I believe the Mormon Church is at a crossroads. The younger generation is just not following in the footsteps of their parents, unlike previous generations that seemed to just go along. Jana Riess’s book “The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church” documented how younger members of the church don’t believe or follow all the same teaching as their parents. They drink coffee, skip General Conference (I always knew I was young at heart!), and are accepting of same sex marriage.
A study out this last week also shows that the youngest generations have a much higher percentage that identify as LGBTQ than previous generations.
There is plenty to talk about in the above numbers. The question that jumps out at me is are there really more LGBTQ people in the younger generation or do more identify as such because it is more accepted?
But the focus of my post today is: what is the church going to do about this? A few years ago Richard Bushman was quoted as saying
“I think for the Church to remain strong it has to reconstruct its narrative. The dominant narrative is not true. It can’t be sustained. The Church has to absorb all this new information or it will be on very shaky grounds, and that’s what it’s trying to do. And there will be a strain for a lot of people, older people especially. But I think it has to change. Elder Packer had the sense of “protecting the little people.” He felt like the scholars were an enemy to his faith, and that we should protect the grandmothers living in Sanpete County. That was a very lovely pastoral image. But the price of protecting the grandmothers was a loss of the grandsons. They got a story that didn’t work. So we’ve just had to change our narrative.”
Fire Side, 2016
While Bushman was specifically talking to our history as the “dominant narrative” that needs to be changed, I think we can also say that so many other things needs to be changed but are not because we need to “protect the grandmothers living in Sanpete County.” If the churched sanctioned gay marriage, how many of those grandmothers would leave the faith? What about allowing tea and coffee after a 100 years of demonizing it as the “devil’s brew”? But what about the grandkids of that grandma that participated in Jana’s survey? Are we as a church in danger of losing them if we don’t change?
One roadblock I see to making any meaningful change is that those in the leadership positions that can make the changes (Q15) are the same age of our Sanpete County grandma. They have hard choices to make. They know there are problems. If they move too fast, they lose the core faithful; if they move too slowly, they lose the next generation.
I think the older generation is more resilient that we give them credit for. Look at the revelation of 1978 giving the priesthood to all worthy males (and letting their wives attend the temple). This is probably the biggest change in church doctrine since the removal of polygamy as a living requirement. While there is anecdotal evidence that some members were upset at the 1978 event, there was no major schism in the church like there was with the 1890 Manifesto.
I believe that we as a church (including my 80 something year old parents) could accept same sex marriage (and even come to call it gay marriage), could accept drinking tea and coffee, and could accept women holding the priesthood, and a different interpretation of the Book of Mormon. Can the church make these changes fast enough not to lose our youth? Or is it already too late?
Image by Aline Dassel from Pixabay
Wheat & Tares 
Those grandmas from San Pete are a lot tougher than you would think.
Plus we are losing their generation as well. My grandmother left the church and my mother that is approaching that age has as well.
My 65 year old father went to his bishop in November of 2015 and offered to turn in his temple recommend. (The bishop refused to take it.) My 66 year old stepmother firmly believes that the church will eventually have no choice but to give the priesthood to women. Maybe we are making assumptions based on their status as older grandparents that simply aren’t true. These are people that came of age during the civil rights movement, after all.
From my perspective having spent the last 10 years in our bishopric, with the last few years as the bishop, this “crossroads” had two main feeder paths that led to this point. The first, is as Bushman articulates the narrative. Clearly, if the Church wants a chance to try and thrive in the future the historical, doctrinal and social narrative of the Church must change. The narratives that all of us were taught as young people is simply not accurate on a wide variety of levels, and this first path leads to what I think is the second path, the loss of trust. In my years of listening to people, including many members of my own family, the more fundamental problem is a loss of trust. I have had more conversations over the last decade plus as people started to unpack the historical, doctrinal and social narrative of the church that discovered they have not been told the truth regarding any number of areas in the Church and that led them to a crisis of trust. I’ve had more than 10 people describe the feeling as the Church “cheated on me,” and many of them get to a point where they say, “I don’t trust this institution or it’s most senior leaders.” And that in my view this might be the Church’s biggest problem at this point, more and more people don’t trust it. (I also think more and more younger people in particular just don’t find the Church an inviting social group, again for a wide variety of reasons.) I think it is the price of the decades of very problematic historical, doctrinal and social narratives coming home to roost in the information age. For many people the institution and the senior leaders have lost their trust. Of course this does not apply to everyone, but I have had literally had hundreds of conversations along these lines over the last 10 plus years with members of the Church all over the United States. As for the grandma’s of Sanpete County, my fear is that over the next 10-30 years they might be all that’s left. I don’t literally mean this, but what I mean to say is you might likely end up with a very devoted core, mostly in the Western U.S., and that will essentially be it, along with of course a large, successful investment fund. I personally think the Church is already well on its way to this eventual reality. Right now I think they are largely trying to “P.R.” their way around this likely reality over the next few decades.
P.S. I can’t wait to see what people have to say after they’ve watched “Murder Among the Mormons.” If you are under 40 this is an episode that you did not live through and might throw many in that age group for even more of “trust” loop?
I suspect that many grandmothers are far more welcoming of such changes than the grandfathers. Many grandfathers have been (or still are) in positions of power like bishop, HC, and SP where they have enforced religious punishments/sanctions against LGBTQ individuals, coffee drinkers, unmarried sex, etc… and have probably have been on record over the pulpit many times condemning such as absolute evil. So to relax those lines now would call into question for grandfathers, but not grandmothers, their fundamental sense of righteousness in meting out such punishments. Witness the grand-daddy of them all DHO, and his notion that the church should never apologize. In contrast, in my experience, many grandmothers (both as younger mothers and now) worked to soften the blows of these religious sanctions for their loved ones and often privileged loving people over dogma.
So I suspect that while the Q15 may believe that they are protecting the grandmothers, they are really just projecting their own fears and those of their male colleagues, on the situation. Nobody wants to get to the end of their life and realize that the wretched things they did to others in the name of God were simply wretched things.
A Church of Trumpists, which is to say largely uneducated, poorly-read rural and small-town people + Republican city professionals, execs and money managers who staff local hierarchies and whose children attend BYU. My rural Midwest ward “works” largely because the EQ president is an LCSW with a good heart and wonderful people skills. That amazing investment fund insulates SLC from all sorts of unpleasant things, and may very well be seen as the Lord’s imprimatur going forward, damn the torpedoes. $100B is simply an immense amount of money. Are those who do not have a testimony of the BoM as literal history simply lost souls to these guys? Interesting times.
My mom’s side of the family is a lot of grandmas and grandpas in Sanpete county (well not Sanpete … but a very similar geography). I have actually been thinking lately about how much their views *have* changed, even in old age, because of circumstances that called them to reflect and revise. My uncles were the most anti-gay people you could find until their kids and nieces and nephews started coming out of the closet. And guess what? They changed their views. It wasn’t easy but it happened.
And as Joni pointed out, maybe there not all as conservative as the leadership thinks. For one thing, they were all around in 1978 (unless they converted after that) and stuck around. And I wonder if a lot of them privately have a different view than “the Brethren” but publicly are less inclined to share it than younger folks. In addition, they might actually have more incentive to reconcile things and make it work while staying active in the church because they have skin in the game and a life built on the church. Young people don’t and it may be easier for them to leave before they’ve built their families on it.
We may really be selling our older people short trying to “protect” them (I hate that paternalistic garbage) and meanwhile they are suffering watching their grandkids leave (especially those who really believe in Nelson’s Sad Heaven – way to pour salt on the wound!).
Is it too late? For a lot of people, yes. For people who are only interested in truth claims, yes. But for people who don’t care as much about truth claims (frankly that’s a lot of people I know) we could survive by creating a church that aligned with their values better – giving more opportunities to and focus on improving communities and embracing diversity and less focus on purity codes and following the prophet.
