New Book Announcement!

Wow. It's been four years since I posted on this blog. I'm glad I was able to log in to my account and actually post on this thing. Hopefully somebody is reading this. Really, this blog is dead, because I no longer believe Mormons should stay LDS even though they don't believe in the Church anymore. So the whole title of the blog is outdated. But I don't wanna start another blog. I have enough stress in my life as it is.

Anyway... BIG NEWS!!!

I recently published a memoir about my conversion to Catholicism. It’s titled: I Used to Be Mormon but Now I’m Christian: How I Found Jesus in the Roman Catholic Church by Benjamin F. Bird. The lay evangelist and apologist Jesse Romero was kind enough to write the forward to my book. I’ll include the first chapter here, and if you’d like to read more, buy the book on Amazon or somewhere! Here’s the first chapter:

Shelter from the Storm

I walked down the hall and saw Brother Wells. “Hey, Brother Bird,” he said to me in a quiet voice, smiling.

“Hey, Brother Wells.” We shook hands. I sat down on a couch, trying to not to look nervous. 

“What brings you to the stake center?” he asked. “Are you meeting with President Cunningham?”

“Yeah, actually, I am.”

“Oooh, a meeting with the stake president! Sounds like something big.” He chuckled. “Hmmm… am I looking at the next Elders Quorum President of Cambria Ward?”

I shook my head and said, “I doubt it’s that.” I wished I could tell him what was going on, but I couldn’t. There was no way. Awkward silence hung in the air. I looked away from Brother Wells as he searched my body language for clues. 

Brother Wells spoke up again. “Well at least the weather’s nice, right? Seventy-five degrees today. You can’t beat that.”

“Yeah. Nice weather,” I said.

A few minutes passed. Finally, a man I didn’t recognize walked up to me. He was dressed in a business suit, like all the men around the church were, except for me. I was still dressed formally, just a little less formally. I wore dress shoes, black slacks, a white collared shirt with long sleeves, and a necktie. I was never one of the men who wore a suit to church. The man looked at me and said, “Brother Bird?”

I nodded.

“Great. President Cunningham is ready to see you now.”

I stood up. The man in the business suit directed me to a door nearby and opened it. My heart pounded as I walked in to the office of the stake president.

It was a Sunday afternoon in the spring of 2012. I was in Queen Creek, Arizona, a city in the southeastern part of the Phoenix metropolitan area, and I was losing my faith in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. I was twenty-nine years old.

President Cunningham could tell that I was nervous, but he tried to put me at ease. He shook my hand, looked into my eyes and smiled. “Hi, Brother Bird, let me introduce myself. I’m President Cunningham. I don’t think we’ve ever talked before.”

“Right, no, we haven’t. Right. Talked. We haven’t talked,” I stammered.

“Well, I’m glad I can finally meet you. Have a seat.”

We sat down. On the wall above him was a framed portrait displaying President Monson, President Eyring, and President Uchtdorf, the three elderly men who comprised the First Presidency. President Cunningham smiled at me. “It’s always good to meet my brothers in this part of the Lord’s vineyard. We have brothers everywhere, brothers we don’t even know about. How long have you lived in the area?”

“Four years.”

Then he looked me in the eyes and told me that he loved me. He said it suddenly and he said it directly. 

“I love you.” 

That’s an exact quote. Most of this dialogue I’m writing isn’t a literal record of actual quotes, of course. This is a memoir. This is creative non-fiction. I can barely remember what people said five minutes ago, so remembering what people said more than fourteen years ago is impossible. But those three little words, “I love you,” have stayed with me all the way until now, the year 2026. I know for a fact that he said, “I love you.”

I didn’t know how to respond. This was the first time I had ever talked to him, although I had seen him speak in countless church settings over the years. He had been my stake president ever since I moved into the area. Should I say “I love you,” back to him? Should I say thanks? I remained silent.

Then he threatened me with excommunication.

“I read your blog, Brother Bird. Let me start off by saying that I liked your poems. The one about Veterans Day was really nice.”

“Thank you.”

“But there was a lot of your blog that I didn’t enjoy. I think you know what I’m talking about. That’s what we’re here to discuss, OK?”

