This post is prompted by an ongoing conversation in Mormonism that recently came to a head of sorts on Twitter. The conversation has multiple facets, but the central thrust of it is this: What are the acceptable reasons to leave the LDS church? The flipside of this conversation includes, “What are the acceptable reasons for staying in the LDS church?” On the surface, these might seem like silly questions, as the decision to leave or stay is a deeply personal one. Ultimately what others deem as acceptable reasons for doing either should matter not at all to the individual making the decision on how to live their own life. However, at some point (or rather, some multiple points) everyone touched directly by Mormonism will be required to engage in some form of this emotionally fraught conversation, and in that moment it feels far from silly. Because it’s a continual conversation within Mormonism (and that includes “ex-Mormonism”), I think it’s an important one to address.
The Never-ending Conversation
The other day, historian and scholar Dr. Benjamin Park tweeted about the frequency wherewith he is lectured by former members about Mormon history, as if he isn’t well-versed in Mormon history as a respected scholar in Mormon Studies. The nature of these conversations (I’ve witnessed many on social media myself) is well exemplified by the following exchange in the replies:
Barney’s reply typifies the ways I’ve seen former members lecture those who stay regarding the history of the church: “Once you know the history of the church, it compels you to leave.” Here, “history” is defined as an acceptable reason for leaving, and it is often portrayed as an absolute objective truth. That is, the true history of the church objectively demonstrates that the church is false; therefore, knowing it should compel everyone to leave. There is an irony in this statement, as it is in essence the reverse of what faithful members sometimes promote regarding joining and staying in the church. That is, the church is objectively true and when this fact is recognized—which the church’s history affirms—it should compel every individual to become a faithful Latter-day Saint. I won’t get into that latter argument here, but it is notable that the idea that individuals can objectively know whether the church is true or false and that such knowledge should compel individuals into staying or leaving the LDS church are two opposite sides of the same Mormon coin.
Dr. Park’s above reply is where I want to focus our attention for the moment. Park asserts in his defense that the amount of knowledge one has concerning Mormon history is rarely the deciding factor for whether they leave or stay in the church. I largely agree with this statement, and I’ll explain why in a moment. First, I want to focus on how this statement was received, and how it plugs into the ever ongoing conversation within Mormonism about what is and is not an acceptable reason to leave or stay in the LDS church. In short, this conversation quickly became focused on whether “history” is the true reason why people leave and whether that is an acceptable reason to leave.
Leaving Because of an Offensive History
The replies to Dr. Park’s comment are largely former members asserting that they left because they learned the history, and that this is a common experience among former members. This kind of response may have been exacerbated by the fact that prominent exMormon podcaster, Dr. John Dehlin, retweeted Park’s comment and opened the conversation to his followers asking whether “history” was a deciding factor in their loss of faith in the LDS church. As one might expect, the replies were overwhelmingly in support of the position that people leave because they learned the history. That eventually led to some clarifying statements by Dr. Park, and prompted a thoughtful article on the Wheat and Tares blog.
Park’s replies were largely clarifying his position that knowing the history itself does not necessitate a person leaving the church. It’s not that the more you know about the history the less faith you have in Mormonism. Rather, it is how one understands and interprets what they know of the history that is predictive of their relationship with the church. There are faithful and former members at every point on the spectrum of knowledge about Mormon history. I often point to the fact that some of the scholars who know the most about Mormon history—including the particularly dark and weird parts—still claim a belief in Mormonism and even support the LDS church. The highly respected scholar of Mormon Studies, Dr. D. Michael Quinn, comes to mind in particular; Dr. Benjamin Park is another example himself. Clearly, simply knowing the history does not mean that someone will inevitably lose their faith in the LDS church. However, this is often the implication made among many former members who cite “history” for the reason why they left.
Here I want to pick up on the Wheat and Tares essay, which takes Dr. Park’s responses even further. In my interpretation, what Dr. Park is saying is that if simply knowing the history does not necessitate that someone will leave the church, then people are really leaving for other reasons, which may be correlated with knowing more about history. That is, people who say they left after they learned the history are really leaving not because of the history itself, but because of how they responded to or interpret that history. The Wheat and Tares essay takes this idea and runs with it. Entitled, “Everyone Leaves the LDS Church Because They Were Offended,” the article takes an inflammatory trope within Mormonism about why people leave the church and turns it into a conversation about the importance of recognizing subjectivity in how people react to learning church history. That is, people who portray their exit from the LDS church as the product of a logical and objective analysis of Mormon history aren’t being honest with themselves—everyone experiences and interprets history subjectively, and it is perfectly acceptable to leave the church because of one’s subjective reactions to learning about offensive things in church history.
