Email to my stake president

[Reuben]

I just sent this. Fingers crossed. You never know - he might send it on.

*****

President, please forward this email to the Europe Area presidency: Elder Johnson, Elder Sabin, and Elder De Feo. Elders, I would appreciate it if you would please consider forwarding this to Elder Claudio D. Zivic.

Elder De Feo, thank you for your beautiful words this past General Conference. I was touched by your message of love. I especially appreciated your mother’s Christlike example. I hope you continue to find peace in her pure and everlasting love for you.

President XXX, I apologize again for not returning your calls earlier this week. I had planned to respond earlier via email but underestimated how long it would take to write. Some of the things I want to say require great care.

First, thank you for your hard work and love for the members in our stake. Thank you for thinking of me when a service opportunity arises. Again, I’m sorry that I must decline for health reasons. I’m on extended leave from work for sleep-disorder-related depression, work-related stress, and grief over the loss of my church community. It’s currently best for me to minimize contact with other members.

It’s unusual for a stake president to personally reach out, so I infer that you know in broad terms what’s happened. However, in case you don’t: a year and a half ago, I discovered that I could no longer believe the Church’s truth claims due to lack of personal evidence and a preponderance of historical counterevidence. I tried to remain fully active for a year, but stopped after it became clear that silent alienation from the body of Christ was a burden no Christ I’m willing to worship would require me to bear. I remain an unbeliever, but one with great faith in the example and words of Jesus.

I’m writing because I want you to understand a few things.

First, please understand that my experience during the year I tried to remain active has nothing to do with our wonderful bishop or his counselors, who have been consistently caring and accommodating. The devaluation and rejection I’ve felt originates in talks from top leaders, in correlated materials, and in Church policy, all of which members are taught to trust without reservation. I’ll give examples shortly.

Second, I do appreciate our leaders’ efforts to reach out to members like me, from Elder Wirthlin’s analogy of the Church as a diverse orchestra, to Elder Uchtdorf’s speaking against litmus tests for fellowship, to President Nelson’s recent explicit statement that there is room for us in the Church. However, you, they, and other Church leaders must understand that approaching us with outstretched arms is at best an empty gesture when one arm is ready to embrace us and the other is poised to strike.

The latest example of inciting believers against members like me is Elder Zivic’s talk this past General Conference. Elder Zivic comes down hard on those of us who have “gone astray,” repeatedly accusing us of being lazy and sinful. While it’s true that some members leave for those reasons, such blanket accusations from Church leaders can cause believing members to devalue and reject members like me. Sometimes, believers attack us using the supplied rhetoric as weapons. This is most likely to happen within families, often with catastrophic results. It seems that every week, I read about another marriage that fails in part because the believing spouse is incapable of understanding the unbelieving spouse.

Do you see how this can harm me and my family? I’m sure Elder Zivic felt that he spoke with the power and authority of God. I call it part of a pattern of bullying and emotional abuse.

False beliefs about members who can’t believe or “go astray” - that we are necessarily lazy, sinful, offended, deceived, or forgetful - are also reinforced in lesson materials. For example, lesson 24 in the Doctrine and Covenants manual gives supporting, simplistic accounts of early Saints who left the faith, which, with the historical data we now have, are simply dishonest to perpetuate. The false beliefs are also reinforced in Church magazines. For example, the June 2017 Ensign article “Overcoming the Danger of Doubt,” in its haste to save the souls of believers, condemns mine.

There are too many examples to relate here, and most believing members accept them all.

False beliefs about members who can’t believe are also reinforced by policy. Please tell me, what does believing in the Restoration have to do with my worthiness? Or attending meetings, for that matter, especially given that they’re often toxic to me? Wasn’t Jesus the only one who was truly worthy? Even if I’m guilty of some great sin, where is grace to be found in the Church, if not before the gates of the house of the Lord who laid down his life for us? How can we expect members to extend grace to others when our church doesn’t extend it to them, and moreover hands them a checklist by which to pass judgment?

According to Church policy, my bishop should confiscate my temple recommend if he learns that I can’t answer the interview questions correctly. If he were to do so, also according to Church policy, I would be unable to ordain my son. If I don’t explain to my son why I’m not ordaining him, I’ll appear to be defective at best. If I explain by leading him through the policies, I assure you I will make it clear why the Church is wrong. Which should I choose?

Worst of all, how do you think I would feel watching someone else ordain my son, showing him how he’s been trained to think a real man believes and behaves? Why would the Church try to shame me into being someone I can’t be, in front of my own family?

Can you see why so many who leave the Church become so angry? Can you see that it’s because we’re devalued, rejected and bullied by an organization we believed was so good that we promised to consecrate everything to it? Do you see how we feel betrayed?

Lastly, I want you to understand that I personally have no desire to see the Church destroyed. I have too many loved ones still heavily invested in it who would be hurt. Instead, I would rather see destroyed the facade of perfection whose maintenance costs members like me so dearly and inspires others to erect similar facades around themselves. I would rather see destroyed the twin idols of purity and superiority, whose worship causes otherwise humble members to lift themselves up above others they’ve been told are filthy and foolish.

