I’m sure I’m not the only one who at some point in her life has wondered this about people who’ve either left the Church entirely or have gone inactive. And as I’ve gone inactive myself, unsurprisingly, this question has been flung at me at times from friends and family and random strangers.

Why can’t you just leave it alone? If you’re not believing it anymore, why don’t you just go and find something that works for you? Why do you still talk about the Church?

Why? Why? Why?

Today someone asked again. So, voila! Another blog post. I think it deserves being addressed.

The first thing I want to do is ask why someone who is no longer active or has left the Church entirely, SHOULD leave it alone? Why do we assume that this should be the proper or logical step? I mean, after all, as a Church we’re not in the business of leaving people alone. If you’ve gone inactive, we will try and reactivate you, again and again. If you’ve ever agreed to talk to the missionaries as a non-member and your contact info is in their area book, they will find you. Again and again. If no one has found you yet, we will have missionaries out with the mission to find you. If you say no, that’s ok. Another set will find you a few years down the road. If you’ve expressed that you don’t want to be contacted as an inactive member, it will be respected…except for a once-a-year letter, or maybe once every 5 years. We don’t leave people alone. We will try everything we can to find them, to find them again, and again and again, and to reactivate them, again and again. Until we’re all dead. And then the fun continues in the spirit world.

Why do we expect people to leave the Church alone, when leaving things alone is not what we do? Maybe because some think that’s a natural and healthy step to take if you’re not happy with something? I think that’s a reasonable and logical thought, and I actually do agree that if something causes us great distress or unhappiness that it may be best to move on and away from that cause of heartache.

But when we want people to leave the Church alone, we’re not content with them no longer coming (because it’s better for them or makes them happier or whatever). We are wanting them to stop being bothered or concerned or critically interested in what’s going on in the Church. We wonder why they still talk about it. Why they still care.

It’s really quite simple from my point of view. We cannot leave it alone, because we cannot actually get away from it. Unless you are an adult convert, who doesn’t have children or a spouse who are also members, often times leaving the Church isn’t just a solitary act. In my own case, I am married to a man who has 5 siblings, married with kids who are almost all active members of the Church including his parents. I come from a family of 7 kids who are almost all married with kids and all active in the Church including my parents. Because I grew up in the Church, most of my friends, and my whole social life until my recent inactivity, are directly connected to the Church.

So, when I stopped going to Church, I could pull myself away from Church attendance. But I couldn’t at the same time pull myself away from all my friends and family. I cannot read my family text chats without being exposed to all the typical Mormony chatter. They will talk about their temple trips, about General conference talks, about their spiritual experiences, about President Monson dying, asking for help to stop gay marriage, or to sign a petition to get a piece on President Monson rewritten. The same is true for my husband’s family. Friends and family will share on FB all their Mormon faith promoting memes, links and quotes. I will see news papers articles shared by those who are still connected to the Church. My nieces and nephews will go on missions, or get blessed or baptized or get married in the temple. When we are together, they may want to pray. Or go to Church. Or read scriptures as a family.

How can I leave all this? Should I not come to blessings or baptisms? Should I ignore everything my friends and family share about their lives, because it’s tied to the Church? Should I not read the letters from my nieces and nephews from their missions? How do I avoid prayers, scriptures, and Church attendance when getting together with family without anyone noticing? How exactly can a person who no longer wants to be active in the Church (or a member at all) completely sever all these ties without severing ties to their whole former life???

And if I feel that the Church is engaging in policies or actions that I feel may harm the people I care about (such as my friends and family and their kids), should I just shrug my shoulders and think it’s not my problem?

In my experience, I cannot leave the Church, because Mormonism is so interwoven with my whole life that a complete cut is basically impossible, or only possible when severing ALL ties to ANYONE who has any connection to the Church. It’s the only way to really leave it behind.

Is that really what people think should happen? Do I need to explain how incredibly difficult that would be, and what terrible effect it can have on individuals and families if we took such an approach? Certainly no one is actually wanting this kind of “leaving the Church alone”?!

