could have avoided the negative situations with church leaders if the leader would have simply followed his handbook. From many of the bishop's interviews with the questions he asked, to how they handled conflict or problems.

I can't help but say that if you would have been in a ward where the leadership followed the handbook, and were more caring towards you, perhaps you would not have been offended and then later left the church after studying it out.

Is this why the church changed handbooks recently, and why they have now had 3 leadership training meetings about the handbook in less than 6 months?

Ah I'd still have left the church after studying it out. Thanks for playing tho! ;-)

That's funny, lillium. You cracked me up, and that's dangerous-- because there's a beverage here, man.

You can't study that mess and stay with it. Maybe if you believe in bigfoot and chupacabra.

I've seen pictures of a chupacabra!

Offended my ass! More like disgusted.

...amen. offended at Joe nailing teenagers. KC, take that handbook and shove it up your TBM ass.

would it have come as fast if you were not offended by leadership?

Reason I ask is that the recent influx of training has me thinking that word has traveled back to the corp that people typically don't question unless they are offended or see something that is way off.

My guess is the recent changes in the HOI and the influx of training came so TSCC doesn't get their garmies sued off.

Would it have come as fast? It's hard to say what would or wouldn't have happened unless it happens. That said, I really wasn't offended at the time. I totally and completely trusted the bishop, thought he was called by god and guided by the Power of Discernment and would not be allowed to do wrong. I didn't become offended until I read the D&C and The Miracle of Forgiveness and started figuring out what crap it all was. Then I started thinking about all the inappropriate things and started getting mad about them.

So I had studied and figured out TSCC was a crock before I got offended.

Leadership made no difference to me and DW. Our BP was a very caring lighthanded leader. We did not seek his counsil regarding our disaffection. The cult is filthy and self damning, we did'nt need supar leaders to nudge us over the edge. IMHO the cult is its own worst enemy.

...the fact that the HOI has undergone numerous changes over the years, especially since the 1980s. There was much, much greater leeway for Bishops/Branch Presidents/Stake Presidents 15 years ago than now. They have tried to tone it down some.

Funny story, though, my BIL was in the bishopric a couple of years ago, and his HOI was on his bookshelf. He was sitting on the sofa across the room and I went to reach for it. He just about jumped out of his skin, horrified, "No! You can't!" They had received strict instructions that nobody was allowed to see the HOI, especially degenerate apostates like myself. I told him, no worries, then that night while he was asleep, snuck downstairs to read it with a flashlight. The newer version hadn't made it onto the Internet yet and my curiosity was killing me.

I know, I know...and I also kicked a dog once too.

Yes, for many of the stories it does seem the Bishop/member leader was going well and above what would be instructed in magnifying their calling.

But it was but one impetus to study deeper into what the church is all about and to ponder on the inherent weaknesses and skeletons of the church. Yes, the members aren't perfect, but the church and it's structure sure isn't perfect either and has some downright destructive tendencies embedded into its very bones that it disseminates to its members.

I know we like to throw rocks at Utah, but it does stand as a bright example of would you want to live in an area where the majority are striving to be good Mormons. Or even just the people in your ward.

Where you live in a fish bowl of judgements and shame and people go crazy and depressed over putting on a fake and happy mask to the detriment of their own families.

I know overall the church and its members are striving to do what in their minds is good and they do accomplish some good in the world and have much that is praiseworthy about it. Still the foundation of darkness and lies will and does cause even the elect to fall.

...that most people here simply stopped believing that the church is what it purports to be.

Some of the numerous problems are: the multiple, and differing first vision accounts, the recanting of the witnesses to the BoM (they saw it with their "spiritual," not physical eyes,) Jospeh sticking his head in his hat to "translate" most of the BoM, Joseph's entirely faulty "translation" of the Book of Abraham, the Kinderhook plates, Jospeh's taking as wives women who were already married to other men, and also marrying eleven teens while in his thirties (including at least one fourteen-year-old,) his order of the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor (someone's livelihood!) for exposing his polygamy, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, etc.

I'm going to put this bluntly: Joseph Smith was not a moral man. Not even close. Back before the internet, that fact could be hidden from most people. That is no longer the case. And that is why people leave.

The other problems are contributing factors, sure. But in most cases, those problems are not the main reason for leaving.

That's one of the lies TSCC feeds its members. They run like this:-

1) They never really had a testimony
2) They left so that they could lead a sinful life
3) They left because they were offended

Not true. Most leave because they discover TSCC is not what it pretends to be.

Good. About time.

You are correct that most do not follow the H.O.I. In all fairness it has changed so often that they can't be blamed for not knowing what the truth is this month.

