Why Making it Official Mattered, Until Today

Lots of people who have left the Church choose not to officially request that their names be removed—they're fine just never going to church again and living life out of the Church.  I was not content to do that.

After reading the New York Times article about Hans Mattsson, something clicked inside of me and I thought, "I don't want to be associated with this church anymore."  I felt sure that the Church was a controlling institution that was built on and maintained by lies, and I was done and I wanted out.  In my mind, as long as I was still listed as an active member, then my name was still associated with that church, my membership still added to their numbers, and it was still a part of my life.

I looked up how to leave the Church and I found a website called Mormon No More (linked here: http://www.mormonnomore.com/ ) which showed me the steps I would need to take and what I could expect from Member Records, my bishop, and the letter that they would send me.  They also informed me of my legal rights: that I don't have to invite anyone from the bishopric inside my house if they come over to talk about my leaving, that they cannot excommunicate me for leaving if I've done nothing that under their rules merits excommunication, and that as soon as Member Records receives my letter of resignation, I'm out, regardless of how long it takes for the rest of the process to go through.

I also learned from this website that the Church never gets rid of my records—it keeps them, but makes a note that I've resigned.  What sending your letter of resignation does is remove your name from off of the active rolls of the Church, meaning that my name won't appear in ward directories, on Visiting Teaching rosters, etc.  And I was okay with that.

But I read something today that made me really angry: my records still count toward their total membership numbers even though I've left the Church!  I'm doing more research to see if this is true, and I'll write an update in the next post on what I find out.  But here's what I heard today:

Every April in the Church's General Conference they report on the statistics of the Church, and among those statistics is the total membership.  In 2014's April conference, they reported that as of December 31, 2013 the total number of members was 15,082,028.  But here's what they DON'T report:

• The Church counts members until they are 110 years old.
• Members who have their membership removed or who are excommunicated still count toward that total.
• Inactive members or those who have joined other churches still count toward that total.

So does this mean that because I was a member, I will be counted as a member until I'm 110 years old?!  I'm pissed off because of the deceitfulness of the Church.  They're inflating their numbers!  If they were to report the number of people who are faithfully active members (which the statistics report leads members to believe that the total represents), there are only about 5 million. (If you are interested in the statistics, here is an article filled with membership statistics by the Salt Lake Tribune from earlier this year: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/57369318-80/church-percent-lds-growth.html.csp?page=1 ).

Some people might wonder why they would lie about their numbers.  It's to deceive the members into thinking that the Church is bigger and stronger than it actually is.  It's to convince them that the "truth of the gospel" is making the Church grow in huge numbers and therefore the Church must be true, so members should continue to conform and obey.  The Church knows how many people have officially left the Church, but they'll never release those numbers.  They don't want faithful members to think that there's anything wrong with the Church that would make so many people want to leave.  The Church will only focus on those "less active" members who need to be fellowshipped back into the Church.  Or when they do acknowledge that people have left the Church, they either:

1. label them as apostates
2. say the person was lying the whole time they were members and never really believed
3. claim that the person must not have really understood the gospel (because if they did they would see how true it is)
4. assume the person wanted to live a sinful life and the gospel was "too difficult to follow", or
5. they will chalk it up to the person being offended, as if the reason they left the Church was because they were too sensitive to something that happened or was said.

Some people have left for those reasons, but that certainly doesn't apply to all who have left, and yet these reason are what members want to believe.  They don't want to believe that anything is wrong with the Church or the gospel they hold dear or that the reasons have anything to do with the gospel itself.

So up until today I was glad that I was officially out of the Church, despite how hard it's been afterward.  But now I'm pretty upset.  I still feel a sense of personal satisfaction that I actually went through the resignation process, and if I had to do it all over again even knowing that I'd still be considered a member as far as their official numbers are concerned, I would.  It's enough to know that at least I'm also counted among the never-will-be-publicly-released numbers of those who have officially resigned, and that I won't appear on any of the ward or stake directories.

And I have a grim satisfaction in knowing that the membership total they release each year is a lie.