To Mssrs. Monson, Uchtdorf, Eyring: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has failed me.

To the Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

            Mssrs. Monson, Uchtdorf, Eyring,

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints failed me.

It failed me, it failed my family. It failed millions of people all around the world. And what’s most disturbing is that it doesn’t care. It has merely offered excuses, clarification, and equivocations. 

The church failed me as a child in primary. It taught me to pray to a god without evidence that one exists. It taught me to interpret my own feelings for their gain. It taught me to pay 10% of my money, every dollar, to pay for living expenses of leadership, malls, and lavish temples in third world countries. It taught me to blindly repeat that god loved me and Joseph Smith was a prophet, though it offered no evidence or reason.

When I was a young woman, the church failed me. It taught me that I was responsible for impure thoughts in young men. It taught me to prepare myself for marriage, to be a wife and mother. It taught me that that would be my greatest achievement. It discouraged me from a career, from a good education. It failed me by teaching me to hate myself for being a woman. It taught me to feel shame about my breasts and my legs and my hips and my butt. It restricted my curiosity, my activities, my dress, my friendships.  It failed me.

The church failed me as a woman in college. It robbed me of normal relationships and experiences.  It taught me my education was meaningless unless I ascribed it to deity. It taught me only to learn the things that were church approved. And that a woman’s main goal was to marry and bear children. It taught me this, and so my education fell by the wayside, as I instead decided to marry and follow the prophet’s counsel.

When I contemplated marriage, the church failed me. It gave me a patriarchal blessing that told me to marry quickly. It required weekly chastity checkups with an unqualified lay bishop, who would probe about my sexual activity. It failed me in my wedding, keeping the majority of my family out of my marriage ceremony. It failed me on my wedding night. It taught me to be ashamed of my sexuality and uncomfortable with intimacy. It failed me in my marriage, teaching me to be a subservient and silent partner. It failed me physically and mentally, telling me to have children before I was prepared. 

The church failed me financially. Telling me to not put off having children, and to stay home to raise them. It failed me when because of this I had to quit my job and go on welfare and it still required I pay tithing. It failed me when we had to eat Raman and choose between toothpaste and shampoo so we could pay our tithing.

The church failed me when I was lost. When I was discouraged. When I was earnestly seeking answers. It told me by way of the members that I was the problem. That I didn’t have enough faith. That I had lost the spirit somehow. It failed me as it shamed me for my honest doubts and questions. It rebuked me for wondering. It called me a sinner, an apostate, a sign seeker, a “Korihor” as I sought answers to my questions. The church failed me when I was in Utah and I contacted the office of the first presidency. It failed me when I was taught my worth was great, and I was told there were 15 million other members and they didn’t have time for me. It failed me when I sat crying in the temple listening to the temple worker tell me my eternal destiny was a crapshoot. That the best there was for me was to never be heard of again. To be a second rate deity, eternally birthing babies and receiving no glory, no credit, no prayers or communication from my children. Always deferring to the male. 

It failed me as a mother. It failed me as a wife. It failed me as a woman. It failed me.

The church not only failed me, it destroyed me. It destroyed many of my family relationships. For as I began to question, they began to look at me differently. They withdrew. They accused me of horrific things, like adultery and promiscuity. They ignored me or argued with me. These members of the church of Christ, became some of my greatest enemies. Judging and name calling. How could this possibly be a church of Christ of a benevolent god? It failed me in my family.

The church failed me. The church failed itself. But will it ever acknowledge it? No. Because has it actually failed? Perhaps ethically, but financially? It has done very well conning people like me out of thousands, out of millions of dollars. It preys upon the weak minded, the lonely, the lost, the desperate, and the charitable. It preys upon the faithful earnestly seeking a god. It preys upon children. It preys upon mothers and fathers. It ruins lives. It creates anguish and turmoil. It breeds unrest and unhappiness. It councils marriage before it ever counsels compatibility. It sexually represses and creates a culture of rape and sexual addiction. It ignores real problems and shames biology. It has a central membership addicted to narcotics, tranquilizers and SSRIs. It controls women. It absolutely controls women and absolves men from responsibility for their thoughts and actions. 

This church is a destructive force in humanity. I can’t help but wonder how the leaders live with themselves. I wonder how they can feel good about taking poor people’s money. I wonder how they can function knowing that god doesn’t exist and still take advantage of so many that have been blinded by inherited and conditioned loyalty? I really, truly don’t understand how they can tell boldfaced lies and think it will go unnoticed? How they can fail so many people who are different, how they can feel good that homosexual and transgender members are ostracized and committing suicide because of their teachings? It is disgusting; they have failed those poor souls as well.

This church has failed. It has failed in so many ways. And so long as I exist I will bear the scars of that failure in my every day life. As my parents weep for my eternal soul, as my siblings converse in hushed tones about my apostasy, as my children are excluded from the family for being raised by my husband and myself , for we saw through the lie. Our world was ripped apart, torn from beneath our feet. Our faith destroyed. Our hopes and dreams dashed. We were betrayed. We were lied to. We were robbed. We were failed. 

You have failed us.

And so I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, effective immediately, and request you to remove my name permanently from your membership records. I wish no further contact from representatives of your church except to confirm that my name has been removed from your records. I expect to receive that confirmation within a reasonably short time. I am fully aware that by resigning my temple ordinances are suspended. They are constructed by man, and therefore of little consequence to me. No meeting with local leaders or waiting period is necessary. I am of sound mind, and you have no legal right to retain my membership.

I expect this matter to be handled promptly, with respect and with full confidentiality. You will not contact my family about my resignation. If you contact my family or my local leaders, you will have invaded my privacy. You will send any necessary letters confirming my membership and my children’s membership termination directly to me and no one else. 

I sincerely hope as a concerned, fellow human, that you will reconsider what you are doing. That you will wake up from this damned delusion and start doing good rather than committing atrocities. The world does not revolve around your chauvinism, bigotry, hate and fear. Stop acting like it. Make a choice. Make a choice to do right by humanity. Do not fail what is left of your members. Do right by them by telling them the truth and let them decide for themselves if they will stay to help the church change or leave and be free from the deception and lies. 

Best Wishes,

Sara-Helen Davis