The 2030 LDS Bicentennial cometh...

[Notchet]

The church’s bicentennial is only 14 years away. What church practicies, policies, and demographics do you hope, expect, or predict will have changed by the time Mormons commemorate their bicentennial?

[Corsair]

• I expect Jeff Holland or Dave Bednar to be in charge at that time which should foster innumerable online discussions and complaints.
• I do not expect a big change in relations with LGBT people which will only become more problematic as the current group of high school students becomes EQ presidents, RS presidents, and bishops
• I do expect that a slow demographic decline will be carefully covered over with a balance of "falling away of the very elect" countered with "growth among the humble and penitent."

Let's not forget that in within span of President Trump's first term we will get to 2020, the bicentennial of the First Vision. Perhaps we can have an in depth discussion about the differences and claims of each version.

[2bizE]

I expect there to be a big 15th anniversary of the BoM the musical. (Or whatever year it will be).
There will be an entirely new HT process involving the outdated social media forum.
The church block will be reduced to two hours instead of three.
Church leaders will stipulate that tithing has to be on gross income. This is to compensate for the loss of members with money leaving the church.
The church will remove coffee and tea as being against the WoW. In a totally unrelated move, the church will open Starbucks in every ward building thus having the corner on the market for coffee in Utah. Will open a chain of stores called Mormon Coffee.
The church will claim to fully accept LGBT because football teams will refuse to play BYU and cities across the country will deny the church building permits on the grounds of discrimination of LGBT people.
Elder Bednar will erect a large statue of himself and send it on a traveling tour across the globe so people can see what a true prophet looks like.
You will be able to attend church online rather than actually going, for an additional voluntary fee of course.

[Corsair]

I expect there to be a big 15th anniversary of the BoM the musical. (Or whatever year it will be).
There will be an entirely new HT process involving the outdated social media forum.
The church block will be reduced to two hours instead of three.
Church leaders will stipulate that tithing has to be on gross income. This is to compensate for the loss of members with money leaving the church.
The church will remove coffee and tea as being against the WoW. In a totally unrelated move, the church will open Starbucks in every ward building thus having the corner on the market for coffee in Utah. Will open a chain of stores called Mormon Coffee.
The church will claim to fully accept LGBT because football teams will refuse to play BYU and cities across the country will deny the church building permits on the grounds of discrimination of LGBT people.
Elder Bednar will erect a large statue of himself and send it on a traveling tour across the globe so people can see what a true prophet looks like.
You will be able to attend church online rather than actually going, for an additional voluntary fee of course.

You are treading a fine line between satire and reality. I half anticipate most of these.

[Notchet]

Here are my temple related predictions:
1- All things strange and masonic will have been removed from the temple ritual. (handshakes, signs, tokens, washings and anointings, chantings)
2- White clothing will still be worn in the temple, minus the former temple garb. (caps, aprons, veils, robes, etc.)
3- Except for during temple worship, night-and-day garment wearing will become optional.
4- No more temple marriages....sealings only, for heterosexuals couples.
5- The current endowment ritual will be replaced or morph into something more edifying, uplifting, and appealing...designed to entice members to strive to go and return often, without a lot of arm-twisting.
6- TRs will continue to be required in order to keep temple patronage exclusive.
7- The consecration covenant will remain, for sure.

[2bizE]

Here are my temple related predictions:
1- All things strange and masonic will have been removed from the temple ritual. (handshakes, signs, tokens, washings and anointings, chantings)
2- White clothing will still be worn in the temple, minus the former temple garb. (caps, aprons, veils, robes, etc.)
3- Except for during temple worship, night-and-day garment wearing will become optional.
4- No more temple marriages....sealings only, for heterosexuals couples.
5- The current endowment ritual will be replaced or morph into something more edifying, uplifting, and appealing...designed to entice members to strive to go and return often, without a lot of arm-twisting.
6- TRs will continue to be required in order to keep temple patronage exclusive.
7- The consecration covenant will remain, for sure.

I pray number 3 will happen. I'm tired of garments. I have tried to come up with a way for me and the misses to not wear garments at night on occasion.

[Hagoth]

The church will only be growing in Africa, where it will be thriving. The members there will not have the means to pay enough tithing to meet the churches requirements but they will be given the opportunity to work full time on the vast tracts of farmland that the church will have aquired by then, in exchange for minimal sustenance and temple privileges. Eventually they will be shipped to Florida, Texas, Hawaii and other places around the world where the church owns vast farms and ranches in need of "missionary" labor.

[Korihor]

BYU football will switch to BYU Hawaii. The church will focus efforts on becoming outreach group to pacific islanders. Various other islands will get satelite BYU campus all connected via internet.

Growth will continue in africa and we'll see the creation of BYU Congo. African members will be able to attend and pay via the PEF. As with the pacific isles, various BYU satelite campuses will be create across africa linked by satelite and internet.

The church will capitalize on the micro loan trend by applying this to institutional education in underdeveloped countries.

