Is There a Way to Resign From Mormonism and Not Have Parents Informed of Resignation?

[JLHPROF]

3 hours ago, Tacenda said:

A person that resigns usually doesn't believe that there are kingdoms like that. In fact most non LDS believe they'll be with family when they die.

Most non LDS WILL be with family when they die.

[The Nehor]

7 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Most non LDS WILL be with family when they die.

I like it.

[sunstoned]

7 hours ago, lostindc said:

I would like to quietly resign from Mormonism without putting loved ones through the process of dealing with this resignation.  Apparently, parents, ex-spouses, etc. are informed of a their loved one's resignation (currently reported by many on exmo reddit, facebook groups, and those within my region.  Is there a way to quietly resign without leadership inflicting pain by announcing my resignation?

I officially resigned a month after the POX was announced in November 2015..  I used the free legal services at Quitmormon.  After two attempts, the Church sent me verification that my name had been removed. The Church did not notify any of my family.  They did however notify my Bishop, which was expected. To this day, the only people that know of my resignation are the ones that I have told.  If you have heard stories of family finding out, then it is my guess it wold come from your Bishop or someone in your home ward.  I do not believe that the COB contacts family.

Edited January 28, 2020 by sunstoned

[why me]

3 hours ago, lostindc said:

how am I misleading?

Much better to bite the bullet and inform your parents. All will be well when there is truth. There may be a little sadness but as time moves on and you seem content and peaceful, all will be well in the end.

[Garden Girl]

8 hours ago, lostindc said:

I would like to quietly resign from Mormonism without putting loved ones through the process of dealing with this resignation.  Apparently, parents, ex-spouses, etc. are informed of a their loved one's resignation (currently reported by many on exmo reddit, facebook groups, and those within my region.  Is there a way to quietly resign without leadership inflicting pain by announcing my resignation?

Why don't you simply stop attending... I doubt the Church "informs" loved ones if you resign formally... 

GG

[Calm]

2 hours ago, why me said:

Much better to bite the bullet and inform your parents. All will be well when there is truth. There may be a little sadness but as time moves on and you seem content and peaceful, all will be well in the end.

Depends on the family. We shouldn’t be giving advice when we know nothing about the situation. Imagine it was a teen who had abusive parents who beat him for not attending church (unfortunately one of the most abusive families I have ever heard of personally were ‘strong’, generational members, what I don’t  get is how so many of their children are still good faithful members).  

[Meadowchik]

8 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

C'mon, lostindc.  Not telling people you love, tells us a lot about what you think of them.  But yeah, as long as you can keep the truth from them, then they don't have to deal with the pain of reality.  It's imperfect, because sometimes the truth shows up from other directions.   If you think it's a good idea to keep truth from loved ones, I guess you'll do it.  

This isn't really anything unique to leaving our faith, this is about your relationship with your loved ones.  I remember having misgivings about telling my dad I was going conservative.  I know someone who got baptized and the whole family agreed to never tell the Catholic great-grandma, because the news would kill her.  

 

Nah, not telling loved ones isn't just an indication about the reticent person. There can also be issues with the loved ones, like mental and emotional health, for example. It can also be an indicator that perhaps the church's narrative about eternal safety is harmful to some people.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Meadowchik

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

12 hours ago, katherine the great said:

Oh ouch! Yes it’s probably better to hear from the child themselves. The church has tried to contact me to get an updated address for one of my children who moved but I’m afraid to give it to them because if well-meaning ward members start bothering them I’m afraid he will just resign. 😢

Same with my youngest daughter, however they did find her. Often someone will stop by, she is always polite, invites them in, and even fed the missionaries. Her spouse (wife) wants her to remove her name, but she won’t do it. It has at times been a point of contention. 

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

6 hours ago, Garden Girl said:

Why don't you simply stop attending... I doubt the Church "informs" loved ones if you resign formally... 

GG

If the parents get a copy of their records, the name of the child will be listed, but with no membership number and information. 

[JamesBYoung]

15 hours ago, strappinglad said:

So , you are OK with misleading your loved ones from now on ? Just put it on social media and let the consequence follow. 

So, it is the OP's problem.  Why the judgmental tone?  The OP wishes to spare the ache for his family and friends.

The Bishop will be notified.  Whether the Bishop tells the resignee's parents is unknown.

