Jayme sought evidence for the testable truth claims of the church. He looked at the Book of Mormon and found it lacking when using history and science as his guide. I was a mormon. The testable truth claims that need to be true for the Book of Mormon to be true are not true. A …
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Jen supported her family through trials and desperately wanted to be together forever with her mother who passed when she was a teenager. But between experiencing sexism in the church, her son coming out as gay, and her daughter struggling with the corporate sales tone of her mission it didn’t add up. She struggled with …
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Jessie was troubled by her shelf items: issues with church history, sexism, racism, and homophobia in the Mormon church. It became too much to reconcile, and she’s lucky to have left the church as a whole family. Born and raised in Germany and live now in Texas. I was a mormon. We left the church …
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Jeff believed it all and served until he reached a tipping point where he found belief itself to be damaging. He stopped believing in anything and struggled through a mixed-faith marriage until he discovered “so much nastiness cluttering up nearly every aspect of the church” and sharing these issues with his wife, she joined him …
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Fred lived as dedicated to the church as anyone could. He watched respected people leave the church and he was curious about why they left. So, he followed up with some research and collected issues onto his shelf, but he was able to reconcile them over time with his faith and would not deny the …
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The report concludes with suggestions the mormon church can take to mitigate the further loss of members due to a faith crisis. This report shows that the church leaders are well aware of the fact that members are leaving and why they are leaving and shows us insight into how the church thinks it can plug this membership leak.
This faith crisis report next lists many anonymous faith crisis profiles each detailing the exit story of the member (along with precious statistics and demographics the church cares deeply about such as household income). Not to be confused with the actual faith crisis profiles shared on wasmormon.org.
The report also analyses a perpetual cycle of disaffiliated members, where a member finds troubling information and through the age of information and the internet confirms the troubling issue as true and feels betrayed by the church for not being honest, and ends up venting to a family member and causing the cycle to restart for them.
The report defines the stages of such a faith crisis from a true believing member, through a catalyst and traumatization, and then either through a traumatized disbeliever and ex-mormon or a nuanced believer and then secular participant.
This report studies a faith crisis in detail along with an actual research survey of members who have left the church due to faith crisis and these respondents’ demographics such as age, gender, education level, household income, and church callings held as well as the primary reasons why the member left.
The Personal Faith Crisis Report was presented to Elder Uchtdorf in 2013 by Elder Jensen so leaders could better understand what is happening and take appropriate measures to address members leaving the church as a result of a faith crisis. The gospel topic essays were part of the response to this study by the church.
Spencer was all in. He has a mind for science, skepticism and critical thinking though. He applied these principles to his beliefs and they did not withstand the test. He doesn’t see evidence for supernatural beliefs and therefore left the church. I enjoy skiing, technology, and skepticism. I grew up Mormon, married in the temple, …
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Jean was impressed with the ‘true religion’ as taught by the missionaries and joined the church with her young family. After serving faithfully for a long time and even serving a senior mission to South Africa, she collected a few issues onto her shelf. She questioned why she and the other missionaries weren’t better protected …
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Garrett stumbled into the rabbit hole of doctrine inconsistencies while doing his best to teach the youth of the church. He studied deeply and what he was finding troubled him enough to stop. He felt the prompting to continue to “seek truth. [He] felt assured that if the church was true, if the restoration was …
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Bart was a long-time and deeply familiar member of the church. His family was in the church for 6 generations and he served in nearly all the callings in his 40 years of service. Finally, his shelf collapsed when he tried to make sense of the church’s truth claims. The truth claims don’t add up. …
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Lindsy grew up doing all the right things according to the church. She did EFY, BYU, married young and had children. She had normal doubts and things to place on her shelf, but eventually the shelf broke for her and her husband with the CES letter. It gave a new narrative that Joseph Smith just …
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Kelly has a story of conversion and deconstruction and deconversion. She went from being a “Golden Convert”, to feeling racist discrimination for the first time in her life in the Mormon church doctrines. She dug in to learn all the hidden issues in church history and despite her best efforts, could no longer believe the …
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Being raised in the Mormon church and even serving a foreign language mission and teaching Sunday school gospel principles class kept Erika busy in the church. But when she learned disturbing issues in church history she felt God leading her out of the church. She has issues with the treatment of LGBTQ members by the …
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FreeAtLast shares the resignation letter sent to his bishop after struggling with being gay and Mormon. He couldn’t be gay, Mormon and happy. After trying, here couldn’t not be gay but he could be not Mormon and still find happiness. Born and raised in the lds church in the Midwest. Very faithful family. Served a …
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Tyler thinks logically and teaches his children critical thinking. He studied the church’s truth claims and found them lacking. He felt betrayed and hurt that he was never given a fair chance to make a decision with complete and honest information. We feel lied to because the church has not been transparent about its own …
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Aaron faithfully dug in deep to explain away the anti-mormon lies he was exposed to. The more he studied, the more problems he found until he realized the anti-mormons were the ones being honest and sharing the true history with evidence, not the church to which he’d dedicated his whole life to. This sent him …
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Rodney collected issues onto his shelf while serving in his calling. Eventually, when looking into the origins of the Book of Mormon he found some answers which helped him answer everything on his shelf. The issues were all red flags he’d come across that he couldn’t figure out, but once you see the reality, the …
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This site is dedicated to hosting mormon faith transition stories. These stories are told by real people with real lives. You can create an account and tell your own story. We’ve found that writing our story is cathartic as well as reading the stories of others is therapeutic. It is validating to find similarities in …
Richard had doubts, but still felt the obligation to serve a mission. Once he was there he realized the doubts needed attention and he needed to reevaluate his testimony so he returned early from his mission. He discovered the doubts had merit and they were only the tip of the iceberg! All the puzzle pieces …
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Being born into the church many have had the thought that they wouldn’t be members had they not been born into it. Brik is among them, but parenting brought her to study the church’s truth claims. She wanted to know deeply before raising her children in the church too. She found that the truth claims …
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Kristie did all the right things and was an exemplary mormon mother teaching her children the gospel. As is common she worried about the mormon belief in eternal polygamy but still didn’t stray even after she heard more about honest church history about Joseph Smith’s affair with Fanny Alger which evolved into plural marriage and …
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From full devotion and good mormon stock, Valerie had items on her shelf from an early age. As time went on, the concerns on her shelf accumulated until she couldn’t ignore them all. Her shelf broke through the years of research trying to make it all work. You can’t ignore things once you know them, …
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Through research, Jeremy finds multiple instances of the church changing doctrine over time as well as some of these changes being led by the law rather than by revelation and prophetic leadership. The story of the first vision certainly evolved into what it is today, it wasn’t even a footnote of church history until 20 …
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Ken served faithfully in the mormon church for 30 years. He concluded that many so-called facts about church history, church doctrine and church operation were not true. Thus the church was not true. He lambasts the church and its leaders while also calling for an uprising of the disillusioned and the disaffected. He calls for …
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Keri has found a much healthier relationship with herself and a better relationship with Jesus by leaving the mormon church. She is not mormon, yet she is happy! I am living my life as a free, educated, single but happy woman who has found a true relationship with my Savior. I am no longer a …
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