[DevilsAdvocate]

Rix wrote:

This gets right to the crux of the topic…can the church continue its growth and strength if 1) a member does not believe many dogmatic teachings …and 2) if one does not believe he/she must attend/receive the temple ordinances to “make it to the best place in heaven” in the next life?

Let’s face it…a very strong motivation for active members to pay a full tithing is that it is required for a temple recommend…Those tithes are helpful for running (and growing) the church…I’m sure they don’t want to see a decline in the revenue stream….

So I see the transition of beliefs from the staunch, one and only true church and authority to redeem the dead, etc…to a more metaphorical, take what is good and leave the rest sort of approach, a bit problematic.

You’re right it would be very problematic for the Church to just abandon their exclusive claims of authority and being the “one true church.” If they came right out and said that there were many legitimate reasons to doubt their previous claims about Joseph Smith in one step the results could be disastrous or possibly even fatal to the Church. Much of their success so far has depended on these claims for so long that it’s hard to see any easy way out of the current position. More important than the temple requirements in my opinion is that some of these beliefs give the Church more of a competitive edge in terms of voluntary service such as the lay callings and especially missionary work.

However, one problem with the status quo is that such staunch beliefs often depend too much on a thoroughly whitewashed version of history to maintain. At this point if they simply continue to compound the situation with unreasonable demands and an intolerant all-or-nothing attitude they are more likely than ever to get nothing in return or even worse they could end up with more bitter ex-Mormons actively trying to expose their dirty secrets. What is the solution to the dilemma? I don’t know, but if enough lukewarm cultural Mormons simply ignore what they are increasingly starting to see as empty promises and idle threats then the Church will probably have no choice but to scale back and tone it down with some of their claims.

Personally, I think the tithing and the Word of Wisdom have gone too far and currently do more harm than good when it comes to the total membership, growth, and activity levels. As far as I’m concerned these are mostly relics from a time when they clearly had more leverage to tell members what to do than they do now. It’s not like the Church really needs nearly as much money as they are currently asking for to build and maintain churches and to pay for whatever else is absolutely necessary. They already have more money than they know what to do with at this point. Seriously, they have been spending it on all kinds of investments and businesses and building all these extra temples.

[DevilsAdvocate]

cwald wrote:

Okay, i think this is well said DA, and let me add two cents. The problem I see with this (WIDELY used in the ranks) forest analogy is that it is dangerous because we don’t take into account the residual effect of losing “a few” of the top notch leaders and members from a local branch or ward. We preach the other way though – a convert who joins the church is going to change hundredss or even thousands of lives as his kids and grand-kids and so on become active faithful members throughout the decades. The same principle applies to those who become inactive. Oh, I suppose it gets taught in Sunday school class some, but we still hear BRM echos of “The Caravan Moves ON” from many members and local leaders. What does it matter if a few barking dogs snap at the heels of the weary travelers? Or that predators claim those few who fall by the way? Another one of my LEAST favorite talks of all time.

Excepts from The Caravan Moves ON. BRM Ensign Nov 1984

Quote:

…let me test you on these:…

…Test two: Do I believe in the fall of Adam? There is no salvation in a system of religion that rejects the doctrine of the Fall or that assumes man is the end product of evolution and so was not subject to a fall. True believers know that this earth and man and all forms of life were created in an Edenic, or paradisiacal, state in which there was no mortality, no procreation, no death…

…No true Latter-day Saint will ever take a stand that is in opposition to what the Lord has revealed to those who direct the affairs of his earthly kingdom. No Latter-day Saint who is true and faithful in all things will ever pursue a course, or espouse a cause, or publish an article or book that weakens or destroys faith.

…What does it matter if a few barking dogs snap at the heels of the weary travelers? Or that predators claim those few who fall by the way? The caravan moves on.

