I've been out of touch for awhile so have patience if this has been discussed already.

I can't help but believe that with this pandemic and a suspension of temple and church attendance it will be REALLY difficult to get the sheep back into their routines. Temple and church attendance is already a struggle but those who see how nice it is to sleep in and stay home from church may decide to make it permanent.

Plus, all that praying and faithfulness did not keep the pandemic from taking one of the most TBM and beloved members of my mother's old ward. He even had church royalty praying over him.

I think they have told them to dress up for their Sunday meetings and I do see some who do dress up, but I haven't noticed the family with the 6 kids dressed up. Now the bishop's family on the other side of me was dressed up yesterday except her mother wasn't, who was there.

I saw girls walking down the street by USU in dresses last Sunday and I was shocked, but then I read that they were instructed to dress like that.

If I had 6 kids and 4 are girls, I'd be tempted to no longer attend. My daughter even stated she is concerned about going inactive after this--scared to death about going inactive.

It remains to be seen whatis going to happen. It should be interesting to watch.

Mormonism is very consistent through history. I don't see that changing. If anything it will "hasten" the truly "unsteadfast" out of Mormonism, but those for whom Mormonism is their life it will return like the tide regardless of having to watch the Rusty Bucket moving a wash rag over the unwashed and anointed.

This would be great, but on the other hand people will have been cooped up with family for god knows how long and might be desperate to get out to wherever that may be. On the other hand people have gotten used to lazing around on Sundays.
I don’t know, it could go either way. I reckon the TBMs will be gagging for it.
You can bet there will be some huge marketing thing from the church when the restrictions are lifted. It won’t be about obedience, but something to make church sound enticing.
Then again, it’s Nelson we’re talking about. So maybe not.

The church is an abusive parent. They give a smidge of love. They hand over a moldy sandwich and tell you it’s more than you deserve.

Unfortunately, abused children cling to their abusers like crazy.

Ask an a child in foster care if they want to go home.

I think they will lose some people, but most will rush right back. Familiar is what we crave. It feels safe and normal—even if it’s abusive.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2020 09:10PM by Dorothy.

Dorothy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They hand over a moldy sandwich
> and tell you it’s more than you deserve.

They don't even make you a sandwich. All you get is a tiny piece of bread.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They don't even make you a sandwich. All you get
> is a tiny piece of bread.


More like they give you an incoherent and incomplete list of ingredients and tell you to make a banquet out of it. You have to buy everything and make it all yourself. And when the meal doesn't meet their standards, they blame you.

olderelder Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And when the
> meal doesn't meet their standards, they blame you.

And when your meal doesn't feed all of your poor you are to blame. You lost the light of Christ and his loaves and fishes.

They supply the ingredients, but not all of them belong in a sandwich.

They speak of wine in a miracle and drink water to celebrate.
They speak of a most desirable fruit plucked straight from a tree and provide little fresh fruit if any at their pot lucks.
They eat little bits of bread to remember a man sweating blood and being executed and yet give very little to the hungry.

They are taught subliminally to enjoy suffering while singing praises to feeling joy.

Familiar is what we crave.
"Familiar= of the family

“I think they will lose some people, but most will rush right back. Familiar is what we crave. It feels safe and normal—even if it’s abusive.”

RFM is a shelter for battered Mormons.

I think the church has always depended upon the true believers harassing the less faithful members back into line. It was that way before the pandemic and it'll probably be that way after.

As a lifelong black sheep I agree.

I don’t know.

What percentage are anti-vaccine?

Those presumably won’t be coming back or, if they do, won’t be staying long.

A VERY devout TBM I know--he's probably never missed a Sunday in his life--said he loves having Sundays off, and, "Could really get used to it."

On the other hand, this gaggle of sheep is so well trained, that as soon as they open the doors back up and command them to return 95% will come running back.

If they like the Sabbath off, they still haven't come to the intellectual conclusion of the falsifiability of the church. Until you get that conviction, you'll always think you're to blame for playing hooky.

William, my friend, I basically agree--at least in the short term. It makes sense that 95% will return to the level of activity that they exhibited before the pandemic.

What interests me, however, is the corrosive effect of all this over the long run. Serial mistakes regarding gay people, women, etc., have not produced mass exodus, but they did erode the interest of the younger generations in Mormonism. But the same token the move from a three-hour block to two raised the question whether one hour might suffice. What downside is there?

Now Mormons have experienced weeks without church and discovered that lo and behold nothing bad ensued. I think that lesson will stick, and when the next appalling policy is announced some more members will take vacations that stretch longer than anyone thought. So it is the sum of these various setbacks and their effect over time gladdens my heart.

COVID-19 has not been good to the church and may one day appear retrospectively to have been a climacteric, the beginning of the leadership's collective andropause. That, at least, is my hope.

There were two words in your second last sentence that I didn't know LW. I'm disappointed in myself.

Nothing to be ashamed of, oldpobot. What frustrates me is when she hits "Quote" and has to interject a paragraph to my every sentence!

[:+\

> Nothing to be ashamed of, oldpobot.

Really?


------------------
> What
> frustrates me is when she hits "Quote" and has to
> interject a paragraph to my every sentence!

But every one of your sentences is a gem of insight that deserves full consideration. It's like Shakespeare: can you really do it justice with a one-paragraph review?


