This is a comment from a post that’s two years old at By Common Consent.
Take one girl and have her sing “I’m a Mormon” and “Book of Mormon Stories” all through her childhood. Immerse her in the scriptures and teach her that there is only one way to happiness in this life and the next.
Emphasize her pioneer heritage and attend many large family reunions at which grandmothers will speak tearfully of how grateful they are to have 100% of their progeny faithful LdS.
Encourage her to attend BYU, and watch with pride as she marries in the temple and has three children.
Listen uncomfortably as she voices concerns about the church, about history and doctrine, about current practices and beliefs. Be alarmed as she cries about the prospect of raising her children in this religion. Be unable to really understand, or talk about it anymore.
This girl will have a lot to say and work through and sort out. She will need people who understand the radical paradigm shift she has experienced. She goes online, and finds people there talking about these things. Slowly, day by day, she comes to terms with her deep disillusionment.
She reads and writes to know she is not alone. That is the ground zero answer for all of the disaffected presense, and this presense overlaps into the faithful bloggernacle because:
1. There are still many interesting conversations that pertain to a post-Mormon.
2. Once one has gone through this epiphany, this shift in faith, the truth seems so clear. The impulse to engage, to talk and debate, to share, is very strong.
With some distinctions, I think this captures the spirit of cultural Mormonism. My questions would be: what if you take out certain parts? Can you take out BYU and can you take out generations upon generations of Mormons? Is growing up with “Book of Mormon Stories” and other primary songs enough? As I (and a few of my commenters at Mormon Matters) wrote, I think that correlation provides the majority of Mormon culture…so anyone who has been active in the correlated gospel an be cultural Mormon. This means that Utah doesn’t matter; BYU doesn’t matter; what matters is that church experience that remains similar worldwide.
And also the “meta-culture” — the sense of thinking about Mormon culture, especially because it is different from the outside world. “Being in the world, but not of it.” This gives people a distinct cultural Mormonism as well, I think. The reason people leave the church but don’t leave it alone is because you can never be non-Mormon when you’ve been Mormon. Ex-Mormonism or former Mormonism will always be different from never being Mormon, and every Mormon and ex-Mormon recognizes this intuitively.
EDIT: Even Orson Scott Card recognizes the vibrancy of cultural Mormonism. So it’s not just me!