My husband and I formally resigned from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints yesterday afternoon. We emailed our resignation to church headquarters, our bishopric, our stake presidency, and every member of the ward that we had an email address for. We sent the email, not to be "in their face", but to express our love to them. We also wanted to express our reasons for leaving without giving too much information that they might not want to hear. In addition, we wanted to clarify our position, and dispel any myths or rumors about our exit. I'm including the text of our email below. I highly recommend that everyone within the sound of my keystrokes watch the YouTube presentation that John Dehlin put together about why people leave the church. It is not anti-Mormon in any way. John is, in fact, an active member of the church, having undergone a test and trial of his faith. He calls himself a "reconstructed Mormon" and a believer. If there is nothing else of value in my post, that is certainly a gem.
Now to the text of the email:
Dear Friends,
Because our leaving the church has been so public amongst the members of our Ward, Stake, and my [work] LDS colleagues, I am sending out one last email regarding this topic.
My wife and I have decided to formally resign from the church. Attached is our letter of resignation.
Our hearts are full for the kindness and extensions of love that many of you have shown over the past six months. We know this has not been easy for many of you and we are sorry for the grief that you have felt. We understand why you feel this way. We also understand that many of you may feel betrayed by what we have done.
We want to emphasize that we still see the good in the church. There are many aspects of it which we will always cherish and incorporate into our lives, such as the importance of families, being honest, seeking the good in life, serving others, being kind, considerate, and thoughtful to those around us, and ultimately living a more Christ-like and less self-centered lifestyle. We will always treasure and hold onto these moral teachings.
We also want to emphasize how much you as a community meant to us. We know you better than anyone else and because of that we know where your hearts truly lie. You want to make a difference in the world, you want to follow Christ, you want to be with your family forever, you want to return to our Heavenly Father. And because of this, you will make the sacrifices in your life to be worthy of these blessings. This is admirable and deserves respect.
We want you to know that we will always be here if you ever want to talk to us, continue with our friendship, or need help. We will gladly extend a hand of service if asked.
We may consider at some point in the future of returning to full fellowship, but only if our list of issues is addressed in honest and open dialog. We feel it is dishonest to have these topics hidden from faithful church members.
I have attached a presentation called “Top 5 Myths and Truths about why committed Mormons leave the Church” that was given to top leaders in the church by John P. Dehlin, creator of mormonstories.org and faithful member of the church. You can also find a youtube version of this presentation given by Brother Dehlin on his website:
http://mormonstories.org/top-5-myths-and-truths-about-why-committed-mormons-leave-the-church/
I have also attached a document detailing my exit story from the church and what happened to me as Ward Mission Leader that caused me to question my beliefs and search for the truth. In all fairness, I want to warn faithful members of the church that the content contains material that may be disturbing for you, but to the best of my knowledge it is accurate and does not contain anti-Mormon sentiments or literature. My exit was never based on half truths or misrepresentations of church history. It was based solely on science, archaeology, church history, doctrinal issues, and the misleading portrayals of early church leaders.
The bottom line for us to return to full fellowship is to be able to have honest, mature, and open discussions of what many see as the elephant in the room. We know you feel betrayed, and like I said before, we understand why. But you need to understand that we feel betrayed on a much greater scale. We feel lied to and deceived by former and current leaders of the church. We see how the church uses guilt and authority to keep their members in line and faithful. And we have been on the receiving end of many condescending and patronizing conversations. We have been accused of being led away be Satan, of wanting to sin, of wanting to be lazy, and of never having a testimony in the first place. As none of this is true, this perception by LDS members and leaders only makes our situation that much more difficult to deal with. Instead of reaching out to us with respect, understanding, and dialog, we have been made into a public spectacle and demonized, threatened, or generally ignored.
For this reason, we have decided to end our membership in the church. We cannot support an organization that treats their members this way in the time when they need support, love, and answers most.
Kind Regards,
I'm so sorry things ended the way they did, Heidi.
ReplyDeleteWow. This is the most articulate and kindest letter I have read about this subject. Well done.
ReplyDeleteGood Job and way to be brave about resigning.
