Dear Bishop,
I would like to formally resign from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This resignation notice is in accordance with legal precedent (Norman Hancock lawsuit against LDS Church). I fully understand that resignation nullifies any blessings, offerings, sealings, endowments, exaltings, glorifications, benedictions, commendations, and honorifics bestowed upon me by Church members and leadership in accordance with their obsequious servitude to the Overlord God.
Following my early childhood indoctrination and coerced baptism1, I have since gained the skeptical and rational faculties of an adult mind. I have determined, through the use of these faculties2, that the Church is false, its doctrines are peccant fabrications, and its behavior is both odious and morally foul. The Church leadership, in concordance with the mental dysfunction signified by a belief in an omniscient dictatorship without corroborating evidence, has historically stood and continues to stand in the way of human rights, love, compassion and general mental health3. The manner in which believers are inculcated, brainwashed, and held psychologically and emotionally hostage as sheep, rather than edified and educated, is, for an organization that purports to upstanding moral character and decency and pretends to specific saintly guidance, hypocritically repugnant without excuse.
Also, I’m gay.
Apostatically,
Eric Hennigan
Baptism officially marks the beginning of my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as my complicity to obey the Overlord God. But, this ceremony took place when I was 8 years old, and (even my own mother agrees) that nobody at that age is legally or morally capable of making decisions that concern the rest of their life. Instead, I now conjecture that this ceremony is specifically scheduled during childhood development, at a time when I would not have the personal fortitude or psychological independence necessary to allow declination a viable option, so that the baptismal covenant can be later used as a bludgeoning reminder that I have already agreed to submit.
Using my own mind is apparently a sin in the eyes of Church leadership. “When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done.’ – Boyd K. Packer. Considering the conclusions I’ve reached, I can readily understand why independent thought is perceived as a threat to the Church hive-mind.
Specifically, I am referring to the subjugation of women, to Joseph Smith’s marriage of a 14 yr old girl against her will, to the much delayed acceptance that people of color can share the blessings of priesthood, to the current misinformation being spread about homosexuals, and to the high rate of prescription anti-depressant use among members.
http://www.cogitolingua.net/blog/2010/10/10/mormon-resignation/