For a religion that is so dedicated to missionary work I have not seen a group of people so bent on shunning, antagonizing, or harassing those who choose to leave, as I have experienced over the years during my membership in the Mormon church. Any good and knowledgable CEO of a corporation is quick to mend PR glitches within the ranks. PR is a major priority amongst most financial organizations. The church and service in it is still voluntary.

Our oldest son was serving a mission in Sweden and out of the two years he was there, he had five baptisms. At the same time, our ward virtually ran an entire family of six out of the ward.

It just seemed to me that they were shoving people out the back door faster than they were bringing them in the front. Feelings aside, it seems that a pervasive attitude of punishment, judgemental attitudes, and a church caste system only serves to
make their work less effective and their goals more difficult to achieve. It's called "biting the hands that feed you"

Of course they do it's why it's done. The shunning and the shaming it to keep the truth from getting out. It's not a religion it's a pyramid scheme.

The functional goal could be described as to get as much throughput through the door without having to deal with the lack of promotion levels at the top. It's why converts don't stay very long nothing for a convert to do nowhere for a convert to go in the system. If it is accepted there is no real room for converts and they will leave then the system makes perfect sense and is working as planned.

If TSSC wanted to convert people they would wait until missionary are old enough and mature enough to have a deep and meaningful understanding of religion and could share from personal experience.

Instead the young and impressionable with heads full of metaphors and half truths are sent out to sell a product.

The person being targeted in the whole process is the missionary. Being on a mission is like basic training it's the mold the missionary into an obedient taker of orders.

You would think this it would be a priority. But, no.
It's always been done, and it doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon.

There were 9 (nine) families, counting us, that left our ward in a 3 month time frame. The sp/bish combo is very toxic. There are many who are trying to hang in there for the next 7 to 8 years while those two clowns are abusing and insulting people as fast as they can.

Slc knows about whats going on, but refuses to do anything about it. My theory is there aren't any replacements. For 2 years my husband had two callings because they didn't have anyone that could qualify for EQP. The ward is full of widows and senile old men.

It might have something to do with a "circle the wagons" mentality that we seem to cultivate in the church. If your major motivator is fear of all the evil in the world---fear that such evil will contaminate you and corrupt your children---you are more apt to shun those whom you think of as apostate or heterodox.

I've gone several times to a local Episcopal Church and have been enlightened by the female pastor's words of dismissal at the end of the service. She encouraged all to go out into the world as Christians and make a difference.

I found this to be a delightfully different attitude from what I intuit from our services. It is very optimistic about life and the opportunities we have to do good in the world. Actually a night and day difference. The effect on me was immediate, a feeling that, yes, the world is a beautiful and exciting place that we should feel optimistic about.

I'm sorry if I took the topic and ran away with it, but it seems that our pessimistic view of the world and the evil that therein lies is at least a part of the reason for the shunning.