An interesting article in the SL Tribune explored this reality in the mormon church and how the leadership are coping with it.

I will link the article, but I understand there may be a paywall.

https://saltlaketribune-ut.newsmemory.com/?token=c9b2db16420f31c1be55cbe600f69d4c_60731558_cf465db&selDate=20210411

I don't think the leadership is coping very well at all. They don't seem to understand what it's like to be single. I listened to only two talks from this recent conference (Andersen and Oaks) and the Andersen one told all the single members that if they obey all their covenants then maybe in the next life they will be blessed. This is terrible advice if you ask me. People shouldn't waste their life now, in the hopes that it will buy them a better salvation after they are dead. If something is good and right then they should be able to recognize it and follow it, and if it doesn't improve their lives now, then it very well may be wrong.

what's right for one group doesn't mean it's right for all groups.

It is once and forever an attempt at mind control
The whole organization is about mind control

B ehavior
I nformation
t hought
e motion
s sexual prctices
bites!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The "Brethren" (there's cultishness in that word) are not coping well, and seemingly don't understand what to do as their religion changes. Changes in demographics happen all the time, and everything is not just in flux now, but always has been. The Internet has brought a lot of knowledge to everyone's hands, and the world is changing because of it. Many or most can adapt some way, but leaders of the LDS church seem to be at a loss as to what to do and how to react, and appear really slow on their feet, flummoxed by what is happening.

They still do not seem to understand that religion is changing across all religions, as people from developed nations have become increasingly less religious. Their message is continually the old and wheezy message that church members are slackers and sinners. They also fail to understand that it was they themselves, the leadership, who did away with any enjoyment within the church. No one has ever been particularly fond of attending meetings, but there were other things to look forward to, like sports and social events of one kind or another. What's to keep any Mormon down on the farm now that they've reduced it to just meetings. Meetings, meetings, meetings. And oh, the temple. Meetings and the temple.

So what they're going to do about the church changing and becoming mostly young, unmarried people is anyone's guess. My own guess, however, would be a prediction that they don't try any time-proven ways to make church better, but will just tighten the wagons even more, and make a point of staying on their old, wheezy message.

There is an egocentricity among "the brethren" that only allows them to recognize that which immediately affects their envirnoment.
They are above it all.
They are emotionally isolated from the general population of the church.
They still believe that they can continue "the long con" they have perpetrated from the very beginning.
There will come a time when the whole thing will blow up in their faces.
SO LET IT BE WRITTEN SO LET IT BE DONE

I remember people here talking about how the RS used to have a great deal of freedom. They could raise their own money and spend it as they saw fit. They had book discussion groups. They did craft projects. Then the church decided that every activity had to have a "gospel purpose."

The Mormon church somehow lost sight of the fact that fun church activities can help to bind a community together.

Due to that exact reason that summer stated, the church became a self serving beast that offers nothing for those in need of social support.

The other day a primary song popped into my head after some 40 years. I think it was the "Hello" primary song and it probably was removed because it didn't have any mormon spiritual references, just a general welcome song that encouraged children to sit up and sing.

Even schools understand that you have to make some part of the day fun. You have to give kids a reason to look forward to going to school, whether it's time socializing with their friends, singing fun songs, doing art projects, or engaging in after school sports and activities. It can't be all dreary.

But the Mormon authorities did their level best to make church all dreary. They sucked nearly every last bit of fun and interest out of it.

It's very difficult to ignore people when those people are the majority. The church is going to have to figure this out, and quickly.

Here's my question -- how do single, divorced, and widowed members resist the urge to mouth off when they are so openly disrespected? Aren't many or most of these people perfectly functioning adults in the outside world?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2021 09:04PM by summer.

Most of the perfectly functioning single adults have walked away from the church, leaving behind the ones totally devoted to the negligent, insulting, abusive organization.

The church is their therapist.

Are there any 'singles' wards anymore?

My son and daughter-in-law met in one.

   

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/04/10/they-make-up-most-adult/

I believe this is the right link.

There are a lot of economic reasons for this. Conservative people like to talk about this being a Woke liberal thing - go childless, don't get married, bla bla. It is a little bit, but when the under-45 Mormons are doing it too, there's obviously an economic problem that goes beyond culture.

Most of the $1.4 trillion in student debt is us. We were the most educated generation before Gen Z. We're struggling to buy houses. We're struggling to get married. We're struggling to want to do anything, because we can't afford to do much. We have no retirement to look forward to. A lot of aren't insured at all.

Just more reasons I'm peeved at Dehlin for having nothing to say about these very pressing issues.

