Mormons can leave the Church, but they just can't leave it alone: More missionaries = the work is rolling forward!!

Thursday, November 1, 2012

More missionaries = the work is rolling forward!!

There is a saying in the church that if the church wasn't true, the missionaries would have destroyed it long ago. Maybe that day is quickly approaching. The lowered missionary age is going to result in an overall drop in the maturity levels of missionaries as well as an increase in the numbers of boys serving who really don't want to be there.

I know from my own experience on my mission there were many boys who really didn't want to be there. They had a knack for bringing others down to their level of faithfulness and work ethic, as opposed to more diligent Elders bringing the less stalwart up their level.

Yes, it's true, there are now going to be more young men serving missions. Are they going to bring a positive influence, or something else instead?

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About This Blog

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints frequently leave the organization. And often these former, or disbelieving, members provide commentary on the church. More often than not, the commentary is less than complimentary.

A common response to this situation, from believing members is, "Well, you can leave the Church, but you can't leave it alone." In truth, I myself have made this exact statement many times in response to comments from former members.

In reality, the vast majority of former members would be more than willing, and very happy, to leave the Church completely behind. Nothing would give them greater happiness than to see the Church fading in the dust in their rear view mirror. But this is not to be the case for so many members who have discovered the Church to not be what they always thought it was.

The reasons for this are varied and complicated. Many former members still have family members such as parents or siblings who still believe and don't understand how someone they care about could "give up their eternal salvation" and leave the church. The family pressure is still there, no matter how much the former member wishes it would disappear.

Many former members still have a spouse or children who not only believe but want to attend. It makes for a very awkward and delicate situation when one spouse is packing up the kids and heading off to church while the other spouse stays home. The disbelieving spouse would be ecstatic if their spouse and children would join them and they could all leave the church behind. But this is not to be.

For far too many former members, very real and material damage was done to them by the Church and its members. The forms of this damage are many. Homosexuals are especially damaged by the Church. For impressionable youth who may "slip up" and not toe the line perfectly, an insensitive or uncaring church leader may not handle the situation well and give the youth the impression they are guilty of heinous sins. The guilt and shame associated with this can be carried into adulthood. When the member discovers the Church is not true, they may feel resentment for having been subjected to such guilt and shame when the basis for those feelings was imaginary and were unnecessarily heaped on them by a church leader. It can take a long time for these wounds to heal.

Many believing members feel that when former members make comments about the church and are intent on pointing out the flaws in the organization, they are doing so because secretly they believe the Church to be true and are only being negative about the Church to ease their guilty conscience. This is simply not the case. Former members are still affected by the church, even though most of them want nothing more than to be free of it, and so in response they feel compelled to stand up for themselves and not just lay over and continue to be victimized by the Church. They've been the victim long enough and are ready to be done.

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Thursday, November 1, 2012

More missionaries = the work is rolling forward!!

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