Sorry I just can’t help myself: anecdotal evidence, not antidotal. (Although maybe some evidence could be used as an antidote to people leaving? So far the opposite generally seems to be true.)
@10ac that’s a really good point. I’m convinced one reason DHO will absolutely never bend on homosexuality is because gay men received shock treatments under his watchful eye at BYU and he orchestrated the Church’s strategy on gay marriage. To admit that was wrong is to admit that he gave his time and talents in service of evil at worst, error at best. Who could do that?
It’s close to being too late. So many changes need to happen, which the OP listed. The speed limit seems to be about one big change per generation, but I can think of 3 that need to happen in the next few years or my 4 teenage children will have no interest in staying. I think 3 of my 4 have already decided to leave, and I’d wager that’s about average in the US.
The sad part is that the negative impacts due to rigid doctrine are largely self inflicted.
No organization can be a “one size fits all”. The church tries…but wants it to be.their “size”. It has failed also in past generations. Those who did not fit would silienlty walk away or have.been mislabled to “want to sin”. Before it would be the new membera who were rushed into baptism, or the rebelliuos teenager. But now it is the heartland of the.church. the generatiinal born in the covenant, RM, married in temple.
Members see the probelms, have a.voice and will not remain silent anymore.
The.church is broken !! they are going.to loose 30% no matter what they do. If they keep up this wishy washy it will.grow to 50-60%. The decision makers need to decide who they want to keep. If tbey make more changes…gone are the ultraorthodox to the snufferite types. If stay orthodox gone are the thinkers and progressives.
In the end the.church created their own problems. They owe us ALL a BIG apology. No matter if we are liberal or orthodox. They need to repent. However under the current trajectory they will fail us all.
I just want to follow Christ like principles…and found that participating in the LDS church did not allow me to. I find the environment and its local and general leaseship lost and toxic. The LDS church is not what we were told.
I can now honestly say i wish I would have grown up in a different church. A church that was healthier and did not cause me so much harm and personal pain
I appreciate each of you with yoyr comments and life perspective.
Great post and great topics. My .02:
1. As an English teacher, I’ve always believed that a self-congratulatory narrative is an incredibly powerful and incredibly dangerous thing (look at the story King Lear tells himself, e.g.). Freud once said, “all men are great in their dreams” and the story the church tells about itself and, to Freud’s point, about men (and the patriarchy) in general is one designed to keep a great amount of power in the hands of the few. For a long time, that has actually worked pretty well. However, the particular story the church tells about the priesthood, gender equality and LGBTQ issues, just to name a few, simply is not working. And to Bushman’s point, leadership likely knows it’s no longer working, but it doesn’t see this tipping point the way that most participants on this blog do. It’s always been a bit of a gamble to toe the old party line about any number of church issues. With each successive generation, we’ve probably lost a few folks, but the so-called “core of true believers” has remained relatively strong. Except now the leaving is accelerating and the insultingly condescending idea about “protecting” older, naive members is no longer effective and the church faces a kind of do-or-die scenario: Admit substantial untruths/do away with harmful doctrines in order to retain some folks who are likely to leave OR keep the same party line and hope there’s enough of a base of true believers to weather the storm. After examining the church’s history on such moral issues, I have little faith it will actually make the ethical decision to contradict its own past teachings to the extent that will allow at least some folks who are on the fence to stay.
2. The other thing about narratives is that if folks don’t like what they’re hearing, they’ll change the narrative, whether that allows them to stay in the church or permits them to leave it. A corollary issue here, of course, is that the church’s narrative no longer holds the ideological sway it once did, due in large part to the democratization of information because of the rise of the internet. It’s one thing to think of those grandmothers in Sanpete county as they might have been 50 years ago; rural, somewhat isolated from really good research libraries, etc. It’s quite another to realize that anyone anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection, can instantly fact check conference talks and can dive as deeply into the church’s problematic history as they like. Many narratives can be powerful, very few are absolutely true/factual, and every narrative can be challenged and/or changed, if not at official levels, than by individuals who don’t buy 100 percent of the party line.
P.S.: Plutarch, I loved your Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Especially the stuff on Sulla and Sertorius. Solid gold.
Faith, thank you for your comments. The Church is deeply broken and almost completely incapable, in its current institutional formulation, of dealing with a host of significant modern problems. At the end of the day all we can do is try and love our neighbor for who they are and where they are at. And it is important to realize we don’t get to dictate who they are or where they are at. That is their work alone to do with God. All we can do is love them, I mean really love them. For me that is the summation of the teachings and commandments of Jesus Christ. Anything more than that tends to get in the way quickly. The institutional Church and its leaders will do whatever it is they feel they need to over time. Again all you and I can do is try and be good listeners, good neighbors, and in so doing, hope to actually live the Gospel. No show, no PR, just a quiet, simple, authentic, genuine faith, driven by love. Pax
All of comments are valid, but one more should be emphasized: race.
Young people have friends and romantic relationships with those of different races at much higher rates than their grandparents did. This has led many to be increasingly distressed by the Church’s failure to apologize for the race-based priesthood exclusion that had no basis in doctrine.
The Church now admits that this policy never was doctrine, but it soft pedals that acknowledgement. What is needed is an actual apology. The Church needs to admit that it’s leaders were wrong, there is no excuse, and the current leaders are sincerely sorry.
Along with this is a need for greater acceptance of global culture. The continued ban on green tea, which is actually healthy and is used by billions or people in Asia, makes no sense to existing members and certainly not to investigators on that continent.
I was speaking with my 22 year old daughter yesterday. I asked her about church experiences growing up. I am letting my kids decide for themselves of they participate or not. I knew previously that my 3 kids had been bullied in church. It still affects 2 of them today and their social skills. I spoke up them and told the leadership. It fell on deaf ears.
What i did not know is she was alao yelled at by the seminary teachers. We had 530 am seminary, to which i complained and that was my final shelf item. She related, she would go to early morning seminary, and on some mornings she would have remaining homework. Many of the other kids would be asleep in classes. But on several occasions she was yelled at by seminary teachers for not listening. What hippocrits!!!!
I loved aspects of my mission and hated the mission president and the mission system. we were yelled at frequently on my mission 30 years ago.
Brother sky and plutrach, we also do not trust the leadership because we have also suffered emotional and esisiasical abuse. Not just a single ward or an isolated stake. It is systemic througjout the church. Lucky are those who won leadership roulette.
I think this emotional abuse needs to come to light more. Who was not yelled at at least one time on thier mission, by at least a zone leader?
We need to talk about this more. We need another Sam Young for this topic. I would gladly volunteer, however my voice no longer carries any weight.
Do not be surprised if the national media on a slow news day takes the recent mormon moments and it becomes a large nation wide story. Then the church will be embarrsed more than ever. That is what the church deserves. Then we should split the 120B who gave every thing to this insuituion for genertions for all the harm they caused us.
I am not angry…i am past that phase after 8 years of transitioning out..but most family in and more emotional abuse is unnecessary.
the Q15 should isolate themselves in sanpete county and turn off the microphone.
Okay, let’s start with protecting the grandmothers of San Pete County, or anywhere else. I agree with those above that said the grandparents may be stronger than we think, or more willing to accept change than we think, but I think of this more in terms of where our responsibility to teach exists. It is job of any person to teach children what is right and what is wrong, not the other way around. As I went through a faith transition, I spent way too much energy worrying about what my parents would think, when my real concern should have been for my children. As a middle-aged man, I can pretend to believe in certain things to avoid pain for my parents, the grandparents of my children, but my real concern should be using the best I know to help my children live their best lives. It is my job to help guide my children’s decision, not to protect my parents from disliking the choices my kids make.