The Wheat and Tares article suggests that the impulse to portray one’s decision to leave as purely objective may be a reaction to the rhetoric so often employed by believing Latter-day Saints—that the real reason why people leave is because they were offended, typically portrayed as pettiness on the part of the person leaving. In this article, the author suggests that former members turn that narrative on its head and assert that they were indeed offended, but not over the superficial comments or behavior of their ward members. Rather, they were offended by the unjust and abusive ways that the church has treated—and continues to treat—certain classes of people, such as women, LGBTQIA+, and BIPOC individuals. This is about changing the conversation about whether “being offended” is an acceptable reason to leave the church. It is an interesting idea, and there are things I like about it, but I see problems as well. For one, it plays on the rhetoric promoted by leaders like Elder David A. Bednar, that people choose whether or not to be offended. I wonder if there is too much baggage in Mormonism surrounding the notion of “being offended” that any attempt to claim this position—even in an attempt to change the narrative—will simply make it easier for believing members to dismiss former members of the church as being petty, without listening to their stories. That is, after all, the exact purpose of this rhetorical device in Mormonism.
Second, by flipping the narrative about leaving because one was offended by unjust and abusive aspects of the church, the conversation very easily becomes weaponized in the opposite direction. That is, people leave because they were righteously offended by terrible injustices and abuses in the church—if you see these things and choose not to be offended, what is wrong with you? In a way, this is just another version of the rhetoric that goes something like, “I left because of the history; if you knew it too, you would also leave or there is something wrong with you.” I am sure this is not the intended meaning of the author over at Wheat and Tares, but it is how I see the proposed narrative being used.
The Privilege of Leaving Over History
To provide an example, consider that another facet of this ongoing conversation within Mormonism (about what is and what is not an acceptable reason to leave) takes the form of a conversation around privilege. It generally goes along the following lines: “There are enough terrible things happening in modern Mormonism that anyone who is observant should have ample reason for leaving the church without needing ‘history’ to convince them.” This is often coupled with the suggestion that if one needed “history” to convince them to leave, it’s because that individual experiences a great deal of privilege and is insensitive to the ongoing injustices and abuses in the church.
There is validity to this argument, but I think it also misses some important points. First, I want to acknowledge what it gets right. There are hosts of injustices in the LDS church: LGBTQIA+ issues, institutionalized patriarchy/misogyny and the diminished roles of women, the legacy of institutionalized white supremacy and racist doctrines, the covering up of sexual abuse, a culture of anti-intellectualism and conspiracy thinking, the hoarding of billions of dollars of tithing funds, the culture of prophetic infallibility and cult-like leader worship, the purity culture of sex and modesty shaming, the promotion of transactional faith and the prosperity gospel—the list goes on and on. Any and all of these are perfectly acceptable reasons to lose faith in the church and to leave. It is certainly the case that those who are privileged enough to be relatively unaffected by these issues are less likely to cite them as a reason to leave the church. Indeed, it is remarkable that more people don’t leave in the face of all these things that get brought up over and over again. However, people don’t leave and it’s not necessarily because they are privileged to be unaffected by them.
Anyone who has long been in the church has at some point recognized one or more of these problems—often because they’re affected directly—and has probably been taught one or more ways to rationalize these problems away in order to maintain their faith. Certainly, the more that an individual resides at the intersections of multiple conditions of oppression—being a queer Black woman, for example—the heavier the cross this individual is having to bear in order to remain an active member of the church. However, individuals experiencing a multitude of intersectional injustices in the church often find ways to “make it work.” Indeed, the most common trope among former members is the metaphorical shelf on which individuals place their doubts and concerns regarding toxic or confusing aspects of the church that they do not wish to unpack, or for which they’ve found sufficient methods of rationalization that enables them to largely ignore or tolerate these issues.
