Picking and choosing what parts they want. Must drive the 80 year old management team nuts. But, they know that their future (and profits) depends on them.


https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2018/09/29/more-millennial-mormons/

“We should never discount the strictly spiritual benefits — the expectation of salvation,” he says. Fully obedient members “are willing to make sacrifices for a long-term payoff.”

This is where “succor” turns into “sucker”.

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> This is where “succor” turns into
> “sucker”.

I just had to jump on this before Mrs. Lot beat me to it.

I think the Temple ritual turns them all into committed suckers.

Jeff Holland says, "What kind of taffy pull, paddy cake idea is this?"
Or something like that.

Shinehah Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jeff Holland says, "What kind of taffy pull, paddy
> cake idea is this?"
> Or something like that.


I remember when I got questioned by the bishop to see if I was worthy for an endowment. And the question 'Do you believe that all the 15 men are prophets seers and revelatory?" I just thought of Holland and started laughing in my head. I had to say no. In a way Holland's stupidity saved my butt.

It sounds like how a lot of Catholics take their religion -- with a grain of salt.

I've felt for a long time that the Mormon church is over when the members say it's over. And in particular, when the members no longer care about maintaining a temple recommend. If that happens, it will be fun to see church authorities realize that they are no longer in charge, but are merely influencers to the extent that they have something worthwhile to say. Pope Francis is in just such a position now.

I think what really killed the authority of the Catholic church was birth control. Tons of Catholic women decided that what the church had to say about birth control just didn't matter. After that, it was difficult for many to take the church's pronouncements quite so seriously. The Catholic church lost the battle. The members were in charge.

The same thing may happen to the Mormon church. It will be over one or more issues where the young people of the church realize that they just don't care, whether it's coffee & tea, alcohol, garments, temple attendance, missions, gay marriage, the 3-hour block, bishop interviews, etc. These are the Mormon church's points of vulnerability. The world is moving and the Mormon church will either move along with it, or lose control, as the Catholic church did.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2018 06:58PM by summer.

Is that the world is shrinking in terms of media, communications, interactions with diverse people.

There have always been "Jack Mormons," but the number of Jack Mormons is probably increasing because younger people are increasingly feeling peer pressure, notions of "respectability", alternative standards of idealism, etc. coming from the world outside of Mormonism and much of it conflicts with the influences that they feel inside the smaller world of the Mormon community.

The only reason that Mormonism still exists as a relatively distinct grouping of people these days is due to the momentum it got from about 60 to 70 years of the Utah/Mormon corridor communities being relatively isolated from the non-Mormon world.

Without that period of isolation, it would just be another smallish protestant knock-off sect with an eccentric history, which is basically what the RLDS side became.

The members have all the power. Without the members the leaders have no church. What keeps the church going is it's part of family tradition. Once a generation decides it's done playing the Mormon games it's as you say, over.

This is silly.

They're just talking about "Jack Mormons." This is nothing new and nothing that started with millenials. This is a phenomenon that has existed as long as the Church has existed.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Jack_Mormon

Initially, "Jack Mormon" was a label given to non-Mormons who liked Mormons and to some extent participated in the Mormon community. It quickly morphed into a label that mainly refers to Mormons who habitually ignore some or many of the clearly defined "commandments" and "rules" that apply to church members.

The way that the Word of Wisdom is applied by the Church and has been applied for generations is, in many respects, irrational and stupid. But there's no ambiguity in how it is applied. There's no room for a believing Mormon to say that the rules against coffee drinking, alcohol drinking, etc. are just random brain farts of some old dead guys that don't need to be followed. Once you cross that line, intellectual honesty dictates that you admit the logical consequence of your position, i.e. that the Church is not led by god-appointed, god-anointed leaders and, therefore, is at best just a social club with a religious theme.

You can't logically choose a "middle way" in Mormonism. You can try to start your own belief system within Churchco, but that's a whole other ball of wax.

The actual teachings of Churchco's top leaders since the beginning is that there is no middle way. (And the essence of Churchco as a belief system is whatever its top leaders teach.) Being a Jack Mormon means either: (1) the Jack Mormon sticks around for the social benefits/community, but does not really believe; or (2) the Jack Mormon finds some aspects of the belief system, such as it is, inconvenient and essentially defies the inconvenient parts but, not wanting to deal with the logical consequences of that defiance, just blithely pretends that it's not really important to think about it too much. (In the overall scheme of things, it probably isn't important to think about it too much because the Church is not what it claims to be. But that is the logical consequence that the typical Jack Mormon refuses to deal with.)

This paragraph is hilarious:

"Riess and co-researcher Benjamin Knoll — whose book, 'The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church,' is due out in March — discovered that among more than 1,100 members they surveyed, THOSE THEY DESCRIBE AS FAITHFUL AND OBEDIENT MORMONS,' 10 percent and 18 percent, respectively, report they have had either alcohol or coffee in the past six months, both of which the Word of Wisdom forbids."

