Okay. I'm a never Mo, but reading here
I seem to detect a big concern about excommunication. Why is it such a big deal? I mean from this perspective: if LDS is such a demonstrable farce ( which it clearly is) then why be concerned that your enlightenment about the farce leads the Mormon cult to excommunicate you? If their claims are false, what difference does it make? Seems to me someone ought to make up a nice gold and enamel lapel pin or broach that says with pride "I got excommunicated because I'm smart enough to separate fact from fiction!". Pse understand I know there are those that suffer tremendous hurt from family, etc.but getting out is getting out however it is accomplished. Or am I missing something here?

If you live in Utah excommunication is a big thing since mormons associate it with "sin". The mormon church will slander you any way they can and it affects your business dealings with others or possibly get you fired.

Good question. I think that excommunication is one last insult, it says there us something wrong with you and it saves face for them. I wanted to leave on my own terms, because I did nothing wrong, and send a message that I found fault with the church, not the other way around.

Sure it was a bullshit job, but...

+1
Perfect way to describe it.

Because many of us want to take our power back and make that decision to leave. Plus as mentioned already, ex-communication is associated with sin and unworthiness, and depending of where you leave, shunning.

We do not leave due to sin, we leave because we have searched and found the answers we were looking for. We have come to our senses, and learned to do proper research before we make conclusions and formalize a decision, instead of accepting things because we are told to. Therefore, this is one thing we want to come to a conclusion of and make a decision on, and not have someone else with bogus powers that be make the choice for us.

I'm not at risk for my family relations, my job, or my standing in the community. But I'd still rather not be excommunicated, because then friends who are church members would be under official orders to keep away from me until, in effect, I agreed to rejoin.

For similar reasons, I haven't sent a resignation letter; I'd rather break the news to people myself when I figure out how than have them hear about it through the rumor mill. (I'm very confident that it wouldn't remain confidential.)

You said, "I got excommunicated because I'm smart enough to separate fact from fiction!"

That's not what being excommunicated is about. There's a HUGE difference between resigning and being excommunicated. Being excommunicated, like others have said, means that YOU did something so sinful that the church revokes your membership. When you resign, that's your individual choice, for whatever reasons.

If someone is an active member of the church and they for example, molested a child, and the bishop found out, he would excommunicate that person. That means they are no longer able to have a calling, they get their Priesthood authority taken away (if they're male, of course), they cannot take the Sacrament, and probably other things I'm missing. Basically it takes all that person's status away in the church. And then they would have to get rebaptized if they go through the repentance process. I would imagine that it's pretty humiliating and very depressing for the person (a believer I'm talking about).

But I would not want the church to "ex" me first before I sent my resignation in because that gives the church the power to say, "well, WE kicked her out!" From being a member my whole life, I'm sick of having my power taken away from me and resigning is one way to get that power back!

So, discovering that DNA evidence proves the Asiatic and non-Semitic heritage of the American Indian is a sin? I think Southerton was disfellowshipped, not exed, but his "sin" was the same as Galileo's, scientific research that made theology implausible.

axeldc you are right on the money!!!

Before I knew about resignation I was planning on confessing a big enough sin to be excommunicated.

I try to give the church any power If they kicked me out they still wouldn't have power because I wanted to leave. I think I gave them the same power by resigning as if I'd been ex'ed.
The only way I could have taken their power would be to have kept refusing to be considered mormon. If I'd doused them with water every time they bothered me, called the police, filed harassment charges...etc.

. . . it would have given the false and unacceptable impression, as far as I was concerned, that I was kicked out of a church that I supposedly wanted to remain a part of. In other words, while I did not fear excommunication, I did not favor it. I wanted to leave Mormonism under my own terms and for my own reasons--and that is what I did.

I voluntarily jettisoned the Mormon Church and had my name removed from its membership rolls at my personal, explicit directive before I could be excommunicated by its goons because I wished to send a clear, unmistakable message that I wanted no more to do with a pernicious organization that was dishonest in its history-telling; authoritarian in its conduct and control; deceptive and inhumane in its teachings; anti-intellectual in its approach to real-world issues; and racist, sexist and homophobic in its attitudes and actions. I drove that point home by openly and for the record announcing my voluntary resignation from the Mormon Church to the press.

Still, there are true-believing Mormons who hope beyond hope (and who to this day falsely insist) that I was excommunicated. I suppose that believing the fable that the oldest grandchild of the Mormon Church president was forcibly booted out of its ranks makes them feel better about themselves and their quaint, creepy cult by comforting them with the self-justifying, soothing lie that I was excommunicated for "sin." For those who willingly believe such a fairy tale despite stark and demonstrable evidence to the contrary, there's not a whole lot you can do for them. That's, after all, what makes them Mormon.



Edited 18 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2011 03:01AM by steve benson.

I followed your exit from Mormonism with great interest, as well as the rumor mill swirling around your situation. Looking in as one who had taken stands against Mormonism's absurdity to the point of my own excommunication, my eyes saw your journey as a terribly brave one.

Excommunication is a generic label that applies the same to someone ex'd for criminal offenses versus someone ex'd for merely social reasons (not criminal, like adultery, fornication, apostasy, etc.). In Mormon culture, it's assumed you did something very untrustworthy if not criminal if you were excommunicated.

