Why does the mormon church not let former mormons get their records off?

Question

I have sent three letters to the mormon church one to the bishop and two to the church office building why the big run around

Answer 1

Well.... I personally leave my name on the records. I've successfully helped at least 1 missionary to look at himself and his beliefs and the church with more critical eyes, ears, heart, and soul. He's on his way out. I can't take all the credit. He wouldn't have even listed to me unless he already had some doubts. I like it when they come over at least when I am not doing anything. We usually just converse about the Church in good and not so good ways. I ask them to investigate the Kinderhook plates and the Book of Abraham's origins to start with. So far not one of them has been from Utah and I think it is funny how they think Utah Mormons are screwy. The last one that was here called them Utards. Haha... THat's straight from the Missionary's mouth.

Now if you don't like them using your number to inflate their numbers then get it taken off. They boast 13 Million when in fact active LDS is actually only 4 million. According to those numbers the church is actually shrinking... Not growing. But since they don't count LDS that have passed accurately and anyone ever baptized into the church that is inactive, joined another church, that didn't take the time to have their name removed... like myself are still counted.

Oh and guess what. Those 4 Million active tithing payers. Well if you do the math that the average person makes 50000.00 a year. 10 percent of that is 5000 multiply that by 4 million.. 20 billion a year! Don't ya wish they would open their books for us to see what their spending all that money on.. Oh yeah you also have to think about the Fast offerings and other income they take in.  

Answer 2

Claiming that people try to have someone else's name removed is a load of cr@p.  I've been involved with the exmormon community for almost 10 years, and I've never heard of anyone doing that.

The church doesn't want you to leave--why would they?  

Try these sites for more information and advice:

www.mormonnomore.org

www.exmormon.org

Added:  Yep, one incident is evidence of it happening regularly, to the point that the church has to do something about it. @@

No, there's not a "conspiracy," but they do not want it to be easy for you, and claiming there's too much "humanitarian aid" interfering with the process is silly.

Answer 3

I did mine th wrong way, my letter wasn;t noterized and I got a letter that my name had been removed, but I get the missioanries still at my house, but not for me, now they come for my son.  

Answer 4

SHUT THE F*U*C*K UP!

Answer 5

There is at least supposed to be a smooth process in place now for name removal, described in detail at the site http://mormonnomore.com/

But in your case it sounds like you followed the process and are still having trouble. Sometimes bishops don't know what to do with the letter or they sit on it and don't pass it on to the stake president. Whatever the reason, a phone call to Greg Dodge (801-240-2053) in Member Records will usually get things moving.

Anna wrote: "They refuse to acknowledge when you leave because they don't want to lose numbers on the membership rolls. Yes, it's a cheat, but that's the way it is. Just ignore it. If you have informed them by letter (registered is best), go on and live your life like they never existed. That's what I did."

Actually you really should be able to get this done nowadays through the process mentioned. The Mormon church was sued in 1985 for not honoring a resignation letter, which is the only reason they accommodate these requests.

You may be right though, anna, about not wanting to lose numbers on the membership rolls. The ex-Mormon community tries every year to make sense of the membership counts given in General Conference, and they don't make any sense. It appears that not only are inactive members being counted, but so are myriad ex-members and deceased members.

Is it a conspiracy? Probably not, but somewhere along the way they apparently decided to deal with ex-members and lost members a particular way, and the numbers have since spiraled out of control. Correcting the problem now would be embarrassing, so I don't expect an announcement anytime soon.

Answer 6

Still waiting for my finalization. It has been months. I just want my number removed and a letter proving so. I might have to call the member records myself and have them check?? The missionaries have come by three times, even though I have stated "no contact" on my letter. Also some how the bishop got my cell number (perhaps from my ex's parents, how freakin rude) They know how I feel....

Answer 7

They refuse to acknowledge when you leave because they don't want to lose numbers on the membership rolls. Yes, it's a cheat, but that's the way it is. Just ignore it. If you have informed them by letter (registered is best), go on and live your life like they never existed. That's what I did.

Answer 8

The reason they have you go through so much is to make sure of your identity and that you're really sure.

There have been cases of people that are bitter against the church trying to get others removed from the records, such as friends or family, because they think they are 'saving' them.  But they never asked that person, and it can wreck the person that wishes to remain a member's records and cause a lot of headache for them.  We had a case in this in my old branch where my husband was clerk and my father was 2nd counselor in the branch presidency.  It was a huge deal.

So who should the church work to protect more?  The person leaving the church, or those members that are being taken advantage of by bitter ex-members?

EDIT:

And I assume you speak from personal experience of dealing with this from within the church and seen the process firsthand when calling it a 'load of c**p'.

I do and have.

While in the Relief Society presidency, my RS  president's son tried to get her records removed.  It was a big enough deal to fix with her, and she's an active member with a calling.  For those that are not actively in a calling or not fully active in attendance, it can create huge problems.  If someone's records are removed, they must be rebaptized, etc. if they later come back to the church later.  So, the church protects the faithful members.

Not to mention the fact that there are 13 million members in the church, and one main office building in Salt Lake.  Missionary callings can take two months to come back to the Elder (in the US, longer outside), and they have a lot of people working on that process.  With all the work the church has to do (missions, humanitarian, genealogy, etc.), you can be sure they don't waste much resources on people wanting their records removed.  It can take a while simply due to bureacracy.  From our point of view, nothing malicious is happening to those wanting their records removed while they wait and it does not hurt them, but if we move resources from, say, the humanitarian aid department to expidite the removal of your records, people in 3rd world countries that rely on the church for aid ARE hurt.  Comes down to priorities, and ours are obviuosly different from those wishing to leave the church.

It's not because there is a conspiracy to 'keep you in the church'.

Answer 9

Write another letter and let the bishop know he has x number of days before you get an attorney as well as notify the local news outlets.

It works every time.