Especially For Youth

I'm not sure why EFY had any negative effect on my relationship with the Church. I never went. Never cared to go until I realized how many girls my friends were meeting there. It simply didn't interest me. Maybe I'd had been to enough Scout camps in my life to know that I didn't want a summer camp with less hiking and more Church stuff. Maybe the thought of being surrounded by goody two-shoes Molly Mormons and Peter Priesthoods sounded too fake. Maybe I was too worldly in my music tastes. Maybe I was too focused on finding a summer job and working as much as I could. It's hard to say.

Either way, I find it a little strange that the very existence of EFY bothered me. It made me suspicious. I couldn't figure out who it was for. Loners? Testimony-less teens? Kids on drugs? In the end I couldn't help but conclude that more than anyone else, the Church needed EFY. EFY was an indoctrination camp. Like Primary. It had to be. The Church is desperate to convince the youth that the Church is the most important thing in their lives, even more so than their immediate family, and we all know how creepy that can get.

Or maybe not. But in the end EFY made me doubt.

God, boys, and country

Why is it that the Church so strongly endorses the Boy Scouts of America? Is it just a convenient institution to occupy church-going adolescents? Could it be that the Church got involved with the BSA in efforts to prove its solidarity with the rest of America? I honestly don't know and the bullshit origin story that the Church celebrated doesn't clear much up. My main point of disgust with the BSA (though there are many) has to do with the fact that it's a celebration of military strength and machoism. Here in the United States duty to God and country is synonymous with military service. It's true that boy scout troops aren't taught military drills (at least most of the time), but the paramilitary shell, with all its prominent signs of honor and accomplishment along the hierarchical track displayed in pseudo-military style, creates the perfect psychological space for a future soldier.

I can't see the Biblical Jesus fitting into any of this. When did Jesus tell the children to dawn uniforms and fixate on war? I don't see the gospel of peace, love, and forgiveness here, but that certainly doesn't mean it doesn't make sense to other people.

Take aways

Mormons have a reputation of being reliable, kind people. They have high standards that they seem to honestly believe in. They're a lot like Boy Scouts in that they strive to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. All of those qualities are, in my mind, excellent qualities to have in many situations, and I'm not embarrassed to say that when it comes to take away lessons on life the Scout Law might sum up a great deal of what Mormonism taught me.

A couple of other beneficial life lessons learned through Mormonism would be learning that it's a good idea to ask questions and that we should seek out the original source when trying to learn about something. The Joseph Smith story is all about "lacking wisdom" in a world of confusion and challenging that confusion with personal investigation. You can't simply rely on others to get you through; you have to do the work for yourself. Joseph questioned authority and eventually found his own.

I admire people who constantly question authority and scrutinize sources. People who request to see the data for themselves and who want to investigate the texts on their own show a great deal of Boy Scout bravery, in my opinion, not to mention self-respect. I want to be someone who is unafraid of research and investigation and I think Mormonism can teach people to be that way.

On the other hand, Mormonism has had some negative effects on me. Mormonism taught me an unhealthy reverence for authority, it taught me that circular logic is okay, it taught me that I am offensive by nature, it taught me to equate virginity with beauty, cleanliness, and morality! Mormonism taught me bad history. It taught me that we already had the "answers" that mattered and that I should wait until the afterlife to understand the non-salvation-related questions I had (boy, oh boy, did I want to know why God ever bothered with dinosaurs!).

Mormonism taught me to make excuses. I was making excuses constantly for Mormonism. All the crazy shit that didn't make sense even to a child was excused away. Oh, God hasn't revealed that yet! We're not ready for that yet! It's not important to our salvation! They're just men, they're not infallible! I need to work on my faith! It's just a bunch of "anti" bullshit! The world doesn't understand! If only everyone else would listen to the Gospel as taught by the One True Church! Our prophet is so inspired, they'll let us know as soon as God wants us to know more!

Losing my faith in Mormonism taught me to stop making ridiculous excuses.