Now that I’ve gathered all of Outer Blogness (that I could find anyway), and updated the blogroll here accordingly, I’d like to suggest an assignment.
This is inspired Wry Catcher’s hilarious post about her baptism and why she hasn’t resigned (she was baptized by two different religions and figures they cancel each other out 😉 ), which, in turn, was inspired by Ned Flanders’ post on why he resigned.
So what about you? Have you posted your baptism story and/or why you resigned (or didn’t) or how you got ex’ed? If so, please link to your post in the comments here. If you don’t have a blog, you can tell your stories here.
I’ve posted about why I haven’t resigned, but I haven’t posted my baptism story yet. Maybe I will…
Here’s
mine (sort of).
It is this simple,I resigned from the lds cult last year,to send a strong message,that we former members are not going to tolerate the sexual abuse,and corruption by some of those evil mormon bishops,because if you don’t resign and continue to let your name stay on their roll,you are still apart of something evil,which makes you guilty by association,and remember that the biblical Jesus Christ said as a believer we should have nothing to do with evil,because my former mormon bishop is a monster,he sexually abused his step daughter and got her pregnant,at the same time while being married to his step daughters mother,and now this same evil mormon bishop,have fathered several children with his step daughter,because according to the holy bible this what my former bishop did is a abomination and evil,and all who do these evils deeds are hell bound,so yes this is one of the main reasons that I resigned,because some mormon bishops are complete liars and hypocrites.
Truth Teller — I understand your anger, particularly since you’ve witnessed monstrous behavoir. And I hope that by commenting here, I won’t discourage others from posting their honest feelings as you have done.
At the same time, in the interest of not starting any fights here, I’d just like to point out that (1) people who were baptized as children and feel that they shouldn’t be obligated to actively resign can hardly be accused of actively supporting something evil, and (2) Even though some Mormons are hypocrites and/or criminals, that doesn’t necessarily mean the organization is evil, or even that Mormonism has a higher proportion of criminals and abusers than other churches. This blog regularly lists sex offenders from the clergy of all different religions. That said, I don’t want to let the LDS church off the hook if they’ve shielded abusers from the law (as some have claimed they have).
chanson said:
“That said, I don’t want to let the LDS church off the hook if they’ve shielded abusers from the law (as some have claimed they have).”
I think where the concern in that regard is what is known as the priest-penitent privilege. In the past, whatever you said to your religious leader for spiritual purposes (e.g. repentance) was legally considered ‘protected’ and religious leaders were not obligated to disclose the information unless they knew that a crime was about to be committed or someone’s life was in danger.
For example, if Vinnie goes to his local parish church and asks the priest if he will go to hell because he’s planning to kill Lenny in a couple of days, the priest has a duty to inform Lenny of the threat if it is credible and also to report Vinnie to the authorities. What is less clear is what happens if Vinnie confesses to killing Lenny. Does the priest have an obligation to report it? I would say, probably no.
Recently, however, most states have changed their statutes, so that if someone confesses to child or elder abuse, the priest has to report it to the authorities. It has been (and continues to be) a very unsettled area of law (especially as far as federal law is concerned) and so, historically, in a lot of cases, bishops and stake presidents were unsure of what to do. This doesn’t mean that mistakes weren’t made or that the Church is blameless (and I think the Mormon church should be held accountable in instances where it was blameworthy or negligent), but I don’t think that it reflects on the membership at large. If sexual abuse was absolutely systemic and the result of Church teachings, that’s different, but no one can seriously argue that that is the case.
As far as resigning membership goes, it seems like an ‘in’ thing right now. I don’t see why anyone would go through the whole hassle of actually sitting down to compose a letter, find the right size envelope, insert the letter into the envelope, seal the envelope, put sufficient postage on it, and then walk all the way to the mailbox to post it. Seems like an awful lot of work for little payoff. It’s kind of like renouncing your American citizenship. Sure you don’t have to pay US income taxes any more, but you’ll always be an American.
Hi, dpc:
and THUS IT IS SO in the UBER-Legalistic world of LDS “religion”. Thing NOTHING of the victim, Only of the person who comes in (feigning sorrow) to a church leader…
The ‘rights’ of the victim and of the community to be free of this scumbag behavior-conduct.
