Leaving costs family, friends and community

Contested

LDS scholars have a real answer here. Say so before your friend does.

What ex-members report

Strain in a marriage. Being cut off by family.

Losing the community. Being pushed to the edge of a world that was everything.

NPR and HuffPost have reported these patterns, and thousands of first-hand accounts say the same.

Why the pressure exists

Part of it is teaching. A family split by faith loses the hope of being sealed for ever.

And the word apostate carries real weight. Boyd K.

Packer's 1993 talk named "so-called scholars," feminists and gays as dangers, and that shaped the mood.

One thing to get right

There is no formal shunning here. Unlike the Jehovah's Witnesses, this church has no rule that tells a member to cut anyone off.

No teaching, no handbook line, no discipline. Say that plainly, because it is true.

Their answer, at full strength

Church leaders have spoken against it, more than once and by name. Elder D.

Todd Christofferson said in public that he "would not cut that child out of family life." Official teaching tells members to keep loving family who go. And broken ties follow a change of faith in many traditions.

That is how families behave, not what the church asks.

How strong is this argument?

Genuinely arguable, and both halves are true at once. The harm is well attested.

So is the lack of any order to shun. What is argued is whether the church drives it.

The written rule tells people not to pull away. The teaching and the mood can still reward it.

What to say

"What would change at home if you stopped going?"

A ward meetinghouse; a representative building, since no photograph documents any particular family's estrangement

The Salt Lake Temple, where the eternal family sealings central to these accounts are performed

How they answer this — at its strongest

There is no rule to shun, and Christofferson said he would not cut a child off.

Church leaders have spoken against cutting off family who leave, more than once and by name. Elder D. Todd Christofferson said in public that he 'would not cut that child out of family life'.

Official teaching tells members to keep loving and including family who go. There is no teaching, handbook rule, or discipline that tells a member to shun.

The church would add that broken ties follow a change of faith in many traditions. That is how families behave, rather than what the church asks.

The verdict

Arguable, and both halves are true: real harm, but no order to shun.

The costs themselves are well attested, in reporting at NPR and HuffPost and in a great mass of first-hand accounts.

The harder claim is that the church causes them, and that one is genuinely argued. The written policy tells members not to shun. The teaching and the rhetoric can still push people apart. Boyd K. Packer's 1993 talk, naming 'so-called scholars', feminists and gays as dangers, shaped the mood.

Both things are true at once. The harm is real, and there is no order to shun.

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