About fifty years ago the question was asked: “What is the Church?” The way that question was asked, and the way it was answered explains the LDS Church we have today. In this essay I am going to address what defines a church, then the way that question was asked and answered by the then Mormon Church, and then conclude with how the same church has changed for its leadership and I ask a question.
How to define a Church?
A church is defined by three things:
- Where it sits on the axis of high to low demand.
- Where it sits on the axis of high to low community.
- Where it sits on the axis of high to low service.
Hasidic Jews are commonly used as the example of high demand religions. They have clothing codes, dietary laws, rules and commitments, strict doctrines and high financial demands. Universal Unitarians are often seen at the other end. The Mormon and the LDS Church both exist on the high demand end of the spectrum, with tithing, missions, clothing and grooming standards, a dietary code and an ever tightening circle of doctrines.
A high community church is an actual or virtual ethnic group. A “church family” if you will. The community life revolves around the church. Mormons were known for their high sense of community with church buildings in constant use, dinners and social events, sports leagues and forming an actual ethnic group or extended family. “Mormon” was an identity. The LDS Church has two hour Sunday and people who find their identity in their political and social connections, not the church. This has grown to the extent that older missionaries often proselyte for their political beliefs more than religious ones (and this is seen as a serious problem).
Finally, a high service church provides significant services. Hospitals, schools, community welfare and regular social and ministerial visits. It has comprehensive programs and janitors. A low service church gives you little to nothing, sends you to the state or community for help and has you clean the building yourself.
How we got to where we are.
In the 1970s the question was asked of consultants: “what is a church?” But it ended up being asked as “what is the least amount a church can do?” That wasn’t the intent. The intent was to identify the core mission of what a church needed to provide and then encourage members to be part of society for everything else so they could be better member missionaries. But the result was to start paring the church down.
Studies showed that Boy Scouts did not lead to serving missions or temple marriages, so the Church began to look for ways to cease paying for the professional scouters that formed the paid youth ministry of the Church. It took them a significant amount of time, but eventually Scouting was replaced with a lower service version. Other changes were made.
Of all things, the Church became higher demand. The cost for Church membership went up. (By now you have probably noticed that I move between “church” and “Church” in this essay — that is intentional and for emphasis). Doctrinal purity, medical marijuana and other issues are sharply drawn.
The community was gutted. As a result, political and social identity has replaced church membership as defining identity. On any significant issue, take vaccination for example, tribal identity replaces any thought of heeding church leaders. As mentioned above, there are significant issues with older missionaries and political identity being more important than church identity. And unlike even the Unitarians, we do not even have coffee and donuts after or before services to have some vestige of socializing.
Church services have faded. The hospitals became Intermountain Healthcare, which has had its charity status challenged since it has a vanishingly small amount of its revenue that goes to charity. So far the courts have sided with IMHC that it need provide no charity at all to keep its tax free status. If you need help, you are sent to the state first. (In a twist, in Utah, the state sends you to the church first, basically both groups sending you to the other). Stake Conferences no longer feature a general authority in person.
The bottom line is that a member of the LDS Church has greater costs and gets less than a member of the Mormon Church did.
What about general authorities?
“GAs” as they are commonly called used to have a difficult calling. They supported themselves. They traveled in the cheapest seats, slept on couch beds or even on floors, and ate with the members where ever they went. If they were lucky, they had a “public member” board of directors position to bring in some income. (A long time ago it was a corporate fad to have a member or two of the public on the board for PR or for the “everyman” viewpoint. That fad has passed).
To be a general authority involved long, difficult and isolating hours.
Now to be a general authority like being a member of a tiered membership country club. Attendants. Much less travel. A rich social environment with each other. Community, services and a large group of followers and plentiful support staff.
Everything that has leached out of the general church now shows up at the top. Which, to be honest, they needed. A calling as a general authority or mission president was often refused. That appears to be less common now. It has been a long time since I met a general authority who looked almost beaten to death by the travel and other demands of the position or who talked about how they longed for a release.
Where do we go from here?
That is a good question. At the moment we have generally dropping membership, a loss of identity, and politics becoming more important than doctrine. What this leads to is above my pay grade.
What do you think?
Wheat & Tares 
i think your observations are astute. HIGH-er demand, LOW-er service, and LOW-er community than a few decades ago. I think all three of these contribute to our lower convert numbers and lower member happiness.
i regret these trends, and have wondered about them. I have wondered how much is driven by church lawyers to avoid liability or other exposures, and I have wondered if the focus on serving the members has shifted to members serving the institution, and whether local leaders see themselves as servants of their flocks or plant/regional managers expected to produce results. I don’t know where we go from here, but I still want to be hopeful.
i also feel a widening distance between the general and local levels, and between leaders and members.
i wish a topic like this could be discussed in a church setting, but any such honest attempt would be seen as heretical or apostate — that is a sad reflection on us, that we cannot have an adult and faithful conversation about reality among ourselves. Again, I want to be hopeful for the future
The church has reduced itself down to being a authoritarian covenant factory. It’s really not about what those covenants represent or should point us to, but about just getting them so we can be with our families forever in the afterlife in the celestial kindgom. It has been reduced to this do stuff to get stuff transactional model. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I have wonderful memories of church functions when I was a teenage. Our stake in Colorado Springs put on a massive road show a few years in a row. There was also a big stake production that the youth did that everyone in the community was invited to. There were good and positive reasons to be part of that community–at least for me. We formed some strong bonds doing all those things together. Guess what, it wasn’t centered around the temple, it was centered around the local community. This Christmas, we went up to see the Lux Singers in SLC and sat with some people I grew up with in Colorado Springs in our ward, two of who are former piano teachers as well. It was wonderful to see them and brought back so many wonderful memories of being with them in my growing up years. I can’t say that any of my wards/stakes in Utah have had anywhere near the impact on me those Colorado Springs wards did.
I just don’t drink the current covenant path koolaid, especially after learning about church history and seeing that every president of the church has their favorite pet doctrine they tend to take to a little bit of an extreme. Think temples right now. The thing that keeps people coming to church is the community. It is my understanding of ancient times that living in a covenant relationship was a community thing. There was no other way to live it. And we are killing the community aspects.
Honestly, I wish the Q15 would have a vision of how lonely their version of the celestial kingdom is going to be, because I don’t think anyone other than them and handful of others are going to be there or want to be there at this rate.
Higher demand. Lower service.
In other words, the church is acting like a 21st century for-profit corporation.
I was reading this post I find myself in agreement with the ideas presented. I have been thinking a lot about the Church quite a bit lately about where the Church is presently and where it once was. I am now in my 70’s and remember with fondness with the things that are in the past. I remember going the Stake Farm to pick cherries with other families in the ward in northern Utah and social atmosphere that was present. I remember the the youth sports and the fun w had whether we won or not. I remember the road shows, for us they were literally rod shows. There were no Oscars to be won but that was not the point. I remember fondly as a senior in high school participating in the last Youth Choral Festival to be held in conjunction with June MIA Conference before such things fell victim to correlation. I can remember to work It took the learn the music. I fondly remember the fun we had at that festival and the people we met as a part of that event. listening to the recording of those concert still bring fond memories. Now in the twilight of my life I look back at the things we as a religious community have lost if the term community still applies. That loss of community from my perspective in the lowering retention rates of our youth as well the low retention rates of the new converts that do choose to come into the church. I have observed other things mentioned in the post as well, I have no ideas as how to change to direction the Church seems to be heading to. I can only hope that some future leader(s) will be able to make changes for the better.
