Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher

Former LDS seminary teacher processing the problems with Mormonism

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

I decided to be like the cool kids and create an anonymous Twitter account to talk about Mormon stuff. I recently taught my final seminary lesson and I'm ready to talk about trying to teach with one foot out the door. 1/20

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

For the record, I'm not planning to keep them forever. I just want someone to acknowledge my existence long enough to realize that I shouldn't have keys anymore. That's it. It's not a big ask.

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

Over the last year or so I've thought a lot about how as a single adult woman, I'm invisible in the church. Recently I decided to test my theory.

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

It's been three months. Seminary starts tomorrow. Guess who still has keys.

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

Accidentally had a post get way more attention than planned on my regular account, so I'm not sure there's much use for an alt. Oops. This is me. https://t.co/2GMczHyCmt I'll keep this account live, but probably won't use it much.

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

@deconning After entering the celestial room my dad asked if I had any questions. The first thing I said was, "What did I just promise?" (This was 2012, so before the church started making things more public.)

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

@deconning Honestly, this is the sort of stuff I thought would be in the temple. Answers to deep questions, more about the nature of God and how we'll become gods, etc. The meat after milk. Not the weird masonic stuff.

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

@Aletterfromhom1 I didn't have to teach to the assessment (early morning, not for school credit), but the material absolutely does not address church history issues. I allowed my students to ask questions, but getting into these issues was beyond the scope of the correlated curriculum.

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

@Aletterfromhom1 @CarbonMfg Definitely agree with you about how the material doesn't cover the issues, but my team teacher and I did printed tests for OT and NT. I think it depends a bit on the region and the area coordinator. We were told as long as they showed up the day of the assessment they got 100%.

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

@deconning Hopefully they got something from it. There were several times I said something like "the lesson says I'm supposed to tell you this." Because I didn't want to teach things that aren't true, but I also didn't want phone calls from parents haha

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

@JasonKomm @shelflessbishop Prophets don't, but it seems profit does.

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

@deconning what I was supposed to while also teaching what the apocalyptic chapters really are. The interpretations the church puts forth on biblical material range from mainstream to wacky to harmful and for the latter two categories, I tried to point them out. It's a tricky line to walk.

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

@deconning This reminds me of when I had to teach the latter part of Daniel. The church has interpretations that don't fit the history of the text. So I taught the text and then added "JS interpreted x passage like this." That way I covered the material and technically taught

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

Not directly related to the meme (which is fantastic), but the meme sparked the memory.

[Confessions of a Former Seminary Teacher @formerldsteach]

I was once in a small setting with Elder Holland (less than 100 people) and he spoke about walking away from the church. He said if any of us in that room left, he prayed we would never meet because we couldn't explain it and he wouldn't understand it.