I just got off a meeting with a person whose company does marketing for businesses like ours. Her approach was honest but bewildering. She asked herself a series of rhetorical questions, which she then answered. She spent most of the “pitch” talking to herself, occasionally asking us if that made sense. I mean, did I literally understand the meaning of her words? Yes. Did I want to use her company’s marketing services as a result of this pitch? No.
Elder: With that baptism, you’ll be well on your way to our Celestial Kingdom package. What will it take to get you in a font today?
Investigator: [looking over the offer] Well, I’m not so sure about this tithing requirement. Also, I enjoy a drink every now and again.
Elder: That’s OK, that’s fine. We’ve got another package that might be right for you, our Terrestrial package. It also comes with baptism, but you don’t have to worry about those other things. What do you say?
Investigator: [continuing to read the fine print] Well, I also want to keep having sex with my girlfriend.
Elder: You sure do drive a hard bargain. We’ve actually got another package that sounds like a perfect fit. Our Telestial package ALSO comes with baptism. So, what do you say? Can we get you in that font today?
Mission skit from Spain, Las Palmas mission, 1990
There have been many different missionary approaches over the years. My mission was somewhat unique in following the Alvin Dyer model, which relied a lot on the emotion of the moment rather than full disclosure of what the church experience was really going to be like. Dyer specifically said that they would find out / figure out all that stuff later, after they were baptized. Dyer would say that it works because it’s the spirit (or emotion) that converts the person, not the facts (and requirements?). There’s some truth to that because as we know from Jonathan Haidt’s research, people only think they know why they believe what they believe. In reality, it’s mostly based on feelings and post hoc justifications that sound rational to the believer.
On the flip side, I’ve been reading Steve Hassan’s book about how mind control techniques are used to get people to join cults, based on his experience as a former Moonie and as someone who has deprogrammed and done therapy with former cult members for decades. One of the hallmarks of a cult, or to use his preferred phrasing organizations that exert undue influence, is that they do not fully disclose up front what the requirements are. Instead they rely on tactics like “lovebombing,” fellowshipping, “flirt to convert,” highly emotional experiences, thought-stopping, social pressure, partial truths, fear-mongering, and in his case, sleep deprivation and isolation. Nobody would go from Jewish college student, working toward life goals (as Hassan was when cult members approached him) to Christian worshipper of a Korean authoritarian, selling pamphlets on the street to strangers, if that was what was disclosed on day one. It’s only through the series of steps that the commitment increases and the fear of life outside the group is created.
Hassan’s experience is of course very different from the experience of someone who is raised belonging to a church, and not all church experiences are equal. His term “undue influence” makes more sense in a variety of contexts. This isn’t just about churches or high demand organizations. It can apply to MLMs, institutions like the police or the military, and any group that withholds information from its members so that they commit, and then expects loyalty to leaders, even in contradiction of one’s conscience, using emotion to manipulate and instill phobias in members.
“I have a hard time with historians because they idolize the truth. The truth is not uplifting; it destroys.“
Boyd Packer, 1976
- So what would a more honest, but less effective marketing pitch from missionaries sound like?
- Would you have joined the church if you knew everything you do now? Why or why not?
- Is baptizing 8 year olds done in bad faith, given that an 8-year old has done no research into world religions and is just pleasing parents? Or is baptism not really a life-long commitment as Bednar seems to think, curttailing future life choices like missionary service?
- If you served a mission, did you feel you withheld information converts needed to make an informed decision?
- Is there a way to balance honesty and still make church membership enticing to outsiders? What would you propose?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
It’s always interesting to think about whether those of us born into the church would have converted had it been presented to us later in life. For the vast majority, I would think the answer is a clear “no.” Growing up as children, we simply inherit (and are indoctrinated into) religious belief as part of our family and cultural tradition, similar to inheriting a political party or sports team. As we grow and mature and begin to think more independently, some (many?) of us may change those inherited beliefs and traditions if they don’t fit with our evolving views and beliefs. Or we might stay marginally involved and do it our way (e.g., cafeteria Mormonism).
Had I not been born into a Mormon family, I would no more consider joining the Mormon church as an adult than I would consider joining the JWs or another high-demand “weird” religion now. Can I imagine at this point in my life right now having a discussion with JWs, reading their Watchtower pamphlets, and becoming enamored with and wanting to joint their church? – of course not! Who would but a very few (similar to adults who joint our church)? But had I been born into the JW church, I would likely be in the same position there that I am now with Mormonism.
I find adult converts to our church – who are truly religiously converted and not just joining due to, say, a spouse being a member – are very unique individuals who are really religiously inclined. There is something in their DNA that makes them very attuned to “spiritual things,” like a personal closeness to God and finding spiritual truth, that is not found in the general population. That’s why there are so few real religious converts – it takes a unique person who is willing to make that huge leap (and continue to stay) even after becoming aware of all the weirdness and commitment required.
