A friend mentioned to me they were reading a Dialogue article from 2011 titled, “Mormonism in Western Society: Three Futures” by Frederick Mark Gedicks. Even though it was written 7 years ago, most of the issues mentioned about the direction of church membership are roughly the same: Most growth is in the southern hemisphere, stagnant or declining of the already small membership in Europe, baptism rates in the US declining, and declining rates of holding on to youth and young adults. Gedicks goes on to opine about the probable ways the LDS church can engage with Western Society. He outlines three of scenarios or paths that he thinks are most likely to be adopted.
Fundamentalism
The author clarifies he is not talking about fundamentalism as in FLDS, but returning to the roots. He explains:
Fundamentalist Protestantism was (and still is) characterized by resistance to modernism, scriptural literalism, insistence on absolute and unchanging truth, and nostalgia for earlier eras when Americans were thought to be more faithful to their God.
The academic meaning of “fundamentalism” is now used more generally to describe religions that endorse strict and uncompromising fidelity to their authorities, doctrines, and practices, without making any compromise or concession to contemporary life. This academic meaning preserves the dual original meaning of antipathy to current values and yearning for a return to the more righteous ways of the past.
This would be characterized by rejecting contemporary values and emphasis on God and the commandments being unchanging. Even if society is changing, God and the church are not. I usually hear this more informally called “doubling down.” For me this is certainly has much more of a black and white feeling of, “You are either with us or against us.”
Social Conservatism
Gedicks outlines the second path the church could go would be that of social conservatism. This would be to align the church with conservatives much more than progressives. This would mean aligning with other conservative churches, such as the Catholic Church, to stand united against secularism. By joining or even forming these coalitions, the church would look for other religions desiring the same end results for issues/discussions in society. Social Conservatism does not seem to necessitate dramatic changing of doctrine, but more alliances and cooperation with other religions and conservative groups. I do think this isn’t one in the same as most members being “solid Republican.” I see that being a bit more cultural, but certainly being heavily influenced by church leaders.
Assimilation
The last path that Gedicks put forward is assimilation. This isn’t hard to understand what he is describing in this path. It is simply trying to be more like the other religions you want to be a seen as part of or at least being seen as an equal. I don’t see this is a situation where the poplar Star Trek quote of, “Resistance is futile” because assimilation is inevitable, but I have a hard time not including such a geeky yet related quote.
The church has taken a bit of this path before. It gave up its rather unique practice of polygamy. It has changed its policy and doctrine around race several times. It has even given a green light to Diet Coke, but it has not taken the truly drastic step of allowing beards at BYU.
There can be a danger in “overdoing it” and losing a separate identity. If too much assimilation occurs, then you just seem to be “one of the group” without much of anything different from other groups.
Reading this immediately made me think of Armand Mauss and his book, “The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation.” I had forgot the subtitle, but remembered the theme very well laid out in the book. Mauss describes how the LDS church as always been in tension between being “like the other respected Christian churches” and simultaneously wanting to be “peculiar” and having something more than the other churches possess. It is balancing somewhere between being the same as others or being way too different on the other end of the spectrum. I think this is playing out in last few years and even months. The LDS church poured enormous amounts of money and energy into the “I’m a Mormon” campaign and then with the “Meet the Mormons” film, only to have recently decided that they don’t want to be called “Mormons” or even “LDS”. I get the feeling that many in the church want to say, “We are just like you – just enough to make you want to join the church, but then we want to be unique and better!”
Gedicks proceeds in his paper to discuss the ramifications of each of the 3 paths. If that interests you I would encourage you to read the paper in its entirety (link here).
Others Definitions of Potential Paths
I really liked Patrick Mason’s presentation at FairMormon in 2016. It was titled “The Courage of Our Convictions: Embracing Mormonism in a Secular Age” Mason describes two paths he finds worrisome that the LDS church could go down. One is “EFY-ification” and the other seems to me to be a combination of “Fundamentalism/Social Conservatism.” Mason gives a concise description of these two paths.
EFY-ification
I will admit that I have two fears for the church that I love and am totally committed to. First, I fear for what I call the “juvenilization” of Mormonism, or the “EFY-ification” of the church, or the “Gospel According to Internet Memes.” When it’s adults in the room, let’s respect one another enough to talk like adults. Most people can handle complexity and nuance. We can stretch beyond what we learned in seminary, though we are so rarely invited to.