My own opinion: resign, get confirmation that it has been accepted, and then sit down the parents and tell them.

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by JamesBYoung

[Meadowchik]

I believe that a change will be visible in the genealogical files. 

[Danzo]

Every once in a while, the bishop will announce in ward council that brother X has requested that his name be removed from the records and that he no longer be contacted.

[Amulek]

15 hours ago, lostindc said:

I would like to quietly resign from Mormonism without putting loved ones through the process of dealing with this resignation.  Apparently, parents, ex-spouses, etc. are informed of a their loved one's resignation (currently reported by many on exmo reddit, facebook groups, and those within my region.  Is there a way to quietly resign without leadership inflicting pain by announcing my resignation?

There is no official church policy that would involve announcing your resignation to your immediate family. The announcement guidelines for people who have requested their name removed are similar to those pertaining to someone who has gone through formal church discipline - only those who need to know are informed. This could conceivably be the Ward Council, so they will know said individual is unavailable for callings and whatnot. But if you haven't been attending church for 10 years, as I believe you indicated, then there's probably no need for your bishop to say anything to anyone. 

That being said, unless you plan on lying to your loved ones for the remainder of their natural lives, someone is bound to find out eventually. In my opinion, it's better to sit down and have the hard conversation directly rather than them having to hear about it from someone else. But it's your life, and you would certainly know better than me what might be for the best. 

I wish you well in whatever direction you decide to go - though, obviously, I would prefer that you not leave the church at all. 

 

[Amulek]

13 hours ago, Tacenda said:

14 hours ago, rpn said:

I too wonder why you can't simply tell them yourself and own it?

I'll tell you why, so you won't break hearts, loved ones that believe you won't be with them in the hereafter.

So, if I cheat on my wife, it's cool if I don't own it and tell her about it - you know, because it would break her heart. 

Good to know. 

 

Quote

That's pretty lame in my book, that line of thinking that LDS have of the hereafter, the plan of salvation.

I don't find it "lame." In fact, I find it to be one of the more endearing doctrines contained in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ - one that rings true to me in a way that spending eternity worshiping God as a lone, albeit elevated, creature just doesn't. 

 

Quote

To me it's the plan of holding you hostage, if you don't do all that the church says in order to live with your family. That's not a very loving church to me, threatening or teaching that if you don't make it to the temple and receive your endowments you won't be with your family.

Wow. What an uncharitable description of the gospel. 

To frame every conditional blessing as a threat...it honestly boggles the mind. 

 

Quote

Or there's the possible chance that your parents will disinherit you and give it to the church.

Good point. It takes a certain level of enlightened morality to come to the decision that it is best to lie to your parents in order to help ensure that you receive a portion of their inheritance which you did nothing to create. 

 

Quote

There are other reasons as well, gossip, maybe your parents or friends or ? tell someone and it gets around to your LDS boss? So there's that as well. This has happened to people, believe it or not. 

I'm an LDS boss. Why would I care if one of my employees changed religions? 

 

[LoudmouthMormon]

BTW, anyone who knows their way around a membership record, may discover a name removal because their kid (or parent) doesn't show up any more.  

In my ward (and I assume many others), it's common practice to offer someone their membership record at tithing settlement.  An opportunity to spot errors that need fixing.  Some wards print one out with the donation summary and hand them over without being asked.  Folks can also discover a name removal by looking up their record online.  And as time moves forward, our elderly grannies who can't work a computer are dying off, and more elderly grannies can work a computer. 

[CA Steve]

1 hour ago, Amulek said:

So, if I cheat on my wife, it's cool if I don't own it and tell her about it - you know, because it would break her heart. 

Good to know. 

Would a person converting to Mormonism who elected to not tell their family also be analogous to cheating on a spouse?

[Ahab]

15 hours ago, Tacenda said:

A person that resigns usually doesn't believe that there are kingdoms like that. In fact most non LDS believe they'll be with family when they die.

Interesting, isn't it.  They don't believe it but it's going to happen anyway even if they don't believe it will happen.  Basically we're just trying to make it easier for everyone to let us know they want to stay connected to their family members and to make it easier to find them.