So, do we want this to be an international church or not? The community-building stuff like roadshows and pageants aren’t going to work in the international church and figuring out what would work instead is really hard because it means actually understanding each of the cultures. Expecting Utah transplants to do a good job at that is clearly unrealistic. But expecting the locals to independently distinguish between the parts of their culture that are compatible with the gospel from those that are not is equally unrealistic. (We kind of tried that in the South Pacific, but it apparently didn’t work to the Q15’s satisfaction.) So we reduce it to a manageable concept, like the temple. Your arguments that that doesn’t work either may be correct, but I’m not seeing any realistic alternatives.
And I think the claim of higher demand is off base too. Ward budgets are now provided by SLC, cannery assignments are way down, end-of-month harassment about home teaching is gone, and church is only 2 hours. Tithing, WoW, and the law of chastity may be higher demand than you want, but overall, the demands of the Church are lower than 50 years ago.
To be clear, “you” in my previous comment is not directed at the OP, but at a broader circle of those getting caught up in nostalgia.
You can’t even say you are Mormon. You are put down if you question something and called lazy if you leave. Temples are being built at a furious pace and always look wonderful lite up against the sky, but LDS Chapels are starting to show their wear and tear, particularly if they are older (10 years or so) and not the new ones showing up in the new subdivisions that LDS members always seem to flock too.
The church is also closing many older buildings (40-50+ years old) and it appears that as part of the agreements to sell, the old chapels have to be torn down shortly after closing, leaving no history in a community of the church’s former self.
There used to be some local autonomy in local finances with wards/stakes having budgets for building expenses, activities, etc. Now, they have flow-through accounts where money from tithing and other church donations passes through to Salt Lake City. They don’t really create their budgets but are assigned a budget they have to work with from Salt Lake through the stakes.
There’s never been an opportunity to question, but today, access to knowledge is even more controlled. Priesthood, Sunday School, and Relief Society manual used to be books published by church leaders, then came from church departments and now it’s a reference to a conference talk which is used in all the programs including talks assigned for sacrament meetings.
The church may continue to grow, but it’s losing its uniqueness, becoming much more a Walmart of a church rather than a Whole Foods church.
I’m also uncertain about higher demand. I only remember the church of the 90s, but without the community events there is far less demand on my time and efforts. I have never been asked to contribute to a ward building fund. Youth summer camp is the only fundraiser event we have, and that’s to help the needy offset the $75 parent cost per kid. Personal Progress and Eagle Scout / Duty to God awards are gone. So are the “Faith in God” programs from Primary. The goal-setting “program” is laughable. Others in our (US) ward remember three-day temple trips with stops at Six Flags in the 1990s. Our temple is now only three hours away, the only expense is lunch, and there are no fun activities. Echoing others, ministering doesn’t happen the way my visiting teaching used to even 15 years ago. I knew families that demanded church clothes all day and no television on Sundays; I haven’t heard that in a long time. I think I’m doing far less for the church than my mother did at my age.
“And I think the claim of higher demand is off base too. Ward budgets are now provided by SLC, cannery assignments are way down, end-of-month harassment about home teaching is gone, and church is only 2 hours. Tithing, WoW, and the law of chastity may be higher demand than you [generic “you” referencing the broader circle of individuals] want, but overall, the demands of the Church are lower than 50 years ago.” – lastlemming
I agree that some structural aspects of the “demands” that the church places on the members have changed for the better and that the “good old days” pre-correlation had a lot more bake sales, things that needed to be done, etc.
I am not sure that the members have the time/talents/energy/money bandwidth to pay these “lower demands”. I am not sure that the church provides the value/incentive across a wide variety of demographics in competition for work/ education (to qualify for “work”) NOTE: This is now x2-3 individuals per family instead of the 1 individual impact / elderly care/ child care (and activities – and parenting trends are more consumptive of adult resources) / health care (and exercise – and people live longer then the 1950’s) / DYI improvements (hobbies, house organization, house cleaning, house repairs, everything else that can’t be outsourced due to the cost). And those who provide services to the church are aware of the example of converting paid janitorial positions into volunteer efforts – those who build programs and community are aware that they aren’t going to get the money, time, talents, and energy back explicitly from the church.
I go back and forth a lot on whether the collapse of Mormon community is the cause or the symptom. I was a teen in Utah in the 90s, so I remember the end of the road show era, scouting, sports, and many other community things that are now gone. I’ve been a few places around the US, and now find myself only a handful of miles from where I grew up. I can’t imagine putting on a road show and getting buy-in from dozens of adults and kids to make it happen. Growing up we had separate basketball leagues for the deacons, teachers, priests and YW. Today I don’t think any of those four groups in my ward could get 5 players to come to games. Combining all the YM might work. My ward managed to get 10 people for the ward choir for Christmas. (Might have been 13 if some people weren’t sick that week.) People don’t want to participate like they used to.
Personally, I put a lot of the cause of this on affluence. I live in a nice area, though certainly not one you’d single out as especially wealthy. Even still, we have people that don’t accept callings because they spend months of the year in their place in Hawaii. Families with kids are focused on the high school mountain biking team, or travel baseball, or their dance team, or cross country meets. (At my house its D&D, marching band and theater.) Whatever the root cause, I see people that have decided that they find more community and enjoyment pursuing things that have nothing to do with church.
At the same time, members have been trapped by their loyalty to the church handbook. To address lastlemmings questions, an international church doesn’t all have to do the same community building things. Let the Utahns do road shows, let the Germans have apple beer fueled Oktoberfest, and every other culture can do whatever they want. Wards in the UK can have darts leagues, and the Brazilians can all play futbol. Individual wards and stakes can have their own totally unique traditions. But as far as I can see these days, people have quit thinking about church entirely. Church leaders have enforced so often that only they have answers for anything, that most members don’t take initiative anymore, they just wait to be told what to do. If it isn’t in the handbook, it’s not a part of the church. And in the absence of instructions to do something, they do nothing. They don’t think about doctrine, and they don’t think about community. They just go through the motions of practicing their religion and wonder why it feels more hollow with each passing year.
The church may not be so high-demand now in terms of time, but I think it asks more of members in terms of suspending disbelief. That’s far more tiring. It used to be that a member could legitimately have no earthly idea about Joseph’s polygamy, changes to the temple ceremony, or Book of Abraham problems. You didn’t have to consciously avoid these subjects; they were hard to find out about. This is no longer the case. So, no road shows or scouting, but lots of time to stew in cognitive dissonance. People can only take that for so long.