In any case, new bishops get a 300ish-page instruction manual for what to do in every type of situation; because you can totally model every possible human behavior with generalizations. "Look! A category C outlandish dinglewing! Page 224!" Solution: give the guy cookies then establish a relationship of trust. Then get into his house and ask him to commit to coming on Sunday. Brilliant. Works every time. If it doesn't work you did it wrong. God will not be mocked.

So they look you up in the book of everything that can go wrong and they see that you were actually category B type 154 non-chalant inbred prostitute lover. Just in case they thought you might be merely "offended".

Then they pass judgement.

You then get a trial, because show trials are good for P.R. and public hangins have a long history of making people more religious.

Then you are exed, beheaded (some states allow this) or at a minimum ostricized from everyone you love(d). Or they just target your spouse for sh!ts and giggles and everyone has a good laugh at the meetinghouse when you come in and threaten them with a lawsuit. Lawsuits are really funny.

Yes, reading the H.O.I. could do everyone good. If I had the most current version I'd use it to the utmost advantage against the unholy. By unholy of course I mean the bishopric and thier minions. Since I only have the gospel truth as of last month's unchanging doctrine (or is it doctoring?) I roll with it. I may be wrong. I am often wrong.

At least I have the stones to admit that I might actually be wrong.

I left because the doctrine is offensive.

They were annoying. They harassed me when I asked to be left alone. The love bombing was suffocating. That stuff wasn't offensive, it's just how they are trained.

Proposition 8 and the excommunication of Chad Hardy was such a showcase of blatant hypocrisy that I couldn't help but to see what else they were spinning and lying about.

I found out: plenty.

NOW I am offended. The institution is offensive, so it's the proper emotion.

I never had a leader treat me in a way that I found offensive. In fact, most of the leaders were my neighbors and family friends. I liked them. That doesn't make the church true.

I was the arrogant oaf that offended people.
I was never offended by a leader or by anyone else.
I liked every bishop, every EQP.

My testimony collapsed entirely under its own weight. I believed EVERYTHING, "every word that procedeth from the mouth of God", and of course "whether by mine own voice or the voice of my servants it is the same". The church is MASSIVELY backpedaling on the words of past presidents and apostles, selectively downplaying the scriptures, and here I was taking the word of bishops and EQPs as sacred. I even felt it was my sacred duty to read and follow ward newsletters, nevermind the Ensign.

So after 18 years of "my cup runnething over" and the windows of heaven being open so wide and pouring out blessings that I had not "room enough to recieve", I simply collapsed under the weight of it all.

The grain that tipped the scale was that it bothered me that God dissed "whores" in the Book of Mormon. It's just not fair to whores to say the Great and Abominable Church is a whore. They deserve more respect than that.

I kind of got caught up in the homeschooling fringe of the ward once and they where ultra tbm about the doctrines, quotes from past conference talks to backup everything, et cetera.

But 1 thing they had going for them was they knew the handbook inside and out and refused to the manipulated by local leaders or other people too strayed from it. The boys all attended the leadership training meetings as it was another chance to hear the apostles speak and what they really want to the church to be run like.

They helped me realize that so many of the local leaders were just going through the motions and tried to use manipulation quite often. They also perceived that most board members for just sheeple on a local level. I learn from it in the difference between church doctrine and policy, and church culture and all of its craziness.

Being aware of this difference helped maybe a better member at the time. then I found out the doctrine was bullshit, so now who cares about the policy. I'm audi 5000

Typical lds drivel that people leave because they got offended. How about the church is not true and lil Joey Smith was a pedophile con man? It's a freakin fairy story.

Handbook or no handbook....Joseph Smith was still a slimy child molesting conman.

Reason enough for ANYONE to leave. Putting a sugar coating on a turd doesn't do it for me.

Shiner Bock, ha ha! You just made me think of something. All the efforts to dress up the Book of Mormon, including verse division, are efforts to polish a turd. The thing sucked from the get go.

What is the HOI? Same as the handbook?

Is it available somewhere on the internet?

The newest version was only online for a few days before the church's attorneys stomped it out.

You haven't read enough. It's more than local or even general leadership. It's that the so called doctrine is BS. When I left, it was because TSCC is not what it purports to be and the BOM is bad fiction. And it came to pass that I left.
Susan

I was offended.

Off and on, throughout my life.

My parents offended me, when they focused on all the *by the book* crazy parts of the church and scriptures, left me believing that the Second Coming would happen before I so much as kissed a boy for the first time, and manipulated me into helping hide our family's massive dysfunction so that we had the proper appearance.

Bishops who went by the book offended me. For example, the one who was correct in the handbook of instructions to threaten me with a church court...when I was a lost 18 year old who had been sexually assaulted by her date.

Or the bishop...going by the book, mind you...who threatened to get rid of my spouse and my ecclesiastical endorsement. We weren't attending church very often...never mind that I had almost died in surgery, and was one misstep away from a severe PPD tragedy.