ReplyDeleteThis is your brother Keith. I do not comment much on anything but in this matter I am "my brothers keeper." I actually think you had a strong testimony and gave it up. I am not one that thinks you never had one. This is what worries me the most about the decisions you have made. When the time comes you will be judged on the things you know and have been taught by the spirit. This being said you will have a lot more to answer to than someone who has never known the truth as do I. You have entered the temple and have taken covenants that are still valid on the Lord's side. I hope you can see that you are making poor decisions before it is too late. When we die our test is over and we will have to answer for what we have been taught by the spirit, not man. The scriptures say that even the very elect will be deceived, I never thought it would be my family. All I can do is bear you my testimony that this is the work of God and our brother Satan will do everything he can to destroy it. And when I say destroy "it" i refer to the many souls he is gathering to his side by lies and deceit. I will not try to convince you because I don't want you to believe me. Truth comes from God not me. Brigham Young said this and even if you don't believe he is a prophet it would hold true if any prophet from the Bible said it. "You cannot destroy the appointment of a prophet of God, but you can cut the thread that binds you to the prophet of God, and sink yourselves to hell.” Please understand I am not trying to be harsh but truth is truth and discussing it does not change it. There is no point in having a discussion to see if water is wet or if that is something we imagine. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, there is no reason to have a discussion about that either. Believe it or not, that is within your agency and even God himself can not take that away from you.
ReplyDeleteI am good with God, and you cannot tell me different. The prophets who have lied through the ages are the ones who will have to answer to God for deceiving so many and preaching "truth" such as racism and polygamy, which are clearly false.
DeleteYou cannot know the church is true. You can believe it is true if you want to ignore science, history, and the words of Christ. I had a testimony because I wanted to believe, not knowing that what I believed in was false. It is false, it is absolutely false. If you do not want to look at the evidence that it's false, that is your business, but you have no right to call me to repentance.
Covenants are not valid if they are based on fraud and deception. The temple ceremony was stolen from the Masons. If the church wants to stop the flood of members leaving, it had better start being honest.
Keith, clearly you did not watch John Dehlin's video about how you should treat family members and friends who are doubting or leave the faith. If you had, you would not have written what you did. Furthermore, your actions are not Christlike, and yet you profess to have faith in a church led by Christ. Your actions speak louder than your faith.
DeleteYep this is the "company line" for Mormonism: using fear to keep people from being brave enough to really look at the truth. Heidi is the one who has shown true integrity to be brave enough to look at the evidence squarely in the eye and follow where it leads despite the judgement and belittling she has taken from her friends and family.
DeleteI refuse to believe that God would judge people on something so petty as this - did you believe the right thing? I get that is what Mormonism considers the greatest sin - Apostasy (e.g. denying the holy ghost and/or turning away from the oath and covenant of the priesthood.)
However, if you think about it - this is an absolutely ridiculous criteria for judging. Someone living a good, moral life is much more important than believing the right thing.
If only you could objectively see how judgmental, spiteful, hurtful, and barbaric your comments are you would begin to understand what a harmful organization you belong to. You truly are stuck pretending the Emperors' new clothes are real.
You are the one who has stuck your head in the sand and only have part of the information and have only listened to half the story. If the church were true it should be able to hold up research and information and evidence. It should not require pretending the evidence doesn't exist and refusing to look at and study it.
God would not work so hard to make his true church look fake. Some good feelings are insufficient to say you know something. Many baptists, many Islams, many Hindus, etc, etc have had the same experience for their faith. What makes you so arrogant to be sure yours is right.
Your statement is truly the pinnacle of arrogance to presume that you have the truth based on personal feelings and to go judge others for it.
I find this quote from Kenneth Daniels book "Why I Believed" to be insightful:
DeleteIt's a very good description of what we as Mormon typically encounter - it's interesting that he describes almost exactly the same reaction by Evangelical Christians.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ken_daniels/why.html
[quote]
I wish I could say from my experience that this fear is unfounded and that you will encounter only a minor bump in the road. This will not be the case if your relatives or friends take their faith seriously. They will analyze you to figure out what went wrong; they will chalk it up to the wiles of Satan; they will blame it on some negative experience you had with the church; they will tell you they are praying for you; they will say your situation is sad; they will blame you for being the one who moved from the original position; they will assert you were never truly saved to begin with; they will blame it on your misunderstanding of the True Christian Faith; they will seek you out not for who you are as a friend but for the opportunity to set you straight; they will question your integrity—in short, they will look for any explanation that exonerates their faith and places the blame on anything but the deficiencies of the Christian faith itself. You may be thankful you do not live prior to the Enlightenment when heresy was rewarded by torture or death, but you will have to live with the suspicion of those you love most.