Fundamentalism/Social Conservatism
My second fear is for the fundamentalist takeover of Mormonism. I’m not referring to fundamentalism in terms of polygamy—I’m pretty confident we’re totally past that phase of our history. Instead, this is a reference to what I think is the rather remote possibility of a process similar to what happened in the Southern Baptist Convention in the early 1990s, when theological fundamentalists took over the churches, seminaries, and governing bodies of the denomination and either pushed out liberals and moderates or made their lives in the church so miserable that they left on their own, thus leaving only the fundamentalists to control the whole denomination. There are occasional signs that moderates and liberals are simply not wanted in the contemporary LDS Church. We have already lost too many who feel, incorrectly in my estimation, that the church is simply a shill for the Republican Party and Family Research Council. But for the most part I’m optimistic that the center will hold, and that Zion will transcend the ongoing culture wars.
It is good to hear someone that may not be a liberal calling out that the church, or at least the church culture, does not feel welcoming to many liberals.
Issues on direction of religions has split other religions into definable sub-groups (see examples of Schisms). It isn’t like Mormonism doesn’t have a few hundred groups within its family tree. Even today we see offshoots such as those that adhere to the teaching of Denver Snuffer, those that didn’t agree Brigham Young was God’s chosen successor to Joseph Smith, and several groups that feel Wilford Woodruff’s manifesto stopping the practice of polygamy wasn’t from God.
So which path is probable?
For me I see a bit of a shift since President Nelson has become the prophet that makes me feel a leaning towards fundamentalism. I would also assume there are differing views from even the top leaders on what direction is best, even if they wouldn’t describe any of the paths as bluntly as described above. I know it isn’t the exact same situation, but in business I have seen good conversation when working on issues like reducing costs. But when revenues start dropping (or lack of growth of membership in this case) it can cause a panic and many that feel more drastic changes need to be made.
So which way does the church seem to be going from your perspective?
Wheat & Tares 
Because I’m a bitter cynic, of course I’m going to go with Fundamentalism! As someone said around the time of the POX/November 2015 policy: “Those members who were on the fringe are now leaving; those who were moderates are now on the fringe; and the most orthodox, conservative members are gleefully digging in.” I definitely feel this push and I can only be hopeful that it’ll temper itself somewhat in the years ahead.
Thanks for your comments Bro. Jones.
I feel like we are moving more towards Fundamentalism, but even a cursory glance at the Ensign now, compared to 10 years ago, also would give justification to the EFY-ification route. The scholarship of the articles seems more than slightly dumbed down to me , as if the assumption is that the members have a very limited attention span, incapable of deep thinking, & the ones that do appear do so a couple times a year at most, instead of every issue or every other issue in the past.
However, we had “retrenchment” under Brigham Young, which would fall more towards Fundamentalism – return to & doubling down on core principles – and I remember much the same thing happening under Ezra Taft Benson as the prophet. Looking at those two examples, with the changes under President Nelson, I have to go with Fundamentalism. Just as an aside, when the changes were made to “ministering” from HT/VTing, some of the “common questions” listed at LDS.org were kind of whiny – can we call extra counselors, etc – & I liked the grown up response from a prophet who held a VERY busy professional schedule before his call to the apostleship. A simple “No.” – translated to me as “Enough whining. Put on your big girl panties & get it done”. A shift toward Fundamentalism of necessity involves a change in priorities, & that is what I see happening.
Oh man, the EFY-ification. I’m interested in a girl who shares a ton of those memes, and it’s honestly starting to become a turnoff.
Our church claims God the Father, Jesus, and a host of angels recently (within two centuries) stepped from the heavens to help it get established. The father of a prophet in my youth, Joseph Fielding Smith, was born in Far West Missouri at the time of the Mormon Expulsion. His father shared all the priesthood keys with his brother Joseph Smith and was one of the eight witnesses of the Gold Plates. Compared to contemporary Christianity our ‘miraculous” history has been very fresh. This is the uniqueness of traditional Mormonism, but I see this diminishing over time.
In his book, “The Triumph of Christianity”, Bart Erhman postulates that the primary appeal of Christianity to early converts were miracles – or more specifically, the story of miracles. It wasn’t the message of brotherly love, good works, or social programs. Miracles. It struck a chord with me about our church’s restoration and rise.
