The LDS Church is morphing into the church of rich suberbanites. It’s going to be people who can afford the tithing and have the means to be mission presidents and serve missions who will be the backbone of the church.

It’s a club for successful people who have free time and love the illusion they are helping the world by serving in callings, performing ordinances and serving missions.

If you have to work two or three jobs or you don’t have the luxury of having extra money to spend on tithing, the church ain’t for you and all you will get from them is stop being lazy or you must not be blessed because you are not living right.

If you have money and time and want to save Africa, the church is for you.

Imagine that!

Iwildlife and village area, and no mention of his being Mormon.

Because he wasn't--he just saw a need. saw the '60 Minutes' piece about the guy who spent over 100,000,000 of his personal fortune to save a huge African wildlife and village area, and no mention of his being Mormon.

Because he wasn't--he just saw a need.

One of the reasons I left so many years ago.

Simply bored of those people.

You saw the light.

  
  

What's more egoed than thinking your private club is the path to godhood and you are important in the club. The whole driving force is I'm going to be a god.

I always felt there was something off about the Mormons. That gets it right there I think. They seem all about the class. Every Bishop in the Morridor is some Rich slacker. You don't see a single person that isn't rich being in their leadership.

They seem so out of touch with those like me. I can't afford to use all their electronic stuff, or buy a lot of stuff just so I can fit in with attending their church these days.

Strange for an American religion. Perhaps they forgot no taxation without representation. I think they are a bunch of old rich guys trying to guess what will appeal to the poor young people. They think it's all about getting apps and online facebook or something (everyone tried pressuring me to do facebook when I was investigating, I don't do facebook or other apps like that). They are so rich they have NO CLUE what someone like me actually wants or needs. I think that's part of the problem they are having these days.

They don't have anyone that is actually a normal person to tell them what people actually want. They are just guessing about it instead, like a blind man trying to figure out what a normal person sees when they are standing on the top of a mountain enjoying the view.

The LDS church really isn’t an American church. Brigham Young left the US with plans to set up his own country. The church came under investigation for swearing oaths against the US Government in it’s temples.

The church was a communal organization with no cash tithing. When the church went to cash tithing it opened Pandora’s box. It started getting excess money and that turned to investments and grew into this huge for profit conglomerate.

But Ezra T. Benson changed all that. After him, Mormonism became the top dog in promoting America First.

Mormons were America Firsters long before Ezra. He did push them closer to the lunatic fringe, but God protected the church by making him senile about the time he got real power.

Something like that.

It changed when LDS members started serving in the military and supporting the war effort in two world wars. That makes people patriotic.

Where I served as a missionary, one meetinghouse location had a metro bus stop right in front of it. There were 2-3 families who "got on the bus" in order to attend church. I think one family even used a bus transfer to attend.

What do you think the ward members were encouraged to do?

Actively write to the city's planning zone in order to lobby the city to move the bus stop 3 blocks AWAY from the church's property.

Six months later, the bus stop continued to exist in front of the church much to the chagrin of church leaders.

I have to disagree with Rubicon. Mormonism is perhaps the most American of religions. Yes, Brigham left the US, and the United Order, though a wide-spread idea in the mid-1800s, is not the contemporary American narrative, Mormonism is the beating heart of corporate America. Mitt Romney is the perfect avatar for Mormonism, or at least was. Mormonism is changing, and not for the better.

Mormonism is the perfect religious embodiment of American Manifest Destiny. That is what that stone rolling forth and filling the whole earth is all about.

Yeah, not working out that well, but it most certainly was the plan. That was the purpose of amassing hundreds of billions of dollars.

ETA: I do agree that rich suburbanites are the real heroes of Mormonism, and for them, Mormonism sort of works if you squint hard enough.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2023 01:11PM by Brother Of Jerry.

The church's profound identification with the United States is scriptural. America was the land set aside for God's work; it was established to bring forth the restoration and to serve as a base for the religion's global expansion. Its constitution was not the work of man but of God.

When the church left the United States. it did so because the government had not lived up to its obligations as the Chosen Land for the restoration. But that alienation passed. By the time of McKay, the church had scrubbed its anti-Americanism, removed the vengeance from the temple ceremony, and returned to its identification with the USA.

Mormonism's relationship with Washington changed over time, to be sure, but the association with the continent, the constitution, and the polity have always been a defining characteristic of the faith.

There really isn’t such a thing as corporate America. Most large corporations are multinational and global. The LDS Church was and is to a certain extent a theocracy. Theocracies don’t jive too well with the US Constitution. One thing that got the church in trouble is outsiders viewed it as un-American.

If you told the evangelicals in this country the Mormon church is the most American church they would tell you to get fucked.

And they do not like it when a fellow suburbanite calls it quits, or worse, starts telling people why they leave.

In suburbanite world when you leave LDS Inc., you find out very quickly that your friends were not really your friends unless you toed the line. I had a former "friend" and bishop get up in my face in COSTCO one day without provocation. All I said was Hi and he started in. We had several of these encounters so now when we see an old "friend" we try to avoid.

Like we are going to come back to church because some guy that was a bishop tells us too. So far out of touch with reality. I've lead my whole family to apostacy and HELL! lol



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2023 02:20PM by squirrely.

Perhaps the response, "I'm so embarrassed for you" would be appropriate.

The get triggered. It’s great! Enjoy their emotional immaturity and weakness.

Rich surburbanites are amongst the most boring and fake people I have ever met.

Leaving Mormonism to me was more about leaving surburbia than anything else.

Conform or get cast out.