Gaslighting by the Numbers

[consiglieri]

A new Radio Free Mormon episode just went up this morning.

https://mormondiscussionpodcast.org/201 ... e-numbers/

It juxtaposes generations of general conference statements about how the church's phenomenal growth fulfills Daniel's prophecy of the stone cut out of the mountain without hands with the new spin from Elder Cook in last conference that the number of church members being small fulfills Nephi's prophecy.

This particular act of gaslighting is happening right before our eyes.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[Corsair]

I'm looking forward to this episode, Consiglieri. Prophecy in the LDS church means never having to apologize for the status of prophecies

[RubinHighlander]

Wow! I didn't know about Cook already cooking the narrative 180 degrees. I knew they had stopped reporting on the numbers in conference and nuanced the new stakes vs. units growth in regional gaslighting, but that was a must faster narrative turnabout than I thought it would have been. But we all know they always have an out. It's awesome if it grows fast, sign of the times. Or, it's awesome if it's shrinking because that's the sign of the times because the wheat is separating from the tares. Everything is awesome for a TBM no matter what!

[Hagoth]

Just listened. Thanks again, Consiglieri!

One thing that popped out at me was that Cook said the church would be small "because of wickedness." I was hoping you'd follow up a little more on that. The previous message seemed to be that the church was more powerful than wickedness, and like Daniel's stone it would crush the wicked kingdoms of the world. The narrative has now reversed polarity and the church is weaker than wickedness. We are to accept as a sign of fulfilled prophesy the fact that wickedness will prevent the church (and God) from fulfilling its potential.

[RubinHighlander]

Maybe all those past prophets didn't have further light and knowledge. It wasn't the stone cut out of the mountain without hands that would fill the whole earth, it was the stone JS found in the bottom of a well that was kept in the closet at the COB until the latter days.

[MalcolmVillager]

Thanks for all you do Consigliere! I love it and look forward to the fireworks after this weekend.

[consiglieri]

Just wanted to mention that the prediction I made at the end of the podcast that went up the day before GC that we would hear another reference to the church being small was fulfilled by Elder Rasband who made the following statement in the Saturday morning session of the most recent General Conference:

"Fear not, little flock." I love the tenderness of "little flock."

In this church, we may be few in number by the way the world counts influence, but when we open our spiritual eyes, "they that be with us are more than they that be with them."

It is at the five minute mark of Elder Rasband's talk.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/ ... 1?lang=eng

Another Radio Free Mormon prophecy fulfilled!

[Just This Guy]

One thing that I'll throw out for a counter argument is:

Was Mr. Cook referring to the membership of the church as a whole or just the missionary force? Note I have not listened/read to the whole talk so I can't comment on the overall theme of it, but from the clip played on FRM, it started by talking about the missionary force. I got the sense that was the focus of his 1 Nephi reference. He was not talking about the church as a whole, but about the missionaries. In that context, the idea of them being few in number makes sense and would still be inline with the story of the church filling the whole earth.