IMHO, it was in or around 1990. The Berlin Wall just fell and there was excitement with the Church entering places like Russia. The year opened having capped off another decade of phenomenal growth that wasn't derailed or significantly impacted by the Mark Hoffman scandal. The 1978 revelation was now in the distant past. With the large scale adoption of the Internet still a few years out, the Church was still very much in control of its narrative. Consolidations of stakes and wards were rare and mostly unheard of. By 2000, IMHO, things started to unravel. September Six in 1993. Growth began to really wobble during the 90s, the Internet took off, and all those McTemples were built in an obvious attempt to make things only APPEAR better than they were/are, particularly outside the Morridor.

Almost forgot. Perhaps most telling is the fact that 122 stakes have been discontinued since 1990, according to cumorah.com, a statistic that is without precedent:

http://www.cumorah.com/index.php?target=view_other_articles&story_id=247&cat_id=30

It has some backward logic... it says urban stakes closed where real estate prices increased and socio-economic status declined.

Seems like increased real estate prices would imply improved socio-economic status, unless one is arrogantly saying something other than the cash-strapped young Mormon family with 4-6 kids is "lower class".

numbersRus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Seems like increased real estate prices would
> imply improved socio-economic status, unless one
> is arrogantly saying something other than the
> cash-strapped young Mormon family with 4-6 kids is
> "lower class".

Right on. I think it is the TBM BIC class itself that has slipped downmarket over the past fifty years.

That is a fascinating question.

Perhaps there were multiple high-water marks. Brigham Young's state during the Civil War, when the US was incapable of challenging the church's power could be one. Maybe the 1920s, when the economy was really strong nationally and Utah was a self-contained and optimistic little place. But that is speculation.

1990 strikes me as a good guess for the modern period. I might go a little earlier, maybe the middle 1980s because that was after correlation, the transition to the three-hour block, and the elimination of most local autonomy and ward activities. The church had become boring by then, with anodyne lessons and cookie-cutter expectations. There was also the Salamander Letter and the Hoffman murders, which were pretty disturbing.

I agree that 1993 was a climacteric; it was all downhill from there. But perhaps the rot had already begun.

This will be an interesting thread.

Well, one thing I think we can probably all agree upon is that, with the possible exception of West Africa, the growth of the Church worldwide has fallen way short of its projections and expectations since at least the 1990s. Part of the reason I chose 1990 is that I believe 1989 was and remains to this day the Church's biggest year ever in convert baptisms.

We probably agree on a lot of things. I'm just interested in exploring the topic more.

As I said, it is a great topic.

I wonder how many of us here sat through Sunday School lessons with teachers forecasting the future growth of the church. 200 million by 2050! Or whatever.

That doesn't seem to be working out for them.

I would argue for a slightly more recent date. Probably right around 2000. Hinckley became the profit in 1995. He was far more charismatic than almost every one of the fossils that preceded him. The temple building went into overdrive. I think there was a lot of excitement in the first few years of the Hinkster's time on the throne.

The church was still growing at a pretty good clip through the 90s and the number of missionaries continued to grow as well through the 90s before having to resort to dropping the missionary age to keep the numbers up.

Of course, like you said, the temple building may very well have been nothing more than a sugar rush to keep up enthusiasm among the membership and to keep the money flowing.

It's hard to measure the overall devotion and dedication of the membership. It's impossible to statistically measure enthusiasm, but it does seem to have fallen off of a cliff. It does seem to me that there are fewer and fewer hard core orthodox TBMs out there today than there were 20 years. Many of them have died off and haven't been replaced in sufficient numbers. A great many of my Mormon friends and relatives who remain do so more out of tradition, family loyalties, social obligations, etc than because they honestly and truly believe that the cult is the one and only true church.

I think Hinckley was the last guy that millions of members looked to as God's prophet to the world. I just never really detected a great deal of enthusiasm for Monson and I have yet to hear any of my friends and family gush over Nelson the way they used to about Hinckley or Benson.