In light of LDS & religion attempts to appear (GASP) BE moral & ethical… this is a Giant OOPS. IMHO
i have been working on my deconversion story for a while. i’ve done five parts, but now i’m stuck. i’ve been working on it a bit, but i just can’t move forward for some reason…perhaps because i feel so vulnerable.
i addressed my conversion in this post:
http://onthespiral.blogspot.com/2007/11/all-about-my-disaffection-part-i-early.html
i don’t talk about the baptism so much, in particular, but just the whole experience of converting. and i’ve worked to the point of where i started to really doubt in the following four posts, which anyone is welcome to read if they have three years or so and nothing better to do.
http://onthespiral.blogspot.com/2007/12/on-my-disaffection-part-ii-engagement.html
http://onthespiral.blogspot.com/2007/12/on-my-disaffection-part-iii-endowment.html
http://onthespiral.blogspot.com/2007/12/on-my-disaffection-part-iv-sealing-lds.html
http://onthespiral.blogspot.com/2007/12/on-my-disaffection-part-v-culture-wars.html
chanson good point but,sexuall abuse is a common thing in mormonism and trying to cover it up,because this evil is the fruits of mormonism,and yes guy noir said it right,because that is exactly what my former mormon bishop is a piece of scum,because I am a born again christian and I have not witnessed no abuse or corruption at my new bible base christian church,but at my christian church what I have experienced is affection and love,now that’s the fruit of christianity and Jesus Christ,and it truly feels wonderful,to know the truth and to be set free.P.S everyone know now that joseph smith was a fake and a fraud,and had 33 wives,and that joseph smith killed 2 men right before he died,and I also know that joseph smith was a con and that he had sex with a teen name fanny alger,which was evil and nasty,and that joseph smith was the one who lied about getting revelations from God to start polygamy,which still haunts the lds cult today,and which is still practiced in some lds circles,so I guess my former evil mormon bishop was just following in the footsteps of the false prophet name joseph smith,because as you all know polygamy is still part of lds cult doctrine. I love you all,from a christian brother
wow, that was really ugly. my apologies, but i don’t know how to embed unless i have a button for it. 🙂
it makes me sad to see such anger and misinformation directed at the church. the church has plenty of truly bizarre and awful things about it without spreading lies or making stuff up or believing ridiculous things. that really gives a bad name to those of who left not our of anger or offense but because we considered things intensely and honestly and decided that it was not the proper place for us to be, who feel that we have grown out of the church more than anything and perhaps see it as an annoyance from time to time but bear it no true malevolence. it’s statements like those that make it impossible for me to communicate with my heartbroken and bitter in-laws, who seem to think i’m going to picket the temple any day now, and refuse to discuss this issue because they are sure we will spew anti-mormon rhetoric like that posted above. it’s very frustrating.
Hi DPC,
Why bother writing a letter to resign? I asked myself that question for ten years. I finally did because I realized that the Church still considered me a member; just in active.
That I stopped going was not enough for them to cancel my membership. Granted they are a huge organization, and can’t be bothered to look at every in-active and figure out if they want to leave.
They do however keep track of in-actives to find out where their records should be sent. So for ten years my records followed me around to the various states I lived; with my relatives help.
Which is why someone would bother to send in a resignation letter.
BTW
My exit story is linked to my name in my last comment.
Guy said:
“Thing [sic] NOTHING of the victim, Only of the person who comes in (feigning sorrow) to a church leader…”
I don’t think that’s a good summary of what I said. If you read my comment carefully, you’ll see that I agreed with chanson and that I was merely expounding on what she had said. I said that:
“I think the Mormon church should be held accountable in instances where it was blameworthy or negligent”
Said in a different way, in cases where it was negligent or blameworthy, the Mormon church should be held accountable *to the victims*. If certain church leaders failed to properly supervise known child molesters and keep them away from vulnerable members, the Church should certainly internalize the cost of allowing that kind of behavior via the current legal mechanisms.
I was discoursing on the idea of the Mormon church as evil because the idea that its leaders harbored child molesters and protected them from the long arm of the law. I merely stated my opinion that it was possible that where the church failed to protect its members from child molesters stemmed from the uncertainties that historically arose from the confessional privilege. It may seem perpetrator-biased (I would go into more detail, but no one wants to hear exactly why such privileges are desirable), but I didn’t write the law, I only shared my comments relating to it.
truthy said:
“that is exactly what my former mormon bishop is a piece of scum,because I am a born again christian”
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, I suppose… 😉
DPC, you are making some good points. However, the priest-penitent privilege is not usually the issue in Mormon sex abuse cases.
The issue is more often that priesthood authority by local and general authorities have had a pattern of intimidating members who have reported sex abuse.
It is not unusual that victims have been threatened with excommunication. The Mormon Alliance even reports a case of two mothers getting excommunicated for insisting that the accusations of their children get properly investigated. There are several other cases of ecclesiastical intimidation of whistle blowers reported in the mainstream media and in court.