“Yeah, that sounds good to me.” I said. “There’s a lot I’d like to talk about, President Cunningham. I’ve been learning a lot of stuff about the church lately, like history, doctrine, new ideas. I’ve been kind of going through a hard time, so, you know, maybe it would be good to just talk about everything with a church leader.”

President Cunningham listened to me ramble for a few minutes about polygamy, seer-stones and other taboo Mormon topics. When I paused, he said, “Brother Bird, I’m inviting you to repent.”

I was shocked. Repent? How could I repent of studying the gospel? Was it wrong to write about the gospel on the internet? Isn’t that what I was supposed to do as a good Mormon? How could I repent of using my brain?

President Cunningham gave me a serious look. “I’m asking you to delete your blog.”

“You want me to delete my blog?” I asked in unbelief. “My entire blog?”

“Well, not your entire blog, just everything you wrote about the church in the past few months. Take it down.” 

“I don’t want to do that,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, because of free speech,” I said. “Isn’t this America? Don’t we believe in free speech?”

“Sure, we believe in free speech, but, Brother Bird, what you’ve been doing crosses the line. I don’t believe in the kind of speech that leads souls away from our Heavenly Father. I’m a shepherd. I have a responsibility to protect the sheep.” He leaned back, exhaled, and then leaned forward again. “You know, inside this church building, we’re protected. Think of it this way: there’s a storm outside, a storm of sin, a storm of trials and suffering, but here in the Church, there’s shelter from the storm. And Heavenly Father wants us to stay sheltered. So that’s why, as your stake president, I’m asking you to delete your blog.”

I sat back in my chair, shaking my head in disbelief at what was happening. I told him no.

President Cunningham wasn’t used to being told no. As a high-ranking Mormon church leader for decades, he was used to being obeyed. He then explained to me that the next step was to convene a church court. I was being charged with apostasy, and if the High Council found me guilty, then the punishment would be excommunication. He also explained that since the reason for my potential excommunication would be so egregious, if I ever wanted to be re-baptized, I would have to get permission from the First Presidency.

To a Mormon man, excommunication is worse than death. It means never being able to baptize your kids, give your babies a name and a blessing, enter the temple, or be married to your wife in the afterlife, in the Celestial Kingdom. She would be given to some other man, some other man who had honored his priesthood and kept his covenants. And while excommunication is officially supposed to be kept quiet, word gets around. Eventually everybody would find out that Brother Bird had changed into Mr. Bird. I would be shunned.

President Cunningham wrote down his personal cell phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to me. “Call me if you change your mind.” That was the end of the meeting.

I had learned what it was like to be a Mormon heretic. I couldn’t sleep much that night. 

I went to work the following morning, exhausted and frantic. I got to the movie screen factory early, before the loud machines had been turned on for the day. I found my friend and manager, Kirk Severtson, who was also a devout Mormon. I just had to talk to somebody, so I talked to him.

“Yeah, I don’t know about all that polygamy stuff or deep doctrine stuff,” Kirk said, “but, listen, if I were you, I would just delete everything. Then you’ll have some time to think, you know, just sort things out.” Then he told me a story.

While Kirk was on his mission in the Philippines, he encountered a demoniac. A crowd had gathered around the possessed person, including a few Catholics who were praying, but nobody could cast out the demon. Then Kirk walked up, raised his right hand to the square and said in a loud voice, “By the authority of the Melchizedek priesthood, and in the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to depart!” And the demon departed.

“That really happened,” Kirk said. “I swear, it really happened.”

As I stood on the bare concrete floor of the factory, listening to his story, I believed him.

That night, after work, and after hours of going back and forth, I made a choice. I got on the computer and deleted the stuff off of my blog. Then I picked up the phone and called President Cunningham.

“Brother Bird,” he said, “it’s good to hear your voice.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Have you already scheduled the church court?”

“No, I have not.”

“OK, good. I deleted the stuff off my blog.”

“Wonderful. I want you to know that you did the right thing. The Lord will bless you for your obedience.”

We said a few more things and then ended the phone call. He really is a good man, I told myself. He really does love me.