Modesty, Mormon Garments, and Owning My Reality
My Mormon faith transition, and 44 questions about garments
One year and six days ago my shelf broke.
This is Mormon speak for that moment when all of the doubts you have accumulated (and metaphorically put on a shelf) about your faith, finally give way. It is that moment when you actually allow your mind to open, just a tiny crack, and consider for a split second whether the religion that you know is true, and which you have devoted your life to, is possibly false.
Looking back now, I can see some of the build up to this moment.
There was my bewilderment at how BYU, my alma mater, bungled the honor code scandal of 2019 (as documented on Instagram @honorcodestories). There was the insanely strict dress code enforced at summer girls camp last year, which made my teenage daughter and my wife boil with frustration. I found @lifestyle.aftermormonism on Instagram and was more than a little surprised at all of the apparently happy families who had left Mormonism (but I’m sure their happiness is only temporary, right?). And then there were the changes to the Mormon temple ceremony in early 2019. I mean, the ceremony is God-given, just as it had happened in the Garden of Eden, so why would the Church change it now just to appease feminist Mormon women?