But after the first generation, our church hasn’t seen a repeat in the miracles of the restoration. When President Nelson describes his revelatory process, it isn’t in terms of angelic visitations or visions. He describes a process of inspiration. Throughout my life (covering 9 of the 17 presidents of the church), I’ve heard the myth that each apostle has had a personal visitation from Christ, but I’ve not heard the apostles themselves talk about that. It could be President Nelson’s description of his revelatory process is a move to manage member expectations. If so, the inspiration process doesn’t seem to be different between Mormonism and contemporary Christianity.
As the miracles of the restoration fade in the past, the church has by default already assimilated into contemporary Christianity. I figure it’s the members who are the ones at the crossroads. Do they move on, like Denver Snuffer, thinking the loss of the miraculous visions and visitations are signs that current leadership has lost the way? Do they come not to believe the church’s faith claims, pointing out the lack of current miracles is manifesting this has always been the case? Do they stay because of the inertia of tradition? Or do the fervent in their personal witness that God did restore the church in the latter-days satisfy themselves that was sufficient?
@ Dylan: Yikes, I’m sorry. Did she share the “If this [temple] isn’t your castle, you’re not my prince” one?
I would like to deal in a little wishful thinking. I hope that the future path of the Church is directed at being a truly global church. The majority of the Church’s growth is occurring in developing countries (south of the Equator, if you will). The recently added 4th mission of the Church is to “help the poor and needy.” I predict that it will be elevated above the 3rd: “redeeming the dead.” Most Mormons (I’ve been a Mormon for 73 years) will tire of the focus on Utah/USA-centric issues, many of which are misdirected.
The Church will focus more on how to truly help our members and friends in developing countries. Many members are anxious to do more. Goodness knows Church members have the educational, business, and financial acumen to do a lot more. All this fits in nicely with the instructions of Christ in the NT.
I see the current church going in a more social conservative direction, but that may be because I’m a liberal :). More specifically, a lot of the issues they are doubling down on aren’t actually addressed in the founding documents of Mormonism. Homosexuality and marriage equality really don’t figure into the Book of Mormon. The Doctrine and Covenants doesn’t even support the “traditional family” of one heterosexual, monogamous couple. It’s pretty clear on polygyny as the divine standard, so engaging on the One Man One Woman side of the culture wars seems a little out of left field. Mormon scriptures disagree on whether churches must be named for Christ or whether His name is too sacred for regular use (priesthood), so the name change is less clear.
Dave C,
For me, it is the last one — the witness that Jesus Christ has put for His hand and restored the Church in these latter days is sufficient for me.
Dave C: There are some good scholars (e.g., Larry Hurtado, Richard Bachman, NT Wright, and others) who disagree with Ehrman’s conclusion. If you’ve read Ehrman, I’d recommend also adding reading their books on the topic.
I agree with this portion of Dave C’s comment: “But after the first generation, our church hasn’t seen a repeat in the miracles of the restoration.”
So it seems; year after year of hearing general conference talks reciting the words of dead people rather than their own living words. Are there no modern miracles or revelations? Indeed there are, for I have some, but why not at general conference?
I read Spencer W. Kimball’s biography, well most of it anyway. When he was called to be an apostle he had not yet received any sort of miraculous event to convince him that God existed or really wanted him to be an apostle. So he went up on a mountain and basically dared God to reveal himself then and there or he would step off a cliff. That’s what I remember of the story anyway. He says the response was powerful and immediate. It make a huge impact on me and I didn’t read beyond that point because I couldn’t. But his counsel I readily accepted on many topics simply because he had shown himself to be human or vulnerable; he couldn’t answer all of my questions because he doesn’t have all of the answers, but what he knew he shared and it was good.
About the direction of the church: I have no idea what it is going to do and I don’t think about it much. It’s not my church. I am welcome to join and welcome to leave. There is quite a bit of variability ward by ward, stake by stake.
