The big shift of Mormonism

[_Fiannan]

The Church is too scared of the feminists and media to come out and re-emphasize having babies the way Ezra Taft Benson and Spencer W. Kimball did. That is why the handbook reference to birth control is written to where anyone with any position can see it as supporting what they want it to say.

[_Fence Sitter]

Ah, yes, those were the days. She was an interesting character, that's for sure. I'll never forget the first conversation I had on ZLMB. I no longer remember the name of the poster who invited me there from the fringe, because he wanted the apologists to set me straight about Joseph Smith's marital exploits. He was a young guy. He was pretty shocked when he found out that my facts were correct. Now-a-days, that's old hat. :)

You are so right - it took me YEARS to work my way out of the church. Of course, I was doing it the old-fashioned way, finding actual BOOKS. I have no doubt had I had access to the internet it would have been expedited.

We have missionaries over to our house for dinner about 4-6 times a year. While I do not grill them, it is quite clear from our conversations that, for the most part, they are still as ignorant of issues with church history and doctrine as we were before the internet. The big difference now is when a member takes that first step to actually investigating the truth claims of the church, that information is at his/her fingertips.
I think this will change, because the internet has evolved social media. Ten years ago the majority of online users were using forums like this one to interact, now it is Twitter, Facebook and so on, areas where interaction happens on a continual basis in real time without the user even having to search. This type of communication will eventually eliminate the members who are completely unaware of most of the issues. While the church has been somewhat effective at convincing members to avoid critical sites, it will be impossible for members to avoid critical comments and information via social media.

[_Ludd]

Ah, yes, those were the days. She was an interesting character, that's for sure. I'll never forget the first conversation I had on ZLMB. I no longer remember the name of the poster who invited me there from the fringe, because he wanted the apologists to set me straight about Joseph Smith's marital exploits. He was a young guy. He was pretty shocked when he found out that my facts were correct. Now-a-days, that's old hat. :)

You are so right - it took me YEARS to work my way out of the church. Of course, I was doing it the old-fashioned way, finding actual BOOKS. I have no doubt had I had access to the internet it would have been expedited.

We have missionaries over to our house for dinner about 4-6 times a year. While I do not grill them, it is quite clear from our conversations that, for the most part, they are still as ignorant of issues with church history and doctrine as we were before the internet. The big difference now is when a member takes that first step to actually investigating the truth claims of the church, that information is at his/her fingertips.
I think this will change, because the internet has evolved social media. Ten years ago the majority of online users were using forums like this one to interact, now it is Twitter, Facebook and so on, areas where interaction happens on a continual basis in real time without the user even having to search. This type of communication will eventually eliminate the members who are completely unaware of most of the issues. While the church has been somewhat effective at convincing members to avoid critical sites, it will be impossible for members to avoid critical comments and information via social media.

If you had engaged me in a discussion of this topic two or three years ago, I would have probably agreed with your perspective just about 100%. But since then I've been paying a lot more attention to how the believing Mormons around me are dealing with the steadily increasing availability of the kind of information you are referring to in your post. Plus, I've been paying closer attention to the data that is available (granted, not always alot, and not always very detailed, but there's still enough to extrapolate from, I think) concerning growth/activity rates and tithing receipts. As a result, my opinions on these things have started to morph from what they were just a few years back. My conclusion, at this point, is that "belief" is alot more adaptable than we sometimes give it credit for, and I think Mormon belief, in particular, is capable of pretty radical and rapid adaptation to the changing environment in which it finds itself. As a result, I have been observing what I guess I would characterize as a rapidly growing capacity for what we have commonly called "compartmentalization", where people more or less turn off their sensors to input that they just don't want to think about. In other words, it's kind of like "putting things on the shelf", but adapted to the age of the internet. Sure, the information is now more available, and you can progress from mild doubts to complete disbelief in just a couple days of web surfing........................if you want to. But I think what is happening is that people are simply learning how to more quickly process the information and, as needed, consign it to their individual "shelves" in pretty much the same manner that people have always done, going back several decades. So while there was certainly a period in the 2000s when TBM's found themselves shocked and their testimonies devastated as a result of coming across what amounted to an avalanche of negative stuff about Joseph Smith and the church, now I think there has been a kind of cultural adjustment where people are just "tuning out", regardless of the widespread availability of damaging information.

