At the beginning of this project, while we’re still unsure who our primary audience is going to be (or indeed if it’s going to be anyone other than our close friends), I think a discussion of labels is in order. In my own essays I’ve taken to using both the term ‘Mormonism’ and the term ‘the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ to refer to my religious upbringing, which I suspect will ruffle feathers both within and without the church. Ellie calls herself an ex-Mormon, or an ex-mo in the lingo of that group, and while I mostly identify as a spiritual person beyond any sort of religious label, I suppose you could call me a post-Mormon. There’s a subtle nuance and connotation to labels used both among members and non-members, which I want to discuss both because it’s interesting and so that my own inconsistency in terminology makes sense.
Within the church, there’s a variety of identifiers and labels people use, some of which are obsolete or derogatory: active, apostate, inactive, investigator, less active. Something I didn’t expect when I began exploring the ex-religious online space was the equally complex system of labels used by people no longer affiliated with a specific religion. Ex-mo, ex-Mormon, exvangelical, post-Mormon, ex-religious, TBM (true believing Mormon), PIMO (physically in, mentally out) and other terms are thrown around this space, and the sense of an in-group and out-group is just as defined as in the LDS church.
Among active church members, using the term ‘Mormon’ has fallen out of vogue after a PR move in 2018 by Russell M. Nelson, where he gave a talk directed towards members and nonmembers together asking that the term ‘Mormon church’ be abandoned in favor of ‘the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ in both informal and formal settings, in order to emphasize the church’s place in greater Christianity and doctrinal focus on Jesus Christ. Active church members call themselves members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or since that’s a real mouthful, LDS is an additional label considered to be socially acceptable, if not officially acceptable.
Interestingly, people who no longer affiliate with the church still call themselves ‘ex-Mormons’ or more commonly ‘ex-mos’ and somewhat less commonly ‘post-Mormons’. I have a suspicion that for many people using a variation on the term ‘Mormon’ is now a way to thumb the nose at the church if you never connected religiously with the church and/or carry a fair amount of resentment and frustration with the church’s problematic practices and history. However, it’s also just shorter and easier to say and use, especially in the context of social media.
I’m as critical of the church as any ex-mo, but when I use the term ‘Mormon’ I don’t mean it in a subversive way. I also see value in using the term to refer to the church’s cultural context and social image. The term ‘Mormon’ conjures up a particular mental image for people both within and without the church, usually linked more closely to the culture associated with 70s style meetinghouses, green Jell-O, and three-hour Sunday worship services than the religious beliefs of the people who belong to that church. I use the term as a way to summarize the culturally LDS activities I participated in as a kid, in order to acknowledge the difference between my cultural experience and the church’s professed doctrines. It also takes in the greater context and experience of living as a member of the church, which involved community activities and traditions like the yearly Halloween trunk-or-treat which were not strictly part of the religion we practiced.
While in many instances I don’t believe the church as an institution deserves to be excused, I also think differentiating between “Mormon” and “member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” is a way to exonerate the generally hopeful, faithful, and kind people I’ve interacted with that support and participate in the greater church structure. Saying I was raised Mormon acknowledges my tie to cultural practices, beliefs, and traditions that may have fallen out of favor or that many members of the church would believe misrepresents the mission of the church.
Ellie describes herself as an ex-mo, and spends time in online spaces with other people who use the label ex-mo. The specific connotation of the term ex-mo, as I understand it, involves a complete disavowal of the church, its culture, its doctrine, and anything to do with it. People who use the term ex-mo might also bandy about the term ‘cult’ to describe the church (a label I’m not even going to touch in this essay because it’s so loaded). There’s overlap online between ex-mo groups and an adjacent community of people who left Christian evangelical churches or other high-demand conservative Christian denominations, called exvangelicals (I envy them their pithy label).
I don’t call myself an ex-mo because I still consider myself spiritual and Christian, and very often ex-mos are people who have deconstructed religious belief entirely, leaving behind any organized religion or even belief in God. I’ve used the label post-Mormon before, which I feel has a different connotation, but to be honest we’re splitting hairs here and I’m only making distinctions for the sake of clarity and precision in my writing. Post-Mormon implies a moving-forward-ness, a spiritual trajectory which included the church but now transcends it. I think it conveys an expansiveness of belief that includes anyone that now believes and worships outside the structure of the church after spending time inside it, and that implied transcendence is something many ex-mos might resonate with so I want to again emphasize that this is my own personal reading of these terms. I don’t want to imply that I think post-mos have cornered the market on faith expansion and all ex-mos are crusty and embittered.
