Preface

This work started out as a 30-page letter to my family, explaining my reasons for leaving the Mormon church. I emailed it to them largely out of the blue, announcing my disbelief. It gradually grew through the incorporation of internet posts, research notes, responses to criticism, and other ideas over the course of two years to reach its current book-length proportions. The incremental genesis of this essay was reflected in the poorly organized structure and inconsistent referencing, which have now largely been fixed in this latest edition.

So what's happened since I first sent this letter to my family? I received phone calls, letters, and articles, all in an effort to get me to reconsider. Each letter or phone call usually resulted in an addition to this essay as I tried to articulate my disbelief as best I could. With some family members the subject hardly came up; with others, I went though difficult times (and I share some of the blame), but I think now we're past it. My family is still my family, and we've all realized that life goes on and we love each other. My wife, who has been one step ahead of me in this whole process, now attends a Lutheran church with our daughter, and finds more spiritual fulfillment there than she found in the Mormon church.

I wrote this essay at a time when I was thoroughly obsessed - my world had come crashing down around me, and couldn't lay these issues down for nearly a year. I was desperate for information, and I scoured several university libraries for everything I could find. When I couldn't find something in the library, I shelled out money to Amazon.com and other places, even going as far as buying an 1835 edition of a book by Thomas Dick (which I describe in this book). I started out reading about the Book of Mormon, but before long I was amazed at what was out there on almost every aspect of the church. I was stunned and filled with a boiling, inarticulate rage that consumed nearly all of my attention. Writing this book was my therapy. There were so many things that I felt, and they had to be said before I could let go. Some might say I still haven't let go but honestly, Mormonism is largely irrelevant to my life now. I can get excited about other things, and it takes a lot now to get me interested in reading a book on Mormonism. For others though, the church is not irrelevant, and I hope that this book can be a good place to start on the way to closure.

I've had a lot of help along the way, primarily from the researchers who did the difficult work that I merely quote and cite here. I'm also thankful to Kevin Mathie, who got this latest edition ready for the web, and for the other ZCL guys for getting Zarahemla City Limits started and keeping it up and running and proving that ex-Mormons are fun. Finally, I'm thankful to Jessica, who read this essay and made it better, and gave me the nudge I needed by giving me New Approaches to the Book of Mormon that fateful Christmas.

April, 2005