Catalyzing Shifts of Paradigm
The important thing to recognize is that the primary reason why people stay is because they believe. Latter-day Saints of all stripes have been taught that the LDS church is “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth” and have been guided to have experiences that confirm this testimony in intimately personal ways. When one is convinced that the church is true, one will find a myriad of ways to defend that conviction, even when confronted with a host of contradictory evidence and recognized injustices within the church. Indeed, FairMormon and other apologetic resources are devoted to this exact purpose—helping individuals find ways to rationalize and reconcile their faith and support of the church in the face of contradictory evidences, including injustices and abuses in the church.
Enter church history. What does a person do when after having rationalized their faith in the church, they learn that the history of the church is not what they were taught all along. Rather, scholarship by historians—both in and out of the church—reveals that the carefully curated narrative taught to members through the correlated curriculum is a highly distorted version of events intentionally crafted to promote loyalty to the church. How does a person react to learning that the foundational premise that they were defending when rationalizing the toxic cultural forces around them, is not what they were led to believe? Rather, it was a lie presented to them by the organization they have devoted themselves to and have invested their intellectual and emotional resources in defending—the same organization responsible for so many harmful and damaging influences in their life. Most importantly to the present discussion, what influence will these individuals cite as the reason for why they eventually leave the church?
Is it true that knowing the history is why these people leave? Sort of. It’s not the history per se that caused them to leave. Rather, it is how learning the history re-contextualized the rationalizations they had previously found in maintaining their faith and loyalty to the church, and how that shift in perspective caused them to reinterpret the ways they found to cope with the other problems they observed with the church. Is it the case that knowing the history necessitates that people leave the church? No. Definitely not. There are plenty of ways that individuals find to interpret historical events and to rationalize the problematic historical things they discover in a way that allows them to maintain a testimony of the church. History, therefore, is not the reason why people leave the church. How one interprets the history—and what learning that history reveals to the individual regarding their relationship with the church—are what ultimately determine whether someone is likely to leave or to stay.
Toxic Anti-Mormon Proselytizing
There is one more facet of this conversation about why people leave or stay—and what is an acceptable reason to do either—that I want to address. Frequently, former members of the LDS church, who have left because learning the history of the church has helped them to reinterpret the toxic elements of the church and Mormon culture, will try to convince others who remain in the church that they too need to leave. Often, this is directed at individuals whom the former member perceives as being oppressed by the church, and this individual will lecture the faithful member about the church’s history and how that contextualizes the harm that the church does to people like them. Let me be emphatically clear: THIS IS NOT HELPFUL AND NEEDS TO STOP.
The last thing that faithful members who are experiencing toxic influences in the church need is a former member telling them that they are fools for staying in the church. They don’t need a reminder of the toxicity they experience on a routine basis. They especially don’t need a lecture from people who were not directly impacted by these toxic influences, even if witnessing those influences on others was the reason why they left. For instance, it is not at all helpful for a white, heterosexual, cisgendered man to try to convince someone who is bisexual, or transgender, or a woman, or a person of color, that they must leave the church because it is doing them harm. Believe me when I say that people do not need you to tell them they are being oppressed when they experience that oppression firsthand on a regular basis. Even if you believe that they don’t see it, it is not helpful for you to point it out to them.
What people need is not a lecture, but your support. Yes, even when they choose to remain in the church that you left. Even if you hate the church. If you cannot give them that support, then at the very least hold your tongue and offer them the respect for their boundaries that you would expect of them. ExMormons routinely lament the ways that faithful members of the church violate their boundaries or disrespect their decision to leave the church by preaching to them or trying to proselytize them back into the fold. It is profoundly hypocritical of former members who complain about such things to then turn to faithful members and lecture them about how they are being oppressed by the church in an effort to proselytize them out of the church. What’s more: when former members express that they are happy outside the church (happier even), they expect others to take them at their word instead of concocting rationales for how that cannot be true. In the same vein, former members should believe their faithful counterparts when they express that they are happy inside the church, taking them at their word, instead of concocting narratives about how they are unknowingly depressed.
