What I Wish Mormons Knew About Those Who Leave
For 36 years, I was a Mormon. In heart and in mind I bought in completely. Sure, there were times in my life when I did not live the way the church told me I should, but those were transitory parts of my life. They led to great things: we were married at 18 years old and had our first child later that year. My wife and I learned a great deal from each other and from our church. As young parents the lessons at church taught us a great deal and helped us raise our children.
When someone decides to leave the Mormon church, many members assume that something in their life has gone wrong. Most commonly, members feel that those who leave have been “led astray by Satan.” This deception is manifested in sin, laziness, or a “loss of the Spirit.”
Reading over recent Facebook comments, I’m struck by the number of people that are accused of simply giving up on the church; sometimes a measure of time is included. People are accused of giving up too early or too easily. Many members, those making these comments, have no concept of the pain that this decision causes for many. It is very often not a fast process — nor is it painless.
How can anyone that has never been through it accurately judge the experience? Someone that’s never actually left the Mormon church has no concept of what it’s like. My brother left the faith nearly 20 years ago, but I can’t say I know what it was like for him. Even though I understand him better now, our experiences were still very different. We never talked about it — not really. We argued a bit over social media through the intervening years, mostly about politics, but that was as close as we got to talking about the issues.
Had I spoken with my brother, I may have had a better idea how hard this is. We both had different struggles upon leaving: he was still a teenager when he left; I was married to a believer and have believing children. I have received the ordinances of the temple, he left before he was eligible for them.
So here I am, writing an article about my experience of leaving the church. I hope that by doing so, I can help someone struggling with questions about the church whether they stay in or decide to leave. My goal is not to push someone either way. I hope that it helps family and friends of people struggling with doubt to understand their loved ones better. I also hope that it helps me to heal my own pain. As a result, much of my story will be told here, rather than an anonymous or detached approach.
These are some of the things I wish people knew about those of us that leave Mormonism. It’s hard — please don’t make it harder. Those that leave don’t want our relationships harmed by our decision to leave the church. Many former members find community with each other in various online and in-person forums. Every day I read stories of broken marriages, parents that can only call their children to repentance, and children that reject their parents.
Why Did I Choose to Leave?
For many of us, leaving the church happens after a great deal of prayer, study, and searching for answers. We try hard to focus only on church-approved resources so as not to be led astray by Satan. Whatever causes doubt in the first place, our goal is to remove those doubts through prayer and study. In October 2013 Dieter Uchtdorf, then-Second Counselor in the First Presidency (the three men that lead the church) while speaking at the semi-annual general conference of the church, famously encouraged members to “please, first doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.”
As a result, I spent many years trying to “doubt my doubts.” When those efforts led away from belief and not toward it, I entered a severe depression. I thought that my wife and kids might be better off if I died and my wife found someone that could believe after I was gone. I never went so far as to consider taking my own life, but the thought of dying did not upset me.
While facing that reality, I was asked to serve as the Elder’s Quorum president. For those that are unfamiliar with the term, the Elder’s Quorum is the adult men in the congregation. As the president, my responsibility was to oversee, administer, and lead the quorum. This involved selecting people to lead the discussions and lessons, plan activities, and support ward members through service given by the quorum.
Members at the local level are often given “callings” which are assignments to serve. These callings are believed to be inspiration from God through the local leadership responsible for asking members to serve in these callings. When members are extended a calling saying “no” is frowned upon— we are encouraged by church leaders not to turn down callings. Doing so is seen as a rejection of the inspiration given to the leader that received the inspiration.
As a result of the culture of not turning down callings, I accepted the assignment to be the Elders Quorum President. I could not simply tell leaders I didn’t believe because I was not sure that I didn’t at that point. I was terrified that if I did leave the church, I would lose my marriage over it. I was worried that if I expressed doubt and my kids left the church over it, then I might still resolve my doubts only to see my kids then leave the church.
Because of this, I was left to struggle in silence and in doubt. Nowhere was safe to turn. I was worried that if I expressed those doubts to my bishop, I would lose my temple recommend over the testimony questions. If I lost my recommend, how could I tell family and friends why I can’t join them at the temple? Most often, members do not assume that someone is just struggling with testimony when they don’t have a recommend — the assumption among many is that there is a worthiness issue. The resulting thought process is insidious and it contributed to my depression. My internal dialog goes something like this:
Is everybody going to assume I cheated on my wife? Do they think I’m looking at pornography? What do I say when I don’t feel like I should participate in the sacrament? How do I tell a 16-year-old I can’t help him with it, but not have him assume that I’m just unworthy? Do my kids think I’m unworthy? Am I doing irreparable harm to their testimonies by not participating?
