In the case where an LDS member has what is often called a "crisis of faith" and can longer bring themselves to believe in some or all of the doctrines and policies of the LDS Church, this blog series presents the option of basically not "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" by being an Independent Mormon. In other words, I will be presenting a way to still maintian one's "Mormon" identity independently of any particular LDS Restoration sect or denomination. I wrote this information for myself and intend this to help anyone else interested in maintaining their LDS heritage even if they choose to not be an "active" LDS member in any particular LDS sect.
I am writing to those who have chosen not to obey and "sustain" the LDS Brethren. Those who have, as Christian Kimball describes in his book, differentiated from a parent-to-child dynamic and a codependent mentality than can occur among some (no not all) LDS members. But those who also do not want to go down the road of being "anti-Mormonism" and abandon their Mormon heritage entirely. So a "third option" is what I'm calling Independent-Mormonism (or Free-Range Mormonism) which is basically a nondenominational way to be Mormon. Interestingly, someone even published a Nondenominational Edition of the Book of Mormon (see video here).
A key component of Independent-Mormonism (or Free-Range Mormonism) is distinguishing between the "philosophy of Mormonism," as atriculated well by Kwaku El in his discussion with Carah Burrel in 2024 (seen here) and the different LDS sects. My own personal version of Independent Mormonism is a focus on the original philosophy of Mormonism through primarily the Smith-Pratt Lens. As I see it, one's LDS heritage and that grounding Smith-Pratt philosophy is independent of the differing denominational corporate policies of the differing LDS denominations.
Another key component of Independent Mormonism is the emphasis on scriptural Mormonism. In a scripture-focused Mormonism, as Joseph Smith taught, "a prophet is a prophet only when he is acting as such," and some revelations (like the ones through Hiram Page's stone) are not always considered divine writ by the body of LDS believers. For a doctrine or policy to be binding it needs to go through the process of common consent. Many LDS sects today have anadoned the way set out in LDS Scripture and as I see it there is a cultural phenomenon where some (not all) LDS members (and other LDS sects) engage in the formation of a "cult of personality": wherein the top leaders are treated like infallible Pope's and celebrities. So that every 20 years Mormon culture is reformed by the personality and temperament and pet peeves or personal projects of that current LDS President. None of this behavior is supported by actual official LDS revelation, doctrine, in LDS Scripture. It is a cultural phenomenon.
According to Britannica.com, the core doctrines of the Protestant Reformation were:
... justification by grace alone through faith, the priesthood of all believers, and the supremacy of Holy Scripture in matters of faith and order.
The reason for these core doctrines that made up the Protestant Reformation were due to the corruptions that took place in the Catholic Church: such as the sale of indulgences and a priestly hiearchy leading to an infallible Pope and a lack of checks and balances and corruption in the leadership. Also, the system of pious perfectionism through the confessional led to Catholic Monks like Martin Luther to feel perpetually inadequate and shamed, feeling like he could never live up to perfect piety; while also repressing his biological instincts as a celibate monk. When Luther gained the insight from scripture study, that he was worthy already and saved by grace alone and not through the constant attendance of the confessional, and that he did not need to be celibate; he must have been filled with a profound alleviation of stress and anxiety and an overwhelming feeling of freedom!
I have experienced this same feeling of alleviation and freedom from a Mormon perspective, wherein I have realized that original Mormonism was more like Protestantism in giving members more security through the doctrine of grace alone and more freedom of conscience and speech and behavior.
Where Mormonism differs drastically from Protestantism is that Mormon theology left the Canon open and living oracles capable of adding to the spiritual canon. But there needs to be checks and balances to avoid "leadership worship." D&C 28 explains that revelations and commandments that are binding on all LDS members needed to align with other scrptural "covenants" in LDS scripture (otherwise they could be deemed writings not of God, see D&C 28:11). Binding practices also had to be approved "by common consent in the church" for authoratative cannonization, as section 28 makes clear: "For all things must be done in order" (D&C 28:13). This process is missing today in many of the LDS denominations where the mere opinioms of the leaeder is trated as if scripture without being approved by common consent or cannonized. A good example of this is a recent Area 70 dealing with the toxic shame taught by a previous LDS leader and him saying we can reject dead prohets and go with living ones. I discuss this in the section titled The Case for Many “Mormonisms” but One Zion People in the document here. The problem with ignoring dead prophets for living one's is one day those living ones with be dead ones too, so what's considered true today can be changed to untrue tomorrow. I think a better criteria for truth is the Standard Works, the Canon of LDS Scripture and the checks and balances laid out in those scriptures as to what is what is not binding on LDS Christians.