The Golden Rule: Don’t Be a Dick
This rounds out the conversation surrounding why people leave or stay, and what is perceived as an acceptable reason for either. I started this reflection article by suggesting that the conversation over these questions is a silly one. As I have hopefully expressed, the questions might be silly but the impact that this ongoing conversation has for individuals is far from silly. We need to stop trivializing each other’s experiences and diminishing their reasons for why they leave or why they stay. Any reason for leaving is an acceptable reason to that person. Likewise, any reason for staying is an acceptable reason to that person. You don’t have to like that people leave, or that they stay, nor do you have to like the reasons they give for either. You should, however, have the decency to respect the autonomy of other people to direct their own lives when it comes to matters of faith, and to refrain from diminishing their experiences or their decisions regarding the kind of relationship they choose to have with Mormonism. After all, isn’t that exactly what you expect of them?
“That is, people leave because they were righteously offended by terrible injustices and abuses in the church—if you see these things and choose not to be offended, what is wrong with you? ”
You got me, lol.
But on a more serious level, I would say that this gets to another step that I think more people should consider – which is recognizing the subjectivity of our value judgments.
In other words, while I do think it’s easy to react viscerally with “why doesnt x have the same moral intuitions as I do?” It’s a lot easier to explain because it’s very easy to recognize these as subjective. At least for me, it’s a whole lot easier to acknowledge that moral persuasion is more subjective than how knowledge of “objective facts” is generally viewed.
But what I would say further gets me to something you touch upon in a different way later in your piece. For me, the strongest testimonies I grapple with are those of marginalized members – e.g., the closest thing that gets me to thinking that maybe there is something to spirituality and the divine is hearing LGBTQ members who feel called and animated to persist with the LDS church despite being excommunicated, for example, for being in a same-sex marriage. In this case I can grapple with the fact that the easy answers (“they just have the privilege of not being affected by the church’s oppression!”) no longer work. It is seeing enduring faith *within hardship* that is the best thing at making me think there may be something more to the religion *for them* that wasn’t present *for me*. Even here, it’s not a right vs wrong – it’s we have different experiences that are pivotal. Maybe if I had their experiences, I’d all be energized to stay? Maybe if they lacked those experiences, they would wear out?
(I have actually written about that in the past and gotten favorable commentary from some progressive mormons on the idea of an energizing “personal call” to mormonism or any other religion.)
So many good points here; where to begin? 😅
I agree that there’s something about the claim that one left because of “history” that gives the veneer of objectivity to what is still ultimately a subjective response. I forgot to address that point but I think it’s a very important one. Ultimately, historical anaylsis itself is subjective as well. While at some level the actual facts of history are whatever objectively happened in reality, those facts are not accessible to the historian and so we are left with best guesses by trained scholars making subjective calls on what evidences they can piece together. In this way, even if someone believes that they are leaving over objective historical facts, they are still making their decision via their subjective interpretation of the subjective analyses provided by trained historians. Thus, whenever someone presents their decision to leave (or stay) as the result of some kind of objective analysis, they are kidding themselves.
On your point regarding the faith of marginalized groups, I agree that I find their commitment noteworthy and worthy of respect. Not because I believe that commitment to the church is of particular worth in itself; I don’t find the church or Mormonism to be a healthy place, personally. But I wish to respect the decisions of others and hold space for their lived experiences and perspectives in the same way that I would hope others would do for me. And whether I personally believe that they may actually be happier outside the church is of no consequence, because it is only my opinion and, unless they ask me for it, they don’t need yet another person giving them an opinion of what their relationship with the church ought to be. 🤷♀️
Agreed agreed agreed!
Thanks for this post. Do you know any non-member/member friends who enjoy debating theology and exchanging ideas without attempts at persuasion? How do they make it work?
Thanks for the read! I don’t have many friends of this sort. Such friends are few and far between, and even then I’m not convinced that one can truly have a conversation about theological matters without having a dog in the race at some level. I’ve definitely had some friends who were better at having these conversations than others, but almost exclusively with never/former members. Perhaps I don’t know the right active members, but I have yet to find one who was willing to have challenging theological discussions without it turning into a defense of the church at some point. Perhaps that’s to be expected, because if you honestly believe the LDS church to be the true restored church, then of course you will view theological matters through an LDS lens.
Good article that gets close to the reality of the situation, but then backs away. Really, the reason for leaving boils down to convenience. Because Mormonism is an all encompassing culture within a religion – you can’t just drop everything over some inconvenient history.
