The LDS Church will exist in one form or another for decades but it's membership numbers will decline for several main reasons.

1) Correlation killed the local ward.

2) Fun activities are gone.

3) Members are slave labor and just a commodity to exploit. (We need the toilets cleaned on Christmas day)

4) The leadership in Salt Lake continue to isolate themselves from the membership. Instead of paying a personal visit they have a video broadcast. Members visiting church headquarters are given the cold shoulder and are not even welcomed there anymore. In short, the church has become corporate and unpersonable.

5) The church can't control information it used to. The internet gives everyone easy access to information the church used to easily sweep under the rug or buy up and hide. Not any more.

6) A more international world. We are exposed to other cultures and ways of thinking now. The church no longer can control the little corner of the world we live in and be the culture. We are discovering new foods, new ways of thinking and doing thing.

7) The increased cost of living. Mormonism exists on people getting married young, popping out lots of babies, staying in their whole lives and then wasting their retirement working as slave missionaries. Today more and more people will put off marriage and won't have the retirements to waste. The economy is shattering the whole Mormon model of operations.

More and more people will just decide Mormonism now costs too much or just flat out doesn't work at all in the modern world. It was always a system that worked best in isolation where the church leaders controlled everything. As time goes on their system will continue to fail due to it's out datedness. People in the past put up with it because they actually got something out of it or had so much invested in it they chose to stay. Now with diminishing returns, more and more will just leave.

...when he said that the greatest threats to the church are
1. Homosexuals
2. Feminists
3. Intellectuals
We're taking it DOWN, people!!

Where exactly was that quote? I want to show my TBM wife it.

Boyd K. Packer also stated that the three greatest threats to the church were homosexuals, feminists and intellectuals. "The dangers I speak of come from the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement (both of which are relatively new), and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals." (Talk to the All-Church Coordinating Council, May 18, 1993).

"The dangers I speak of come from the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement (both of which are relatively new), and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals."

The quote is not quite halfway down, in the paragraph preceding the heading "The Gay/Lesbian Challenge."

http://www.lds-mormon.com/face.shtml

bograde@yahoo.com - you can also watch PBS "The Mormons" online http://www.pbs.org/mormons/view/. Packer talks about that, as well as Dallin H. Hoax.

The glory of God is intelligence.
Intellectuals are a threat to the church.

Huh? (Cue cognitive dissonance music.)

Amen. It's a tire with a slow leak.

I don't know, it still (unfornately) seems pretty strong.

I think it's less strong than it seems. Coming from someone who's still vaguely a member but am probably on my way out... wards are losing members, in a trickle. The member counts are of course not counting actives, but members of record. And I think that the poster above that mentioned the internet as a reason - that's a big one. People can be, or become, more informed in these times.

I don't know. The Soviet Union seemed pretty strong in 1988. I was there.

The elite are circling the wagons. Their view is that the drop-outs are the lukewarm. In their apocalyptic view, largely a folklore network of myths shared and supported mainly by women ages 45-65 with (this surprised me) college education, the sheep and the goats are being sorted by God right now in the last days. So this is just the culling of the riffraff, who cares.

The valiant (well-educated, upper class Mormons with connections) will be "notified in advance" and set aside to prepare for Christ's Second Coming.

When I was in San Jose in the 70's, the bishop's wife (who was daughter-in-law of an apostle) openly complained during Relief Society Testimony meeting (yes, they had those then), that she alone in their family had never had the Second Anointing. Her husband had, his father had, they ALL had a special witness except her! She wept as she described to a stunned audience how faithful she was, how hardworking, and she could think of no reason --NONE--why Jesus withheld himself from her...!

Just a peek into the many layers of the onion of mystery and how much crap the women of spiritual privilege hear.


Anagrammy

He husband had seen Jesus himself and I'd bet money that he used that to reinforce his supposed priesthood authority in the home.

That woman didn't realize that those who had received that "second announting" were either full of BS, delusional, or were conned themselves. Poor lady.

is necessary. The moniker, "the annointed one", posted a thread this forum, which you can read about on this site. Its very informative about how the upper hierarchy, the elite class, are manipulated into thinking that they are truly so very special indeed. I also know a lady who open campaigns to the SP about getting her 2nd annointing. She was/is the ward and Stake RS president, and married to an inactive. She is very popular, and I would imagine that she will receive this at some point.

I've often thought that it would be a fun joke to send fake letters to the Stake elite, asking them to report to the temple on such and such date to receive "further light and knowledge" under the direction of such and such apostle, but to tell no one AND set the meeting for 5am. Can you imagine 100 or so wanna be's showing up to the temple, excited to receive their 2nd anointing? What a hoot.

OM on, what a hoot! Great idea, anon. Really, someone should do this (I'm prolly to lazy!). Normally, I am opposed to messing with people or making scenes, but this idea is just delish!

I'm going to fantasize about this, hah...

Anagrammy, you have hit on more of the Mo folklore with this post.

Many Mos think that the second anointing consists primarily of the personal appearance and visitation of Jesus to the individual. Many have heard of this concept, but have not heard about the supposed sacred and required ordinance.

So she thinks that the visitation is the second anointing, when all it is, is a bunch of people with weird dreams and wild imaginations (or a willingness to deceive others for personal gain).

She should know that to really have the second anointing, she needs the ordinance, and she would receive it only with her righteous husband, as that is the way women get it.

I knew a Polynesian guy in Hawaii who, tho he was a tbm, had not exactly distinguished himself in any way as far as the church was concerned. He held no priesthood callings, was not an RM. But he had faith. Oh, and there was one other little problem--it was pre-78, and his wife was a black lady. His kids couldn't even have the priesthood.

But he bore solemn, tearful testimony in church that he had, in fact, received the sacred second anointing. He said that, one night while sleeping, he was awakened by the personal visit of Jesus into his bedroom. Only he saw the son of god, of course. Perhaps his wife's African (Canaanite) ancestry prevented her from seeing him too?

So much folklore in Moism...

I have a CD by Avraham Gileadi, where he actually talks about how something would happen which would divide the Church and only the elite would remain. I'm sure the current exodus from the Church will simply convince some that this is truly happening and those people will buckle down and become even more devout.

The elite what? Nazi Mormons.

Funny comment, coming from a Jew. You'd think he'd recognize the pattern.

You'd think, yeah...

But being born into the elite (in Gileadi's case, Judaism) does funny things to your head. Such a burden to be among god's chosen ones, after all. :)

Is it an admission that a "first annointing" was total B.S. ?

Haha!

Its an actual semi secret temple ordinance that is performed for the really, really, really worthy leaders and their wives of the church. It basically tells them they've made it.

Hopefully Anointed One will share his story again for the newbies on the board.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/27/2010 02:27PM by kookoo4kokaubeam.

http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon508.htm

I was honestly moved by his anxiety over being a "son of perdition" over this.

Or does anyone here know of a single ward that has more converts today then ten years ago? And/or higher retention?

Why not stay and move up the ladder and get some of your tithing money back? After all it is the best pryamid scheme ever hatched. If you could make it to the top you could live well.

That just gives you more time to give them more of your time and money.

He's a serial converter. I can't remember what he was originally, but he converted to Roman Catholicism (or else that's where he started.)

Next came Judaism, then Mormonism. The Mormons gave him a ton of attention, but he's no more Jewish than I am. I think it's weird that he went back after being exed.

Cool, Phantom, I stand corrected. My error is understandable tho, as so very few convert to Judaism. And Gileadi seems to be based on a place name in Palestine.

The arrival of the internet to many homes
in the late 1990s signal the beginning of the
end of Mormonism.

Guranteed.