Finally, it is no accident that Lavina Anderson, who documented such abuses, was excommunicated herself.
Not even the Roman Catholic Church has excommunicated believers protesting sex abuse.
I do not blame the LDS Church for sex abuse within our ranks. Although that is a serious issue, sex abuse happens within every institution. The problem with the LDS Church is that there is so little that one can do about abuse, be it sex abuse or the priesthood cover up.
In that respect, we really do belong to an extremely poorly designed and operated institution that actually promotes abuse.
I would like to add that, in every human endeavor or organization there have always been and always wil be abusers; regardless of rules or how enlightened it might be.
There is no reason why the LDS church should be immune from that.
Hey there is something that can be done,call americas most wanted,and let john walsh arrest the monster scum where ever they find them,so justice will be served,because the lds cult do not like it when the law get involved,because it puts a negative reflection on them as a whole,because we all know that it is not about truth that matters to the lds leaders,it is all about putting on and potraying a perfect image when it comes to mormonism,so yes let the law do their job,but in order for the law to do their jobs,someone must first report the abuse,because as a born again christian it is every believers moral job and duty to report the evil abuse.
Hellmut,
What you say raises a good point. Whistleblowers are punished, not because the Church promotes abuse, but because overzealous local priesthood holders would rather such matters remain internal, so as not to muddy the name of the church. Ironically, this is counterproductive. People are a lot more forgiving if you just come clean and admit that one of your members is a predator and deal with it. I could be completely wrong, but it’s probably better to excommunicate one child abuser than it is to let a hundred people resign because of injustice.
I also think that to combat abuse, the church should really set up a investigatory body to deal with complaints of abuse, especially if local church leaders are not effectively dealing with it. Local leaders can be in a bind because sometimes they are too emotionally connected to members involved. These are difficult cases, especially for a lay ministry. An investigatory body that was free from pre-existing biases could deal with certain situations much more effectively and issue recommendations that local leaders defy at their own peril.
Why resign? To keep the home teachers off my doorstep. 🙂 The fact that I get counted in the 12 million also bothers me on an idealistic level.
Why haven’t I resigned? Because my wife asked me not to.
truth teller,
Would you support putting the abusive bishops in a pit and then informing them that they must fight to the death as well? Would you bet money on the winner?
Or would you simply be satisfied if you were allowed personally to go and kick each one in the nards?
I don’t think anyone here disputes the idea that abusive bishops ought to be arrested, by the way.
dpc:
Gimme a BREAK!
just who would these ‘investigators’ report / be accountable to? the church hierarchy is the only possible entity, isn’t it? Are things ‘independent’ in the LDS church, -or- are they ‘correlated’. Im told that ppl going to LDS social services MUST sign a release of confidentality to leaders…UGH!
It’s plain: Need to get these complaints OUT OF the leadership loop; it looks out more for self than for victims…. LDS culture is like a trap sprung ready to snare those who complain/make waves, isn’t it?
chandelle,
I vote that you finish your story. 🙂
Local incompetence is part of the problem, dpc. Unfortunately, the Mormon Alliance documents that general authorities are part of the problem.
General authorities have covered the cover up, instigated the cover up, and demanded that local authorities excommunicate whistle blowers and scholars.
Besides, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles can vacate any excommunication. The fact that they don’t overrule the excommunication of the victims’ mothers renders our highest leaders complicit in the abuse.
That’s an excellent idea, dpc. It would be even better if there was a canon law that would actually govern church discipline and was available to the accused.
When I realized that I supported abuse, I decided to stop pay tithing because I did not want to remain complicit. It was a real heartbreaker but I only have myself to blame for being too uncritical of authority.
Jonathan — I agree, I’d like to hear the rest of Chandelle’s story.
In the meantime (even though it’s a bit off-topic from the current thread-jack 😉 ), I’ll tell my baptism story:
It would be cool if, like Wry Catcher, I could say I’d refused and they baptized me anyway. 😉 But as a Mormon kid I was thrilled to be getting baptized. Of course they make a huge deal of it and start getting kids psyched about it from an early age.
I was a little worried about reaching the “age of accountability” which meant my sins would would start getting tallied on my permanent record for Judgment Day. And a few times it occurred to me that it would be simpler if I died immediately after baptism so I’d die pure and innocent.
I only remember a few things about the baptism itself:
1. I had to borrow a white dress from another girl in the ward whereas my younger sister got a new dress when she was baptized. This is not at all meant as a reproach to my parents — it doesn’t really make sense to buy a new white dress, particularly for a girl who’s a bit of a tom-boy and likes to skip primary to sneak out to the church yard and climb trees. I’m just mentioning this to tell you what kinds of details stand out as important in the mind of a child.