I don’t know what Bruce R. McConkie’s obsession with the idea of “no death before the fall” and calling evolution a “heresy” was. Similar to Joseph Fielding Smith, he seemed to believe that there was this long chain of events where everything absolutely depended on “no death before the fall” as if there was no point for us to even exist if this idea was not the gospel truth. Thanks to McConkie, this “no death before the fall” idea is still in the LDS Bible Dictionary under “Death” even though it isn’t official Church doctrine.

This highlights another sustainability problem with the Church: some members and leaders try to read way too much into the supposed “revealed word of God.” The assumption is that this all came directly from God so it must be right. This kind of strict literal interpretation of traditionally accepted scriptures can easily paint us into a corner for no good reason and then scientists will probably keep digging up more evidence against some of these long-held assumptions. The result is that some of these beliefs will require increasing levels of denial of outside information in order to continue to support them.

I read somewhere that based on one poll Mormons were the 2nd least likely to believe in evolution right behind the Jehovah’s Witnesses and I have heard several TBMs saying how they don’t trust carbon dating either. If people want to deny that the majority of scientists have any idea what they are talking about that’s their choice but what about the next generation? We can try to home-school our children and maybe even ban the internet but sooner or later most members are probably going to hear about evolution one way or another. I’m not so sure that trying to insist that Adam was literally the first man is going to work out very well over the long run.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Old-Timer wrote:

…we are talking about a religion founded on a difficult mythology (and I don’t mean untruth) for this modern time – as well as a religion that requires MUCH more of its active members than most other religions.

…There are plenty of things I wish were different, especially in the Intermountain West dominant culture, but I also hear messages constantly from the global leadership that address many of those cultural issues. There are areas where I think we have strayed from the pure Gospel, but I see that as part of the inevitable ebb and flow of all organizations

…the Church is not in a downward spiral. It’s holding it’s own in an increasingly secular, non-religious world – when literally every other denomination that requires even close to the time and energy it does is not maintaining like it is.

The problem is that some of these strict requirements and expectations are starting to look increasingly unreasonable to too many existing members and would-be converts. For example, to be fully accepted into the club by many TBMs you basically need to agree with all of the following:

1. The Books of Mormon, Abraham, and Moses contain true history and were divinely inspired. These books and the D&C are superior to the Bible as the “Word of God” because they didn’t have the same errors of transmission and translation.

2. Joseph Smith’s restoration of the gospel is the best thing to happen since Jesus.

3. The only divinely approved line of succession and authority was transmitted through Brigham Young and other LDS prophets and apostles making the LDS church the one and only “true church.”

4. Paying the Church a full 10% of your income as tithing is required for salvation.

5. Complete abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, tea, and coffee is mandatory for salvation.

6. Spending a significant amount of time for meetings, callings, temple work, etc. is required for salvation.

To me this looks too much like a house of cards because there are so many ways that this structure is likely to break down and fail for way too many different people. The Church has put such a strong emphasis on all of these points that any one of them can be an absolute deal-breaker for serious investigators and existing members who actually like the Church but just can’t stomach one or more of these hard-line doctrines.

I don’t have a problem with TBMs believing in all of this but what I think is completely wrong is some of the intolerance and disrespect for those who have a harder time buying into all these beliefs. It doesn’t make any sense to me why fellowship in a church that professes to be Christian should depend so much on all these additional doctrines to the point that many members have actually been excommunicated for openly disagreeing with some of them.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Old-Timer wrote:

The LDS Church is NOT falling apart the way many disaffected members make it sound…What I’m saying simply is that I believe those who are doomsday-ing the state of the LDS Church aren’t doing so based on the reality of the situation as a whole.

…Part of the reason I am not as pessimistic as some is that I EXPECT a degree of “apostasy” in the Church…the Church is not in a downward spiral. It’s holding it’s own in an increasingly secular, non-religious world…the fact that some trees do, in fact, fall doesn’t mean the forest is disappearing.

