The thread about "what is there left to discuss in Mormonism" made me realize that Mormons do not emphasize study anymore. No need to discuss much, to quote Paul Simon in 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.

There used to be big pushes to read the BoM, and lesser pushes to read the D&C and the lesser Standard Works.

People frequently carried leather-bound copies of The Articles of Faith book and Jesus the Christ, by Talmadge. Tal Bachman even got named after James Talmadge. Those books were a big deal.

Copies of Mormon Doctrine sold in phenomenal numbers. Every Mo who was anybody had a copy of Mormon Doctrine in their home, and it was used, regularly.

Mormon insiders in the middle 1960s excitedly but in hushed tones passed around literal carbon copies of Alvin R Dyer's talk "For What Purpose" that went into great detail about the pecking order of the various twelve tribes, and Blacks and the priesthood, and all that. (for those not familiar, there is a wikipedia page on Alvin)

Even Dialog, Exponent II, and Sunstone magazines had pretty vibrant articles, and would sometimes be brought up in SS or Priesthood/RS classes. People like Dallin Oaks were published in Dialog.

All of that seems to have nearly completed vanished. A single church magazine still exists, I think Dialog and Sunstone still exist, but you are not going to see them in LDS meetings. I never hear about Talmadge's books anymore. There must be a lot of expensive leather-bound copies of them gathering dust on Baby Boomer shelves somewhere. Scripture chases used to be a thing. Winning one bestowed at least minor bragging rights. Is that still a thing?

No discussions of DNA, science in general, the BoA papyri (or anything else about the BoA for that matter), Lamanites, Lost Tribes, yada yada

Now Mormonism is all about going to the temple (over and over and over and <bleeping> over again), or reenacting a pioneer trek, or putting on your yellow t-shirt and mucking out flooded homes in Kentucky. Food storage seems to still be something of a thing, but not like it used to be, and that is a "doing" thing anyway, not intellectual. There still does seem to be a substantial niche interest in church history, but otherwise, Mormondom is intellectually moribund, a word used by Lot's Wife in the other thread that I think perfectly captures the current situation.

They still have Sac Mtg talks and one hour of lessons each Sunday, but it is just people quoting GAs quoting GAs.

In Christendom in general, knowing the right things was as important to salvation as doing the right things, perhaps even more important. That's what Catechism and bar mitzvah was all about. That has been drained from Mormonism.

I wonder if Groberg and Kikuchi were the cause of some of this, or just a symptom of the irrelevance of knowing anything. They saw knowledge of Mormonism as a detriment to herding people into the church.

Moribund. Today's word for modern Mormonism.

When Kimball changed I am a child of god. From all that i must know to all that i must do.

I was thinking the same.

The members exist to serve the church rather than the church serving the members. That means members have a list of things to do. Knowledge isn't necessary.

Besides, knowledge leads to questions — questions the leaders can't answer or don't want to talk about.

Also, it's much easier to judge the faithfulness, loyalty and worthiness of members by what they do or don't do rather than by what they know or believe. The church is in the judgment business.

I think the Groberg-Kikuchi debacle was a regional aberration. It cost the church a lot of RMs and their families, but the vast majority of Mormons know nothing about the topic. I'd rank it with the purges and perhaps some of the earlier sporadic child abuse scandals: certainly negative, but not insuperable.

The bigger problem, I reckon, is information. The church's dishonest history and inconsistent doctrine became impossible to conceal in the 1980s and especially after the advent of the internet. That has forced the Q15 gradually to de-emphasize and even discourage independent inquiry and even individual thought. Nowadays there is absolutely nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, from intellectual engagement.

There's nothing left but a bunch of old white guys (with rare exception) claiming authority they cannot demonstrate and yet still demanding that we obey them.

For some reason people don't see much appeal in that message.

The church always was a busy work hamster wheel of doing stupid stuff. On top of all the busyness, they encouraged you to study the gospel.

Like you said, the study part seems to be fading away.

I don't know of any of my younger Mormon relatives who know about, let alone want to study, church history. I was looking for someone in my family who might want my set of BH Roberts' History of the Church. There were no takers. I don't think they have even read the BoM, but they are always busy doing Mormon stuff.

I have my set of BH Roberts history. I've thrown 95% of my LDS books away, but there are some that are irreplaceable and I consider those volumes important to protect from the ravenous gravity of the memory hole.

So true.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
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> the ravenous gravity of
> the memory hole.

Ooh, I love this phrase.

I forgot about the BH Roberts history. My parents had those, though I left Mormonism before I had the age/money to invest in something like that. I did have James B Allen/Glen Leonard's The Story of the Latter-day Saints, mostly because James Allen was my American history teacher at BYU, and a fine teacher he was. I had maybe a half dozen profs at BYU that I thought were really excellent. He easily made that list.

The "deep thinker Mormons" also had the full printed set of the Journal of Discourses. Having those in public view will get you some serious side-eye now.

We have the JoD as well as the BH Roberts history.

The latter is a fine work. Roberts may have been a true believer--until the 1922 meetings, when he realized the BoM was indefensible--but he was also an honest historian.

His Studies of the Book of Mormon, with the remarkable preface by McMurrin, is also a very much worth preserving.

dagny Wrote:
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> The church always was a busy work,
> hamster wheel of doing stupid stuff.


Midweek MIA was fun. A lot of fun!

Scouting was fun, dances were fun.

I had fun being a mormon. Even my mission was fun.

Face it, mormonism isn’t fun anymore.

You were luckier than I was. Some ward activities were fun, but my mission? I could use many words to describe it, but “fun” wouldn’t be one of them.

It goes so much deeper than you realize.

Out of the best of books was a 5 year study of literature by the Relief Society. Not to mention their own magazine had studies in civics, history, art, literature and devoted an entire page to the accomplishments of women around ths world including many non LDS women.

The children's friend also had stories about famous people from around the world and about the childhood of many famous people though mostly Americans.

The old priesthood manuals often had historic and philosophical lessons about different religions.

My guess is after correlation really kicked in and consolidation of power in salt lake really took hold, everything dumbed down and members became drones in a mass hive.

From what people have written over the years, Correlation really killed the church. The Q15 sucked out whatever was fun and interesting about Mormonism. They took away the quirkiness that was actually a feature and not a bug. They drained the life and vibrancy out of the RS. They drained the wards of money for social activities that often serve as a glue for members.

Part of the problem is that the church became global, it expanded, pioneers were no longer relevant to places outside utah, handcart in China? Canning peaches might not be so popular in places like el salvador or Italy. Out of the best books series started to look kinda quaint. And American suburban teenage boys dressing up in edwardian colonial apparel costumes, with Indian names for merit badges, started to get a little stale. I mean teddy Roosevelt can stay hip only for so long.

So now they are in the process of focusing in on temples and dead dunking dead people.