No black leaders in the Q15 yet, but we'll see a latino in there.

Church will accept tithing payments via debit cards.

D&C 132 will be removed from D&C.

[LSOF]

I won't care because Mormonism will be a distant memory for me.

[MalcolmVillager]

Wish list-

1- WoW changes back to suggestion except for liquor and illicit drugs. Coffee and tea fully accepted while beer and wine are treated like caffeinated soda now.

2- temple ordinances cut back to private live ordinances for one-time participation and occasional direct family ordinances for the dead. Ordinances are stripped of masonry. Temple sealing occur privately with couples ony, and after civil ceremonies. Celestial rooms are for meditation and prayer and can be entered anytime by anyone. No more recommends or worthiness interviews.

3-church is cut to 2 hours (rotating GD and PH/RS) except for fast Sunday which is 1 hour followed by pot luck.

4- doctrines are limited and personal opinions vary greatly ad openly without judgment. Central tenets of love, inclusion, and faith in something great after death are the only required testimony.

5- all missions are service missions and restrictive rules are eliminated. Flexibility of term and location are more up to the missionary.

6- baptism age changes to 18.

7- women get the priesthood and share all leadership positions equally, and are encouraged to get education and careers.

8- no definition of sexual norms or family structures. Same sex marriage is accepted as equal. Polygamy is rejected and wrong at all times.

9- the church is fully open with all financial data.

10- the church does what is right and lets the consequence follow.

11- the church encourages service in other good community efforts and interfaces with other charities better.

12- Honor code is all but eliminated at church schools.


Reality

COJCOLDS doubles down on one true church.

TBM''s continue to drink Kool-Aid.

Few deconvert or leave due to family and community pressures.

Youth continue to leave in record numbers.

Voted most peculiar people and the members take it as evidence of truth.

[glass shelf]

I won't care because Mormonism will be a distant memory for me.

I really want this to be reality for me. Even more, I want it for my kids. All of my kids will be adults then. The youngest will be 20 and not have gone to a Mormon church since he was 3. I hope he thinks of Mormonism as, "Oh, isn't that Grandma and Grandpa X's religion? Or are they JW. I always get it confused."

[RubinHighlander]

- I do expect that a slow demographic decline will be carefully covered over with a balance of "falling away of the very elect" countered with "growth among the humble and penitent.".

The Church will always have that and the "separation of the wheat from the tares" as signs of the times when membership declines. It just plays into their narrative of the special people becoming even more elect and special.

The 12 have enough investments outside of tithing donations that they can likely sustain their prosperity for a very long time. A question I have is will they ever throw the saints a bone and start to fund the self-fulfilling prophesies for moving back to Missouri and building the temple in Far West? Or, will they just continue to fade out those doomsday 2nd coming topics? My guess is fade out is cheaper. These guys are business men running a corporation and do not seem likely to gather all the saints in Adam-ondi-Ahman for a final sip of koolaid for the rapture. It's easier to just keep pushing the events out because only the Lord knows. In the meantime the Julie Rowe types will keeping coming and going. Problem is, if the COB keeps fading out the drama of the 2nd coming, it greatly reduces the wind blowing on the special peculiar last days elect people sails. Then the church just keeps melting into Unitarianism.

Perhaps they should embrace the magic stones and rods of their past and make life more interesting and exciting for the membership. But it's really a no-win situation for them as science and education progress. Perhaps if there is a societal prosperity crash, like the power grid going down for a year or two, then many could fall back into the old superstitious ways. We've seen this happen in human history before. But I'm leaning on the side of the statistics that show that the major aspects of human prosperity are trending into the positive. Clean cheap energy is on the door-step if our politicians don't screw it up. If you have any kids interested in science, please have them study up on Thorium fusion power reactors and keep pushing that forward! In the meantime, I'm looking forward to a Tesla solar roof, battery wall and electric car within the next 5-10 years.

[2bizE]

The church will only be growing in Africa, where it will be thriving. The members there will not have the means to pay enough tithing to meet the churches requirements but they will be given the opportunity to work full time on the vast tracts of farmland that the church will have aquired by then, in exchange for minimal sustenance and temple privileges. Eventually they will be shipped to Florida, Texas, Hawaii and other places around the world where the church owns vast farms and ranches in need of "missionary" labor.

I see where this is headed Kunta Kintay. (I think that was the name of the slave from the TV series Roots)

[deacon blues]

We are now approaching the Bicentennial of the Joseph Smith family moving to Palmyra. Lucy Mack Smith's account makes it sound like it took place during the winter. I wonder if I'll live to see the day when I say 200 years ago Joseph went to get the gold plates with Emma.

[deacon blues]

We are now approaching the Bicentennial of the Joseph Smith family moving to Palmyra. Lucy Mack Smith's account makes it sound like it took place during the winter. 2020 will be the Bicentennial of the First Vision, and Joseph and/or Willard Chase digging up the Brown Seer Stone. I wonder if I'll live to see the day when I say 200 years ago Joseph went to get the gold plates with Emma.