Mark Naugle, an immigration attorney from Orem, UT, is the creator of QuitMormon.com, a free service that helps members resign from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
His involvement in this effort was not initially planned but was influenced by his own personal experience. When Naugle was 15, his family, after conducting their own internet research, concluded that the church was based on falsehoods, leading all of them, including his parents and brother, to resign from the church. This action led to social pressure, with frequent visits from church members urging them to return, calling them sinners, and claiming they had forfeited their eternal lives. Naugle recalls hiding from ward members during this time, reflecting on the unpleasant experience.
You’d contact your local leadership, you will call a bishop and tell them, ‘We don’t want to be on the records anymore.’ They most likely won’t take that well, they’ll accuse of sinning, put you on a 60-day waiting period, call you for meetings, send people over from the ward to try and talk you back into it.
Mark Naugle on the Mormon Prescribed Resignation Process
https://www.mic.com/articles/128765/this-utah-lawyer-is-working-pro-bono-to-help-people-gtfo-of-the-mormon-church
Later, he pursued a law degree at the University of Utah and graduated in 2009. After sending a few resignation letters for friends and family, he went to the exmormon page on Reddit and began offering his help to others seeking to resign from the LDS Church. His services gained a modest response. Things escalated in 2015, when the LDS Church enacted a controversial policy that labeled members in same-sex relationships as apostates and prohibited their children from being baptized. This policy sparked widespread outrage, particularly within the ex-Mormon community, prompting Naugle to offer his assistance again on Reddit. His offer gained significant attention and quickly grew into a major undertaking.
What began as personalized letters eventually evolved into a standardized process, aided by volunteers who helped build the website and create an automated system. Naugle’s initiative became so popular that it turned into a nonprofit organization, handling thousands of resignation requests from people across the U.S. and beyond.
In recent years, the Church has been embattled by the efficiency of the internet. It’s never been easier to stumble across information that contradicts the pillars of faith. That’s true for many religions but especially Mormonism, which has a very recent history. Where the unsavory specifics of an older faith’s origins may have been eroded by time, reduced to a handful of too-old-to-question texts and some shriveled relics, the early years of Mormonism are well-documented and easily examined online. The internet has also given Mormons new platforms, from forums to podcasts, where they can share their findings. The result has been a mass undoctrination…
QuitMormon is a pro bono service run by an unassuming T-shirt-and-jeans Utah immigration attorney named Mark Naugle. The 34-year-old has streamlined the process of resigning from the Church. When users are ready to have their names removed from Church records, they simply submit a request to Naugle that includes their name, date of birth, address, membership number, and whether they’re a minor. Naugle takes it from there, sending a form letter to the Church that requests the removal of the client’s information from all records. Crucially, the letter also forbids further contact between the Church and his client. Mormons never have to reach out to their bishops to explain their decision to leave, and they won’t receive well-meaning visits from their former peers.
Naugle first began helping friends and family with their name removal requests in 2010 after graduating from law school in Utah in 2009. He lived out of state for a while before moving back to Utah in 2015. He’d begun to frequent r/exmormon, and in the spring of 2015, he began offering his services to strangers. That November, there was a surge of requests after Mormons learned, through a leak to the media, that children of LGBTQ couples could not get baptized… “When the LGBT policy leak came out, I was enraged by it,” Naugle says of the initial leak. “A lot of people were. I went onto Reddit and just said, ‘Hey, I’ve offered this before. I’m willing to do it now. Here’s my email address.’” Until November 2015, he’d received no more than 200 requests for his services. After that day, he received 2,000 emails in 48 hours. (r/exmormon also saw an enormous spike in membership then.) People offered to help him build the website and automate the process, and QuitMormon.com was born.
Naugle has seen more leaps in requests since then. His inbox is like a seismometer for Mormon discontent. When, for instance, a then-Mormon named Jeremy Runnells published a letter he’d written to Church Educational System (CES) outlining his doubts about the Church’s teachings, it tore through communities. Almost every former Mormon I spoke to cited Runnells’ letter as a catalyst for their departure. Then, there was Sunday, September 16th, 2018, the day Sam Young, whose protest had motivated Joseph’s break with the Church, read his excommunication letter aloud in Salt Lake City.
