Posted by:
Brother Of Jerry
(
)
Date: April 26, 2021 02:33AM
moehoward Wrote:
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> Whoa Jerry, we are just talking...
Your question sounded like you thought resigning was of no consequence and a silly exercise. I went to the trouble to list what I consider to be the most important consequences. They may not be important to you, but that is not the same as "there are no consequences". There are.
I added a second post to make clear that my attitude is not that you must resign or you are not a fit human being. There are plenty of good reasons to not resign. It's a personal choice.
Resigning for a lot of people is a very fraught and stressful decision. They don't know what's going to happen, will they have to be interviewed by the bishop, can they be excommunicated, yada yada yada. Some people are really frightened, and they deserve full and accurate information. That's all I'm trying to do.
Yer welcome.
>
> "As long as you are a member, they get to claim
> you as a member. You will show up on some ward
> roster as being a member of that ward. Or you will
> be on the lost members file in SLC."
> -That's ok we me
That's fine if still being on the ward roster is OK with you, but being taken off the roster has several advantages. From time to time, ward leadership get possessed of The Spirit™ and decide to go through the roster and see if they can find anyone who needs reactivating. If you are not on the roster, you get spared the totally unexpected visit from God knows who, who will say God knows what.
Also, you will never get asked if you will teach a class, clean the chapel, schedule an appointment for a TR interview or tithing settlement, etc. Well, unless some yahoo in the ward doesn't check the ward roster and note that you are no longer on it. That happens now and then.
>
> "As long as you are a member, it is reasonable to
> assume you either approve of or are indifferent to
> their actions WRT LGBTQ+, or their sexism, or
> their $100B+ slush fund, or their baptizing dead
> people, or........ It certainly does not signal
> disapproval."
> -This is a stretch. If the president says
> something or the CEO of your company has a stand,
> we can assume you agree?
I don't think it is a stretch at all. For starts, there are people who renounce their citizenship because they deeply disagree with a president, but that is a massive step to take compared to sending an email in to resign from LDS Inc. Among other things, there is a $2,300 fee, a final tax return where your entire net worth is taxed as a capital gain taken the day before you renounce ($700,000 standard deduction - I looked it up!), you eventually have to move out of the country or apply for a green card. It's a big effing deal.
I also know people who have resigned jobs over management actions. A good friend of mine in Seattle quit a well paid job at Amazon over their policies toward promoting women.
A lot of people resign from LDS Inc over outrage at their policies. They lost a lot of members when they announced their policy about babies of same-sex couples not being allowed to be blessed or baptized. I resigned simply because I did not want my good name (more on that below) associated with those clowns.
> "As long as you are a member, there is always the
> possibility that they will get a wild hare up
> their butt and try and track you down and
> "reactivate" you. They are infamous for doing
> that."
> -It's been over 35 years and nobody from the LDS
> church has contacted me. If they do, it will be a
> fun time.
There is a regular slow drizzle of reports here of people who get totally unexpected visits after years without contact. Not a big deal really, but keep in mind you can have as much fun with them even if you have resigned. And they rarely show up at a good time.
> "Resigning gets you off any ward rosters, off any
> official "reactivation list" (though some
> do-gooder may still unofficially try to save your
> soul), and you have the satisfaction of knowing
> that you have clearly signaled your
> dissatisfaction with LDS Inc"
> -Is the activation list something like "your
> permanent record?"
See my comment above about leaders deciding there might be some people on the ward roster who need saving.
>
> "You fired them."
> -The LDS religion is totally made up, it's not a
> real entity, nobody can be fired from either side.
OK, you are entitled to your own opinion. If you consider resigning a waste of time, fine. However, you are not entitled to your own facts.
LDS Inc is a real entity. Anything with a hundred billion dollar slush fund and a mountain a real estate, and its own state legislature and 5 million active cult members is a real entity.
They have a real baptism application that has your name and signature on it. If you were a minor, your parents' of guardian's signature is on it. You can't sign a contract as a minor, but your parents can on your behalf. Fifty years ago the church was sometimes lax about that. Not anymore. It is a real live legal document.
That membership may not exist in your eyes, but it definitely exists in the eyes of the LDS Church (which you likely don't care about) and in the eyes of the law (which you should care about).
There are lots of things LDS Inc can do to you where you have no legal recourse whatsoever, other than resigning. They can keep you from you child's wedding. They can deny you a TR. They can publicly humiliate you with excommunication or disfellowshipment. You can't sue over any of that.
It used to be you couldn't resign either. You had to ask them to excommunicate you, which carries a strong implication among the faithful that **you** did something icky.
A number of people either filed successful lawsuits, or threatened to, to secure our right to resign. It did not come without a fight. The courts will not do diddly-squat for you if LDS Inc refuses to give you a TR, but if the church tries to give you grief about resigning, the courts can give them a good solid slap upside their institutional head.
So don't talk about that like it is nothing. It is a BFD, and deserves respect.
Oh, and Jerry is my brother. Like Mother in Heaven™, I have no name, though O Nameless One has a nice ring to it. BoJ works in a pinch. ;)