One of the most beautiful-awkward moments in The Mandalorian is when the titular character meets other Mandalorians from a different group, with less radical practices.
This is so much so that it became a meme among former members of high-demand religions, with the caption:
“Am I in a cult?!”
Wow, lots of angles here. First, where do you draw the line between influence and undue influence? In the legal context, undue influence (a basis to rescind a contract or agreement) requires that the undue influencer have some sort of position of authority over the target as well as that the influencer take unfair advantage of the target (suggesting the influencer gets some sort of personal gain from the interaction). It’s not clear that a missionary vis-a-vis a convert or has any power/authority nor that he/she gets any personal gain. So while using the term “undue influence” might be better than just throwing “cult” around, I think it’s stretching the normal use of the term and confusing some who hear it.
A better comparison is with minors. A minor is not deemed to have capacity to make a legally binding contract in most cases. The Church does not allow baptism of minors without parental consent. So the Church is respecting that bright line.
Missionary pitch: Well, few missionaries know much about LDS history (the real stuff) and Mission Presidents aren’t much better educated. What would “informed consent” look like in a missionary-convert scenario? I guess my rejoinder would be that in the Internet Age any convert who joins without doing their own research (two hours with their laptop will probably do) deserves what they get if they don’t like what they get, but most people don’t seem to have much trouble reversing their decision if they change their mind.
The LDS practice of baptizing 8-year-olds deserves a longer dive. It’s a strange compromise between infant baptism and adult baptism, isn’t it? It offers the advantages of infant baptism (they can’t really say no) coupled with the institutional ability to claim in later years that the baptizee agreed to it and knowingly covenanted to do this and that, blah, blah, blah. It would be more in line with LDS doctrine to push baptism back to age 18, but we all know how that would turn out.
Packer’s statement that the truth destroys is correct, if you base your feelings of spiritual safety and your view of reality on black and white, all or nothing, true or false narratives that simply cannot endure the pressure of the constantly changing, colorful, variegated and gray world around us.
Yes; real life (as God made it) will destroy these simple narratives for most people who actually do study, ponder and pray. In full spiritual maturity, a person has to accept the reality of uncertainty. Our spiritual narrative must become more complex.
Real friendship and connection also requires an acceptance of the reality of uncertainty. Friendship requires vulnerably offering your real self, otherwise it isn’t really friendship.
Years ago I was a member missionary in every circumstance because I was honest and connected with others and never withheld my deep enjoyment of the church or pretended it was more perfect than it is. I had a good nonmember friend who started having repeated spiritual discussions with me. We started meeting weekly for these discussions of the scriptures and our spiritual experiences. Eventually we included the missionaries.
Naturally polygamy came up in our discussion, and I immediately answered my friend’s questions, revealing my family’s polygamist roots, and explaining the good and bad stories about this practice from my family history.
Shortly after this the bishop called me in to tell me I needed to honor the young Elders authority and let them respond to my friend’s questions instead of responding myself. The missionaries were angry that I had answered my friend’s questions about polygamy.
I told my friend about this and we never invited the missionaries to our discussions again. The very idea that I would be dishonest and deceptive about polygamy with my friend so he would join the church is toxic to my relationships. The idea that I would be loyal to an institution in front of my relationships is toxic. The idea that I need to be silent because the Elders have authority to control private friendship discussions is toxic. The idea that the narrative should be controlled so my friend doesn’t really get his questions answered before he decides to join (or not) is toxic.
When is the church going to learn that being transparent and honest, acting with integrity, and honoring the personal agency and differentiation of others, is the foundational basis of all relationships, both between people and between people and institutions? The cultural approach to relationship in the church is toxic. I grieve over that.
Aeons ago as a missionary I carefully read Gordon B. Hinckley’s “Truth Restored” booklet. I carefully highlighted and annotated it’s flaws. After a considerable period of study that ran into my university years, I found that I had highlighted about 80% of that work! I learned that church leaders were largely ignorant of our actual history and that we ( as an organization) had created a founding myth. Yes, there were some historical and even spiritual truths in Hinckley’s myth. I decided that I would have to come to conclusions regarding the founding myths of Mormonism. Which historical and spiritual elements were true? Was what remained, following a period of adjustment or discarding, relevant to me? Did it have meaning for me? I came away with an affirmation that what was left was relevant to me and my life journey. Yet I can certainly understand anyone who comes away with a different answer.
Would it be remotely possible for a convert to go through such an analysis? I am not so sure. But I do wish that we encouraged potential converts to take a contemplative approach, rather than making a pressured, emotion-filled decision. Joseph Smith once stated: “The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out.” I am certain that the marketing pitches the Church has employed over the last few decades do not measure up to that standard.
I was a full-time missionary in the mid 1980s. Back then we used flip charts and film strips. We were in color but I know it sounds black and white to you today. We could pretty much say anything we wanted and nothing could be independently verified. I never lied or even exaggerated, I just told Mormon truth. It was relatively very easy.
