Temple attendance is not the solution for everyone. I am not sure that there is one universal cookie-cutter solution for complex social-cultural issues. We try to work within the principles of faith, repentance, and forgiveness, but how those need to be applied in various situations can be different.

I hope you find something that works for you. Solitude with prayer, meditation, and scripture study also works for me. There are 19th century gender norming aspects of our culture to be sure, but the shadow side of 21st century gender “equalizing” should also be strongly considered.

I try to include people, especially the disillusioned. I try to show them that where they are is perfectly fine with me. Let’s walk the path together. That is my approach. It sometimes works.

And OP? I love this post. As a lifelong member who often feels that I’m attending The Church of Traditional Families of Family-Centered Families rather than anything to do with Jesus Christ, Latter-Day Saints, or my own family structure, there is a lot of squeezing out going on.

How about one more category of people who leave to include those who have issues with the behavior of the institution and its leadership, not necessarily historical issues?

For me, this includes: why the church refuses to account for how tithing is spent; why the church refuses to provide details on what GA’s are paid (ditch the “stipend” explanation); why the church is cozy with such organizations as the Marriotts, who earn their living selling alcohol, staying open on Sunday, and providing pornographic movies to their guests, while they frown on tithing from members employed in institutions doing the same; how the church can justify giving second annointings – isn’t that the role of the Savior?; why the church would retract and redact a conference talk and pretend the new version is what was delivered; and why they feel it necessary to spy on members and feebly justify the activities Elder Whitney and the (bizarrely named) Strengthening Members Committee.

“When you lie to me, you take away my choice and my right to make a decision based on the truth. It manipulates reality and, sadly, we both lose in the end. I lose trust and you lose me.” (Anonymous)

When they sell the exclusive hunting venues, shopping malls, condos, real estate developments, when they cease providing perks like a Fortune 500 to their senior executives, and when they stop telling me “the brethren cannot lead you astray” and “stay in the good ship” I will be more inclined to lend a listening ear.

The worst thing about being lied to is knowing you weren’t worth the truth.

I would feel more engaged if the Corporation of the President would just come clean and stop being “economical with the truth.”

If they continue to keep these secrets, I am free to attach my own conclusions to their behavior.

16 Holy God, we believe that thou hast separated us from our brethren; … we believe that thou hast elected us to be thy holy children…

17 …O God, we thank thee; and we also thank thee that thou hast elected us, that we may not be led away after the foolish traditions of our brethren…

18 And again we thank thee, O God, that we are a chosen and a holy people. Amen.

Alma 31:16-18

First I’m not sure anyone knows fully why they do or think anything. I’ve said it again but often what we take to be our reasons are post hoc justifications our brains come up with. The actual reasoning is often hidden. That’s as true for believers as non-believers. So I’m not somehow saying I have some hidden knowledge of why people really leave. Just acknowledging that it’s complicated and often our motives are hidden from us.

With regards to statements by Brigham Young or others. God works with very fallible people. Because he has to work with humans. Sometimes what is or isn’t inspired is only discernible in hindsight. Sometimes it’s very clear at the time. We err to assume it’s always just one way. Clearly leaders have made mistakes. But let’s be clear that to see this as problematic requires a de facto doctrine of infallibility that the church just doesn’t teach. (No matter how often critics try to make it a doctrine of the church)

A more atheistic perspective of “why didn’t God reveal these things were wrong” is a bit more defensible. But again it’s bringing in an assumption that the religions themselves don’t make: the idea that God is going to drag us out of our cultures. God gives commands, tells us to love everyone, and then leaves it up to us to figure out how to do that. We can question why he does that. But it’s unfair to judge religion as inherently contradictory simply because God doesn’t act the way you think he should.

I should add that this problem is probably the strongest attack against religion. But once you make that move you pretty well have to move to an atheist, agnostic or more deist oriented position. Traditionally these critiques end up part of the debate over the problem of evil. i.e. why doesn’t god remove the evils we encounter. While Mormonism doesn’t give a full answer here, I like the direction it moves. That is life isn’t to be judged purely in terms of what happens here. Rather life is a kind of test we need to develop our eternal character. Further we each chose to come here knowing what it would be like. So coming into a world of evil and ignorance isn’t a bug but a feature. It’s up to us on our own as we exercise our freedom to change the world. It’s not up to God to change it.

It’s like the slavery in the Bible. Jesus (Yahweh) should have said, “all you Israelites, just knock off the slavery, starting now.” Jesus could have told Brigham Young to “knock off the racism, starting now, for thou art a prophet of God, and it maketh you look bad.” Is it the Journal of Discources” or is it the “Journal of Myths and Personal Opinions, Including Discources From God Too.”

Brigham Young sure did a lot of preaching his personal opinion. How convenient. When a prophet gets caught saying something racist or inconsistent, or just plain ridiculous such as Joseph Smith claiming people living on the moon dress like Quakers, he was speaking as a man. The only basis for such a claim is magical woo woo.