Just for the record, I don’t think the Church is falling apart in an obvious and catastrophic way; I think it’s more of a gradual erosion of the base where active members are being slowly whittled away. It could take several generations to fully realize some of the residual effects of the current losses but by that time it could be too late to regain some of what we have now with the communities and positive social influence of the Church.

I think this forest analogy is typical of many Church leaders’ attitude where they don’t really care that much about all the members who have fallen away because they assume they are insignificant and completely wrong to think that way. The idea is that this is nothing new that there have always been inactive members and apostates because of the constant influence of Satan but overall the work is still moving forward right on schedule.

The reason I disagree with this idea is that the tables have turned somewhat in recent years due to the internet, more books on Mormon history, and more atheist evangelists challenging religion in general. Basically, I don’t believe the Church is poised to compete as well as possible in the current environment. What’s worse is that the reason for this predicament is not necessarily as noble as many Mormons would like to believe such as standing up for what is right or true.

It looks more like a case where they simply started out with this prophet and restoration story and once they saw that it gave them some control to be able to tell their followers what to do they just kept on building on this assumption and making even more demands while trying to deny or suppress any challenges to these claims at all costs.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Old-Timer wrote:

DA, why does it have to be anything different than what they actually said – to bring the temples closer to the members, so more members could attend and do so more often? Why can’t it be that they who make those decisions, especially Pres. Hinckley who was the apparent catalyst for the decision, sincerely believe it is a blessing to have a temple close (or, at least, closer) to the homes of the membership?

I ask that very seriously. Why can’t it be that simple?

I’m not saying it can’t be that simple, but I guess I’m just a die-hard cynic and sometimes the Church looks too much like a business-oriented corporation to me. So when I see more temples, I suspect ulterior motives like maybe it’s mostly an advertising campaign where they are trying to promote the LDS brand name. I guess there’s not really anything wrong with that if they honestly believe in their product but my concern is that many members who weren’t so sure about the temple or other core doctrines have fallen through the cracks and will continue to do so in large numbers. Is it really necessary to have so many disenfranchised members who don’t really feel like they belong?

I understand the idea some have that the Church should be exclusive because we are trying to gather the elect and separate the wheat from the tares and not everyone will be saved (Matthew 7:13-14) so we might as well expect the Church to be a small minority. However, I don’t really buy this explanation because we are getting to the point where some so-called apostates only sin was reading the scriptures or listening in church and thinking that some of this doesn’t quite make sense. To me this says that there’s just not enough wiggle-room in the Church to accommodate reasonable differences of opinion. Personally I think they should pray for some new revelations because some of the same old policies and doctrines just aren’t working quite as well as they used to.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Old-Timer wrote:

Quote:

My guess is that it never was the distance keeping members away from the temple as much as the interview requirements.

Otoh, it makes all the difference in the world for those who used to have to travel for a week and now can attend in a day or two total travel time. Suddenly a once-in-a-lifetime thing can be an annual thing – and that is significant.

Also, I’ve lived 30 minutes from a temple, 10 hours from a temple, 5 hours from a temple, 6-10 hours from a temple (depending on traffic), 2 hours from a temple and, now, 1 hour from a temple. For MANY very active members like myself, distance makes a HUGE difference in how often they attend.

Sure these new temples make it more convenient for active members to attend more often and it was a nice gesture by the Church to build them if that’s one of the reasons they did it. The main reason I brought this idea up is that members see all these new temples being built and it gives the illusion that the Church is growing more than ever when that’s not really the case. In fact, the relative growth was actually higher before they started building all these temples. I’m not trying to claim the new temples were a bad idea but it looks like a fairly big change in strategy from what they were doing before so I wonder what prompted this change.

[DevilsAdvocate]

HiJolly wrote:

Rix, this is the first I have heard of this claim, and I’m really surprised to hear it. BTW, I once corresponded with Dr. Owens. He does have some interesting ideas, but I found his gnostic ideas not very useful for me.

