I think the church will continue to reinvent itself and mainstream to where in a few decades it will be a whole new entity. Also, the current economic downturn is going to effect the church and it's membership. I see people spending more of their income on food, energy, taxes and just trying to get by. There won't be the big retirements or incomes for the church to leach from. I see economic hardship and the church not providing any kind of real benefit as a motivator for people to leave. I see the church morphing into something else; especially, if a fed up pubic decide that church's should pay their fair share of the taxes. The church is becoming unpopular to non-members again and where are they going to run to? They found the gay community wasn't an easy push over and are even editing conference talks because of them. I think the bullying days of the church have peaked. It hit the high water mark in the 1990's and will shrink from that point on.

I really hope not much longer. Too many duped people who deserve to be able to think for themselves and haven't for too long

It seems to me the church slowly morphed from an actual church into a corporation the last 100 years. The actual members didn't get a full taste until church headquarters started taking all the ward's money and then tossing back a peanut. Salt Lake took all the real authority as well and reduced the local leaders to stuffed suits.

It's not the same church I grew up in. The bishop is a talking head as is the stake president. All decisions are made in Salt Lake and everything is a program. The Mormons used to be a get it done, work the problem, brainstorm locally people. Now they are as useless as your average government clerk. The fire is gone and anything that was good about Mormonism got axed in the 1990's.

Why people stay is beyond me. It's going to continue to get worse with the church bullying the members like out of touch politicians in Washington DC. All this while the daily lives of the average member is full of uncertainty and increasingly hard times. The church bullying is just another source of stress and I can't help but think this will drive many more out. Something will snap.

It's going to fail because what made it run has been decimated. What made Mormonism successful was the ward community. That was the church. Sure the members knew they had a prophet, apostles, and seventies and they would occasionally show up and then there was conference. The thing is, the bishop and stake president were the real leaders and the stake and ward members made the church. If it was outside your stake it might as well been on Mars.

Now it's all gone. It's just a bunch of unthinking zombies who do whatever the Correlation Committee in Salt Lake dictate they do through various programs. Also, they act like have any kind of fun is evil. Summer fun is now pulling a handcart, remembering a horrible tragedy, and then being guilt tripped that you aren't sacrificing enough.

When I was a kid, the ward camped out. We blessed the food but there never was a testimony meeting. It's wackier than ever now.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2010 03:15AM by steve benson.

As long as people rely on feelings over their brains, it will continue. I don't see the church going away anytime soon. At least not in my or my children's lifetimes.

Outside the USA, TSCC has already ceased to exist in many places where it once seemed to be thriving. How many people are really active in Chile and New Zealand? Here in Europe, the big success story was Portugal, with more members than Germany (which is eight times more populous).

The last branch I visited there, in the northeastern medieval city of Bragança, had 70 baptized members living in that small town, and only three were active. Most of the people in church on any given sunday were tourists. That branch no longer exists according to the official site. The last real ward I visited, in the southeastern beach resort Tavira, had about 25-40 people on Sunday. It still exists but is now a branch, one of five branches (no more wards!) in all of the state of Algarve.

Only Lisbon and Porto, the two big metropolises of the country, still seem to have wards, but most members there are immigrants. This pattern is repeated around Europe: you only find mormons in the biggest cities, and they are neither local nor representative of the local population. But hey, Lisbon is getting its own temple, so surely the mission field will soon be ready to harvest? Yeah right. Madrid has had a temple for twelve years and nada has come from it.

Few people under the age of 25 in Europe have ever heard of Mormons. Apparently, in the 1980s everybody had at least heard of mormons, and seen mishies in the street. No longer. Most people confuse us with Jehova's witnesses.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2010 05:27AM by Zeno Lorea.

A long, long time unfortunately. People believe what they want to believe. It feels a need for too many Morgbots.

It will morph and change but be around for a long time.

I agree with Zeno about Portugal.

With a McTemple just announced for Lisbon, Morgbots are bragging about their "success" in Portugal...

Yeah right!

The Morg builds temples because it (still) has money to burn, not because of fabulous membership "growth".

Most members in Portugal are (illegal) immigrants, mostly from Brazil. Just like in most of Europe. Most Portuguse are either strong Catholics or secular people who couldn't care less about a weird Utah cult.

When I lived in Paris, my branch (that no longer exists - the Paris 2nd branch, which merged back into the Paris ward) was mostly made up of American expatriates, American tourists, American students, (illegal) Chinese investigators, (illegal) African converts (who lasted a few weeks) and a small number of French people with mental problems.

The church loves to convert illegal aliens.