2. The whole family went out for ice cream afterwards! Yay!
3. My mom sat me down and had me write about my baptism for my Book of Remembrance. This is one of my earliest (of many) memories of being expected to say something touchingly spiritual and then racking my brain on the topic and not coming up with anything. Nothing sincere at least. I don’t remember what I wrote.
guys, gals, countrymen, excountrymen..
WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST LOVE EACH OTHER AND GET ALONG?”
I wish the hatemongers and unwellwishers would stop making anti or former mormons look so stereotypical. I am active LDS, very happy being so, and have read every last bit of anti mormon mombojumbo there is on the internet so I can help dispel the nastiness, rumors, falsehoods, and exmo tall tales from the crypt.
The Church has been the single most wonderful experience of my life~it has changed my life and my brothers’ mom’s and sister’s life. The more I live it, the more I feel the Holy Ghost, feel confident and joyous and truly at peace. The tree of life motif in first nephi says it all. When I see the suffering, anger, depression etc that goes on amongst my exmo brothers and sisters, all kidding aside, I feel very sorry for you guys/gals. You are making yourselfs miserable, if not downright mentally-ill over this issue. As the Lord said to Paul: “Saul, Saul.. Thou findest it hard to kick against the pricks” yours truly, activemo
and have read every last bit of anti mormon mombojumbo there is on the internet
Every last bit? That’s a pretty impressive feat. 😉
But seriously, stereotyping exmos as all suffering, angry, and depressed isn’t much more enlightened than sterotyping faithful members as child molesters or complicit with child molesters. I prefer your all-caps statement where you encourage people to get along. Perhaps both sides can try to be a little more sympathetic and understanding of each other’s position.
re # 25, Sheila, I think those who do not believe the truth claims of the Church are genuinely happier outside the Church. Hopefully you can see that the fact that you and your family are happier in the Church does not mean that everyone else will have the same experience in the Church or will share your belief in the Church’s truth claims.
For those who do not believe the truth claims of the Church but do not resign, the decision not to resign will very likely be a source of future inconvenience and frustration. This is because the very negative view of the Church and its practices that they often have (and, unfortunately, which they often express very abrasively, rudely, and mockingly on the internet and elsewhere) will invariably continue to collide with those very practices until they resign. The reason is simple rather than sinister: people who sincerely continue to believe in the truth claims of the Church genuinely want only to help them “come unto Christ”, which most believing members see as the central focus of the Church. This includes visiting members who no longer attend Church to see if they can help them in any way — usually such visits are focused on spiritual help rather than just generally helping them out, and that could be improved. The truth is that many “inactives” actually do still believe in the truth claims of the Church but no longer attend for other reasons and so well placed visits by caring ward members often welcomes them back into active participation in the community. But of course many are people such as those who post here and elsewhere in the DAMU who no longer attend because they have rejected the truth claims of the Church based on the conclusions they have drawn from their own research. In most cases believing ward members with good intentions will have no idea which is which, much less whether a given “inactive” member in the ward boundaries is regularly publishing derisive comments about and denunciations of the Church on the internet. It stands to reason that if ward members knew about that, they would in most cases be content not to “harass” such inactives through periodic visits to invite them back to Church.
Resigning would alleviate this disconnect and prevent the frustration and awkwardness that arise from the inevitable periodic visits that will occur from ward members who hope to welcome people back into active participation. It does not seem fair to criticize believing Church members for visiting members within their ward boundaries who no longer actively participate unless they have been told specifically never to come again. Even in this case, the nature of life in the Church at the present time is that wards often have significant turnover meaning that although a particular home teacher, visiting teacher, or bishop might have gotten the message loud and clear, different people might be in those positions later on who might not know about such past instructions, even in such cases where a conscientious bishop has tried to keep good records about such requests.
The best recourse to avoid future contact with Mormons is to resign rather than just drifting away, I would think.
I never actually dared tell my parents no, although they definitely knew I wasn’t happy about it. I only told the bishop no (in the pre-interview I suppose? I know I was in his office), and he overruled me, with the sense that I was just being a silly willful little girl, and never told my parents I’d said no. The one thing I insisted on and stood firm with was not being confirmed in Sac Mtg the following day, but right after the baptism in front of a smaller audience. I was really embarrassed by religion and I didn’t want people watching my reaction (or lack thereof) to it; I had a very similar feeling years later in wishing I could have gone through the temple all by myself, instead of with people around watching me (family, not strangers…I don’t care about strangers so much). I was always VERY conscious of our religion and how it made us different, and I was embarrassed by it very often throughout my childhood. This is perhaps the result of my personality, perhaps due to the Big Change of switching religions when I was a little kid, and all the big and small changes that caused. Not to mention friction among extended family.
