Leaving The Fold is a collection of interviews the writer James W. Ure conducted with a number of Jack Mormons who live mostly in Utah ("Jack Mormon" is a non-pejorative slang term for "cultural Mormon"; Ure writes that "it is a term that feels just right, even jaunty . . . it has a meaning that virtually everyone in the mountain states understands.") Some of Ure's subjects are well-known in Utah, some are not. All were once active in the church;some are still semi-active; others are completely gone.

Ure is an insightful, probing interviewer. He himself is inactive but he knows where all the bodies are buried, so to speak. He raises the most interesting issues and lets his subjects speak their peace. There is a certain cathartic effect in reading the doubts raised here (maybe you have thought some of these same things but never said them out loud.) And it's fascinating to eavesdrop on some Utah celebrities talking about some of their most intimate feelings about religion.

Many of the male interviewees do have a "jaunty", good-humored air about them. Stewart Udall and Levi Peterson affirm their loyalty to Mormonism whatever their current church-going status might be. Calvin Rampton recounts his adventures in politics while lamenting his lack of a testimony.

Rod Decker has some pointed but accurate things to say about the church and politics that the Brethren might agree with if they were phrased more delicately. The rancher Met Johnson has a blunt country wit: Ure says "maybe you had to be there, but Met Johnson knocks me out." I can identify because I have relatives like this: rough-hewn guys who have trouble fitting in, but whose hearts are in the right place. Other interviews are inadvertently entertaining: Ardean Watts comes off as a true eccentric who is capable of believing anything and everything. Edwin Firmage has (in my opinion) drifted off into a liberal cloud cuckoo land that is just as far out in its way as the John Birch Society worldview he condemns.

Ure's interviews with women are more sobering. There is a lot more anguish evident here. You can see real consequences in separating from the church (I count five divorces among the eighteen interviewees.) One hesitates in judging the pain of these sisters. There conversations make one more aware about aspects of female church membership that thick-headed males like me aren't very clued in about.

The objections raised in these interviews can be roughly categorized: "Political" -- I have the least patience for this, to be frank. Those who are offended politically by the church usually would prefer it to conform more to the "progressive" politics of the world. In past decades this meant socialism and its variants; nowadays it means moral relativism as embodied by the current President. Personally I wouldn't like to see the church reformed in the image of Bill Clinton.

Some interviewees have doctrinal objections. They just can't bring themselves to believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon, latter day revelation, etc. The rigidly super-orthodox and the nonbelievers are mirror images in a way: they both believe that everything ever said by a General Authority should be true (but isn't, say the non-believers.) They overdose on literalism. My own humble opinion: the spirit tells me the church is true, so be patient: my great things are yet to be revealed. In the meantime, real Harold Bloom and Isaac Bashevis Singer and realize that the relationship between "myth" and reality is far more complex than we can yet grasp. There are more things in heaven and earth than can be dreamt of in a naturalistic philosophy.

Finally, many in the book have objection to the "tribal" aspects of LDS life. That is, they have trouble with the "folkloric" stuff that is occasionally foisted on us. Me too (and my ancestors in the church go back 140 years.) It is very difficult to separate what is merely traditional Wasatch Front culture from what is essentially part of the gospel (an example from our past: the priesthood ban on blacks.) As the church emerges "from obscurity" into international prominence this will have to change.

Leaving the Fold is one of the better books I have read in the past few months. It is well worth your attention.

R.W. Rasband
Heber City, UT
rrasband@hotmail.com