“And I think the claim of higher demand is off base too”
Compared to decades past, yes the church is lower demand. But compared to other churches today it is definitely still high demand. In many churches one would have been paid for the work one did for free in the LDS church. In other churches one would not have been asked for the level of financial support that is given through tithing, asked to clean the building for free, or been barred from family weddings due to any number of reasons that might keep one from holding a temple recommend. Sure we don’t do road shows now, but you don’t get a lot out for what you put and have in the past put in. It seems like paying Michelin star restaurant prices for a McDonald’s meal.
And there are areas where more is demanded than was asked for in the past. Deferential behaviors and attitudes toward higher up church leaders comes to mind (standing when they enter the chapel, for one, a practice not observed in the past even with the highest leaders in attendance, including the president of the church). Also strictness in adherence to what is in the church handbook (which hand to use when taking the sacrament for a left handed person), an inability to speak freely (half a century ago one could raise questions more freely at church), are two that come readily to mind.
Some things have gotten easier, some have gotten harder, but in either case many of the tangible benefits have disappeared.
In the past members felt they were part of something bigger as they donated pennies to pay for Primary Children’s Hospital, as they served missions at the church colleges overseas, as they served at Deseret Industries helping people with disabilities maintain employment on a larger scale than the current DI mission appears to be.
In the past, church leaders acknowledged the Doctrine and Covenants scripture that all things are spiritual and that that taking care of people’s temporal needs is an important part of what a church does.
Kind of sad to see that go.
Interesting discussion so far. I agree that church is less demanding of time, but the demand for every member in good standing or holding a calling be a full tithe payer is up. The standard for temple recommends is up from 50+ years ago when coffee drinking was ignored in anyone over 40. They were sort of grandfathered in when the church tightened the WoW requirements. Sure, people paid ward budget, but many didn’t pay a full tithe. So, the church actually takes in more money per active member than it did 50 years ago.
I think what we have is a vicious cycle where inflation and raising living standards cause more people (women) to work full time. Which makes them withdraw willingness to give the church time, which makes the church reduce services to members, which makes members withdraw because of lack of community, so nobody attends church socials so why have them. So, we have the demand for tithing remain while the services given by the church suffered from shrinkflation. Reduced community, reduced participation, reduced services, reduced participation, reduced community, in a self destructive cycle. The church has actively added to the shrinkflation by demanding activities be “priesthood purpose” rather than fun, and emphasizing temple rather than ward community. When it is no fun, but only manufactured fake spirituality people stop going. Meanwhile the emphasis on all active members have to be temple worthy and attending has increased demand for tithing money. (why do you *think* we don’t have to pay ward budgets?) So, increased demand for money, shrunk services, shrunk everything given to members. Bad case of shrinkflation.
@lastlemming: “So, do we want this to be an international church or not?” Youth weekday seminary was not a thing in the two Asian countries I lived in. Release time seminary is not available outside of I believe 3 states (UT, ID, AZ I believe). What about those programs? They don’t create a level playing field for the international church.
I guess I interpret high demand, lower service differently. Someone above mentioned fundraising $75 for camp. Well. Camp this year is $375 per kid. FSY is basically considered mandatory now that the stake manages registration and while it’s only $75 per kids that’s $450 per kid this church summer stuff. And they are still told to bring spending $$ as the travel day pit stops at In N Out are also not covered. Why can’t EPA cover this for our kiddos?
When I was born half a century ago I was placed into my adoptive family my LDS Family Services. I went to cub scouts, Boy Scouts, road shows, church softball, church basketball, temple pageants, Fast Sunday donation gathering on my bike, etc. My personal pet peeve is the sorry state of music in church meetings – my ward uses an organ with recorded hymns since nobody can play since I left.
The doctrinal and historical issues were always there and will always be there, but the second half of the equation is also now missing – community. I think many people would stomach the polygamy and racist past if they felt genuine community.
Here’s the thing: the Mormon church is being run by consultants, attorneys, and financial experts… but no prophets. To thrive maybe they should consider merging with another sect, maybe evangelical Christians, they at least seem to have fun on Sundays. Alas I’m only half joking.
A few years ago, primarily due to extreme exhaustion – spiritually, physically and mentally, I sat quietly and asked myself: “Really, what has this Church ever done for me?” Oh sure, throughout the course of my life, the organization has asked a great deal of me; my time, my money, my energy and my spirit.
Once I took the time to carefully and deliberately ask the question – the answer came screaming back to me: “aside from having a ready-made community (of sorts)- Nothing. It’s been a long, long time – since the Church has done anything for me”
The Church has not lifted a burden; but added many. It has not healed my Spirit; but has continued to shame & scar. And, it has become an incredibly wealty Real Estate/Investment Firm – with the facade of a “Church of Christ”. Personally, I think it’s due to this fact alone….that it will continue to lose value with its’ members; and will ultimately become useless as “a Church”.
I too am old enough to remember church activities from my youth in the 70’s. What I remember most is how much fun they were. Not everything had to be serious and purposeful. Fun is not something that can be quantified or measured on a spreadsheet. Sometimes fun is dumb or being just plain silly. But having fun together is critical to building community.
The last time I had real fun at a church activity was when I was the stage manager for the ward Christmas pageant. It involved standing outside with a radio in the freezing cold parking lot. I couldn’t feel my feet! We had real sheep and a donkey. The ward members were shepherds and the youth were angels. We invited the local community and had a wonderful response. It’s a great memory.
Alas the pageants are no more. Fun is not a frill. It is essential to maintaining the fabric of the church community.
In some ways the demand for members’ time has decreased with the elimination of social events and programs, the reduction of Sunday worship to two hours, yet in other ways have increased, such as clean your own building, do significantly more temple service, serve senior missions. There is higher demand in leadership callings. Several duties have been shifted from the bishop to the ward council, especially to the Relief Society President and Elders Quorum President to free the bishop to spend more time mentoring the young men. And have you spent time as a Young Women’s Leader? High demand, tiny budget. The youth are expected to devote more time preparing lessons and planning the activities, Primary kids are expected to set goals and plans for their progress in the shallow new program. So from my perspective on this particular winter’s afternoon, I don’t see a great reduction in time demanded; new priorities have replaced the old social ones. (Let’s remember society has changed along the way as well – roadshows and pageants no longer attract crowds. At least American society has become much more isolated. See: The Atlantic, February 2025 https://cdn.theatlantic.com https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/p8jjkg_fgQ4OhOWs60rub2VQeYA=/420×560/media/img/issues/2025/01/13/0225_Cover_300/original.jpg )
Release time seminary is not available outside of I believe 3 states (UT, ID, AZ I believe). What about those programs?
I am absolutely in favor of abolishing released time seminary. Early-morning too. If it were up to me, online seminary would be available around the clock and kids would sign up for the most convenient time. (And I’m not buying the digital divide argument any more. I have family members teaching kids in Uganda and Afghanistan (yes, girls). They just use their cell phones. This is doable.
one type of demand from ETB was for mothers to not work outside the home. Thankfully (and needfully) the church quite quit that. That particular demand was huge on my family. We lived some very lean decades, striving to be righteous and follow the prophet and the vision the Family Proclamation established. Another was in not applying for a government health program for a nicu baby, again, from ETB guidance. We met our out of pocket every year. As our family financial situation gradually stabilized (i got an education in a reasonably compensated field), my husband spent 5 years as bishop. We lived in a high needs ward, so i limited my working hours.
we are decently on a solid path to retirement, but would be much closer without that bishop stint. Apparently the church does not believe the laborer is worthy of his hire.
a lot of my life regrets come from “following the prophet”.
there is also the demand to tell people what underwear to wear that high church leaders emphasize.
another is still telling members to date and marry people in a narrow category. This harms far more women than men.
my resentment would be mitigated a degree if the church did good.
