Even though I grew up in the LDS Church if someone had asked me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer would not have been the following:
"Oh, I'm so excited to share with you my dream! Ya know what, I want to be like those priests on TV who wear all black but with a white collar, only instead of a white collar I want to wear special white sacred underwear every day and night, and instead of all black I want to dress up in business clothes to portray my priestly status. I want all those same kind of duties of a priest you see on TV and movies. I want to be a "holy person," separated from the world, able to do that thing where a priest consecrates the eucharist, but I want to do it symbolically by "blessing the sacrament" when I am only 12 years old. Because who wants to be a child just at play when you can start playing the heavily draining role of a priest as a child! I want to be a priest so I can literally exorcise tall demons in a single bound by raising my hand. I want to perform magic rituals for dead people with my priesthood power! Oh, man, I can't wait!
I don't want the normal life of a hormonal teenager developing a sense of style and identity of my own. I want my entire identity, persona and lifestyle mapped out and molded by Mormonism as a teenager.
When I turn 19 and I'm in the prime years of my youth I don't want to date girls and get started on an education or career. Heck no! I want to go on a two year proselytizing mission for the LDS Church as an ordained minister; where for two years I am forbidden to date or masturbate (or even fantasize about the opposite sex without being shamed) and will instead only self-indoctrinate myself being away from family and friends and doing nothing but thinking about, reading about, and preaching LDS dogma. I can't wait to wake up at 6:30 am and begin absorbing only Mormon dogma and then at about 10:30 am spending about 10 hours everyday (except prep day) in a shirt and tie in the hot sun of summer, preaching door to door as a dogma salesman!"
Those words would not have been spoken by me at anytime growing up. As a kid growing up I knew my parents wore garments but I did not think much about it. I watched all the LDS priestly activities at church as a kid with passive disinterest, like watching the School Crossing Guard shuttling children across a busy intersection. "Cool outfit crossing lady," I might have thought to myself as a kid, but not something I aspired to do personally (not that there is anything wrong with that job, it just wasnt my dream as a kid). I was basically involuntarily given the priesthood at age 12, involuntary because when I agreed its not like I was making a real choice as a mere child. From there I performed certain priestly duties at age 12. However by age 14, I was completely inactive in the role of a young priest and just lived as a normal teenager from ages 14 to 17.
During this time I kind of subconsciously deconverted in a way, for by just stopping going to church regularly and without the daily indoctrination (via programmed prayers and scripture reading, etc.) after my parents divorced, I just naturally never thought about God or religion at all. Looking back I can see now that this was my natural default state of being, living in the Now (without all the religious indoctrination clouding my mind). As an adult I can now see looking back that during these early years outside Mormonism, I was more in touch with the real authentic me, my true self, and was better aligned with the real world around me.
It was only after my LDS mission as a self-indoctrinated "ordained minister," and priest, spending 24 hours a day for two years (from age 19 to 21) isolated from outside secular influences and friends, that after this cultish lifestyle for two years (at such an impressionable and formable age), I inevitably developed the identity of "Mormon Priest." This led to an obsession with religious topics and philosophy for decades afterward: due to such intense cultish indoctrination as a missionary for two whole years at such a young and impressionable age living in total isolation and knowing and absorbing nothing but Mormonism.
If I had not been indoctrinated into a high demand religion in this way, I would not have experienced religious trauma syndrome and existential angst after the mission later on in my mid 20s after my "Mormon testimony" unraveled and I lost the LDS identity and meaning-making worldview that I had constructed in my head those two years as a missionary. For this caused me to struggle in my mid 20s and 30s, trying to adapt to secular life outside the culish box of doctrinaire lifestyle Mormonism.
I did eventually recover however from being indoctrinated into sainthood in childhood and as a missionary, as slowly overtime I began moving towards what I call the path of creatorhood; and developed new meaning-making purpose while growing toward my authentic self, which I talk about here.
During the time as a teenager (ages 14-17), when I was free of the "dogma goggles," I could just be my true self. In fact, most of my high school friends did not know I was LDS. I did attend LDS dances during this time but treated them basically as a secular venue as a normal teenager. For religion never came up at the LDS dances and even some non-LDS would attend them.
