Growing to dislike the church because of it’s members

[Anonymous]

AmyJ wrote:

One of the things that I have learned and re-learned over the years is that you do not have to be a Christian (a literal believer in Jesus Christ) in order to have/create radiant joy and a rich life (though it can help people to do so). I think that you have to believe in a force in the world “greater then you” (thank you AA) and that you have to be able to have good interactions with others where you give good to them and they give back good to you in a balanced and sustainable way.

At the loosest framework, this is an interpretation of the “2 Great Commandments” upon which “hang all the law and the prophets” (which is really mentorship and counsel written down as tradition and in-person guidance & support).

I have found that church culture puts LDS church membership as the requirement for ultimate happiness, Christianity as a lower (but “OK” ish) tier of happiness, a Non-Christian but “of the book” tier of happiness (ish – sometimes), and then everyone else (though grouping Buddhists with anti-religion pagans and Atheists with Agnostics and Deists for example shows how cultural stereotypical assessments can get a bit wonky).

It’s funny, I do things that are tagged as what “Good Christians” do, and my husband or my mother are like, “that’s the Light of Christ working on her” and I’m like, “No, that’s not it – Jesus Christ has nothing to do with this. I don’t see how God has anything to do with this”. And they they get a long-suffering expression and are “Sure Amy, Sure”. It’s such a weird conversational pattern because I am telling them the last thing they want to hear to their face while doing what they feel “a good Mormon” does. I don’t get mean about it or anything, but I also don’t back down in my assessment that I don’t see the influence of Jesus Christ or God in the decision-making process I went through and I don’t feel anything that I would code as “inspiration” at the time either.

There is church/church leadership rhetoric about only church members being able to be truly happy. Like you Amy, I have found this to be untrue. This probably partly comes from living in an area where church members are an extremely small minority. The truth I know many happy people of various religious persuasions, some with no religious leanings at all (or outright atheist). That’s not to say I don’t know happy Mormons, but I also know some unhappy ones. I still don’t understand how some members of the church don’t see the happiness in others, nor do I understand how some members can’t fathom how some people who leave the church can be happy. For some, leaving the church, or at least church activity, is the best thing and does indeed improve happiness or at least relieve anxiety.

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

There is church/church leadership rhetoric about only church members being able to be truly happy. Like you Amy, I have found this to be untrue. This probably partly comes from living in an area where church members are an extremely small minority. The truth I know many happy people of various religious persuasions, some with no religious leanings at all (or outright atheist). That’s not to say I don’t know happy Mormons, but I also know some unhappy ones. I still don’t understand how some members of the church don’t see the happiness in others, nor do I understand how some members can’t fathom how some people who leave the church can be happy. For some, leaving the church, or at least church activity, is the best thing and does indeed improve happiness or at least relieve anxiety.

Reading your response made me smile as I remembered a conversation I had with my currently atheist daughter. We live in a rural Christian (non-LDS) community with 4+ non-LDS Christian churches in a 5 mile swath by my house (and at least 3 more non-LDS Christian churches in the village 7 miles away). The local branch meets in a different city 9 miles out in a different direction, and that larger city has at least 3 more additional denominations that I have seen. There is a Non-LDS Christian church community outreach program at her high school where the kids can have donuts and gather in the quad for a 15 minute homily about 1x a week before school. My daughter desperately needed the donuts (ok, she needed to blend in socially and the calories on her smaller frame) and had concerns about the ethics of accepting and eating the donut while being a committed non-believer. I reassured her that the people running the program wanted the kids to gather to have the chance to hear what their church was saying and connect teens together – but they had no concrete expectations aside from general good manners of the teens.

The older I get, the more I realize that “happiness” is a good 30 percent of what I would call “fortune/luck” (genetics, circumstances, etc.), 30 percent “good mindset/judgement/vision” where you can be a person of character who makes mentally healthy choices, pays attention to emotionally maturing and adapt, and the remaining 40% “hard work and determination”. Religion can grow the community to provide accommodations for improvements in any of those categories (and is the easiest way by far more often than not to do some of that heavy lifting), but it isn’t the only or even always the best path for all the time. I think sometimes one’s “path through life” is an Iron Rod path where you see the vision and gather your resources to do so, and other times it’s a Liahona path where nothing makes sense, and your course is visible literally day-by-day.

[Anonymous]

kotm wrote:

I’m sure I’m not the only one struggling with this. But lately I have been becoming more and more disassociated with the church because of it’s members. I know often times i’ll see members behaving very unchrist like on places like social media and even in real life. I feel like I have just been going through the motions lately. Attending my ysa ward and going to the Temple once per month so I can at least pretend to be active. But this is just really bothering me.

I have long struggled with this as well, especially during my time at BYU. I don’t remember who said it, but I once heard the line “The church is not a museum for the righteous, but a hospital for sinners.” I think this is an interesting perspective. We often hear about church members being an example or a light to the world, but in my experience church members aren’t necessarily any more “Christlike” than the rest of the population. I have known many members who were flawed individuals, including some much more deeply flawed than people I’ve known outside of the church. But you wouldn’t go into a hospital expecting the patients there to be representative of peak physical health. So from that angle it’s not surprising or even a bad thing to find selfish, judgemental, or unkind people among the members of the church.

Ideally, the purpose of the church is to help flawed people become better. The extent to which it actually achieves this varies greatly between individuals. The important part is whether it is helping you.

In my own case, I have distanced myself from the church and no longer attend. I find it can sometimes be easier to view church members charitably when their flaws can no longer hurt or impact me directly.

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