The Standard Works as the Yardstick:
Here is a good samp,ing of Brighamite (LDS) leaders on the authority of scripture over leader's opinions:
Harold B. Lee:
If anyone, regardless of his position in the Church, were to advance a doctrine that is not substantiated by the standard Church works, meaning the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, you may know that his statement is merely his private opinion. The only one authorized to bring forth any new doctrine is the President of the Church, who, when he does, will declare it as revelation from God, and it will be so accepted by the Council of the Twelve and sustained by the body of the Church. And if any man speak a doctrine which contradicts what is in the standard Church works, you may know by that same token that it is false and you are not bound to accept it as truth. (The First Area General Conference for Germany, Austria, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, and Spain of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held in Munich Germany, August 24–26, 1973, Reports and Discourses, p.69)
Harold B. Lee:
It is not to be thought that every word spoken by the General Authorities is inspired, or that they are moved upon by the Holy Ghost in everything they [speak] and write. Now you keep that in mind. I don't care what his position is, if he writes something or speaks something that goes beyond anything that you can find in the standard church works, unless that one be the prophet, seer, and revelator—please note that one exception—you may immediately say, "Well, that is his own idea." And if he says something that contradicts what is found in the standard church works (I think that is why we call them "standard"—it is the standard measure of all that men teach), you may know by that same token that it is false, regardless of the position of the man who says it. ("Place of the Living Prophet, Seer and Revelator," Stand in Holy Places, (1974), p.162-163; originally delivered on 8 July 1964)
Joseph Fielding Smith:
It makes no difference what is written or what anyone has said, if what has been said is in conflict with what the Lord has revealed, we can set it aside. My words, and the teachings of any other member of the Church, high or low, if they do not square with the revelations, we need not accept them. Let us have this matter clear. We have accepted the four standard works as the measuring yardsticks, or balances, by which we measure every man's doctrine.
The standard works are scripture. They are binding upon us. They are the mind and will and voice of the Lord. He never has, he does not now, and he never will reveal anything which is contrary to what is in them. No person, speaking by the spirit of inspiration, will ever teach doctrine that is out of harmony with the truths God has already revealed....
Bruce R. McConkie:
Men who wear the prophetic mantle are still men; they have their own views; and their understanding of gospel truths is dependent upon the study and inspiration that is theirs. Some prophets—I say it respectfully—know more and have greater inspiration than others. Thus, if Brigham Young, who was one of the greatest of the prophets, said something about Adam which is out of harmony with what is in the Book of Moses and in section 78, it is the scripture that prevails. This is one of the reasons we call our scriptures The Standard Works. They are the standard of judgment and the measuring rod against which all doctrines and views are weighed, and it does not make one particle of difference whose views are involved. The scriptures always take precedence. ("Finding Answers to Gospel Questions," Letter dated 1 July 1980. Published in Teaching Seminary Preservice Readings, Religion 370, 471, and 475 (2004))
President Gordon B. Hinckley:
“‘The Standard Works’ … are the reservoir of our doctrine from which flows the waters of gospel light. They provide the standard by which all gospel doctrine is measured. All other [materials] should spring from the word of the Lord as set forth in these volumes” (“Cornerstones of Responsibility” [regional representatives’ seminar, 5 Apr. 1991], 2).
Most of the Smith-Rigdon Restoration Movements stick to the LDS Scriptures as their source of authority as well. What this means for the Independent Mormon is that many ideas and practices thought to be binding on the LDS Christian is actually not binding at all, but are based on a particular sect's corporate policy and not actual scripture. For example, D&C 89 does not ban someone from the temple because they drink coffee and in fact the section says that this teachings are not given by commandment nor constraint. This has led one LDS YouTube channel Keystone (in April 2025), to say that someday coffee might be allowed in the Mormon Church again as it was for the first several decades.