I spent years of my life thinking that the leaders I ran into were the exception, not the rule. My opinion changed when I realized that the very behavior I so abhorred was actively supported, and rewarded by religious social climbing.

Have to agree with most of the sentiment here. I was not offended by church leadership in a blatant way...when I first began to take a good, hard look at the church in all of its glory, I became angry at the people throughout my adolescence who seemed moderately intelligent but didn't question (or tolerate questions) about contradictions in church theology.

But really, I left the church because it just is a load of bunk. Not because the people in it "aren't true".

It was a pretty good life and reasonably respected until I came across some information on the PBS special in 2007. It was somewhat advertized at church that there was a great special coming up. Otherwise I might not have known about it, as soon. When that information came, I had to seek further information and that was when my test monkey became ill.

Even after I told my Bishop I was having doubts he was very helpful and supportive, and I attended regularly just like always and performed all of my duties as if nothing was wrong. He even renewed my temple recommend.
Nine months later I told my wife about the things that I had discovered, and we as a family began skipping church right away.

That was when the leadership took off the kid gloves and the BS began.

Until that time I was respected and had fellowship, but they made me the designated leper.

Your point may be valid in some cases, but let me just say that when the church was true, no offense could have driven me away. It was too important to let petty buffoonery get in the way. Besides, I am certain that I have offended more people than have ever offended me.

Leave the only true path over an offense? Please.

The only reason to leave the true path is if it is actually not the true path. And that is not determined by leadership not following the CHI, because every Bishop is different- some good some bad. If the current Bishop is a doosh, just wait for his replacment.

I never had a problem with the local leaders. My bishop was/is a good man and a friend. Nobody knew I was planning to resign. I made an appointment with my bishop, met with him and told him I wanted to be released from my callings and that I will never attend church again.

He was stunned, shocked and very upset. He had done nothing wrong, but felt he had failed me. I left because the church is not true, because Joseph Smith lied and so I was wasting my time supporting the organization.

It had nothing to do with local leader training or how they used/did not use the CHI.

ever to me. None of it. As hard as I tried. Even with "loving" leadership. I never truly had a problem with local leadership.

KC,
I was honestly trying to study my way back in to the church and ended up studying my way out. I was told that, in order to get back into the church and get formal probation lifted, I needed to study the scriptures every day. So I did. I read the Book of Mormon. Sure I read it as a teenager. But now, as an adult, everytime I picked it up, I read something that was off or didn't make sense. I decided it couldn't possibly be a historical document that was thousands of years old. THe way its written, it seemed all too trite and simple-minded. The Book of Mormon ruined all faith I had in the church. And all this was an entire year AFTER an asshat bishop threatened to take away my stay-at-home-full-time-mom wife's temple recommend if I didn't pay a full 10% on my income. So I had plenty of time to be offended before I left.

I was called to be elders quorum teacher very soon after I was baptized.

The reason I left was I could not teach the lesson on "Temples of the Lord". The more I studied the history of the temples, I kept finding more material that made me uncomfortable. I kept finding references to the Masons, so I spent several days studying Freemasonry and came out of that astonished and 100% convinced that Joseph Smith had stolen most of his material from the masons. He was not a prophet, he was a plaigarist.

So you see, since I was no longer convinced JS was a prophet, everything about Mormonism fell like a house of cards. It was over, so I left.

No actually, that's not what most of us sound like at all.

I left because I could not under any circumstances believe all of the supernatural, metaphysical, visions and stories Joseph Smith Jr. told and could not verify! Nothing holds up to scrutiny.
No golden plates, no angels,no Biblical character visitations, no translations. All typical God Myth: borrowed ideas, plagiarized other works.

Handbook be damned. It's useless.

You sound like you believe the lie that the only reason people leave is because they are offended by someone in their ward.

Most were not offended by a living Mormon. We were offended by the false and racist teachings of past prophets. The leadership like members to believe that it is the members or local leaders fault when people leave the church, when in fact it is the fault of the top leadership back to the very beginning. They are the ones who worked so hard to hide and twist history that was deemed not faith promoting. They are the ones who change the doctrines when they become socially unacceptable. They are the ones who work so hard to block the rights of people who do not fit their gender model. Not to mention that the whole BoM story is not supported by a shred of archeological evidence.

You lose.

Starting to balk at drinking the Koolaid? You should.

People leave because they find out it is a pack of lies. The internet has made it very easy to find out the truth about the mormon cult. They are losing people and money, big time. They are so shallow that they think that training their clergy is going to change the fact that the church sells lies.

The church is lies. Lies created by a con man and maintained by self serving men afterwards. Training the clergy is not going to change the lies.

Come on, join. You know you want to, that is why you are reading here.