What you said about your baptism feelings is interesting to me, because I never felt really that sense of wanting to have my sins washed away. I didn’t really understand it, I guess. The one thing I’ve learned for sure in my couple years of ‘nacling and DAMUing is that I was definitely nowhere near as believing a mormon (at almost any point in my life) as many TBMs are. That made it painful for me to live a TBM life at times, but made it less painful to leave. It also feels like somewhat of a barrier for me and other ex/post mos, and I feel that outsider feeling at times. But it all plays into my reasons for not resigning (which actually never even occurred to me until I started hanging out on the DAMU).
Wow, I’m really rambling now. There’s probably at least another post here I guess. 😉
Hmm. My skills are very bad (and our instructions here are pretty weak too, fellow MainStreeters), and that post was meant to START with a blockquote from Chanson’s comment:
“It would be cool if, like Wry Catcher, I could say I’d refused and they baptized me anyway.”
The rest of the above quote is actually the entirety of my comment. (WTH is the ‘end’ command for the blockquote function? I obviously chose the wrong one…)
Re: john f #27
I agree with you that many might eventually wish to resign so they can stop getting “harrassed” by well-meaning mormons wanting to bring them back to the fold. For me personally, I think with a few extreme exceptions, the efforts to reactivate people are pretty minimal, and fairly easy to refuse with little angst on either side. I don’t mind when I get a call or piece of mail every now and then, and I have no problem politely thanking them and saying no — I certainly have no ill feelings to channel onto people who are just doing what they feel is right. I think, again, having been out of the church for a long time, and not having left with a sense of my world crashing down, I don’t mind accepting gestures on their face value while not being bothered about the perhaps underlying motivation of making me a mormon again. I lived in Utah for a couple of years a few years ago, and we got some well-meaning approaches that I enjoyed — like people sharing produce from their gardens with us (yum!!). Some I liked less — like when they “borrowed” my husband to use as a visual display in a (well-meant for sure) RS/PH meeting about befriending nonmembers. It was weird and he thought so too, but we were not offended by it, more bemused I’d say. For the most part, Utah (at least where I was) was a challenge socially if you weren’t a mormon, but it wasn’t hostile or hypertension-inducing generally. Quirky. Sometimes too many unannounced people ringing our doorbell. But pretty harmless generally speaking. NB: We have no children.
FWIW, I do NOT expect such equanimity from people who were strong believers, with strong family/legacy ties to the church, and who experienced a profound and devastating sense of disillusionment and having been lied to. My situation isn’t “normal” (is anyone’s??), and I respect people’s various reactions and coping needs. (Although the born-again christians who bash against the church, and the one-note ranters of any stripe, do grate on my nerves every now and then I must say. Alas, that is life in a nutshell.)
While not the main reason we resigned our memberships, one of the reasons was because they kept sending missionaries over with members. Our bishop was pretty cool about things and told the home teachers that we weren’t interested in visits, so those stopped. But the missionaries knew I had worked with missionaries in the past, so every time a couple new missionaries moved into the ward, they would stop by. Having been a missionary, I figured I’d be nice: I gave them something to drink and had them sit down, etc. But then I told them the truth:
(1) I don’t believe in the doctrine and teachings of Mormonism
(2) Yes, I was a missionary.
(3) Yes, I am an atheist.
(4) I’d prefer that you didn’t pray in my house, but if you want to talk to your make believe sky daddy, that’s fine with me (though not very considerate of my wishes considering it is MY home).
After the second or third visit that proceeded that way, they got the hint and ran away, scared. We resigned a year or two later. So, I guess the take home lesson is:
(1) If you don’t mind being tracked and occasionally visited by well-meaning (but generally intrusive) Mormons, don’t resign.
(2) If you want to cut off all contact, resign.
Also, I have another suggestion for a separate post: What about first temple experiences? I’d love to read some of those…
I think you really nailed it with this one.
