Why does the mormon church make it hard on people to have their names removed from the church?

Question

I mean its not like i hav e changed my mind. The want me to go to st marys,GA church to talk to them. I refuse to do so.

i never got any blessings out of being a member of the church. I could care less what any Mormon thinks. I care what God thinks not what mormons think

does any more Mormons want to comment on this? feel free or if your ex mormon you can comment as well.

if you go to mormon.org you can chat live with a missionary. they couldn't give me a straight answer on the rapture. which i know to be false. i didn't use my real name but the people were nice still i am an ex mormon and will be on paper soon as well

Answer 1

They want to keep you on the rolls so that the membership numbers can be inflated. It is hard to get your name off the rolls because of the humiliation that you have to endure to do it.

Answer 2

If you only care what God thinks and you don't care or believe in the Mormon church, what does it matter that they have you listed as a member? It's hard for me to believe that you never received any blessing for being a member of this church, unless you were baptized for the wrong reasons.

And if it really is that important to you to have your name removed from the Church's records, why not do what it takes to do so?

I think the Church makes it difficult to do in order to prevent people from doing it on a whim or for a minor reason, because it is a serious thing to have your name removed from the Church's records. In my mind, it is basically excommunicating yourself from the Church, and as such, should be taken seriously.

Answer 3

DOn't go to the meeting. Contact Concerned Christians. I'll post a link. They have a sample letter you can use. The letter states that if they excommunicate you, instead of recording that they removed your name at your request, or do anything to slander your name, they will face a legal challenge. There are attorneys that work with groups helping people out of Mormonism that will sue for free if they slander you, especially after you have sent a letter in. Make sure you send a letter to the prophet, stake president and bishop- all certified mail return receipt.

It is important to do it this way, becasue if you don't they will slander your name all over town. They did that to my dad. They did not do that to me because I used the Concerned Christians letter, which is worded strongly.


The Resignation letter should also state that you will consider ANY visits from missionaries, home teaches, etc... to be harrassment.

Best of luck and prayers!

Answer 4

Evidently there has been a diciplinary council called and you are given a hearing to defend or explain some infraction of probably the morals laws of the church, or affiliation with some anti-Latterday Saint group, or maybe some other serious charge; wherein the stake high council would either exhonorate you, disfellowship you, or excommunicate you. If you want your name removed, you do NOT have to attend that council. All you have to do is send a letter stating you want your name removed from Church records and no longer want to be affiliated. It is not that hard to do. But you lose the spiritual blessings that you received at baptism and it is considered a very serious step you are taking. It is not taken lightly. And not to pad the membership roles of the church. It is considered that it is your salvation that is at stake.

Answer 5

I have no idea why they make it so hard, but I understand your frustrations. I am the only one in my family who is not Mormon and not my family, but other people from the church constantly try to convert me. I have found that you have to be just as persistent as they are when the pressure is on.
Good job. Stand your ground. Nobody knows what's best for you better than you.

Answer 6

One of the talking points that the missionaries use is that Mormonism is the fastest growing religion in the world. This supposedly proves that the church is true because a prophet is "judged by his works."

That is a completely false statement. In fact, if the church allowed everyone to remove their names from church records that wanted them removed, it would show that the church is actually losing membership, thus defeating the argument.

If you want out, you don't have to go to this meeting. All that will happen is a high-pressure sales job by someone (probably from the Bishopric) to keep you in.

The best way to get your records removed can be found at

http://www.irr.org/mit/exit-letters.html

Good Luck!!

Answer 7

Call the offices of the church in Salt Lake City, Utah! Ask for the records department! They will be more than glad to take your name off of the membership rolls of the church, and good riddence!

Answer 8

I am trying to read between the lines here. My guess is that your Stake Center is located in St. Mary's, GA and that is where the Stake President and the high councilors are located. In order to process the disciplinary hearing, they have requested that you attend this session. If you choose not to attend, then all you need to do is send a written message stating that you wish to be removed from membership and that you do not wish to attend their hearing. They will proceed without you and you will eventually receive a letter from the Stake President stating that your name has been removed from membership status.
I do hope that you will reconsider this course of action and perhaps change your life to be in conformance with the teachings rather than lose the spriritual blessings that membership brings.
Sincerely

Answer 9

All you have to do is send a letter into church headquarters, one to your bishop and one to your stake president.