The bottom line is that I think Mormonism is probably going to weather the storm caused by the internet and other cultural shifts. After staggering around for a while, I think it will probably regain it's balance and just keep on chugging. It won't grow like Rodney Stark predicted, but I think it will probably maintain it's recent growth and activity rates into the forseeable future.

[_Fence Sitter]

If you had engaged me in a discussion of this topic two or three years ago, I would have probably agreed with your perspective just about 100%. But since then I've been paying a lot more attention to how the believing Mormons around me are dealing with the steadily increasing availability of the kind of information you are referring to in your post. Plus, I've been paying closer attention to the data that is available (granted, not always a lot, and not always very detailed, but there's still enough to extrapolate from, I think) concerning growth/activity rates and tithing receipts. As a result, my opinions on these things have started to morph from what they were just a few years back. My conclusion, at this point, is that "belief" is a lot more adaptable than we sometimes give it credit for, and I think Mormon belief, in particular, is capable of pretty radical and rapid adaptation to the changing environment in which it finds itself. As a result, I have been observing what I guess I would characterize as a rapidly growing capacity for what we have commonly called "compartmentalization", where people more or less turn off their sensors to input that they just don't want to think about. In other words, it's kind of like "putting things on the shelf", but adapted to the age of the internet. Sure, the information is now more available, and you can progress from mild doubts to complete disbelief in just a couple days of web surfing........................if you want to. But I think what is happening is that people are simply learning how to more quickly process the information and, as needed, consign it to their individual "shelves" in pretty much the same manner that people have always done, going back several decades. So while there was certainly a period in the 2000s when TBM's found themselves shocked and their testimonies devastated as a result of coming across what amounted to an avalanche of negative stuff about Joseph Smith and the church, now I think there has been a kind of cultural adjustment where people are just "tuning out", regardless of the widespread availability of damaging information.

The bottom line is that I think Mormonism is probably going to weather the storm caused by the internet and other cultural shifts. After staggering around for a while, I think it will probably regain it's balance and just keep on chugging. It won't grow like Rodney Stark predicted, but I think it will probably maintain it's recent growth and activity rates into the forseeable future.

I think this is true. I know my wife certainly fits this perspective and perhaps there are quite a few out there, like her, who have run into the issues and just tossed them on an unbreakable shelf.

I think the growth of the church is misleading. It is not growing faster than world population, and that is if you use its inflated 14 million members figure. If you count only those members who actually consider themselves members it is not keeping up with population growth. The only way to call it growth is to look at raw numbers. Yes it has more members this year than last but it has less a percentage of the overall population. Will it be around in 50 years? Almost certainly, but it will be less a factor world wide than it is now.

[_Craig Paxton]

Who would have thought that the "Anti-Mormon Lies" of the past would become the "Faithful Tender Mercies" of the Restoration?

We clearly live in miraculous times indeed...

[_Ludd]

