Thank you for allowing me, a stranger to you, to participate.

Despite being BIC, with currently active brothers and sisters, and faithful TBM church service until age 50 or so, I finally did my own reading and concluded that JS was a false prophet. I have not attended any church functions for at least the last decade and now claim a comfortable 100% intellectual and about 90% emotional/ cultural separation from Mormonism. Since moving to a new house 5 years ago, I have been blessed with repeated, unannounced visits by local representatives. I hosted the Bishop in my home one time (also unannounced visit) about a year ago. I am always polite and friendly, however I am not at all shy about challenging my uninvited Mormon visitors regarding the concerns, I assume, most of us on this board share. Nor have I masked my disappointment and anger at having discovered that I have been lied to by my church.

Yesterday, I recieved in the mail, an invitation from the Bishop, to resign.

The letter reads,
"I am aware that you have made it known that you desire to have your name removed from the membership records of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am sorry to hear this."
"Due to the serious nature of this request and its ramifications, it is the policy of the Church that this request needs to be made in writing. I would ask that you send me a written, signed request by letter, briefly detailing your specific request regarding having your name removed from the records of the church."
Paragraph about lose of blessings.
"Once I receive your letter, it will be forwarded to the Stake President. I will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your request and after a short period of time to allow for any change in circumstances, the request report will be sent to Church headquarters for final disposition."
Paragraph offering assistance, follwed by signature.

The Bishop's letter assisted me in overcoming my benign inertia and I penned the following, which I will e-mailed to Greg Dodge with a hard snailmail copy to the Bishop.


18 September, 2011


To:

Mr. Greg Dodge
LDS Membership Records
(dodgegw@ldschurch.org)

Bishop XXX
address


Subject: Resignation of membership

Gentleman:
My name is XXX. I was born XXX. I was baptized by my father, XXX in the tabernacle in Salt Lake City when I was eight years old. I currently reside at XXX.

I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, effective immediately. I instruct you, as it is my right to do, to permanently remove my name from all church records. I ask that you confirm the completion of this action within the next sixty (60) days.
Thank you.
signature

My questions to the board are:
Would you advise I do anything else i.e. follow-up?
Has anyone else ever received an invitation to resign?
Is inviting inactive members to resign a change in church policy?

Thank you.

My questions to the board are:
Would you advise I do anything else i.e. follow-up?
Has anyone else ever received an invitation to resign?
Is inviting inactive members to resign a change in church policy?

Thank you.

I'll make a stab at it.
I'd advise you to do nothing. You are no longer a member. The LDS Church and their ecclesiastical leaders have no need to talk to you or contact you on any basis.

Yes, an invitation to resign (or name removal as they say) has been extended to others. I know of one personally. It's not that uncommon.

I think the policy on "name removal" aka resignation changed little by little when in the late 1970's when another church was challenged by a member that wanted to resign and was threatened with excommunication. That case law is on line.

Be assured you are no longer a member! I congratulate you on taking your power back and living your life on your own terms.

It's not personal! You are now free of the LDS Church.

If you are bothered by them in the future, remind them you are no longer a member, and some even keep their confirmation letter handy just to get them to update their records locally.
Sometimes they have lots of records and not all of them are updated when someone resigns.

Now, live your life as you please! You are free.

you can also try this template:
http://www.exmormon.org/remove.htm

if you could have your member id would certainly --in my opinion- expedite the process.

>Would you advise I do anything else i.e. follow-up?
i think that's it.

>Has anyone else ever received an invitation to resign?
i've heard of it a few times. i was asked at one point to ask inactive members to resign formally. i was also a mail man for the bishop delivering him the letters --that was when i was a missionary.

>Is inviting inactive members to resign a change in church policy?
no but it's a psychological tactic i think --intimidation.
"you are with me or against us" type thing.
i also think they are done with people thinking and questioning their authority. they want dumb followers so probably this is part of a major social cleansing behind the scenes. from the pulpit, they preach a different thing though "go get my sheep" and the sort.

Welcome to you, I would like to hear more of your story! Please share. And thanks for announcing your resignation here -- I personally really find these announcements enjoyable. Suzie's advice BTW is spot on.

In kind of a backhanded way, having the leaders pushing you out is sort of knock on. I can't really explain this easily as this sort of thing would have not occurred to me when I was a leader, but either 1) you represent some sort of threat to other members in some way, or 2) you have gotten under the skin of a local leader who erroneously sees it as a mission to cleanse the church of all unrighteousness and evil.

As Dave suggests, you could push back a little bit for fun if you want by asking why he is so eager to see you resign.

occasionally go on a bender and decide to clean up their records. Perhaps he decided you were too risky to allow his sheep to visit and talk with.

My brother back east was told a few years ago in a similar situation that they had removed his name for him without any request or contact.

The church has its own little set of rules and hoops. For some reason they think YOU are going to play along with how they need to follow their rules.

When I sent in my resignation, I hoped that would be it. But they had to send me a letter telling me it was an ecclesiastic matter and that they would contact my local leaders. I didn't care. I had resigned. That was their problem.

So eventually the bishop called me to make an appointment. I told him I had resigned and I didn't need appointments. Why couldn't he just roll with that? He said he needed to know what I wanted done with my kids' records.

He is supposed to decide if there are grounds for excommunication (fat chance- too late). They like this option because that is their way of letting everyone know YOU are the problem, not the church.

He is supposed to warn you of the consequences of leaving (covenants and blessings, blah, blah). Of course to me, this was like him telling me Micky Mouse would not be allowing me into the clubhouse.

A diligent stake pres or bishop might be pretty annoying trying to follow up with these requirements. Just remember one thing: at the very least, you can tell them over the phone. I highly recommend NOT indulging them by letting them meet with you.

Just remind them you resigned on such and such date and do not belong to their church. Reinforce the request that you do not want them to keep contacting you. Tell them you are not concerned about their rules because they don't have anything to do with you.

Good luck and welcome! Enjoy the quest.