My situation is in some ways very similar to yours and in some ways very different.
when I was younger, I believed in Mormonism sincerely. As I explained in my deconversion, part 1, I liked the fact that Mormonism encouraged me to feel like it’s okay (even brave) to be different from the crowd. I wasn’t quite so good at fitting in socially with other Mormons, but that wasn’t much of a problem since Mormonism was rare where we were living. On the one hand my family’s Mormon heritage is something I grew up feeling proud of, and I loved the creative aspects of Mormonism like crafts, journals, and roadshows. On the other hand I never liked the praying and testimonies — this whole thing of trying to have certain feelings while praying and trying to convince myself that it was messages and/or love from God was (at best) creepy and upsetting. I believed this negative reaction was my own fault since that’s what I was taught to believe.
When I concluded that God does not exist, that eliminated the part of Mormonism I most disliked. This transition was neither devastating or traumatic, and it didn’t change my positive feelings towards my Mormon heritage and culture. Thus it hasn’t been a big deal the few times well-meaning believers have tried to fellowship me. Like Wry Catcher, I have no particular reason to have an angry or hostile reaction.
So in response to John F., I’d say you can’t necessarily assume everyone’s situation is identical. Those people who feel the need to resign formally should do it. Those who don’t care should do whatever they feel like doing about it. 😉
True, that would be interesting. I’m not sure whether we have a policy on this site about how much of the temple ceremony can be openly discussed…? I guess it probably doesn’t matter since it’s already all over the Internet. I’ve practically learned the whole thing (unintentionally) just from hanging around exmo sites, even though I’ve never done the endowment in person.
So in response to John F., I’d say you can’t necessarily assume everyone’s situation is identical. Those people who feel the need to resign formally should do it. Those who don’t care should do whatever they feel like doing about it.
I don’t assume that everyone’s situation is identical. My point was that if people choose not to resign then they will inevitably have contact in the future with Mormons.
True. It’s just that your comment seemed to equate disbelieving with hostility. So I was just adding a little nuance to the discussion. 😉
This transition was neither devastating or traumatic, and it didn’t change my positive feelings towards my Mormon heritage and culture.
I don’t really get a sense of your positive feelings toward Mormon heritage and culture from your blog. It seems more like making fun of Mormonism, Mormons, the Church, Joseph Smith, etc.
It’s possible I just haven’t seen the positive posts though.
John F. — The post I linked to in the body of this article (my excommunication) is probably the worst one of all my posts in terms of making fun of Mormonism in a questionable way.
If you’d like to see some of the more positive ones, you can have a look at my comments on the post about missionaries (plus the posts I’ve linked to there).
Here are some others that give a more complete picture:
If there’s no solution, there’s no problem.
Standing up for Your (Former) Beliefs
Modern Baal worship??? Um, is that a joke?
The Tacky Prom!!!
Cute Mormon Kid Drawings…
Family history: we’re different.
Family History: Moonshine
Plugging the Mormon arts…
Challenges and Pleasures of Mormon lit: In Our Lovely Deseret, edited by Robert Raleigh
Mormon Meat: Christopher Bigelow’s Kindred Spirits
Brother Brigham and Zarahemla Books
Subtle (but important) details…
Post-Mormon perspectives
Thoughts on Jack Weyland
Jewish kids at Christmas…
Scrapbookin’!!!
This will be fabulous!!! or a total disaster…
The second stupidest thing I did in Scotland
Got it, thanks. It seems like every time I’ve stopped by and read a few posts and comments at your blog it’s been the ones making fun of the Church and its members for believing what they do and doing the things they do. I haven’t stumbled on these other ones that don’t make fun of the Church during those occasions (just coincidence or bad luck, probably). I didn’t mean to make you go through the trouble of linking those posts.
I agree with John that Chanson is making a lot of fun of Mormons and Mormonism. Although it’s usually in the spirit of light-hearted self-criticism. Chanson is much more an insider than might be apparent at first glance.
John F. — It’s no trouble at all. I don’t want to come off as anti-Mormon, so when I do, I’d rather have people let me know.
Chanson, you come across more as irreverent rather than anti.
dpc — Thanks!! I’ll take that as a compliment. 😉
Yeah, # 41 is well said. I don’t think I actually said anti, did I? I think I said making fun of Mormonism and Mormons, which to those being made fun of doesn’t seem like a positive view.
i have a question and a comment.
comment: i totally understand what a slippery slope it is to abandon your former faith but NOT mock it or feel deeply bitter in the meantime. every now and then, i slip into making fun of something that probably really is rather ridiculous, and then i have to bitch-slap myself and remember, oh, yeah, i used to believe that.
question: does anybody know how many people who actively leave (not just going inactive, but deciding that they do not believe and abandoning all overt aspects of the faith in their lives) end up returning? my husband commented the other day that he’s pretty sure that his parents are waiting for him to “return to the fold,” even a year after we resigned and “came out” officially as ex-mormons. i just thought that was so strange. i can’t think of one person i’ve ever known who was an actual ex-mormon and returned. any thoughts?
