Students transition from LDS faith

The national controversy surrounding John Dehlin and Kate Kelly, a member and former member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who faced disciplinary action, brings to light crises of faith experienced by some Utah State University students as they navigate their own religious and theological pathways.

A 2012 study released by Why Mormons Question, a service of Dehlin’s “Mormon Stories” and the “Open Stories Foundation” surveyed active or former members of the LDS Church. They found that 53 percent of disbelievers consider themselves Agnostic, Atheist or Humanist. The other demographics are composed of 18 percent undecided, 16 percent still Mormon, 11 percent who identify as non-Mormon Christian and two percent who identify as Buddhists.

Kenny Fryar-Ludwig, a senior studying software engineering, said he has been transitioning his faith throughout his life.

“I was raised in the Baptist church,” he said. “When I was about 13, my parents decided to switch to the LDS church.”

Fryar-Ludwig said he began to find holes in religion while he was serving an LDS mission in Los Angeles. As a self-proclaimed truth seeker, he couldn’t reconcile those issues. He returned home after serving a mission for 10 months and changed his outlook from religious to non-religious.

“Everything just fit into place,” he said. “I couldn’t find ways to really revive my religious faith because it was just destroyed.”

He returned to USU and began to attend other churches, not to become part of those religions, but to understand people. Fryar-Ludwig said he now considers himself a secular Humanist, taking a scientific approach to theology.

“It is the idea that you are working independently from any deity and that you are working for the betterment of humanity,” he said.

Allison Colten, a sophomore studying music, transitioned out of the LDS Church last October. She sat down and thought through questions about the church that she wasn’t brave enough to face before. That night she went from questioning her faith to being an atheist in 30 minutes.

“At first it was really liberating because I could think about things that I was trying suppress earlier, so I wouldn’t have cognitive dissonance,” she said. “I would have these thoughts, and I would get a little thrill because I was allowed to have these thoughts.”

She accepts existentialist theologies, which she was introduced to when she was in high school. Colten said she loves it because, according to the theory, there is nothing in the world that can’t be defined or explained.

“It is really comforting to me because the supernatural is supposed to be unpredictable and uncontrollable, but it is just science,” she said. “There is not some angry god who is punishing you or anything like that. It is very self empowering.”

Colten said her entire perspective has changed, but she continues to be empathetic.

“Now that I don’t believe in an afterlife, it has made everything just that much more meaningful,” she said. “Every relationship and action means a lot more.”

Cynthia Dixon, a sophomore majoring in public relations, said she began questioning her religion a year ago when she was preparing to serve an LDS mission in Houston, Texas.

“I just had different ideas, and I didn’t feel like I should be teaching things that I did not fully believe in,” she said.

Since renouncing her faith, Dixon has been searching for a religion that is based on God but also something that she feels is more inclusive than the the LDS church. She has attended other churches, including a Baptist church, Alpine Church and a Catholic church while searching for truth.

“I have been trying to find a church that I feel comfortable in and that I can be myself in,” she said. “I haven’t really found one yet, but hopefully I will find one that is geared more toward me.”

— morgan.pratt.robinson@gmail.com