{"id":116519,"date":"2026-06-06T22:31:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T04:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=116519"},"modified":"2026-06-06T22:31:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T04:31:29","slug":"why-some-leave-the-church-and-how-we-should-respond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2026\/06\/why-some-leave-the-church-and-how-we-should-respond.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Some Leave the Church and How We Should Respond"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"A<\/a>
The cover of the book (fair use)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I\u2019ve not yet read \u2014 nor, truth be told, have I so much as seen a copy of \u2014 Jeff Strong\u2019s book Torn: Why People We Love are Leaving the Church and What We Can Learn from Them<\/em>. \u00a0It appears to be generating conversations, as is perhaps indicated by the fact that the Interpreter Foundation has already published Daniel T. Ellsworth\u2019s \u201cBeyond \u2018Church Culture\u2019: A Response to Jeff Strong\u2019s Torn<\/em>\u201c<\/a> and by this typically thoughtful separate response from my friend and former BYU colleague Ralph C. Hancock, which he has kindly permitted me to share here, in full:<\/div>\n
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Torn Between the Restoration and the Gospel of Relativistic Empathy<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Jeff Strong\u2019s Torn<\/em> is gaining massive attention in LDS circles, starting with strong promotion from the Faith Matters organization, which has always shared the book\u2019s aim to soften the moral demands of Christian faith in order to accommodate a late-modern sensibility of relativistic acceptance.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I will be analyzing this book in more detail, together with Brother Strong\u2019s appearances in Faith Matters videos. But for now it is sufficient to consider with just a little critical attention the Foreword to the book provided by football-great-turned-LDS-progressive Steve Young. Young\u2019s touting of Strong\u2019s argument makes perfect sense, since Torn<\/em> flows perfectly into the channels of thought already prepared by Young\u2019s The Law of Love<\/em>. Young\u2019s foreword tells us all we need to know about the direction and implications of Strong\u2019s project. And it is definitely a project, an attempt to shape our understanding of the Restored Gospel in order to reduce its necessary tension with the idol of extreme individualism that rules the present age. To avoid being \u201ctorn,\u201d Young and Strong would have us be . . . \u00a0soft.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Young\u2019s (and Strong\u2019s) premise is that we must consider those leaving the church to be in the right so that we can learn from them. Any consideration of the possibility that dissidents might be in the wrong and not always necessarily the best judges of their own choices is dismissed at the outset. The dissident or estranged is always perfectly innocent and even wise. Meanwhile, any members who would question the soundness or the rightness of decisions to leave are quickly classified as \u201ccountry club\u201d false-Christians who are obsessed with \u201cgate-keeping.\u201d Any attempt to understand falling away that fails absolutely to respect the \u201cunique journey\u201d of every individual is dismissed as \u201ctransactional\u201d thinking, that is, to a style of belief that links eternal rewards with obedience to law, to meaningful standards of moral agency, and to eternal standards of exalted character. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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All concern for such standards and rewards dependent upon individual qualification is rejected as \u201cfear-based thinking.\u201d <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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We are told that \u201cthe data\u201d (self-selected survey results) prove that sin or laziness (including, I would add, unhealthy attachment to worldly goals and ideologies) cannot be significant factors in the abandonment of covenants, since of course these are not the kinds of reasons self-reported by those who apostatize or fall away. All \u201cguardrails for others\u2019 growth\u201d (or for one\u2019s own) are ridiculed as \u201cliving by checklists and merit-badge theology.\u201d All we need is \u201clove\u201d \u2014 a love divorced from accountability and concrete factors of moral and spiritual growth. The Beatles weren\u2019t wrong, for Young, and for Strong: All We Need is Love. \u201cNo Agenda, no expectations, no transactions.\u201d <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Or course these analysts of our \u201ctorn\u201d condition are right to remind us of the need to love and to listen to those for whom Church affiliation and practice has become uncomfortable or intolerable. But true Christian love must never be divorced from virtue and accountability. If that statement makes me a \u201ctransactional country-club Christian\u201d in the eyes of our new reformers, then so be it. I will not be \u201ctorn\u201d between the gospel\u2019s beautiful vision of redemption and exaltation and the relativistic empathy that now passes for \u201clove.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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(I posted this yesterday on X, and it\u2019s received a lot of attention. I need to learn to cross-post simultaneously to X & Facebook.)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So that I\u2019m not misunderstood \u2014 though, realistically, not being misunderstood is an Impossible Dream for me, since I\u2019m obsessively monitored and critiqued by a small and anonymous online cabal for whom misunderstanding me daily appears to be a duty modeled on George Orwell\u2019s Two Minutes Hate \u2014 I want to state, explicitly, that I believe that we should listen carefully to those who leave the Church, and that we should treat them kindly and with charity. \u00a0Each case of disaffiliating from the Church and Kingdom of God, each loss of faith and trust, each abandonment of solemn covenants is a tragedy. \u00a0The heavens weep over them, and so should we. \u00a0The ramifications extend forward into the eternities as well as into the indefinite future here in mortality.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m sympathetic to the project that has apparently been undertaken by Jeff Strong and Steve Young \u2014 but I\u2019m also worried by the concerns expressed by Brothers Hancock and Ellsworth. \u00a0The dangers of both the Scylla of judgmental rigidity and the Charybdis of relativistic assimilationist are real, and serious.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Twin Falls Idaho Temple (LDS.org), is fairly close to Shoshone Falls.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Deseret News<\/em>:\u00a0\u201cSens. Lee and Curtis question new Pentagon designation for Latter-day Saints:\u00a0Curtis said he would ask the Pentagon for a correction after the subhead \u2018Christian\u2019 was left off of the designation for the church\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 Some have been crowing about this decision from Pete Hegseth and \u00a0the Department of Defense. \u00a0I can\u2019t say that it really surprises me, stupid and offensive though it is.<\/p>\n

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Many years ago now, in a book entitled Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-day Saints<\/em><\/a>, I had quite a bit to say about the accusation that members of my church aren\u2019t Christians. \u00a0I still regard my argument as a strong one and have been fortified in my opinion of it by the fact that I haven\u2019t seen any cogent attempts to refute it. \u00a0If they\u2019re out there, I haven\u2019t encountered them.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"The<\/a>
Shoshone Falls, in Twin Falls County, Idaho, shown with a moderately high water level. \u00a0There was considerably less water there this evening. \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Posted from Twin Falls, Idaho<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 I\u2019ve not yet read \u2014 nor, truth be told, have I so much as seen a copy of \u2014 Jeff Strong\u2019s book Torn: Why People We Love are Leaving the Church and What We Can Learn from Them. \u00a0It appears to be generating conversations, as is perhaps indicated by the fact that the Interpreter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":41160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[701,2683,40025,4162,2905,788],"class_list":["post-116519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apostasy","tag-disaffection","tag-disaffiliation","tag-falling-away","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-mormon"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Some Leave the Church and How We Should Respond<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  I've not yet read -- nor, truth be told, have I so much as seen a copy of -- Jeff 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