The culture

A third of respondents named the culture as a major factor, and among those under thirty it was one of the most important reasons of all. It is also the category where the 2014 crowd-sourced list grew longest, with more than thirty distinct items. Reading them together, a pattern emerges that respondents kept describing in the same words: there was no room to be anything other than what the culture expected.

The pressures fall unevenly. Young people described a culture of perfectionism in which the standard was always just out of reach and guilt was the constant companion. Women described being valued for one role. Single members past their twenties, divorced members, and members in mixed-faith marriages described being treated as problems to be solved. Intellectually curious members described learning that questions were welcome only if they had approved answers, and that publishing the wrong ones could cost them their membership. Progressive members described sitting through political commentary from the pulpit and being told the Church was politically neutral.

The comments also make clear that culture alone rarely broke a shelf. It was the setting in which the other reasons did their work. A member who discovered the seer stone or the polyandry needed someone to talk to, and the culture ensured that anyone they talked to would assume they had sinned. "Being accused of adultery, pornography, 'wanting to sin,' 'being weak,' 'reading anti-Mormon literature,'" the list records, "when expressing legitimate doubts." The culture did not cause the doubt. It made sure the doubt had nowhere to go but out.