[Ahab]

15 hours ago, lostindc said:

Your intentions are good.  In my belief, if there's a god, then I believe God will know in God's heart if my intentions are good and I did the best with the information available to me and my ability to process this information.  I don't believe in a God that will separate families into kingdoms because one family member resigned for various reasons.

I 100% don't believe in Mormonism.  After 17 years of Mormon studies, and even apologetics, I can say that maybe six months of that time I loosely believed in the truth claims of the Church.  I stopped going to Church almost a decade ago.  I am leaving for my own subjective reasons.  I don't wish to hurt aging relatives, nor do I wish to exit with any sort of noise.  Unfortunately, my relatives believe like you, that God will separate us.  

IF you are sealed to them they will be able to find you a lot easier than if you are not sealed to them, whether you believe that or not.  Being sealed to your family members simply provides a link to them and let's others know you want to be connected.  it's just that what some people think happens automatically actually takes a bit of work to accomplish.

Just imagine it even if you don't believe it is true.  You're not going to be born to your parents as you were in this life so when you die you'll basically be going to where billions of people are, where all of us go when we die.  There will be some sort of separation between those who haven't received the ordinances we offer and those who have received them but still everyone is going to be in the same place, on this same planet, this planet, in what we call the world of spirits, or spirit world.  So how do you suppose you're going to be able to find your family members, or that they will be able to find you?  Even if some of your family members are l lined up on the other side to meet you, someone will have to have told them where to meet you and when you are coming.  That's what we take care of on the other side, and we have a system in place to do it, whether you realize it or not.

edited to add: current estimates are that there are about 108 billion people who are dead, which means' that's about how many people there are in the spirit world now.  So good luck if you plan to look for anyone in particular.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Ahab

[Amulek]

42 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Would a person converting to Mormonism who elected to not tell their family also be analogous to cheating on a spouse?

Yeah. You are either honest with your loved ones about the big things in your life or you aren't. 

And the church doesn't expect anyone to come into the fold on the DL either. You know, city on a hill and all that. 

 

[Calm]

32 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Yeah. You are either honest with your loved ones about the big things in your life or you aren't. 

And the church doesn't expect anyone to come into the fold on the DL either. You know, city on a hill and all that. 

 

I know a couple of Muslim converts who said nothing to their families, one changed their name and went into hiding iirc, with full support of her leaders.

[katherine the great]

33 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Yeah. You are either honest with your loved ones about the big things in your life or you aren't. 

It really isn't quite that simple for many people. Maybe you are blessed with relationships that are very straight forward and uncomplicated but many families just don't operate that way. God gave us many different personality traits and everyone has to carve out their family relationships very strategically and that may occasionally require non disclosure. Even Boyd K Packer said that true information is not always useful (or something to that effect).

[katherine the great]

1 hour ago, Ahab said:

IF you are sealed to them they will be able to find you a lot easier than if you are not sealed to them, whether you believe that or not.  Being sealed to your family members simply provides a link to them and let's others know you want to be connected.  it's just that what some people think happens automatically actually takes a bit of work to accomplish.

LOL Ahab! Where do you get this stuff? We have no idea exactly how these things work in the next life. It's all conjecture.

[Ahab]

1 minute ago, katherine the great said:

LOL Ahab! Where do you get this stuff? We have no idea exactly how these things work in the next life. It's all conjecture.

I'm at the point where I'm pretty sure that what I said is true.  I'm not totally sure, yet, but I do have a fairly strong level of faith that what I said and the idea it is based on is true and good.  

I have a process I follow to learn from God through revelation, and this is just some of what comes from that.  Might be funny to you but this is stuff I take seriously.

[Amulek]

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

I know a couple of Muslim converts who said nothing to their families, one changed their name and went into hiding iirc, with full support of her leaders.

When I was a missionary we were not allowed to baptize investigators who had family living in certain Muslim dominated countries. Same if they ever planned on returning to said countries.

Why? Because doing so would put them (and potentially their relatives as well) in mortal danger. Not because the church was interested in avoiding hurt feelings.

 

[katherine the great]

12 minutes ago, Ahab said:

I'm at the point where I'm pretty sure that what I said is true.  I'm not totally sure, yet, but I do have a fairly strong level of faith that what I said and the idea it is based on is true and good.  

I have a process I follow to learn from God through revelation, and this is just some of what comes from that.  Might be funny to you but this is stuff I take seriously.

Alrighty then.