It is interesting to see the discussion about the church changing and where it’s responsibility lies. It’s interesting to see that the Bushman quote says the dominant narrative is not sustainable because it isn’t true. A lot of the arguments both for and against change are about making people comfortable, either protecting the “grandmothers” or allowing space for the (outsider / LGBT / etc). But that isn’t what Bushman was talking about. He was talking about truth. If there is anything that the LDS church should stand for, it is truth and love. If the church leadership is telling the truth and showing love, they shouldn’t worry so much about the grandmothers; the grandmothers will be fine.
Dot, if it didn’t have at least one spelling/grammar error, it wouldn’t be a Bishop Bill post!
My 83-year-old mother grew up in Sanpete County and my deceased father was rescued from post-WWII Germany by Emery County relatives. He’s how they have faced a couple of issues.
When my youngest brother came out as gay after his mission in the ’90s, the folks (and, sadly me too) feed him the church’s position as articulated at the time by DHO with the lingering intense homophobia of SWK, BKP, and HBL.
In the early 2000s, my brother asked dad, “Is there room for me in the family if I am not in the church and if I am living as a gay man?” The answer was a tearful, “Yes”.
I don’t think that came without a lot of previous, wrenching soul searching. Once my brother came for a visit from out of state. He met our parents at a restaurant. My brother took off his jacket, revealing a rather artistic sleeve tattoo on one arm. My dad excused himself, went to the restroom, and threw up. He was so revolted by the “desecration” of my brother’s temple. But he returned to the table, said nothing about it, and had a pleasant meal with his son. Dad was in his 60’s then.
When I visit my mom, it’s clear that she is concerned about “sad heaven”. She asks, “What do you think it will be like for your brother?” We talk about it, imagining something outside of the Sunday School version of the afterlife, and she says, “I think that’s right. I think that’s the way Heavenly Father will do it.”
She worries about my 52-year-old brother who is divorced (and left the church). “I hope he can get married soon so that he can be happy”. I tell her he is happy – and he may or may not get married again, but he will still be happy.
That age group is either hopelessly intractable, or they are having these types of conversations in private. Either way, they won’t be with us long.
We’ve talked at great length in Wheat and Tares about the younger generations. I agree that the church may not (probably won’t) move fast enough to keep them. They really need to be concerned about the 40 to 60 year olds. This is the group with the energy and means to keep the church rolling to the next generation if they can keep us on board. And, believe it or not, we know how to do the Google too.
I’m 60. I have a treasure trove of great Mormon experiences. I would love to be in full fellowship with my Mormon neighbors. I have a long track record of church service. I have financial capacity. I’ve actually got something to offer in the here and now without the busyness of young children at home.
But they set the rules of engagement. I’ve been sidelined. Yeah – I could go and decide what to believe and how to interact with the church and possibly game the system. I did that for a few years and it’s exhausting. I’m so tired of hearing that “I’m not doing it right”.
The formula is flawed: keeping the pensioners (who are probably way more open to change than the leadership believes – or are themselves) and fretting about the youth and young adults, for whom, if we’re being realistic, it is probably too late. I think they need a meaningful focus on the demographic that can actually influence their children and grandchildren. Those that the church needs to thrive for another generation. Take them/us for granted at their own peril.
In the posts above, and in various other posts on this forum, I see a lot of “they are going to lose this or that”, “the church is doing something wrong”, “the brethren/leaders are losing trust”. It seems like many people point fingers at the big THEY, whoever the THEY’S were at the point in time being discussed or the event being discussed. This is the Church of JESUS CHRIST, it’s not the church of Dallin H Oaks or Russell M Nelson. JESUS CHRIST is THE leader. He is in charge.
I don’t doubt that mistakes have been made by leaders of the church, but ultimately I believe that JESUS CHRIST is in charge. Maybe a portion of our life’s testing is learning to trust JESUS even though we may have lost some trust in the leaders He has chosen. Now, if we don’t believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is led by JESUS, then that’s another discussion. But, if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in fact being led by JESUS CHRIST, then any professing membership should trust Him as their leader and exercise patience with those doctrines and people we don’t like or agree with.
Don’t blame leaders of the church for the current state of affairs. Don’t blame them for children not following in the footsteps of their parents. Don’t blame them for LGBTQ issues or gay marriage issues. If you have a problem with these things and any others of the long list of things, remember whose church this is and who is leading it – JESUS CHRIST.
@BWBarnett, so you’re saying we should be blaming JESUS for racism, homophobia, sexism, hoarding of wealth / misuse of sacred tithing funds, and dishonesty in the upper leadership of the Church? Well, that may be RMN’s playbook when he blamed God for the exclusion policy and gave himself credit for setting God straight on it … but in my playbook, that’s the epitome of taking the Lord’s name in vain.
@BeenThere I totally agree on the 40-60 crowd and I’ve experienced / commented on it before. I was in a ward that was very focused on the large population of young married students who were in and out every 3 months. It was an awful ward for the handful of families who lived there permanently (the boundaries in the stake were intentionally drawn to break up the family neighborhood and divide the families between the student populations). I couldn’t help but think – I get that they are concerned about the 20 yr olds who are leaving but if they don’t start ministering today the 40 yr olds they’ll leave too and they’ll take their kids with them.
I think the church takes middle-aged folks for granted. I am seeing a lot of those people leave because they are burned out and, as you mentioned, are also aware of the Internet (and keenly aware of the difference between what they were taught, what the Internet says, and even what’s being taught now as leadership is trying to whitewash not just early church history but more modern history as well).
I’m not holding it against you! (And I really enjoyed this post.)
I have really enjoyed this post and the comments, thus far. I have my own two cents’ worth. My thoughts have been shaped by more than 40 years as a US Defense Department employee, and more than 40 years as a Church member. I joined the Church as a 22 year-old while serving in the USAF.
It is very hard for any large organization to implement significant changes to its cultural environment—whether it be the Defense Department or the Church. Before I retired, there was a rather sour joke in my workplace: what does senior management do when it realizes that it is beating a dead horse? Answer: it continues to beat the dead horse. I think that this also applies to the Church. It is easier for leaders to stick with established policy, even when that doesn’t work very well. Change is extremely painful, and is therefore usually avoided. It is very often psychologically traumatic, especially in a religious community that believes it is a vehicle as God’s chosen people, for special revelation from God, so there really shouldn’t be any need to change things, should there?
To point this out is not an endorsement of the status quo: it also does not attempt to explain WHY things are like this. I have just learned that is the way things ARE.
I believe that the Church will not change in meaningful, significant ways, until it becomes more painful for the Church to stay the way it is, rather than change. And even then, change is not guaranteed! I also think that change is being gradually forced on the Church, however much we might dislike the slowness of the change, and however crankily and sullenly the Church deals with the change.
The. Church can work very well on a local Ward and stake level, if one is blessed with an absence of zealous personalities in leadership positions. The big problem, as I see it, is when leaders, whether on a local or general level, come to regard the institutional church as the primary good in and of itself, rather than focusing on what we can do to proactively bless the lives of people in temporal and spiritual need.
Not very practical thoughts, I am afraid. In the meantime, I try, however inadequately, to follow the Savior’s main commandment to love God and my fellow man.
I have a child on a mission right now but why would anyone join the Church at this point? I’m sure my kid’s talking about peace in Christ but that’s available in a lot of places.
I definitely agree that if the church wants to ensure its near future it should focus on those of us around middle age.
How do you talk to your young sons who are starting to get all the mission talk at church when your own mission, while dotted with good experiences, great people, and some adventure, was also full of full-blown corporate numbers obsession, health neglect to the point that a companion was at death’s door, and the constant threat of being “planched” by the MP or one of his missionary minions?
