4 ms·
I can third this. I left about 7 years ago. I have moved from Wisconsin, to North Carolina, to Virginia, to Texas, and then to Washington. The Mormon church man
by jacurtis 7y ago
I can third this. I left about 7 years ago. I have moved from Wisconsin, to North Carolina, to Virginia, to Texas, and then to Washington. The Mormon church managed to find me each time. (I briefly moved to Pennsylvania for work for about 6 months between living in NC and VA, and that was the one time they never found me).
I have always rejected all attempts to "re-activate" me. I have never provided notice of my leaving, and I have never as much as attended church once in any of these locations. Several of the moves I didn't even leave forwarding addresses or change of address at the post office. Heck about a year ago I missed some important documents from the IRS, because even they didn't know my new address. They were contacting a previous address, yet the Mormon church had already visited me (against my requests) a total of three times at that new address.
The Mormon church in fact does encourage harassment of ex members, they just don't advertise it as harassment. I am assuming the top comment in this feed that claims they never promote harassment is probably from a current member. The church promotes and encourages members to visit ex-members "out of love" to "save them". It even goes as far as assigning certain members to "re-activate" specific lost members as a task or chore that they must report back progress on.
So the members are harassing, but they do it under the guise of "love" and "salvation". The leaders of the church teach this twice a year in their worldwide broadcast conference (General Conference) where they tell stories (generally fictitious but claiming to be true-to-life) about how active members have gone to ex-members' homes and pushed and prodded for months and years to get members to re-activate. They will hail these persistent efforts to ignore the privacy requests of the ex-members and to push them even despite threats, because according to the story it eventually worked. They will laugh and say that "the spirit" will eventually get through to these ex-members if you just push them hard enough. This is all harassment. Yes, it is done naively from brainwashed members who think they are helping, but it is indeed harassment.
Imagine breaking up with a significant other who then continues to say they know you were meant for each other. They keep showing up at your work and at your house trying to get you to fall back in love with them. They are convinced that if they insert themselves back into your life that you will feel that love again. But you want nothing to do with this person. That person feels like they are doing something out of love, but to you it is harassment.
I've watched countless families destroyed over mormonism. It is toxic, but in the most crafty ways possible. Looking back, I did it all. I harrassed exmembers and gained pleasure from it. I thought I was truly helping them. We would laugh afterward at the threats we got. It was harrassement but I did it... i was brainwashed without realizing it. I am sick to my stomach for admitting it, but I was guilty of these acts for 30 years. My perspective has changed with many years out of the church. But trust me, it is part of the Mormon culture. I speak from experience. I am guilty of harrassing hundreds of people against their will as a Mormon.
Further, it is worth noting that according to Mormon doctrine, someone who is an active member and leaves the church is "an apostate". Depending how far they went through the ladder of Mormonism (such as going through the temple or even working at the temple) this actually destines someone to a future life in "outer darkness". This is a place reserved for basically only apostates (people that left the church). The mormon church has even taught terrorists and hitler will be able to seek forgiveness in the next life and go to a lower form of heaven, but not as low as outer darkness. This literally puts people who leave the church as worse than mass murderers.
- dkarl 7y agoFWIW, my friend was able to have her name completely removed from the membership rolls, and she was never visited after that except by random missionaries who didn't know who she was. Nobody she talked to in the church told her of the existence of this process, even when she was directly begging to be completely forgotten and never bothered again, which makes it sound like a conspiracy theory or an urban legend, but it exists, and it works. My guess is they had to set it up to comply with a law or fulfill the terms of a settlement. You'll have to look for it online, because I forgot the name of the process and who helped her with it, but any of the online ex-Mormon support groups should be able to point you in the right direction.
- __david__ 7y agohttps://www.exmormon.org/remove.htm https://www.exmormon.org/remove.htm
- godelski 7y agoThank you for sharing. And this is part of why I shared. Because I feel that I myself harassed and enabled this abusive behavior. It is weird, of all the places to actually feel welcome talking about this, it is Hacker News. When I talk about this with friends I'm often met with "Mormons are the nicest people I know." I'm sure others experience this too. > The mormon church has even taught terrorists and hitler will be able to seek forgiveness in the next life and go to [the Telestial Kingdom [0]], but not as low as outer darkness. For those that think this is hyperbole (though I heard you only went to outer darkness [Hell] if you had active proof of god and rejected him), I have heard the exact same teachings and have never lived in any of the states jacurtis mentioned. This belief is also why when you're a Mormon, you feel the need to save those that left. [0] (this says that those that leave are on the __same__ level as mass murders) https://www.mormonwiki.com/Celestial,_Terrestrial,_and_Telestial_Kingdoms#Telestial_Kingdom https://www.mormonwiki.com/Celestial,_Terrestrial,_and_Teles...
- tptacek 7y agoIs the potential forgiveness of "terrorists and Hitler" all that surprising? The story of Saul of Tarsus is at the core of Christian theology; the whole concept of the religion is sort of premised on the universal availability of forgiveness.