"A few years ago, my husband and I let our feelings be hurt by a few comments made by fellow ward members about our 12-year-old son with autism, and we decided to stop attending church."
middle (painful) part: home teaching, yada, yada,love bombing, yada yada, returned to church
Last paragraph: "By accepting our home teachers' invitation to let go of the things that had offended us, return to church, and forgive, we were able to feel part of our ward family and once again partake of the blessings of the gospel."
BWHAAHAAHAAHAA!
I hope the 1% of you to whom this applies are deeply touched and moved towards total and complete healing and forgetting every concern you have ever had towards the church.
This is a reason why a lot of people leave. I met tons of inactive Mormons who still "knew" the Mormon church was true, probably not "with every fiber of [their] being," but still, they believed the whole thing, they had never actually doubted the doctrines or history of Mormonism at all. They just got upset with something somebody said to them one time, and stopped going.
This is a problem the LDS Organization can handle. People who realize the truth about them are the dangerous ones. They certainly can't admit that thats ever an issue, much less write about it in the Ensign!
When the bishop knocked on my door within 2 hours of arriving to my new home in Utah.... I told him I was born Mormon but have very good reasons for not continuing the faith into adulthood. I offered to share why and he declined to listen. I speak plainly. I have no problem with calmly crossing the TMI barrier. I dont keep secrets for bishops or God.
Actually, I think they have a damn fine idea of why people leave. What they can't do is be honest about it. It can't be the fault of the church, or its leaders, or history or doctrine.
It MUST be external to that, or it would put in question the church and its teachings. No, it must always be blame the victim. You must have been offended or you must have sinned, or you are weak, etc.
I think the reason this pops up a lot of the time is because the people that left then returned really are the ones that got offended (these people) or "wanted to sin" (jack-Mormons). They're the people that don't know heads or tails about the history of TSCC and how damaging it can be, so they fall in and out of activity. However, for people that do know what's what and have done their homework, I'd guess that most of them just give the church a hearty "Fuck you" and don't ever go back.
Being offended is a legitimate reason why SOME people stay away from church. I have a TBM family member who has not been to church in years because someone offended him yet he mails that tithing check to the bishop every month.
The thing is... people who are offended, don't become EX-MORMONS unless they have doctrinal issues in addition to the offense, they simply stop attending while maintaining their mormon identity. They don't LEAVE the church, they simply keep their distance from the offending person. Why oh why is this so difficult for most Mormons to understand?
Although I think that being offended or wanting to "sin" (mormon definition) is as good a reason as any to quit church, I personally don't know anyone who actually resigned b/c of that. It may have been the starting point of their journey out but never the main reason.
Yet by restricting the possible "reasons for leaving the one true church" to those two they automatically make us seem shallow and sinful to our former mormon friends - persons of very low standards who it's alright to shun and hurt.
The subjects have been re-conditioned to blame themselves and not the collective. Their repatriation is as welcome as the restoration of their payments to the organization. Case closed.
Uh... If I hadn't left for the shitty hidden history I would certainly have left for protecting my child. There is no excuse for people treating a child (any child -especially mine) with disrespect.
One of my last straws was a primary teacher getting too friendly with my daughter. Mamma bears are few and far between in Mormonism.
What a disgusting article. It shows abuse is ok and it's YOUR fault for being upset by it.
Maybe for the ones who come back there is a high likelihood that the reason they initial left was that they were offended?
For example let's say that 3% of the people who stop going because they were offended and 50% stop going because they realize it is a big fat lie.
Those who realize it is a lie are probably a lot less likely to go back than someone who was offended. The offended person may just need time to heal or an apology or someone else taking an interest.
In other words I suspect the "reactivation success stories" are disproportionately offended people.
1. Mormons made rude comments about an autistic child? That's awful. What a good mom she was to get her child away from people like that. It's so sad she felt she had to go back somewhere her child was being abused. What is WRONG with people like that?
2. She left because she was OFFENDED? But that's ridiculous. Nobody changes their whole philosophy of life because someone hurts their feelings. How SHALLOW are Mormons? No wonder she went back - she wanted to be with other people who have shallow values, apparently.
Having TBM parents and a severely autistic child myself, I think I have an idea about what could have been said.
#1. According to the TBMs, my son was so good in the pre-existence, he just has to get a body. This can a really bad attitude to have with autism, because with early, intensive, intervention kids a lot of the symptoms can be reduced - to the point that some kids can function normally. My mother cannot see the point in giving my son therapy when God wanted him to be "special" and gave him a free-ride to the CK.
#2. Although my son is going to the CK, he has been given to me as a punishment for my apostasy. Having a special needs child is part of some lesson I need to learn. Since, in my case, I "fell away" and married a Catholic, he is a punishment and a sign that I should humble myself and return to God. I am sure that if I was still TBM, there would be some other fault that my mother could find that God would have sent me an autistic child to teach me a lesson for.
I am so glad that I am not still going to church! Because there would surely be more people than my mother who would the thinking these things and a few would just have to blurt it out.
I will reiterate for TBM lurkers - I left because the BoM and BoA are not what they plainly state themselves to be, and are totally disproved by science.