That is well said, and right now they are having a sugar crash as they have to practically rebuild from the ground-up many of the 10,000 sq ft McTemples due to poor design and/or shoddy construction, less than 20 years from the time of construction. Has got to be a big drain on operating budgets.

*



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2018 01:49AM by Strength in the Loins.

1984. BYU won the national championship. It's been all downhill since then.

BYU basketball even had a few stellar years in the Danny Ainge era.

Lavell Edwards single-handily raised BYU football and it has not been the same since he left and the last of his proteges have now left. What's funny is he did it using a good dose of non-Mormon players, like Jim McMahon, and a loosely enforced honor code. Today it seems they are doubling-down on the so-called honor code, more like babysitting code, and the on-field performance is the worst ever.

Just below the rim of those little sacrament cups.

Anybody else that spent a fair amount of time in their childhood wanting to play with a bunch of those cups? My dad caught me "breaking bread" once. He was none too pleased.

Dorothy Wrote:
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> Anybody else that spent a fair amount of time in
> their childhood wanting to play with a bunch of
> those cups? My dad caught me "breaking bread"
> once. He was none too pleased.

When they switched from paper cups to the noisy plastic ones, my friend and I used to refuse to throw them away in the sacrament tray. Instead, we would stuff our used cups into the pockets of our trousers. More often than not, our mothers would take turns dragging us out of SM for spankings. That was our punishment for not throwing away those plastic cups.

Why were plastic cups so fascinating to six year old boys? They made a lot of noise for a little cup. We often played hooky in the restroom while playing with those cups. We later learned how to crush those cups to shatter the illusion of reverence.

>> More often than not, our mothers would take turns dragging us out of SM for spankings. That was our punishment for not throwing away those plastic cups. <<

Interesting how many things in mormonism result in a child getting beat. No.....it's sad, not interesting.

Great topic!

I think you're right on the money. The church had yet to try to persuade the world that Mormons were just like Christians. They were content about being "peculiar".

I think I understand your reasons here but feel free to correct me if I'm guessing incorrectly.

In the 1960s the church was small, divided into local communities, confident, active, and optimistic. It was a nice place for people who were white Americans (who were what really mattered to the church then) and perhaps some congregations in Europe and a few other places. The women ran their own programs, priesthood lessons were creative and wacky, and wards had a lot of autonomy. McKay was president, and he was relatively tolerant, looked like Colonel Sanders, and seemed loving. If those are your feelings, then perhaps Mormonism as a culture reached its zenith in the 1960s.

1970s Mormonism started that way but became less culturally interesting and more organized, more serious. Racism became a bigger problem in the 1970s, more embarrassing, more controversial and damaging to the church, correlation was underway and the women lost control of their activities, Kimball transformed a mission from optional to mandatory for young men, and everything became more regimented. The church became an organized and more efficient vehicle for the pursuit of the Q15's goals and the local communities and cultures were losing autonomy and influence.

The 1980s were more boring given the centralization of power and correlation. SLC was more controlling and authoritarian, less welcoming and forgiving. Viewed in terms of missionary baptisms, the church was thriving but it quickly lost the culture that made it a comfortable place for many ordinary members. The Salamander Scandal and, in the early 1990s, the September Six purge portended a more aggressive and authoritarian trend that was much less comfortable and welcoming. The 1990s also brought a deceleration in baptisms and over time a gradual loss of leadership confidence.

So, tentatively, how about a cultural peak in the 1960s or early 1970s, a missionary peak in the 1980s, and a clear downtrend in several major areas by the early or middle 1990s? As Strength says, Hinckley proved an attractive face (metaphorically) for the church from 1995 onward, so perhaps the deterioration wasn't obvious till 2000 or a bit later.