chandelle,mormonism is so evil and corrupt,because my former bishop who sexually abused his step daughter, and then fathered several children with her was not disciplined at all by other lds leaders,which make them all corrupt,because what they did do to my former mormon bishop,was rewarded him for his bad behavior,because my former evil mormon bishop should have been ex-communicated,but instead my former evil mormon bishop is now a stake president,who is still that same vile evil person,who is a phedophile,with a different title now,so you see chandelle not even for all the money in the world or for fame would I return to mormonism,that’s how bad I hate and dislike the injustice,somebody call americas most wanted we former members need some justice in that place,justice for all the victims of mormonism.I love you all
truth teller:
If what you say is true, rather than tell us of allegations regarding your former Bishop, perhaps you should contact your local police authorities (contacting a second-rate television program, America’s Most Wanted, does not count).
dpc I really would get my friend some justice if I got the police involved,but the only thing about that is,I don’t have enough solid evidence to make a strong compelling case,due to all of the cover up,that the mormon cult has done,but what I know about the abuse in mind and theory,will always stay with me.
Sheila
#25
I don’t know if you are still taking part in this conversation or read some of the exit stories.
I am one of the exmo’s, and correct me other exmos if this blanket assumption is wrong, most of us are not all that bitter……
I think it is great that you have found a place that has given you peace and happiness. Personally I think everyone deserves to live a life free of suffering. If that means being Mormon or Zoroastrian, great. And that goes for all of you.
truth teller,
When you contact the police, I suggest you use the words “Mormon cult” as many times in the conversation as you possibly can. It’ll make you more credible with them.
Truth Teller, you are right. Evidence is the key. That’s why it is important to be systematic, calm, and collected in this situation.
If it is true that someone has fathered children in the course of child abuse then there will be genetic evidence that cannot be covered up.
If you carefully put your mind to it, you can figure out a way to prove or disprove these allegations. However, that requires that you suspend your opinions for a while. Otherwise, you cannot evaluate the available evidence.
Hi Chandelle –
I have heard of people who’ve been inactive for many years returning to church. That’s not actually that uncommon. And the church is rife with stories about excommunicated members who hiked the tough trail back to finding favor amongst the saints. But resignees/self-excommunicants? I’ve not heard that one much if at all.
Amongst those who’ve had a serious mind shift and actually resigned and changed religions or become atheist or the like? The only one I’ve ever heard of is DKL, from Mormon Mentality bloggernacle blog. (Actually, I’m not sure he resigned ever, but he was an avowed atheist [and a smoker, which I’m sure is more shocking] for at least a decade before returning to the church.) That is the only case I actually know of. It certainly isn’t common I don’t think.
But anything’s possible… 🙂
Wayne — I’d like to continue collecting entrance and exit stories if others have them. Also, I agree that most former Mormons aren’t particularly bitter. The Internet can give you a skewed picture because when former Mormons post about Mormonism online, they usually post something negative about it (such as why they stopped believing). But when former Mormons post about other aspects of their lives, there isn’t usually an obvious label saying “this is an exmo talking” so you don’t see how much of it is ordinary and positive.
Chandelle — I agree with Wry. People go back after doubts, inactivity, or even excommunication, but concluding that the church is definitely not true then later deciding “No, wait, it is true after all,” is quite rare.
John F — Don’t worry, I know you didn’t call me an anti-Mormon. I just want to make sure I’m doubly clear on this point. I also don’t want to be one of those people mocks others in an unkind way and then says “What? Can’t you take a joke?” I like to use humor, but I intend for it to be light ribbing among friends (not sure how well I succeed on that…)
Additionally, Mormons aren’t my main target. I also like to make fun of atheists, Christians, Americans, the French, nudists, myself, etc. 😉
while individual stories vary, the bottom lines appear remarkably similar: Disillisionment. I agree with a poster on FLAK (or NOM)who said: “Ambiguity is the church’s best friend”. Being ‘the only true church’ can only be meaningful if that is the standard completely thru the chain… and it isn’t. In many cases, mistakes are allowed to stand in spite of being shown wrong or even False. Cover-up & PR are more important in too many instances; Just ONE is wrong enough. FPRs trump research findings; ‘truth’ is a fluid rather than a fixed concept in Morland.
“‘truth’ is a fluid rather than a fixed concept in Morland.”
Welcome to life in general Guy. “Fluid truth” is all around you. It’s not a uniquely Mormon thing.