Unless I'm reading it wrong, they are essentially saying that a certain percentage of "faithful and obedient Mormons" are not faithful and obedient Mormons. Sounds like they need to go back to the drawing board, define their terms, and then start over.

Of course, if it was just a one-time "sin" and the Mormon in question felt all kinds of guilty and "repented," I guess it could make sense to label them as a "faithful and obedient Mormon" who had a moment of weakness. But the article doesn't seem to be talking about THAT kind of Mormon. It's talking about Mormons who don't feel like the temple stuff and the word of wisdom stuff needs to be taken seriously.

Do Jackmos generally attend church regularly? The ones that I've known have been inactive.

I knew some who were considered Jack Mormons who attended quite often with their family. They didn't hold major callings due to smoking, drinking, coffee and such, so they weren't as "active" of your typical temple-worthy Mormon.

I remember when the Mormons had a no birth control rule (with exceptions for physical health issues). But by the 80's, very few people were listening. By the 90's, the church dropped it. There are no restrictions, but the faithful are still strongly encouraged to have those large families.

I think Mormons have the Catholic Humanae Vitae to thank for the LDS leaders dropping the birth control issue. They simply saw how futile it was to press this issue.

the bishop had the nerve to ask me if I planned to use birth control.

The backstory here is that by then, due to medical problems, I'd had my reproductive parts surgically removed.

So I said, calmly, to the bishop, "That won't be an issue." So the bishop persisted, "Is that a yes, or a no?"

Though maximally pissed at the intrusive nature of the questions, I smiled and said, "You don't need to fret yourself about it."

I quickly followed this up with, "You're still free to marry us on the 12th, then, right?" I could see that he was a little dizzy with having the conversational control taken away from him, but I'd had years of experience with re-directing conversations in the course of my job, and the bish didn't have a chance.

He said that yes, he would marry us (in the RS room - wow) on the 12th. I thanked him and said, "Good, see you then."

Ever Mormon is a Cafeteria Mormon. It's just that some of them get to decide if others' choices are acceptable, and the rest of us have to abide by their rules.

Whoever gets to sit in the prophet's chair gets to be the "Top Simon" until he dies. While he's sitting in that chair, the other "apostles" play a bizarre, macabre game of musical chairs with a twist. Instead of the apostles walking around the chair to see who gets to sit in it when the current occupant keels over and out of the chair, a little marker points at the apostle who has the most seniority as being the guy who gets the next turn in the chair. But if that guy dies before the chair is vacated, the little market simply moves to the next living guy who has the most seniority. That's how god supposedly chooses his top "Prophet, Seer and Revelator"...and they refer to it as being an inspired process.

But the process was established long ago. It's not ambiguous. Everyone knows who Simon is and when Simon says do or don't, you're supposed to behave accordingly. And when all the other "apostles" either expressly endorse what Simon says or don't speak against it, you're supposed to accept it as god's will until Simon says something different.

Someone could probably smoke and drink all they want and still show up at church every Sunday(as long as they show up sober), as long as they don't take the sacrament, or expect to have any callings. I doubt that any such person would ever be disfellowshipped nor excommunicated in such a situation. So in my mind, the question is about whether the people referred to in the article are taking the sacrament or not. Even as an ex-member (I resigned), I would expect those who are not living the religion to act with integrity with respect to their participation in religious ceremonies.

On the far end of the scale we might have the mormon equivalent of some of the characters depicted in the movie the Godfather. In that movie, we see gangsters breaking in to someone's bedroom and saying "this isn't personal. It's just business" before opening up on their victem's with machine gun fire. Then a few scenes later, you see those same gangsters sitting next to their wives in church, as devoted family men. Some people draw their ethical lines in strange places.

I Think that the differences come down to real morals. In Mormonism, real morals are screwed-up to the point where people often have difficulty sorting out real right from wrong. The result is that the church breeds some good people, and many confused people and sociopaths. The lucky few resign and stay completely away because they figure out that Mormonism is toxic. Most of us instinctually know that murder is wrong. But is it ever okay to tell lies, to withhold information that should be rightfully shared, or to shun someone who has done nothing wrong to you (or maybe nothing wrong at all)? If we lived in a Star Trek universe, the mormons would be the Romulins.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2018 02:58PM by azsteve.

I like millenials, and I am not just saying that because I am one.

The ecclesiastical hierarchy are losing there BITE (behavior, information, thought, and emotion) controls. Without which they lose everything.

In some areas, the church is more accepting of Jack Mormons than other areas. If the church is hard up for filling callings, they may "overlook" members with WoW problems. Example, there's a sister that is still on good terms with my wife. Last year, this sister actually walked into the sports bar we were patronizing and joined us for a drink. In addition to having a drink, the sister also smokes. She had these habits before joining the church.

Well between puffs and putting away two margaritas, she tells my wife that the church is still a great place to be on Sundays. She talks about how she enjoys teaching the CTR age children in Sunday School.

Strange, but true.