Posted by:
Brother Of Jerry
(
)
Date: July 05, 2024 08:00PM
You can leave the church anytime you feel like it. You can join another church anytime you feel like it. No letter required.
What the letter is required for is terminating your membership. You basically have to tell them you are terminating your membership. Otherwise, as far as they (and the law) are concerned, you are still a member. Most churches don't really care - you don't show up for a few years, and they drop you from the membership rolls. The LDS Church has a stick up their butts, so they insist on a formal resignation to end your membership. They used to insist that they had to excommunicate you to end your membership, until the courts slapped them down and said they could not require that.
As for what you signed when you were baptized, if you were a minor, your parents signed for you, as they are legally empowered to do. You get to live with their decision until you are 18. After that, you can undo it by resigning. You don't get to just say "it doesn't count because I was a child". Your parents signing for you counts.
If you don't resign there are no legal consequences, other than (1) they will still count your as a member, which means you will be on some ward roster, and they may try to "reactivate" you from time to time, which is their right to do with their members. (2) They can excommunicate you.
If you resign, you will no longer be on any ward membership list, though it may take them awhile to get their paperwork up to date. You won't be on the official roster. And once you've resigned, they can no longer excommunicate you.
You may not care about either of those things, in which case, there is no real need to resign. Nothing wrong with that. For some people, officially terminating their membership is important to them, and the courts have guaranteed them that right.
It's not that big a burden. Look up Richard M Nixon's resignation letter. I think it is all of two sentences long. All you have to do is clearly identify yourself, and tell them you are resigning your membership. They are required by law to honor your demand. You can actually do it by email.
See:
https://www.exmormon.org/remove.htm