Former bishopric member (10+ years), EQP, gospel doctrine instructor, BYU Public Relations hosting visiting GA’s, blah, blah, blah… current PIMO/Secular Mormon.
Salt Lake City, UT
Joined October 2023
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mound_builder retweeted
We are publicly asking @SeattlePD and @GovBobFerguson to consider reopening the Kurt Cobain case.
In 1994, authorities publicly characterized Cobain’s death as self-inflicted before a full forensic analysis could be completed.
In 2005, then-SPD Chief Gil Kerlikowske asked former Capt. Neil Low to audit the case. Low was given full access to the case file and concluded the evidence pointed to a homicide and that the case should be reopened.
In 2025, a multidisciplinary team published a peer-reviewed study in the International Journal of Forensic Sciences concluding that its analysis of the publicly available evidence was inconsistent with a self-inflicted death and supported homicide.
We believe Kurt Cobain’s death deserves to be investigated as a potential homicide, without beginning from the preconceived assumption that it was self-inflicted. Whoever was responsible could be walking free to this day.
For those who want to examine the evidence for themselves, see our full investigation here: youtube.com/watch?v=Osb9eF2R…
The @Ch_JesusChrist just released their updated list of recognized religions. @DeptofWar
The @Ch_JesusChrist wants excommunication to look local when someone is being pushed out.
But it wants rebaptism to run through the First Presidency when that person wants back in.
That setup lets the Q15 avoid public accountability for removal while preserving ultimate authority over potential restoration. It is accountability at arm’s length, with ultimate authority kept firmly at the top.
If this was an LDS bishop, ABC4 knew exactly what they were doing. “A religious bishop from Texas” is not careful reporting. They kept the title because it adds drama, but left out the church because that adds accountability.
Since nobody asked:
I stay not because I think the truth claims hold up, but because Mormonism is still the world that formed me.
I stay because community, family, memory, and belonging are real, even when certainty is gone.
I stay even though I have read the apologetics and the criticism, and the criticism was ultimately more honest and more persuasive, IMO.
I stay because nuance is costly, and some of us are still paying that cost in marriages, families, callings, and belonging.
I stay because I still care about the people. My people, even if we see things differently now.
I stay because scrutiny is not hate.
I stay for now but no longer confuse staying with believing.
And I stay today, without pretending I know what I will do tomorrow.
Since nobody asked:
I practice the faith I do because I’ve seen the blessings it has had in my life and in the life of others around me.
I stay because I am able to separate the doctrine from the policies.
I stay because I don’t hold the organization accountable for the faults of its members or leaders.
I stay because I have actually read all of the “anti” literature but also much more literature from rational discussions and analysis and have been able to recognize the blind spots in the criticism.
I stay because I believe that people have the right to face their accusers; and condemning someone nearly 200 years after their death based on unsubstantiated and biased claims for which they are unable to defend themselves is disingenuous and disgusting.
I stay because I recognize the faith for what it’s meant to be.
I stay because I had to defend my own personal faith at a young age in rather uncomfortable circumstances and built a foundation that isn’t swayed by every whim of falsity.
I stay because I’ve had personal and intimate contact with apostles who I recognized are much wiser than me, and saw them for who they actually are and what they stand for.
I stay because I strive to follow Jesus and find the most common denominators in this faith.
Thanks for this, @stackerco. I’ll never forget the day I finally told my wife I didn’t believe in the @Ch_JesusChrist anymore.
Later she told me it was the only time in our marriage she genuinely felt like divorce was a legitimate option. Side note: The church could save many of these mixed faith marriages in just a couple conference talks by clearly saying that divorce doesn’t need to follow the loss of faith, especially if nothing else has changed. But I digress.
The weeks that followed were brutal. I felt incredibly alone and so guilty for what I feared I was doing to my family.
I remember her asking if she was going to need to ask other men in the ward for priesthood blessings now. That priesthood head of household stuff hadn’t even occurred to me, but it hit hard. I just said, “I really don’t know.”
People say “just choose to believe” like it’s a light switch. But for me it wasn’t. The idea of choosing belief felt so far out of reach it stopped making sense. If I could’ve simply chosen to believe, I probably would have. I would’ve done it in a second. But belief wasn’t simple or accessible anymore. It wasn’t something I could muscle my way into. It was just gone.
And here’s the part I didn’t expect. Because she loves me and because she wanted to help bring me back, started doing her own research. Not to win an argument. Not to “deconstruct.” Just to understand what happened to me.
She came to her own conclusions about Joseph Smith, the church, and its doctrine. And at the end of it all (as if it ever really ends), her faith changed significantly too. She can admit the good the church does while also acknowledging that its truth claims are likely not true.
I wish I could say it’s been easy since then. It hasn’t. But I can say this: we didn’t lose each other. If anything, we found a more honest kind of closeness, where we’re not trying to force belief back into our lives, but learning how to build something real together anyway.
One day my oldest brother left his wife.
The same day, he also left the LDS Church.
It felt that sudden, like the ground dropped out from under what I thought was a perfect Mormon family.
This isn’t another exmo story. It’s a warning to both sides of belief and doubt. Doubt handled recklessly can wreck a family. Belief handled defensively can do the same.
We loved his wife. We loved their 4 kids. I looked up to him. I couldn’t reconcile it. How does someone just walk away from everything like that?
He is a private man. He called me back then, but he didn’t explain. He never told me why he left the Church or why they divorced. Never spoke ill of his wife or ill of the church. For nearly 20 years, it stayed that way.