It may be possible that the church will implode relatively quickly, in much the same way that communism (which was itself a sort of religion) did in the late '80s. It seems that many people's deconversion experiences happened kind of suddenly. If, say, there was some sort of scandal, crisis, or sudden change in the church's leadership, it may be that a spike in anti-testimonies could simply shake the church apartor at least cause it to morph into a far less cultic organization. This is what essentially happened to the RLDS and the Worldwide Church of God.

If the 18 year olds stop serving missions and marrying returned missionaries, it's over. They know it too. Why do you think all you hear growing up in the church are these two things? If kids leave home at age 18 and do their own thing, it's over for the church.

When the money runs out, the Corp goes bust...

Good point Jon...the strategy that will work is to stop giving the corporation money.

I think what will happen is the for profit side of the church will become more important than the church itself. This is what happened with the Catholic church. The church is just a sideline to it's corporate and banking activity.

Because of the birthrate of Mormon's in Utah, Idaho, Arizona, and California the church will continue to survive and be strong in Mormon dominated areas.

Seeing the strong brainwashing in Mormon families, and the large amount of children Mormon's have, the church will be strong and have plenty of members to keep it going and financially strong.

Out in the "mission field" the numbers will stay steady as they get Utah transplants to keep them afloat. Probably zero growth though.

The convert numbers should stay low and keep dropping due to Internet information.

For friggin' ever. Live with it.

There are still plenty of hardcores and their unwitting children, employees, relatives and egos to keep it going. And even if the church did crumble, those same fanatics will spring up new churches and new compounds. The master church could fail, but the madness will live on.

I agree. I think that even if a large percentage of the lds robots find out the church is a scam,they will still stay active and maybe even fight harder that it is the one true church. I know with my 4 tbm adult kids they would never want to admit I was right and they would cling on untill the whole church slipped into the sea. And dh will be the last one standing. I wish so badly that it would implode in my lifetime but bar a major scandal it won't happen. Look at what the members put up with now. With this terrible recession and they are still pouring in the money so the damn church can continue to build malls and temples that will never be used.

The church will likely go through a protracted period of stagnation before any collapse might happen. The mormon pseudo-religion may persist beyond the lives of any RFM'er - but the notion of a vibrant church taking over the world is no longer sustainable. In response to falling growth rates, mormon culture is slowly revising its self-image from "the universal church" to which all mankind will belong sooner or later, to mormonism as an exclusive club that only the few are "moral"* enough to join and "righteous" enough to stay.


*The idea that mormon culture is "moral" is laughable ...

The rush to build more temples, the desperate attempts to get a mormon in the White House, the current PR campaign ("we mormons are not weird: we're your neighbors just down the street") are all symptoms of an urgent striving for legitimacy and relevancy, driven in part by a whiff of impending stagnation seeping into the minds of the leadership and threatening to inevitably disturb the equilibrium of the membership.

A good example of what is in store for TSCC is the Christian Science church, currently in stagnation and not likely to recover.

3X Wrote:
> A good example of what is in store for TSCC is the
> Christian Science church, currently in stagnation
> and not likely to recover.


I agree, Mormonism will be around forever, just in a smaller form of nothing but the old guards retrenched in Utah.

Rubicon Wrote:
>If the 18 year olds stop serving missions and marrying returned missionaries, it's over. They know it too. Why do you think all you hear growing up in the church are these two things? If kids leave home at age 18 and do their own thing, it's over for the church.

They've been constantly citing statistics at my Ward regarding the sparse number of Melkelzidek priesthood ordinations. If my memory is correct, they said something around 18-22% of young men in my Stake receive it. The numbers are higher for Aaronic and they very quickly taper off as they get closer to mission age. :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2010 11:32AM by Strykary.

There are already an amazing number of similarities between Mormons and JWs, and they may be growing.

Mormonism's music, movies, and other popular culture, which have always been pretty lively and creative, seem to be becoming watered down and duller. In contrast, JWs have virtually no popular culture, in part because they actively discourage higher education. Though Mormons still encourage education (at least at BYU) they seem to be placing relatively more emphasis on proselytizing, just as JWs do.

Doctrine also seems to be increasingly watered down. JWs, for all their emphasis on Bible "study," really seem to believe little else than "try to be good, be sure that you're publicly respectable, do what the leaders say, and keep behaving in a way that's financially beneficial to the organization." And shun those who leave. Doesn't this sound a lot like post-correlation Mormonism?

