I loved being in church wide basketball, stake dances, youth conference, trips to neighboring states, Roadshow plays, Halloween and Christmas and all other excuses for parties and potlucks. I can't remember all the reasons we made up for getting together and having fun.

I think people joined the church back then because of all that was offered in the church community. It was a full program and a rich culture in which to mature and develop. It was where my friends were, where I won my first kiss and serious girlfriend. It was 2 area basketball championships and flying in the airplane that belonged to my best friend's dad to get to those games. I had no unshakable testimony, but I had a wonderful childhood.

Where did THAT church go? Can you trace the decline and reasons for it? I would love a graphic timeline that could help me quit shaking my head.

The two biggest factors were correlation and centralizing church finances.

https://www.lds.org/manual/church-history-in-the-fulness-of-times-student-manual/chapter-forty-three-an-era-of-correlation-and-consolidation?lang=eng

Daymon Smith's analysis of the modern church is excellent. He discusses polygamy, tithing, correlation, the COB, and the church operating as a business.

http://mormonstories.org/149-152-daymon-smith-on-correlation-the-corporate-lds-church-and-mammon/

That's my belief too.

Correlation has made church manuals, conference talks, and magazines homogenized and repetitive.

Uniform budgets mean little is spent on building a community of Saints (unless you count the miserable "Trek" experience).

Combined, the two changes have turned every church activity into one long sacrament meeting.

Ironically, I think the brethren believed their own hype. They thought that testimony was all that was needed for a vibrant and growing church. The rest, they seem to have concluded, was just unnecessary fluff. Maybe so, but fluff is better than library paste.

Greed took over. It will stay until it sucks the well dry.

Yep. Having been at least nominally Mormon since 1958, I've seen it morph from a community-based thing to a rather bland and faceless corporate entity. "Correlation" corporatized it and ruined the human face of it. Now it's a profit-seeking corporation that runs a church on the side as one of it's "profit centers."

My experience in the LDS Church in the early days of my membership and for at least a couple of decades or so, it was very much a fun time in many respects. Much of the activities and events of those times have been cut back or discontinued: Bazaars, Road Shows, Gold and Green Balls, Bood Drives, Firesides (often interactive and with guest speakers), Relief Society lessons - "Out of the Best Books," (Three editions), studies of other countries and cultures etc. I recall a class in easy car repairs and check ups, self defense class, opportunities to make items for donating to a group, and so on. That is only a partial list!

That "old church" had:


Too much localization.

Too much personalization.

Too much individualization.

Too much local control.

Too much entertainment.

Too much heart.


(Even though none of it was ever actually "true")

The church wasn't any better in the sixties. They taught me that black people were followers of the devil.

They had good potluck dinners, but so did the KKK.

+1

The "Good Old Days" were only as good as you recaall if you were a white male living in an affluent ward. Watch te movie *Pleasantville* for an apt parallel.

The peak of WHAT ?

Posing as the ideal/perfect reflection of the white bread American dream ?

Fostering fellowship with in its robotic ranks, while ignoring the rest of the much larger world ?

Fleecing MORmON members for the all time highest percentage of their income rendered in offerings to LDS Inc ?

Promoting its myopic MORmON based UTopia concepts/ideals before being battered by the pent up back lash of reality that such behavior was also creating?

Seeming like its MORmON version of life really could eventually take over the world ?

Somehow taking credit for every achievement that came along?

Making certain people feel good about themselves because they were part of the arrogant MORmON ONLY TRUE CHURCH club, between all the moments of inflicted sheer terror over Jesus' (supposed) imminent return and probing bishop interviews into people's personal affairs?

Being at some apex of phoniness due to all the MORmON SUCK-CESS in the aforementioned areas?

Yah, Maybe MORmONISM was at some peak then, and they / you can have that peak, it just wasn't that pleasant to be around.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2013 12:19AM by lucky.

It's also possible that the church you're remembering in th 60s is an idealized church--part of your memory. Confirmation bias and nostalgia come in to play. I think you and I are in the same near-senior-citizen age brackett, and I look back at early-to-mid-60s as a better, cleaner, simpler, and happier time. I'm sure it was, but probably wasn't as ideal as I like to remember.

gungholierthanthou.....oooRAH!

The church actually made the 20th century members' lives better up until the 1960s. By the end of the 1970s that was all gone, and it was the members job to make the church better.

Any of the old timers remember the lesson manual "Christ's Ideals for Living"? Best LDS lesson manual ever, written by O C Tanner.

There hasn't been a lesson manual in the last 35 years worth a bucket of warm piss.

Link to the fatal photo op:

http://www.utlm.org/images/newsletters/115/115cover_hofmannchurchleaders.gif



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2013 08:02AM by steve benson.

The nationwide Equal Rights Amendment effort in the late 70's was also a key turning point. It brought into focus how the SLC HQ would force the locals into doing something they may not necessarily believe in. I was living in FL at the time and it was one of the key states in the battle.

To watch local leaders tell us the party line from SLC on a political issue while standing at the pulpit brought home to me how local control was going away.

Great comments. Lucky hit the truth on the negative side, that even at its peak, the church was full of phony ideas. Another thing, if your childhood was basically good, then you are bound to be nostalgic about it, and biases will impinge on your (my) clear judgement. Still, I think the world in general terms is advancing (with temporary reversals and stops and starts) in civility, while the church has declined in nearly every critical facet--socially, spiritually, politically, with the possible exception of its finances. Recently, having killed the golden goose, finances have joined the other declining elements.

It's always been hokey, now it's also choking itself.

The turning point was the fuel crisis in the 1980's. TSCC was "inspired" to change things and invented the 3 hour block. Church went from being ok to being misery.

Just another example of how uninspired TSCC is. This was a major flop for the members and a god send for the money changers.

Mormonism always had crazy doctrines but this wasn't quite as noticeable during the 60s/70s.

Most of thought the craziness was in the past and we enjoyed the many church activities and the dinners every weekend.

Also, as a young bride I learned many useful things in RS.
DH and I even learned ballroom dancing in the Cultural hall, we had great fun in Mormonism.

Of course, we lived in California and the members were perhaps more liberal thinking at the time.
Every so often, some family would move down from Utah and we thought they were just weird.

But indeed, by the early 80s it was all over.
NO more fun activities, not enough money in they wards and Hitler type indoctrination meetings.

It was a relief to learn that DNA put the kibosh to the Book of Mormon.
Most of our family was out within a month or so after learning that the BoM is just fiction.

Never resigned, we all simply walked away from Mormonism.