A recent Reddit thread asked why those who used to attend church no longer do. While it’s not specifically about Mormonism, I think there is a lot of commonality which demonstrates that DCP is dead wrong about why most people leave.
Here are some answers:
I started to realize I felt guilty for things that weren’t truly wrong and didn’t negatively impact others. I now don’t need the interpretation of good and evil from others, I just do my best to be a good person on my own terms.
One of my four sons is gay. I love him without reservation. The church says he’s a sinner because of who he is. I’m out.
I was a regular church goer for most of my life, as was my wife. Kids baptized, active in choir, taught Bible study, volunteer efforts, the works.
When my wife was diagnosed with metastatic cancer her treatments became very rough and her health deteriorated rapidly. This was pre-Obamacare days and she wasn’t covered under my employers insurance plan due to pre-existing condition clauses. We had been tithing regularly and were giving extra towards the churches new building fund. We had to stop that to make ends meet but still tithed what we could. The senior pastor contacted us and asked why and I told him and he asked if he and the deacons could do a special prayer session for her health.
We showed up to the session, laying on of hands and whole process. It was emotionally nurturing but her health continued to spiral. Each visit we got more and more bad news. Finally, a diagnosis of Stage 4 and she was given only months to live. We were once again approached by our pastor who asked to come to our home and see us.
During that visit the godless bastard looked straight at her and said she must have some “hidden sin” that was preventing her from being healed and this was Gods way of pushing her to seek the better path blah blah blah.
My wife was sitting there, oxygen tubes up her nose, no hair, down 60lbs from her vibrant pre-cancer self and could barely speak above a whisper. And he had the gall to accuse her of committing some hidden “sin” stopping God from granting her healing.
I threw him out of our home. I refuse to worship any God that needs to play with their creation to somehow get off on praise. That’s BS.
She died one of the most wholesome women I’ve ever known and several years later I’d learn that pastor was diddling several kids in the congregation.
If God exists it’s not in any church. Church was designed to glorify evil men.
I never really could connect with anyone in the church, they were too... churchy. They didn't seem capable of having conversations that didn't revolve around the church or the Bible and I can't just talk about that 24/7. The level of close mindedness as well was quite infuriating and couldn't continue to deal with that.
I realized they all worship a mythology no different from stories about Greek and Roman gods.
And I started looking around me and noticed all these supposedly good people were actually pretty screwed up. Mean, racist, homophobic, just about as far away from the actual teachings of Christ as can be. If Jesus took a look at what his followers have become, he'd just sit and cry and cry.
I've only ever met maybe one or two actually good Christians who live like Christ said we should. The rest of them are just pretending.
It just never was for me. I felt like I was faking something to be in there, and I was fairly confident most others were too.
My church found out that I'm gay and most of the members shunned me. I also came to realize that my church (LDS/Mormon) was a cult around that same time.
The focus on appearances. It seemed like no one actually gave a crap what went on behind closed doors as long as they weren’t forced to acknowledge it. Felt like nobody would care if their back teeth were rotting out just as long as the front looked nice, so to speak.
That last one in particular resonates very strongly with my experience.After my separation and divorce not one person from my church called me to ask how I was doing. I grew up in that church and went as an adult after moving back to my home town. There are other reasons, but this one still hurts three years later. I’ll never go back to a baptist church. I may not go back to church at all. I still pray every day.
Fun fact, in the thousands of responses, not a single person wrote “someone told me I had a stain on my shirt” as their reason for leaving.