How do you justify requiring a 10% tithe and accounting for nothing about how it’s used while our age group approaches retirement with questionable financial preparation (not to mention the kids reaching missionary age).
How can you continue to tell us to “hold to the rod” or “stay on the covenant path” while the world moves forward in remarkable ways on civil rights, equality, science, medicine, and a general awareness that we need to be more charitable to one another, animals, and the Earth itself? Can the church really expect most of us to sit down in the dirt while our kids march onward towards greater equality and awareness, trying their best to get us to follow, but eventually growing tired and moving on?
I believe senior leadership in the church is aware of the cultural, structural and doctrinal issues and the growing disconnect between the membership and the legacy approach of the church. The pandemic has only accelerated that disconnect.
My 24-year old son received a survey from the Correlation Research Department. It was a rather lengthy survey that took him over an hour to complete. Many questions were about the structure of the YSA program, such as whether YA’s should choose which YSA unit to attend, whether to eliminate YSA units altogether, whether to continue to have separate YSA activities or to have everything go through institute, etc. There were a bunch of questions on how the church uses social media. Questions on church meetings such as whether SS/RS/EQ meetings were beneficial and uplifting, whether sac meeting should be more “interactive” and so on. Social/cultural questions included on whether he thought the church was too liberal, too conservative, too racist, to anti-LBGT, etc. There were also a bunch of questions about racism, whether he had experienced any himself, whether he felt his unit was too ethnically homogenous, whether the church was doing enough to address racism, and so on. There was also an open ended question at the end for any additional issued that the survey participant wanted to share.
When the brethren said “buckle up” a few conferences ago regarding upcoming changes, it sounds like they meant it. Based on the survey, it looks like there are few things off the table in terms of structural change in how units are organized, how the church operates and how the church engages with the membership. Things could get quite interesting…
I am normally an optimistic guy, but I find Sunday’s to be the most depressing day of the week, so I am in a funky mood right now. It is too late. The Come Follow Me is an absolute shit show. They knew the problems in the early 2000’s at the very latest and have had two decades to try and fix it. Our sacrament talks and priesthood lessons are nothing more than reading talks already given in conference. None of them deal with any problems in a real way. The church isn’t going anywhere. There will still be the diehards that stick around. Most likely, none of my kids will participate in this religion. That thought used to make me sad, but it doesn’t anymore.
Check out this podcast. Michael Austin sums up very well the problems with the church and the youth.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mormon-land/id1289043118?i=1000503332499
As a TBM I didn’t want the Church to change per the wishes of the progressive LDS community because I didn’t think “True Church” decisions should be made that way. “The Church is not a democracy”, I would often say.
As a post-TBM, I still don’t want the Church to change, but my reasons are different. I now recognize that these changes are the simple result of pressure, either internal or external. And the changes seem phony, intended to fool more people. So in a way, the Church just can’t win with me. I admit it.
Example: the POX: it galls me that some members actually believe that the Nov 2015 policy AND the April 2019 reversal were both examples of revelation and that the latter was executed only because our leaders had plead with the Lord for compassion. See how phony that is? So I don’t want change in the Church. I want it to stay just the way it is and let’s see how long it survives.
If there’s just two things I’ve learned at Wheat and Tares, one would be that active membership is often out of touch with less active, disillusioned, unorthodox, or former members of the Church and the varied forms they come in. The second would be that those same groups are equally or more out of touch with the variety among active members. Comments like p’s, regardless how many are made in hyperbole or jest, generally confirm that.
Strip all religion from me, and leave just the cold, calculating, and cautious scientist aspect, and I’d still be convinced that science has not yet adequately answered the LGBTQIA question to the certainty many with more liberal views assert. Strip all religion from me, leave just the social science enjoyer, or the son of a former social worker, and you have a person who believes the relative impact of such relationships on children is worth a second, hard, weighted look . Strip all religion and individualism from me and leave just the aspiring student of anthropological history, and you have someone with concerns for possible LGB roles in general societal destruction. But no, feel free to chalk all that up to my faulty religious convictions and bigotry. You’d still be wrong in that assumption.
I can agree that love is important. I have friends, including a mission companion, who fit this category. On a personal level, they get the same treatment from me that I give everyone else.
There’s about five categories of posts at W & T. This would fit roughly in the “The Church is doomed, and here is why (and never mind that every other prediction of the last 190 years didn’t pan out)” category.
For all the people leaving the Church (I won’t pretend it’s not a problem), it’s still one of the fastest growing on the planet, notwithstanding slower growth. There’s a temptation to attribute this to ignorance associated (often falsely) with baptisms in third world countries. I think that’s an oversimplification. The Utah missions are some of the highest baptizing. My experience is that these are people who join with their eyes (and spirit) wide open. They know what they’re getting into. They’ve weighed things out and have done their homework, but ultimately accepted what came of Moroni’s promise. I think these are things critics are a little too quick to dismiss.
A lot of these studies about youth neglect following those who came back years after leaving. Although that number is likely diminishing as well, for those studies that do mention it, they’ve generally been higher numbers than I would have thought.
Also, for all the dislikes bwbarnett’s comment got, it really would be nice to see W&T more openly confront the reality that about 95% of all conversations on the subject matter they bring up really do pivot on whether one believes the Savior actually leads the Church. Although I’d concede I don’t think it’s entirely either/or all the time, I think it is more so than either orthodox or non-orthodox/non-believers would like to admit.
Eli – I understand where you are coming from. I still actively participate in my ward. I am in the EQ presidency and my wife is in the Primary presidency. I am very much aware of the post Mormon community and what they think and I also have a very good pulse on the church in my area. Your post has a little bit of a “all is well” in Zion vibe combined with a “you evil apostates just want to rag on the church” vibe. I come here to vent, but let me assure you all is not well. Half of our testimony meetings are silent and very seldom does a young or middle aged person get up. Our seminary classes have 10-15 students in them and we have release time and a building just off campus in an area that is at least 70% Mormon and a high school of 1200 students. The last three missionaries that left from my ward all came home after a few months. We have had maybe ten convert baptisms in my ward in the last decade and they have all been from the same demographic. I hate to say it this way, but broke and uneducated. They can’t contribute to running any of the programs and all of them but two have gone inactive and that is only because the last two just got baptized. Kids and part member families make up the other baptisms and they all have remained inactive after the baptizing missionaries leave. With the return of in person meetings our church attendance in Sacrament meeting went from 170 to under 100. There is a good chance at least 35-40 of these people never return. The church has even more numbers than me. They have tithing numbers and temple attendance numbers by age and demographics. They know how many kids get baptized compared to how many get ordained to priesthood, go on missions, get temple recommends etc. They know the problems and don’t know how to fix them. They also know they are old and will die soon and just kick the can down the road. I feel sorry for them, because there is not a solution. Your assertion that this is business as usual and that apostates have always felt this way is valid to an extent, but this time it is very different.
As far as the Savior leading this church. How exactly does this look to you? I don’t think any of our prophets have ever seen Jesus or spoken to Him face to face. But even this is not the issue. I don’t think it matters to many of the youth if this is the one and only true church. They are bored out of their minds and the church is not meeting their needs or wants.
@Eli I generally like your comments but why did you feel like an appropriate reaction to this post was to explain why you think the gays are bad and would think that with or without the church?!?!
Comments from Eli and JLM prompt these thoughts.
In this forum there is a tendency to focus on conceptual problems with church history, doctrine and policy as reasons for people to leave the church. These are genuine problems that have accelerated with the creation of the internet. However, there have been problems with church growth and member retention that predate the internet by a long way. These longstanding problems have to do with a culture that is highly insular.