Bruce in Montana wrote:

With respect Rix….I don’t know about the “likely” part. I’ve read similar articles on other anti-sites and they all seem very speculative with no verifiable sources that would know personally…

…When I left the mainstream church many years ago, this was one of my favorite personal “proofs” that Joseph Smith was a fraud….after giving it a fair chance, and looking at the sources, I find the arguement full of holes.

I read part of an article by Lance Owens suggesting that Joseph Smith was also into Kabbalah and all kinds of weird occult traditions. It would really be something if Joseph Smith was actually involved in half of the things he has been accused of. However, I don’t really blame people for this kind of speculation because some of the Church’s stories are so fantastic and over-the-top that to some skeptics almost any alternative explanation seems more likely by comparison. Given his money-digging antics and other scandals I can see why it would be hard for some cynics to believe that almost any mischief would be completely out of character for Joseph Smith to engage in.

Personally, I don’t have any bias against the possibility of some supernatural influence in general. I have heard many recent stories of prophetic dreams, out-of-body experiences, evil spirits haunting people, etc. where I’m not going to jump to conclusions that there needs to be a natural explanation for everything. However, what makes me suspicious about some of the accounts of these early Church meetings is that these experiences were reportedly so common and they seemed to happen right on cue as long as Joseph was around and then it all apparently died down as soon as he was gone.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Euhemerus wrote:

Old-Timer wrote:

Fwiw, Hawk’s suggestions actually are being implemented at the top. Receiving and living by personal revelation has been one of the major themes of General Conference for at least the last three conferences – and I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard someone at General Conference even hint that prophets are infallible.

I dunno. I don’t mean to challenge or be argumentative, but I think this is misleading. Perhaps personal revelation has been one of the major themes of the last three GCs. But obedience is always a major theme at GC, as is testimony of our prophet (not claiming infallibility but nonetheless testifying of their authority)

…So I would have to say that overall, IMHO, the church’s response to “slower” conversion rates has been to make changes to, and increase efforts in, the missionary program (including our role in that work as members).

In Conference, they were talking about “permissiveness” as if this is the worst thing in the world. I hope they are not trying to imply that having a tolerant and realistic attitude towards different beliefs or values is wrong. Personally, I think Evangelical-lite churches geared around cafeteria Christians are the wave of the future and trying to insist that God will condemn you over various formalities and supposed sins that look like non-sins (coffee?) is not going to work very well over the long run.

[DevilsAdvocate]

MWallace57 wrote:

I started to contemplate some of the differences in the early Mormon converts and “some” of the converts of today…The Quaker Church will NOT allow anyone to convert until they have proven that they are committed enough to get themselves to church on time each Sunday. I might suggest that this would be a good policy for the LDS Church to consider. How committed are these new converts? Can they take the initiative to get themselves to church without missionary assistance each week? I’m not saying that missionaries shouldn’t take time for the first few weeks, but you just can’t baby people forever.

I agree that it is fairly pointless to baptize as many people as possible mostly for the sake of numbers. This is not real growth if the number of functioning wards and branches are not increasing at nearly the same rate. They built a large number of new temples since 1995 but has the overall temple attendance really gone up in proportion? I doubt it. My guess is that it never was the distance keeping members away from the temple as much as the interview requirements.

Sure people need some initiative to keep going to church but one problem with trying to go back to the early days of the Church is that now people have easy access to more information including anti-Mormon propaganda on the internet. Being too harsh nowadays will probably only decrease the overall conversions and retention of members. I guess you could claim that maybe this would increase the quality of the remaining members but I’m not so sure about that.

[DevilsAdvocate]

curt wrote:

Quote:

“From 1985 to 1995 the Church membership grew from 5.9 million to 9.3 million or about a 58% increase. By comparison from 1999 to 2009 the membership grew from 10.75 million to 13.82 million or an increase of about 29%. So while it is technically true that the Church is still growing the rate of growth has slowed significantly from the way it was before.”

