As a currently active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who disagrees with the church on a systemic level, I’ve wanted for a while to write down my primary reasons for not aligning with the church. I’ve wanted to write the reasons down to process, but also as a reference for anyone curious about my perspective. Funnily enough, even though my past posts have been highlighting doctrinal/historical issues I have with the church, my primary issues

I want to be clear, I don’t view members at fault in any of the perspectives I share. I don’t view myself as compatible with the goals of the church – and I think that’s okay. However, it’s not okay from the church’s perspective and that feels suffocating and invasive to me. The church’s structure enforces conformity and doesn’t have room for variation.

Thankfully, at the time of writing with my current membership is with boundaries and local leadership willing to support the boundaries I have.

Endlessly extroverted

TL;DR the church wants everyone to socialize constantly and there’s no way to opt out of this.

As I’ve gotten older and have become more aware of my neurodiversity, I’ve come to realize that I don’t enjoy socializing with folk. Church meetings feel like a stressful, hollow social performance each week. Small talk is incredibly uninteresting to me, and the format of church isn’t condusive to meaningful conversation. Even if it was, I’m not sure members of the church are the people I’d want to be fully authentic with as I don’t align with many of their perspectives.

Sure, I could self-sabotage and pretend like socializing is not an issue but I don’t really see why that would be at all necessary to my eternal salvation.

No way to opt out of socializing

As an active member not at all interested in socializing, I’ve been so happy that my ministering brothers or sisters have not ever come over to my house. Unfortunately, there’s no official way to opt out of ministering visits. Thankfully my ward leadership probably wouldn’t be against me requesting nobody visit – but if my leadership wasn’t on board with respecting my boundaries, the only option for opting out of this would be removing my records from the church.

I also find the second hour of church to be a bore. It’s not due to lack of preparation by instructors – they do a fantastic job! The standard works is just so dry to me. But, it’s also an unnecessary social experience from my perspective. I often hear perspectives and opinions I totally disagree with. It’s been fantastic for my church membership to stop attending the second hour of church.

Additionally, there’s no way to prevent my contact information from being accessed by church leadership – without removing my records. If I could, I would completely remove my contact information from my membership records.

There’s multiple social aspects of church I can’t opt out of officially, that I would immediately if I could:

• In-person Sacrament Meeting (although, I’d still have to attend due to my calling)
• Ministering visits
• Second hour of church (i.e. Temple Recommend interview asks if you attend all your meetings – I assume this includes second hour)
• My contact information being accessible to anyone

Forcing everyone back to in-person after COVID

When COVID started in 2020, I thought it was glorious that Sacrament Meeting could be consumed over Zoom. I was deeply disappointed when my bishop informed me (the Ward Technology Specialist in charge of handling the Zoom stream for my ward) that our area was requiring members to return to church if they wanted to attend Sacrament Meeting – with the exception of folk who asked the bishop for permission to attend via Zoom.

I can’t help but think there’s some correlation to the church’s bottom (monetary) line to in-person attendance – because I view this change as an unnecessary way to prevent convenient access to church resources. But, I have nothing but a hunch to support this view. Aside from taking the sacrament – which is a few minutes – there’s no reason everything else in Sacrament Meeting shouldn’t be available for anyone to watch.

Lack of transparency, honesty and humility

TL;DR the church does not embody the transparency, honesty and humility it expects of its members.

Manipulation

I won’t fully verbalize my perspective here, as I’ve covered some relevant issues I have with the church’s handling of information:

• Tax fraud
• Misleading citing of sources

I don’t take specific issue with the fact that the church has committed tax fraud or that it cites sources that are extremely offensive or problematic. It’s the deception that I take issue with. The way the church is not transparent says so much more than the actual things it’s trying to deflect from. It would be so much less problematic to me if the church was straightforward about things and trusted its membership to decide how to move forward with the information.

Silencing critics

The church also has a long-established track record of excommunicating critics or people who reveal uncomfortable truths in the church (and often the church has to concede the very truth the former member was excommunicated for).

Asking more than its willing to give

The church expects more from its members where than it’s willing to reciprocate. Here are some examples I can think of:

• Finances: the church expects members to be perfectly honest with tithing without ever disclosing how church funds are used
• Repentance: the church doesn’t admit when it’s wrong but expects members to disclose explicit and personal details about sinful behavior
• Humility: there is no space for critical thought directed at the church or its leadership – critical thought is “apostate”

The church should embody the attributes it expects of members and as the “one true church” asking its members to be willing to give everything to support it, it should be held to a higher standard than a typical organization.

Focus on “othering”

By “othering” I mean the act of viewing others with an “us vs. them” mentality.

I don’t think I need to elaborate on this point much, but here are some of the groups I think the church “others”:

• Anyone not a member of the church as misguided or unenlightened
• Those identifying as non-hetero-normative sexuality or gender identity
• Members not in alignment with church leadership as “on the fringe”

As a flawed human who “others” people all the time unintentionally, I am actively working on unlearning this. I am wholeheartedly against the church marginalizing people on a systemic level. Especially a church that claims to represent Jesus.

Why I’m still a member

I live in a small town where the church is a major part. My entire family in the area are active members. Even if I removed my records, I wouldn’t be able to fully remove the church from my life. And for the reasons I outline below, I don’t necessarily want to be fully removed from the church.

Leadership is supportive of my boundaries

My current bishop is extremely supportive of where I am at. He has recommended faith-promoting resources to me (with my consent), but has not at all pressured me to be more active than I desire. In fact, when I let him know where I was at, his response was “what do you need from me?” and he wanted to know how to help me be more comfortable with where I’m at.

That was all I needed from leadership and I hope that continues.

I want to contribute to my community

It makes me happy that as the Ward Technology Specialist that I can enable the remote attendance of folk who are unable to attend. Despite my disagreement with forcing people to return in-person, I love that I can help people engage in spirituality in a way they find meaningful. I hope I can continue to contribute to my community and fellow members whilst retaining distance from the church systemically.

Supporting family

Finally, I want to support my loved ones in connecting with God in a way they find meaningful.