Discussions toward a better understanding of LDS doctrine, history, and culture. Discussion of Christianity, religion, and faith in general is welcome.
Going more conservative and fundamentalist has proven a failed strategy for Southern Baptists.
For more than a decade, the denomination has been experiencing precipitous decline by almost every metric. Baptisms are at a 70-year low, and Sunday attendance is at a 20-year low. Southern Baptist churches lost almost 80,000 members from 2016 to 2017 and they have hemorrhaged a whopping one million members since 2003. For years, Southern Baptists have criticized more liberal denominations for their declines, but their own trends are now running parallel. The next crop of leaders knows something must be done.
“Southern Baptists thought that if they became more conservative, their growth would continue unabated. But they couldn’t outrun the demographics and hold the decline at bay,” said Leonard. “Classic fundamentalist old-guard churches are either dead or dying, and the younger generation is realizing that the old way of articulating the gospel is turning away more people than it is attracting. “
The LDS church is not at all democratic, there aren't any elections or representatives. They will opt to weather the storm. I wouldn't expect any significant changes in our lifetime. If anything, the move of other churches to less literal and more spiritual positions will probably encourage them to become more rigid. If they are the last fundamentalists standing, becoming the largest fundamentalist denomination in the U.S., it might even help them as competition for fundamentalist converts disappear.
“You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages--they haven't ended yet.” - Vonnegut
Society has changed and the Baptists are too conservative. Making people feel bad about themselves and their imperfections will just drive them away. They will want more of Joel Osteen type of preaching where everyone is so freaking special and everyone is just awesome and God is going to make everyone so rich, etc.
From what i've read, the entire country has a decline in church goers. Millenials are just not buying a lot of organized "helf fire & damnation" religion, or even some of the more liberal as well. The LDS church is in that same soup.
The next decade is going to be fascinating to see how the church responds. I am most interested in knowing about the numbers game they play--how they shift around their membership counting practices to give the illusion of membership growing.
Do any of these other churches have "prophecy" that they will fill the earth, or continue to grow as the result of their "one true church" stance? Ha!...I wonder if any of them even make that claim.
The future is Muslim. Worldwide, Islam is growing at double the rate of Christianity:
I wonder whether the LDS church falls under Christians or Other in the abovechart.
While "none," atheist, and agnostic are growing much faster than any religion in America (almost 7% between 2007 and 2014), non-Christian religions, primarily Islam and Hinduism, are growing while Christian religions are almost universally declining. According to Pew, only Jehovah's Witnesses and "other Christans" gained .1% membership from 2007-2014, while Mormons lost .1%. Christians in general, including Mormons, were down almost 8%. http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/amer ... landscape/
Repeat after me: There is only one God, and Mohammed is his prophet."
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain
Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."
Rob4Hope wrote: ↑Sun Jun 17, 2018 6:32 am
From what i've read, the entire country has a decline in church goers. Millenials are just not buying a lot of organized "helf fire & damnation" religion, or even some of the more liberal as well. The LDS church is in that same soup.
You might find this interesting. One possible explanation in decline are the political activities of the religious right.
For a time, it was frequently argued that Christianity was on the decline because Americans were fleeing liberal mainline denominations. This was not implausible. Looking at trends in American religion in the late 20th century, it was easy to discern that, on average, the mainline Protestant denominations were declining rapidly. And until recently, the more theologically-conservative evangelical denominations continued to experience growth, or at least hold steady.
This led the Religious Right to crow that their more conservative theological and political stances were yielding dividends in the pews. They argued that liberal churches had abandoned biblical teachings in favor of more fashionable political causes, but these efforts to “get with the times” failed to bring in new members. Even worse, it caused them to lose existing members to secularism, or nudged them toward more conservative expressions of Christianity, especially evangelical Protestantism.
StarbucksMom wrote: ↑Mon Jun 18, 2018 10:05 am
What is a "Folk Religion?" Would Mormons be in the folk or other category?
It refers to some loose collection of cultural spirituality and superstitions that aren't formalized into a religious system. Mormonism would be lumped under Christianity.
“You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages--they haven't ended yet.” - Vonnegut
I see evangelism growing, but from a "non-denominational" standpoint, not baptist. A lot of the same talk as the southern Baptists, but more positive, more open (to your face at least...), all with lots of talk of, "we read the Bible correctly, you only need the Bible as your guide...just turn off your brain."
Eventually, all these expensive big non-denom churches are going to feel the crunch too. You will see it when the weeds start poking through the old chip seal in their Disneyland sized parking lot.
"Ah, you know, I think you use the Bible to do whatever the hell you like" - Raylan Givens
BTW, the President of the Southwestern Baptist Seminary, Paige Patterson, one of the two men who delivered the SB into the hands of the Republicans (they were already primed to be Republicans when the Democrats enacted the Civil Rights Act), was recently fired for his role in covering up the rape of a student back in 2003.
oliver_denom wrote: ↑Sat Jun 16, 2018 2:54 pm
The LDS church is not at all democratic, there aren't any elections or representatives. They will opt to weather the storm. I wouldn't expect any significant changes in our lifetime. If anything, the move of other churches to less literal and more spiritual positions will probably encourage them to become more rigid. If they are the last fundamentalists standing, becoming the largest fundamentalist denomination in the U.S., it might even help them as competition for fundamentalist converts disappear.
I would bet that the gain in new fundamentalist converts will be outstripped in the short term by the loss of multigenerational members (to use Bednar's phrase) who are turned off by the rigidity.
oliver_denom wrote: ↑Sat Jun 16, 2018 2:54 pm
The LDS church is not at all democratic, there aren't any elections or representatives. They will opt to weather the storm. I wouldn't expect any significant changes in our lifetime. If anything, the move of other churches to less literal and more spiritual positions will probably encourage them to become more rigid. If they are the last fundamentalists standing, becoming the largest fundamentalist denomination in the U.S., it might even help them as competition for fundamentalist converts disappear.
I would bet that the gain in new fundamentalist converts will be outstripped in the short term by the loss of multigenerational members (to use Bednar's phrase) who are turned off by the rigidity.
I also wonder about the short term as I think we can expect a rather large back lash against fundamentalist support for the current administration. Even though the church itself never endorsed it, Mormons voted in higher percentages for Donald Trump than any other religious group. This will have a lasting impact.
“You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages--they haven't ended yet.” - Vonnegut
The last general conference ushered in some changes that at least sounded dramatic. This was also the first conference where the statistical report was not openly presented in conference. Were these changes just a way to increase excitement for the believers? Was this a response to demographic pressure? Combining the quorums and changing home teaching into ministering does not really feel like a fundamental change. The wards still function pretty much like before, but we added in the word "ministering" a lot more.