I have no idea how, in 2024, you engage in successful marketing for the COJCOLDS. I literally have no idea how one does this given the Internet in the Google age. I have many years of sales and marketing experience and I am at a loss how anyone does it successfully today.
Like lws329, I have had friends start to ask me questions, and I was reluctant to turn them over to the missionaries because I wanted them to get an honest picture of what the religion is before the missionaries gave them the high pressure sales pitch. I talked to them about tithing, and the sexism in the church, and one I even suggested she look into the history of the church from any source outside the church for a more objective view. Another, I honestly felt like the word of wisdom and structured social environment and the welfare program of job training at DIs would be good for her, so, when I ran into the missionaries, I told them that she needed the senior missionaries, not them. The church worked to help her turn her life around.
But I think it is only fair for people to know what they are getting into. It is good for the church too, because if people actually went to church for a year before baptism, we would have a better retention rate. Does the church really like to have 50% of new converts go in active in the first year after baptism? If they really want to change that they have to stop pushing baptism and start pushing membership. They need to let people get a feel of what membership really means before baptism. Dunking them in water should not be the top priority because baptism-and-then-leave is no more meaningful than dunking them without any fancy words.
Honest pitch:
1. This church can provide you a great sense of community and belonging, but there will likely be an expectation of conformity that will make belonging harder if you don’t conform.
2. This can be a particularly supportive environment if you’re trying to leave a troubled past behind and make a new start. The structure of worship and participation in activities will likely be very helpful for that. (This is based on observation of the people I thought most benefited from joining the church on my mission).
3. Over time there will be pressure to “upgrade” your membership by participating in the temple ordinances. It is strongly recommended that before doing so you make friends with someone who will speak frankly about what it’s like, and feel comfortable opting out if it doesn’t sound appealing.
4. The origin story of the faith is probably messier than anything you’ve learned, so making the “truth” of that origin story the primary reason for joining is not a recipe for long-term success. If you can find value in the community or ritual or non-literal readings of our scripture, we need you!
Regarding your question: would I have joined the church as a convert? Generally speaking I’m change-averse and tend to stay where planted, and I’m not a natural seeker. It’s why I’m still doing the church thing a decade past a pretty significant shift in belief. My guess is that in any counterfactual version of my life I would have stayed in whatever faith or non-faith I was born into, and I’d never have given any salespitch much of a listen.
Canadian Dude: excellent observation. The Mandolorian was a great analogy for Mormons, IMO, with helmets instead of garments.
Dave B: I had an interesting conversation with a friend of the blog over the holidays about whether missions function as a cult experience. I think it’s hard to get our heads around because missionaries are basically just kids, doing what is familiar to us, not deliberately deceiving others, but the point of a mission is to increase the commitment of the missionary (and the sunk costs) at least as much as it is to win new converts. Hassan talked about this phenomenon as well. He was indoctrinated as a Moonie, but it was much harder to leave because he was also given leadership roles in the Moonies, indoctrinating others, overseeing programs, and recruiting new converts. Additionally, if you are in a cult / religion / organization, you probably believe in it; if you didn’t, you would either leave or your role would be minimized. It’s only deceitful if you know better and deliberately withhold information to trick someone into committing. It’s not deceitful if leaders in fact believe they are prophets, seers, and revelators and believe in the restoration, even if their belief is wrong.
OTOH, what exactly is “milk before meat” if not withholding information? And anyone who has read the D&C will notice that many of the passages specifically say to only show these doctrines to “them that believe.” Mormon commitments start small and get bigger. None of the converts I taught were expecting that nonegenarians would eventually be choosing their underwear (and most didn’t go through the temple, so that never actually happened). Many of them were still reeling from the shock of throwing out their alcohol and contemplating donating 10% of their income.
I am a convert. We had the missionaries over regularly for about two years, and we learned what would be expected of us before we were baptized. We knew what tithing was, we knew that the commandments were, we knew what would be expected of us. We would not have joined a church without knowing the details. We are patently the exception, as our ward baptizes people who know almost nothing. There is a solution suggested (commanded?) in D&C 20:68, telling us that after baptism but before confirmation there should be “a sufficient time to expound all things concerning the church of Christ to their understanding,” but we don’t do this, and I don’t know that we ever have. That would mean some time, which could differ from person to person, to allow a newly baptized person to learn all these things, and that time would probably be measured in months more than days. They they can be confirmed after they have a much better knowledge of what they’re getting into, and if they don’t make it to confirmation, then they’re not put on our membership rolls. How many members are baptized, attend one or two Sundays to get confirmed, and we never see them again, but we see them on our membership rolls forevermore?
