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Resignation from the church

I sent off my resignation from the LDS church yesterday. I was just curious who else has and how it went for you.

I was impartial, just wanted to be away from it all. however writing this letter of resignation and officially severing my ties to this church has been therapeutic for me. I will feel even better when I get my confirmation that i have in fact had my name expunged from the rosters of the church, even if it stirs up a mess within my still active family.

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Permalink Reply by Rick on October 29, 2009 at 1:29pm

Oh, forgot to address the family thing. I told my family I was resigning the day I mailed the letter to Salt Lake City...my father has never been really devout, my mother cried and said she failed me. She has since come to understand why I am not a member. We are getting along fine.

There are some friends in the church still, but while I have known them as long as I can remember, we have never been that close. Basically, I get along fine with the ones I truly care about even after I told them.

I think I have it WAY easier than some who leave.

Permalink Reply by Arizona Gunrunner on October 31, 2009 at 2:28am

Good, sounds like you did your homework then. Glad everything is going smooth for you!! Hope you get that letter soon. Also good you told your family first, because they would find out somehow through the church grapevine. . .

AND i love your plan to frame the letter!! That is great!

Permalink Reply by Rick on December 17, 2009 at 1:15pm

Mary,
I would recomend you send a formal letter resigning from the church, have them sign for it. feel free to friend me here and I would be happy to share my letters with you. I finally got my "you are out" letter this week. almost three months after I resigned. If you do not, your request will likely be ignored.

Rick

Permalink Reply by Rick on April 9, 2010 at 8:41am

Toni,
Sorry for the late response, I have been rather busy lately.

I was very specific that I wanted no contact and other than letters, they respected that. but it did take several letters to get the job done.

My mother was the most devastated. She cried worrying about my eternal soul. she has since come around as far as I can see and our relationship is just fine. My sister however refuses to talk about anything closely related to religion with me. She wouldn't "shun" me, but I believe she is afraid I will undermine her faith. She wanted to know nothing beyond the fact that I have left the church. When I tried to explain my apostasy, she stopped me in mid sentence and said she didn't want to hear anything negative about the church...She will be in for life I am sorry to say.

I am not sure what your response is to the repent talk, but I would be less than accommodating if I were told that. If they want to believe the bigoted doctrine, that is fine, but don't try to cram it down my throat.

I am glad that you and your husband found your way out.

Permalink Reply by Debbie Morris on March 26, 2010 at 3:51am

My entire family, bar one brother who has recently been drawn back into the church, have sent off their resignation letters. I found a great one online that I've adapted to my own personal circumstances and attached below. I also adapted an attachment letter that goes into more detail about my objections to the church, it's organisation and doctrine. The main letter spells out exactly what they need to do to avoid involving solicitors. their refusal to carry out any of your instructions with due dilligence is a direct violation of your civil rights and their 11th article of faith. I hope you find it helpful. I certainly did when I found it. It's just a shame we didn't do it sooner before my brother got sucked back in. Would have made it a lot more difficult for him to go back. I'm just waiting to see what happens but we have given them sixty days to have our names officially removed. We haven't told our brother what we are doing so that if they say anything to him we will know that they have breached confidentiality and we will take them to court.
Impartiality can appear as indecisiveness to them tho, so that's why I took a more hard lined approach.

I was the first in my family to leave the church. I was lucky enough to be able to speak openly about my beliefs with my family who, all, one by one became convinced that I was right. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that my parents are full blown athiests, it's a process you need to go through to get there after being so indoctrinated, first by the catholic church and thrn the Mormon church, but they are certainly agnostic and I'm happy enough with that. So don't be too concerned about your still active family. I think the more open they are to discussing your beliefs the better your situation will become and if not just quote the 11th article of faith to them. :0),

Attachments:

LDS Resignation letter.docx, 14 KB
Letter to be attached to LDS Resignation letter.docx, 25 KB

Permalink Reply by Rick on April 9, 2010 at 8:47am

Debbie,
I can almost guarantee they will say something. if all they say is that you requested to have your name removed without going into detail or attempting to hold a church court, there isn't much you can do. however if they question him on details about your apostasy or disparage your good name, I would bare my teeth.

60 days is about right, they ignored my request to dispense with the 30 "cooling down" period where I could recant my resignation. I actually had to get ugly with the stake president but when I did, I got a letter in less than a week from him closely followed by my final "Dodge" letter.

Good luck and accept no run around from the church. you are legally able to submit your resignation to ANY church official.

Permalink Reply by Debbie Morris on April 9, 2010 at 9:06am

well if they send anyone around that is not a bishop or a stake president then they will have breeched confidentiality as set out in my letter, if they speak to my brother about it then it's the same thing and if they do anything other than what I have requested I will sick the solicitor on them and her teeth are much sharper than mine. :) I wonder if anyone has sued them to get all their tithe money back...ya know... money paid, promised goods/services not recieved.... :)

Permalink Reply by Rick on April 9, 2010 at 9:21am

I am not sure about the laws in Ireland, but here it is different. I hope it is uneventful and mundane.

There has been many discussions about Tithing recovery. While I think the monies are received by fraudulent means, the United States Supreme Court would NOT set that kind of precedence. If they did, every church out there would start getting sued. It would be considered an attack on the religious establishments of our nation and most (and I hate saying this) of our nation is religious.

I would say if you have the money to toss away, give it a shot. but if you got your money back, I am certain it would be through settlement and would be accompanied by a non-disclosure agreement.

Permalink Reply by Elly Martin on December 19, 2011 at 5:59pm

I sent in my resignation letter and, of course, got the dodge letter first. I chose to go in and tell them that they could either do as I asked and remove my name from the records or excommunicate me for heresies that I would choose to commit, I was a primary teacher, if they did not. I got the letter stating that my name was removed about two weeks later.