If you had engaged me in a discussion of this topic two or three years ago, I would have probably agreed with your perspective just about 100%. But since then I've been paying a lot more attention to how the believing Mormons around me are dealing with the steadily increasing availability of the kind of information you are referring to in your post. Plus, I've been paying closer attention to the data that is available (granted, not always a lot, and not always very detailed, but there's still enough to extrapolate from, I think) concerning growth/activity rates and tithing receipts. As a result, my opinions on these things have started to morph from what they were just a few years back. My conclusion, at this point, is that "belief" is a lot more adaptable than we sometimes give it credit for, and I think Mormon belief, in particular, is capable of pretty radical and rapid adaptation to the changing environment in which it finds itself. As a result, I have been observing what I guess I would characterize as a rapidly growing capacity for what we have commonly called "compartmentalization", where people more or less turn off their sensors to input that they just don't want to think about. In other words, it's kind of like "putting things on the shelf", but adapted to the age of the internet. Sure, the information is now more available, and you can progress from mild doubts to complete disbelief in just a couple days of web surfing........................if you want to. But I think what is happening is that people are simply learning how to more quickly process the information and, as needed, consign it to their individual "shelves" in pretty much the same manner that people have always done, going back several decades. So while there was certainly a period in the 2000s when TBM's found themselves shocked and their testimonies devastated as a result of coming across what amounted to an avalanche of negative stuff about Joseph Smith and the church, now I think there has been a kind of cultural adjustment where people are just "tuning out", regardless of the widespread availability of damaging information.

The bottom line is that I think Mormonism is probably going to weather the storm caused by the internet and other cultural shifts. After staggering around for a while, I think it will probably regain it's balance and just keep on chugging. It won't grow like Rodney Stark predicted, but I think it will probably maintain it's recent growth and activity rates into the forseeable future.

I think this is true. I know my wife certainly fits this perspective and perhaps there are quite a few out there, like her, who have run into the issues and just tossed them on an unbreakable shelf.

This pretty well describes my ex-wife's attitudes about "the issues". She is aware of them, some to a pretty great extent. She just thinks that "it's not for us to judge", and "besides, there are lots of different views of what is 'history'".

I think the growth of the church is misleading. It is not growing faster than world population, and that is if you use its inflated 14 million members figure. If you count only those members who actually consider themselves members it is not keeping up with population growth. The only way to call it growth is to look at raw numbers. Yes it has more members this year than last but it has less a percentage of the overall population. Will it be around in 50 years? Almost certainly, but it will be less a factor world wide than it is now.

My home teacher (yes, I'm still on the records) had an interesting reply when I asked him, a few months back, if he thought the church was fulfilling the prophecy about the "stone cut without hands" that was supposed to "fill the whole earth". He replied by quoting a Book of Mormon verse (1 Nephi 14:12):

12 And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw.

This is, I think, a prime example of how belief adapts to changing realities. When I was growing up, and clear into at least the 1990's, it seemed like most Mormons believed that we were going to convert a significant portion of the world, then the second coming would happen, and all the remaining "wicked" people would be destroyed. Now, in the face of the reality that the church is not going to grow to 250 million, or even 100 million, probably not even 50 million members in the next 100 years (if ever), believers are finding other ways to explain and justify their continuing belief.

[_Equality]

My home teacher (yes, I'm still on the records) had an interesting reply when I asked him, a few months back, if he thought the church was fulfilling the prophecy about the "stone cut without hands" that was supposed to "fill the whole earth". He replied by quoting a Book of Mormon verse (1 Nephi 14:12):

12 And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw.

This is, I think, a prime example of how belief adapts to changing realities. When I was growing up, and clear into at least the 1990's, it seemed like most Mormons believed that we were going to convert a significant portion of the world, then the second coming would happen, and all the remaining "wicked" people would be destroyed. Now, in the face of the reality that the church is not going to grow to 250 million, or even 100 million, probably not even 50 million members in the next 100 years (if ever), believers are finding other ways to explain and justify their continuing belief.

I have long maintained that the church would eventually start emphasizing the "numbers were few" verses over the "stone cut without hands" verse--it plays better with the persecution complex anyway. A few years from now the apologists will be telling us that the whole "church will fill the earth" stuff was just folk doctrine that "some people believed" but was never official doctrine. I can hear it now: "The prophets have always said the church numbers would be few--just look at 1 Nephi 14:12. Wherever did the critics get an idea that it was ever any different?" Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.