Until I called him and told him I had come to my own place of disbelief.
That’s when he finally opened up.
“I didn’t want to tell you anything before,” he said. “I didn’t want to influence you about the Church. And I didn’t want to talk badly about (his ex wife).”
His faith crisis had started years before the divorce. He carried it alone. He hid it from his wife. He tried to manage it quietly.
Then the Stake President began hinting he might be called as bishop. That’s when everything collided.
He knew he couldn’t accept that calling. So he pulled back. And eventually he told her he didn't believe anymore.
It didn’t go well.
The priesthood holder of the home no longer believed. The spiritual leader of the family had stepped off the foundation. She was angry. Hurt. Maybe scared.
For a year or two they stayed under the same roof. He kept attending church for the family. But they stopped really talking. Distance set in fast.
And then it was over.
Both of them eventually remarried. Life moved forward.
This all happened around 2005.
About a year ago, his ex-wife called him. She apologized.
She told him she had gone through her own faith crisis. She said she now understood what he had been going through. She apologized for how she reacted 20 years earlier. It all came full circle.
My brother wasn’t blaming her. He never has.
“If we had both just been patient,” he told me,
“we probably could have stayed together.”
He told me this story just a couple weeks ago. I had no idea.
It was sad then, but it's sad in a different way now.
Not because someone doubted or because someone believed but because the environment made it feel like there was no safe way to navigate it.
In a system where:
*belief is tied to identity
*priesthood is tied to leadership
*future and marriage is tied to eternal outcomes
*and family pressure tied to a belief in the right theology ...
... a shift in belief doesn’t feel like a private wrestle anymore. It feels more like betrayal and a collapse and a threat.
What might have been survivable with patience becomes something that explodes!
There are real consequences when belief shifts inside a marriage built around it.
If you’re the one doubting, you have to be careful how you approach the people you love.
If you’re the one believing, you have to be careful not to react in fear.
Because it isn’t the doubt that destroys things but how we handle it on both sides.
mound_builder retweeted
The fact that convinces me that Joseph had sex with his polygamous wives, is that he kept it secret from Emma. If they were only religious ceremonies, he would have included her from the beginning.
You don’t keep things from your spouse unless it’s something bad.
If you map a lot of #LDS posting on X, it is almost formulaic:
1.Start with an absolute claim: “The Book of Mormon is true.” “Joseph Smith was a prophet.” “The Church is the restored gospel.”
2.Let the algorithm do the rest: likes, amen replies, testimony echoing, in group reinforcement.
3.When someone responds with a normal, good faith question (sources, translation issues, priesthood/temple history, racism, polygamy, anachronisms), it gets reframed as “anti,” “contention,” or “not the right spirit.”
4.Exit without touching the substance or (usually) just silence.
It is a clean self sealing loop: certainty is treated as the evidence, and scrutiny is treated as the problem. That may work for identity reinforcement. It does not function as an argument.
In 2026, it’s honestly depressing that this “zero reasons” mindset still gets airtime in the @Ch_JesusChrist. If you don’t “thrive” on a mission, the assumption becomes you lacked faith, effort, or worthiness. That mindset doesn’t build disciples, it builds shame, silence, and a culture where people pretend they’re fine until they break.
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I can respect the intent of this devotional and still feel uneasy about parts of it. Here are six tells that stood out to me and why they matter.
1.Doubt is framed as spiritual peril, not just uncertainty. When the warning is, “if you don’t have the Holy Ghost, you will be deceived,” and the “adversary” is “disguising truth,” the subtext can become: your questions are not neutral, they are dangerous.
2.Information quality gets blurred with source loyalty. He flags an “abundance of speculation and false information in podcasts and on social media,” which can be totally fair, but notice what comes next is not “learn how to evaluate evidence,” it is “Discuss your concerns with faithful well informed friends.”
3. Social containment becomes the solution. The takeaway line is “surround yourself with people who believe.” That can sound like support, or it can sound like insulation, especially for people who need space to think without social consequences.
4.Secular learning is treated as a potential threat to your horizons. “Never let your secular learning limit your horizons.” Depending on how you hear it, that can translate into: when scholarship conflicts with the institution’s narrative, treat scholarship as the limitation.
5.Diminishing faith is positioned as a leadership problem to solve. “Those of diminishing faith and activity… are a major source of concern to your prophetic leaders.” The reassurance is real, but it can still feel like a retention frame, followed quickly by “Keep the commandments and be true to the covenants.”
6.Big tensions are acknowledged, then deferred. He admits “resolving conflicts between the evolving understanding of science and the sometimes incomplete teachings of religion can be a lengthy process.” Then the practical counsel is, “We should busy ourselves with service.” That might be wise, but it can also function as a spiritual way to postpone hard answers indefinitely.
Closing thought: I’m not posting this to be one sided or to take cheap shots. I can see how this kind of counsel is meant to be protective and faith affirming. I’m just naming how it can land differently in a community where people are at very different levels of belief and where some are trying to stay engaged while also being honest about their questions. In that context, I think it’s a valid viewpoint to notice these “tells” and talk about them openly.
In his first devotional address as Prophet, President Oaks shares four ways to draw closer to Jesus Christ.
thechurchnews.com/leaders/20…
Talking to my kids about how I drink coffee and we still go to the @Ch_JesusChrist feels like a tiny case study in how rules become identity.
Yes, we’re still part of the community. Yes, we still believe in doing good, loving people, serving, all of it. And also: your dad’s #coffee isn’t a character flaw.
The lesson for us is “learn what actually matters.”