In order to feel good about themselves they must find an explanation that justifies them and vilifies us, even if it inflicts guilt upon parents who just so happen to have a child with challenges.
Trials for the "faithful" are refiner's fire that allow them to demonstrate their worthiness and earn their eternal reward. Trials for apostates like us prove we have made the wrong decision and serve to show us the need to come back to the fold.
No matter what happens, good or bad, it all proves their point.
In my professional life I work with people who have hemophilia - an X- linked genetic disorder. One 20yo little mama of a boy with severe hemophilia said that her TBM mom told her that her son's hemophilia was punishment for her sins. She refused to support this poor little scared mama emotionally or physically. It was horrifying.
Agree with Crathes. They know, but putting it out there like that sends the message to the rest of the flock that there are only uncalled for reasons to leave. Plus, it's a catch all because for the few that actually left for that reason, well, they are maybe getting the message.
If I recall there have been threads on this forum on more than one occasion that reveal articles in the Ensign aren't to be taken at face value. We all know that conference talks have been edited in the past to give them a completely different meaning.
I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that article is pure fiction and was written by a TBM as a faith-promoting-story.
The church knows that only people stupid enough to leave for shallow reasons are the only ones stupid enough to go back to shallow friendships. That's why they want members to focus on these types. The rest of us are too smart to go back so all they can do is try to insult us.
I think in most churches, that family would either move to the other side of the aisle and ignore the jerks, or if it was that bad, talk to the pastor.
How thinned-skinned are these people? Too bad they couldn't have found about the truth behind the church while they were inactive, maybe they could have found a church with more outpouring of love.
Oh, and this: "...they said they had something to say that was much more important than our meal."
"Let go of the offensive things that offended you. Get over it already! Return to our pushy offensive church and forgive, why don't you? What is the matter with you losers?!? You know once you do all that, that you losers will be able to feel part of our dysfunctional ward family again and once again partake of the blessings of the gospel like paying tithing, scrubbing toilets, paying tithing, being told you're not good enough, paying tithing, ..."
A few years ago, I felt very violated about having my life hijacked by a sleazy corporation posing as a church with its leaders even posing as the voice of god himself. In my LDS upbringing, I had been taught to have zero tolerance for apostate churches. On *my* LDS mission that ideology had been emphasized even more. Then it turns out that my MORmON religion was just another example of parasitic apostate religion itself !
Even though I was unhappy about the MORmON church/ CULT and still questioning it, I let myself get reeled back into the MORmON cult over the issue of marriage. If my life had not been messed enough before, this would really end up turning it into a complete train wreck. All because I could not learn my lesson earlier. The "blessings" of MORmONISM are not blessings at all. The truths of MORmONISM are not true at all.
I can feel the pain in your post, and I am right there with you, even though I try to brush it off with sarcasm. Don't feel bad for being angry. We have plenty of reason to be angry, and it will never go away if we suppress it.
And if the example given were true, why shouldn't you feel hurt and upset? Why should you continue to tolerate the abuse that was directed towards a loved one? This is not acceptable behavior. Turn the other cheek didn't mean beat the other cheek forever.
Once again, the church's members aren't accountable for their actions--it's the people, not the religion.
Funny that, given that a church is defined by people and their beliefs and actions.
Most of us wised up and got out and you know what? The abuse stopped.
Now there is a miracle my friends. The miracle of truely seeing things as they are!
Your average nevermo would simply find another church. There are too many choices out there to withstand poor treatment from any one of them. Any any Christian church would be more than happy to share "the blessings of the gospel."
Seriously, what do you expect them to do? The reason most people leave the church is that they stop believing in it. What are they supposed to do, admit that their church is false?
If they were open and honest about their finances, their history, their inner politics, they would lose at least half their membership. Instead, they are just suffering a slow constriction and a steady trickle of deserters.
The purpose of the article is to convince those uneasy in the pews that the people who leave are weak and thin-skinned. It encourages loves bombing, committing active members further to church by "helping" out those poor wayward souls who left over a bucket of milk.
They don't teach them that most early apostates left because JS's two bank failures cost them their life savings, or that he was arrested for destroying a printing press that was exposing his secret polygamy. Why would they be honest about why people are leaving today?
Yep, that's why I left. A few insensitive remarks by some members of the ward. My ego was bruised. I turned my back on Glorious Revealed Truth because of a few, offhand comments by some ward members.
And now, of course, it's my pride that's keeping me from returning. I'm too proud and stuck up and self-centered to admit that maybe I did the wrong thing.
If only my Home Teachers would bring cookies my heart would soften and my neck would unstiffen and I could be back in the loving fellowship if the Lord's true church.
But, no, I'm holding onto an old grudge over something trivial. I mean that HAS to be it, right? It couldn't POSSIBLY be that I investigated the Church with all my heart, might, mind and strength and found it to be bogus, right? NOBODY ever leaves the Church for that reason. If they did it would SURELY get mentioned at least ONCE in an ENSIGN article or Sunday School lesson manual, or in a conference talk, right?
The time for the Morg to stop talking about apostates being offended is now.