The member’s entire identity is wrapped up in his religion. Leaving means losing family, friends, spouse, and maybe even your job.
So a member will not consider leaving until it is convenient, or expeditious, to do so. Are some of his family out? Is the rest of the family tolerant? And so on. After they’ve dipped their toe in the water for all these relationships, then they can finally determine what’s most important to them.
It is only at this point that the beliefs and history come into the picture. They are finally put under scrutiny at this late time because these will be used as the excuse to exit Mormonism.
We all know it – if you want a reason to leave, Mormon history makes it quick and painless. And like a light switch, the believer relinquishes his identity – and all his beliefs – at once, and resigns membership.
Humans are strange to analyze, but very predictable nonetheless.
I have to disagree. While factors of “convenience” such as having others in one’s family who have left may certainly make leaving easier and even more likely, I don’t think they are the ultimate reason why someone leaves. I also don’t think people use history as an excuse to leave after they’ve already determined they want to leave. I can think of many cases of people I know who were the first to leave among their family, without any social support, and who definitely did so because they discovered a disturbing history of which they had been unaware. That is not to say that such is the case for everyone, and I’m sure there are those who leave for other reasons and later discover the history and add it to their list of reasons for leaving. There are likely as many reasons for leaving as there are people who leave, but I don’t think most who cite history for why they left are using it as an excuse to cover the “true reasons” why they did so.
It’s also worth discussing what it means to “leave.” Has someone only truly left if they remove their name from the records of the church? If someone simply stops attending, have they not also left? If someone stops identifying with the faith, whether they are on the roster or not, have they not left? If someone openly rejects the church but still occasionally attends with their believing family members, have they not left in a some sense? Where does one draw the line determining when someone is “still in” and when they have “left?” It’s not clear cut in many cases, and I think it’s similar for the reasons why people “leave.” Among those who cite history as the reason why they reject Mormonism, I’m inclined to take them at their word. I don’t think it’s helpful to look for other reasons.
At the same time, when someone says they left because of history, I think they are saying they left because they discovered the history and they were offended by that history. That is, what they learned about church history was offensive to them, and that revulsion to what they discovered is what they are referencing for why they left. Had they learned the history and had a positive reaction to it, they wouldn’t be leaving because of it. There are numerous people who learn the history and are not repulsed by it, or find ways to manage their reactions to it that help them to stay. I don’t think, however, that those who find the controversial parts of church history offensive and those who do not (or who develop coping narratives around that history) are merely reflecting their hidden desires to leave or stay. I think there are plenty who leave who truly wanted to believe and to stay but found no satisfactory means whereby they could reconcile the offensive things they discovered in church history with their own consciences.
I see what you’re saying, and we are probably more in agreement than we think. Perhaps I can better elucidate my understanding.
We all know about the shelf and it’s major role in the decision to leave.
And let me just define what “leaving” means to me: it’s simply taking an active initiative to leave/. Those who go inactive, are largely still considered Mormons, and also would identify as Mormon – if they felt it wouldn’t hurt to do so.
Those who leave, have made a decision – and it’s this group that has the shelf, the complaints, the faith crisis, and the loss of family and friends.
And again, you’re right, it’s presumptuous of me to dismiss people’s reasons for leaving and then speculate on the “real” reason.
I’m not actually trying to do that though. I personally couldn’t tell you the precise catalyst that made me leave. It was more of a years long confluence of factors that took years to work into a game plan.
What factors were they?
Things like most of my best friends moving away and getting married. Maybe even a new bishop or the fact that the dating scene was drying up had some weight on the shelf. My parents expectations and our relationship contributed a little. The fact that I later started dating my dream girl who was a Protestant might have added a bit too (although she accepted me as is).
Then there’s my inquisitive nature, my life long need to prove I’m altruistic and unconditional in my dealings, and a curse of insisting on getting the truth out of everything. (I don’t take myself so seriously anymore, but back in my 20’s, everything had eternal consequences).
There’s a million other factors that went into it too, but I’m sure you can relate by this point.
So, we naturally want to find the catalyst – we need it to be defined. But do note, that in all these reasons I’m listing, history hasn’t come up yet.