Millennials have almost all gone full classic-Marxist, and that's not because liberals have taken over the universities. It's because everything sucks and there is no hope.

I'm at the tail end of the baby boom, and I've had many of the same issues partly because I went to grad school in my mid-30s, and partly because I've stayed single. I think that student debt is weighing this country down. I think that personal debt is weighing this country down.

It would be interesting to see the breakdown in numbers for the church, i.e. how many members are never married vs. divorced vs. widowed, and how those individual numbers have changed.

Don't forget national debt.

When interest rates are low, personal, corporate, and national debts are manageable but when interest rates rise the burden can become overwhelming. As you know, I worry deeply about what that means for the young people who will sooner or later inherit those liabilities.

I've long been an advocate of working on paying it down, and with rare exceptions, living within our national means.

Yes, me too.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've long been an advocate of working on paying it
> down, and with rare exceptions, living within our
> national means.

It should be pointed out that the Federal government, unlike state, county, and city governments, or even you and me as individuals, has the legal right (and obligation) to create money, meaning the national debt and "spending within its means," applies a lot less to it than it does to other entities.

That is correct. The federal government, through the Fed, can print as much as it wants.

But from the citizen's perspective, that's not a solution. You can either pay down a debt the hard way, through taxes and spending cuts, or you can pay it off with inflated dollars. In the latter case, the real value of people's incomes and savings falls and their spending power and living standards decline commensurately.

Both taxes and inflation represent transfers to the government. Inflation is easier politically, since politicians can shake their heads and say "it's the market; there's nothing we can do." But that does not change the fact that inflation is a tax.

Wow,,I'm surprised by the number of response about"living within ones means" and" paying down the debt".

It is the conservative agenda, not a socialistic point of view.

We aren't socialists.

ETA: Fiscal rectitude is not "the conservative agenda." It once was, but the GOP abandoned that long ago.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2021 11:36PM by Lot's Wife.

Yes, plenty of big spenders on the right side of the aisle.

It's not the conservative agenda. You have to go back a very long way to find a presidency where there was progress on paying down the national debt.

Politically, I'm a moderate, although the recent shenanigans on the part of right are driving me further to the left for the present time.

My home state, Maryland, requires a balanced budget every year. With rare exceptions (declared war, or extreme financial distress such as we've had during the pandemic,) I would love to see our Federal government do the same.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's not the conservative agenda. You have to go
> back a very long way to find a presidency where
> there was progress on paying down the national
> debt.

Specifically, Bill Clinton in the middle 1990s. He raised taxes and started paying down the debt. Before that was George H.W. Bush, who raised taxes and was consequently ousted from the White House by conservatives who thought balancing the budget was un-American. That would probably be the point at which the GOP became the spendthrift entity it has been ever since.


---------------
> Politically, I'm a moderate, although the recent
> shenanigans on the part of right are driving me
> further to the left for the present time.

Please think this through a bit more carefully. If you were a centrist but the Republican Party moved dramatically to the right, as you correctly remark, you may find yourself on the left but that is not because you were "driven" anywhere. You didn't change: the GOP did.


---------------
> My home state, Maryland, requires a balanced
> budget every year. With rare exceptions (declared
> war, or extreme financial distress such as we've
> had during the pandemic,) I would love to see our
> Federal government do the same.

The problem with that lies in the fact that the government gets to decide what comprises "extreme financial distress." That may work in Maryland but, as we've seen in recent years, the election of irresponsible politicians vitiates any sound legislative rules and even constitutional structures.

In a democracy people get the government they deserve. There is little indication that voters of either party are responsible enough to insist on fiscal rectitude.

>>Specifically, Bill Clinton in the middle 1990s. He raised taxes and started paying down the debt. Before that was George H.W. Bush, who raised taxes and was consequently ousted from the White House by conservatives who thought balancing the budget was un-American. That would probably be the point at which the GOP became the spendthrift entity it has been ever since.

I remember that about Clinton. I approved of it thoroughly and was distressed when his good work in that regard was subsequently undone. I forgot that about George H.W. Bush, but I liked the Bush's in general.

I predate the baby boom by exactly 10 years
I am among the last of my generation
I have seen very few positive modifactions in the operations of the "church"
If you exclude social contact from a club soon there will be no members left in that club
summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm at the tail end of the baby boom, and I've had
> many of the same issues partly because I went to
> grad school in my mid-30s, and partly because I've
> stayed single. I think that student debt is
> weighing this country down. I think that personal
> debt is weighing this country down.
>
> It would be interesting to see the breakdown in
> numbers for the church, i.e. how many members are
> never married vs. divorced vs. widowed, and how
> those individual numbers have changed.