An outstanding essay! https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2016/courage-convictions
I see the Church as moving in the Fundamentalism/Social Conservatism direction but not in a hard way. For example, “resistance to modernism”; in some areas they resist (gay marriage, and female priesthood, to name a few) but in others they do not, (digital media, using social media, scripture apps, musical instruments in sacrament meetings and other small changes.), “scriptural literalism”, I have read many LDS scholars take about metaphorical and allegory in scripture and this is entering GD,EQ and to a lesser degree in the RS lessons, and it has been decades since I hear people say “the earth is 6000 years old because the bible said so and that is just the way it is.” I think the insistence on unchanging truth is there no question. But I also see a lessening of the nostalgia for early church eras. I see the church moving to looking to the future more; at least I have seen the beginnings of that. As for the Social Conservatism, the church has been working with conservative churches for years now trying to build coalitions and pushing back against secularism.
I don’t see the LDS church going anywhere. Check none of the above.
People leave and some stay and some of them marry and form new families. The money in the bank continues to grow. We recycle the same old talks and lessons and similar programs. We celebrate change so miniscule it is a joke. Home teaching or ministering, Age 19 or 18 for missions. It is just not that different. The world is different and the church pretends the church is the same .
The idea of the loss of interest in the church over time being related to the lack of miracles is interesting although I don’t know that I entirely buy it. I think Michael 2 demonstrates an interesting part of the problem though. I read SWK’s biography so long ago that I don’t remember it (so feel free to correct me if I am wrong), but SWK’s giant manifestation was internal to him. It was a spiritual witness, not necessarily a miracle (something exterior to him). That could be part of the problem. Spiritual manifestation are still common, but exterior miracles have disappeared, and spiritual manifestations are not limited to Mormonism. Other religions (even non Christian ones) have equally grand manifestations in their leaders lives.
So the tales of spiritual manifestations aren’t very convincing about anything for me. Especially as there has been research successfully duplicating them in laboratories.
Ji – I appreciate where you are.
Cody – A good reminder that there are additional New Testament scholars out there. I take it the Richard Bachman you have in mind is not the Stephen King variety 😉
Michael 2. – yes the essay at the link is great., thanks. I didn’t realize it was the same essay Happy Hubby quoted from. It’s been a while, but I do recall reading SWK’s experience, though I agree with ReTx’s assessment of it as an internal spiritual experience. That doesn’t discount it for SWK, I’ve had some of my own to ponder that I take seriously.
Assimilation requires change. Change is difficult in a culture of “Yes Men” (and only men). It’s also difficult when you have to wait for everyone in front of you to die before your new ideas get implemented (e.g. President Nelson’s inspiration that the church should abandon the term “Mormon”, inspiration he clearly had back in 1990). Our current leadership structure fosters fundamentalism.
VDavid C is correct. If there is no manifestation of God actively working in our lives through miracles or revelations ( not simply warm feelings) why bother. The uniqueness of the Mormon church is its claim to God intervention in our lives.If the God who appeared to and spoke with Joseph face to face isn’t doing the same with Russell we might as well recognize we are no different that the Baptists and go ahead and sit home on Sundays and drink beer. The founder of the Dominican Order reported a conversation with Pope Sextus when being shown the riches of the Vatican the Pope said “we can no longer say gold and silver we have none “ To which he responded “can we say arise and walk” Can we say arise and walk . If not why do we think there is power to exalt us.Read LeGrand Richards interview with Wesley Waters about the “revelation” on the priesthood to al l believers and see what passes as revelation in the modern day church. The battle is already lost.
Whatever path the Church evolves, the answer must lay in unshackling itself from a very unhealthy highly romantic Western culture with a Republican twist. A genuine global Church with broader views of the world is needed urgently. Apologies to my American friends, a country where I have lived, studied and worked but you do not have all the answers to solving problems in the Church.Too much Utah group think, group talk.
Silly Kangaroo:
Mormonism is a Utah based religion. All you converts in the mission field are mere entertainment for the Church News, vacation destinations for traveling apostles and fodder for the scripted mission experience which is about the missionary not the convert or service.
The shackles have been in place for a long time and are rather comforting to those who wear them. Group think is wonderful if you are special in God’s eye. You want to drive a Tesla while the Mormons are circling the wagons. Not even station wagons.
If our prophets are just inspired, but not getting direct revelation, what makes us different or better that other churches?
If Joseph Smith didn‘t either ….
I like the church and am thankful for its positive influence in my life, but it‘s painted itself into a corner with bad historical, doctrinal and policy paint. Getting out will be messy.
Expect more fundamentalism, EFYism and conservatism.