[/quote]
Notice that this judgmental attitude is not unique to Mormonism. I also like this quote by the same author:
[quote]
I, like many evangelicals, was eager to examine critically the origins and history of Mormonism, and rightly so. But it was not enough to apply the scalpel of critique to others; I had to apply it to myself. And it would not do to apply the scalpel in a token or mediocre fashion; I had to apply it as mercilessly as I expected non-Christians to apply it to themselves. I will go further: given the near-universality and effectiveness of the ABBOD principle for making us prisoners of our beliefs, I had to be willing to subject my views to a stronger dose of skepticism than the skepticism I tended to apply to other points of view, or I could never hope to compensate for the illegitimate tendency to give my own worldview the benefit of the doubt. I reflected on the extent to which Muslims must apply the scalpel in order to see the error of their ways and leave their faith; that is how assiduously I had to apply the scalpel to my beliefs, my scriptures, my Jesus, the miracles of my religious tradition, my answered prayers, my favorite apologetic proofs, and my god.
If I was unwilling to subject my beliefs to this kind of criticism while expecting Muslims in Niger to take this yoke upon themselves, I had to admit to myself I was operating under a double standard. There were two possible ways out of this bind: (a) abandon any expectation or desire for Muslims or anyone else to convert to my faith, or (b) accept the need to investigate my worldview critically and mercilessly. For a short time I adopted option (a), embracing a form of liberal, universalist Christianity. I later came to think I might be kidding myself; what assurance did I have that liberal Christianity had any basis in reality? If it wasn't true, how could I know? It was only then that realized I could not escape alternative (b).
Surely an impartial Martian observer would be struck by the nearly universal applicability of the ABBOD principle in generating conformity of belief across generations of believers belonging to communities of faith. Surely these humans cannot be impartial, or there would not be such a tendency for belief to be clustered geographically and culturally. I can only conclude that we as humans are inherently susceptible to the suggestions of our culture and that we are in most cases virtually powerless—yes, powerless—to recognize this susceptibility in ourselves, but we are more than eager to identify it in others.
[/quote]
Brian, thank you for that! I love your observations and insights. A faith unchallenged is not worth having. Thank you for being such a supportive friend!
DeleteHeidi, I've been following your journey with interest. I am not a Mormon, but I do have Mormon friends. I am a follower of Christ and have come to truly believe that God does not care about our religious ceremonies, the trappings we add to our bodies and buildings to make us more in line with those who wield the power in our religious institutions, or the words we say while in them. God cares about our hearts and how we carry out what Christ wants us to do. So when I look at the Mormons I know who are doing this, I know that they are Christians, just as I know those in our church who do the same. "By their fruits shall ye know them" is so true, isn't it? So while I also question the same things you do in Mormonism, I also know that what really matters is what people do with what they believe. And so I think it's possible to invest yourself in a church body, even when you know all the skeletons in the closet are there, because of the people in that body and the work they are doing. God bless you as you continue your faith journey and give you wisdom and discernment to decide what you are going to do next.
ReplyDeleteYou make some good points. Some do find a path to do this in Mormonism - stay involved despite knowing about the skeletons. However Mormon doctrine, policy, and culture make this more difficult to do than in other churches.
DeleteIn Mormonism, culturally you are expected to regularly repeat that you know the church is true, that the current leader is a prophet, etc. Likewise if you can't say you have a testimony and knowledge that the current leader of the church is a true prophet you are excluded from attending the temple - including being excluded from your own children's weddings. (4 of the questions to determine worthiness to enter the temple are based on believing the right things.)
Additionally the LDS church has a very strong culture that if you are having doubts that you are in the grasp of satan and that you have done something wrong to have your testimony challenged.
Heidi & Tom experienced this first hand. At one point they were directly told - either you need to believe this or you will be excommunicated.
Other church organizations are much more conducive to remaining involved while acknowledging the skeletons in the closet. It can be done in Mormonism but it is a difficult path. It is even more difficult to do so with complete integrity and being honest that you don't literally belive because you are very literally looked down on.
I'd like to back this up with my personal experience.
DeleteAbout 2 years ago I sent an email to the bishop of our ward that I did not believe. I said that I was planning to remain active and involved in the church. To continue to follow the teachings, to continue to pay tithing, and to continue to attend to support my wife and children.