I think the problem is that people think that once you do not longer want to be active in the Church, that you no longer should care or be interested or engaged in anything that has to do with Church. I do not understand that mindset. If it’s been a huge part of my life, and still is a huge part of the lives of people I care about, why should I become totally indifferent to it?

If I divorce a spouse after years of serious marital issues, I may be happy in my choice of divorce. It may be the right path, and the one bringing me the most joy. But that wouldn’t have to mean that it’s easy to go through a divorce. It wouldn’t have to mean that I wouldn’t be sad if my ex-husband was to commit a terrible act, or if something happened to my ex-husband. It wouldn’t mean that I cannot legitimately hurt for not having being able to have the marriage I had hoped for. It wouldn’t mean that I cut off contact with our old friends we had together, or with his parents, or that he can no longer see the kids. In fact, if there were kids, I’d have to figure out how to honor their wishes to maybe have a relationship with dad, while I don’t want that relationship anymore. So, maybe at times I’d find myself still at a birthday party with ex-husband. For the sake of the children. And then ex-husband does something crappy at the party, stuff he used to do in the past. It would seem quite reasonable that I’d have a reaction to that, and opinion about it – even if I’m now divorced and happy with that choice. Maybe I’d react, because I feel it affects our kids. Maybe I react, because I simply think it’s unacceptable behavior, regardless of our marital status. Maybe I react out of habit, because none of us change over night. Or over a few months.

I think leaving the Church is a bit like a divorce. You cannot erase all the experiences, relationships and issues that have developed throughout your life as a result of being an active member. When you change the relationship, the future will start to look different, but your past is still soundly founded in Mormonism. It will impact what is ahead. Thinking people can simply separate their membership from all the areas of their lives that have been impacted by it, as if it’s not all so deeply interconnected, is willfully obtuse.

To me, expecting people to “leave the Church” alone is not only a totally unrealistic expectation, it’s also a deeply unkind one. It suggests that those who part with their membership also part with their right to have any opinions on the Church. This bothers me, because my own experience has taught me that even as an active member, my opinions aren’t welcome if they are negative. It’s like a double whammy. Maybe you wanted to leave, because you felt that your concerns were dismissed. Then when you leave, people basically dismiss what you say, because you left. You can’t win.

What we really want is simply for people to never say anything negative about the Church. We don’t want it from active members, and we don’t want it from inactive members or those who left entirely. So, when those folks pipe up, we shake our head, and ask why they can’t leave it alone. And then assume that they cannot leave it alone, because deep down they know the Church is true. Or they hate the Church so much, they cannot rest until they destroy it. Or some such nonsense.

When maybe the simple answer is that we cannot leave it alone, because you cannot leave us alone. And you cannot leave us alone, because your faith is not just something on a paper and a place you go to once a week. It’s the air you breathe. It influences all the choices you make, the big ones and the small ones. It’s your social life. It’s your political views. It’s your parenting. It’s what you eat. It’s the car you drive, and how you spend your summers.

And it was everything for us, once, too. You can’t just leave that behind, like a bad job you swap for a new one. It’s a process of carefully separating what can be separated, while learning how to maintain your own distance to Church things, while still trying to fully show up for all your family and friends to whom Church is everything. It’s learning to keep your mouth shut, over and over again, while your family is outwardly sharing their life (which is their faith), while you know you cannot as simply share your new beliefs (or lack of beliefs). It’s realizing that you may have left the Church, and they can still influence your own life through their political involvement. It’s realizing that if you try to explain the boundaries you’d expect for yourself, your expectations will not be seen as trying to leave the Church alone. They may be seen as hostile.

Eventually, you may feel that you simply cannot win, and that no matter what you do or say, many of those who are still active are set on assuming the worst of you, and are unable to hear your side. Their concern is to maintain the infallibility of the Church. And then, maybe, like me, you just give up and say “what the hell”, and you do whatever you want and no longer try to leave it alone. Why should you, after all? No matter what you say, it’s not like people will consider what you have to say. Why not say what you want to say then?