Scripture-focused Peoplehood & Not Sola Scriptura and Creedalism:
The way I see it, the core LDS Scriptures contain some Protestant sounding doctrines and ideas, but the emphasis on living oracles akin to the revelatory Moses and apostle Paul, an open canon, gathering thectribes of Israel, and deification (through grace through the merits of Christ alone) makes Mormonism unique and not Protestant.
I am "Mormon" and not Protestant because I don't see any reason to justify a "closed cannon," and I value many of the teachings and revelations through Joseph Smith and his Americanized version of Christianity. I appreciate and value the innovations in theology and practice, that turned Mormonism into something closer to ancient Israel "tribally," and closer to Eastern Orthodox Christianity in hiearchial structure and theology.
In my document Toward A Theology of the Body and my blog series here, I make the case that the early LDS priesthood hiearchy, provided a structure that would eventually bolster the practice of polygamy; which I think had a temporary goal and design to it: which was to change the consciousness of Mormons (from 1844 to 1900) toward embracing the idea that God the Father had a physical body of flesh and thus made sensuality and passions godly. I the process of basically mimicking the biblical polygamists Abraham and Jacob of the Old Testament, my own LDS ancestors produced a quasi-ethnic Peoplehood. In contrast, when I have attended Protestant churches they do not give me that feeling of a quasi-ethnic connectivity as a people (that I feel among LDS sects), because these Protestants focus more on their Creeds over cultural identity and Peoplehood.
So after a faith crisis and disagreements with the LDS sects, as for me today as I write this 2026, instead of being a cynical and nihilistic exmormon atheist, I choose to see the mostly good in Mormonism, philosophically and culturally. My own Pioneer ancestors in Nauvoo and Utah in the 1800s formed a tribal Peoplehood and I feel good being part of that "tribe," even if only independently on the edge. For I am a product of this identity formation as my own Mormon Pioneer ancestors on both sides of my family practiced plural marriage and funnelled my Anglo-Scandinavian nature and cultural history into the making of the Mormon People.
As an Independent Mormon I respect and appreciate my own ancestors practicing of plural marriage and what that accomplished. But I also don't need to literally believe in polygamy if I don't want to. The fact is D&C 132 was never actually canonized by Joseph Smith himself. In fact, just before Smith died in 1844, he edited and approved of a final canon of LDS Scripture in 1844 that did not include the D&C 132 while he reedited and recannonized the 1835 D&C 101 and the Lectures on Faith. This to me shows that Joseph Smith was simply exploring ideas in the 1840s, and we don't know what he would or would not have done if he had survived after 1844. All we know for certain is that what he decided to canonize as official doctrine was the theology in the original LDS Scriptures, for example the 1835 Lectures on Faith and the original 1835 D&C 101 (that declared monogamy the official doctrine of the LDS Church). When Joseph Smith was alive, D&C 89 on the Word of Wisdom was not practiced as a "commandment or contraint." All of this changed after 1900, when in 1921 the top LDS Leaders removed the original doctrine of the Lectures on Faith; and being influenced by the temperance movement and Prohibition in the 1900s, the Brighamite Brethren changed the original meaning of section 89 by making the Word of Wisdom a commandment and constraint on the membership after 1921.
Defining Brethrenism in contrast to Independent Mormonism:
Since a picture is worthless 1000 words, here is an image summarizing what I call Brethrenism or Brethrenite Mormonism:
I agree with all the words in the diagram above individually, except the word "obey." Note that in the image above the "Doctrine of Christ" is basically defined as obeying the Brethren (with the phrase "repent and obey"), with repenting meaning: subjecting oneself to "worthiness" interviews where a Brethrenite approved male Priest, a Bishop and/or Stake President acting as judge and jury over you behind closed doors, determines your worthiness (perfect purity) or unworthiness (impurity); as you are labeled as such (essentially pure or stained in their eyes); and if labeled "unworthy," one is subjected to whatever humiliating and punitive ecclesiastical punishments the priesthood holder decides to impose upon you based on his subjective assessment and personality type. Brethrenism is thus linked to Perfectionism and Purity Culture.