My bishop's response was very hostile. I had access to the computer systems with my calling. He had all the passwords changed. He told me to stand down immediately from my calling. He took my temple recommend away. We then had a 45 minute meeting where he grilled me. He didn't even shake my hand. He spent at least 1/2 of the time asking me why my wife would want to stay married to me if I didn't believe over and over. He told me it was just a cover that I really believed and was covering up some heinous sin.
Granted this was just one man, one bishop, but it illustrates how unkindly Mormonism reacts to the non-believer.
When I tried explaining to my bishop with bible truths as to why the temple recommend is in direct violations to God's laws, he gave me a very blank stare. All he could say was, "Kaitlyn, I am no scriptorian and simply cannot understand anything you just said. I think you need to keep things more simple. Either pass you pass the temple recommend or you don't. You answer it yes or no. I have no idea what you're talking about"
DeleteIf you ask me, the man's blind. Because all I did was expand upon what the Apostle Paul taught:
No man is justified (made worthy) according to the deeds that are written in the law. Is the temple recommend not a law? I am not justified by that to go to the temple.
Rather man is justified by his faith in Christ and the atonement. Thus we are imputed unto righteousness (made worthy) by faith alone. Which faith ought to be enough unto righteous works, but it is yet not a man's ability to have good works that makes him worthy before the Lord for all gifts and blessings of eternal life.
Thus if you judge me according to the things written within the temple recommend, I cannot go to the temple. For I am not worthy according the deeds of the law. But if you judge me according to my faith, you'd be afraid to judge me because Christ has put a well of living waters within me for my faith. And this well springs forth unto everlasting life that I can try to help give unto others to drink. And yet it is not I, but the Lord.
And so you see, my bishop gave me a blank stare and was all, "What on Earth are you talking about?"
Clearly then, in my mind, he was not permitted to look into my heart. For if he did, he'd be in fear of being judged by God for judging me. But at the same time, see the same love of God that I know which surpasses human understanding.
Go figure men are blind... Oh well. I suppose it will all change for the better one day. God is the powerful and can turn mountains to plains after all. Just saying! ^_^
PEACE OUT!
(\/)
(>II)
I am SO sorry that you have been treated awfully as an honest truth seeker! Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens to me in the future. >_<
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I encourage to continue believing in the good words of the Holy Bible. Remember always John 3:16 "for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. So that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
I also encourage you to exercise that faith insomuch that you have "faith unto righteousness" that Paul described within the book of romans.
Have faith, be encouraged, and know God is love.
If you have the time, I think you might appreciate this blog post of mine because it explains that when we are in the pits and seem to be below all things, it is then that God's grace soars us up higher and far above anything we could imagine so long as we believe
http://mormonchristiangirl.blogspot.com/2013/03/faith-church-nobodies-are-somebodies.html
God bless.
I know the church to be true. I believe it as well. I have faith in things that may not make sense. Science is flawed,
ReplyDeleteWe have free agency, and this is why we were given Free Agency in the first place.
Good Luck in your search for the truth as you see it.
You can't know it, you can believe it, but not know. Feelings are not a valid way to determine truth. You can feel it's true, want to believe it in your heart, but knowing is something different, and not to be confused with truth. I appreciate your good wishes and your friendship, Carol.
DeleteHeidi, this letter is just... Perfect.
ReplyDeleteI resigned my membership in the church last November for precisely the same reasons, but regretfully, my exit was not nearly as graceful and classy as yours was.
The deep and intense level of betrayal that I felt toward the church- an institution I had trusted my entire life, and had fully consecrated myself to- was just too much for me to contain. My rage was apparent for all to see, and I just wish I'd had the maturity and class to go out the way you did.
Congratulations on rejecting a false truth claim, and for taking the high road while doing so. I wish you all the very best that authentic living has to offer!
Thank you for sharing. I wish I was given the opportunity to resign. I had a talk with the bishop about being born intersexed (both male and female) and the doctors chose to remove the deformed male parts. I struggled my entire life from childhood til the age of 30 about my identity. After being hospitalized and going through gender therapy I made the difficult decision to physically transition to male. When I provided evidence of my intersexed birth and a letter from my psychologist the bishop didn't even want to read it. I was formally excommunicated that very day for "going against God's design and choosing my gender identity." It's not like I transitioned to male because I wanted to, because it was the cool thing to do, because I wanted to be "different"......I wanted to be normal. I wanted to just go with the flow of life....I wanted to survive life. Without this transition I would be dead right now. It's as cut and dry as that.
ReplyDelete