Why they leave
Scott Tracy
NetXNews
September 23, 2007
Recently on a former-Mormons website, a poll was taken asking the
question "Why did you leave?" and the results might be somewhat
shocking to most current members of the church.
Kevin Whitaker, in his recent article on postmormon.org expressed the
view that most members who leave the church are sinners, offended, or
weak in the faith. This, while may be true for some, fails to cover
the reasons that most people leave the faith, and reflects the most
common misunderstanding between members of the LDS faith and their
former Mormon counterparts. In this article, I will try to cover the
reasons that people who leave give, and hopefully increase
understanding and acceptance for everyone. By way of warning, I will
not go in depth into any faith-harming material, nor will I be
unfairly critical of anyone. This is my faith community as well, and
my intent is to help us understand.
The number one reason listed by people who participated in the poll
was "I found out about Mormon history". In fact, this was the number
one response at 67 percent and might be shocking to most faithful LDS.
What most faithful members are unaware of is that the history we are
taught in church and seminary is termed by LDS historians as "faithful
history." The word former Mormons use is 'Whitewashed.' Until
recently, there has been a policy for Mormon historians about only
speaking or writing about faith promoting history, and violations of
this policy were punished often with excommunication.
In an address to Mormon historians at BYU in 1981, Boyd K. Packer
stated "There is a temptation for a writer or teacher of church
history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith
promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful". The
church, I think, is beginning to realize that this policy is very
devastating to people who feel that covering up difficult history
amounts to lies by omission, and is attempting to be more open about
things, as evidenced by the recent article in the ENSIGN about the
Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Tied for second place with "I never thought it was true" was "Mormon
culture made me uncomfortable," both of which garnered 10 percent.
These two are mostly self explanatory with the first falling into the
'lacked faith' category (does not make them bad people) and the second
covers anyone who has come into contact with the anti-homosexual, anti-
intellectual and anti-feminist bias that the church culture breeds.
Not to pick on Brother Packer, but he specifically named these three
groups as the biggest enemies of the church. In fact, most leaders of
the church feel the incessant need to insert the dismissive phrase 'so-
called' before any mention of these three groups. Many people leave
the church over the "one size fits all mentality."
Finally I will be addressing 'disagreed with leaders ethics' at 8
percent. This I feel the need to cover in a very sensitive way, lest I
risk offending either community. If you ask any life long member of
the church if polygamy is doctrinal, the answer would be "Yes, but God
disallows the practice at this time" or something very similar. When
Gordon B. Hinckley was asked about polygamy on Larry King, he
responded, "It's not doctrinal." Many in the former-Mormon community
see this as a lie, and to them, this casts doubt on his prophetic
calling. Even faithful Members are sometimes uncomfortable with this
'milk before meat' philosophy. This is one example and I will not go
into further detail, but I will say that this has been an issue for
the church since its founding and mostly (but not always) in relation
to the practice of polygamy.
People leave the church for many reasons and when they do, they face a
hostile community, broken families, destroyed marriages and even risk
loss of employment. People do not leave the church lightly. When they
leave, they feel they are doing the right thing for themselves, and
feel they are making ethical decisions. By increasing understanding, I
hope that when people do make the decision to leave they will leave
with fond memories and a glad heart-not bitter memories and an enmity
for the church and its members.
http://www.truthandgrace.com/mormonhistory.htm
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