This internal dialog doesn’t get better over time, it gets worse. You think you’re broken. You think that God is talking to everybody else, but not to you. You start to wonder how long you can lie to everybody around you. You start to wonder what happens when you get the next calling.
I’ve never been more anxious and panicked in church than when the bishopric were released and there were few priesthood holders regularly attending that could be a part of the bishopric. For those unfamiliar with the term, the bishopric consists of the bishop and two counselors. These three men lead the local congregation known as a ward. Even after those callings were filled, I would panic at the idea that they might ask me to speak every time I saw a member of the bishopric in the hall. Not because I hate public speaking (I do), but because I knew I didn’t believe the things I would be asked to speak about.
Eventually, I confided in my wife that I didn’t think I had a testimony anymore. Within a week, I told my bishop. We discussed my depression surrounding this crisis of faith. Together, we decided that I needed to figure out if my depression was causing my faith crisis or if things were the other way around. Once I began meeting with a counselor through the church’s social services, I found that acknowledging that I no longer believed resolved the depression entirely. Depression has many causes and triggers, this is not to suggest that anyone in the church that is depressed would be best served by leaving it.
Still, I tried to regain that belief. I spent another year praying, reading scriptures, and searching for my lost testimony. Every time I read the scriptures, I found something else that would push me further from belief. Every time I prayed and felt nothing, I fell further away.
When someone suggests that I just gave up too soon or that I should have just kept praying and searching the scriptures it is painfully obvious that they don’t understand the heartbreak of my loss of faith. This was a faith I was raised in, based nearly all of my life decisions on, and truly believed. This is a painful decision, one that is intertwined with a great deal of heartache.
The Process of Leaving
In December of 2017 I wrote my wife a letter via email that I no longer believed. I told her I wasn’t sure if I would be a member for another year. I wrote that email and then didn’t send it. I was still terrified that my marriage wouldn’t survive. I was worried that my wife’s own struggles with depression and anxiety would be exacerbated by my decision.
A few months later, I was struggling with my own depression again. It was increasingly difficult to resolve who I was on the inside with who I had to be every day. I was more irritable at home and at work. I found it difficult to concentrate on work, school, and church. I did not feel worthy of the love shown to me by my family and friends.
At the time I was still attending church frequently. I had stopped teaching lessons or bearing testimony of anything. I had stopped participating in class. I found reasons to work on the weekends so I would be away or “too tired” to go to church on Sunday. When the darkness of depression set in again and I realized that I couldn’t keep it up anymore, I decided to send my wife the email. The day before Valentine’s Day 2018, I sent my wife that email with some introduction and explanation of what I originally wrote.
I was terrified of how she would react. She told me the previous year that she would stand by me even if I left the church. I had no reason to doubt her other than seeing the experience of others who have also left the church. It turns out that she is pretty incredible — she really does love me for me, not for my testimony.
Buoyed by this result, I was a little more prepared (I thought) and felt ready to tell family members about it. We sat down and told our older kids face to face that dad didn’t believe anymore. Everyone seemed a little sad, but they took it well, which made it a little easier still to write emails to parents, siblings, and in-laws.
I was not prepared for the results of that endeavor. In the letter, I asked everyone to process for a few days before responding. Everyone respected that, but waiting was harder than I had imagined. Once I started getting responses they ranged from supportive and loving, to sadness and disappointment, and — unsurprisingly— anger.
The part that really hurt though, what has caused the most pain, is that nearly everyone’s opinion of me shifted — significantly. I was no longer the great dad, the spiritual guy quietly progressing in the church. Now I was the apostate. The one that broke everyone’s vision of an eternal family. Members believe that in order to continue the family relationships for eternity, members must be sealed in the temple to their families. By leaving the church, I am no longer worthy of those blessings. If I have my records actually removed from the church, my temple blessings are cancelled and are no longer available to me. With that in mind I know why they’re in pain, but they have no concept of mine.
When that pain is expressed, there is an implication that the pain is my fault anyway, so it’s mine to deal with. Maybe that’s not how all family and friends actually feel when people leave the church, but it sure seems that way for many of them.
What Are The Actual Reasons Mormons Leave the Church?
Quite frankly, there are a lot of things over which someone might leave. The assumption among many believers is that lack of belief can ultimately be traced to one of three reasons: 1) they just want to sin, 2) they’re too lazy to keep up in the gospel, 3) they have been led astray by Satan. Even being offended isn’t really considered a reason by the church anymore, not since David Bednar counselled members to “choose not to be offended” at the October 2006 General Conference. As a result, being offended is simply seen as an excuse for one of the other three reasons.
