Former believers will, of course, typically view this as a positive. They’ve escaped the Morg. They’ve been liberated. They’ve emerged from Plato’s cave. “How could I ever have been so gullible?” they’ll ask themselves (and others). “I was brainwashed.” “They lied to me.” “I was stupid.” “I was uninformed.”
Implicitly, it represents a rather unflattering view of the faithful believers with whom they’ve broken communion.
However, an equally unflattering view is on offer from some believers, as well. One friend of mine has formulated what is known, in his honor, as Novak’s Rule: “When you leave the Church, expect your IQ to drop by about eighty points. Or, in other words, God strikes you stupid.”
And it’s true that I’ve occasionally marveled at how some apostates from the Church have seemed incapable of grasping doctrines or arguments that, I’m pretty sure, they once understood perfectly well. I’ve been surprised to see them unable to comprehend how faithful Latter-day Saints can find the Gospel enormously convincing and satisfying, whereas many of them, I think, were once themselves convinced and satisfied.
Charity is required here. But not merely on one side.
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