faith transition

[Portia]

Well, I am ready to leave the LDS Church. I'll have to leave the fight for parity to others. Asking nicely hasn't gotten my sex anywhere.

My brother, completely unbeknownst to me, is also through with activity, and is going to leave his mission. Unlike me, he never really believed it was true. (This is what you get when you're six years apart. Who knew?)

Obviously, this could be perceived as a one-two punch. I'll admit that my brother's courage made me want to take a real stand. On the other hand, I'm a full-fledged adult who lives 1,500 miles away. If I just stop going, no one will necessarily know, and the secular wedding will make it clear my boyfriend isn't interested, either.

Any advice of what to say and not say? I'm also mildly terrified because my professional references are mostly Mormon, many affiliated with BYU.

I don't care about having my records removed or not. If I don't go and don't contribute financially, I suppose I have made my point.

And I would think it would be obvious, but I am certainly not interested in throwing out the friendships I made at BYU and here in the Board community. If there's any good to be found in the church, it's in people like you. And I'm perfectly willing to hold my tongue in public, although if anyone is interested in my reasoning or feelings, contact me privately! :-)

[vorpal blade]

I'm very sorry to hear that you are leaving the Church.

[TheBlackSheep]

I have the most advice! And it goes like this: tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell tell.

You don't have to start confrontations and you don't have to be belittling, but I 100% believe that every person who stops going to church should let their families and friends know. Keeping it a secret implies it should be a secret, which sends a pretty strong message to yourself and to those around you. Inauthenticity is crazy unhealthy.

People will ask you why. Have a reason, whatever it is, ready. You don't have to get really into it, and you don't have to answer at all. When I first stopped going, my answer was basically, "I realized it no longer mattered to me whether it was true or not." That was as far as I could go; I didn't really know any more details. The exact why isn't really anybody's business, so don't share more than you want. The more you share, the greater the chance that someone is going to get their feelings hurt. Know your audience. Don't share very much with people you know will try and talk you back into activity. Don't share very much with people who will pity or belittle you. Boil it down into one sentence that starts with "I (feeling word)." It's the same thing active folks do with testimonies. You can't argue with someone's belief/feelings/whatever. People usually respond pretty well to something like, "I admire a lot about the Church, but I felt intellectually inauthentic (or whatever) participating."

Tell people on your turf and don't let them take over. This is YOUR faith transition. Don't be afraid to tell people that you are no longer comfortable discussing this with them at this time.

But tell. Telling is great for you, great (if uncomfortable) for active members, and great for inactive or ex-Mormons.

[Whistler]

I don't have much to say, but I'm here for you.

[UnluckyStuntman]

Good luck, Portia. I agree with Black Sheep - it's so much easier to be upfront with people about it than dealing with the shame and weirdness of trying to keep it all under wraps. And I'm speaking from the experience of keeping it a "secret" for too long (my current living situation is making this extra complicated with certain people in my family...).

Like TBS said, you don't owe anyone an explanation. If people start getting nosy/bossy/overwhelming/whatever, shut down the conversation.

If you're worried about your references, depending on how close you are with those people, you might either have a private conversation with them ("I am making this decision, I hope it will not change your opinion of me as an employee/researcher/whatever") or just don't bring it up at all. Thinking to my own list of references, only one of them is aware of my non-Mormonness (we worked together on research projects for several years and became good friends) and the others probably wouldn't be surprised if I told them directly, but we don't have a relationship beyond work, so it didn't seem necessary.

Again, good luck. You'll do great.

[Portia]

Thanks, everyone! Good thoughts from all corners.

[Emiliana]

I .... need to tell my family, too. :-/

[TheBlackSheep]

Emiliana, you can do it. It's hard but gratifying. It feels like caring enough about yourself to take a risk, and almost all of the time, it's not as bad as you imagine it is going to be.

Recently I've been wrestling with actually having my name removed from the records of the church. I have the super anti-Mormon perspective but I wondered if anyone had any thoughts about that, pro or con.

[Portia]

I have friends who have done it and not done it who are happy with the outcome.

I feel like it's still enough of a part of my culture and persona that it would feel like being stateless. A part of me thinks things will change? ... I'll support you either way. :-) I think the best argument is of there are positions of the Church you can't in good conscience be in ant way part of. For the moment, I haven't yet arrived there. What are pros and cons in your opinion? It can cause a whole 'nother round of upheaval.

[Whistler]

I can see how you might want to remove your name from the records, thinking that leaving it there might somehow indicate that you have some faith left? But as far as hedging your bets goes, it seems like there's no harm done; like, just in case God cares about organized religion, you've tried that and there's a record of it.

[TheBlackSheep]

Ehh, except if God is omnipotent and benevolent, He would know and give me the credit for whatever it is worth. And I don't actively believe in a god in any case.

From my perspective the pros are simple. The Church touts its 15,000,000 membership numbers and the statistics for being one of the world's fastest growing religions, but only about half of those 15,000,000 members are active. I'm about as completely inactive as they get, and while I have no real malice toward the Church, it bothers me that my records are in those 15,000,000, as are the records of many, many people who are inactive for many of the same reasons I am. This especially bothers me when, as in Hawaii recently, the Church uses its profile as a popular religion to support social change with which I strongly disagree. Also, keeping my records on the books feels very ingenuous to me, especially since, after four or five years of almost complete disbelief, I no longer feel that there is any real chance I will return to activity for any reason.

The cons include the fact that I believe this would hurt my family more than my simple inactivity. I also worry that going through the process, which is sometimes arduous, to have my records removed would give Mormonism more control over me than simply allowing my records to exist. I also don't want to make the statement that I hate the Church.

[Whistler]

Hmmm, okay, yeah, I can see that. When I hear member numbers I always remember that about half of on-record members are inactive, but it is kind of frustrating how those numbers are just thrown around without people talking about what they mean.

You have good reasons to go either way--I guess you have to decide if you care more about "feeling true to yourself" or of not having more family-involved religion-drama?

[Portia]

That's Pascal wager. I'm not doing it for a God who is too dumb to see through a deathbed conversion. I'm failing to do something that I personally think would cause me more harm and pain and cause my family suffering in this life.

[Katya]

Recently I've been wrestling with actually having my name removed from the records of the church. I have the super anti-Mormon perspective but I wondered if anyone had any thoughts about that, pro or con.

I was talking about this with a coworker the other day and his position was that he didn't see why people bothered, if they didn't believe any more, but I feel like it matters if it's meaningful to you.

[Emiliana]

I told my sister yesterday. She kept saying, "I'm so shocked. That's shocking. I'm shocked. Oh wow, that's so shocking." Could have been worse.

[Portia]

Are you and your sister close? I'm glad there was no weeping, wailing, nor gnashing of teeth.

[Emiliana]

Yeah, we're pretty close. I think she was a little bit hurt that I hadn't told her sooner, but like I said, definitely could have been worse. I'm not really sure what my sister thinks happens to people who don't believe in God. A lot of my family will probably think that I am going to spend a literal eternity in a literal pit of burning fire, and that sucks. But a lot of them I'm not close enough to that I feel like I need to tell them, if that makes sense?