We have learned how to baptize people. As Eli points out, lots of people join the church because of powerful conversion experiences. This has not stopped, and I don’t see a reason to think it’s going to stop. But we are really bad at integrating people into our group. We baptize a lot of people who think they belong based on their powerful spiritual experiences interacting with missionaries, only to discover that they can’t find a way into the group of general membership. For most converts, it’s sink or swim once you’re baptized, and a whole lot of people have to get out of the pool to avoid drowning. That’s a problem that comes only partially from the questions that Bishop Bill’s post focuses on. For most new converts the problem is mostly about acculturation and social acceptance. The same issues plague lots of members who, for one reason or another, have lost their familiar and comfortable places in the church’s social structure.
Church leaders have understood that this is a problem for a very long time, yet we haven’t come close to solving it. My view is that we are terrible at helping new converts because we haven’t figured out how to be an outward-facing people. Our reference points for building a church community come from our historical experience of escaping to the wilderness and fending for ourselves, by ourselves. We really need to step away from ourselves, so to speak, and think about how we look from the outside.
It’s past time to start reaching out. We tell each other that our worldwide missionary program means we’re reaching out, but we’re really not. Wherever we go, we’re taking with us our need to be safe in our tight, closed group. But this need is something acquired, something learned. We can learn to get beyond it. I hope that when we realize how much we can gain by beginning to turn outward in our service of God’s children, our perspective will change. Many of these problems with doctrine and historical understanding will start to look very different, and they will begin to solve themselves.
@Loursat that’s such a great observation.
A younger, orthodox, prideful version of myself thought that people who left or disengaged because the ward wasn’t meeting their special needs had “weak testimonies” and that I was always going to be strong enough to be active even if I hated my ward.
The current version of me doesn’t seem much point in organized religion / church if it does not provide some kind of community to feel a sense of belonging in. That really should be the point. It seems with ministering they keep tweaking to try to foster community but I think you’re right that the navel-gazing is getting in the way.
About bwbarnett’s comments and if we believe Christ is at the helm – my answer would be no. Otherwise we wouldn’t have the mess that has evolved over the years. I was married in Sanpete County and I’m a grandmother but there any connections ends as I was born overseas. Looking back I see that the church has been a good environment to raise our kids but on the dark side of that I also see the damage and angst that occurs when their belief becomes challenged by Prop 8 or a beloved cousin coming to terms with being gay and concerns over racism. I worry for grandchildren in active families that may be gay – even though I know that their parents would be 100% accepting. The history of such ‘doctrine’ just doesn’t hold water anymore – I no long believe in a God or Christ that would order their church this way. If it’s all true then you can’t change things. So that makes it not true for me. I’m hating the pandemic but it’s made non-church attendance easier in my evolving mixed faith marriage.
Loursat is asking a lot of the church. An organization that has been reliably insular, at times hostile to ‘outsiders’, but always projecting an air of unquestionable authority will have to listen and maybe make changes accordingly. The leadership structure–complete agreement on significant change–prevents dramatic change from happening, and no, I don’t consider any of RMN’s changes to be dramatic. Think back to the end of the priesthood ban and how it took the death of certain members of the Q15 for that to even be possible decades after the church’s racism received serious attention. For the church, the current crisis is more existential but perhaps less perilous because the organization has billions with which to shield itself (see Scientology, Church of, for more on the benefits of having wacky beliefs but tons of money).
I would imagine, particularly given recent addresses by church leaders, that many are taking the same approach bwbarnett offers above. The church is led by Christ, so why would you leave? To acknowledge the departures and the lack of trust may be to question whether Christ really is in charge, but the current approach is the equivalent of standing on the deck of the Titanic and proclaiming, with great consternation, that this boat CAN’T sink because it is unsinkable.
I see that the church opposes the equality bill.
Sunday was ward conference. We had a councillor in the stake president present priesthood time. He tried to be enthusiastic, talked about being in the boat, taking our vitamin pills etc but got very little reaction. He referred to RMN changes as revelations. The first 30 minutes he talked about supporting fathers to keep the aaronic priesthood active. When I pointed out that there were young women too, he said he had a daughter, but continued about aaronic priesthood.
I said I think we were writing off most of our youth by persisting with sexism and homophobia.
Another old brother responded by telling us that schools were no longer allowed to call boys boys, or girls girls. I had not heard this before, and this brother is one of the few that talks to me, so I waited to look it up till I got home. I gather it was a right wing report on a sexual awareness programme in one school in Usa. And was lies.
A fortnight ago we had a lesson on the new changes to the handbook, which I thought would cover the section about conspiracy theories, and only repeating truth, but it was about the new softer tone.
“All are alike unto God black and white, male and female, gay and straight.” Has been quoted reguarding the new attitude to racism, but the leadership don’t seem to realise discrimination against anyone is unacceptable, or don’t realise what they are doing is discrimination.
3 of my 4 children are active. 4 of my 12 grandchildren are active, (one of these is married), 4 are living with partners, and 7 are not yet partnered, 2 of my 4 great grandchildren are born to one active grandchild, the other 2 are not born into the church.
So it may be that 3 of my great grandchildren will be active, so numbers may be maintained (3 children, 3 great grandchildren), but the potential growth is lost to the church, but all my grandchildren are good moral people. But not by church standards.
Reality is that parents, and grandparents are affected by the lives of their descendants.
Zach,
I can agree that not all is not completely well in Zion (if I did I’d probably be slowly dragged down to hell). And no, I don’t think everyone here is apostate, but I do not think the degree of pessimism this blog so often displays is both unwarranted and not as accurate as they would have you believe. I come here to learn and gain sympathy and empathy for others. I may have gone about as far as I can go, and returning the favor on occasion seems more and more fruitless. Having said that, there are things I’ve learned here that I have tried to do better to “use in my daily life” as the saying goes.
Elisa,
With respect, though I probably could have worded things a little better, you’ve also misrepresented me. I did not say gays are inherently bad. In fact, I did say they deserve love. I do differ on the best way to express that, and think that expression needs to account for everyone affected by it.
I feel like posts from BB and other bloggers here imply that the only reason anyone would ever be against gay marriage (not gay people themselves) is because of false religious conviction and bigotry. He made the case that maybe there’s more to people than we realize. I was simply trying to show that maybe people who still think differently than he does don’t do it for all the reasons he and so many other bloggers here do, and that there’s likely more to them than they realize..
Additionally, I refuse to be pulled into an either/or situation. If, based on experience, I believe a disproportionate amount of gay relationships adversely affect children in comparison to most other relationships, does my pro children attitude need to be ignored by you and others and simply be slapped with a “gays are bad label?” Implying it’s all or nothing with respect to LGBTQIA issues oversimplifies the issues, muzzles the conversation, and demeans other aspects of humanity that need fully be explored while expressing love for our brothers and sisters. I really wish more would realize that. I think quickly slapping labels on so many conservatives without asking the right questions is one reason why they stubbornly stand their ground and are equally less inclined to return conversation.
I agree that it’s a mistake for the Church to worry about protecting the hypothetical grandmothers. The elderly members are so deeply invested in their membership that there is not much the Church could do to compel them to leave–I’ll wager that even opening the priesthood to women or authorizing temple sealings for same-sex couples wouldn’t shake them. They might groan a bit initially, but they are far too socially dependent on their church community to leave. Any people of that generation who had serious doubts about the Church made the decision to stay or leave decades ago, probably while they were in their 30s-40s. Their own child-rearing days are long past (and perhaps they are carrying regrets about their own parenting failures), so they aren’t as concerned about raising up the next righteous generation. My boomer parents (mid-70s), who were active-but-lukewarm Latter-day Saints when I was growing up, actually became more intensely devout members after they retired and the last of my siblings moved out of the house. However, half of my siblings are now totally out of the Church, as are a large percentage of my peer-group cousins. This is not a sustainable model for any organization. I don’t know if its too late for the Church as a whole, but it’s definitely too late for lots and lots of individual people. For many, the damage has been done, and all the apologies, policy reversals and transparency in the world wouldn’t bring them back (ironically, in contrast to the steady, stalwart Sanpete County grandmothers who would stay no matter what).
