I left The Church of Social Justice for the same reasons I left Mormonism

Fundamentalism is an immoral application of good intentions

Apple bite and photography by E.H. Image by Natasha Coulis.

Note: I use “wokeness,” “cancel culture,” and “The Church of Social Justice” interchangeably and as different from “social justice.” Keep reading for further explanation. Imagined audience are white social justice activists.

At age 30, I felt devastated and violated to learn that, at age 16, I put too much trust in adults I assumed knew more than I did, tentatively accepting, then wholeheartedly believing, lie upon lie about Mormon history and supernatural claims. I rocked back and forth, wailing on the floor of my apartment bedroom. Months prior, I left my husband and home with my children in it. I now clung to my faith like a cartoon coyote clings to a cliff-side branch, wondering what I still believed to be real and true. I felt like Descartes. Was I even real? What was real? What even was life if everything I believed about our origins (the “Pre-existence”), our eternal destiny (the “Celestial Kingdom”—for temple-married Mormons), and what human beings even are (gods-in-progress) was not true? If I couldn’t pray or get a priesthood blessing to get answers about what to do in my life, how could I make serious decisions confidently? If my entire belief system was false, I would lose my tools for knowing and deciding. I would lose my meaning for… doing anything, frankly. I would lose my broad geographic community, where I could move from Ontario to Alberta and immediately phone one of the church bishops listed in the phone book to comfortably ask for lodging when my roommates forgot the date I was arriving and were away for the weekend, and know the bishop would say yes and know I would have instant belonging. I would lose my investment in how I had spent my time and how I lived my life, subjugating myself for a patriarchal concept of family. I would lose my clear future laid out for me.

I agonized and hyperventilated over leaving, knowing it would result in being effectively shunned by many who were afraid to catch “anti-Mormonism” from me to become apostates themselves. In Mormon faith, apostates are the only people to experience a proper Hell when they die, cast into “Outer Darkness” from which there is no path for redemption—ever. Even rapists and…