I’ve seen the church market work of wisdom (join the church, live the WoW, and be healthy), except we found that living the WoW doesn’t always lead to good health (Mormons get cancer, too). I’ve seen us market strong families (join the church, hold FHE, and your children will be happy), except that we found that happiness can be elusive, even among the faithful). At the beginning we marketed the restoration, and I still think that this is the best thing we have going. Maybe for a time we marketed polygamy (join our church and have a few wives)–that was obviously way before my time, and I hope that we didn’t market it. Now we are marketing, I suppose, that we’re all God’s children, and we’re special. I suppose that we are all God’s children, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is whether each of us, individually, exercises the power Christ gave us to become sons and daughters of Christ. That’s the parentage that saves, but it isn’t the parentage that we emphasize, at least not to our youth.
I would absolutely join the church again, but I joined as an adult, leaving a practicing confession for ours. But we resisted the push to hurry up and get baptized. It was there, and it was off-putting, and the missionaries, to their credit, realized that this strategy wasn’t helping them, at least not in our home. I served a mission shortly after baptism, a little older, and to his credit my mission president told us that we didn’t need to set a baptism date at the first appointment–if you decide that we’re telling the truth, will you commit now to be baptized in 6 weeks? We didn’t use that type of pitch in my mission, or at least I and my companions did not.
Would I join knowing what I know now?
No, because a person can’t function fully and with social approval in the church without literal belief “truth” of the founding stories. And as wonderful as the community can be, it wouldn’t take away the extreme discomfort of not having orthodox belief.
I’ve known since I was very young that I absolutely would not have joined the church on my own. I was taught, and tried to believe, that this was a blessing. I was blessed to be born in to the church because I wouldn’t have ever “found the truth” otherwise.
This jogged a few vaguely related mission memories:
1) Driving to a nearby town with the whole district in the car. We saw some JWs walking down the street and one of the missionaries started poking fun “they can’t really believe all that crazy stuff, right?” kind of thing. Another missionary put him in his place, pointing out, somewhat forcefully, that they probably think we are just as weird and they believe what they believe just as much as we believe what we believe. The rest of the car ride was quiet and a little uncomfortable.
2) A woman we tracted into was pleasant with us on her doorstep, but very much not interested. She mentioned that a relative was some kind of Mormon. My companion helpfully offered up that maybe her relative was RLDS or another offshoot. She agreed that may be the case, and started to run through some of the wild things her relative believed. She also mentioned that the relative had reached out to tell her that one of their prophets was coming to town and that she should come and hear what we had to say. My companion gave an exasperated sigh/eye roll at all of this, trying to show that we were somehow beyond or above all of that, I think. As we left, he scoffed about “they still think they have prophets, too?” or something. I reminded him that a GA was coming to a local stake conference that weekend (by my recollection, it was DHO, but I may be mixing up mission memories). Reading through the lines, it was almost certain that her relative was actually a Brighamite fulfilling her duty as a member-missionary. All of the derogatory things that she’d said were about us, and, mostly, they were right, you just had to squint a little to see the Orthodox description of what she said.
“My mission was somewhat unique in following the Alvin Dyer model, which relied a lot on the emotion of the moment rather than full disclosure of what the church experience was really going to be like.”
Not sure if there’s any sarcasm behind this claim of uniqueness, but this model certainly describes my mission. When I was there, the holy grail was the “48 hour miracle” in which investigators were baptized within 2 days of first contact, a practice praised and encouraged by our MP. He made it clear that our job was to get them in the font by hook or by crook, and that retention was the members’ problem.
With regards to a more honest marketing pitch, am I crazy in thinking that we shouldn’t need any pitch at all? How much influence do salespeople have nowadays? In the age of information and Amazon, products that work well gain market share organically, with happy customers being the best evangelists. If we truly believe that our organization, in contrast to all others, is run by an omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity, shouldn’t the fruits thereof speak for themselves?
There was a time when I came to the conclusion that God doesn’t want or need everyone to be Mormon, but I still thought, “Man, I wish I wasn’t born into the church and baptized at 8, but since I was, now I’m stuck with it and I need to live true to it.”
I’ve since concluded that “Even though I was born in the church and baptized, I don’t need to continue being a member of the church anymore.” However, I do continue to be a member for a variety of reasons. Some of the reasons are, that it has led to really good outcomes for me and my family. And also, I couldn’t stop being Mormon even if I tried to be. Heck, it’s just part of who I am gosh darn it!
My marketing pitch for the church would be, “We’re not the only true church, but we do teach good values. As Richard Rohr puts it, ‘No one does the first half of life better than the Mormons.’ So, come join up with the Mormons as you participate in the early stages of your faith development, we’ll help you build a great foundation that you can build upon for the later stages of faith development (as long as you don’t take things too literally!)”
The second half of Richard Rohr’s quote is, “Mormons do the first half of life so well in fact, that they see no need or interest in the second half of life.” But I wouldn’t include that in my marketing pitch.
The LDS church is not a cult, contrary to the dogged adamancy on the part of ex-Mormons that it is. I’ve long lived a partial Mormon experience rather comfortably. I couldn’t do that in a legitimate cult. Steven Hassan’s BITE really only applies to smaller even more tight-knit groups. I remember John Dehlin interviewed Hassan, and Hassan seemed somewhat unconvinced to include Mormonism on the list. Now the mission is definitely more cult-like. I definitely withheld information from people to make the church seem more appealing. At the same time, however, I feel that a good deal of information was withheld from me as a missionary. The mission permitted only a select few books for missionaries to read.