Eli
I appreciate your willingness to engage. We’ve been hearing the perils of “disproportionate gay marriage” for a long time. DHO even said once that if everyone practiced same sex marriage the world would die out in a generation.
True but absurd. Gay marriage will be exactly proportional to the number of gays and lesbians. Making it legal will not create new gays or lesbians. Gays and lesbians will continue to procreate at the same rate they always have – Zero Percent.
As to whether or not same sex couples should be *allowed* to use modern fertility options to have children, it would once again not become significantly disproportional.
I am not directing the following to Eli, I have no idea what his thoughts are on these next issues.
Adoption? We adopted a little six-year-old orphan from Korea. His tiny body had scars from cigarette burns and scars around his rectum from being raped. There are millions like him waiting for a loving adopted family.
The adoption process is long and expensive. When you finally are approved you have been vetted seven ways from Sunday. Hetro couples can breed without qualification or restraint. Same sex couples have been scrutinized and deemed to have the ability and resources to become good parents.
To any heterosexuals that oppose adoption by same sex couple I say, “Then step up and adopt them yourself. Take in all the orphans. Until then, shut up and let some decent human beings get those kids out of an unforgiving, traumatizing, cold, depressing, unloving, and often vile circumstance and into a loving home where they have a chance to overcome their very unfortunate lot in life.”
There is an element of truth to the phrase “you can’t take the orphan out of the kid” – but you sure as hell can take a kid out of an orphanage. To me, this is one of those “put or shut up” issues.
@Eli,
I don’t deny that there are anti-gay folks outside of religion. There are also lots of racists and sexists and whatever-else-ists outside of religion, and I agree that religion doesn’t have a monopoly on bias. In general, religion doesn’t so much create prejudice as it reproduces prejudice (and stamps it with the imprimatur of God, which I think is blasphemous). I still fail to understand what your comment had to do with the post or the responses? That connection remains unclear to me. You might accuse W&T of being an echo chamber but I can go to Church if I want to hear people talk about why gay marriage is bad. That’s not why I come here, and the OP didn’t invite that discussion.
I wrote and deleted a really long response to your harmful and destructive comments about gay marriage and children in gay families. I don’t want those comments to go unaddressed but I also don’t have the energy to debate that here (and, as mentioned, I do not believe the OP invited that discussion). I have no idea what scientific studies or “personal experience” you are relying on here, but since you didn’t cite any, it’s sort of hard to address. I will just say this: to the extent you believe that gay relationships or children with same-sex parents face extra hurdles, perhaps you should consider whether that very attitude CREATES those hurdles because they are treated as inferior, second-class, “counterfeit” marriages and families. Why would anyone be surprised that they might struggle as a result?
If you care about children as you claim to do, support them in whatever kind of families they find themselves in. If you care about gay people as you claim to do, support their choice to form committed spousal relationships. Gay people exist whether you like it or not (and whether you agree it’s biological or environmental or whatever – doesn’t really matter). Gay families exist whether you like it or not. So frankly, I could not care less about your personal experience that you believe has proven to you that those families are inferior. So what. Support them anyway. The Church should too.
And yes, it’s either / or. You can’t have it both ways to try to make yourself feel better about denying gay people their humanity and their rights while claiming you still love them. I try to reject dualism but I’m dualistic when it comes to words and actions that do violence to the spirits and bodies of our gay brothers and sisters. We are either a homophobic Church that denies gay people their humanity and their God-given right and need to form intimate human connections or we aren’t — and no matter how we might try to sugarcoat it so that we don’t look so damn bigoted, on the whole our Church is homophobic when it comes to official policies, doctrine, and political positions. And we as members can either stand complicit with the violence the Church is doing to our gay brothers and sisters or we can reject it.
See also https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.5406/dialjmormthou.50.2.0001.pdf.
Elisa,
Glad you are open and honest about why you come here. I wish W&T was a little more open and honest as well, because I do feel there is somewhat of a disconnect there. If it’s meant mainly for people with just your attitude, maybe they should advertise that just a little better. I also didn’t post links because I agreed that wasn’t the crux of the conversation, of which I have a bad habit of derailing far too often.
You can call me a bigot and I still think you’d be wrong. My gay friends would also probably think you’re wrong, but my life will go on as I intend regardless of what you think. I generally enjoy your input, but I really do feel your view borders a liberal equivalent of tunnel vision of so many Latter Day Saint attitudes you loathe. Deep down, I’d like to think that if allowed to expand the conversation, we’d come to some small amount of understanding, but I too lack the energy to debate it. And, yes, I’m always reassessing my own attitude and any hurdles it might create for others, but thanks for the reminder.
I can also appreciate the fact that you created a longer response before deleting it. Thanks for putting the time in. I’ve done that here many a time. If nothing else, it’s at least somewhat of a therapeutic and introspective process.
BeenThere,
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but I wasn’t really referring to a fear of Gays and Lesbians creating more Gays and Lesbians (neither of which I really “fear” in the first place), but just the general impact these relationships have on children.
@Eli, thanks for your response.
I will own my liberal tunnel-vision when it comes to homophobia, sexism, and racism. I think there’s no room for it in the kingdom of God or the Body of Christ. I have lost patience for the justifications I’ve heard repeated over so many years (some of which I used to give myself) that perpetuate these ungodly practices and try to recast them as godly.
I don’t think you are a bigot and I’m sorry if my comment came across that way. I don’t like to label people. I don’t doubt that you are kind to gay people in your life even if you hold views I think they would be hurt by, and I appreciate that you keep coming to back to this spot on the internet even though you tend to get piled-up on. I am trying to be hard on institutions, soft on people, and sometimes with Church it is hard to separate the two (as either the giver or receiver of criticism). I wish there were more people like you in Church who were willing to engage and take a glimpse into someone else’s liberal tunnel-vision — we’d be in a better place, and maybe more of the crazy liberals would be inclined to stick around at Church (though I fear there are many — not you, I don’t think — who’d rather see us go).
Eli
You said: “I believe a disproportionate amount of gay relationships adversely affect children in comparison to most other relationships . . .”. I took that as as a proportionate comparison of the number of same-sex marriages compared to the total number of marriages. If you meant it as that children in same-sex families have a higher rate of adverse outcomes – you can ignore my proportionality comments – don’t want to ascribe DHO’s poor logic to you.
Comparison studies of outcomes in hetro vs. same-sex marriage are far from definitive at this time because such marriages have not been legal in much of the world for complete longitudinal studies.
But even if it ends up with hetro marriages winning the day, the vast majority of the children come from the adoption pools. Since hetro adoption isn’t filling the need, the true comparison is are the kiddos better off in an orphanage/foster system or in a family with same-sex parents.
Those studies aren’t in either. So I will state a belief that the kiddos will be better off in a home than in the system. Hard to imagine that wouldn’t be the case.
We’ve got a bunch of “the least of these” that need love now. Need to be able to live without so much fear. What are we if we stand in the way of that because we don’t approve of gay’s getting married and raising kids?
@Eli, I have a comment that appears to be stuck in moderation. Hopefully it becomes unstuck but in the meantime, I certainly didn’t mean to suggest I think you personally are a bigot — only that church practices / policies / teachings are rooted in bigotry. There’s a difference, explained more in my comment, but wanted to put that out there ;-).
Elisa, “I can go to Church if I want to hear people talk about why gay marriage is bad.” Is this literal? Or a reference to the past Proc 8 campaign, etc. I hear nothing at all about it at Church, except only when I fail to tune out DHO entirely when he’s back on that particular hobby horse in general conference. Do we still have people in ward and stake meetings carrying on about it?
