Anybody who knows Europe almost no one will swallow the fairy tales of Joseph anymore, it was hard thirty years ago for missionaries but now it is just unbearable even to listen. Is the Brass so stupid not to see what is written on the wall?
What is going to be their next move?

I think they are worried about far deeper problems. Except in South and Central America, and the Philippines, and maybe a few other places, the Brethren consider missionary work a "loss leader", or at best an exercise in treading water. Missionary work is mostly to hook the mishie, not the converts.

The deeper problems:
Young women hate Relief Society. There is a HUGE attrition rate when LDS women transition from YW to RS, especially if the women are single.

Fewer Mormons are getting married in late teens/early twenties. They are trailing the rest of society in that trend, but they are not trailing that far behind. It simply takes longer for people to get established in careers these days, and it is nearly impossible to have the 1950s middle class life without getting that career established. But if the youth don't marry young and have kids immediately, they tend to evade another hook of Mormonism.

I can't cite evidence, but I have the feeling that younger Mormons think the temple endowment ceremony and garments are ridiculous, and that is driving them away. Look at how much tweaking the endowment ceremony has had over the years. I'm sure they tweaked it because they knew it was driving Mormons out of the Church.

I bet California Mormon HS students don't broadcast the fact they are Mormon to their peers very much. If they are embarrassed at being linked to such a notoriously homophobic organization, they will escape from it as soon as they are out from under their parents' thumb, if not before.

And of course, with the internet, people can research the history and science that punches Mormonism full of holes, without anybody seeing them, or being able to stop them.

Mormonism can survive not getting converts. It cannot survive losing its young members. That's the seed corn that grows the next crop.

Kids will abandon LDS Inc, ward membership will age, people will die, and wards will go poof. It is a slow process, but it has a massive amount of inertia, and is very difficult to reverse.

I think internal LDS demographic changes is what is scaring the bejesus out of the Suits.

Excellent points in your post, Brother of Jerry. Yes, Mormon youth aren’t buying the B.S.

And without youth to sustain growth, even cults wither away.

I just have to comment. I think you're probably right for Mormons in many places, definitely for Europe. But, there are places were the church is still growing strong: especially Utah County, and other suburbs in Utah. I grew up there, and social pressure is not against the church, it's very much in favor of it.

Until non-Mormon presence becomes stronger in those areas, tscc will continue to draw strength from there. And because they're producing children at a fairly high rate, the next generation will come from there.

That's why tscc continues to maintain a growth rate that's close to population growth (estimated by number of stakes and units).

Along with attrition, Mormons simply can't afford to have that many kids any more. Few families can survive on a single income, and day care is expensive. Put three kids in a day care and you might as well not have a working mom. Take mom out of work and you have a hard time paying bills.

The average LDS family in my generation had 5 kids. It's now 3. That's still bigger than most families, but that's a 40% decline in a generation. If 1 of those kids goes inactive, you are barely replacing the parents. If 2 goes inactive, then you are losing half your membership. Without converts and relying solely on births, you have to keep at least 2/3 of youth in the church to tread water. Anything less and you are shrinking.

If only 40% of youth stay with the church, and families have 3 kids, you are replacing 2 parents with only 1.2 kids. That's a 40% loss per generation.

My kids certainly feel enormous pressure to go with the Mormon flow. However, there are some cracks in the Morg foundation even in American Fork. My RM son is more than happy to break the Sabbath and go to Walmart with me on Sundays. He is also willing to admit and talk about how boring the singles ward is.

Over the holiday weekend I witnessed several examples of children of TBMs not sticking with the church. Tattoo's(some were really cool), obvious lack of garments, non sanitized language, adult beverages even! I won't guess at a percentage but it was obvious to me that the church doesn't have the generational strangle hold they wish they had.

Utah county is still the conformity capital of Mormonism but maybe the pace of change will increase. I'm doing my part to make it happen.

Stunted

BOJ - you are right on. The small, but consistent, declines in member birth rates and convert baptisms show no sign of abating. Couple that with a moderately steady level of member disenfranchisement and interest and you spell disaster for the morg. It may take another 20 years (including an inevitable minor upswing every few years) before things really start looking terrible, but it will happen.

Of course, the TSCC will never completely disappear. It will just continue to become more and more irrelevant and occupy a smaller and smaller place in the world and the morridor.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2011 10:33AM by Truthseeker.

quinlansolo,

can you quantify what you mean by 'all but disappeared'?

Thanks

regional distribution centers are being disbanded (wasn't the one in England recently closed?). I believe cumorah.com lists all of Scandinavia (that's 4 countries) as having a total of 22,000 members, many of whom are no doubt inactive and/or dead, which I guess is the ultimate inactive member.

Think about that. Mormons have been in Scandinavia for well over a century, and a great many of the early converts came from there, yet there are fewer Mormons in that entire section of Europe than in any suburb of Salt Lake. Baptisms have been dismal in Europe for decades, and now wards and missions are starting to disappear.

My guess is that a good deal of the active church membership in Europe consists of BIC American families on corporate assignment in Europe, and BIC Americans on military assignment. If that decreases, and I think it will, many Euro wards will have to merge or be disbanded altogether. LDS Inc is dying on the vine in Europe.

They are still "gullible" and "needy" while Europeans are often abandoning _all_ religion. Not too long ago, I saw a list of freshly baptized converts: way more than half of them were immigrants.

I guess most of them won't stay in the morg for very long. The only result is that the MPs are able to present decent convert numbers.

I would love to present a check of fivehundred dollars to anyone who would give me a proof of a dozen educated conversions per country male or female, who stays in the church few years.
A dozen per week amounts to little less than seven hundred people.
How about one PHD, Doctor or a Lawyer (equivalent conversion) per day? It is not happening. Don't go too far.... All the metropolitan giants cities we live, Houston, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, there's simply no LDS population presence at all.

Yes, their money still do talking for sure.

Well, Christianity, anyway. Thanks to immigrants, Islam is growing.

Like in Sweden, the politicians & co just won't listen to anybody who tries to tell them that islam is not ONLY a religion but an ideology that covers the whole spectrum of people's lives. There's already at least one rabidly radical islamist in the parliament. He has openly promoted for sharia laws.

but I'm guessing the attendance rate of 40% is pretty constant.

So that's only 44,000 actives in Australia - not much $$$$ for the Morg.

mostly Samoan, Tongan, Niuean wards and a Chinese ward. Many Mormons in Australia are ex NZ pacific Islanders also.

Mormonism in the South Pacific is definitely not "white and delightsome"

Perhaps it is cheaper to run ads than house, feed, and have a MP strutting around?

To keep the money flowing I would not put it past the mormon's to abandon ANTI gay marriage in the temple, emphAsizing the new testament more, ABANDONING THE TEMPLE CLOTHING MAYBE JUST WHITE
DRESSES AND WHITE SUITS MAYBE KEEP THE HANDSHAKES TO GIVE A SENSE OF A SPECIAL CLUB. AND JUST SHOW THE ADAM AND EVE STORY,
EVEN ALLOW NON MEMBER ATTEND THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY. THIS WOULD WATER DOWN THE CULT AND MAKE IT MORE TASTEE FOR THE MASSES.
HOW WOULD YOU CHANGE IT?

THere was a loss of 5 missions in Europe in 2010, as a result of mergers and re-alignments.

Australia went from 4 missions to 2.

Missions were added in the Philipines, Africa, and Central
America.

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58775/New-missions-10-announced-in-seven-areas.html