I think a ward still offers a fair sense of community. It’s the right size to get to know some people and maybe have a few you actually like. If it gets too large or too small, the stake will re-jigger ward boundaries to keep the workable size.
People move a lot more than they used to, often halfway across the country. That accounts for some of this sense of lost community. It’s a social change as much as a church change that is driving this sense of lost community. It’s hard to make friends over 30. We should all work harder to stay on friendly terms with parents, sibs, and the kids. They stick around a lot longer than friends.
@DaveW “Personally, I put a lot of the cause of this on affluence. I live in a nice area, though certainly not one you’d single out as especially wealthy. Even still, we have people that don’t accept callings because they spend months of the year in their place in Hawaii. Families with kids are focused on the high school mountain biking team, or travel baseball, or their dance team, or cross country meets. (At my house its D&D, marching band and theater.) Whatever the root cause, I see people that have decided that they find more community and enjoyment pursuing things that have nothing to do with church.”
This is an interesting topic, because the Jesus of the Gospels was clear on a rich man’s ability to get into heaven. Certainly affluence can be a factor. But it gets me wondering, what is the real value of the church? If it grows really well in poor areas, what is it exactly that these people are getting out of church? The church always seems to use rich people as object lessons for leaving or forgetting God and that poverty brings humility and reliance on God. I just don’t buy these false diachotomies any more. You can have horrible rich people like Elon Musk, you can also have someone like MacKenzie Scott who quietly donates billions to wonderful causes out of the spot light. You can have the extremes in poverty as well. So why are poor people coming to the church? Is it really for God or is it for the support framework and community it provides to get them on their feet? Mixture of both maybe? The church has hundreds of billions and could solve some major things for these people, but does keeping them poor keep them artificially reliant on the church in a way that really isn’t what we’re supposedly aiming for?
Good comments, but I particularly appreciated Trevor Holloday’s comment: “Here’s the thing: the Mormon church is being run by consultants, attorneys, and financial experts…”
I found much more joy going to church in the past than I do now. We focus on teaching exact obedience, but Jesus didn’t focus on that. “Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” (John 6:28-29). Simple belief is far more important than exact obedience, and obedience based on a solid belief is far better than obedience based on checking boxes. I wish that we would teach about believing in Christ, and I wish that we would not obsess about strict obedience. Our church today does not teach about God’s amazing ability to save His children; instead we focus on the very few that will be saved. Our members are fatigued; it isn’t good enough to finish the race or to fight the fight (Paul’s analogies); we have to be better than the Smiths, Jones, and Browns who our are neighbors. We have to be better than others; the standard isn’t us following Christ, it is how am I doing compared to others. We have to check too many boxes. We have too many pharisaical leaders and too many pharisees among our members, quick to point the finger, gossip, and accuse all the while refusing comfort.
The consultants, attorneys, and financial experts are focused on one thing: dollars. Most callings didn’t require temple recommends not that long ago, and now we measure everything against a recommend. Biggest obstacle to a recommend might be tithing. But we refuse to teach today what the First Presidency taught in 1970, which included this line: “We feel that every member of the Church should be entitled to make his own decision as to what he thinks he owes the Lord, and to make payment accordingly.” Let the people decide what to pay their 10%. Our leaders know that our missionaries and local leaders are frequently teaching that tithing is 10% of gross income, which is wrong–and while we know that it wrong, when have you heard a leader telling the people that tithing need not be based on gross? We want those paying on the gross to keep on paying on that basis. How many people don’t get recommends because they don’t think that they can pay on the gross? It is about money. Why not teach today that a full tithe need not be on the gross income? Let the people decide what to base their 10% on. That might lower revenues, but it might also increase the number of full tithe payers and recommend holders, and that would increase the number of people going to the temple–which we say is a good thing. I think that lower revenues in exchange more temple attendance might be a good deal.
“one type of demand from ETB was for mothers to not work outside the home“
Is it reasonable to note that many of the sister leaders in the church today were young and young marrieds back during President Benson’s presidency, but they ignored his counsel not to work outside the home. They did well for themselves, and are now in the General Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary presidencies. Hurrah! However, in their current positions, aren’t they teaching exact obedience to the prophet? I think so, and this seems ironic since they didn’t obey the prophet, and yet have done very well.
@Georgis You hit the temple thing on the head. I have personally not renewed my recommend this time around, not because of tithing, but because I just don’t know if I can answer some of those question in the recommend interview the way they want. And I’m tired to trying to “make it work.” There are 3 questions about Jesus in the recommend interview. There is “one” massive question that contains 5 questions about the Q15 (which is where some of my concerns are). The other questions are minutiae. There is just so much stuff the church has piled in front of the temple that you have to over in a specific way to get into the temple. And most of it just doesn’t matter. I think the temple bet around here is just not attracting the people any more. The Saratoga Springs temple opened and they are constantly asking for people to staff it. I live in Lehi and they announced a temple for Lehi and I just don’t know where they think the volunteers will come from.
On Sunday in RS they were pushing for sisters to renew their temple recommends and attend the temple more frequently. I have always felt uncomfortable with that. Even before I had kids my husband was tired of people when he came home and had no interest in temple attendance. Me trying to push him into going worked infrequently and caused marital discord. Then I had kids with serious disabilities and I needed to be at home to take care of them. The importance of the temple pales next to this for me.
The temple is nice (and boring) but caring for the living is essential.
I wouldn’t mind going to the temple once in awhile, but I no longer feel comfortable submitting to a man’s evaluation of my worthiness to get a recommend. I also am unwilling to pay tithing without full transparency of how it is spent from the church. Even then I am unwilling to pay tithing that is spent so heavily on beautiful buildings to aid the dead when living people are homeless and the church is paying little money to help them. I would like to see a shelter for the homeless near each temple.
My kids with disabilities may need such a shelter some day and I don’t think they will be needing the temple with their situations.
I’ve been in some really fun wards as an adult. Now I’m counting years and the one was 20 years ago. We built a float for a parade and all the Primary kids got to ride on it. But I also remember the Activities Chairperson talking about how impossible it was to find anyone to help plan a ward party.
The ward I moved into 10 years ago had tons of community. We moms with preschool kids met at the Church once a week for preschool that we took turns teaching. Ward members hosted parties at their homes and invited everyone. This was a poor, older neighborhood with small homes and small yards, so when someone sprung for a bouncy house, it was totally epic (to quote my kids).
One thing I’ve noticed is that as the kids have gotten older, I got sick of ward socializing. A lot of what got me out of the house was the need to keep the kids busy and make other mom friends for help. It was exhausting. I felt some relief when my kids refused to go to a Primary activity and we could just stay home.
