Is it time to update the “bubble of threats” chart?

[Red Ryder]

It’s been nearly five years since the world was blessed to peek behind the curtain of Mormon leadership’s weekend plans. If you recall, this wonderful PowerPoint presentation identified the threats to apostasy and outlined what the Apostle’s weekend activities should entail to counter the demise of Mormon spirituality amongst its members.

Here’s the “bubble of threat” as leaked.



Considering the pandemic significantly reduced the travel options for the Apostles to carry out these former area business weekend plans, I propose that we as members of the church whom are possibly the closest to apostasy update the graphic (as well as a few here who have clearly apostatized... wtfluff, jfro, you know who you are...).

I believe this act of service will be helpful to the leadership of the church and their committees who are considerably busy with cleaning BYU sidewalks, reloading muskets, and preparing homophobic talks for October general conference.

Let’s start on the left and work our way right.

Orange Bubbles

Stay or update?

Ordain Women - this movement was appropriately silenced with the excommunication of Kate Kelly and the subsequent doublespeak proclaiming women used the priesthood like a cheap car rental. You obviously use the priesthood, you just can’t own the the priesthood. I say replace.

John Dehlin - we all know and love John (accept for Rosebud) and his excommunication didn’t slow down his message. He’s become a mainstay staple of the exmo community. His fore-lay into Tik Tok videos is a bit cringe considering his face looks tired and worn out due to the constant fight against Mormonism. Can we get some donors to pay for a vacation? I say replace with Consigliere.

Disagree with current policies - probably best to update with “Disagree with current dumb policies”? How does that sound?

Secular - leave in

Incredulity over church history - leave until they can be more honest and open. More so as a reminder of the church’s ongoing “truth crisis”.

Blue Bubbles

Let’s simplify the presentation and combine all 5 of the blue bubbles into one giant blue ball that reads “Support for LGBTQ+”. We all know and recognize that issues of chastity, pornography, sabbath, lack of righteousness, and lack of commitment are all symptoms of supporting our LGBTQ+ Brothers and Sisters in the gospel. If the church is willing to stand alone as Holland professed, then the Blue Bubble shall also stand alone!

Green Bubbles

The green bubbles present a significant challenge to the church considering the 5 existing green bubbles could easily be replaced with 20 or more.

Denver Snuffer and Robert Norman - They’ve drawn away members over the years but are they really any more of a threat now? Remove

Last days/end of the world predictions - while this threat will always exist, it seems the arrest of chad and Lori Daybell along with a few missed predictions from Julie Rowe have pushed this category out of favorable fashion. Remove

Need “something more” - remove

I’d suggest combining the above into one big green bubble called “Far Right Crazy Mormons”. This category would include the anti vaxx, flat earthers, Captain “Storm the Capital” Moroni, the LDS Freedom Forum, end time preppers, and LDS members who think the election was stolen from Trump (redundant I know).

False Prophets - make this one bigger. The biggest green bubble.

Church has lost its way or is deficient - make bigger.

Thinking through this revised list of issues and ideas leading people away from the gospel I’ve come to realize the extreme challenges the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve have in front of them. This stuff is serious and continues to degrade the Moron experience. No wonder they look tired, exhausted, and long for the good old days when gasoline was 10 cents a gallon!

The leaders have a lot to defend and fight off if they are going to keep the stone rolling forward. They need our thoughts and prayers!

[nibbler]

Considering the heading of the slide says Issues and Ideas Leading People Away from the Gospel you only need one giant bubble that says, "The Church."

[jfro18]

The funniest thing about their bubble chart is that there's no bubble that says "People found out the "Gospel" was made up by a 19th century conman."

Of course they could have it there in a more delicate phrasing, but it cracks me up that it's about the "history" of the church and NEVER that the scriptures could be false.

[glass shelf]

I think we might need an orange bubble that uses corporate speech for "internet kills indoctrination efforts" or "women refuse to be second-class citizens" or "those dang kids google everything."

[lostinmiddlemormonism]

Considering the heading of the slide says Issues and Ideas Leading People Away from the Gospel you only need one giant bubble that says, "The Church."

BOOM....there it is!


-lost

[Red Ryder]

Ok so two big blue balls.

One says “Google”
The other says “The Church”

See that church PR machine....

You’re welcome.

[alas]

I agree that their chart needs updating. Some of their categories have changed leaders, so titling them by “Denver Snuffer” is no longer correct. Others are kind of redundant, as in that whole blue section could be relabeled, “wanted to sin.” Mostly rather than identifying problems that the church has that cause people to leave, they mostly just found scape goats.

