Mormon Stories 1475: Mormon Seminary Teacher Leaves the Church - Laura Schnell - Pt. 3

When the Seminary Teacher Stops Teaching: Laura Schnell and the Cost of Institutional Faith

Laura Schnell spent years teaching LDS seminary in Utah County, shaping the faith of teenagers while quietly managing her own growing discomfort with what she was required to believe and model. Her story, told across three episodes of the Mormon Stories Podcast, raises a question that the institutional church rarely wants asked out loud: what happens to employees whose loyalty to the organization is also a financial survival strategy?

The answer, in Schnell's case, is that the questioning waited. And waited. Until she no longer needed a paycheck from the Church Educational System to feed her family.

Background: The CES Job as a Faith Filter

The Church Educational System (CES) employs thousands of teachers across the United States and internationally to deliver religious instruction to youth, primarily through seminary and institute programs. Getting that job requires demonstrated orthodoxy. Keeping it requires the same.

Schnell, who immigrated to the United States from Colombia and built her identity partly around obedience and devotion, describes the role honestly in the Mormon Stories interview. "It's a job requirement," she said, referring to the selective blindness required to stay employed. "You have to choose to be blind sometimes."