I’ve got those fun memories of Church activities in my teens too. But honestly? I wouldn’t want to help put on a road show as an adult, especially not after getting home from work.
Many community events are fading out, not just church stuff. Youth soccer has fewer teams, amateur theater performances struggle to get an audience, the library offers free clubs for all sorts of interests in a variety of age ranges and very few people attend. Personally, I just want to stay home. A lot of people would rather just stay home. I don’t believe we can blame all of that on changes at Church.
My sense is that the church has become more focused on worship in the home and in the temple–perhaps as a result of wanting the saints to become more spiritually independent. It seems to me that the apostles want the members to rely more on the spirit of revelation and less on church programs to guide their lives. I think of this quote from President Nelson:
“In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”
The church is focusing less on keeping the saints out of trouble and more on helping them become converted.
I think the main problem with the church in the “Mormon corridor” is housing affordability. The church schools (BYU, BYU-I, BYU-H, and Ensign college) along with university institute programs scattered throughout the US created a social replication structure whereby believing individuals could couple, court, marry, and start families. These families would then become anchors within wards scattered throughout the country, possibly internationally as people moved for work/military service.
This is how I see social reproduction model and transmission of faith to the next generation having taken place in my lifetime, at least within the US. But that has broken down completely, and I believe it is primarily due to high housing costs in areas where, historically, most active LDS members live (granted, some of it has is due to changing preferences and more educational/career opportunities and aspirations for LDS women). Because of the economic realities of just attaining and paying for shelter, there is a lot less discretionary time to carry out or even participate in some of the community activities that some are waxing nostalgic for here, even if they hadn’t been discontinued.
Utah’s housing prices relative to income are among the highest in the country. This has major implications for church activity. If someone takes 18 months to 2 years off to serve a mission, there is a huge opportunity cost during prime years required to develop higher education or vocational training. This might not have mattered so much in earlier decades when housing to income prices were half as much, but it matters a lot now. When you add to that the tithing component, there is a serious financial crunch and barriers to achieving what earlier generations had access to.
I don’t believe the church membership grows by its missionary effort. The convert retention rate is not great, and those who are baptized are typically singles who do not go on to have children or who are past their childbearing years. The church “grows” when like-minded members couple and start families. And in areas with the highest activity rate and LDS concentration, that milestone is significantly delayed or denied due to economic realities of high housing costs. So, President Oaks can give firesides and try to encouraging more dating among the increasingly ranks never-married single LDS adults, but that doesn’t change the economic realities. For all the emphasis on the Family Proclamation, the church does a poor job of pushing for local or national policies that make having a family more attainable. And it doesn’t fill in the gaps with programs that alleviate this stress. Adding church callings on top of very stretched time 2-income household is leads to burnout (quiet quitting is real in the church right now).
Anyway, I think the church needs desperately to evolve, doctrinally (with regards to LGBTQ acceptance and integration and female ordination/parity in leadership), but it also needs to develop a new set of social infrastructure programs like daycares, affordable housing, health clinics/immunization and the like to meet the needs of a modern church. Absent radical changes like I’ve proposed, the Church will look a lot like the gorgeous Catholic cathedrals I saw on my mission in Quebec: filled with devout, older members who have the free time to worship and nostalgia for the past, but children will be an endangered species as social replication does not happen. And younger generation who do couple will have fewer children, but will not be connected to the past, nor will they desire to stay connected to a faith tradition that doesn’t help them practically and is increasingly at odds with more egalitarian, non-patriarchal values.
Perhaps the disconnect that really drives this home the most is the “home-centered, church-supported” initiative from a few years ago. I work on a local housing coalition and Dejan Eskic of the Kem C. Gardner institute gave some sobering statistic to our group this week: 92% of Utahns cannot afford the median priced home. It’s hard to have a “home-centered” church when most younger members will not be able to buy a home. A real “let them eat cake” mentality if you ask me.
After spending some additional time carefully thinking about this topice/article (which I really love – by the way) I think I can put my thoughts much more concisely.
“The Church is not a refuge, a hospital for the hurting soul, a place to uplift the spirit and a place of rest. Rather it has become nothing more than a monumental pain in the ass: always demanding something – and rarely giving anything.”
I see a real disconnect between the idea of “home centered church”, and the way the church is pushing for “exact obedience to institutional authorities”. With years of home centered church we will all become more independent of those institutional authorities and just start putting home authorities ahead of institutional authorities.
Covid gave us an example of what happens with “home centered” church. First off, there are too many singles. How are they supposed to experience any community? People who are already too isolated become even more isolated. Second, too much of home centered church falls on women. It seems it is alway women pushing the men to do the home church stuff. The women with small children need support of community and other women and too much “home church” leaves them too isolated. Didn’t the church read the feminist Mormon blogs during COVID? The women were giving up pushing their husbands into doing Sacrament or any kind of home church. So, the church left all single women and many married women to life without being able to partake of the sacrament. My own husband wouldn’t do it because he was taught “at least two priesthood holders were necessary.” But I suspect he just didn’t want to because unless I push for it we have never done any kind of family prayer, scripture reading, FHE, even blessings on food, or any kind of church ceremony or ritual. They just don’t mean much to him individually.
…and the way the church is pushing for “exact obedience to institutional authorities”…
Your example shows this. Your husband was taught wrongly — two priesthood holders are not required to offer the sacrament — it is customary, and I sustain the customary practice as a general pattern. But because of the demand for “exact obedience to institutional authorities,” your husband is unable to even think about the matter, much less come to the correct answer (btw, which differs from what your husband was taught).
I’m not trying to slight your husband — he is similar to so many across the church. This shows the flaw in home centered, church supported — the church has created a culture where rank-and-file men are unable to think for themselves, and must await instruction on EVERYTHING from higher authority in the church chain. Even in a wholly patriarchal society, this mindset must change before there can be any meaning to home centered, church supported. And, it seems to me, we are not yet willing to do anything to strengthen or empower rank-and-file men to make appropriate but independent decisions.
And it seems to me that so long as rank-and-file men can’t make independent decisions, well, of course women can’t, either [I say this descriptively, not prescriptively].
I could share the correct answer with your husband — I am man but I hold no office or status, so your husband might not accept my correct answer that two priesthood holders are not required to offer the sacrament — or even if he was sympathetic to the correct answer, he might feel unable to act upon it until he got clearance from his bishop or other appropriate official, even if he already had permission to offer the sacrament in your home. That might be how he was brought up. This weakness permeates our church culture — I wish we could move to more independence for men (and women) so that home centered, church supported could have some meaning.
As someone who came into the youth program as road shows were fading out, but still participated in many of the other activities mentioned in the OP, I have to admit that I really don’t miss those programs and am totally fine that they’re not coming back. As the kids say (I think), “I ain’t tryin’ to do all that.”
