Category Archives: Saints Who Swear

Apostates are compelled to circulate all sorts of bullshit about the LDS Church. Again, they cannot leave it alone. But no piece of bullshit feels more useful to them than when an otherwise faithful member of the LDS Church writes about its shortcomings, especially its historical flaws or its politics.

One piece that circulates throughout their nest of nonsense is a 2017 commentary titled, “The Root Cause of Why Members Leave the Church & What Leaders Can Do About It,” by a member named Ryan Gottfredson. I have no clue who he is. I don’t even know if he is still a member as he claimed at the time his article was published. My reply has nothing to do with him personally. read more

I suppose I’m next going to be told by apostates to comment on another bag of bullshit, the “CES Letter,” but first have been asked to read an ancient commentary from the equally ancient Dialogue journal — its pages seized by apostates ages ago — authored by the pre-ancient Lavinia Anderson who, in the minds of many apostates, represents the best in LDS thinking.

Anderson’s 1993 commentary, “The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology,” is a chronological litany of examples she refers to as a “search for knowledge” from a heart of a “troubled and painful relationship” with LDS leaders while “deliberately disclosing information that is negative, potentially disruptive, and embarrassing.” read more

After reading reports about the Associated Press’s “expose” more than implying LDS Church culpability in certain cases of actual sexual abuse of children by “members” of the Church — and the joyous pleadings on social media from every corner of the LDS Haters Club — I have some thoughts, to put it politely, the last polite framing included in this commentary.

Let me hit the highlights in brief. First, to the LDS Haters Club members, fuck you. Get a life. You’re no victim of the LDS Church. The LDS Church as an institution did not victimize you. No LDS Church doctrine has victimized you. You are a victim of a person, your own issues, or your own decisions. Second, to any lawyer or LDS Church leader who cockblocks justice in any way against child abusers, fuck you too and you should be fired, disbarred, or dishonorably released or excommunicated, respectively. read more

Over a business lunch just off Capitol Hill in Austin, Texas, a new colleague seemed shocked to know I was a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “You’re a Mormon?” he asked with not a small amount of incredulity. My mind raced to discern why he was surprised. And then it hit me, “Ah. I get it. I swear. Right?” He nodded affirmatively.

My new colleague was not being overly sensitive. My swearing is reflective of unfiltered quality over quantity. I’m good at it. A damn or a hell would not have set off his perception alarms about my faith. He knew the strong expletives I used were intentional. Swearing is behavioral and I own it. read more