QUOTE: “Don’t you dare bail. I am so furious with people who leave this church. I don’t know whether ‘furious’ is a good apostolic word. But I am. What on earth kind of conviction is that? What kind of patty-cake, taffy-pull experience is that? As if none of this ever mattered, as if nothing in our contemporary life mattered, as if this is all just supposed to be ‘just exactly the way I want it and answer every one of my questions and pursue this and occupy that and defy this – and then maybe I’ll be a Latter-Day Saint’! Well, there’s too much Irish in me for that! This church means everything to me! Everything! I don’t care what happens. I don’t care what price is to be paid. As painful as that can be and as much as I don’t want to invite the test, as much as I don’t want to sound arrogant or self-confident or filled with any kind of pride other than the love of the Lord, this church means everything to me, and I’m not going to leave it, and I’m not going to let you leave it.” –Jeffrey R. Holland, 26 April 2016, Tempe Arizona. [source]
COMMENTARY: When your official story is a whitewash of the facts, when you refuse to openly discuss honest questions, and when you excommunicate members who seek and tell the truth, Jeffrey, you reveal to the rest of your members that they are not participating in a church that loves truth. Go ahead and get mad at us for leaving. Go ahead and accuse us of weakness and faithlessness. We can’t continue to be complicit in your deceit any longer. We have chosen to do what is right and let the consequence follow. It’s just a little bit sad that one of the consequences is that those who we once considered friends now feel a need to calumniate us in a transparent attempt to legitimize an institution built on lies. But what do I know? I’m just another apostate.