When I was suddenly thrust into full Mormon priestly activity at age 18 in preparation to be a missionary due to peer pressure and years of unconscious indoctrination influencing my decision, it all happened so fast that it felt like all of a sudden before I knew it I was in a Mormon temple being told at age 18 that these new pair of religious underwear I was given in the temple (to protect me from the power of Satan!) would be my new fashion attire for the rest of my life! Thus I could no longer wear tank tops, which I was fond of doing as a weightlifter as a teenager in the 1990s. I was shocked and felt mentally imprisoned in that moment. It felt like my life was being stolen and swept out from under me, but in my mind it felt like I had no choice but to conform due to all the religious peer pressure and love bombing at church the minute I agreed to be a missionary. All of which was overwhelming me by that point, for on an unconscious level it felt like an invisible hand was always behind my back pushing me toward sainthood and being a full time Mormon missionary (the invisible hand being what Freud called the superego, meaning cultural and societal peer pressure basically). So before I new it I was thrust into a full blown cult lifestyle where I did nothing but read, think about, and preach Mormon theology and dogma, for over 12+ hours a day (except "prep day"), for two years, from age 19 to 20.
Not only did I not want to be a Priest growing up, but I don't think most LDS kids really want that duty and responsibility but are socially preprogrammed into it. This means that post-sainthood not only freed me from a lifelong lifestyle as a pious Priest, but I see now twenty years after my church resignation around 2004, that my choice has rescued my nephews and future generations from being culturally indoctrinated into an unwanted life of priestly sainthood and life denying pious perfectionism. For by my example and voice, many in my family have been freed from this high demand cultish lifestyle. For example, see this video where an Elder David A. Bendar puts some poor kid on the spot and makes him cry in the process of teaching him a lesson on pious perfectionism. This is a good example of the psychological manipulation tactics performed on kids who grow up LDS. Watching this one video, one can objectively see how the indoctrination begins early and is psychologically damaging to the psyche of the child.
A good analogy from the movies, is John Travolta's character in the 1977 movie Saturday Night Fever. Travolta's character respects his brother who is a Priest, but he definitely does not want to be one. Same with me. Now that I have had this "revelation" that I never even wanted to be a Priest, I'm starting to move on with my life a little more, and to think a little less about religion; and so my "true self" is now able to more fully emerge. It will take time however, as I do have a habit of thinking and writing about religion and philosophy after being a minister for two years on my mission. Like Travolta's brother in the movie above, I still have that mindset of being a Priest which is still "sticky" in my subconscious after years of religious cultural indoctrination growing up in the LDS Church.
From the movie Saturday Night Fever
Why I'm Not a Latter-day Saint in a Nutshell
This blog is about why I'm not a Latter-day Saint (aka, not a "Brighamite Mormon"). The simplest explanation as to my main reasons for not being LDS is in the official title of the LDS Church itself, "The Church of ... Latter-day Saints." All LDS males as "Saints" also become Priests holding the Priesthood. I don't want to be a Priest or a Saint. For to be a "Saint" means to be a Holy One, meaning one who is called out from, separated from, the alleged unholy physical world and the "worldly." I explain this meaning of Saint in more detail here. Furthermore, I don't think it's the "Latter Days" when, for example, every generation of Christians for the last 2000 plus years have thought they were living in the alleged "latter days." What if its just today?
After contemplating the option of New Order Mormonism for a few years around 2018, I simply had an epiphany one day in 2024, which was that I don't want to be a Mormon Priest. Yes I know that Mormons don't use the word priest that often and instead prefer the term "priesthood holder," but that is essentially what most LDS men are, a Priest. Growing up, I had zero interest in ever being a Priest.
Being an LDS Priest includes believing that you have alleged magical/supernatural powers to heal people, even paraplegics if its "God's will" to heal them through you; of course, it is never expected that God will heal amputees, i.e. grow back a severed limb. Even "God" has his limits apparently. Note that here I am not claiming "miracles" are not possible, only that in all my 40+ years of life on the planet the most likely expectation I have daily is that the world or reality operates by the consistent laws of nature as explained by science. The sky is blue, water's wet, spark plugs spark, cars travel, and cups fall when you drop them; all of it rational, consistent, and what I would expect in a natural world. People actually talking in tongues (spontaneously speaking a foreign language), prophesying the actual future, or a guy flying up into the sky, or malicious ghosts spirit-possessing people needing an exorcism, or malevolent spirits appearing to cause harm and thus the need for another to "discern the spirits" (per 1 Cor. 12:10; D&C 129), or the saying of magic words over a severed limb causing it to grow back, just does not happen, ever in my life. When I go to the local Walmart in broad daylight there are just no demons flying around like in the movie Ghostbusters, no demons possessing people and thus no need for someone's alleged "priesthood power" to perform an exorcism. If someone has a headache I don't think an LDS Priest needs to exorcise the headache-demon, for during New Testament times they thought everything was caused by demons, even headaches!
