According to the Church and to our
faithful friends and family, why do we leave? There is a very short list of
reasons provided by the lesson manuals, scriptures, and leaders—it is because…
-
we were offended (like
the oft repeated and disturbingly misleading story of how the President of the
Quorum of the 12, Thomas B Marsh turned against the Church over a disagreement
about milk striplings)
-
we desire to sin, or are
hiding secret sin (Ensign, June 2009, Avoiding Personal Apostasy, Elder Claidio
D Zivic; D&C 93: 39; D&C 121: 37). Brigham Young laid it out as
explicitly as is possible: “no person ever apostatized, without actual transgression.”
(Chapter 12: Preventing Personal Apostasy,” Teachings of Presidents of the
Church: Brigham Young)
-
we are disobedient and
critical of Church leaders (Lesson 24 of the Doctrine And Covenants And Church
History Manual; and about half of Chapter 27 of the lesson manual Teachings of
the Prophet Joseph Smith is dedicated to this notion, describing it as “one of
the Keys of the mysteries of the Kingdom…an
eternal principle”)
-
we just got lazy (2nd
Nephi 28: 21-22; D&C 84: 54)
-
we have fallen under the
control of Satan. According to Joseph Smith “apostates after turning from the
faith of Christ…have…fallen into the snares of the wicked one, and have been
left destitute of the Spirit of God… left naked and destitute of the Spirit of
God…his end is to be burned. When you joined this Church…you left the neutral
ground, and you never can get back on to it. Should you forsake the Master you
enlisted to serve, it will be by the instigation of the evil one, and you will
follow his dictation and be his servant.” (Chapter 27 Teachings of the Prophet
Joseph Smith; also see 2nd Nephi 28: 20-22, D&C 10: 26, D&C 93:
39)
It has occurred to me that those who judge
us for leaving the Church are revealing as much about themselves as they are
about us.
The “reasons” that they attribute to us
are, in reality, the mirror image of how they presume beliefs are formed; the
faithful LDS believer is projecting their own flawed belief formation processes
onto the non-believer, and concluding that the ex-believers beliefs about the
church are formed in the same manner as the beliefs of the true believer.
The believer presumes that we leave
because we are offended:
Offense
is the mirror image of the primary missionary tool of the common member of the
Church, it is the flipside of fellowship. If you, a true believer, want your
neighbor or co-worker to join the Church, you fellowship them, invite them to
ward activities, and make them feel welcome. Is a member drifting away from
activity? Lovebomb them. Get the kids to primary activities and the youth to
MIA, bake cookies, do service projects…
Why? Because, the faithful member
presumes, making somebody feel welcome will make them (curiously) more likely
to believe. It therefore stands to reason that the opposite process ought to
work in a similar fashion. The believer presumes that if somebody feels
unwelcome they will be less likely to believe. So if somebody rejects the
claims of the Church it is a natural inference to conclude that they must have
been offended.
The believer presumes that we leave
because we desire to sin, or are hiding secret sins.
The process of belief formation is laid
out in Alma 32. One of the key principles is that if you act as though you
believe, you will start to believe (Alma 32:28-34, 38). This is how a testimony
is formed. Pay tithing, you will gain a testimony of tithing, read the BoM, you
will gain a testimony of reading the BoM, be chasteàtestimony
of chastity (*cough* Leon Festinger *cough*). So in the mind of the faithful, the
converse must be true. If you act contrary to the rules of the Church, you will
lose your testimony.
The believer presumes that we leave
because of disobedience, and because of criticism of Church and leaders.
The discussion of Alma 32 (above) covers
the disobedience.
Boyd K Packer (The Candle of the Lord,"
Ensign, Jan. 1983, pp. 54-55) and Dallin H. Oaks (Dallin H. Oaks: General
Conference, April 2008) have both asserted that one develops a testimony by
stating that you are a believer. (it’s almost
as though these people are knowledgeable regarding Cognitive Dissonance Theory
and are perhaps disingenuously applying it to their own ends…). If statements
of faith develop testimonies, then clearly the converse must be true, and the believer consequently
infers that statements
critical of leaders must diminish testimonies.
The believer presumes that we leave
because we are lazy
Again
(Alma 32: 28-34), to develop faith in LDS tenets you are to *act* as though you
believe. In Mormonism, believing requires a sustained effort of behavior. So if
one lacks belief, it must be a matter of the lack of the correct behavior. You
cannot allow doubts to creep in. The LDS scriptures actually explicitly say
that in order to develop a testimony, in order to believe-- DON’T NOT BELIEVE
(Mormon 9:21; Alma 32:28). If you don't believe, the problem is not that the
proposition is false, the problem is with you. You didn't try hard enough (Alma
32: 38-39; Moroni 10: 3-5), you didn’t make an effort to, so to speak, doubt your
doubts.
The believer presumes that we leave
because we
are under the control of Satan.
I
don’t think I need to give scriptural or GA references for this. When we join
the Church we receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We are ostensibly guided by
the spirit in our actions. We become closer to God. In the mind of the faithful
LDS, we can expect that they would presume that if we leave the Church, the
converse must be true.
So
you and I weighed the evidence, and found the Church lacking. After long and
often painful deliberation, we concluded that the Church is not what it claims
to be. Because our process of exiting the Church involved soul searching,
research, learning, logic, and thoughtfulness, we find it disturbing that the
our faithful LDS friends and family can so easily dismiss our conclusions as a
cover for hiding a secret sin, or laziness, etc.
Let
me explicitly state that if ever I was offended it never determined my
deliberations on the truth claims of the LDS Church, that I was not harboring a
secret desire for sin, that my criticism of leaders of the Church is a result
of their whitewashing of history (amongst other things) and not a cause of
disbelief, that my disbelief followed years of study and struggle and nothing
even remotely resembling laziness, and that I am most emphatically not under
the control of Satan.
The
truth of the matter is that the process that a faithful LDS follows to develop
a testimony is flawed, and their criticisms of our disbelief are merely the
projection of their flawed process onto us.
I left because I don't believe that stuff anymore. In which category does that put me?
ReplyDeleteVery interesting and thought provoking. Thanks for explaining this!
ReplyDeleteThere was one lady, a convert, that I met on my mission who admitted to me that someone at church offended her and that was why she stopped attending church, but she still paid her tithing and still claimed to have a strong testimony of Mormonism. I allowed her example to help me place everyone who left the church under the same stigma and that never changed until I learned for myself that the church was false.
ReplyDeleteWhat I failed to consider, and what most Mormons fail to consider, is that I was deemphasizing what was at stake for those who wanted to justify leaving the church: an eternity of exaltation and eternal families. Who wouldn't want the best promised blessings? Who would honestly be willing to give that up all for a temporary nuisance?
When you learn that the church is false, then exaltation becomes nothing. The commandments of God are really the commandments of men. The blessings that are supposed to come from obeying said commandments become nothing but empty promises. We then, naturally, do what makes us happy and what makes us happy can be perceived as sin. In other words, we don't leave so that we can sin. We "sin" because we left.