This month's @TheAtlantic story by @mckaycoppins is getting a ton of love in my (Mormon) Twitter circles.

Love that is, frankly, warranted. This is a great exploration of what it means for McKay to be Mormon. 1/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/01/the-most-american-religion/617263/

Like McKay, I grew up Mormon, went to BYU, served a Mormon mission (Brazil in my case) and started my career in New York (Manhattan, not Brooklyn, but I was a fancy lawyer, not a fancy journalist). 2/

In contrast to him, otoh, I've never felt the need to smile and please people about my religion.

Partly that's probably a matter of personality. He seems like a nice guy. Me? Maybe a little less.

Partly it's an issue of background. Wikipedia tells me he was raised in MA. 3/

I was raised in the San Diego area. In SoCal, there are a. Ton. Of. Mormons. We're not a majority or a plurality, but if you live in the area you know a Mormon. So I didn't get any jerkish comments about polygamy or underwear or anything like that. 4/

(FWIW, my wife, who grew up in the South, was once at a table at her school lunch where a pastor was explaining that Mormons want to get to heaven to have lots of sex. Which, (a) one of the big conflicts in our marriage is that I'm hugely offended by the idea of school-led 5/

prayer while she's not that bugged by it and (b) know your audience, dude--I'm pretty sure that the idea of heavenly sex isn't the religious deterrent this guy thought it was, at least to teenagers.) (Also, if you're going to bring up polygamy, religious underwear, or post- 6/

mortal sex with me, it better not be a throwaway thing--you'd better be willing to really engage with it.)

Third thing: unlike his journalistic colleagues, my academic colleagues (and especially #TaxTwitter folks) are tremendously open and respectful. My religion has never 7/

been a professional or personal barrier for me.

Which takes us to something else: like McKay, my experience of Mormonism is as a white, straight, over-educated man. Sure, I'm politically liberal, which puts me at odds with many of my coreligionists, but I'm the demographic 8/

that is most powerful in my religion.

And that's a critical point: the experience of Mormonism is not, contrary to popular opinion, a monolithic experience. Some of us support same-sex marriage. Some of us support women's ordination (though note @KHaglund1's explanation of 9/

why that resonates differently inside and outside the church). Some of us don't.

Some of us believe, our doctrinal convictions notwithstanding, that church leaders are (or should be) perfect. Some of us don't.

Some of us (me!) went to BYU. Some (my wife!) didn't. 10/

For some of us, our Mormonism is front and center to who we are. For others, it's central but not uniquely central. For still others, it's one part of our identity but not a critical one. 11/

But anyway, the piece by @mckaycoppins is a great exploration of one version of what it means to be Mormon in the modern United States, with all of its contradictions and synergies. And it's a great introduction to lived Mormonism. 12/

Two last thoughts: (1) Coppins talks about being in high school (I assume) when Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped. I was in law school. Which reminds me either of how young he is or how old I am. 13/

(2) I don't remember the @jacobwe article that Coppins cites but man, unless he's come around, that dude is an asshole,* a bigot and a remarkably narrow thinker. His statement demonstrates a supremely unsophisticated approach toward religious belief. 14/ https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/12/a-mormon-president-no-way.html

* I know the Mormons you know don't say things like "asshole." I don't usually either, but I'll say it on Twitter. 15/15