As an LDS Priest it is literally believed that you can allegedly exorcize evil spirits (actual demons!), which I don't believe in and consider such ideas superstitious, dangerous, and often harmful (e.g. Lori Vallow Daybell and Ruby Franke). In fact, I ran across this video Why I Left The Mormon (LDS) Church by Starr Adara in 2024, and she described very similar experiences to what I went through over twenty years earlier growing up Mormon. This made me realize the LDS Church and its theology had not changed at all; they had not become more scientific and humanistic, as this young woman was terrified of being demon possessed and full of shame and scrupulosity.
This woke me up to the fact that they can't change the dogma, because a literal boogeyman type Devil and evil spirits is all over LDS scriptures and sermons. The whole system is designed to induce fear and paranoia and a world-phobia; causing one to cling to the insider cult comfort zone of LDS culture and the precalculated inducement of safe and secure feelings within the insulated structure of the LDS institution; which then controls minds and shames and tames people into obedient submission and "Brethren worship."
So that's probably the simplest explanation as to why I am not LDS (nor a nuanced Cultural Mormon) right there!
The bottom line is once you study biological evolution, the "reptilian brain," and evolutionary psychology, which explains why we have desires and instincts in the first place (as covered by Dr. Paul Dobransky M.D., here, here, and here), then believing a Sin-virus is influencing our biology becomes for me crazy talk.
After one studies the origin of the Devil character (which I cover in my website here), then believing in a literal Satan becomes akin to believing in a literal Boogeyman. In other words, once one studies the sciences in general, then the error-correcting method (or epistemology) of logical reasoning and the scientific method becomes a lit candle shining a bright light of truth and clarity onto the primitive darkness and potential harm of a "demon haunted world."
Sainthood vs. Good Character
I believe in trying to be a "good person." I just don't think the philosophical or Stoic concept of the Good Life for example, and "good-personhood" if you will, are the same thing; for seeking LDS sainthood and exaltation through the LDS "covenant path" is not necessarily the same thing as becoming an actual good person and living the Good Life. This will become more clear as I proceed.
Marcus Borg once said, "You can believe all the right things, and still be a jerk." So too, you can perform all the right rituals and present an image of saintliness but still be a jerk. This is actually demonstrated in the Gospels themselves where Jesus spends a lot of his time condemning the performative dogmatic religious types: who appear holy and righteous on the outside like a gravestone painted white on the outside but are like a rotting corpse on the inside. In other words, they appear pious on the outside but inside their poor character is like a rotting corpse (see Mathew 23: 26-28). For the problem that can and does easily arise in religions like Mormonism, is that because they function as a kind of "checklist spirituality," it can lead to people maintaining a certain facade, a performative mask of piety, while behind closed doors acting like jerks; and/or merely checking the boxes of holy piety but where no holy rules are found poor character abounds.
This is because such a religious system is more often performative rather than actually influencing an authentic character transformation through a reasoning out of why one is choosing the ethical life in the first place. When one is merely obeying holy rules and learning to wear a holy mask or persona and perform holiness (sainthood), one often never internalizes good reasons for being ethical and developing good character.
For example, D&C 121: 34-46 eloquently points out the inherent potential for corruption with a lay priesthood hierarchy, arguing that it's the nature of almost all men to abuse their position of high status, authority and power. Ironically, just a few years later Joseph Smith then says and does just that: exercising an abuse of power over his wife Emma by attempting to manipulate her into submission under the false pretense of the alleged authority and power of a revelation (see D&C 132), wherein Joseph Smith threatens her with destruction if she further objects to and gets in the way of his freely taking unto himself multiple wives and concubines, despite his original promise to her to be monogamous; and his previous approval of the 1835 edition of D&C 101 which declared monogamy as the doctrinal law of the LDS Church.
So, if the prophet, seer and revelator, Joseph Smith himself, can get caught up in talking piously against unrighteous dominion one day, but then turn around and behave unrighteously, then could it be that the LDS "system of holiness" itself being based on the revelatory whims of Smith, make for an internal flaw built into the system itself?
In other words, if ethics can't be a reasoning toward right action -- with say an appeal to Nature like with the the Stoics, or by an appeal to the Middle Way by Aristotle, Buddha, and Confucious etc., -- but instead right and wrong is only determined by the whims of alleged seers and revelators of a god's will, then we end up with contradictory moralities do we not?
