Posted by:
Rubicon
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Date: December 02, 2019 11:55AM
Temple marriage has been a successful control mechanism and profit maker for the LDS Church. Nothing is more effective than family and social pressure and nothing is worse in LDS culture by being barred from attending a family wedding. So that’s motivation for many to pay up and do the church thing.
In a time when the western world is losing it’s interest in attending church and the rapid decline and demise of Christian church’s the LDS Church is concerned about retaining it’s membership.
The dilemma the LDS Church has is how does it mainstream into a generalized Christian church and still maintain it’s grip of control the leadership are so addicted to. It can’t. It’s impossible but they are making vain attempts to do it.
Empires die and church’s fade away as well. Mormonism always needed isolation and control of the local government to survive. It’s losing that. The church can not abandon the Salt Lake Temple. It’s too big of a symbol. They have spent a fortune trying to make metropolitan Salt Lake City a place Mormon families would want to move back into. Salt Lake has become less LDS and more liberal. With more non-Mormons moving into Salt Lake and the Mormon history becoming more of a liability the church has a dilemma.
I predict the church will change without changing and continue to shrink. People just don’t want what they are selling. The Book of Mormon to the modern person is a popular Broadway musical that makes fun of the silliness of Mormonism. The modern world views Mormonism as silly and they can try and run from the Mormon stigma all they want but you can’t get a little bit pregnant. You either have to ditch Joseph Smith entirely or you are stuck with his bad and silly reputation.