Thinking about Anna’s remarks, as well as others in this thread who reminisce about the “glory days” when Church activities were more fun and more frequent; those activities and programmatic elements came at a significant human cost, and the vast majority of those humans were women. My mom, for example, is a boomer who gave every last bit of energy and free time to the various callings she rotated through as I was growing up. It wasn’t readily visible to me at the time, but she was at or near maximum stress levels during these times (in contrast to my dad, who fumbled and half-assed his way through every one of his Church callings, often with my mom bailing him out somehow). And she did this primarily out of a sense of obligation. To that generation, the exhortation to “magnify your callings” meant over-extending yourself, never say “no”, never complain, and then thank God for giving you the opportunity. Fun activities may have been the carrot, but the “stick” was the fear of eternal and earthly (social) consequences for shirking one’s duties. As she is now an aging widow, I notice her deteriorated physical and mental health at a faster-than-normal rate for her age, and wonder if they are manifestations of those earlier Church-induced stresses. Fortunately, my generation (and those following) don’t seem to be as burdened by unspoken Church obligations like that, perhaps in part because we saw what it did to our parents. Today, my wife is quite devout, but has much better boundaries with her time and energy, and will not hesitate to say “no” when appropriate. For better or worse, a natural downside to better boundaries and self-determination is the reduction in quality and quantity of Church activities, and subsequent erosion of Church community. This trend will probably continue as the youngest Mormons of today grow up to find the Church to be an even more readily expendable part of their lives, as the organization continues to demand a lot but give very little (and progressively less with each passing year) in return.
I worry about “Zion”. For half a century our little ward out in the mission field threw the most epic ward Christmas parties. Former ward members, grown children, and their children would return for the fun. Giant reunion. Singing, dancing, joy, tables of food, gift-giving and receiving. True Zion.
This year, the reluctant activities committee obligatorily threw a dull one hour dinner akin to a cheaply catered office lunch. Official opening and closing prayer. No Christmas music, no decorations, few people, no joy, no community.
I don’t know whether the societal changes described in “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Demise of Community”(2000, Putnam) caused this and the church could not hold back the flood gates, or whether we did it to ourselves. In the words of Dr. Phil, “You couldn’t have messed it up any worse if you tried.” I also think that correlation and scrupulosity suck all the joy out of everything. Of course our corporate culture doesn’t help. Barbara Ehrenreich wrote about how the industrial revolution strove to stamp out festivals and holidays so workers would spend more time in factories earning the fat cats money. We used to have weeks of festivals, carnivals, 12 days of Christmas, a week of mardi gras, high holy days, saints days, etc. and now we have just 6 federal holidays. It wasn’t just work policy that stripped our community of its holidays and joy, but insidious cultural pressure. And we Mormons love our corporate culture, it’s our worship language.
Community Busters:
-removing cooking and (to a great degree) food from our wards
-Calling introverted LDS GAs who don’t interact with the rank and file (and model massive introversion)
-prioritization of “personal” spirituality above Zion/community. For example, YW “personal” progress, RS “personal” home and family enrichment, personal scripture study, family (only) based church (prior to and during COVID), etc.
-total lack of engagement in our community or world current events (with the exception of Helping Hands- clean-up crews)
-business/corporate GAs as opposed to artists and crafts-persons
-removing home and visiting teaching and replacing it with the less involved “ministering”
-replacing ward/stake service opportunities in lieu of donating money (less need for LDS farm help, cannery volunteers, quilters, or whatever. Today’s LDS welfare work runs mostly on our checks sent to SLC. As a result, we aren’t involved DOING charitable work together- it’s delegated to SLC. )
-removing saints from ward/temple construction, furnishing, gardening and decorating (everything is done by SLC)
-removing saints from local art (all the art in wards is correlated, everything is imported from Utah)
-removing the individualization and personal niches in church. People don’t have pride in specializing in anything or filling a special need in the church. Saints used to have a need. You were a desperately needed craftsman or woman, an organ builder, a stone mason, a farmer, a writer, etc. All hands on deck to build Zion. Now, Zion doesn’t really need our talents. As a matter of fact, we’ve grown too big and trying to logistically plug you into something relevant is impossible. So, now pecializing in something in the church is considered unfaithful and stubborn. True saints happily get shuffled frequently around the ward which emphasizes church authority and deference with even more amateurism that a lay ministry brings.
-patriarchy
-removing regular weekly or monthly homemaking meetings (women’s social time)
-removing Relief Society magazines, curriculum, management, funds, charitable activities, etc.
-removing road shows, bazaars, scouts, dance groups, choirs, and other artistic collaborations
-removing Primary mid-week and other activities.
-removing stake and ward sports
-removing k-12 church schools
-reducing time together (2 hour church, less mid-week activities)
-remaining time together is yucky, hard and even punishing e.g. clean the ward building, cleaning after natural disasters, etc. What is the best way to teach teens what Zion is? Meaningful service where they can interact with each other and the recipients? Learning or creating art or sports? Nah. Let’s just make each church interaction about cleaning the toilets.
@mortimer actually I’m happy a lot of those things are gone, because what ended up happening is that your salvation got tied to participating in them. These weren’t just volunteer things, they were callings which came with expectations of saying yes and sacrificing everything for the greater good. It wasn’t healthy. I’d be happy to see these things come back, but only after we get out of this black and white, all or nothing mindset to everything we do. Somehow, and I don’t know what the balance is, but we have got to achieve healthy levels of engagement with each other without all the strings we attach to doing it.
Chrisdrobison,
You’re right. A lot of these were as hard or irrelevant as cleaning the church, but they created an environment for community.
What is the most relevant thing we could be doing together as a people? Well, we could start by eradicating hunger, malnutrition and starvation among the estimated 80,000-120,000 suffering LDS Primary children in the world and at the same time feed non-LDS hungry children. That would take everyone’s hands on deck (linguists, healthcare workers, teachers, distribution, farmers, office workers, hands-on volunteers, missionaries, etc.) Before we build another temple- we dip into the $100+ billion for the children. Wouldn’t we be so proud if once again the saints were seen as world-wide innovators – as shining lights who were doing something incredible? Not just the Tabernacle choir, not just Truman Angel, but we could all be proud of being part of a community that was making a difference in the world. Cheiko Okasaki, Elaine Jack and Eileen Clyde suggested we focus on literacy and stamp out illiteracy worldwide. I loved that idea, but it only lasted until they were released. We have real problems to solve, but we need vision and cohesiveness, community, and structure for moving forward. the early saints rallied together after being persecuted, going on the trek, building the inter mountain west. I’d really love to keep that sense of urgency, prodictivity and community without the Lord teaching it to us through a downturn on the pride cycle.
Folks in my circles are trying to live authentic lives and following Brene Brown, Nicole LePera etc – not Bednar, Sis Johnson or Sis Dennis. Emotional healing, yoga, breathwork etc ain’t being offered by the Corporation of the President.
Also, I have a personal connection to a member of Q15 whose spouse ABHORS mingling with the common folk.
Holy Ghost
SEEKING EMPLOYMENT
EXPERIENCE
CORE SKILLS
SEEKING NEW ROLE BECAUSE:
PREFERRED WORK ENVIRONMENT
REFERENCES
CONTACT & AVAILABILITY
No recruiters. No institutional middlemen.