The Brethrenite emphasis on ordinances includes exclusive Temple rites, with the Brethren claiming to be the only ones with the authority to control and change the rituals. They also control what is and what is not considered scripture without regard to the original doctrine of Common Consent. The Brethren also demand large amounts of money (tithing) from members as mandatory before the member is allowed to enter and receive the ritual ordinances which are said to be required to enter the highest degrees of heaven.
Thus the Brethrenite model of "obey us or else," entails receiving their allegedly necessary ritual ordinances in order to be able to enter through the "pearly gates" (with angels standing guard), before experiencing God the Father. As they claim to have the sole authority to administer these necessary rituals to get into the highest degree of heaven. This is just one version of Mormonism. I am arguing that there are other versions of Mormonism that are not "high demand," but provide a greater degree of freedom based on the dictates of one's own conscience (rather than blind obedience to the dictates of the will and whims of any Brethren in any of the LDS sects).
Free-Range (Independent) Mormonism" vs. Correlated Brethrenism:
A good example of Independent Mormonism is the more simplistic Doctrine of Christ in the Book of Mormon as explained by Jacob IsBell in his YouTube video The Doctrine of Christ versus The Covenant Path. Note that I don't agree with every historical or theological position of Jacob IsBell, but on this particular subject I agree with him.
For more details on the concept of the simple Doctrine of Christ and how it relates to Free-Range Mormonism, see my two blog series below:
Here is a bullet point summary of how Uncorrelated Free-Range Mormonism is different from Brethrenism:
- Free-Range Independent Mormonism (or FIM) is more like a Farm-like "Ecclesia" than a caged Zoo.
- FIM is focused more on a respect for LDS Scripture as poetic art as a transformative Ethos. So that it is more about an inside out transformation of character by "feasting on the words of Christ" in Scripture. Rather than following a check list.
- In FIM, decisions are based more on the dictates of one's own conscience rather than just obeying the will of the Brethren.
- FIM respects the Law of Common Consent. This means that no Mormon sect can declare new doctrine or policy or "Thus saith the Lord" without claiming to have received an actual revelation and having it voted on and passed by common consent and then canonized in Scripture by the body of believers in said sect.
- FIM abides by the actual LDS Scriptures which taught paying tithing on your surpluss and it is voluntary and not mandatory to go the temple and earn access to the celestial heavens.
- Garments are optional and not necessary. For in the Independent Mormon perspective, LDS Garments were designed to be reminders of the Freemasonic rituals (like the penalty oaths that were removed in 1990 from the Brighamite LDS ritual), which in and of themselves were designed to keep polygamy a secret. Now that polygamy has ended after 1900, garments, as a product of polygamy, makes no sense as a requirement by the Brethren. However, if one chooses to wear them voluntarily without threat of losing their Temple recommend, I fully support that.
- The Word of Wisdom in D&C 89 was originally intended as "wise advice" and the text says clearly that it was not a commandment nor a constraint. Thus, when the Brighamite LDS sect decided to reject the original plain meaning of D&C 89 in the year 1921, and turn the advice of the Word of Wisdom into instead a commandment (and something forbidden by the Brethren), and made it into a constraint on LDS members: they began to mimic the corruption in the Catholic Church, which led to the Protestant Reformation. This authoritarian and controlling move also mimicked the Pharisees who Jesus condemned for changing the meaning of the Jewish Scriptures with their added traditions and policies.
Note that another option to the person who rejects Brethrenism but doesn't want to be a Nondenominational Mormon is that one can choose to be part of a non-Brighamite Restoration Church as there are many sects and denominations.
In conclusion, my goal in this introductory post is to help those having a crisis of faith and no longer wish to attend the Brigamite sect, by showing how they have options and exmormon atheism is only one of those options. They don't need to "throw out the baby with the bathwater," they can maintain their cultural identity and Mormon heritage and appreciate the Mormon philosophy and Scripturesxon their own terms as an Independent Mormon mormon. To be clear, I am not encouraging the active and happy LDS member (in anynof the LDS denominations) to become an Independent Mormon, this is only for those who have already experienced a crisis of faith but want to hang on to their tribal identity as a Mormon.