“Is there a way to balance honesty and still make church membership enticing to outsiders? What would you propose?”
To tell you the truth, I think that what the church is currently doing is probably the best way to maximize retention and growth. Inducing commitment to such an organization as the Mormon Church simply requires a good deal of gaslighting and quasi-deception. I don’t have any suggestions for how to help the church grow even more. I would love for the church to become more liberal in many ways, but I know that that would only lead to an even greater decline in activity and people joining it.
If I know that being baptized in the church is the way to get my feet on the high road to eternal life–then all other questions and concerns become secondary or a rendered moot.
Personally, I think questioning the definition of a cult- and one’s potential membership within one -is much more useful than declaring who or what is (or isn’t) one.
Religious studies scholars don’t use the term much anymore, and I agree that Dehlin lacks the necessary scholarly background and knowledge to examine the subject critically.
Beware the etymological fallacy though. Exmo’s (who like Mormons aren’t a monolith) probably are referring to a different understanding of the word than the classical definition.
I agree that a contemporary reconstruction of the word can be criticized, especially when it’s used pejoratively. It’s the dual issue of social and informational control that former members might also be referring to.
A Mormon problem, but not a uniquely Mormon problem.
It’s also arguably not a problem unique to liminal faiths. Dominant faiths just take for granted the extent to which their dominance is actually maintained through widespread social practice rather than inherent legitimacy.
Red Riding Hood was told to follow the path and don’t talk to strangers. Easy advice if few are strangers.
Sorry for the poor composition. Sometimes I think my grammar is getting worse with age
“We’re not the only true church, but we do teach good values. As Richard Rohr puts it, ‘No one does the first half of life better than the Mormons.’ So, come join up with the Mormons as you participate in the early stages of your faith development, we’ll help you build a great foundation that you can build upon for the later stages of faith development (as long as you don’t take things too literally!)”
– aporetic1
I like this philosophy AND have a child that deals with an atypical development plan (very literal being a bonus here). Our area of the church has some good people creating a good community – it’s just my child does not trust most people, does not trust “church people” [very close to home examples of a person who spoke big religious principles they could not live and did not live up to], and prefers to do their own thing in concert with others (instead of with others).
We have had a lot of “faith development” and “values/ethics development” conversations because of my child’s distrust in God, distrust in authority figures, and organizational structures letting them down.
Amy,
We have similar problems in our household. I think expecting people not to take things too literally is expecting too much when the people in authority teach in a literal way and don’t take the trouble to reconcile this vision with the reality we live in
My oldest was scrupulously honest and couldn’t lie about his doubts to get to the temple. Then he discovered that Joseph looked at a stone in a hat instead of golden plates and he felt betrayed.
My 2nd child is autistic and he takes God ordering genocide in the Old Testament seriously. He says he can’t believe in a God that does that or a church that teaches that. He is a very literal thinker.
My third child has struggled with health problems and hardly leaves the house. He has trouble believing in a God that would make his life so much harder than other people’s.
I raised my 4th to be nuanced so that he wouldn’t have the problems the others had. He prayed and prayed all his life and couldn’t get an answer or feel God was listening.
My fifth has his own serious disability issues. Because of his experiences he has no sympathy for exclusion of LGBTQ people. Indeed this issue is a tender one for all my kids. We have transgender and gay family members. For my kids the simple beauty of following Christ and loving your neighbors conflict with the church’s policies on LGBTQ. This hypocrisy of the church undermines their faith.
For families with health and normal development the church can make a beautiful simple bowl for faith in the first half of life. It did for me. But it makes no sense to have a church that doesn’t work for people that are marginalized and downtrodden. We could do better for children and families that deal with real problems in the first half of life if we decided to listen to them. The fact that we have become ultra focused on worshipping a “normal” family structure detracts from actually following Christ as a church.
Many years ago when my oldest son was around 12 yrs old, I learned from one of his neighborhood friends that the mom (Methodist) of another one of his friends living 2 doors away from us was teaching her son that the Mormon church is a cult. (I was puzzled why she would think that—and I have never been a proselytizing type).
A few months later one of my sons had to go to the local library. While there, I had a thought—maybe the neighbor had read something about our church that made her think that? So I went to the religion section to see if there might be a book there about our church. The only book I saw there was “Mormon Enigma” about Emma Hale Smith. Nothing else, and nothing about cults. But I did end up reading “Mormon Enigma,” and learned a lot.
But in some respects, I do think we look more cultish (or at least multi-level marketing) type of religion. Wikipedia definition of cult:
“Manipulative and authoritarian mind control over members, communal, and totalistic organization, aggressive proselytizing, systematic programs of indoctrination and perpetuation in middle class communities.”