I find these statistics to be completely unbelievable. Would like a source. Growth of that kind in any organization would be so phenomenal as to break records. I don’t buy it.

I got these numbers from a Wikipedia page on LDS Church membership history. According to this the Church membership has been consistently increasing by over 200 thousand each year (587,234 in 1989). This doesn’t surprise me at all because all it really means is that new converts and children raised in the Church have been more than enough to make up for any losses and these additional members will continue to be counted unless they officially resign which many inactive members will not bother to do.

This growth is actually not that unusual or impressive compared to other fast-growing churches such as the Assembly of God, 7th Day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses especially considering that the LDS Church has typically had about 50 thousand full-time missionaries trying to convert new members. The Assemblies of God have supposedly grown to about 60 million followers since 1914. There was an article about this a few years ago in the Salt Lake Tribune saying the LDS Church is not really the fastest growing church the way many have claimed and that it has had difficulty keeping active members.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Old-Timer wrote:

We are losing too many members, but I simply have to disagree with the title. There are lots of flat-out brilliant members who aren’t leaving – and some of the ones who are leaving aren’t doing so because of how smart they are. Also, it’s not just the stupid and uneducated and uninformed who are joining the Church.

I don’t think it’s a case where anyone smart or educated is automatically destined to stop believing in the Church sooner or later. Some very smart TBMs never even question the Church and others question it but come up with answers to defend their views and put their doubts on the shelf. Good for them if this approach works in their case.

However, I do think the Church should allow more flexibility for members to think for themselves more and draw their own conclusions instead of telling people exactly what they should believe to the extent they do now. It’s too much of an all-or-nothing attitude in the Church that will end up driving out members who like some things about the Church but just can’t accept some of the doctrines anymore.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Cadence wrote:

George wrote:

He said quietly & openly to me, “I can’t for the world think of a reason why non-members would want to join our church. When you consider tithing, multiple callings, obedience to authority, temple restrictions, who would choose it ?

Exactly. Unless you were raised in the church to believe this is the norm it is going to get more difficult to get educated converts. Life is just getting so complex and difficult, to add the church responsibilities on top of all that it is just going to lose its appeal…Of course it is all based on it being the one true church so many would say no sacrifice is to great. So if we ever stop claiming one trueness then what do we have to offer.

I agree that the high demands of the Church are probably the single biggest factor that limits sustained long-term growth. Not only does this limit who will join in the first place but it weeds out existing members in large numbers. Even some members who have been faithful for over 30 years eventually get worn down and give up.

However, these demands haven’t really changed much in a long time. What I think has changed recently is that more members are starting to question the justification for these demands. It’s a little bit easier to sacrifice something if you really believe that it’s what God wants you to do and that you will be blessed in this life and the next for it than if you think this is simply coming down from mere mortals.

On my mission in Brazil there were a lot of Pentecostal/Evangelical churches that were very strict. Not only did many of these Evangelicals not drink or smoke and give lots of money to these churches but they didn’t watch TV or listen to popular music either. I was surprised by how many of these churches there were and that they were always full. I don’t know how to explain their success, but my point is that I don’t believe the demands like tithing, callings, or the WoW are the only thing limiting the Church’s growth because I have seen counter examples to this theory.

Brian Johnston wrote:

As to the specific case of Mormonism, I think it is natural that the rate of growth will slow. There’s only so many people that our mythology and world view will connect with.

Rix wrote:

It is difficult to “sell” a person on a particular faith mythology without them easily looking into the challenges of the story. And let’s face it, the JS Story is far from logically credible.

In my opinion, one of the biggest problems with the Church is that they are desperately trying to sell and hold onto what is essentially a myth, the idea of (nearly) infallible prophets starting with Joseph Smith. Now I’m not trying to claim that most active members actually believe that the prophets are perfect but I do believe that the majority of TBMs aren’t aware of the tip of the iceberg of some of the contradictions and non faith-promoting information that exist to discredit the LDS prophets.

