The Exit Interview

While it took a couple months for me to actually get release, the fallout came pretty fast.
For background, here is a recap of our interview with the bishop when we made it clear we were not going to continue with the church. I was still the bishop's first councilor at the time, so I needed to be extra gentle. He's a good man and nobody wants to hurt the feelings of a good person.

Let me start by saying that my wife is pretty amazing. She doesn't admit how strong she is. When pressed by people, she bends kindly. But if you get up against her core, she is steel underneath.

Originally, the interview was scheduled because she wanted to be released from her calling (primary presidency, yes, while I was in the bishopric and, before that, elders quorum pres.). We have been working pretty hard for a long while now. She gave the sharing time on honesty recently and couldn't stomach some of the other topics and said she needs to be released too.
But the exec. sec. told me the bishop would really like to meet with both of us.

I didn't want an argument or dispute, we're really not confrontational people (obviously) but we talked about it as a couple briefly and we agreed this might be the chance for a "clean break".
Talk about gripping the bull by the horns though.

We waited for him to say what he wanted to first. I could see a lot of strain in his eyes and he was working on a smile. BTW, I'd already sent him my biggest issues via email so he wouldn't be "surprised" which is why I think he invited both of us.

After he asked my wife to say a prayer (she gave a nice spiritual thought in prayer style instead saying how grateful she is for our family, how marvelous a world and life we live and an amen to which I gave a strong amen).

I then started our side of all this by first saying that we aren't committing any sins, or anything else to keep us away from the church. I did this largely to make him feel at ease that I wasn't a snake in his midst during the time I served as his councilor. I also said that though to put aside the "You don't believe because of unworthiness and the spirit has left you" arguments.

I tried to sum it up in a single sentence that the history isn't what we were told, there are some really painful issues with it in fact and that the LDS gospel is designed in such a way that you can't take some of it and leave the rest. By their own design, they get you to feel good about one thing and say that the rest must therefore be true. But it goes both ways.
I said you can't have Joseph Smith be both the man the church describes and also have him sleeping with married women and young girls.
He replied that he had similar doubts and that he first wanted me to understand that if we dig deep enough into the past, everyone has mistakes, some big ones, including the prophets. He said even his own history we'd find things to be offended by.

I replied I highly doubted that me seeing the bishop fly off the handle or with road rage is anywhere on the level of Joseph Smith or Brigham Young's wives. I said it with a laugh.
He laughed along with it about the part of me mentioning his flying off the handle and then his laugh kind of died when he saw the sword my comment contained. I felt a little bad.
He said that he had to struggle with these issues too over the years before he gained a testimony of it. He said that he got a wonderful and powerful witness that he should serve a mission (while his family was inactive) to which I said I can appreciate that and I don't want to squash anyone's feelings about the gospel and their callings.

This part is what turned my head though... he mentioned that he served in a southern state and that he had a really hard time with the priesthood being witheld from people who are black and that he was serving in 1978. My ears perked for this because I couldn't see any way out of this one. He said it was very challenging (I'll bet) but that he figured if he had such a strong call from god to serve his mission, that he must be in charge and that this was part of his plan. He was relieved when the priesthood was extended to everyone.

I let him finish but I replied saying "But there were a hundred years before that. That must have been a very long century for a lot of people."

He said that people make mistakes and that he had to wrestle with polygamy too. He started into the explanation we all know, and said there were far more women (not really true) and that after the mobs killed primarily the men and avoided the women there were widows and orphans. He also said "We couldn't just give them vouchers for food and shelter like we can today." I said that Joseph Smith didn't marry widows though, he was involved with some other women that were already married, and I said this is a matter of historical fact, not some anti tract.

Once my wife saw that this was going to turn into a back and forth, she looked him right in the face and said, "I've read all the apologist literature and it doesn't add up and it feels terrible to me and I don't want to talk about it anymore."

She proceeded to then say that she has done this her entire life (30 years of it now) and she feels betrayed and lied to and it doesn't feel good anymore. She started to get emotional at this part, though strong in voice, no tears, just a passionate and powerful statement of fact.

He was quiet after that. In our modern world, who can look a woman in the face and tell them polygamy was all ok and just go with it? He obviously couldn't.

He paused and tried to keep smiling. For the record, the bishop is a good man, heart full of kindness and he works his butt off. He really does care about people.  He then said "Are you going to keep meeting with us?" I hesitated. My wife's lips were closed and her face said no. I replied with "We have no issues with the people of the ward, we don't want to be a burden on anyone and we would love to keep our friends. We understand this will be hard for many and we'll accept whatever."

My wife followed up though with "We're going to be out for the month of August regardless so that kind of takes the question away for the time-being."

He said how much he appreciated our hard service. We thanked him and I said he is a good man and I appreciated him having confidence in me and I've enjoyed it. He then said with a laugh in an attempt to break the tension "You know of course we won't give up on you and that we'll follow you the rest of your life." He seemed to immediately realize that was a poor choice of words and that he didn't intend it to sound that way.

One more thing about my wife, she is a knockout, just beautiful. But when you looked at her face in that moment, it was a mirror, expressionless, like an Aes Sedai for anyone that's read the Wheel of Time fantasy novels. He tried stumbled and said "...unless that will offend you." To her. She said she didn't expect that to be an issue (lol, total Aes Sedai there too). I said we'll allow it to continue "as long as it feels comfortable to us."

I decided to wrap it up, I said thanks for all the good times and asked him to say a prayer to end this (it's a guaranteed conversation stopper). He said a long prayer. There was some sermon in it but not too much. We shook hands and he said he hoped we'd still be friends to which I said of course.

We walked out. It was a gorgeous Sunday late Summer afternoon. The brightness blinded me as I stepped out. A good brother that is recently returned to the church said hello to me as we left and he was heading back into the dark chapel. My wife and I were a little dazed. We looked at each other a few times as we walked to the car.

I held her hand, we hugged each other side by side as we walked. "That was a long prayer," I said. We laughed and drove home.