More often than not it seems we pay more homage and teach about the church and leaders than Jesus and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Fast Sunday with the most common phrase “ I know this church is true” highlights what we often emphasize.
I agree with Brad D that the church’s current approach (the balance / steps to disclose requirements) is probably about the most effective they’ve done. The methods in my mission were maybe at one end of a spectrum, and back in the 1950s when people had 52 weekly lessons, that was at another end of the spectrum. More effective still would be to increase service events and activities which is what most contemporary people think churches *should* be doing anyway, and people find those things more attractive than proselyting.
I also think there’s a serious problem with focusing on “prophets, seers, and revelators” given the actual output, and the anti-LGBTQ stuff is simply a non-starter that will continue to result in losses. There’s a valid question in there about whether the church’s response to these issues was an inevitable problem or one of their own making. I’m not sure how a church run by patriarchal nonegenarians is going to do any better on this stuff, particularly in an increasingly polarized world. It’s a losing proposition.
Jack – well, your comment thoroughly meets the definition of “Blind obedience”.
As far as the idea that the church does a good job for the first half of life, only if the person is white, male, cisgender, straight, and middle class, with adequate parents. It really looses teens and children who are not the preferred demographic. Anyone with unusual experience or who is physically different, culturally different, racially different, LGBT+ different, the church simply fails because they only ever address the “ideal.” And in reality, not too many of us fit that ideal, and those who don’t fit are made to feel unworthy.
I look at my own experience, my siblings, and others and the church actually fails a lot of people before they finish the first quarter of life. The church was making me feel that God didn’t love me starting at around age four. “I am a child of God, ….has given me an earthly home with parents kind and dear,” just doesn’t work for kids from an abusive home. In primary all the stories about boys, songs about men, focus on male prophets, leaders and even male Gods, all three of them, just seemed to leave me out. I was probably about six when the teacher was telling about a boy who grew up to be prophet, and how he was camping and in the middle of the night he got awakened by a voice telling him to move his sleeping bag. He dutifully moved his sleeping bag, and in the morning found a tree had fallen right where he had been sleeping. Before the story even ended I was thinking how God would never protect me that way because as a girl, there was zero chance of me growing up to be prophet or *anything* important. God just didn’t do that kind of thing for girls, because God didn’t love girls. My brother was treated poorly because he couldn’t afford the Cub Scout uniform, so the church started losing him at 8. My lesbian daughter, well y’all know how that one goes.
My husband feels like he failed because all his kids and his wife have all pretty much left the church. He has a hard time accepting that the church failed each one in his family in slightly different ways when the church refuses to accept that they fail people who don’t fit their desired demographic, so they blame the individuals, or the parents, because it couldn’t possibly be them as leaders who are failing God’s children.
As far as Marketing, well, I don’t think the church has a marketing problem. They do a good job at selling an inferior product. What they have is an inferior product, that is just plain hard to market. But they refuse to see that their product needs improving and updating.
Anna makes an excellent point in her comment “As far as the idea that the Church does a good job on the first half of life, only if the person is white, male, cisgender,straight and middle class with adequate parents”.
She goes on to remark that anyone not in these categories are gone soon.
The LDS church has about a whopping 70 percent inactivity.
There are many who for various reasons stop associating with the Mormon church.
This percentage makes me wonder just how good the asociation of LDS church really is for any one.
I think they all must come, one way or the other, to the idea that their house ( eternal salvation) has been built on Sand rather than Rock.
Something we are warned against in Matthew 7:24-27.
These people have decided to longer be the foolish man who built his house upon Sand.
To Amy, lws329, and Anna,
I am sorry to hear your experiences and I agree that the church has failed you/your children and that it needs to do better. The church should/needs to/must do better at meeting the needs of all people, especially women, lqbtq+ individuals, and any and all marginalized individuals.
I haven’t found a way to say my next thought without sounding like a monster and being misunderstood, but here goes. What I think is the worst thing about the church is that it harms marginalized individuals AND IT ALSO tells them that it is the one and only true church and that they must belong to it. The #1 thing the church needs to do is to improve so that it stops harming people, and instead meets them where they are at. And the #2 thing it should do is, in the meantime, until it has improved, allow those whose needs it is not meeting to leave with dignity. Honestly, there are better healthier options for many people.
(To be clear, I am not saying “If you don’t like it, go find somewhere else, we don’t want you.” I am saying, “We want you, you deserve to be here, to be welcomed, and to be treated with dignity. But until we get our act together, I don’t want you to feel like you are forced to come to a place where you are harmed. I want you to be in a place where you are welcomed and treated with dignity- and I think that’s what God would want for you too.”)
Great post aporetic1.
I agree completely with your #1 and #2 things the Mormon church needs to do.
You expressed your thoughts perfectly.
toddsmithson:
“Jack – well, your comment thoroughly meets the definition of ‘Blind obedience’.”