I would rather see the Church repent.

I would rather see its shepherds cease gathering their sheep ever more tightly by beating those prone to wander into submission and driving the black ones away. I would rather see the Church stop heaping the awful burdens of silence and shame on unbelieving members in order to lull believing members into false certainty. I would rather see the Church teach the beautiful gospel of grace more often, to ease every yoke and lift every burden, and repudiate the bankrupt gospel of checklists and acceptable losses.

I speak for tens of thousands; perhaps hundreds of thousands. Please don’t approach us with one arm ready to embrace us and the other poised to strike. That will never work.

Again, please forward this email to the Europe Area presidency. I trust that you won’t wait to send it. If it’s truly the shepherds that are scattering the flock, they need to know.

Yours faithfully,
Brother XXX

[Thoughtful]

According to Church policy, my bishop should confiscate my temple recommend if he learns that I can’t answer the interview questions correctly. If he were to do so, also according to Church policy, I would be unable to ordain my son. If I don’t explain to my son why I’m not ordaining him, I’ll appear to be defective at best. If I explain by leading him through the policies, I assure you I will make it clear why the Church is wrong. Which should I choose?

This sums up where I'm at with temple. If I cannot go, I WILL NOT be excluded from my children. I will have FHE with "the rest of the story" twice a week if necessary.

[slavereeno]

According to Church policy, my bishop should confiscate my temple recommend if he learns that I can’t answer the interview questions correctly. If he were to do so, also according to Church policy, I would be unable to ordain my son. If I don’t explain to my son why I’m not ordaining him, I’ll appear to be defective at best. If I explain by leading him through the policies, I assure you I will make it clear why the Church is wrong. Which should I choose?

This sums up where I'm at with temple. If I cannot go, I WILL NOT be excluded from my children. I will have FHE with "the rest of the story" twice a week if necessary.

Me three, I have not outed myself to leadership as of yet, but I will be sending the signals shortly. DW agreed to let me inform our ward leadership that our children are not to be assigned as ministering partners with other adults. Its a little thing, but my spidey senses are tingling already that the way I am acting at church has started the rumor mill and this will only fuel that fire... The day will come when I will have to fish or cut bait.

Nice letter Ruben, would that they would read it sincerely.

[Raylan Givens]

Decent letter. The ward loves, but leaves us alone. I figure as long as I am working in the Cubs program they will feel they have done their duty.

Good luck, let me know how it goes.

We are having a big party this month with alot of our friends from the Ward coming and people not of the ward. Adult beverages might be there (my friends never show up empty handed, even though I very rarely drink). Interested to see what response we get for having a normal adult party. Most know where we are at, perhaps it will loosen them up.

[lightbulb]

Very well said Reuben. I hope you are able to find a community that values honesty over conformity.

I do think however that in many cases the members are complicit with the leadership in putting non-believers down. There are too many small-minded individuals who need to make others feel lessor than themselves in order to build themselves up.

[Reuben]

Very well said Reuben. I hope you are able to find a community that values honesty over conformity.

I do think however that in many cases the members are complicit with the leadership in putting non-believers down. There are too many small-minded individuals who need to make others feel lessor than themselves in order to build themselves up.

Thanks, lightbulb.

I attended an Anglican church today where the vicar has become a friend of mine. He's been through a crisis of faith himself, though his original church was a tiny independent evangelical one somewhere way up north. His congregation is home to a few other refugees from other faiths. Their goal is radical inclusion. The homeless outreach minister often gives sermons wearing jeans and a hoodie. Such an awesome place. I've decided to build new friendships starting there. I doubt any of them would care that I think Jesus wasn't divine but find divinity in his words and actions.

I also think the members become complicit, in the same way the "good" kids in a dysfunctional family often become complicit in the abuse of the "bad" kids. They buy into the controlling parent's worldview and act in self-preservation. So I regard what the church is doing as human nature - the "natural man" we always hear about. What it should do is work against human nature instead of supporting it.

[Reuben]

Update: I've received a reply. My stake president has forwarded the email as requested and extended an invitation to talk when I feel up to it.

I've apparently penetrated the upper layers of the bureaucracy.

[Hagoth]

I've apparently penetrated the upper layers of the bureaucracy.

Unless he just wants to sit you down and set you straight on a few things.
Good luck with everything!

[AllieOop]

I've apparently penetrated the upper layers of the bureaucracy.

Unless he just wants to sit you down and set you straight on a few things.

This. Rueben, I'd be prepared for this being the case.

You know this man better than we do, so maybe you believe he would not do this to you. But, past patterns of the leadership's reactions, he'll be attempting to teach you and guide you into repentance.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

Nicely written. I look forward to the follow up report.

[DPRoberts]

Very nicely written, indeed. That hideous talk of Elder Zivic needs this kind of pushback. I hope (but am too sceptical to expect) that some good comes of this.

[IT_Veteran]

I appreciate you sharing this letter. I know how hard it is to send stuff announcing our 'lack of faith' to priesthood leaders without getting into specific issues. I love that you were unafraid to call out the problems you see.