The next morning, Naugle arrived at work. “I pulled up the queue, and realized something had happened over the weekend,” Naugle recalls. Over the next two weeks, he received about 2,500 more resignation requests.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/1/18759587/mormon-church-quitmormon-exmormon-jesus-christ-internet-seo-lds
In response to the increasing use of QuitMormon.com, the church added a new requirement that those using the service must now submit a notarized resignation letter. Despite this, Naugle’s service has played a pivotal role in facilitating the resignations of over 140,000 individuals from the church since its inception, becoming a major resource for people seeking to formally sever ties with the institution.
Naugle doesn’t feel that it’s his responsibility to convince — or even gently encourage — Mormons to leave the Church. He says he leaves that mantle to other former Mormons, like Jeremy Runnells, the author of the CES Letter, and John Dehlin, who mans the popular podcast Mormon Stories. Naugle says he largely refrains from posting on r/exmormon, except to give updates on changes to the QuitMormon process.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/1/18759587/mormon-church-quitmormon-exmormon-jesus-christ-internet-seo-lds
Mark is not shy about calling the Mormon church a cult. He has helped over a hundred thousand officially leave the church and has faced issues from the church attempting to stop his pro bono efforts.
Any organization that tells you what to eat, what to do with your body, what to do on specific days of the week, and then ostracizes you when you actively disavow them, I think is a cult. Any organization that requires a lawyer’s help to leave it so that they stop harassing you and stop hunting you down worldwide I also think is a cult. Having experienced it myself, having been in the organization and knowing the psychological damage it can cause, they’re a cult.
Mark Naugle
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/1/18759587/mormon-church-quitmormon-exmormon-jesus-christ-internet-seo-lds
The Resignation Letter
To Whom It May Concern:
This letter is to inform you that I have terminated my membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Please remove my name from the records of the LDS Church immediately.
I understand that the withdrawal of my name cancels the effect of baptism and removes any Priesthood or Temple blessings. I will NOT participate in church disciplinary councils for I have done nothing wrong and I have no unresolved transgressions. I do NOT want to be contacted by anyone acting on behalf of the church. This includes Bishops, Ministering brothers and sisters, and anyone else.
I demand that you remove my name completely from your records within 5 business days of receipt of this notice and will consider my resignation completed at that time.
I am represented by Mark Naugle and request that all communication go through his office. I authorize Mark Naugle to act as my agent in all communications with your organization and its attorneys.
Resignation Letter template from QuitMormon.com
The service will track your resignation, submit it to Kirton McConkie, and after relaying confirmation when the resignation is processed by the church they even offer you a certificate!
Donate
There is a current fundraiser to raise money for quitmormon.com and expand its services.
For over eight years, Quitmormon.com has provided a vital, free service to individuals seeking to resign from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To date, we’ve helped over 140,000 people navigate this often-complicated process, saving the post-Mormon community an estimated $42 million in legal fees.
Go Fund Me Fundraiser: Help Quitmormon.com Expand Free Resignation Services, Mark Naugle and Ryan Sorensen are organizing this fundraiser.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-quitmormoncom-expand-free-resignation-services
Interviews and Presentations
Mark Naugle is interviewed by Mormon Stories with John Dehlin.
Mark also presented at the Southern Utah Post Mormon Support Group and the video can be found here:
After processing your resignation, with or without the help of quitmormon.com, consider sharing your story at wasmormon.org.
More reading:
- QuitMormon.com
- https://quitmormon.com/donate
- https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-quitmormoncom-expand-free-resignation-services
- https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2019/08/04/lds-church-adds-new-step/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/l0a9hw/do_i_really_need_a_notarized_letter_to_leave/
- https://gephardtdaily.com/local/hundreds-resign-from-lds-church-at-mass-gathering/
- https://www.facebook.com/OfficialQuitMormon/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfLo0UC3xjU
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNW7dAgBcXM
- https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/1/18759587/mormon-church-quitmormon-exmormon-jesus-christ-internet-seo-lds
- https://knpr.org/show/knprs-state-of-nevada/2017-11-17/a-website-to-quit-the-church-quitmormon-helps-with-legal-process-to-leave