I’d be more concerned about allowing my doubts to keep me from taking such a vital step as baptism. Certainly, if one doesn’t have a sense that baptism is the right thing to do–that’s another story. But if the Holy Ghost has worked on an individual in such a way that she knows it’s the right step take then she should allow revelation to have the final word–come what may.
aporetic1,
Thank you.
“I want you to be in a place where you are welcomed and treated with dignity – and I think that’s what God would want for you too.”
I love this.
I encountered it just as inspiringly but different phrased as, “May there be a road”.
I served late 70’s in NYC. Fortunately, I had a MP that dismissed all the gimmicks. He was not into numbers at all and rarely reported any to the missionaries as a whole. This was post Dyer but still Dyeresk attitudes floated in from correspondence from missionaries friends in other missions, like San Diego (Rector) or Tokyo South (a complete disaster), where deleterious programs took hold. Our MP shut them down immediately. A ZL once wanted to give a missionary of the month award and the MP in ZL Council, slammed it. When I was MP we had a missionary arrive from another mission where he had been serving while waiting for a visa. One of his first questions was “What prizes to you give for baptisms.” Yikes! The problem is very simple. The Brethren have been very clear for at least the last 25+ years and have condemned those practices of the past. But every single MP has muscle memory from their mission and too often they employ the same nonsense their MP did. It takes generations to stamp out “false traditions.” Hopefully, we’re getting close.
“The Brethren have been very clear for at least the last 25+ years and have condemned those practices of the past.”
Really? Have they really been “very clear”? Have they really “condemned those practices”? If many (or even “every single MP”) are relying on muscle memory instead of listening to the brethren, wouldn’t that suggest that the brethren maybe have not spoken very clearly?
Such a thought provoking thread.
Such a thought provoking thread.
I currently have a son on a fulltime mission in Latin America. Fully supportive of him serving, and it’s a thrill to see his perspective grow, and maturity accrue to him as a result of the dedicated service and attention to gospel matters. That said, it is *interesting* to look for the right ways to advise him in “the work”, precisely because there are hints of Dyer-esque approaches that seem somewhat evident. (e.g. “it’s a shame we had to drop some investigators that weren’t progressing..”) It’s a fascinating dilemma for the church/institution as a whole, because as dlcroc58 suggests, many sensible leaders may want to eradicate these old “round em up fast” approaches to conversion… yet the problem/approach persists. I love the responses/comments from Georgis and Robert above.
One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is that — whether it’s through perpetuating these old “sales” tactics, or simply via being slow to revise them — the church is implicitly making choices about the “type” of persons we are generally seeking out as converts. (Whether we realize it or not.) In other words, to the extent that “rush em into the water” approaches persist, I’m not sure we (as an institution/group) are being purposeful or deliberate about what that type of ‘selection mechanism’ might actually mean in this day and age. That is, if we are still idealizing the “48 hour miracle”, that means that we are prioritizing the conversion of individuals who we think are prepared (or susceptible?) to making large life commitments quickly and based largely on a subjective spiritual confirmation and often in the absence of ‘full information’ that might be informative, or even drive a wedge, later. I mean clearly: those folks are out there. But part of the spirit of this OP is the question of how many of us would be truly prepared to (say) commit to new lifetime commitment to charitable donations of 10% of our income in perpetuity, based on a set of conversations we might unexpectedly have in the next 48 hours. Speaking for myself and my family and kids etc, I’d certainly say that I’ve done my best to try to help them develop careful, critical thinking skills that decrease their vulnerability to scammers or overly-emotion-based snap decisions with longterm consequences. So basically I’d frown on them coming home and saying “i met some people last week who taught me about Religion X and i’ve decided to join, after those several conversations.” And if that’s also true for other, typical, ‘stalwarts-in-the-ward’ families like us, then we’re basically saying that our missionary programs essentially (barring extraordinary circumstances) preclude the finding of people like us. We’re instead looking for individuals/families who are somehow receptive to the notion of making a major life change and commitment based on a bare minimum of information. We’re explicitly following proselytizing protocols that select people who are either in transition, or in a desperate state, or in an existing unattached network of relationships and routines that pose minimal “switching costs.” When you articulate it that way, it seems like a pretty crucial organizational choice about who we’re seeking out and who we’re not seeking out, doesn’t it?
I observed to our current full time missionaries (sisters) a few weeks ago, while they were over for a meal, that Jewish conversions are radically different. Relating the anecdote of a close friend who had years-ago converted to Judaism (fiancee was Jewish) earlier in life, he was subjected to multiple classes in Jewish thought and meetings with the Rabbi over the course of an entire year, and there was essentially an attitude of: Are you sure? In other words, that sect made it DIFFICULT not EASY to join. But – no surprise here – that couple are active and ongoing synagogue attenders etc, since it was a well thought out (and frankly arduous) process to make the change and unify their family’s religious structure.
