I gleaned a convert for LD$ inc on a FOOL time LDS mission at GREAT personal expense and sacrifice for myself. He was a head of house hold and his family followed his lead in joining THE (MORmON) church. He was a fairly good member of THE (MORmON) church. THE (MORmON) church treated that convert like a demolition derby car. THE (MORmON) church says that they want converts. It must be so that they can have more people to abuse. In a temper tantrum display of gratuitously exercising their authority, THE church finally disfellowshipped that convert. It was a move on their part to make sure the convert would know who was really in charge. It turned out that their disciplinary action against him was really groundless. That after they had made sure to put him through the ringer. They sent him a letter saying there was good news -he was eligible for early reinstatement. When they called him on the phone since he had not responded to the letter, he said he no longer had any interest in being part of their BS organization. I realized that I had the very same sentiment.
It was NOT a high profile deal to any one others, but it was high profile enough for us, so we quit.
The MORmON church deserves nothing but bitterness and contempt, just as they dish out so much bitterness and contempt, so contrary to any notion that they are about goodness and virtue.
I had a similar experience. We found a great family, who were duly baptized and started a committed life in the church.
The established members, though, were consistently impolite and the family realized they had made a mistake. They talked to us, we said we understood, and they left the church. Losing such fine people was a big loss for the church.
Upon my return, I told this story in my homecoming talk in an effort to say the church needed to shape up in the way they treated newcomers. My comments were not received well.
"Upon my return, I told this story in my homecoming talk in an effort to say the church needed to shape up in the way they treated newcomers. My comments were not received well."
Yes, although I'm going to be intentionally imprecise.
My mission was a bad one. The leadership was terrible and ended up getting replaced a bit early. A number of missionaries returned to their homes with negative attitudes and in some cases depression and other problems.
When I went home, I was motivated by a few different feelings, including a desire to be honest, a naive belief that if the church understood what had happened they would reach out to the wounded missionaries, and a desire to warn younger people about what can occur and to let them know that others have been there before. The speech must have had an impact because a few RMs in neighboring areas contacted me, said they'd heard what I did, and thanked me for telling the truth.
In my home ward, for which I had affection and considerable faith, the speech did not go over well. One older woman came up to me afterward, sincere emotion in her eyes, and said in her heavily accented English that she understood what I was saying; she had seen it in her home country some decades before. But she was an anomaly. Most of the other members--largely old friends--distanced themselves, wanting nothing to do with me. That happened among people in their twenties, too, who stopped interacting with my fellow disillusioned RMs and me.
That didn't matter as much to me; it was disturbing, sad, but unlike most of our crop of RMs, I was headed off to a distant university to learn the ways of the world. What did matter was that my parents, ambitious Mormons, were offended and told me to shut up about my mission lest the family lose status. No empathy there.
My parents remained distant from me for many years--Dallin would have approved--and we are still not very close. Ultimately the church's abandonment of cherished doctrines and its harm to other relatives and friends vitiated my parents' faith as well, but they have simply withdrawn from the Mormon community and even from our family. The Mormonism runs deep in them, and I don't think they can move beyond it.
As you know, excommunication was historically driving a person out of his or her community: ostracization, sending into exile. A lot of people who came out of my mission were in that sense excommunicated. They were not welcome in their home wards or stakes, gossiped, shunned.
Yes, monolithic communities render such outcomes almost inevitable. I've seen the ostracization do a lot of harm to people--both the victims and, with the passage of time, the family and friends who did the ostracizing. There are probably few things in life sadder than when a person wakes up late in life to the fact that her shunning of a beloved friend or family member, at the behest of the church, permanently harmed that relationship.
ChurchCo leaders & others talk in generalities about Love, Honesty, Kindness, but they're Extremely Hesitant to put that into everyday application by specific examples; That, of course, was what Christ did, at least as taught in the N.T.
I have long thought if they just ignored people who criticized them they would be better off. They are really a small number of those who claim activity in the LDS Church. As one who was threatened with excommunication before I resigned, I never really understood how I was a threat. I made the mistake of joining a Trinitarian Christian Church and defending traditional Christian doctrines online. I hadn't planned on officially leaving Mormonism until they threatened me. The fact is that local members never had any idea I was doing this since I didn't discuss these things with other members I personally knew. I'd love to know who outed me! Even after I resigned most members locally continued to think I was still LDS unless I told them. They gained nothing by getting rid of me, but it hurt the feelings of my active family members who were hanging onto the fact I hadn't officially left the LDS Church.
Something that I always take heart in is the fact that "the church" doesn't care, truly care.
Their actions towards most negative things their corporation faces are never restorative, apologetic, insightful, wise, <fill in good reaction adjective here.>
They often preach in the General Conference about going after "lost sheep" but it is never conciliatorily. Never.
These simple things have shown me that I'm dealing with a brand, a business, an ecosystem, and ultimately a group of people temple-sworn to choose their illusions over their people.
They will survive because they are a meme which exploits human nature. The biggest wakeup call for me we how much their illusion exploits the "natural man" to maintain itself. No revelation. No inspiration. Just an old meme active in a culture where it can inculcate, inoculate, and innervate the creative, active, passionate, "sinning" minds of humans.
It hasn't been stated here in years, but Mormonism is similar to a frontal lobotomy. It makes people not become like children but into children obsessed with a stifling form of happiness "sealed" to promises of endless doses for eternity.