So I decided to start going back to church after a few years of inactivity. But I had some questions about the church because I had reasons for not being active – and those had to do with history or doctrine that didn’t align with my personal values.
My questions were regarding deep theology going back to ugaritic and Canaanite mythology. It doesn’t matter much, but in the end I asked a leader who was high enough up to be reimbursed for his role. The leader came back to me after doing some research and stated that my findings were correct. These findings meant the church was necessarily false.
I thought that this was big and naively asked him if we should start making people aware of the findings. He stated flatly that he wasn’t going to pack up his family and leave everything he’s ever known behind over some indicting history.
I was stunned – didn’t he care about the truth? How could he go on being a member while still aware that everything is false?
I ended up leaving. So why did I leave and he didn’t? He had a high position in the church – did his beliefs take a backseat to the perks of being in his role? Or was it the impossibility or futility in trying to haul his family out of the church?
That’s what I’m saying when I say it’s about convenience. Or better, people leave when it’s POSSIBLE for them to leave.
There is no one factor that causes someone to leave. They leave because they disaffiliate from the group. The facts and beliefs just pile up on the shelf, but the shelf doesn’t break until the member has a plan to get out.
When I say history is used as an excuse – it really is. No one wants to explain what I just wrote to every time someone asks why they left. They can’t even be sure what the exact reasons were in the first place – there’s too many.
So, history is a very easy out. Granted, history could have had a majority to do with why they left, but in the end, there was still a ton of other reasons. There was still another catalyst that pushed them.
Until that point though, the beliefs remain in the “on” position, and the member is the same Mormon he’s always been. Then some combination of events, perfect timing, the planets align – and the member can finally confidently leave.
And when they do, the first thing they do is put the history and truth claims under the microscope. This is done to convince themselves of their decision, as well as to convince others that they weren’t just leaving over a disagreement socially.
There’s no way to tell why someone leaves. We can certainly take their expressed reasons at face value, but we also need to recognize it’s never that cut and dry.
There’s literally a million other factors that also led to their resignation. But summing them all up and stating it was over the history is the best way to avoid having to explain nuance.
I wonder if you would acknowledge indoctrination and a fear of losing community, jobs, relationships, respect, etc. as big factors in why people stay?
You didn’t mention those, but I see this all the time. The church isn’t kind to those who leave, and the narratives told about those who leave is often enough to turn family against them.
For sure! I definitely think the fear of losing one’s community and of damaging important relationships keeps a lot of people “physically in, mentally out.” I see this especially in mixed-faith marriages, where the non-believing spouse remains closeted because of the fear of how their partner will react. I think there are countless others who stay for similar reasons, and for many that fear becomes a motivator for individuals to “doubt their doubts,” deepen their commitment to the church, and avoid entertaining critical information like the plague. I didn’t really get into these in the article because I wanted to focus more on why people leave, the narrative around “being offended,” and how it’s entirely justifiable to be offended by an offensive history and offensive teachings/practices.
My husband, my son and I left the church, because our honorably discharged Veteran of Iraqi freedom, and enduring freedom came home with addiction problems, with PTSD and several issues. The church who professes to help there members with mental illness and such issues never offered any help. Not for our son not for us as his parents, and spent more time with us and others telling lies. At our sons peak of being out of control the temple in Kansas City had him arrested, for trespassing which he had a recommend, that they say they told him he couldn’t attend.But the message to him telling him he couldn’t attend was received days after his arrest. We lived over an hour from the temple, when my husband called to see if his car was towed the temple Presidentency stated that they wouldn’t have it towed so at 11 o’clock at night my husband drove down there to find it had been towed. Our sons Bishops told us so many lies . Then 2 months later our other son dropped off a letter stating our son was not to go on any church property world wide. Or they would have him arrested again. This story is so much longer. But the jest is we had enough of the lies, the covering up, and the lack of looking for the truth or at least getting both sides to a story. I will never trust these people ever again. They lie and cheat and cover up things for the inner click, tithing is also a big farms riddled with unrighteous people do cruel things to each other. And as long as you let them control you it works. The second you say hell no, then your wrong and they work very hard to make you out to be the living bad guy to your family and friends, and they could be excommunicated for just talking to you. They really do and can tare family’s apart.