I’m sure there are people that leave for these reasons. I think far more of us leave because we earnestly search and find it not to be true. For me it was a scientific worldview. For a long time I believed in evolution and an old earth, with an old species. Somehow, I was able to resolve the two in my own mind. It was the doctrine of the church that led me to lose my faith however. Teaching a literal worldwide flood (Genesis 6:9–9:17), that evolution was certainly not the answer to how we got here, or that the species is only 6,000–7,000 years old caused me to lose my faith entirely. When I made the decision to leave the church over this, an understanding that they were simply incorrect, I wasn’t angry or bitter.
Many others are confronted by the church history they were never taught. Most of these things were not only skipped over in Sunday School, many were dismissed as “anti-Mormon lies.”
When I learned that people have been excommunicated from the church in the past for saying what is now acknowledged in the church’s Gospel Topics essays, I became angry. When I learn that what we were told doesn’t match reality, I became angry. When I learn that the church actively hid some of these things, I became angry. When I’m told that the church was not hiding something, because it was acknowledged one time in an article from the 1970’s, but never taught it again until recently, I became angry.
I learned about many of these things in the weeks after leaving the church. They absolutely made me angry — probably a little bit bitter too. What was worse for me is hearing that I’ve just given up too easily, that the issues can all be explained away.
This hurts, and I’m angry about it. It hurts because it discredits my own efforts to seek truth. It discredits the tens of thousands of others that have done the same. It hurts because I see that the church hasn’t always told the truth about it’s history.
More than anything, it hurts because I see how it affects my relationships with others. I’ve lost friendships over this. Relationships with family and friends are not the same as they were; they may never recover fully.
Changing Values
One of the significant sources of conflict when leaving the church is a shift in values. Once someone loses belief in Mormonism, it no longer makes sense to continue avoiding coffee and tea, for example. Science is increasingly showing that moderate amounts of coffee have health benefits such as lowered risk of Alzheimer's and dementia, improved concentration, long-term memory, and reaction speed.
That doesn’t stop the looks of disapproval and disappointment when a believing friend or family member discovers it though. Somehow, partaking of this particular category of beverage means that I am somehow less worthy than those who don’t.
Disagreements and disapproval extend beyond my actions, of course, but to opinions on how people should be treated. Three years ago, I argued on behalf of the November policy that I now find abhorrent. For those unaware, in November of 2015, the church quietly changed their policy toward those that entered into same-sex marriages and the children in those families. Anyone who entered into a same-sex marriage or cohabitation was guilty of apostasy and subject to church discipline (excommunication). Their children were prohibited from blessings (a child is blessed within a few weeks of birth and their church membership record is created). Their children are also prohibited from being baptized, receiving the priesthood, or serving a mission. Once they are 18 years old, if they disavow their parents lifestyle and relationship, they can receive permission from the First Presidency to participate in those things. This policy was added to the leadership handbook that only leaders in specific positions have access to, but leaked to the media soon after it was adopted.
Now I no longer worship a God that asks me to judge other people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. The idea that LGBTQ+ people should be able to love whomever they love, without judgment or unkind words directed their way, is somehow offensive to those that believe as I used to. I’m seen as misguided or deceived by the adversary (Satan) because I support their right to love whomever they choose.
This change in values, almost always after losing belief and moving on from the church, is often viewed as the reason for doing so. It’s as though we looked at the promises of the church, looked over at a cup of coffee, and decided eternal salvation wasn’t worth having to give up this worldly beverage. Does anybody actually believe this?
Deceived by Satan
This is the big one. This is the reason everybody who either wasn’t sinning already, desired to sin, or was just too lazy to stick around has left the church. This is the most hurtful reason I’ve heard for why I’ve left the church. Family members have been kind enough not to hurl it at me, but others have not.
There is this belief that if anything doesn’t lead one toward the church, it must be of Satan. He sure is a tricky guy based on the results of my apostasy: I have a better relationship with my kids, I spend more time with my family, and I am more empathetic and compassionate than I was as a believer. If I’m deceived by Satan, he certainly has an interesting method.
The truth is that many of us become less judgmental after leaving the church. I don’t mean to say that everyone in the church is judgmental, that’s certainly not the case. I still have great friends that are members and are the kindest, most loving people I know.
When I was an active, believing member of the church I supported the leadership of the church. This meant supporting efforts like Proposition 8 in California, defending November policy, and so on. Since leaving the church, I suddenly have no reason to justify those attitudes. I’m able to recognize that LGBTQ+ parents can be just as loving as straight parents. I can see there’s no real difference between the love I have for my wife and the love two men or two women can have for each other.
If that’s Satan’s message — that we should love everyone, regardless of our differences — than I guess I’m willing to accept that. If anybody wants to say Satan’s deceived me, that’s their prerogative.
How Can Members Support Those That Leave?