Actually Seth, I believe he might actually be referring to Morland, Kansas. 😉
chandelle…
There is, to date, just one study that addresses disaffiliation from Mormonism in any detail:
Albrecht, Stan L., and Howard M. Bahr. 1983. “Patterns of Religious Disaffiliation: A Study of Lifelong Mormons, Mormon Converts, and Former Mormons.†Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 22(4):366-379.
The problem with this line of research is that you can’t easily find ex-Mormons, except vocal ex-Mormons, who are, no doubt, not representative of ex-Mormons (we all know chanson and I are not representative of the majority of people leaving the religion). The LDS religion isn’t going to give you information on people who resign for legal reasons and many of them just want to be left alone. So, the short answer is, there is no real evidence on the question you are asking. We know where most Mormons who resign/leave go (at least, where they went in the 1980s; see the study mentioned above), but we have no data on whether/if any of them return. I’d love to do that study, but it would probably require an enormous survey to capture enough people who fall into that category if we want to be representative of even Mormons in the U.S.
(Just toying with numbers here, but there are 300 million U.S. Americans and probably 2.5 million of those self-identify as Mormon, which isn’t quite 1%. The LDS religion claims close to 5 million Mormons in the U.S., which, if remotely accurate, would mean there are almost as many former Mormons as there are current Mormons, about 2.5 million. If you randomly surveyed people in the U.S. and got 1,000 responses, 10 would be Mormon, 10 would be former Mormons. You’d need at least 121 of each of those to have a relatively normal distribution that is useful statistically. That means you’d have to survey over 12,000 people. And then you’d only have a couple hundred Mormons, maybe a handful of which left, became die-hard atheists, etc., then returned… Maybe… If you really wanted to find people like that to study them using random sampling, you’d probably need closer to 12,000 former and 12,000 current Mormons, which means a survey of over 1 million people. All that to find a couple hundred very rare people – no one is going to fund that survey. Sorry!)
Chanson-
It works well, on this page, that it is not so obvious that there is a mixture of Mormon Exmormon here. It it has kept me coming back.
Love for God & neighbor… are almost 100% out of the LDS presentation. Instead, there is a Uber authoritative, Uber hierarchical, secretive administration.
This environment appeals to those who prefer the highly structured, Highly scripted presentation, but I find it morally/ethically bankrupt. It is shallow & superficial.
guy noir amen to that brother,I totally agree with what you just said.
exmoron,
Could the size of the survey be trimmed if it was conducted in areas with sizable LDS populations, or would that skew the results?
Jonathan…
That’s a good question. The short answer is that your results would be biased/skewed.
The long answer… I can’t say this for sure, but my take on it would be that there is a higher probability of people leaving the religion outside of high percentage Mormon areas (Rick Phillips’s 1998 paper on Mormon religious participation in rural Utah seems to indicate this is true and work he is doing now also seems to back that up). If that is true and you over-sample high percentage Mormon populations, then you are missing a lot of people outside the Mormon corridor (i.e., the intermountain West). This would result in a lower rate of disaffiliation and probably a higher rate of reaffiliation after periods of inactivity. In order to get a truly accurate picture of U.S. Mormons, the sample would have to be random.
That said, over-sampling then weighting may be a suitable alternative, but you’d still have to do some sampling outside Utah. I’m not an expert on dataset weighting (it’s pretty complicated stuff), but if you knew actual proportions of Mormons in every state (available via the ARIS), you could probably apply weights post-hoc that would allow you to accurately adjust your calculations. If you took that approach you could probably substantially reduce your sample size.
But you’d still have the problem of finding enough of the real “hard core” apostates who returned. You can do statistics on very small samples, but generalizability isn’t as accurate and you have to use a variety of different techniques for small sample sizes.
I wonder if anyone in the research division at LDS headquarters has messed with probability sampling or data weighting… I’ll have to ask next time I see them.
Why I left the LDS Church: http://entreated.blogspot.com/2006/05/why-i-left-lds-church.html
My Resignation Letter: http://entreated.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-resignation-letter.html
Posted both conversion and resignation stories a couple years ago on another blog I used to keep. There were several resignation posts since I kept getting jerked around and it took 9 months from the time I first requested it to getting the actual letter from SLC confirming my resignation. Woe to the first bishop in that process – who had the nerve to lie to me about the procedure for name removal.
Do you have links to where you posted the stories?
Nope. When I got it all out of my system I was so over it and tired that I removed all the posts from that blog. It may serve me well to retell those stories in my current less vitriolic mind frame. I’ll have to think about that.
That sounds like a great idea! I look forward to reading all about it. 😀