explain disaffection from Mormonism on political grounds as a phenomenon. All I can say is that for me, 9/11 was a significant event that put me on a course that took me out of the LDS Church. It is not the case that I felt I had ceased to be Mormon as a result. What I lost was any real sense that I needed to be concerned about the leadership of the LDS Church and the opinions of other LDS people.