Do you think that it was this that moved the church out of Scouting, or the opening of Scouting to LGBTQ leaders? Or was the latter just the final impetus to do what they were trying to do for cost reasons anyway?
I still boggle at the idea of church leaders seeking ways to pinch pennies. I don’t think they should spend profligately. But surely they don’t need to worry about falling short at the end of each month because they paid a Scout exec (or, heaven forbid, a meetinghouse custodian).
I think that for some the forced community aspect was discouraging some from being active in the church. So to be more welcoming to everyone the church reduced its emphasis on community building. I suspect that it has led to a growth in activity.
Like the author, Steve Marsh, I too am a graduate of BYU Law School. I, however, am in my late seventies. Steve has provided an accurate and insightful synopsis of the changes that have been made to the LDS Church (hereinafter “the Church”) during the past half century. A question that he has not fully addressed is: Why have those changes been made? From my perspective, the Church is, first and foremost, a business. All else is of secondary importance. Protection of its business interests, wealth and power take precedence over doctrine and the welfare of its members. The Church has demonstrated time and again that if growth and public acceptability of the organization are threatened by specific doctrines or specific rituals, the doctrines and rituals will be changed under the guise of “modern-day revelation”.
More than 50 years ago, while reading the Book of Mormon as a missionary, I wondered why Joseph Smith had translated the Book of Mormon into Jacobean English, which even in 1830, was essentially, a foreign language. I also wondered why Smith had inserted huge sections of the Book of Isaiah, virtually word for word from the King James Bible, into the Book of Mormon, and why portions of the Epistles of the Apostle Paul were frequently quoted word for word. When I voiced my concerns to Boyd K. Packer during an interview, he really let me have it. After completing my reading of the Book of Mormon, I was fairly certain that it was not an historical document, and that it was likely a fraud. After my mission, I discovered that Joseph Smith’s “translation” of portions of the Book of Isaiah even included the translational errors that were present in the King James Bible. Throughout the years, I have earnestly studied seven languages, including German, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese, Russian and, of course, English. Consequently, I am familiar with the process of translation. The Book of Mormon was supposedly translated from “reformed Egyptian” characters by Joseph Smith. The writings of Isaiah, originally written in Hebrew, had to have been converted to the Egyptian characters on the gold plates. When text in an original language is translated to a second language (i.e., Egyptian), which is then translated to a third language (i.e., English), it is impossible to translate the resulting English version back to Hebrew and recreate the original Hebrew text word for word. Thus, the many chapters of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon were, without a doubt, copied directly from the King James Bible rather than being translated from the gold plates. Even if Joseph Smith had translated the original Hebrew version of Isaiah, his translation would not have been word-for-word identical to the translation in the King James Bible. I believe that this fact, alone, is proof of the fraudulent origin of the Book of Mormon.
The 16th-century English language of the Book of Mormon has had a profound effect on the language of both prayer and scriptures in the LDS Church. I suppose that Joseph Smith assumed that by using archaic Jacobean English for the Book of Mormon, readers of the book would be impressed with an authoritative linguistic style that matched that of the King James Bible, which was—at the time—the standard biblical text for all English-speaking Protestant congregations. Although Hebrew, the language spoken by Jesus of Nazareth, has never had second person singular familiar pronouns equivalent to the words thou, thee, thy and thine, Mormons make extensive, and often incorrect, use of those words while praying. Use of Jacobean English in the Book of Mormon has also made it difficult for the LDS Church to authorize any translation other than the King James version as its official Bible, in spite of the fact that many translation errors have been corrected in newer translations, such as the New American Standard Bible, the English Standard Version Bible and the Jerusalem Bible. However, not all modern translations of the Bible are of equal stature. The New International Version, for example, is so poorly translated that I threw my copy in the trash. In 1992, the First Presidency of the Church announced the King James Version was the church’s official English Bible, stating that, “while other Bible versions may be easier to read than the King James Version, in doctrinal matters latter-day revelation supports the King James Version in preference to other English translations.” Such abject foolishness ensures that members of the Church will be forever mired in the tar pits of Shakespearean English.
Joseph Smith also claimed that the writings on certain papyri, which had been discovered in the catacombs of Egypt by Antonio Sebolo, and which had been purchased by the Church from Sebolo’s nephew Michael Chandler, were original writings of Abraham and Joseph, penned while they resided in Egypt some 3,400 years ago. Smith claimed to have translated a portion of Abraham’s writings from the papyri, which was published in 1842 in The Times and Seasons, a Church publication. Those writing of Abraham were subsequently published as the Book of Abraham, which is included in the Pearl of Great Price, which is canonized Church scripture.
Up until the early 1960s, critical thought and an open mind were not considered sure evidences of apostasy. In fact, they were even encouraged by certain Church leaders, such as Hugh B. Brown. The story of how the Church entered the Dark Ages in the twentieth century is fascinating. In 1945, Fawn McKay Brodie, the niece of David O. McKay (the man who six years later would become the ninth President of the Church), published a book that would eventually have far-reaching consequences. The book, a biography of Joseph Smith, Jr., was titled No Man Knows My History. Brodie’s family ties enabled her, for a time, to gain virtually unfettered access to documents in the Church archives. Many of those documents undermined the notion of Smith’s divine calling and, consequently, had purposely been hidden from public view. Although the book initially caused quite a stir, the Church mounted a campaign to discredit the book and its author. Hugh Nibley, a Church scholar and professor at B.Y.U. anonymously authored an answer to Brodie’s book, which he titled No Ma’am, That Ain’t History. As a result of the campaign, the Church laity became generally convinced that Mrs. Brodie was a bitter apostate who had distorted and misconstrued the evidence. For nearly fifteen years, the situation remained essentially unchanged, as there was little primary source material available with which one could measure the accuracy of Mrs. Brodie’s book. During that period, the Church maintained its cocksure, arrogant position that Joseph Smith and his divine mission were immune to serious attack. With Its dirty laundry now carefully locked up in the Church archives, only the true and tested faithful could gain access to it and, then, only on a very limited and restricted basis.
