Disenchanted Lives

Apostasy and Ex-Mormonism among the Latter-day Saints

E. Marshall Brooks

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780813592220
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Religión

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormons), often heralded as the fastest growing religion in American history, is facing a crisis of apostasy. Rather than strengthening their faith, the study of church history and scriptures by many members pushes them away from Mormonism and into a growing community of secular ex-Mormons. In Disenchanted Lives, E. Marshall Brooks provides an intimate, in-depth ethnography of religious disenchantment among ex-Mormons in Utah. Showing that former church members were once deeply embedded in their religious life, Brooks argues that disenchantment unfolds as a struggle to overcome the spiritual, social, and ideological devotion ex-Mormons had to the religious community and not out of a lack of dedication as prominently portrayed in religious and scholarly writing on apostasy.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: The “Crisis of Apostasy” in Modern Mormonism
• Chapter 1. Ambivalent Pasts: Sacred History and the Crisis of Memory
• Chapter 2. “Digging Too Deep”: The Paradox of Faith
• Chapter 3. “The Other Side of Happiness”: Disenchantment, Loss, and World Collapse
• Chapter 4. “I Lost My Body to the Church”: Sexual and Spiritual (Dis)embodiment
• Chapter 5. “Living in the Shadow of the Church”: Apostasy, Stigma, and Projective Fantasy
• Chapter 6. “I’m Apostate, Yes I Am”: The Politics and Performance of Secular Identity
• Chapter 7. Religious (Dis)Identification: Acquiescence and Anger on the Edge of Mormonism
• Conclusion: “Pastoral apologetics” and the Future of Mormonism
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About the Author