I don't think that "Mormonism" will die out in any of our lifetimes and will likely last several generations in some form or fassion. I think the LDS corporation itself could implode anytime within the next thirty to fifty years. Its just a matter of the right combination of things happening. Right now the baby boomers are approaching thier decline this will contribute tremendously to the churchs shrinkage in the western world. Once the chuchs main source of capital is cut it will be forced to enter a decline as well. Then add to that mix the potential for scandals or plain ol' lapses in good judgement and you have an organization facing demise. I think that the decline will foster an implosion leaving small barely self sustaining islands of faith in former strongholds.

Even in places like UT, AZ and other bastions of the morg there will be a reduction or even destruction of the churchs real influence. You can see it happening now with all the people being more vocal about severing thier ties with the morg. Most of the people I see leaving in the area I live are all 3rd-7th generation members between the ages of 18 and 40. If that trend is the same everywhere that pretty much leaves the church with recent aquisitions and the tried and true older generation with a transient spattering of the "rising generation"to sustain it's continued exsistence.

I see this happening as well. Half my nieces and nephews have left the church and my nephew two weeks ago came out of the closet and announced he's gay. His mom is still in shock but is siding with her son and not the church on the gay marriage issue.

I think the church provided a community and maybe a sense of security in the not too far distant past but it's not the 1970's or 80's anymore. The world is a much different place and the way people think is different.

The Mormon community is now just a corporation and I think we will see more and more people opt out of membership because they want the community and not the corporation. It will not reform. It has too much power and is making too much money off of non-church enterprises. It will stagnate and shrink over time. The Catholic church once ran the show. It no longer does and most Catholics don't attend church. I see Mormonism going this way in the few generations.

Human beings don't give up their God Myths easily. If forced to by some outside source, history shows they go underground. The Bible is not factually based or literal, and it's still alive and well. Christianity is by some accounts, the largest group of religions in the world, LDS are included in that list.

Secondly, the LDS Church is a huge conglomerate of corporations and land owners around the world. I don't think anyone knows how much it owns and how many pies they have their fingers in. They won't go under. Pull back, change direction maybe but they won't collapse completely, not unless there is a major collapse and everyone goes under. But that's not likely.

being lined up on the banks of the Detroit river waiting to be baptised. Never mind it is to deep to stand. Last time I was at church it was just a tiny branch.

Maybe they meant they would be lined up in the spirit world?

I started that Branch on my mission. October 14, 1988. We met in a new member's house in east Detroit off of Jefferson Ave. 8 missionaries, 7 members, and one visiting HC member. I conducted the meeting and passed the sacrament. I even have the cassette tape recording of the entire meeting.

And I remember the HC member giving a talk about how that day was the dawn of a new Detroit. How the members persent would usher in a tremendous growth of converts due to their faithfulness and love for the gospel. He even mentioned that there would be thousands of people lined up across the Belle Isle bridge, dressed in white, waiting for their turn to be baptized.

Oh the memories.

Reminds me of what they used to say about the Soviet Union collapsing because of the will of God and then the Russian people flocking to the baptismal font like flys to honey. It didn't quite happen that way.

... WAR!!! and the collapse of the civilization that supports these deities.

Look for the end of Christianity (and Mormonism along with it) in the very same way.

The modern correlated church is based on kids graduating from high school. The boys serving a mission and the girls marrying a returned missionary. Then they would have children while still in college. The husband would get a better job, serve in priesthood callings. The mom would pop out as many children as possible and help her husband brain wash the next generation to do the same.

That was how it worked when the United States had a middle class. With the cost of living skyrocketing, the cost of college skyrocketing, and fewer and fewer jobs, this model doesn't fly anymore. The only kids I see continuing this model are those with rich parents who can help out.

I see economics changing things. People will have to leave the fold and put off marriage and kids because of economics. They will be less likely to part with the 10% as well.

Very few members had money in the early days of the church but they had their own farms. Even in the Utah town you had irrigation access and land on those big Utah street blocks. I remember my grandmother and Aunt in Fillmore produced their own food and if you got a present it was handmade. Mormons aren't like that anymore. The church went to the nuclear family model and college became part of the mix instead of starting your own farm.

So the family farm is gone and college has become very expensive. It's hard enough to get through it single.

What's going to happen is LDS families will become welfare rats to support their early marriage and children production or they are going to blow off marriage and kids and do what they have to do in order to get a career going. Many will choose the latter. If that happens they will just leave the church because it's incompatable with reality.

It may not be war but it's a huge shift in the reality of things. People will choose money over the church when push comes to shove. The church basically exploited the middle class and the American dream. Now the Americans can't afford to be exploited anymore.

Sadly, I think it'll last forever, sort of like cockroaches.

Not soon enough as far as I am concerned. Then I would hope for Fundamental Christianity an Fundamental Islam to disappear too. But I think I am having pipe dreams.