Is Elizabeth Smart Still Mormon? the Untold Story Behind Her New Netflix Revelations
By Robert Thorne
Smart’s most significant impact on the religious landscape centers on her fearless confrontation of purity culture. During a 2013 human trafficking summit at Johns Hopkins University, she recounted a specific Sunday school lesson from her youth that haunted her throughout captivity.
The teacher presented a fresh piece of chewing gum, passed it around the room until it was filthy, and asked who would want it. No one did. The teacher then delivered the moral: a person who engages in sexual intimacy outside marriage becomes like that chewed gum, worthless, tainted, and ruined.
During her abduction, that analogy turned toxic. Mitchell repeatedly raped her, and Smart believed she was now that piece of discarded gum. She reasoned that escaping would bring nothing but shame to her family, convincing herself that her life had lost all spiritual worth. She credited her eventual rescue to the realization that Mitchell was a predator, not a prophet, and that her intrinsic value remained untouched.
By bringing this story to national television, Smart forced an overdue reckoning within the LDS community. Salt Lake City educators and church leaders faced public demands to eliminate shame-based chastity curricula. Smart made it clear: rape is violence, not a loss of virtue, and any theology teaching otherwise is complicit in victim abuse.
Robert Thorne covers electric vehicle innovations, autonomous driving systems, global mobility trends, and automotive engineering developments.
