Posted by:
onthewayout
(
)
Date: August 09, 2011 06:03AM
Good Morning,
My husband and I are avid readers of this forum, however neither of us has posted here before. We are, as my screen name suggests, "on the way out". We're just unsure of how to proceed now, and could really use some advice.
A little background info may be useful...
We are both converts. The only ones in our family, and both our families are supportive whether we are in the church or outside of it. No issues there. Both of us have been members for around 7 years.
A few years ago, we left the church. Or at least, we thought we were leaving. We made a big hoo-ha and e-mailed the bishop at the time, saying we weren't coming to church again, here are our reasons etc... Then less than 8 months later, we were back. We were getting ready to start a family, and wanted somewhere with good values etc to raise our children. We got back into the thick of things, were married and sealed in the temple and started our family.
Fast forward to the last few months. Both of us have come to realise that we do not believe in anything that is fundamentally LDS. We identify ourselves as Christian, but definitely not LDS. We now believe that Jesus is nowhere to be found in that church. Both of us have thrown away our garments, and have comfortably slipped back into drinking tea, coffee, alcohol if we feel like it... In secret, of course. We have been "keeping up appearances" with the LDS church, but it's getting to the point now where enough is enough. We simply cannot do it any more.
The problem is, both of us are in prominent leadership callings within the ward, and are described as "stalwarts" of our ward, etc etc... We have many friends that we would love to keep in contact with (although from our departure last time we know this probably won't be possible - those "left behind" are so all-consumed by the church and those in it there is no time for anything and anyone else), and we hate the idea of hurting anyone, but at this point what can we do? We have to be true to ourselves, and we simply do not identify with the church on any level right now. So - how to cut ties?
I would love for us to just disappear into obscurity, but with the callings that we have and our position in the ward it is impossible. I don't much like the idea of writing a long letter detailing why we are leaving and picking apart the religion - because really, what is the point? It won't get us anywhere, and whilst we may not agree with the beliefs, we care about the people within the church and know that they hold them sacred. We don't want to "trash" it to their faces. But then - the other side is because we care about the people in the church and have good relationships with them (for the most part), we don't feel that we can simply send in a letter of resignation and leave it at that. We feel they deserve more than that from us, considering they have been good friends to us.
We would like to find some sort of "happy medium", but have no idea which way to go.
Does anyone have any ideas, or perhaps experiences that they could share that may help us out?
Thanks so much for reading.
-onthewayout