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Several months ago, when I felt that I could no longer conscientiously teach things I didn't believe and I was tired of finding ways to teach Mormon elders quorum lessons while skirting around the parts of Mormon doctrine I no longer believed, I talked to the elders quorum president and asked to be released from my calling as his counselor. He was distraught by my loss of testimony, but he understood that I was doing what I felt right about and graciously accepted my resignation. (As a sidenote, EQP is a muy cool dude.) When EQP explained this to the counselor in the stake presidency who is over him, though, President M told EQP that because he (Pres. M) had made the calling, I would have to talk to him (Pres. M) if I wanted to be released. When EQP explained this to me, I told him that I didn't particularly want to defend my decision to Pres. M, who I didn't know very well but from my limited experience with him seemed like a rather forceful sort of fellow, but if EQP needed me to do so in order to call a new counselor in my place, I would. EQP said he'd rather wait a few months, letting me take an unofficial hiatus from my responsibilities without officially releasing me just in case I changed my mind. I said okay, let me know when you need me to talk to Pres. M.

Sunday night I got a call from Pres. M's secretary. Pres. M wanted me to come talk with him Wednesday night. I've been a little nervous all week for the aforementioned reasons, but I took hope in the fact that both EQP and the bishop had reacted respectfully when I told them that I am, in fact, still reading the Bible and praying, and I am doing what I believe God wants me to, and I have no intention of doing anything without checking first with God. I was still wary, though, about Pres. M's aforementioned forceful personality. I'm not very comfortable with men in authority-type positions, anyway, and to be in a potentially confrontational situation with one isn't my idea of fun.

As it turns out, it really wasn't horrible. Pres. M, like most people, is a good man with good intentions. He expressed concern for me, warned me not to let unresolved sins or offenses from church members cloud my judgment, all good advice. He asked what specific objections I have to church doctrine, though, and that's when things started going downhill. I stumbled over a prophets this and a Book of Mormon that, but managed to say nothing coherent. The problem, I realized later, is that my logical objections to Mormon doctrine are minimal and ultimately irrelevant. What it comes down to is simply that I no longer feel that the church is all it claims to be. And how can one approach religious truth except through feeling?

So there I am, stuttering incomplete sentences about trivial bits of doctrine I find illogical, and Pres. M looks at me and says, "You know, Brother Fob, I teach science. I understand logic. But if I preached science and logic from the pulpit, I'd be stoned. Sometimes you just have to do what God tells you to, even if it's not logical."

I stared back at him. I really really wanted to say:

"I know. Damn. Well. What it means to do something because it feels right, because that's what I feel God wants me to do, despite the fact that every logical fiber of my being tells me to do something else."

I resisted the urge. I told myself over and over that it didn't matter what Pres. M thought of me, that all that mattered was what God thinks of me, that if I said that I'd have to get into a big long explanation of what I was talking about. I told myself that if I said that I'd succeed only in making myself look like a deluded self-righteous prat.

So I said, "Thank you for your concern, Pres. M. I appreciate it." And then I came here to my blog, where people expect me to be a deluded self-righteous prat.

The end.