Anthony Miller lives in Billings Montana. He grew up Mormon. He did all the things required of good Mormon boys, and he thought he knew where his life was heading. But a dramatic and sudden period of faith deconstruction had him reconsidering everything about his religious life.
Mormon leave-takers don’t usually manage the God and church conversation without some nervousness but Anthony wanted to understand his inner journey well and despite his resignation, he has remained open and curious about spirituality and spiritual formation inside and outside of the LDS Church. And, Anthony has found gracious and wise ways of accommodating his still adherent wife’s journey in the LDS faith.
Anthony joins me to talk about gracious LDS leave-taking, deconstruction and spiritual reconstruction.
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Wow Anthony, love your journey. I’m honored to be your Facebook friend.
It saddens me still a bit to know your not officially a member of the church even though you are probably more of a member than most!!
I try to stretch and awaken minds softly by planting seeds when I raise my hand to answer questions and make comments. I rub some people the wrong way but for the most part they have already labelled me and I have already labelled them (so we are all good). =)
Thank you my friend 🙂
Anthony, I loved listening to you about your story! My story is similar to yours…I just took a little longer. You said there was no Eden…perhaps no creation story at all? Explain briefly please, because many of us I’m sure have felt there had to be much more to the story or it is utterly untrue. Reference please or expound. THANK YOU again for sharing.
Many of the stories in the 5 books attributed to Moses are origin myths that were developed and compiled from a number of different sources and didn’t end up in the forms we know then until after the Babylonian Captivity, after around 538 BCE.
Some of the origin stories are purely mythical, in my view.
The world population between 3000-2000 BCE was about 50-60 million people, with diverse languages, cultures, and spiritual practices. I view these facts of world and linguistic history as incompatible with the Garden, City of Enoch, Flood, and Tower origin myths.
Our earliest ancestors came out of Africa, not Missouri. They were dark skinned, not because of a mythical Curse or Cain, but because of DNA and natural selection.
The Exodus is an origin myth too. My understanding is that there is no actual historical evidence that there were millions of Israelite slaves, that they spent 40 years in a relatively small area of desert to leave zero evidence of bones, graves, pottery, or anything else.
My understanding is that the Lost Tribes story is also an origin myth, and that the tribes of Abraham, Isaac, and the Jews were unrelated tribes in the Palestine area, and the origin myths were developed to tell a common story.
Love your insightful and tender dialogue. Please expound on your view of temple comments (still penalties and polygamy and why men/women sit apart, etc.
I really would love the transcript from this episode. Is there a way to get it? TIA