"My friend Ashley was in charge of organizing the event and asked if I’d speak knowing that I had my name removed from the church rolls earlier this year."
An additional nuance is that I've often seen "lapsed" used as a self description of people who are somewhat regretful about no longer practicing their faith.
Whether as a self description or used by others, it generally carries a connotation that having left the faith is a negative thing.
Just because they disagree at least partially with me doesn't mean they agree completely with each other.
GP seems to be making an argument for linguistic neutrality, that any term that means something is as good as any other term that means the same thing. The reply I linked expands on how the term "lapsed" is used, which shows that there are subtle differences in what it communicates...
You're not indicating what you think the problem is. It's frustrating for other people seeking to communicate with you. You're not even indicating what part of those sources that you believe supports your view-- which as far as I can tell they don't.
"Lapsed" in my experience has a friendlier connotation than most other words we would to describe someone who no longer practices a religion.
Here we have someone who has not just stopped attending the church, but has chose to speak at events for others leaving the church, and took action to have her name removed from the rolls, etc.
So while some use "lapsed" to say "no longer actively practicing," and others reserve it for "having deliberately left"-- the nuances are immaterial. She fit all of these labels.
It might have been better to just say that directly... it would have saved everyone some time and energy, including you.
Unfortunately, we don't have an adjective for someone who is deliberately opposed to a religion in English that doesn't have an extremely negative connotation.
I'd agree that "former mormon" would be a better descriptor. However, "lapsed" does not seem technically incorrect to me, even though it may be more nuanced, and could possibly lead to an incorrect idea of the situation.
I'm not even objecting to it. I just was asking for context around the use of that term. I've found sufficient context. It's a combination of the fact that most people don't see a (big) distinction between lapsed mormon and other terms like ex-mormon and there being previous articles using the term lapsed mormon about her.
But yes, that is precisely why I don't use that term for myself. I didn't just drift away from the church, at first. Later on I drifted away from the lifestyle, but that was after I stopped going to church, and I stopped going to church because even after asking clergy and my family I couldn't resolve issues with my faith.
I think you might just have to accept that when a lot of people use the term "lapsed mormon," they are using it as a synonym for "former mormon" and that challenging the terminology isn't really very productive.
I find the distinction interesting as someone who spent time around many Mormons and former Mormons. I knew some who rejected everything and said they were ex mormon, there were a couple who said they were no longer practicing Mormons, and others described themselves as raised mormon, or previously mormon. There were a few who were 'no longer tithing' but there was some nuance to that declaration that I think I missed as an outsider.
I don't doubt that analyzing the distinction is interesting, but it seems pointless to object to common usage by asking justifying sources to be cited.