For example, Smith revealed in scripture that he canonized, that monogamy is morally right in the year 1835; but then in 1843, Smith revealed that God himself allegedly said the following to his wife Emma through a letter Joseph Smith dictated by alleged revelation, that has "God" saying to Emma:
... as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse [plurally marry] a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else. And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law [of celestial plural marriage], he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.
Meanwhile Emma is told in this same fabulous revelation from on high, to accept this godly arrangement of Smith being given multiple virgin brides; and Emma is warned by the Creator of the universe himself, that she must have sex with only Joseph Smith and not divorce him, or "God" will destroy her:
Verse 54: And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this [plural marriage] commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my [polygamy] law.
Verse 64: And again, verily, verily, I say unto you [Emma], if any man have a wife, who holds the keys of this power, and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood, as pertaining to these things, then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God; for I will destroy her; for I will magnify my name upon all those who receive and abide in my law.
I don't know about you dear reader, but I find such "scripture" passages to be a clear cut case against an appeal to divine revelation and an appeal to the whims of a so-called seer and revelator, as the path to knowing right and wrong.
A more common example is how some, no not all, LDS members will perform an appearance of "niceness" most of the time, but then falsely slander a family member who is questioning the truth claims of the LDS Church.
Some or many (no, not all) LDS teachers will preach on the lost sheep and the 99, but when it comes to actually showing genuine empathy and curiosity for the perspective of the disaffected member, there will often be little to no empathy shown toward those who doubt the dogma. This is because maintaining the pure image of the Holy LDS Institution is more important than the perceived unholy doubter. Again, no not all LDS members act this way and some LDS will leave the 99 and care for the one doubting and questioning member. But in my own personal experience, while their are exceptions to the rule, most LDS will in one way or another, make the questioner and doubter feel unaccepted, unworthy, and ultimately unwelcome. And this is to be expected given the paradigm of safeguarding the insulated cult of sainthood from the perceived threat of unholy and wicked outsiders.
So not all but some LDS people can "check all the boxes" of piety but not have a true transformation of character toward becoming a truly good person. However, to be fair many LDS are genuinely good people and authentically "nice" despite the ideal of sainthood and the fear of unholiness and doubters infiltrating the LDS Fold. So while the system allows for and often promotes a performative pious mask of perfect sainthood, many LDS do undergo a true transformation of character within the system itself and are good persons and/or better people because of it.
Explaining to a True Believing Mormon why I am Not LDS nor a New Order Mormon
I sat down across the table from a true believing LDS relative at lunch in 2024. I decided to explain why I was not going to continue to try and be a Mormon again. This relative knew I had resigned years before around 2005, and he had seen me become more friendly toward the LDS Church from around 2018 to 2024. During this time I attended the LDS Church sporadically with this relative. He knew I had not been active nor believing from 2005 to about 2018. So I decided to explain why I had been considering being LDS again and why I finally decided that I can't be LDS, even as a nuanced non-literal type of LDS member.
I explained that for the last 5 years or so I have been considering being a Cultural Mormon; but at the end of the day, I realized that to make that work I would basically have to lie. This did not sit well with me in the end. I explained that there is a growing number of Mormons who, for many reasons, whether to maintain a relationship with a true believing LDS spouse, or fear of being ostracized from their LDS community, or fear of losing a job or just seeking a cultural identity, etc., they seek to maintain their membership in the LDS Church as a New Order Mormon (meaning one who doubts some or most of LDS dogma but wish to be active in LDS culture). I explained that since I had resigned my LDS membership back around 2005, I did not feel any social pressure to follow this path but had been entertaining the idea voluntarily since around 2018.
I could walk away clean without losing a spouse or a job or losing my social community (which I had already lost when I resigned). So for me, the reason for reconsidering being a non-literalist LDS member again was based largely in my basically developing a way to appreciate Mormonism from a more humanistic and Nietzschean perspective (which I discuss in this blog). It realized that an appreciation of the 1840s era philosophy of Mormonism is not the same thing as practicing doctrinaire Brighamite Mormonism.
I explained that since I cannot bring myself to be a literal believer in LDS truth claims, that rejoining the LDS Church would entail me on at least some level pretending to be a literal believer in order to fit in socially. For most LDS members in a congregation are true believers. I decided I could not live that way, wearing a pretend mask in order to fit in. I said I understand why others might follow that path if say they live in Utah or Idaho and nearly everyone around them is LDS, but living in California its actually outside the norm to be LDS. He agreed that it doesn't work unless you literally believe in it like he did.
