Lauren Jackson

It was extraordinarily difficult for me to not only leave that community, but begin to challenge a faith and an ideology that was really comprehensive.

What did that look like?

The first week I was there, I fell in love with someone who was not a member of my faith.

And it's a very common rupture for a lot of people who then have to begin to question what it is they believe in and how they can negotiate the boundaries of that.

Because the way you were raised, it was like, yeah, you were meant to be with someone from the same faith.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I also encountered ideas, you know, I, in a political science class, read Isaiah Berlin on pluralism, the idea that many truths and realities are equally valid and worthy of consideration and examination.

And that really cracked my world open, that idea, that concept that there was not one true church, there could be many possible truths.

And for me personally, that, you know, was the beginning of a huge reckoning, one that continued as I attended graduate school abroad.

And at the age of 25, I ultimately formally left the church.

How does that affect your relationship with your family, given how you were raised?

I mean...

Of course, if a parent truly and deeply believes that a religion is true and is the best path to follow and they desperately love their child, they're going to want their child to follow it.

So it was an exercise in empathy and trying to understand and really accept my parents' perspective while also holding my own.

Mom, I need you to know that

I am grateful for the many positive things in many ways that being Mormon has brought me.

I'm no longer choosing to be Mormon.

Okay, that sounds good to you.

You know, these were tough conversations, but I knew even then that these were really important moments in my life and that I wanted to remember them accurately, so I recorded them.