The year 1959 brought a dramatic turn of events. It was that year that two former Church members, Sandra and Jerald Tanner, established the Modern Microfilm Company on West Temple Street in Salt Lake City, Utah–less than two miles from Church headquarters. With an ever-increasing supply of primary source material anonymously provided by church members, and available through the Tanners, the Church found itself under unrelenting attack. Intellectual freedom within the Mormon kingdom suffered a severe setback as the Church prepared for a long-term siege. Questioning minds were no longer in vogue, and a “follow the brethren” mindlessness was soon imposed on the Church laity. Any vestiges of intellectual freedom within the Church were obliterated shortly after the papyri, from which Joseph Smith had “translated” the Book Abraham, were deciphered. At first, the Church attempted to discredit its chosen translator, a self-taught Egyptologist who had obtained a mail-order doctoral degree. However, when other Egyptologists having legitimate credentials authenticated Dee Jay Nelson’s translation, the Church realized that it had a major credibility problem. Once again, Hugh Nibley came to the rescue with a series of esoteric essays published in the Church’s Ensign magazine. By presenting a convoluted discussion of Egyptian mythology and symbolism, Nibley attempted to obfuscate the obvious conclusion that Smith’s translation was bogus. Most Church members were so impressed by the complexity and the erudite nature of the discussion, that they ignored the fact that the essays never directly addressed the problem of the defective translation. As a result of the Book of Abraham debacle, the Church no longer espouses the scientific method or critical thought as means by which religious truths may be established. Today, religious truths can be known only through faith and testimony. Boyd K. Packer, a now-deceased, former President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was a Church leader who exemplified this cretinous mentality. A religious fanatic virtually devoid of humor, Packer (as I discovered in my conversations with him) was absolutely intolerant of any degree of dissent or uncertainty of belief. In an address to Church religious educators, in which he instructed them to gloss over certain historical events that would paint the church in an unfavorable light, he reportedly said: “Some things that are true are not very useful.” As a result of Packer’s crusade to excommunicate liberal Mormon intellectuals, the Church educational system has been stripped of teachers who engage in critical and reflective philosophical thought. The late D. Michael Quinn, a brilliant historian raised in the Church, was not the only seeker of truth who was excommunicated for compiling embarrassing and controversial history. One thing is certain: Truth is no defense to charges of apostasy.
With its doctrines under unrelenting attack, nearly all controversial material, relating to unique doctrines of the Church, has been deleted from the Sunday School and Priesthood Quorum lesson manuals. The only unique teachings which remain in Church lesson manuals deal with temple marriage and temple ordinances. The result is lesson material and Church meetings characterized by stupefying monotony.
Officials of the Church, at the very highest levels, have demonstrated by their actions that they consider the Church to be a fraud. How else can one explain the more than 5,000 changes that have been made to the Book of Mormon (remember: it is the world’s most correct book), the significant revisions (including wholesale deletions) to revelations supposedly given by direct revelation from God to Joseph Smith, sweeping changes in the LDS temple ceremony over the years, surreptitious doctoring of Church history, and dramatic doctrinal shifts when politically expedient. At the same time, the Church disingenuously claims that the Bible was massively altered, to the extent that many precious principles were expunged therefrom, and that this ravaged compilation of sacred texts was then grossly mistranslated. The historical facts simply do not support such a conclusion. Anyone who is even remotely familiar with Jewish religious tradition and practice knows that the Torah (i.e., the Old Testament) is almost certainly the most carefully preserved of all ancient documents. If LDS scriptures continue to undergo revision at the same rate as in the past, they will be virtually unrecognizable within five hundred years from the date of its founding (assuming, of course, that the Church will survive another 300 years). Isn’t it amazing that the LDS Church falsely denigrates the Bible for supposedly having the very same defects that distinguish its own scriptures! The General Authorities (i.e., highest officials) of the LDS Church seem to despise the truth. They have adopted the Hitlerian tenet that a colossal lie can be transformed into truth if enough people believe it. One has to marvel at the incredible duplicity of this tightly-knit group of men who, on one hand, hold themselves out as Christ’s representatives on earth and yet, on the other hand, engage in lies, fraud and deceit to maintain their power base.
Beginning in the 1960s, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (now renamed The Community of Christ) began a transition from religious sect to Protestant Christian denomination at the behest of a group of impetuous liberal members, who embarrassed and coerced church leadership to such an extent that the transition was allowed to occur. This reorganizational wrecking crew relentlessly demythologized church history, theology and assorted traditions, thereby overturning the church’s traditional ideological consensus. Most of the issues that the Reorganized LDS Church faced were identical to those faced by the Utah LDS Church today. Joseph Smith, finally acknowledged to be a polygamist and adulterer, was no longer a prophet of God, but merely the church founder. The Book of Mormon was also given the axe, and is now considered to be an historical artifact and a fictional religious literary work of the same genre as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. The Reorganized Church thus became an organization devoid of identity, adrift in a sea of woke relativity, with no compelling reason for membership. As a consequence of this reorganizational debacle, active membership declined some seventy percent, and revenues from member contributions fell even farther than active membership. With the Community of Christ flirting with insolvency, the Utah LDS Church provided an infusion of $192,000,000 (yes, $192 million) to that organization by purchasing the Nauvoo House (Joseph Smith’s home in Nauvoo, Illinois), the Kirtland Temple in Kirtland Ohio, the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon, and other sundry items from the nearly bankrupt church. The Utah LDS General Authorities are acutely aware of this cautionary tale of organizational collapse. The Church, of course, has the option of gradually downplaying its spurious content by de-emphasizing the Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, temples, and temple rituals. The Church has already accomplished this feat with respect to The Pearl of Great Price, Brigham Young’s Journal of Discourses and Joseph Smith’s “inspired” revision of the King James Bible. Church officials– obviously embarrassed by the latter work, on which Joseph Smith spent much time and effort–have refused to canonize and print it. Consequently, few members are even aware of its existence. Fewer, still, know that it can be purchased from the Community of Christ. During the first two and a half decades of the twenty-first century, the Church does not appear to be following either of those courses of action. More than 300 temples are either completed, in construction, or planned, obviously with the hope that the increase in Church revenues will more than offset the cost of construction and maintenance. Though Church members now hear virtually nothing about the Pearl of Great Price, the importance of the Book of Mormon is emphasized more than ever. Prophet worship is encouraged. Revisionist history abounds. From reading the 1999 priesthood lesson manual on the life and teachings of Brigham Young, one would mistakenly conclude that the man was monogamous. On the other hand, if the Church were completely stripped of its unique features, it would be nothing more than an empty shell unless it were to accept and legitimize the Bible in a way that it has heretofore refused to do. Moreover, if the spurious content is eliminated, the Church would become nothing more than a very large and, perhaps, wealthy version of a community Bible church. In order for the Church to survive and thrive, there must be a compelling reason for members to pay tithing. Membership in the Church is expensive, and there are many less-costly religions. Presently, the compelling features of the Church are its claim to a restoration of the primitive Christian church, which supposedly gives it God’s priesthood or authority. With God’s priesthood comes efficacious ordinances such as baptism, annointings, the temple endowment, and temple sealings of couples for time and eternity (i.e., eternal marriage). The elephant in the room, however, is the Book of Mormon. With each passing year, it becomes increasingly indefensible. Add to that Joseph Smith’s sexual exploits with young, barely pubescent girls and with women already married to other men. If a Church member comes to accept the overwhelming evidence that the Book of Mormon is a sham, or if he comes to the realization that Joseph Smith’s character makes him unfit to be a prophet of God, everything collapses; there is no restoration of the primitive church, there is no priesthood authority, there are no efficacious ordinances, and there is no marriage for time and eternity. What remains is the world’s best-managed religious fraternity, featuring a superlative Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra. Is that enough to prevent organizational collapse? Time will tell, but I predict that the Church will eventually suffer the same fate that has befallen the Community of Christ. However, whereas the collapse of the latter organization was analogous to a high-speed train wreck, the Church General Authorities will cautiously, and perhaps unwittingly, orchestrate a slow-motion train wreck that will last many scores of years.