The Challenges in the Church Today

I heard Arman Mauss talk at a NW Sunstone symposium about 25 years on this after he published his first book about the problem of assimilation. Since then I’ve watched the church try to appear more mainstream and end up, in my mind, losing some of the specialness that sets it apart. I was really bothered by the way we were used by evangelicals in the Prop 8 fight for money and organization and by an earlier campaign about a constitutional amendment. I hate to be xenophobic but we need to do a better job or realizing who our friends are. The more recent issue that was mentioned in the SLTrib piece is that the Utah church needs to be careful about not making the rest of mormonism assimilate into the way things are done in Utah county.

Interesting article.

I’m not sure how I feel about the mainstream vs. special debate. I guess the issue is really how existing members would react to changes; I’m of the opinion that people external to the church will always think we are strange. The polygamist label has proven tough to shake. People also identify Mormons from other churches because we’re one of a few that go door to door to convert. Some people still confuse us with JWs in that regard, so we’ve got that going for us.

I guess I’m of the opinion that some of our peculiarity could stand some domestication. Being peculiar for the sake of being peculiar is a lame reason to be peculiar.

[img]https://penguingeek.files.wordpress.com/2007/02/farside_02-04-07.jpg[/img]

I like this image, it sums up some of my experiences with the church. People want the church to stand apart from other churches, they want it to be special in some way, not like all the other churches… but once we’re in church we correlate ourselves to the point where it feels like we’re all the same. The church member starts to develop the same feelings that they felt about their church, the member wants to stand apart from other members, be special in some way. The human condition I guess. A struggle to be a part of a group while maintaining our sense of uniqueness that makes us unlike everyone else in the group.

Really like this article and there were some great recommendations. She nailed the doubting disciples and individualism sections. I think she could have broadened the burnout section to include more than bishops. RS presidents, EQ presidents, Youth leaders, to name a few are at high risk of burnout.

A TBM friend of mine went to watch Meet The Mormons. I asked her about it afterwards. She comment, “I don’t believe any of THOSE PEOPLE were really LDS. They aren’t like anyone we go to church with. I don’t think they would fit into a ward very well.”

Every time I think about that comment, I grin. It captures the PR problem that the church is facing. The advertising that the church is putting out there for the world does not reflect the actual congregations of the church.

Maybe part of the point the church is trying to make is to members…. I have not seen the movie but I am familiar with the profiles of those in it. If someone thinks they don’t fit in a ward, is it the individual’s fault or the ward’s fault? Methinks the latter.

The church is MUCH more diverse than many wards in the Intermountain West. I believe quite strongly that the top leadership knows this and is trying to market to our own membership, especially in that geographic area, as much as to the world. I know the basic message is being preached from the General Conference pulpit regularly now, as well.

Of course, there are those who still preach unanimity in all things, but it is beginning to even out from what it was a couple of decades ago.

“the LDS Church has centralized and focused its message on “ideal” U.S. members, namely those in families, he says, which has marginalized “other demographic categories — the singles, the elderly, the ethnics, and the intellectually and artistically sophisticated.”

Seems like he described many of the challenges accurately, particularly this one on correlation.

I think correlation worked in some ways for a while but is no longer sustainable. People have mobility options for religion and teachings. Correlated control of information through the priesthood that is gender unequal will not work anymore.