Simply love your family and friends that leave the church. Don’t judge them for taking a different path than you chose. Try and view your relationship from their point-of-view. Are your interactions based around helping them feel the spirit, or are they based on a mutual friendship? There’s nothing wrong with members that choose to leave. The overwhelming majority of us still love the church members in our lives despite our anger with the institutional church. We will not try to convert you or your kids, all we really want is that same respect.
As members, we were taught that every member is a missionary. As former members, we’re well aware of that pressure on the membership. Just be a friend without conditions. We also know how the former Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching programs worked. Despite the change in name to ministering, we’re still pretty aware of how the program works.
If we’ve never spoken since I left the church, but now that you’re an assigned minister you’d like to reach out and get to know me better — that’s not a friendship based on anything but the church. You might be pretty good at not mentioning church right away — I’m pretty good at seeing through the motives. If you truly want to be my friend and the ministering assignment is just a way of kick-starting the process, I’m actually okay with that. Just understand that it’s going to take me some time to trust that you’re not just going to disappear when my membership record does. Former members don’t want assigned friends — they want real friends.
Next, please just listen to us. As mentioned previously, leaving a tribe and a worldview all at once is traumatic. Most of us are not going to try to convert you. If you don’t want to know what issues we had with the church it’s okay to tell us, I can certainly respect that; it took a lot of convincing from my wife before I was even willing to share my concerns about the church with her.
Ask us about our pain. Ask us why it hurts and how we feel. Ask us what we need if you want to help. When we’re angry, when we’re hurt, we just want people to be there for us, not to judge us. Don’t distance yourself from us, we still want and need to have relationships with the people we care about.
I know it may seem otherwise, because former members tend to create some distance from believers. This is a protection mechanism, nothing more. I’m constantly worried that my friends and family are judging me. I’ve created a little distance so I can just process my feelings and emotions without worrying as much about those judgments from others.
Whatever else you do, please don’t bear your testimony at those that have left. We’ve been where you are. I understand the elements crucial to a testimony of the membership. I’ve borne mine to others at various times. I’ve said the words “I know” countless times to countless people. There’s nothing in your testimony that is going to surprise me.
What it will do is let me know that you still think that I don’t know what I’m doing. It will remind me that you don’t think I’m capable of rational decision-making because you just know this thing is true, and you’re seemingly shocked that I just can’t see it. It reminds me that in your eyes, I’m just not good enough.
You see bearing testimony as a vital part of who you are. You see bearing testimony as your duty from God to help others feel the spirit and spread His message. I get it — really. I’m just trying to move on from that part of my life.
Imagine a close family member that converted to another religion that you don’t agree with. Now imagine them bearing testimony to you every time you interact that they know their church is true. Would this make you more likely to give up your own faith and explore theirs, or would it make you less likely to interact with them?
Why Can’t Former Members Just Leave the Church Alone?
There’s a great article on this already, so I won’t re-hash everything. Quite frankly, it’s because we can’t entirely escape from it. Between missionaries appearing on the doorstep, calls from assigned ministers, priesthood leaders, and well-meaning members that are just worried about us, the church has a hard time leaving former members alone.
There is no official do-not-contact list. Even resigning membership doesn’t actually remove the membership record; it is simply annotated and moved to headquarters. Moreover, former members often still have children, a spouse or former spouse, or other family members still heavily invested in the church. We are constantly confronted with who we used to be, and what we used to believe.
Every interaction a member has with someone who has left the church is viewed through a specific lens: reactivation. Members try to find ways to work in elements of belief that the unbeliever would be familiar with. Trying to evoke feelings of peace and happiness around these things because members regard that as the Spirit testifying truth to someone.
The discomfort that former members feel is not because we used to believe and now we are feeling the spirit again. We are not shedding tears when we visit your congregation because the meeting was just that spiritual. We shed tears because we realize that the ones we care about are still in the religion. We recognize how badly they want us there next to them, even though we can’t do so and be true to ourselves.
So sometimes we lash out. We see harm being done to the ones we love and we care. Not harm from a belief in a God or a prophet. Harm when the poorest are told to give their money to the church. We see harm when our kids are asked sexually explicit questions by their bishop, all alone, in his office. We see harm when young women are told that their education should be a backup, but their primary role is to stay home and have babies. We see unrealized potential in those we love, because they’re told to ignore it. We see harm when teenagers are publicly shamed because they don’t feel worthy. If Jesus Christ is real, he’s not asking kids about pornography or their sexuality.
I hope all of us — members, former members, people that have never been members — can keep that in mind. I hope we can understand each other, respect each other, and just be kind to each other. We will continue to disagree. That’s okay, disagreement can be beneficial! We all become better people as we learn to love each other as we are. I hope we can all learn to empathize with each other.
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