I was brought up in the faith, so to speak. One of my earliest memories is of my grandmother helping me to accept Christ as my personal savior at age 6 or 7. She and I prayed the "sinner's prayer" in my bedroom. From that point on, I was as committed to Christ as any person I've ever met in church. I was in church every Sunday (twice) and Wednesday, was involved in Youth For Christ during junior high and high school, sang many, many solos at church and at YFC. I read through the Bible several times.

Then I went off to college. I even chose a Southern Baptist college to attend, wanting to stay close to my faith. In college, I fell away somewhat from God, but always kept coming back. I was pretty wild, into partying, sorority life, etc. However, at times, I continued to read the word, to attend church, and to pray.

During my college years, I began to have more and more questions about the validity of the Bible. I suppose I've always been a feminist, was raised that way to a certain extent (though I am not hardcore). My feminism started to increase as I got older. I found myself fighting passages in the Bible about women over and over in my head. My parents always taught me I could do or be anything I wanted, though I am a woman (I guess in Christianity, that is feminism).

But though I had doubts, after graduation from college, I got right back to following God, and was in church every Sunday, again. I even taught junior high Sunday School for a year. Again, I was very active and very committed to god. I read the bible daily and prayed.

A little more than a year after graduation from college, I met a young man who was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He was so handsome, and so committed to his beliefs. I didn't think they were that different from Christians, though my family and especially my pastor and grandma were quite upset about my conversion to Mormonism, particularly when he baptized me into the LDS Church. I left the baptist church and started attending the Mormon church. After a few months, when he returned home, I moved to Utah to be close to him, and we planned to get married.

A year after I moved, we did marry, in the LDS Temple in Salt Lake City. What an eye opener!! My experience receiving my endowments in the temple was so disappointing and frightening. I left the temple, weeping, because it was so unlike the high spiritual experience I had expected. Instead, we wore strange clothing, made silly handsigns at one another, and they demeaned the clergy of other religions. I had to take off my clothes and wearing nothing but a sheet, be blessed by an older woman I didn't know. They gave me my garments, which I was to wear always, next to my skin. I was given a spiritual name, "Priscilla," and told that if he chose, and I was faithful, my husband would use that name to call me into the Celestial Kingdom. Also, I was told that if I broke the oaths I made there, ever, I would be handed over to Satan for all eternity. I could not get over my feelings of disappointment & the feeling that I was being trapped in something which would never fit me.

In spite of my bad experience there, I tried to settle down and be faithful. I married my husband there two days after my endowments. My own parents/relatives were not able to see my marriage vows, but had to wait in a waiting room while my husband and I pledged ourselves to one another for time and all eternity. My husband and I were married for one year. For the first nine months, I continued to be faithful, reading the Book of Mormon and other "inspired" works of the LDS Church. However, over time, I gradually lost faith in the entire business. It began to seem more and more far-fetched to me as time went by. I could not believe that Joseph Smith, Jr. really was a prophet, though I could believe he was a philanderer and drunk, who probably did see visions, or at least made them up. Perhaps he was mentally ill ... or it was a scam to make money. Any of these are likely possibilities in my opinion, though I guess we'll never know.

Finally, I lost all faith in the LDS Church. As my faith disintegrated, so did my marriage. I worked hard, selling advertising, but my husband was never pleased with me. I cooked, I cleaned, I groveled, I even brought home a paycheck, but nothing was good enough. He constantly demeaned me, and considered me "fortunate" to have him, given my "fallen state" prior to meeting him. Finally, when I decided that I could no longer, in good conscience, attend the LDS Church, this sparked a fight in which he knocked me down and punched me in the face. That was it!!! I left him and the church, though out of my weakness, we did attend a final counseling session with a Bishop, in which I was told that if I had "fulfilled my role" of bearing children for him, rather than working outside the home, he would not have felt he had to beat me. That was pretty much the end, and it was easy for me to walk away from both the Church and him after that.