Personally, I think the Church should move in the direction of de-emphasizing some of the prophet mythology and simplify things so that fellowship in the Church doesn’t depend quite so much on unwavering belief in so many specific hard-line doctrines and rules. Sure I can’t really control what the Church leaders at the top of the hierarchy do but that doesn’t mean I need to agree with everything they say. Maybe the Church culture can gradually change over time from the bottom up but the problem is that many dissatisfied members just don’t have the patience to stick around long enough to make a difference this way.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Old-Timer wrote:

A number of points, since organizaational theory and restructuring are part of my “professional expertise”:

1) NEVER, and I mean never, use annual percentage growth stats to disparage growth. It simply is not a good statistical method. When the LDS Church went from 6 members to 100 members in less than a month, its membership grew over 1600% – meaning over 20,000% annually. It’s all been downhill from there – based on annual percentage growth.

2) The philosophy of baptisms has changed, as Hawk said – and we now are SOLIDLY in a “baptize with caution” mode. If you doubt that, read “Preach My Gospel” carefully – and listen to one of the talks from the General Conference that just ended…

Right I understand that it can vary a lot from one year to the next but I thought some of this would average out over ten years and give a rough idea of what is going on over the long term. I still believe it’s a real trend related to the factors I mentioned more than any conscious effort to baptize less.

The official resignations definitely look like they have been going up which I really think is directly related to anti-Mormon propaganda on the internet. Perhaps the most alarming thing to see is how many return missionaries are leaving the Church. Traditionally these were probably some of the most stalwart, enthusiastic, and well-trained members we had and now it seems like they are jumping ship more than ever.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Cadence wrote:

I have faith the sun will rise in the morning. This is truly faith because it is an absolutely true concept or event.

I have faith moon will disappear. This is not faith because it is a false concept. No amount of faith or belief will make it happen. It is delusion.

So in my mind the trick to having true faith is to determine what is true first. Yet how can I determine what is truth (concerning unseen things) without faith. This is the paradox.

Sure it’s delusional to believe in something when there are fairly obvious and convincing reasons to believe that it is false (e.g. the earth is flat) but personally I don’t think faith really has all that much to do with truth. The problem is that whether or not an idea many people believe in is true is often largely unknown for practical purposes. The way I see it, faith is typically more of a factor when there is really no way to know for sure what the real truth is such as in the question of whether or not God exists. If you want to depend on direct indisputable evidence for all your religious beliefs then the most reasonable position I see is that of the militant agnostic, basically the idea that, “I don’t know and neither do you.”

However, when it comes to religion I don’t really care that much about undeniable proof because I am perfectly content to simply have faith that the people who wrote the New Testament were not completely lying and that there is some truth in what they say. Also, I feel a lot more confident about the idea that life and especially humans were created by some higher power than the idea that these are the result of pure random chance combined with evolution. Atheists can easily draw the opposite conclusions but as far as I’m concerned this is mostly based on different assumptions they prefer to make which lead to drastically different opinions that I will never agree with.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Cadence wrote:

…is it impossible to have faith in a false doctrine? If you have faith in a false concept or doctrine to the point that you believe it is true, is it no longer faith but delusion.

As far as I’m concerned faith is almost exactly the same thing as belief especially belief without much proof to support it. However, unlike belief in general faith is commonly considered a positive virtue because it gives people more courage and conviction to do what they think is right.

Personally, I think many Muslims are just as faithful as any Christian but at the same time I assume that much of this is actually faith in false concepts. What I really think is wrong is for people to try to force others to accept their own beliefs that are mostly based on faith. If you can support your belief with solid logic and evidence then there’s a much stronger case for expecting others to believe it as well, otherwise you might as well expect some people to resist accepting the same beliefs.

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