Are you seeing an increase in people leaving TSCC and coming to this board? Do you think that TSCC will be exposed and more and more people will start leaving? Anybody have (serious) predictions for the future of the Mormon church?

I predict the Mormon church will continue to grow due to it's aggressive missionary program and continue to slowly evolve towards being more and more normal. Give it 200-500 years and it will be mostly seen as metaphorical.

Classic theological evolution

For years former mormons have been predicting an implosion. I don't think that's happening. It's certainly true that the church outside of the U.S. is being brought back into reality (i.e. the closing of the seven stakes in South America).

And the COB admits that it's losing young people in droves. But there are still plenty of active mormons, people marrying in the temple, etc.

It won't go away anytime soon. P. T. Barnum was right. "There's a sucker born every minute."

FYI P.T. Barnum didn't say that.

It was actually a competitor who said that talking about people who would go to Barnum's museum full of fake stuff instead of said competitor's museum full and real stuff.

For a number of years, the church's increase has been from children being baptized rather than converts.

This simple fact is the answer to your question. The exodus of active members, which can be seen by the stake and ward consolidations, will not show in the stats because the exmormons are not subtracted.

There is no column on the spreadsheets for those resigning. This is secret (sacred?) information. The church does not care that its statistics are misleading. They have been called on the carpet for this and do nothing to make the figures more accurate. They do not care about being honest, they care about image.

The "tipping point" this year brings is that all who care about what is true about the true church have ample opportunity to fact check what they have been taught. A majority do not care what the truth is, they want to preserve the tribe, the team, the War on which they are the "good" ones, the "best" ones, the superior organization.

They will do whatever it takes to promote this image, even to the point of denying what has been taught. The sincere truth-seeker will leave, others will stay until their generation passes away.

The church is morphing into what people want, leading from behind you might say. As others have suggested, they will end up just a highly structured Protestant church with an unspecific doctrine which "doesn't matter" as long as the members pay, pray and obey.


Anagrammy

I see more new names on this board. I see all my Mormon friends have fewer kids. I see a lot more information available to the young people today than 25 years ago. I see the prescribed roles of both Mormon men and Mormon women becoming more and more out of step with society. Worse, I see the church sucking all the fun and all the reward out of their religion, along with all the money they can get from their members. Today's Mormonism is only desirable to those who know no other way to live or who are desperate for something (love, friends, meaning). The sort of nice people the church claims to produce are not interested in the church, unless raised in it. Whole families of educated/successful middle class pillar of society types don't get baptized.

I think the church will drizzle away to a small group of people who the lifestyle appeals to or it will slowly, almost imperceptibly change so as to be relevant without losing it's solid members. The old timers have invested too much to question the changes they see right before their eyes and the denials of church beliefs that those members have been taught all their lives. The younger ones won't know that the new, generic Mormonism isn't what has always been practiced and will call anyone who points to old Mormon teachings liars. But more than anything, I think Mormonism will not be fun or matter to people in the future. The "aggressive" missionary program rarely produces members that stay in the church. Unless you count the missionary himself/herself, that is. And the more information available to people, the fewer will join.

I've only been here a little more than a year, but I've noticed (what I hope is) a slight rise or new ex-mormons, or questioning mormons. People who have probably been lurking a while. I've noticed a few new teen posters as well.

I see more and more exmormon folks every day. More importantly, people are willing to say it.

I have 2 employees and several customers who are exmormon.

The church has grown in our area. We live in a fairly new stake, and just had a new stake center built a year or so ago.

Well, LDS INC & their MORmONS better enjoy that kind of growth in that particular pocket of very limited effective MORmON infection (Boise, American Fork, Chandler) because thats NOT typical across the land and it is NOT going to hold up even in those *special* places.

Most of the next generation of upcoming MORmONS is going to have a great big bird finger to shove in LDS INC's/ MORmONISM'S demanding face. WIth personal Income declining and taxation levels increasing most ppl simply will not have enough to pay their MORmON non golfing country club dues EVEN IF THEY WANT TO !That is financial REALITY!

Conversions to MORmONISM is effectively dead RIGHT NOW. The only ppl converting are those with social climbing yankee pipe dreams that MORmONISM plays into and/ or LDS INC is paying them off in some way, or really stupid ppl who are susceptible to LDS missionary efforts.... and everything else. Ppl who are not assets for LDS INC, while capable intelligents ppl are leaving in droves. Not a pretty picture for LDS INC.


Remember MORmONISM was set to have 260 million members by the middle of this century, set to take over the world, or so they thought. as it is they are not even going to get the tithing of that pipe dream, not even close. things already imploded on their growth projections and its only going to get worse for them.

Mrs. Mormonista and baby Mormonista(22) are moving in that direction......

Remember this? :
http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/

It's so.... funny in an ironic or at least allegorical sense, that I've several times been tempted to become member...

Historically, Columbus had no problems in convincing rough uneducated guys (supposedly convinced the earth was flat...?) to come with him...

Then, about 1828 (in the midst of Mormon Book 'translation', the myth that people used to believe the earth was flat was 'invented', and gained popularity.

In the Book of Mormon, on gold plates, the assurance that the flat really WAS round was revealed to, I'm sure, all the people in the Americas and elsewhere that read the BoM in their uncertainty of all things.

THen, a little later, the behginnings of The Flat Earth Society was built, I'm sure under the guidance of Sir Lucifer and Angelic Ass. Co.