The late 60’s and early 70’s were a time of radical cultural changes in the country. The very Conservative message of the Church was appealing to many afraid of those changes. Also the missionary program was energized by the fact that deferrments were offered for missionary service. Members were comforted that they were being protected from evil. You know: Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll...not to mention the Commies. The stockade syndrome was alive and well. As a matter of fact, the members were TBM enough in the minds of the leaders they thought it was a good time to consolidate their power, thus the beginnings of the Correlation Program...the big power grab by Salt Lake over local control. There were some negative feelings about that out in “the mission field”.(which is what anything outside of the Morridor used to be referred to as) After that power grab and the Information Age of the internet, the walls began to crack. So I agree that the late 60’s-early 70’s was the period of the most intense member beliefs and the most active missionary work.

I could not have explained it so well!!!

I remember the primary parties, things like round the block parade, Santa coming and bringing treats, ward dinners were much nicer back then, and bazaars. I remember them the most. There was so much more that was fun and not ALL WORK.

I was in high school when the mission thing started. I actually talked my boyfriend into going on a mission. He was miserable. Our relationship didn't last. I just had to have an RM.

Your post is great and explains why I feel like I do.

Lot's wife, that's the way I see it, too.

I think that the Y2K no second coming really gave members a moment to pause. Just about everyone's patriarchal blessing mentioned that Christ would return during their lifetime. Oops!

I think 1990-ish is a pretty good reflection - in those day the Tanners were just "anti- Mormon" agitators and was largely before the internet rolled the bus over the religion. Furthermore, cultural trends still largely favored Mormonism's political leanings in the areas of gay marriage and traditional families.... I would run a spread of 1986 to 1995 - And thank the internet and cultural swells for the downhill since.

I'd say the church officially jumped the shark when correlation was instituted.

It took a few decades for the wreckage to surface.

Correlation did rob the church of church of it's uniqueness, the special ideas that attracted people to it in the past. For the sake of appearing "respectable", they became very bland indeed. I used to enjoy those stories of the 3 Nephites. The Catholic church has always had stories of strange sightings of angels and saints, and many Protestants have had angelic sightings. So why not allow members to keep believing in such things?

I agree with the 60s & 70s comments - people converted because of the Osmonds, Battlestar Galactica had Mormon themes... people were less cynical about Mormon archaeology...

The church was on the rise in Latin America, the black issue went away.

Many of the most faithful members of our ward joined in this time period.

It does appear that the 21st Century is not a Mormon century. Instant access to knowledge and an old wives tale aren't compatible.

Also the ability of individuals, who once would have been isolated, to share their experiences and emotions with others. The community facet of the internet phenomenon is also important, I think.

yes, this ^^^

Depends on what you mean by high point.

Between 1978 (Spencer and the Lord solve the "negro" question)
And...
1996 (The internet brings far more questions)

2002 and the completion of the scandal plagued SLC Winter Olympics. That was supposed to be the "Mormon Moment" that really launched Mormonism into being a major player on the world stage. It was a dud and it's all been downhill since then.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2018 01:57AM by Strength in the Loins.

I would make the case that the church's high-water mark year was 1995. Hinckley, who was arguably the most beloved prophet since McKay, took the throne. The internet was still a new-fangled thing that most members didn't have, and the hierarchy would have never imagined in 1995 what havoc it would bring in coming years.

By that time, the church was a well-oiled, fully correlated, corporate machine. Building assessments had been ended a few years earlier, around the same time congregations were required to remit all tithing money to HQ. TSCC had enough money, and had complete control of all of it. But, they hadn't started using it on dubious temple-building which began a few years later. Despite being fully corporate at that point, good feelings still lingered from the "cultural zenith" of TSCC in the 1950s/1960s.

But 1995 was really an inflection point in regards to TSCC and LGBT issues. Sure they always taught against homosexuality in the past, but the heavy-handed political stuff didn't begin until 1995 when the FamProc was released in response to gay marriage rumblings in Hawaii. If, in 1995, TSCC had chosen to take a more hands-off approach to LGBT issues for the next 20 years (similar to, say, the Seventh Day Adventists), a lot of the angst which turned members and non-members away from the church could have been avoided. It was a huge strategic error.