Actually there didn't used to be "name removal" apart from excommunication until the church was sued some years back. It's an important freedom to be able to voluntarily resign. It means you initiated it, not the church, so people can't assume you did something terrible. There are still plenty of prejudices about it, but in Mormon culture the common assumption is that you were offended by someone/something and are just pouting about it, not automatically that you did something awful.

The church keeps your record archived anyway and just annotates your resignation on it. I presume they archive it in the Confidential Records Department at church HQ. I think they have the right to do so, however I don't think they have the right to deny you a copy.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2011 02:59AM by steve benson.

Nobody likes to be fired, plus there's a lot of social stigma with excommunication.

Most Mormons automatically associate excommunication with sexual perversion, commission of felonies and so on. If you live around a lot of Mormons, being branded as an exmo has a similar effect to being branded as an ex-convict.

If you don't have any Mormon family, friends, co-workers or associates to worry about, it's no big deal. It can even be a funny story to tell people about the time you got excommunicated by a wacky religious cult.

This is perhaps, the best example of my experience. Living in Utah, circa 1978...being excommunicated was not a lot diff' than being an ex convict. Always, regardless of the REAL reason, people assume some sexual sin, even if they know the reason. Jobs are lost, the excommunicated person becomes disposable to family members, one's children are taunted in schools if their parent is excommunicated, life long friends no longer associated. In 1978, my excommunication was announced in church meetings the following day. I was an apostate.

There was no resignation the LDS accepted, nor did I have a clue I could resign at that time. I attended the "trial". I was not ashamed of my stands on Black PH racism (soon ban was lifted), nor being a Mormon for ERA. Due to divorcing when I was turned into my bishop by exH, it was assumed I was having sex with wild turkeys, or something as bizarre.

Shunning was directed at my little children as well as me.

Getting out of Utah made me aware of the absurd nature of the cult I was born into. It was no shame to be an excommunicated Mormon...a goofy religion most outside of the jello belt knew only as a cult that engaged in polygamy.

Anyone who reads your reply should be able to understand the stakes involved.

I know when I was a kid in Utah, being exxed would have been considered worse than a jail sentence. Any family blighted with an exxed member have been scorned socially and have had rotten eggs and vegetables thrown through windows and dead rodents show up in their mailboxes

It's traumatic to the excommunicee, same as when Stymie was thrown out of the He-man Woman Haters Club on The Little Rascals. In the end, however, they all grew up and it seemed silly.

Just sayin'...

Ron

All lifes lessons can be learned by watching "Little Rascals" and "Andy Griffith" reruns.

Any kind of punishment dealt by the Church is usually about control. The punishments are all very outward and everyone can see that you are a sinner. Not taking the sacrament, not having a temple recommend, not being able to pray in meetings, etc is all a form of social pressure to keep people in line.

As I have learned many people lie to avoid these social pressures and to save face socially. Sadly it took me about 10 years to figure that out. :-(

Because most Mormons associate excommunication with being guilty of committing some severe sin, usually because of some sexual nature. The Mormon rumor mill is out of control. And since most of your social group are in the LDS church, you fear what people may mistakenly believe about you.

I would want people to think I am no longer a member because I stopped believing NOT because I supposedly boinked my neighbor's wife.

I wrote the letter,,interviewed and withdrew any contact with the mormons over 40 years ago. Still to this day if someone finds out I am an exmo,,they often ask if I was ex-ed. When I worked with a group of TBM's,,they all found out I had been a mormon. The word was I was excommunited. Of course they never ask me about it,,just assumed it. Typical mormon gossip,,judical bullshit.

It wouldn't bother me in the least. Being exed would be like being fired from a job I haven't shown up at for the last 35 years.

I think it would be much less of a problem for my family than if I voluntarily resigned. Resigning would be a betrayal of their temple beliefs. I don't have any belief in the hereafter so it wouldn't bother me but it would them.

Being shunned would be nothing new. And it wouldn't hurt my career since I'm self employed and don't depend on local people to provide income. In fact it's the other way around. If I stopped doing business with the locals it would hurt them not me.

When I left the morg there was no such thing as resignation. If there had been I would have resigned. I could resign now but it just doesn't matter to me anymore.

Back in the 80's I determined that I wanted to divorce myself from the MO. The first pres was reluctent. I became irritated and wrote a second letter. In that letter I listed 9 causes that required they repent from their sin or excommunicate me. In the end, my name was removed from the records of the church with an invite from the stake pres to just give him a call if I decided to come back.

It would seem to me that excommunication means, cut off from communion. For me not a big deal.

I would think if one were being discriminated against because of excommunate status in employment etc. that it would be cause for a law suit. In all other matters, I would wave a three finger salute and move on.

I've already quit. Did so over thirty-years ago. I make the rules in my world.

If the cult wishes to "officially" kick me out of its goofy little club, I don't give a s**t.

If the cult wants me to submit an "official" resignation so it can "officially" count me amongst its losses, I don't give a s**t.

If the cult chooses to f**k with me over the issue, it does so at its own risk. ... Oh, and I also don't give a s**t!

The mormon cult has only as much power as you grant it.

Timothy

I have been out for a long time, on my own terms, and life is good. I have no desire to have myself EXTERMINATED because, like many of you say, I give it no power over me and how I live my life. I enjoy sharing my happiness with them whenever they catch up to me. It's interesting how I usually only get one visit with each area I move to. I think it's hard on them to comprehend how life can be so good outside of the box and it scares the hell out of them....well almost!