Once Bitten Twice Shy

The title of this blog is exactly how I feel about organized religion. I've been bitten--badly by the LDS church and it will be a while before I set foot in another church if ever in my lifetime. How can I trust what they're saying? I trusted my LDS church and its leaders for 18 years, trusted their judgment and counsel. I listened to the prophet of the church as he expounded on missionary work and temple work. Took counsel from ancient and modern scriptures that forbad the consumption of alcohol and tea and coffee. I listened when my leaders told me not to watch R rated movies. To avoid anything with the appearance of evil. To pay tithing because it would bring blessings. Read my scriptures and feel the spirit of the Lord in my life. It's really sad. I grew up going to church as a child, but my parents stopped going because of a silly disagreement over money and once we moved to a new city, we never went to a church. I had no desire to go to church. I found it boring and--well boring. Then a miraculous thing happened in 1993. I was 28 years old and living on my own. A family member sent the LDS missionaries to my apartment. They had a wonderful message. The church that Jesus started when he was on the Earth in New Testament times had been restored. What? I didn't know it needed to be. Well it did, and I was taken in quite nicely by it all. It was a wonderful story. A young 14 year old boy prayed and got the answer of a lifetime. He saw God and Jesus Christ. Unbelievable, right? Maybe, I thought, but possible. Within days I believed the missionaries story and had committed to baptism. Sunday December 12, 1993 my life changed. I was baptized a member of the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was a new person. I quickly moved up in the ranks of the ward, eventually serving as first counsellor in the Elders Quorum Presidency and being sealed to my wife in the Toronto Temple in August 1997. And now it's come to this. Almost 19 years after becoming a member I'm about to send in my resignation letter to Church Headquarters in Salt Lake City. I am already no longer a member in my mind and spirit. It just needs to be done on paper. When I think about it sometimes I fell ill. Not that I've made a mistake in leaving but that I made a mistake in joining. So many wonderful memories over the years--blessing my newborn son, baptizing him when he turned 8, serving in callings and getting to know the people in my ward--all based on a lie and deception. Nothing I did really mattered. I had no authority to bless or baptize my son. I had no authority to preside in my callings. I didn't have the Priesthood. I really had nothing. So I'm leaving with nothing. The hardest part to fathom is that the general authorities in Salt Lake must certainly be in on the lie. They are not prophets as they claim. I see no evidence of this. Surely they know they are deceiving millions of members but they can't go back. They must keep up the lie. That's their most important mandate, to make the church look good in the public eye, to avoid a controversy. They need the millions of $$$ to continue to roll in to finance their business ventures. You know that if they took the $$$ that they spend on 1 temple to be built they could spend it on feeding an African village for a year or more. The church doesn't need more temples, they need to act more Christian and help more aggressively in the poorer parts of the world. OK, I've ranted enough. Suffice it to say I'm done with organized religion for the forseeable future. I'm going to enjoy my Sunday mornings--at home. Once bitten twice shy. I've been bitten and I'll be very shy about going into the shark infested waters of religion for quite a while. Take care, J.T.