This speaking as a man cop-out is just a way to make claims unfalsifible.

The rest of that laundry list struck me the same way — the other reason people get derailed and leave has to do with black and white thinking.

There is too much of that.

Thank you.

The importance of one’s assumptions and presuppositions (Scriptural Mormonism site)

http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-importance-of-ones-assumptions-and.html

How is it possible for a Church leader or prophet to have been influenced by racism, yet be consistent with the Lord not allowing prophets to lead the Church astray? (FairMormon)

http://en.fairmormon.org/Question:_How_is_it_possible_for_a_Church_leader_or_prophet_to_have_been_influenced_by_racism,_yet_be_consistent_with_the_Lord_not_allowing_prophets_to_lead_the_Church_astray%3F

Both of these sites highlight how our false assumptions set us up for disillusionment and a crisis of faith.

I hope all who have commented here will read these articles.

The other problematic aspect of my culture here is it has been “correlated.” Correlated culture is group think within the corral of historical and providential authoritarianism. (The pun here is the culture has been corralated.) It goes like this: follow the prophet and brethren “no matter what.” Teach from the manual and only the manual “no matter what.” Teach by the Spirit “no matter what,” and by that we mean follow the prophet and the manual; or tell us something to make us feel good. Under such auspicious methodological purism (puritanism), people drop from their vision any contrary ideas, difficult history, or nuance of any kind. Black and white. Right and wrong. Mormon manifest destiny. No more thought required.

There are certain aspects of these propositions that are true. And there are certain aspects of these propositions that are not true. And many seem not to have thought that through. The end result is a sort of theological blandness (can you imagine that in Mormonism? It’s truly paradoxical!) The counterfeit of conversion is conformity, an old professor once told me many years ago. That has not changed.

I would like to add a caution. Every culture does this in some way. The political left and right have been so thoroughly correlated (corralated) that political activists tend to be ideological automatons. Groups, secular and religious, eventually fall into the trap of “othering” and “correlating” no matter where your belief system is. What I am describing here is simply human nature.

Unfortunately, the gospel teaches against it in many ways whereas our culture is all for it in many ways. This tension ranges from problematic to hypocritical to simply unendurable, depending on the issues.

So what to do? Well, if people like OTC leave the church I understand why. And in fact, and contrary to what I sometimes hear, OTC might very well be better off by leaving. I want you to stay. I want you to stay because the only real corrective to “othering” and “correlating” is standing for what you believe in. Pushing back. Making who you are known. And saying it is my church too. So here I am. Here I am going to stay. Ask the difficult questions. Bring up the paradoxical. Present the uncomfortable. Just do it.

But do it with compassion. If you do it with love and understanding you will be able to look past a lot of the ignorance and cultural truisms that are not true. I understand fully how hard this can be. I very often want to leave myself. So I certainly here where you are coming from. I know it. Also, it is hard work. It is spiritually taxing. My suggestion is make sure you are worshiping at the temple and not the ward house. The church is where I work. The temple is where I worship. If you need to, cut back church time and increase temple time. I freely admit that without the Book of Mormon and the temple I would have already left a long time ago.

So why did I leave? The answer is not very complicated; being LDS is very costly in terms of time, talent, energy and finances, and based on a variety of factors, I have concluded that this is not the one true church and accordingly, the cost of staying was simply too high.

If you name a commandment or suggestion given over the pulpit, I followed it religiously. I am not lazy, prideful, desirous of sin, nor possessing hurt feelings; quite simply, I just don’t believe the foundational narrative nor do I see any evidence that it is God’s one true church. On this point, I am confident, we simply disagree.

I have no enmity toward any church leader nor towards God; I am not sure I am necessarily on a better path, just a different one that is more intellectually honest for me, and I don’t think that my views or journey are particularly radical when compared to those of God.

I don’t feel beguiled, nor do I think my choices are wicked, just different than they were a few years ago but I do think that reasonable people should be able to disagree, without their choices being framed as morally inferior or satanically motivated.

To address the OP, I don’t think there is anything that the LDS church could do to bring me back to the fold. While I agree, in some measure, that there are many self-inflicted wounds, it is no single issue that has made me decide to leave. The historical issues, the changing doctrines, the nepotism, and Utah-centric nature of the LDS church all contributed, but not one more than the others.

At the end of the day, the LDS answers to life’s big questions and living the LDS gospel just seemed too convoluted and complicated for something that should be simple and able to reach all of humanity. I applied Occam’s razor and concluded the LDS church came up short.

I understand that others will apply different tests and remain LDS, but for me, my children, and my grandchildren, it did not work. So what would it take to bring me back? That vast majority of us who leave will probably not be interested in coming back, but you can almost surely bet that it was not for trivial reasons such as pride or sin or taking offense that we left in the first place.

I wish there were a way to be a cafeteria/social Mormon, but it is truly an all-or-nothing religion, so I am left with nothing.