As an ex-Christian Scientist, I see several parallels between LDS and CS. In this case, decline and fall. Some demographic studies suggest that CS numerically peaked in the 1930s. A scholar of my acquaintance believes that it was the advance of sulphide drugs in WWII that doomed CS. Until then, CS's claims of parity or superiority over secular medicine had some validity, but medicine's new power over infection left CS in its dust.But that was not recognized in the mid-20th Century.

In the 1960s, the CS "Mother Church" built a large headquarters campus in Boston, designed by the famous I.M. Pei:

https://archpaper.com/2010/08/boston-reflects-on-peis-brutalist-plaza/

As with TSCC, the 1960s started as a period of cultural, spiritual, and economic optimism. Then came the "Counter Culture." I suppose the CS leadership thought an exotic building project would give "the Movement" a shot in the arm of an anemic religious body.

Since the 1970s, CS has been in obvious decline. Sound familiar? But whereas LDS tried to resist the spiritual and cultural changes in the country, CS tried to accommodate them, even buying exhibition booths at New Age gatherings (admitting, inadvertently, a spiritual kinship). The CS Monitor has moved from the political right to the left; what was once "the newspaper that everybody respects but nobody reads" is now merely an on-line shadow of NPR.

They're developing a 68-story development on CS land, ultra-luxury hotel/retail/residential tower, but various attempts to work a link through the anti-spam guard were unsuccessful. Simply understand that it will be very tall and very lucrative.

"Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock." (1 Peter 5:2,3)



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2018 12:39PM by caffiend.

I’m not sure that I would agree that Hinckley could be aligned with any high watermark for the church. If anything, the loss of church control of its historical narrative and the duplicity of doctrinal teachings e.g “we don’t teach that” all gelled during his tenure. Hinckley certainly had a lengthy stint but almost the all time spent rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.

I'm sympathetic to this point of view and considered it when offering my supposition above. I ultimately decided, though, that Hinckley was probably in power whenever the peak was achieved.

The Hinkley era began in the Kimball era, when he was operating as a sort of regent as others wiped the prophet's drool away. He remained dominant for most of the next 20 or 25 years. So if one assumes that Mormonism peaked in the 1980s or 1990s or at the turn of the century, Hinckley was dominant at that point.

The other thing is that losing control of the historical narrative was inevitable, given technological trends, and dumbing down the doctrine was a good strategy for a long time. Mormonism was perceived as a cult during the 1960s and 1970s, and "mainstreaming" was a good policy for some indefinite period of time thereafter. I concur that eventuallyl that approach became disadvantageous because it eliminated the bizarre, attractive elements of the faith. But when did that occur? The 2000s?

My point is that Hinckley's long tenure was a mixed bag. Some of Mormonism's problems were going to occur no matter who was in charge, and some of the course changes were necessary. So maybe he did what was in the church's interests and held off the decline for some period of time only to see the chickens come home to roost in the years before his death.

It never had one.

At best, it at times resembled a muddy little puddle.
At worst, a dried-up, life-sucking desert of the mind.

And most of the time, it's at its worst.

Hard to say when it all fell into decline because most of the changes happened after I no longer paid attention.

The sixties are my best frame of reference.

I'll just say that I cannot imagine my own dear mother faithfully dressing up as a gypsy fortune teller to give her version of matriarchal blessings (for a small fee) at the annual ward Halloween party today.

Shummy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I'll just say that I cannot imagine my own dear
> mother faithfully dressing up as a gypsy fortune
> teller to give her version of matriarchal
> blessings (for a small fee) at the annual ward
> Halloween party today.

Oh. My. Vishnu.

That would definitely leave most of the members at our old ward gasping for breath.

2 feet (above or below see level)

M@t