I further shared that I had contemplated being a nuanced non-literal LDS member for a few years as a theoretical option without actually going through with it, after I had run across the website churchistrue.com (where a non-literal believing LDS member presents a way to be LDS through the perspective of Liberal Christianity, and utilizing the insights from theologians like Marcus Borg); as well as speaking to atheist and agnostic New Order Mormons through the Fair LDS website email, and through email having these nontheistic LDS members talk about how they make being LDS work for them while they actually doubt some or most of the supernatural truth claims. I mentioned StayLDS.org which gives advice to nuanced cultural Mormons for staying in the LDS Church and culture and finding ways to honestly pass worthiness interviews without sacrificing one's integrity.
Looking back, beginning around 2015, I began trying to reconstruct my former Christian and LDS beliefs through the perspective lens of theologians like Marcus Borg. I can see now that I was desperately trying to retrofit a nonliteral-theology into literalistic LDS theology. In other words, I was trying to fit a naturalistic-metaphorical point of view into a supernatural box (a boxed up scriptural fundamentalist view held by the majority of LDS). These documents below reveal just how sincere I was in my attempt to form a "rational testimony" if you will. With just a quick scan of these documents, one can see just how hard I tried to be Mormon again from a nuanced perspective. I now see it as a desperate attempt on my part during a span of about five years, to make sense of the insensible, to ignore the obvious and try to defend the indefensible. It reminds me of the Bible scholar Bart Ehrman sharing a story of him trying to create an apologetic defense of the Gospel of Mark regarding some of its errors, and he writes this long academic paper which was really a form of apologetics and his professor simply writes on the paper something like, "Maybe Mark just made a mistake?" This made Ehrman realize he was twisting his mind into mental pretzels trying to avoid the obvious.
What my documents linked below point out for me now, is that this nonliteral version of Mormonism basically removed the bread and butter of Brighamite Mormonism, which is literalistic supernaturalism or the magic worldview. What I do in my Liberal Christian and Nuanced-Mormon documents below is desperately try to make Christianity and Mormonism fit into a 21st century scientific enlightenment worldview just as Marcus Borg tried to do for Christianity. I see now that my Episcopalianish version of LDS Christianity, just does not actually fit LDS Church dogma and practice. Furthermore, the part of Mormonism I did like, the Nauvoo era pro-bodied philosophy, is completely ignored in LDS doctrine and culture nowadays because the top LDS Leaders are trying to align the Church with the Catholics, Protestants and Evangelicals. Thus my anti-Puritan pre-1900 version of Mormonism conflicts with the post-1900 Puritan ideology of today's LDS Christianity.
So that the reader can see just how sincere I was and hard I tried to be a theologically-liberal Mormon, here are some of the documents I composed:
I realized however that I cannot make the path of a New Order Mormon work for me, that I was just a different kind of person, that I had crossed over the bridge to a post-Enlightenment worldview, and for many other reasons. I pointed out that I also thought being LDS just fits some people's personality better than others, like this relative for whom being Mormon just fit more naturally for him. For this relative, being LDS aligned perfectly with his core nature and personality so that he fit snugly into the Mormon cultural mold and it's particular supernatural worldview; while for me it always felt like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I just don't fit into it. He actually agreed with me. In fact, most LDS I had this discussion with basically told me I can't be LDS with this more metaphorical nuanced view.
Why I entertained the process for over four years was because in the process of trying to reconstruct a nuanced Mormon faith, I felt a sense of empowerment reconnecting with my old LDS identity from childhood and young adulthood. There was something powerful about the idea of being part of a larger community, a bonded tribe of people, "putting our shoulder to the wheel, pressing on," together, unified, hive-like, elevated, and ideally happy.
The problem was, the cement and mortar that kept the structure together was apocalyptic end-times urgency, a devil delusion, demon-phobia, belief in curses and blessings, sin-staining ideas, nocebo effects, scrupulosity, and the potential for religious trauma syndrome, which was most often psychologically harmful; as well as the constant maintaining of a literal belief in an angel taking the gold plates back up to heaven, the Lamanites as actual historical persons, a post-resurrection Jesus visiting the Americas, and the actual biblical Abraham appearing in the Pearl of Great Price, all of which I had intellectually deconstructed as very likely and untrue; and thus I could not put my new wineskins of post Enlightenment rationalism and theologically-liberal Christianity back into the old wineskins of LDS scriptural-fundamentalism and literalistic supernaturalism.
