Underhanded ways to exit the church

[Corsair]

TL;DR - This is a bad idea. There are far more honest ways to resign from the LDS church. But few more humorous that read like the plot of a comedy.

Suppose you want to resign from the LDS church but don't want to make a make a big deal about it for friends and family. You just want to be done and then politely be around believing family when needed. If you formally resign, this will work until tithing settlement. When your devout parents go to tithing settlement, they get a print out of their "Individual Ordinance Summary". It's effectively their church record with a couple of minor changes. But it also lists all children including adult children that no longer live with you.

There are heartbreaking stories of devout parents who discovered that an adult child resigned from the church because their name longer showed up on their church record being reviewed at tithing settlement. A lot of families I know have not resigned because they don't want this emotional confrontation. Having an inactive child is tolerable. They might return to the church. But formally resigning is a lot more final.

Suppose instead, the apostate convinces or tricks their ward clerk into marking them "deceased". When I was ward clerk, I processed a couple of church records where an elderly person passed away. It's a minor update and no formal proof or death certificate is required. There is no oversight from the bishop. Technically, I could initiate the "deceased" status of any member of my ward. Perhaps you get a third-party to "tearfully" inform an unsuspecting ward clerk of this untimely death. Perhaps you find a NOMish ward clerk that is willing to do this.

This horrible, duplicitous, underhanded question remains: If an apostate, adult child is marked as "deceased" on LDS church records, will they still be listed on the "Individual Ordinance Summary" and membership record of their devout parents? The upside is that the apostate will no longer be eligible for callings, home teaching, or being tracked by the membership committee. But their devout parents might still retain the "hope" that their heretical children are still members as long as the record did not include that the person was "deceased".

If this deception was uncovered, the apostate could simply feign ignorance. "That's a crazy mistake! How ever could that have occurred?!" It would be difficult to undo this error and probably involve a complicated call to tech support in Salt Lake.

Clearly, it would be better to have an honest conversation with your devout parents. And you might have to compound other lies such as your temple recommend status. Plus, your spouse would probably have to be on board with this insane plan. But let me know if my idea is completely bonkers or if such ridiculous organizational hacking is possibly warranted by someone who could leave the church, but the church won't leave them alone.

[RubinHighlander]

Brilliant! I'm in that realm of out but not officially out. My mom became active again after years of being IA/MIA. She does not know of the NOM status of me and my brothers. So, I keep my name on the books for that reason. I actually like her active in her small town because she's a 3 hour drive over mountain passes and it helps to have her Ward support group there where her family can't always be there. I'd be willing to try the deceased route, but I don't have an in with any local WCs.

[moksha]

It is sad when Mormon parents must stand in the circle of Discommendation and turn their backs on their apostate offspring, just to save face on the Mormon Homeworld.

If only they could say Qapla as they would to any warrior going off to a final battle.

[achilles]

It is sad when Mormon parents must stand in the circle of Discommendation and turn their backs on their apostate offspring, just to save face on the Mormon Homeworld.

If only they could say Qapla as they would to any warrior going off to a final battle.

Even Klingons would feel disgust that the unbeliever chose to end up in Gre'thor instead of being with their eternal Klingon family in Sto-Vo-Kor...

[Corsair]

I asked the ward clerk today about the membership status of the deceased. Alas, the worthy and unworthy dead will not show up on the record of the still living. So don't assume that your status of leaving will be covered up by leaving the living. I suppose that having an honest, heartfelt conversation with your faithful parents is the correct answer from both an ethical and spiritual standpoint