By far the biggest percentage of "membership" is inactive or completely oblivious to even the thought of being counted as a member. Typically like a relative of my wife who joined some time in the 60s and has never set foot inside a Mormon building from about three weeks after he was baptized. Does anyone really believe and statistic relative to Mormon membership?

Sit back
enjoy life
Pursue the opposite sex
have fun
It is all temporary

Perfect but I would add one more
"Only drink good wine"

I think what is most revealing is they admit that since 1992 there were more singles worldwide but not the US until 2017. So.... Now they are addressing the issue?

When they say that more than 50% of LDS church membership are singles, they ignore the real truth of it. Not only are a majority of church members singles, most of those singles were baptized when they were eight years old and never really made a real commitment themselves, to be church members. If you remove all of them from the church rolls, the mormon church would be shrinking steadily. When you look at what's left, they are not capable of living the religion of their choice. That means that something is wrong with the religion. If it shrinks and the part of it that doesn't shrink is performing badly, it's dieing.

I was in a singles ward for quite a few years. It was depressing. I know quite a few single 30+ year olds who haven't married. My daughter said she thinks they are happy not married and I told her you can't be in the LDS church. My daughter wasn't happy single and she finally married at 33. And she is happy. She lucked out and got a really good guy.

When my husband left, I would have NEVER gone back to a ward, let alone a singles ward. They treat singles and divorcees so poorly. I had a lady in the ward who had been with me in RS stop by and tell me that if I'd just get my divorce, she'd invite me to lds singles activities. As I closed the door, I thought, "Another reason not to get a divorce."

Sad to say that people in Utah treat you different if you have a man no matter who the man is. I was single for at least 9 years and in a long-distance relationship for another 7 or so, and when he moved here, I NOTICED how people treat me different.

They'll never get it right where singles are concerned because, in reality, they just DON'T CARE.

wow where do I hook up with a female single member

Outside the LDS sphere of influence, it seems that more couples are living together without getting married.

Is it possible that the same thing is happening with the wards?

I think it's been true for a long time. I remember being in a "mission field" college and seeing Mormons there get visits from their boy/girlfriends. They would share rooms, beds and whatever else young Mormons get up to.

I'm sure that sort of thing has grown more common since then.

tumwater Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Outside the LDS sphere of influence, it seems that
> more couples are living together without getting
> married.
>
> Is it possible that the same thing is happening
> with the wards?


I am willing!! Where do I signup?

there once was the Concord Coalition, IDK if they're still active.

If the COVID thingee had been handled better, there would be less spending on it NOW and in the future taxes that will be paying interest for many, many generations into the future;

Gov't indebtedness is a tax on our children, grand-children & far into the future.

it's only marginally of interest to those of the political party not in the WH.

take for example Biden's plan to upgrade - renew the nation's infrastructure: He wants to increase corporate taxes to pay for it, but the Repubs are whining & crying FOUL.

I can't see the article--it's behind a paywall, so I don't know the specifics it cites. My own path didn't lead through TSCC, but certainly through a similar cultural climate.

My guess is that even though more than half are technically single, many of them hope to get married, re-married, or were in a long-term marriage and have lost a spouse.

IOW, marriage remains the desired state for most, even if they aren't participating in marriage at the moment. In churches I attended, singles were either ignored or quarantined into their own "safe" groups (the men don't want you looking at their wives and daughters).

Singles group members tended to have high expectations and lots of disappointment. Lots of guys affecting the "good Christian guy" are disappointed because the ladies actually want "bad boys," and the ladies are disappointed because most of the guys aren't.

I'm stereotyping a bit, but the point is that peoples' natural desires and attractions don't change just because they're lumped into a group together.

Anyway, that's my experience from singles groups at church, where I spent a few years in my 30s.

What if all the singles are waiting to marry someone 'richer' than them?

It makes one wonder if many single people use the church like "Hinge" the dating app? Just another way to find a mate, but don't really take it seriously. Too bad most don't realize it needs to be deleted once it has served it purpose.

HH =)

Should not The Brethren be more concerned with the faithful miserable-marrieds in their ranks, trapped in plastic marriages?

Perhaps the only problem with LDS singles is being trapped in a cult.
Vast majority of (non-cult) singles I know are active interested-in-life fun people.
Not force-fitting themselves to a mold, they are free to craft an intentional life

They need to build more temples so that the singles can pop over and join each other in forever HOOKUPS