Yes, we do. My ward/school for example: https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/murray-school-district-suspends-diversity-book-program-over-complaints
@Wondering, sadly, yes for me. That is not an exaggeration.
@wondering I can’t speak for the last four years or so, but prior to that I was frequently in youth classes as an adult leader for many years. Homophobic rhetoric was pretty much constant from some of the other leaders and teachers during that time. For some it seemed like a a huge hobby horse, the only thing they cared about. There gist of the message was, “Hollywood wants you to think this is okay, but it’s not.” On the other hand, I don’t think I ever heard one of the youth say anything anti gay.
I have heard less in sacrament or adult Sunday school, but it definitely comes up in general conference, and not just from DHO (citation needed).
Your question about this to Elisa makes me realize that there may be fewer people talking this way than I thought. But they are the vocal people in my ward.
Wondering, I attend a Wasatch Front ward. I hosted an empty nester family home evening group where a ward sister sitting in my living room looking at pictures of my daughter and her wife made comments about people choosing to be gay. One of the last Sunday School lessons my junior high age granddaughter attended prior to the Covid shutdown was a pretty harsh condemnation of homosexuality and gay marriage. There are 3 young people I know of connected to my ward who have been told by very active and committed family members (one a bishop) that they will not attend family events if the gay person also attends. One of these family bans has apparently been eased, but the other two are still in place. In my experience, hostility and condemnation have not gone anywhere.
Elisa, Rockwell, PWS, I wish there were no longer a basis for such reports, but I guess I’ve either been sheltered from such talk now for years or it generally doesn’t happen where I am. I had one kid make a homophobic remark in SS about 25 years ago. Perhaps my strong reaction putting down that kind of talk told the others not to do it around me. Somewhere around 30 years ago as a bishopric counselor I stopped our ward from using a church-produced video (the raging-hormones/whitewater rafting video) on grounds that its homophobic conclusion in SWK’s voice would be extremely damaging to any gay youth in our ward and we didn’t know who they were and so could not explain or soften it in any appropriate way. Also about 30 years ago the subject came up in a high priests group discussion. I entertained myself trying to guess who would express what attitudes according to what I knew of their politics or rigidity about church teachings. My guesses were often wrong. There was no correlation between homophobic attitudes and politics or rigidity. Instead, accepting or rejecting attitudes were correlated with having a valued friend or relative who was known to be gay. Otherwise, there have been no reports to me of such talk in my ward except one ward council I heard of when the HP Group Leader was inappropriately negatively vocal about a bishopric counselor’s teenage daughter claiming to be a lesbian. (I say “claiming” because she was quite young and her subsequent behavior over the next few years strongly suggests that to have been a self-misdiagnosis. I’m supposing she had never heard of bisexuality.) I guess I’ve been lucky. There was not even a backlash of any kind when I refused the stake president’s inquiry whether he could give my name to somebody in Texas as a potential donor to the Prop 8 campaign. (BTW, I didn’t live in CA and was spared the brunt of that ill-conceived campaign built on falsehoods that had been pointed out by some stake leaders to certain responsible people at KMc even quite early in the campaign. I wish others could be so lucky.
Do we think the Church has a financial interest in keeping younger, well-educated members? Taking a long view, I had assumed they would, but after the OP and comments, I wonder: Is the older generation (i.e., those in power in the Church) more interested in just having a grand old time with that $100B?
@Elisa asked “BWBarnett, so you’re saying we should be blaming JESUS for racism, homophobia, sexism, hoarding of wealth / misuse of sacred tithing funds, and dishonesty in the upper leadership of the Church?”
I’m not saying that one should blame Jesus for the list of ills facing our world. What I am saying is that if Jesus is leading the church and people are blaming the church for its alleged poor handling of the list of ills, they are blaming Jesus. What other logical conclusion could one come to?
This post is full of instances of the words “the church”. If you search in your browser for “the church” here, the entire post lights up. Replace “the church” with “Jesus” in some of these instances and it makes you think. All instances of “the church” don’t lend themselves well to this exercise, but here are a few:
“if JESUS wants a chance to try and thrive in the future the historical, doctrinal and social narrative of JESUS must change.”
“JESUS is deeply broken and almost completely incapable, in [His] current institutional formulation, of dealing with a host of significant modern problems.”
“Then JESUS will be embarrassed more than ever. That is what JESUS deserves.”
“I think JESUS takes middle-aged folks for granted.”
“Can JESUS really expect most of us to sit down in the dirt while our kids march onward towards greater equality and awareness”
“They are bored out of their minds and JESUS is not meeting their needs or wants.”
You get the idea.
Another minor theme I’ve noticed in this post is that “it is too late, there is no hope, there is no solution”. This is unequivocally false. The solution is simple. It’s definitely difficult for most (or all) of us, but it is simple – Repent.
Repent everyone, everywhere. Conservatives, liberals, black, white, members, non-members, former members. Humble ourselves, repent and trust in God. THAT’S the solution! Along the lines of “broken heart and contrite spirit”.
@bwbarnett, you seem to be willfully misreading the point of this post and others at this blog: in a church led by Jesus through men and women on Earth, it is theologically valid and practically useful to recognize that the institution, as embodied and carried on by people living today, is not necessarily the direct, infallible, expression of the living mind and will of God. Therefore, it is possible and necessary to point out where the Church can and (maybe) should change, without directly tying its faults today or in the future to the mind and will of God. Furthermore, the use of “the Church” as opposed to “Jesus” in most of this and other posts is easily and simply explained by the desire to avoid the too frequent repetition of the name of the Lord, to avoid taking it in vain. This practice is common in many religious traditions, including in our own in the name of the Melchizedek Priesthood. Given all that, I don’t think your most recent post is contributing usefully to the discussion.
“What other logical conclusion could one come to?”
I compare lines of logical reasoning to a numerical solution of a complicated math problem. If the premise is wrong, the results will be wrong – otherwise known as Garbage In, Garbage Out. However, even if the problem is set up correctly and the numerical integrators are all well conditioned and correctly programmed and used within their regions of convergence, the solution can still be drastically different from the truth if the step size is wrong. Many so-called logical conclusions in rhetoric are like numerical solutions to differential equations produced using Euler’s method with very large step sizes, extrapolated to infinity, applied outside the numerical region of convergence – the process used to achieve the solution is only useful over short distances for very small, careful steps. We cannot see the end from the beginning.
@BWBarnett, we are obviously not operating under the same set of assumptions so this is probably not fruitful.
I do not think Jesus is whispering into the prophet’s ear to do all those things I was complaining about. I do not think Jesus is causing these problems. Rather, I blame human frailty for them. It is you who is pinning them on Jesus by conflating “the Church” (which is made up of, and yes at least on earth led by, a bunch of humans) and “Jesus” as though Jesus is micromanaging every handbook change. I doubt that is the case. I’ve certainly seen no evidence that suggests as much.
It’s nonsensical to try and protect Grandmothers. What a lack of respect and complete misunderstanding of what difficulty these women have been through in their lives while still being active in church. Do you honestly think that they haven’t already questioned everything?
Regardless, this generation of Grandmothers are the ones who need this the most because based on the chart above, they are the ones that are seriously having to deal with a Grandchild that’s gay more so than any other time in history.
I’d love to see the stats on how many grandmothers have at least one gay grandchild.
Regarding conflating “the Church” and “Jesus”: if Mormon saw fit to refer to “the Church” in the Book of Mormon when discussing problems in Nephite and Lamanite society rather than substituting “Jesus” in all those references, we can do the same. After all, the Nephite church had just as much claim to being led directly by God as ours does.