In my life right now, I find labels to be unhelpful, when my specific beliefs feel relatively fluid and my understanding of God flows between and is informed by many different religious traditions. I’m fascinated by the fixation we had in the church with truth and whether the church is “true”; what does it even mean that a church is “true”? How could an organization be “more true” than other similar organizations, nevermind the “only true” one? But that’s material for a whole different essay. The point is that on this blog we appreciate the importance and use of different labels for identifying yourself and identifying people who believe similarly to you or had similar experiences, while also acknowledging the arbitrariness of these distinctions.
My goal in summarizing these labels was to both define where Ellie and I stand and what we mean when we use certain terminology, while also opening the conversation and being clear that we don’t think one single label captures it all or has any real meaning beyond the meaning we give it. I anticipate that many people who read this will be some degree of baffled by how I understand the terms I discussed, and that’s perfectly fine. I hope you can appreciate what we’re trying to do, which is trying to provide clarity on our writing style rather than prescribing specific, fixed meanings to any of these terms. You’re welcome to submit your perspective using the text box on the About Us page or just comment below. As always, we want to foster discussion!
-Lydia
When Lydia told me she was going to write an essay about our use of labels I thought we’d probably only need one essay to outline which labels we use and why, and I was more than happy to let her take care of it. But then I read her draft and realized I actually have thoughts I’d like to share about labels, too.
I grew up in the time of the “I’m a Mormon” ads, and my siblings and I would watch compilations of them on Sundays. We picked favorites - a few of mine were Lindsey Stirling and Rose Datoc Dall, but there was also a woman who did aerial gymnastics that I loved watching. The church must have taken the “I’m a Mormon” site down after Russell M. Nelson declared the term “Mormon” a “victory for Satan” because I had to do a few internet searches to find her video on YouTube. Her name is Vanessa Cook, if you’re wondering, and the video is still up even if the website isn’t. You can still watch her spin through the air and talk about how God gives us wings.
The main reason I refer to the church as the Mormon church or refer to its members as Mormons is out of habit. It’s the lingo I grew up with, and it’s the identity I adopted. I very much internalized “Mormon” as who I was not just as a casual nickname. The name was part of my family’s heritage, lifestyle, everything. It only became offensive in 2018, at which point I was still a compulsively obedient TBM (“true believing Mormon” in ex-mormon terms) but even still, it always felt awkward and unnecessary for me to say I was a “member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” I hated that we were expected to correct nonmembers who called us Mormons, and I would often assist Satan in his battles by letting it slide.
In leaving, I feel no obligation to continue to correct myself or others. Additionally, I feel that using the terms Mormon/Mormon church is actually important, because the church so often tries to erase its history. “Mormon” only became a “victory for Satan” in 2018; prior to that, we proudly retold the folk story of Joseph F. Smith declaring to a drunk mob (at risk of death) that he was not just a Mormon, but one “dyed in the wool; true blue, through and through.” The church has made many changes to its policies and practices in the years since Russell M. Nelson assumed presidency, many of which are complete reversals of, or at least alterations to, the way I was raised. Referring to my past as “Mormon” hearkens to mind a completely different church, a pre-Nelson church. Nelson’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not my church. The Mormon church was. I don’t really mean to thumb my nose at official church preferences, but I feel they’re doing both their past and present self an injustice by criminalizing their former moniker.
By definition, the shorthand is also just so much simpler to say, and for the sake of concision and keeping my word count on these essays as low as possible, I will largely continue to use Mormon, or LDS (this distinction will be based entirely on whim).
In this context, it’s probably easy to see why the terms “ex-mormon” and “exmo” would be the ones I most identify with as an individual who has left the Mormon church. I’m telling a story about where I came from, and the church I came from. Nevermos (“never-mormons”) I interact with still largely recognize the term “Mormon” more readily than “member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” When I tell people I’m ex-mormon they (generally) get an immediate sense of what that means - they understand it was a strict, kind of weird upbringing. So far, no one has needed clarification about what church I’m talking about when I say Mormon. To use the full name? Different story.
And this is my story, so I’m picking the labels that fit best for me. That’s all.
-Ellie
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