I'm sorry to the person who said her dad's name was slandered. That doesn't usually happen. It's usually kept very confidential.

I know how this works because my biological father had his name removed. All he did was talk to his bishop, signed a form that asked to have his name removed, and it was sent to church headquarters. Then he got a letter stating that it was done. Nothing else was ever done to him, or anything for that decision.

I would urge you to strongly to reconsider, but it is your decision. Why do you want your name removed? This is something you have to decide for yourself, but I'm sure the reason they want you to go to St. Mary's is because that's where your stake building, and stake presidency is located. They probably want you to talk to them about this, but you don't have to.

Good luck to you!! I hope things work out for you in your life.

Answer 10

I was born a Roman Catholic to a devoutly Roman Catholic family.

I converted to the LDS church when I was 16. I practiced it devoutly (I mean devoutly, I never missed Seminary, I practiced the Word of Wisdom in its entirety [I even abstained from eating meat for a while])

I served a mission in Germany when I was 19.

I came back to California when I was 21 and decided that the church just wasn't for me.

I wrote a letter to the Office of Membership Records in Salt Lake City, UT. In the letter I very briefly stated that my current philosophies do no match those of the doctrines of the Church and so it seems only appropriate that I leave the church. I specifically requested to have my name removed from the list and that NO AGENTS OF THE CHURCH try to contact me and/or change my decision. (be it missionaries, bishops, home teachers, or even my own family representing the church). I stated that the only further contact I wish to receive from the church is a RECEIPT OF CONFIRMATION that my name was SUCCESSFULLY REMOVED from the membership list. I also stated in this letter that I FULLY UNDERSTOOD that such action would RESCIND my baptism, my confirmation, my priesthood ordination, my endowment, and any other religious ordinances that I had failed to mention.

A week later I received a response via the US mail stating that "this is an ecclesiastical matter and thus [my] letter is being forwarded to [my] local bishop "Bishop X", and he will contact [me] further".

Even though I made it very clear that I wanted no harassment from the church, they proceeded to forward my correspondence to a third party (my Bishop). This Bishop (Bishop X as we will call him) came to my house without invitation, and proceeded to give me the 3rd degree. He asked me every question possible in order to probe my inner thoughts and hopefully find something in me worth excommunication. (Kind of like if you attempt to quit your job with a very stubborn boss, and he decides to fire you before your 2 week notice is up for something silly).

After my Bishop’s undesired visit, I received another letter from Utah about two weeks later saying that there will be some kind of Ecclesiastical Court that will determine if I am to be excommunicated. I never showed to this “court” and a week after that I received my final letter from Utah stating that I was excommunicated. It really didn’t bother me until I found out that the church was ALSO harassing my family back home in New Jersey. They were asking my parents numerous questions about my personal life (which to no prevail they knew nothing anyways).

I’ve recently found out that this is a common theme with the LDS church. Also, interestingly, I’ve found out that (at least in my case) this is legally considered a form of harassment that doesn’t need to be tolerated. It turns out that I had every ground to SUE the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints…

POINT TO ALL OF THIS:

When you write your letter to the Office of Membership Records, be VERY specific in what you want. Mention what you will and won’t tolerate as further action from the church, and also mention that any action outside the scope of what is stated will be considered harassment and that you will follow with suit.

Secondly, have your letter NOTARIZED prior to sending it.

And hopefully the church will not harass you like they did my family and me. If they do, you will have all the evidence to sue.

Know that YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO RESIGN FROM A CHURCH WITHOUT BEING EXCOMMUNICATED, DISFELLOWSHIPPED, ETC. and any infringement of such a right is grounds for a suit.

I hope this helps you (though it doesn’t answer your question as to “why the Church makes it so difficult for one to leave). To answer this, one can only speculate. I suppose that since the church is still a relatively NEW church (being less than 300 years old) must survive by certain cultic principles, if the church were to abandon a lot of its practices with respect to how it treats it’s members, the church would probably cease to exist within a matter of a few generations.

Best of luck with your endeavors, and God bless!

Bryan