Elisa,
I stepped away for at least 24 hours or so I could cool down a bit, take my routine self-assessing up a notch, and prepare for the coming onslaught I’d likely be facing coming back. Instead, I came back to find nothing but kindness. In all sincerity, thank you. There’s a part of me that would like to further the discussion and offer a greater understanding of why I am the way that I am (as opposed to actual counter-arguments), but for now, I’ll leave that for another, more appropriate discussion and be content with the understanding you’ve both afforded and given me. I do believe many of your comments are one of the dwindling reasons I continue to allow myself to come here.
BeenThere,
Yes, that is what I meant. I apologize for not making that clearer (I know three languages, and English, my native language, is easily the most difficult). Thanks for the follow up response as well.
The Church needs to give members a reason to stay. Let’s emphasize mission #4: Working with the poor and those in need.
Let’s de-emphasize DHO’s religious freedom crusade (the world views this as a cover for discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community) and work for the dead. Let’s rethink our church buildings, they are barely used. And with 2-hr church services and an emphasis on more religious instruction in the home and in small groups, Church building are rapidly becoming obsolete. Empty relics of the past. Abstaining from coffee and tea makes most members roll their eyes.
We can’t change our history, but we can change which doctrine to emphasize. I suspect that work for the dead isn’t a real winner when it comes to energizing younger members. I’ve become a broken record, but over half of the members now live in developing countries. The majority need our help, as do their neighbors. The Church has the personnel and finances to do a lot more.
Inoculation and apologists aren’t the answer. It’s getting closer to Christ’s actual message that would seem to be the winner. Working with the downtrodden would fit in well with Christ’s basic message.
@Eli your strategy of stepping away and self-assessing is something I should do more often w/r/t Internet participation, which can escalate so quickly. Thanks for your comment.
@Rockwell
In our ward a 15 year old girl came out to her parents a few months ago. She had asked her parents several times over the last year to stay home from church. The parents weren’t in favor of it, but finally said yes. Then she came outta only them and they knew the reason.
She got depression because of all the Anti-Gay language from teachers and friends. It got so bad she had to be hospitalized for suicidal ideation. This is what the church is doing to our young people.
Eli, thanks for your input. I appreciate all points of view, and believe it or not try to modulate my posts to be more even handed. Please keep coming back and providing comments!
I was so sad to see the Methodist split coming out in the news right after this post.
@Pontius Python – I missed your response earlier. It looks like it may have been delayed in being “approved” or whatever.
1. I believe there are instances when men and women in leadership positions in the church make mistakes.
2. I believe the prophet’s words are the Lord’s words. The Lord says this himself – “For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.” (D&C 21:5)
3. I wasn’t suggesting that we forevermore replace the words “the church” with “Jesus”. I was calling our attention to the fact that when we complain about something the church is doing or not doing, or blame “the church”, we are complaining to or blaming Jesus since ultimately He is the leader of it. Lehi told his son Nephi, “And now, behold thy brothers murmur, saying it is a hard thing which I have required of them; but behold I have not required it of them, but it is a commandment of the Lord.” RMN and DHO and etc., have not required it of us, but it is a commandment of the Lord. So when people murmur and lash out at the prophets, like Lehi, I would say on behalf of the prophets, “Don’t murmur to me or blame me, take it up with the Lord. It is His commandment.”
4. I agree with the garbage-in, garbage-out idea. I prefer the simpler “If A then B” definition of logic as opposed to the “differential equations, Euler’s method and step sizes” idea 😉 But I see your point. Jesus leads the church, but through fallible men and women. So when these fallible men and women err, it is not the mind and will of the Lord … I agree. In the 200-year history of the latter-day church, there have been some significant and some less significant changes. I don’t claim to know the history behind all of those changes, but I question the level of blaming, name-calling, murmuring, etc., found here at W&T and directed toward “the church” as an effective way for change to come about. If I scream loud and long enough for say pornography use to be acceptable behavior to the Lord, will “the church” change it? Maybe. Martin Harris murmured long enough to be allowed to take the 116 manuscript pages. The Lord allowed it, but it had bad consequences. The children of Israel murmured long enough to be fed meat and were give several feet of quail. It didn’t work out too well for some of them.
Hmmm, my gut reaction (like a few others) is that the W&T crowd are in a bit of a bubble when it comes to how dire the situation for the Church is. I certainly wish the Church would change! But I’m pessimistic.
At 30, I am no longer part of the YSA/youth/rising generation of the Church, so I confess I may be out of touch. But my brother, in his early twenties, is part of Gen Z (if on the older end), and I’m fairly certain he and his friends are match the description of my friends below.
I’m gay. My friends have all been perfectly accepting of me. I mean, it’s hard to think of a single unkind or even awkward thing any of them have said. If I got married, they would all come. If I had to stay at one of their homes overnight for some reason, like visiting them from out of town or something, I am confident they would put me and my boyfriend up in a guest room with one bed, without a second thought. We remain very close.
But also, none of them are leaving the Church for my sake. None of them are holding back their paying tithing in protest. They just mostly don’t think about the Church’s position on homosexuality in their day-to-day lives. And I think my brother’s friends are the same. They don’t care about homosexuality, and they probably consider themselves allies, but they’re not leaving the Church over it. The *only* thing that might change this is when they start raising their own queer kids. But then again, my parents and siblings have been nothing but supportive of me–and they’ve never left the Church. Over the course of my life, I bet one or two of my friends will withdraw from the Church, but that is about all I expect.
Now in some big macro sense, of course as more people personally identify as queer, those people are themselves leaving the Church. And absolutely, more people are also leaving the Church today over racism or sexism or historical issues, than were leaving the Church twenty years ago. But this is much more akin to death-by-a-thousand-cuts than it is to an imminent collapse. My personal expectation is that, if the Church makes no major changes (i.e. female ordination or endorsing same-sex marriage), thirty or forty years from now, the Church will be *slightly* smaller than it is today: A Utah that is 45% Mormon rather than 65%, but with those losses made up by consistent-but-not-crazy growth in Africa and Asia. Mostly, I think reports of the Church’s death among new generations have been greatly exaggerated.
Christian V.
I think when we supplement our personal experience with some fairly large studies by Jana Reiss, Gregory Prince, and the church itself, we get a better grasp of the scope of the shifts.
For example, in the U.S. 80% of 30-year-old members have stopped attending – probably because of the death-by-a-thousand cuts you describe. That is compared to 60% across all age groups. Projecting that into the future, even if the trend does not accelerate, we will see overall U.S. membership and activity fall precipitously just as it has in Europe.
Right now, North America financially subsidizes the the rest of the world’s membership, even Europe and the U.K.. As membership grows in the 2nd and 3rd worlds, doing our own janitorial work will not be enough without some fairly drastic changes.
The percentage of Mormon’s in Utah is falling so fast not because of loss of membership but because of non-members moving to Utah. Not sure how important that is to the discussion.
Some of the above mentioned studies go into the reasons various groups leave the church. We may quibble over the reasons, but the fact is that the well-crafted studies demonstrate that it is happening at an ever increasing rates among all demographics, and most especially among younger groups.
At the end if the day, Mormonism may end up as the craft beer of Christianity: small loyal following at a premium cost.
My relatively large western European ward is not shrinking, no-one is upset about Church policy toward LGBT issues, historicity problems, sexism, racism, other policies or political leanings or whatever. The youth and young adult programs are strong – even in the Corona-limited world.
The ward just works, by and large, and is anchored by a few multi-generational families. But ward growth is only babies and move-ins, thanks to favorable geography and a good social dynamic. And elsewhere is the country my sense is the Church is shrinking, as secularism grows.
In reference to a past post, I don‘t see the Church‘s decline related to it‘s U.S. roots, even though Europeans on the whole are further left on the political spectrum vs. the U.S. If Europeans could have voted for Trump he would have got maybe 20% of their vote?