I moved away, about 50 miles north, and went back to the Southern Baptist Church, attending a church near where I lived. There, I met my present husband in the "singles" class. We were married a few months after we met. We were very active in church. He sang solos and in the choir, we taught Sunday school together (adults & children). Our church split over the issue of the role women would be allowed to play. The extreme fundies won, women were stripped of all leadership roles in the church, and men were put into the roles they had held. Women were allowed only to teach children, that was the only place they were allowed to serve, aside from cooking for activities and cleaning the church building. I could not believe that was the role women were supposed to play, after all, I remember thinking, "Why did God give me a brain or a voice if I'm never supposed to use them?"

If I were to trace my loss of faith back, that was the beginning of the end for me, though it has taken years for me to honestly admit to myself or anyone else that I no longer believe in the Bible or in the god of the Bible. However, though I started to have doubts and questions, we continued on, and I kept trying to have a relationship with God, in spite of my hurt, disappointment and grief.

After that church split, we left to get out of the hatred and dissension, and joined another church, where we also taught Sunday School again, and my hubby sang in the choir.

Two years ago, I was given a project at work to research paganism and write an article on it. In my world view, there was only one "God," the rest were myths and fairytales. I started studying Wicca, Asatru, Druidism, and other neo-pagan paths. Suddenly, I came to the realization that there were more paths that I was aware of. I could not believe that people who didn't pray the "sinners prayer" were doomed to be burned in hell for all eternity. There were too many people on the face of the earth who had never heard of God. And, there were many gods and goddesses that people had worshipped for thousands of years. MOst were not nearly as bloodthirsty or ruthless as the one I had been worshipping all my life and calling "good."

I studied and read, and began by looking at biblical errancies, then moved onto other historical issues. Finally, I could no longer believe in the story of the Bible, or in the story that Jesus Christ had died for my sins.

Was there a Jesus? I don't know. Perhaps there was a man who wished to reform Judaism, who lived 2000 years ago, and was put to death. I don't find that at all farfetched. Would he wish to be worshipped today? I don't think so. I suspect he was trying to point his disciples to a clearer way of worshipping their god, Yahweh.

Just like the LDS Church has built up their own dogma and "canonization" process with Joseph Smith, so I believe it must have happened 2,000 years ago with Christ. After all, most of what Christians consider scripture was not written within the lifetimes of people who actually knew Jesus. Additionally, there is only one historical reference to this man who was "more influential than any other" in Josephus, and most reputable scholars consider it forged--as the LDS Church has revised and changed the Story of Joseph Smith time and time again.

Just as the Mormon Church has grown to over 10 million members in 150 years, so the "Christian" church grew quickly and picked up followers. Why were his (Jesus's) disciples willing to die for him? I don't know, but perhaps David Koresh's disciples, or the followers of Heaven's Gate or Jim Jones could tell us about that type of sacrificial fanaticism. Do the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith make Mormonism true? Hardly. Do the deaths of the followers of Christ make Christianity true? Far from it.

It may sound as if I'm angry or bitter toward Christianity or Mormonism. I am not. I just do not want to throw my life after a lie anymore. Is there a God? I do not know. Is there a higher power which shapes our days? I hope so, but it is not the god of the Bible. That is why I say I am both pantheist/agnostic. I am a hopeful agnostic, at best, but I believe that there is no all-powerful god watching over our days. As to the rest, I simply don't know. What I do know, however, is that I am no longer a Christian. I didn't leave because of sin, or pride, or any of the reasons people who read this will choose to think (I know, I thought this way for years). I left because it was no longer reasonable or logical to remain. And, if my brain is not sufficient to grasp the concept of God and understand it, then that further argues that there is no God.

For the rest of the story ... I still attend church with my husband and children. It is important to them, and though I don't believe, it also doesn't offend me ... mostly, I just laugh at stuff, though sometimes I am a little discouraged by the desire of christian leadership to "win souls at all cost" or to trap people with emotional appeals designed to tug at their hearts. For you, who are reading this, perhaps you know me. I sit in your church on Sunday, I sing along with the hymns. I'm the one who frequently nods off during the sermon. Do you know me? I've learned, since I lost faith, that there are many like me. Am I in your church? I'd say it's likely.

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