Posted by:
baura
(
)
Date: February 13, 2018 02:07AM
I was baptized in 1955. I didn't "wake up" about the Church
until 1978. So I have a lot of experience in the Church as it
was long ago. But something has changed significantly. The
members are becoming organized.
The internet has allowed the members of the Mormon Church to
contact one another across the globe (sorry, flat-earthers) and
join together based on various concerns.
Previously all the organization in the Church was vertical: it
flowed up and down with authority going from leaders to those
under them and obedience going in the other direction. Reports
etc. went up and directives went down the chain of command.
The only people who were organized "horizontally" were the
polygamists who either were excommunicated already or were
secretly under the radar.
But now there are organized groups (RFM is one) of members of
the Church who question, in an organized way, the actions and
policies of the leadership. Groups like Ordain Women is one of
the higher profile ones. Various NOM forums and facebook groups
are others.
Catholics have had members talking to each other and making
public statements about the leadership for decades. Now the the
phenomena is happening in Mormonism. This signals a loss of
control. The fact that there is this site (and a whole slew of
others) where people critical of the status quo can join
together and discuss, and, in some cases, organize action (OW,
for example) means that the leaders have lost control over the
narrative. "Faithful" members can now question the leaders
without being totally isolated in the process. People will see
that asking hard questions is common and that having doubts
about things is common. Even push-back against policies is
becoming a group process (the "policy" on children of gays, for
example).
This will change the Church profoundly. And RFM was in the
vanguard of the process.