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After being active in the church for twenty years, I left the church for twenty five years. I came back about ten years ago. About two or three years ago in an October conference, President Ochtdorf said something like, “There are those who think that when someone leaves the church it’s because their feelings were hurt and they cannot forgive or they are guilty of serious sin, but it isn’t that simple. Sometimes people or leaders make mistakes.”

Not all of our members understand that. I got into trouble with members who are racists, with those who want to be polygamists, and/or with those who are convinced that all is well in Zion. They have been rougher on me since I came back than before I left the church.

During April Conference of this year (2017), Elder Quinton L. Cook spoke of people who look beyond the mark. This comes from Jacob 4:14 wherein Jacob tells of those who despise the plainness in the scriptures and search for things which are hard to understand. I believe when we succeed in finding something hard to understand by looking beyond the mark, our hearts swell with pride as we find things which appeal to our self image, our preconceived  notions, and our prejudices. Those who look for such things may easily mistake the heart which swells with pride for the burning of the bosom mentioned in the D&C regarding Oliver Cowdery’s attempt at translating. This is found in D&C 9:8-9 wherein he was promised that when his bosom burned he would know he had received the truth, and if he received a stupor of thought he would know he had failed to obtain the truth.  Judging by the many cockeyed things which have passed and are passing for doctrine in the church, the Saints need to more often obtain a stupor of thought. Obtaining a stupor of thought will not come to those who are operating with the principle of false pride. For such people, it is all to easy to feel their hearts swell within them.

A prime example of false doctrine which has been popular in the church is Brigham Young’s racist doctrine. For over a century many members believed that men of African descent would not be eligible to hold the priesthood during their mortal lives and they would not be until all the other sons of Adam had been given the opportunity. The desire to refrain from stirring up controversy left members in the dark about disagreement on that issue among the general authorities. But, we learn from the biography of President David O. McKay that he believed the withholding of the priesthood from black men of African descent was merely a practice, not doctrine, and it would change. During the 50s and 60s he spent a lot of time in the temple attempting to obtain revelation from the Lord directing him to make the priesthood available to men of all races. One of his councilors finally told him that the Latter-Day Saints were not ready for that.

When, in 1978, the change came, opinions were divided in the stake where I lived. Some were saying “The general authorities made the change because of pressure from the civil rights movement.” Some suggested that the popularity of the mini series “Roots” was evidence that the blacks were now ready. I could cite a lot of other things to reveal the false pride which motivates Latter-Day Saints to believe false doctrine, but I choose not to enlarge this article in a vain attempt to shove their false pride down the throats of the misguided, and arrogant among the LDS people. As much as I love this people, I feel helpless when it comes to cracking open the misconceptions some of them hold dear. Even so, I made a valiant effort in my last book, Will the Real Mormons Stand Up and Sound the Alarm.

During the early days of the church racism was very prevalent among the members. When the Pearl of Great Price came out the members were anxious to canonize it because it satisfied their prejudices and justified their desire to withhold the priesthood from blacks of African descent, so they thought. Though I had studied the controversy surrounding the Pearl of Great Price to some extent, I only concluded that it did not provide a credible source of guidance for solving the racist issues in the church. Accordingly, when I wrote President Monson asking him to restore my blessings, I told him that “my testimony no longer requires me to believe that all of our leaders have been true to their callings, nor does it require me to believe that the Pearl of Great Price is completely credible.” I repeated this to the Seventy who came and restored my blessings. I was not told that my testimony was inadequate. However, when I reported this to an adult institute class, a member of the class, in a series of e-mails, made it quite clear that he strongly objected to my testimony.

when I was a member of the Sacramento South Stake Quorum of Seventy the things which were going on gave me cause to diligently search the scriptures and history for several years, including the Journal of Discourses. What I discovered about our history and some of our General Authorities gave me the impression that God had cast off the church. I was wrong to think that God would give up on the Mormons after a few decades when he had stuck by the Israelites for hundreds of years. We have been driven from city to city and scourged because of the Lord’s judgements upon us. I suspect there is more to come, but His arms are outstretched still.