I read something recently asked about Mormon Feminism as in what happened to “Feminist Mormon Housewives” and other blogs that just disappeared. One answer was “A good majority of those women have left the church.” It seems like when the church excommunicated Kate Kelly, that many women gave up on the church ever being what they need. But now that Ordain Women is dead, women are still leaving over feminist issues, but they seem to have no hope that the church could change. What excommunicating ringleaders does is it kills hope that the church will change and causes people who are still on the fence to leave. The *problem* was not “ordain women”, the problem is that women are second class. So, that category should be renamed “the church treats women as second class.”

“Disagrees with church policies” needed to be more specific about just which church policies were a problem, and now that the church got rid of POX, (policy of exclusion of children of gays) the same reason to leave would be “over how the church treats gays.” But the church named that category as if people were leaving the church over missionary age or something. No, that category should have always been identified as “gay issues.” So, to label that category today, we would list “Holland’s idiotic talk.”

When JD started his podcasts, he was about the only one out there. So, naming the category after him might have had some merit. But it was still a distraction from the real issue. He was just pointing out problems, like how unbelievable the real history is. He was a very different kind of ring leader from Kate Kelly. Kate was organizing women who felt second class. John was teaching new information. Now several other podcasters are around, all pointing out church lies, false history, and other information the church would rather keep quiet. But the *problem* isn’t the podcasters. It is the church has a truth crises.

The church having a truth crises encompasses the incredulous history, but once again, it isn’t the hard to believe miracles in the history as the “incredulous history” category implies. The *problem* is that the church teaches a white washed version of its history, and when people find out the real history, they feel like they were lied to. So, this one needs to be more accurately named, “the church’s white washed history.”

On the green bubbles, well the right wing ring leaders seem to come on go when they get exposed as murderers or frauds. But again, instead of naming the problem as “the church really has changed over time” they scape goat Snuffer for saying that the church has changed from what Joseph Smith taught. Or naming the second coming preppers as going too far or taking the church’s teachings too seriously, they want to point fingers by calling certain people false prophets. Just imaging if the church came out and said, “we never meant for you to believe us.” Right now, “crazy right wingers” might be a good title for the whole green section. Or even “Trump followers…um, er, worshippers” Denver Snuffer is small peanuts to Trump. But the church would be afraid to name Trump even if the antivaxers, antimaskers, are currently disillusioned in their prophet.

Anyway, interesting thread.

[Palerider]

One bubble......(a big one) is the huge credibility gap leadership have created for themselves.

They prance around saying, "Sustain us as modern prophets, seers and revelators!!! We speak for the God of the Universe! He whispers to us and only us." (Spoken with great solemnity)

But when the really tough questions come up, what do we hear from them???

Crickets....

No, they trot out these lame excuse, obviously biased "scholars" whose answers mean absolutely nothing and said answers can be discarded like garbage in the future when more facts arise or the goal posts get moved.

So these brave "apostles", (pillars of the church), hide behind the skirts of their ridiculous apologists who can be thrown under the bus at any convenience.

What a great gig!

Receive constant unmerited fawning, adulation and worship from the members. Collect significant stipends and huge benefit packages for themselves and family. Fly around the world promoting a big fraud and encouraging members to give more and more money, time, and energy (even their very lives if necessary) to the $100+billion corporation that for whatever reason (they can't explain it) needs to get bigger and richer.

And when the tough questions come they get to duck for cover.

It's a tough job being a prophet, seer and revelator, but..... somebody's gotta do it......

That's a real bubble.

[moksha]

Take out Ordain Women since it is now a defunct entity. Substitute Robert Norman with Interpreter Institute. Maybe add in RFM and Google to orange and FAIR to green.

[nibbler]

alas' post really drives this point home, but it occurs to me that all of the original bubbles are outward-looking. It's all stuff that they believe others are doing wrong. Where's the introspection?

The one that really gets me is 'Need "something more"'

Maybe they meant the people clamoring for the "sealed portion," but when I read it I think of the spiritually malnourished people at church. They need something more or different than what we limit them to? How dare they!

[Red Ryder]

Where's the introspection?

Here’s a funny one I found. Too much Uchtdorf!

[Angel]

When did the $100 billion bomb drop in the papers? Church finance needs to be in there.

Abuse, Sam Young.

Racism - the police/racism riots had a few people researching racism in the church.

How about competitors? Buddhism, unitarians, a few groups who have better missionaries, and better zoom church.