In contrast, we seem to continue to favor some type of approach (either strong form or weak form) that values rapid conversion instead of slow/methodical assimilation. Which orients missionaries and members alike toward the moment of conversion, but tends to de-emphasize the “lasting in the faith” afterward piece. (Which in turn fuels the “numbers” handwaving favoring members of record vs active attenders, that has been exhaustively explored elsewhere.)
Two other quick thoughts:
1. It’s not at all clear that our current approach is actually a successful one. See a recent research study (from an ethnographic/sociological point of view) that simply looks at differing models/approaches to proselytizing, as a larger component of thinking about our faith’s growth prospects. (There’s a lot going on in the paper, but the most interesting facet to me was the comparison to missionary efforts of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-Day Adventists. Fascinating findings.) https://jmssa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Stewart2022.pdf So I guess data like that in this paper helps beg the question: even if we decide we somehow favor the Dyer-esque missionary model (on principle), are we sure it’s actually as successful as we think it is? (I’ve often wished we’d move to a more service-oriented, yellow-Mormon-helping-hands vest model as a main thrust of missionaries’ efforts — by their fruits ye shall know them, etc — but have always assumed this preference simply reflected my own sense of what i think would resonate with me. Different strokes, and such. But the Stewart study was eye opening in the way it compared our actual empirical “success” as compared to other proselytizing faiths.)
2. Comments from lws32a and Anna raise a different challenge to the church’s “marketing pitch”… the notion that the message is one that likely only appeals to highly functional, intact and perhaps politically conservative, ‘striving for the traditional ideal’ families. This is an extraordinarily insightful observation, and one that suggests it might be useful to reconsider the value proposition of who we’re marketing to. Which actually, truth be known, raises an interesting irony; my sense is that this cultural “worship” of the traditional-and-fully-functional-and-non-special-needs family is in some ways the very thing that makes our missionary success most unlikely in these modern times, among that very target audience. Not only because these are the very types of ‘investigators’ most unlikely to be receptive to “hard” sales tactics themselves (as previously mentioned), but also because increasingly, these ‘traditionally normal’ families are likely the very ones who don’t perceive a need for the church in their lives. Rise of the “nones” means that folks are increasingly willing to go it alone without the demands of organized religion, and they also are likely to be plenty busy and even believe they are fulfilled by the various other activities/routines they are currently embedded in, be they elite youth sports, or programs like Destination Imagination, or helping their kids strive for competitiveness in the college application process, etc. The centrality of value placed on traditional family success as the church’s ideal is perhaps increasingly unlikely to motivate those types of people to be looking for something new in their already busy and two-parent, achieving-kids lives, since they already feel that ‘success’.
ji
Yes they have. Every single year in the MP Seminar the message is very clear from multiple sources. Likewise when a mission gets off course and they get wind of it they’ll take action. I’ve seen MPs released early. Usually the information about problems percolates up from parents sending letters.
BlueRidgeMormon: *slow clap*
If both (a) “The Brethren have been very clear for at least the last 25+ years and have condemned those practices of the past” and (b) “but every single MP has muscle memory from their mission and too often they employ the same nonsense their MP did” are true, then there appears to be a big disconnect. The teaching isn’t sticking: maybe because the teaching is not clear, or maybe because the mission presidents are disobedient to the teaching. If the teaching were clear, one would think that mission presidents would have no problems implementing it, but “too often they employ the same nonsense their MP did.” That makes me think that the teachings are unclear. Otherwise I have to think that the mission presidents are disobedient, and I’d rather believe that as an exception than as the general practice.
There may be a discrepancy between what dlcroc58 calls “those practices of the past” and what many people observe as persistent problems with excessive focus on numbers of baptisms, hours spent proselyting, and so forth. But if the brethren really thought there was too much focus on numbers, they could very easily just tell MP’s “you are not to record numbers of anything.” (The wards already keep track of membership numbers.) The MP training clearly does no such thing.
I have a son on a mission who has to report their numbers to the mission president DAILY. They also are required to hold their district meetings during P day in order to maximize proselyting time. You cannot blame this on muscle memory of the MP, because he is an adult convert who did not serve a mission.
Your food allergy – Your son’s MP is way off the reservation. Write a letter to the missionary department or better yet to a member of the Q12. It will get their attention. That is clearly outside the bounds of the program. The reality good and bad is the MP is one of the most autonomous callings in church by far. As I said earlier, I have personally see to MPs released early, mostly due to letters of concerned parents.
dlcroc58,
Doesn’t it have to be one of the following?
(A) The brethren are not speaking clearly.
(B) The brethren are speaking clearly, but MPs do not follow the brethren and disobey.
(C) The brethren are speaking clearly, but MPs understand it is just for show (wink wink) so they disobey, and if too many parents call the mission president might be released.
You already said it is not (A), but if not (A) then (B) and (C) are the only alternatives that come to my mind. I agree with you that mission presidents are given extraordinary autonomy, almost total carte blanche, and that missionary parents are the only check on their service — but that seems to be a very minor and largely ineffective check as most parents will not write, and if they do they will likely be ignored by the brethren except for the most egregious cases.