And now we're ALL confused....

Weren't the apostles of the true church of Christ supposed to wake up zombies, move mountain tops, feed the otters with fish, fill the young girls with bread, and the like?

[[D'oh! Double posted!]]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/2012 02:12AM by hexalm.

I don't think there's a good way to say based on apparent forum activity, probably safe to say there's more traffic since Romney's candidacy.

I bet analysis of actual site traffic statistics could tell us something, though.

I live in Europe and I don't see any significant increase in ex-mos. Mormons are a very marginal group here and are often quite fundamental in their beliefs and behaviours (especially when it comes to the WoW - I find that even mormons who have been inactive for an extensive period, maybe even decades, still stick to that).

I don't see any growth in mormonism, either. They seem to be forever changing the ward and stake boundaries to make it look to the mormon members like they are part of a dynamic and growing church when it's often quite normal to have to drive more than 30 minutes to the closest ward - in all directions, so that puts a serious strain on time as well as resources of the individual member trying to do his HT assignments...

How nice. I have 5 wards within 1/2 mile of my house.

I found this site quite a while ago while trying to double check facts. Does that count? And I'm a new poster today.
I'm not even sure I'll be back unless I can find some serious source material to back up any points I make.

It was only when reading discusions about Romney on other sites I realised that it appears nothing much has changed the garments, the curtains and the oaths have been alterd but not much of the culture.

As for activity around me. I'm in Oceania. The LDS community is small and well intergrated in my area. If somebody leaves the church they are seldom shunned because it's too impractical. Ideally I would like for anyone who is LDS or Ex LDS to be able to have that experince.

As for activity there was quite a lot of missionary activity along my street. Since the poltical debates have started up the missionarys seem to be lying low. It's a pity I'm remembering how much fun I used to have arguing with members of the LDS church.

There is actually a ton of information on the main page of this website. The discussion boards are for discussion but some very interesting facts appear regularly.

On the main page http://www.exmormon.org/ you will find archives and information by subject, etc.

I've been here less than a year. In that time my husband, myself, and two children have left.

That's a big deal considering i'm a 58 year old Bic and 5th generation.

Before it's all over, i'll be taking a few more with me.

Thanks I have used the page a few times. I'm looking for data I am not sure the site has. But I will do an extensive search.

Yes, check out the increasing number of biographies on RfM.

Ask Eric K to post the number of hits RfM is getting a month?

Or ask Mormonthink.com their number of hits?

Maybe the dam is about to break?

I think there is an increase in the number of "open" apostates due to the increasing availability of social media, but would probably guess that as long as there is financial unrest in the world the LDS will flourish. I don't think our branch has converted anyone who even remotely supported themselves financially in the past ten years.

Not that I think that only the poor or destitute are foolish enough to fall for the missionaries, but I think in times of physical or emotional distress people are looking for something/anything and are easy prey to the promises of the Church. Just recently we've been asked twice by the new converts if we would be willing to lend one our vehicles to them (in both cases we had no clue who they were) just because we have an extra. If they were people we knew who had fallen on bad times then it wouldn't have been an issue, but that was never the case. I really believe a lot of these people are being promised all of this help and that coupled with the post-mortal promises is a big swaying point for their conversion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2012 12:18PM by jah.

I am not a demographer (is there such a thing?), I am not a statastician (I'm an engineer though, with a number of stats classes under my belt...).

BUT, it does seem the rate of growth has flattened out for a number of years now at around 300,000/year or a bit less (IIRC).

It does seem that conversion in industrial countries is rare.

It is a fact that Mormons are having fewer children and getting married later, though the "world" still has fewer children and even later marriages...

It does seem that interest in "ex-Mo" boards and such is much higher than it was 10 years ago.

It does seem as if the church leadership is aware of the "problem" and have made statements to that effect.

It is true that more truthful historical information is much more readily available now for anyone to look at.

It is true that the Mormon church is getting scrutinized more because of Romney's run.

Taken all together, I believe that in the long term (100+ years), Mormonism will have one of three futures:

1. The church will not change, will react poorly to criticism, and will shrink in size due to exponentially growing ranks of resignations/drifting away. The church will be a Utah/Idaho organization.

2. The church will "modernize" through slow Squeler-esque changing (re: Squeler changing the rules of animalism on the barn wall at night in "Animal Farm"). This will mean the church will be a vanilla protestant church in 100 years with many members remaining but only in name only, as do many Catholics.

3. The church will change into a foundation preaching values only, funded by charitable contributions and the business interests it has. The members will be told to look for truth wherever they can find it. The church is not a church anymore. The elite families retain the amassed church wealth.

3.

I think #2 is the most likely outcome. I always joked about this when I was a member, but one of the benefits of having a "living prophet" is that we mortals can always know when God has had a change of heart and decided to change his mind on his stance on current social issues. All of us here know it has already happened a number of times in the past in instances such as those darn dark-skinned-cursed individuals and the priesthood or the benevolent leaders and their generousity in sharing their manhoo.... er, priesthood, with multiple women through polygamy.

Definitely. It's not a flood of people, but increasing numbers of adults who were fully invested in Mormonism. They're losing tithe-payers, stalwart families, and leaders.

The church won't go away any time soon, but it is sort of slowly rotting from within.

I have a relative...all 3 of his children have left the church. 2 were RM's. One temple married.