Boy scouts, and crash/burn of youth programs

https://www.barna.com/research/six-reas ... ve-church/

1. Christians demonize everything outside of their church.

2. God seems missing from my experience of church.

3. Christianity is anti-science

4. Church teachings related to sexuality are discriminatory and judgmental.

5. churches are afraid of the beliefs of other faiths” and an identical proportion felt they are “forced to choose between my faith and my friends.” One-fifth of young adults with a Christian background said “church is like a country club, only for insiders”

6. #6 – The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt.
Young adults with Christian experience say the church is not a place that allows them to express doubts. They do not feel safe admitting that sometimes Christianity does not make sense. In addition, many feel that the church’s response to doubt is trivial. Some of the perceptions in this regard include not being able “to ask my most pressing life questions in church” (36%) and having “significant intellectual doubts about my faith” (23%).

8. about one out of every six young adults with a Christian background said their faith “does not help with depression or other emotional problems” they experience (18%). Church does not help in many areas.

9. most churches work best for ‘traditional’ young adults – those whose life journeys and life questions are normal and conventional. But most young adults no longer follow the typical path of leaving home, getting an education, finding a job, getting married and having kids—all before the age of 30. These life events are being delayed, reordered, and sometimes pushed completely off the radar among today’s young adults.

[2bizE]

I think the church would think to increase the size of John Dehlin’s bubble. Add a huge bubble for The CES letter. Add bubbles for The Q15 and for The Gospel Topics Essay.
Remove Robert Norman and Snuffer. I don’t think much attention is being paid there.

I think church policies needs to be a big bubble.

What about FAIR and TITS?
RFM, Peter Bleakley, Bill Reel, Natasha Helfer, and Gina Colvin?
Should there be a bubble for magic crystals?

[deacon blues]

DezNat should be a big green bubble, or else a small green bubble that's about to burst.

Worshipping Trump more than the Prophet could be a green bubble.

[blazerb]

I'd say the biggest threat is the lack of community and the loss of cohesion. Not sure what color to give it. I think most people from my parents era stayed in the church because everyone around them was in the church. People went inactive but still identified as "Mormon." Now no one is allowed to call themselves the M-word and stay in the church. There are no community building efforts, just toilet cleaning and getting shamed for not reading this week's Come Follow Me lesson.

[alas]

I'd say the biggest threat is the lack of community and the loss of cohesion. Not sure what color to give it. I think most people from my parents era stayed in the church because everyone around them was in the church. People went inactive but still identified as "Mormon." Now no one is allowed to call themselves the M-word and stay in the church. There are no community building efforts, just toilet cleaning and getting shamed for not reading this week's Come Follow Me lesson.

I think this falls into the category of the church taking some responsibility for the loss of members. If they had a bubble that said lack of community, then people might wonder why people are feeling a lack of community. And while really think this is an important one, I also think it is one that needs to be n combination with something else. People who strongly believe will stay even if they feel there is no sense of community. I am an example of deciding to leave after years of staying for the community. For years I felt like Joseph Smith was not much more than a con man, but my DH was active duty military and we were moving every year or two, so the instant community was good, and the feeling of community was strong in military wards. But when DH retired and we moved “home” to Utah, there was no community and I went inactive. But it took both, the loss of belief and the lack of community.

The feeling of not belonging and no community contributes to a lot of the reasons people say they leave. For example, the biggest reason given by women was “feeling judged”. But would they feel judged if they felt supported by their community? Feeling like you don’t fit, or are judged, or similar feelings are all part of lack of community. But people seldom cite it as the main reason, even though it is an underlying reason.

But the church isn’t going to admit that they have lost the feeling of community for everyone except “the same 10 couples” because the general authority were always the in crowd, so they wouldn’t recognize lack of community if it smacked them in the face.

[Wonderment]

True - the church has always reminded me a little bit of high school, where there was an "in crowd" of popular kids, but a much larger "out crowd" of people who knew that they would just never fit in or be able to conform to the rigid standards of wearing fashionable, expensive clothing, driving an expensive car, being an athlete or cheerleader, being on Homecoming Court, etc. I sort of viewed the church as a clique of people who fit in, while I didn't fit in.
Thanks to all for this interesting, enjoyable, and humorous conversation. - Wndr.

[MoPag]

Most of the Mormon Feminist spaces have been moving towards Intersectional Feminism, which means instead of just focusing on feminist issues they also include LGBTQIA+ and race issues. So those spaces look different than they once did.

DezNat should be a big green bubble, or else a small green bubble that's about to burst.

Worshipping Trump more than the Prophet could be a green bubble.

100% to this ^^^

What I have found fascinating is watching the group of Trump supporters grapple with the FP's vaccine letter. That seems to have created a rift in that group too.

[Hagoth]

I got lazy but I was going to make one that had "Gospel" scratched out and replaced with "Church" and only one bubble labeled Truth.

[A New Name]

DEZNATs on a far right bubble