----------------
> [:+\

;-)

If you like my posts, you'll love my fiction. <3

I thought your posts were fiction!

If the tide is that low, please grab me a crate or two of that old English tea.

But the Harbor is much cleaner now. This may be an improper offer to a married woman, but how about a peck of Atlantic oysters?

(Should you find yourself in New England, my Missus and I insist on taking you out to a nice clam shack.)

OPB, I was saying that perhaps COVID-19 will be the moment at which the church begins its inexorable decline like a man entering male menopause. I thought the image of a sharp fall in testosterone levels an appropriate description of the Q15 and their leadership.

Even if 95% return to their prior activity level, that 5% loss could really hurt some wards and branches that are struggling.

Lot's Wife -- I would love that, as well.

The coronavirus CARES Act passed in late March has given the three BYUs a bit more than 52 million dollars.

Thank goodness they won't have to shut down!!

From the Harvard Crimson:

"After receiving backlash for the nearly $9 million in funding it netted under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Harvard will allocate the sum to student financial assistance.

Numerous members of Congress — including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — expressed outrage on Twitter that Harvard would be receiving federal assistance."

Harvard's endowment is a measly $41B. Chump change compared to...you know...

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/4/21/harvard-stimulus-funds-financial-aid/

So the $9M they would have spent on scholarships can now be spent on $350,000 professors who teach a single 3-hour course on...what, how about bankruptcy law?

Careful, you're treading dangerously close to macaRomney's anti-intellectual turf.

Ruth's Chris Steak House, with 150 locations and a market value of a quarter billion took $20 million in aid to "small businesses". Maybe Ruth is the mom and Chris is the pop? How did that score on your list of esteemed Senators' Outrage-O-Meter?

I'm hearing differing reports. Some individuals are donating
their checks to Wuhan Virus-specific charities. Shake Shack declined their Federal money.

The Administration wanted to get money out quickly. Such haste generates the problems one-size-fits-all applications, plus waste and even corruption. The Administration could have waited and fine-tuned the legislation, I suppose, but that would create economic and political costs. In this day and age, people clamor for "experts" to give us "science-based solutions," except that experts disagree and science is not as exact a thing as we wish it were.

Although a lot of attention has been given to small businesses, we'll also need S&P500-sized companies to pull us out of recession. Many large corporations have diverted resources to medical supplies. More effective tests, vaccines, and treatments are more likely to come from Big Pharma, not small labs.

Posters who still hold LDS membership can write letters to Utah media and tCoJCoLdS, and demand to know what BYU/P/H/I is doing with the money.

PS I'm still waiting for my check--but I filed at the end of the six-month extension period in 2019.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/21/donald-trump-harvard-must-pay-back-8-7-million-in-federal-aid-money/

As I posted nearby, you RfM-ers who still have membership can consider writing letters to appropriate parties (White House, Sen.Romney, etc.) demanding that BYU return its money. Point out--emphatically--that tCoJCoLdS, which owns and cotrols BYU outright, sits on a $120B nest egg and is not using this in any substantial way to alleviate the hardship of ordinary people, members or otherwise.

Dear ______________,

As a fifth-generation descendant of Latter-day pioneers....I am deeply troubled by the receipt of $52 million from the recently passed CARES act by Brigham Young University....

Their home visiting programs( whatever they call them now, think one of them is defunct now)will perk up when this crisis is over.
They're probably doing check-ins online right now, maybe assigning everyone one or two church buddies to keep in contact with and their reporting to whoever.
The LDS has too many schemes putting pressure on people.
People will have to have to go out of their way to remove their church records to stop the harassment.

Forcing Mormons to be cooped up with their kids for a month is enough to convince even the most stalwart Mormon they need to rethink being together forever.

I had a zoom call with my TBM family on Sunday and almost everyone said "we love home church!"

Overall, how is the church (and all their billions) dealing with members who are now out of work due to covid19. Are they asking them to clean toilets to earn their keep and respect?

Taking the long view, mormonism is just a lucky player:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCOhLd9uXBs


and I have faith that it will eventually crap out.

I doubt it will have much of an impact. Activity rates church wide are so low that those who stay are either super entrenched in belief or stay for social and family reasons. The only thing that might move the needle are people who had too much time on their hands while online during quarantine that they came across the troubling facts about church history and doctrine and went down the rabbit hole. Or the ones who were social mormons and whose livelihoods took a nose dive. They may say to hell with giving a mindfucking cult a 10% cut of money they really need for their families and bite the bullet, letting their real beliefs be known.

I second this notion.

Good point. That 10% that they got stolen from them would really be needed now. I'm sure a lot of them are probably hooked now, reading the truth about the church. They go to google church up dates and see the other sites too.
Yep, they have more time on their hands and can read everything they can get their hands on and hopefully come here

I think it might have a slight affect with those who aren’t totally into the church or were fence sitters. These types might get a little disillusioned and get used to not having to go to church. Maybe some had more time on the internet and started discovering the truth.

I think COVID will, in the long run, for the above mentioned reasons not be good for the church. They will lose a few through this but I don’t think it will have a HUGE impact. Once things get back to normal, I think most members who are tied up on the church through family and social community will get right back to church.