I was no longer a "it's the latter days," fearful and paranoid Saint, afraid of an adversarial Devil like a child afraid of a boogeyman under his or her bed. I was never again going to jump through the holy hoops of an institution hanging the labels worthy or unworthy over my head, causing one to chronically seek the impossible status of a pure and perfect saint.
I had thus come to terms with the reality of the situation by 2024. I could not treat the LDS Church like more theologically-liberal and scholarly churches like the Episcopalian Church USA or the RLDS (Community of Christ); for the Brighamite LDS institution was not a mere spiritual social club or family-based fraternity, but a controlling and quite cultish high demand religion.
Moving Beyond Sainthood
Once it hit me in 2024 that I don't want to be a Priest, I realized that it was pointless to try and be a New Order Mormon. For being LDS is not like in other theologically-liberal Christian groups where you are just a lay member without "priestly duties." In Brighamite Mormonism, every male member becomes a priest. So why would I even try to be an "Edgy Mormon," or New Order Mormon, when the truth was I have never even wanted to be a Priest.
The fact is, I realized that I don't want the title or the alleged supernatural-responsibilities of a Priest, which again includes the alleged authority and responsibility of casting out devils and magically healing illnesses and even paralyzed people. Believing in such archaic superstitious nonsense sounds utterly crazy to me now. I now realize that I don't want to be asked to be at someone's hospital bed and made to feel that the very words I say may impact the person's recovery (for example some prayer studies even show adverse effects, i.e. if the person feels social pressure). So being a nuanced LDS member would mean pretending you believe in all that, which I don't, at all.
Another major reason I don't want to be a nuanced LDS member is I don't want to have to wear a mask of piety and wear magic underwear and dress in a performative shirt and tie attempting to convey a pious holier than thou appearance. I do not want to basically have the role of a professional Priest, nor do I ascent to feeling peer pressured into "ministering" out of a sense of priestly duty rather than genuine interest or desire; nor do I ascent to being coerced into unwanted callings, or giving talks at the pulpit, all of which are priestly duties that in other churches priests and clergy get professionally trained and paid to perform. Those who do go into ministry are also usually extroverted and so such a role in ministry fits their personality. I'm mostly an introvert in personality style, so being a priestly Mormon does not fit my personality at all.
I don't buy the common LDS Church claim that their is no paid clergy, when the LDS General Authorities and other LDS members do in fact get paid, meanwhile the LDS institution is a billion dollar corporation. If an LDS member wants to volunteer to perform priestly roles without pay that is fine, that's their choice; but from my perspective, the LDS institution itself takes advantage of member's belief in the Church as the "only true church" and gateway to the celestial kingdom, so that they feel that it is their priestly duty to spend hours performing priestly roles without any pay or professional training. All because they believe it is necessary for achieving a higher degree of salvation (i.e. exaltation) in heaven.
Never in my life growing up did I ever dream of being a Priest. Growing up I never planned on being a Priest. That was never my goal. I see now that I was slowly tricked into that role, in a way, as I was socially peer pressured into accepting that role beginning at the young and impressionable age of only 12 years old; and then later was peer pressured into going on a two year mission as a full-time "minister of the restored gospel." If you had asked me as a teenager when I was inactive in the LDS Church, if I saw myself becoming a priest or minister/missionary, I would have said no way! Funny how a religious institution and social conformity can change your mind. For when I turned 18 and saw all my LDS friends and acquaintances going on missions, and my own inactive LDS brother I was close to all of a sudden deciding to go on a mission, and everyone in my family and most of my extended family were just expecting me to go on a mission, it was a almost pre-determined that I would end up going on a mission from all the social pressure, which I did. Looking back at this in hindsight, as an adult, I can see clearly now that growing up in the Brighamite LDS Church, I was not really given an actual choice (as Elder Bednar admits) of entering into the life of an LDS Priest and Minister as a missionary (note that LDS missionaries are ministers of the restored gospel): as that path was basically chosen for me, beginning when I was only 12 years old and given the priesthood and then it was continually indoctrinated into my subconscious from then on, so that following the LDS priestly trajectory was a foregone conclusion in many ways. For after years of childhood religious indoctrination and massive peer pressure in my teens to conform to that role as expected of me by nearly everyone around me, I was basically programmed to talk my own self into going on a mission. For with all that social pressure, not going on a mission was not really an option in my mind subconsciously.
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