Understanding
the “Stages of Grief” of Former
Members Who Attack the Church
By Craig
Foster
Editor’s Note: Craig Foster will be expanding on
this topic at the FAIR conference in Orem Utah on August 7th and
8th. The FAIR conference is sponsored by faithful
Latter-day Saints and is open to all. FAIR
is a non profit organization. For
information about the conference, and to register for the conference,
click here: http://www.fairlds.org/cgi-bin/site.pl?fair005,
or go to www.fairlds.org.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are often confronted by pamphlets, flyers and other forms of literature questioning their Christianity and attacking their doctrines and history. A large portion of this literature is the product of ministries and other well organized groups directed by members of the clergy and other “so-called” experts concerned about the spiritual welfare of Mormons who they fear have been led astray.
However, the writers and purveyors of anti-Mormon literature are not always sectarian clergy nor strangers from without looking in. Most troubling to devout Latter-day Saints is that some of the more sensational and bitter attacks are written by former members of the Church.
Perhaps the intensity of the exposés by former members is because they have a strong sense of betrayal once they have lost their faith and separated themselves from the Church. They have a sense of betrayal and humiliation for falling victim, in their mind-set, to what they now view as a falsehood. Whatever the reasons for their coming to this point in their life, people who choose to divorce themselves from something so fundamentally all-consuming as a religion go through mental and spiritual turmoil which at times can be devastating. For many, there is a process for leaving a religious or social organization which requires intense mental and spiritual devotion, as well as some form of physical or material sacrifice.
As I have studied anti-Mormon literature and its writers over the years, I formulated a model for the patterns or process for those who leave and then publically criticize the Church. This model is based on the “stages of dying” or “stages of grief” introduced by Elisabeth Kübler Ross, M.D. and is an attempt to understand the stages of a person leaving a religious or social organization, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
1. Denial
2. Anger and Frustration
3. Depression
4. Acceptance and Reconciliation[i]
People who have lost their faith in the Church appear to experience these four stages in varying degrees. The length and intensity of the first three stages depend on each person’s personality, worldview, and, quite frankly, their spiritual and emotional maturity. Most people who leave Mormonism or similar religious organizations experience a stage of denial when they struggle with doubts which they cannot reconcile. Ultimately, if their inner conflict, doubts and differences prove to be irreconcilable with Church doctrine or practice, these people choose to divorce themselves from the Church. This leads to a short period of anger and frustration after which they move on to acceptance and reconciliation of a life without their previous faith.
However, some people are struck to their emotional core by the death of their faith in a belief-system which once meant so much but has now become the cause of emotional and spiritual pain. They lash out in a sense of anger and betrayal with an intense campaign of exposure. For some, only a written exposé or verbal diatribe achieves the catharsis which leads to the acceptance of a life without a belief-system which had previously been so important. Some take longer to pass through the anger and frustration stage and subsequent depression which can follow. Some people never progress beyond that stage to acceptance and reconciliation.[ii]
Examples of former members who fall into these categories can be readily found in the past and present. One of the earliest people to reveal the temple ceremonies was Increase Van Dusen who was erratic and bombastic. His stage of anger lasted years and the subsequent depression at least a decade before he could finally exercise his personal demons and move on with his life. Fanny Stenhouse, famous for her attempts to Tell It All!, was another who took years to move to the acceptance and reconciliation stage. In the twentieth century, Fawn M. Brodie, whose anger stage produced No Man Knows My History, was able to move rather quickly to acceptance - albeit with a strong dose of skepticism and cynicism so evident in her research and writing. The late Deborah Laake of Secret Ceremonies fame and, presently, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, and Ed Decker are examples of people who appear to have never been able to move beyond the anger and frustration stage.[iii]
In conclusion, by understanding the process for people who choose to leave the church in which they were either born and raised or to which they were at onetime converted, devout members may gain a greater understanding of the reasons these people have now decided to attack and try to destroy the Church. Once members understand what former members and now active critics are going through, they are in a better position to first withstand the barrage against their religious beliefs and, secondly, reach out with the love of Christ to those who have fallen by the wayside.
Craig Foster will be expanding on this topic at the FAIR conference
in Orem Utah on August 7th and 8th. The FAIR conference is sponsored by faithful
Latter-day Saints and is open to all. FAIR
is a non profit organization. For
information about the conference, and to register for the conference,
click here:
http://www.fairlds.org/cgi-bin/site.pl?fair005,
or go to www.fairlds.org.
[i].Elisabeth Kübler Ross, M.D., in her book, Death and Dying: What the Dying have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and Their Own Families (New York: Simon and Schuster, 19 ), as well as other publications, has provided a five step model of the “stages of dying.” These five steps are as follows: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, acceptance. Although my model incorporates only four of the five stages, it has been suggested that the process of writing anti-Mormon literature may be more of an act of bargaining than an act of anger in that the writer may be using the publication of an exposé as a way of redeeming themselves and proving to God they are turning over a new leaf and moving to more “traditional” Christianity. While this may indeed be the case in some situations, my study of works by former members has led me to conclude that the greater majority fit easily into the anger and frustration stage. For this reason, I have emphasized four of the five traditional steps or stages of the model.
[ii].A discussion of this model of people leaving the Church can be found in my book, Penny Tracts and Polemics: A Critical Analysis of Anti-Mormon Pamphleteering in Great Britain, 1837-1860 (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2002).
[iii].The following articles discuss the lives and careers of some of these apostates: Craig L. Foster, “From Temple to Anti-Mormon: The Ambivalent Odyssey of Increase Van Dusen,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 27 (Fall 1994): 275-286; Ronald W. Walker, “The Stenhouses and the Making of a Mormon Image,” Journal of Mormon History 1 (1974): 51-72; Newell G. Bringhurst, “Fawn M. Brodie and Deborah Laake: Two Perspectives on Mormon Feminist Dissent,” The John Whitmer Historical Association Jounral 17 (1997): 95-112; and, Lawrence Foster, “Career Apostates: Reflections on the Works of Jerald and Sandra Tanner,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 17 (Summer 1984): 35-60.[iii].Elisabeth Kübler Ross, M.D., in her book, Death and Dying: What the Dying have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and Their Own Families (New York: Simon and Schuster, 19 ), as well as other publications, has provided a five step model of the “stages of dying.” These five steps are as follows: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, acceptance. Although my model incorporates only four of the five stages, it has been suggested that the process of writing anti-Mormon literature may be more of an act of bargaining than an act of anger in that the writer may be using the publication of an exposé as a way of redeeming themselves and proving to God they are turning over a new leaf and moving to more “traditional” Christianity. While this may indeed be the case in some situations, my study of works by former members has led me to conclude that the greater majority fit easily into the anger and frustration stage. For this reason, I have emphasized four of the five traditional steps or stages of the model.
