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He nails it: http://rationalfaiths.com/nix-negativity-narrative/ Too much goodness to quote just one thing as a teaser. The idea is that much of the reason people are leaving is our own doing. That makes now exactly the wrong time to blame them, the world, Satan, gays, the Internet, etc., for it. It’s time to pivot, not externalize our problems.
I do need to point out the ironic last name.
I’ll gladly translate his clever Britishisms for anyone who gets hung up on them. (I served a mission in the UK.)
It’s a novella but I made it to the end! I think I deserve a cake or something. (I’m not commenting on the quality of the article, this is commentary on my lackluster attention span) Reuben wrote:
I’ll gladly translate his clever Britishisms for anyone who gets hung up on them. (I served a mission in the UK.)
As an American I was left with one question, FTA:
Quote:He even told us Young Single Adults in a broadcast to plan for the future, expect to raise grandchildren and need a pension, and told us to stop being fatalistic snowflakes.
What is a pension?
As I was reading the article I kept thinking, when is he going to say, “…and then gay marriage happened?” A story is only as good as its villain and in my neck of the woods (I’ll gladly translate bumpkin for anyone that gets hung up) the villain de jour is gay marriage. For some people showing any signs of tolerance towards gay people conjures up images of Sodom and Gomorrah and the downfall of so many civil societies of the past. Often when people talk about “the harmful influences of the world” they’re really surreptitiously talking about gay marriage, which undermines the Leave it to Beaver definition of family. Once this happens the Lamanites that are living in underground caves near the North Pole will come destroy us to bring us back into the fold.
In the article Bleakley isolates a quote from Ballard’s “To Whom Shall We Go?” that was so jarring that I had to go back to the talk to look at the talk to make sure it was there:
Quote:Where will you go to find people who live by a prescribed set of values and standards that you share and want to pass along to your children and grandchildren?
Where will I go to find people who live by a prescribed set of values ans standards I share and want to pass along to my children and grandchildren? Quite literally anywhere. We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The good is easier to spot when “the world” doesn’t default to being a boogeyman.
Quote:Come on people! If you really have no faith any more that our Church can and should be experiencing exponential growth before I shuffle off this mortal coil, attractive for its own merits without needing a cataclysm, for goodness’ sake stop bed-blocking and make way for, or at least listen to, the thousands of us who are brimming with ideas and inspiration about how to do all this a whole lot better. Seminary scripture Doctrine and Covenants 58:26-29 told us in 1831 that ordinary Church members already have permission from God to innovate and get creative in our ministry, and even that this is the only way to avoid collective damnation. It really isn’t rocket science. But the fear of change or innovations coming from the grass roots rather than octogenarian white Utahns is so overwhelming that time and again the Mormon with the temerity to suggest a better way to fulfil Joseph Smith’s vision of global triumph is slapped down, patronised, suspected of apostate rebellion and called an antichrist online, or to their face by ecclesiastical leaders.
Ouchie.
– – –
Can negativity be in the eye of the beholder? Like holding a certain position is seen as being positive by one group and negative by another? Or is it more related to someone that consistently prognosticates that “bad” things will happen, where bad is whatever the person making the statement deems to be bad?
I must have spent enough time with blokes as I didn’t see anything that needs to be translations. This really resonated with me.
I think the guy is probably my very same age and I remember much of what he mentions about how it was in decades past.
But how do we change it back a bit the way it was (wait – does that question make me a conservative??)? Do people staying and trying to make changes within or does leaving precipitate a change sooner? Do we have to get to where the youth retention is <50%, baptisms continue to slow, continued slowing birth rate, making it mathematically clear that the church is headed to extinction?
As I repeat occasionally, I recognize there are serious issues that need to be addressed (and the article is a good, interesting read), but there has never been a golden age of uber-high activity rate (within the LDS Church or Christianity broadly). All is not well in Zion, but it isn’t imploding right now either. Will the Church fade into oblivion or continue to grow? I don’t know – but, historically, this is not a bad condition, overall. In some ways, I kind of wish that wasn’t the case, since it would prompt change faster, I think – but reality is somewhere between the extreme optimism of many Orthodox members and the extreme pessimism of many heterodox members and ex-Mormons.
Having said that, Iiked reading the article. There are some excellent points in it. Old Timer wrote:
As I repeat occasionally, I recognize there are serious issues that need to be addressed (and the article is a good, interesting read), but there has never been a golden age of uber-high activity rate (within the LDS Church or Christianityorw broadly).
This is related to my one complaint about the article’s narrative structure, and that’s that it presents the Church of the author’s youth (or early adulthood) through rose-colored glasses. I think the author remembers the Church at this time as being significantly more accepting and tolerant than it was. It probably seems that way because we had just figured out how to not be racial bigots, for the most part, and gay marriage wasn’t on most people’s radars.
There’s also life circumstances to take into consideration. When I got home from my mission I loved the YSA ward. Church was more about making and seeing friends, doing things with people at church even outside the structure of church sponsored activities, and trying to find a mate. The church provided a community, a pretext for people to come together. To put it simply… everything looked a lot bigger when I was a kid.
So who changed? Me or the church? Like with any relationship we both changed.
Church may not be geared for people that have grown kids, people that have the lesson manuals memorized, and people that are mostly comfortable with their place among the pantheon of gods… but it may be a warm, safe, familiar abode for others.
Quote:Church may not be geared for people that have grown kids, people that have the lesson manuals memorized, and people that are mostly comfortable with their place among the pantheon of gods… but it may be a warm, safe, familiar abode for others.
Nibbler that sounds like me every other Sunday.
I found a lot of great things in the article. I particularly liked this: Quote:We are going to tell people that obedience rather than love is the first law of heaven, and that ignorance and blind faith are more holy states than education and honesty. Instead of fixing the many obvious and easily reformable flaws in our outdated programs and strategies so they can work again, we are going to wait for an apocalyptic cataclysm like the wars and famines that humbled people in the Book of Mormon in the futile hope that this will motivate people to rush to our pews.
Come on people! If you really have no faith any more that our Church can and should be experiencing exponential growth before I shuffle off this mortal coil, attractive for its own merits without needing a cataclysm, for goodness’ sake stop bed-blocking and make way for, or at least listen to, the thousands of us who are brimming with ideas and inspiration about how to do all this a whole lot better. Seminary scripture Doctrine and Covenants 58:26-29 told us in 1831 that ordinary Church members already have permission from God to innovate and get creative in our ministry, and even that this is the only way to avoid collective damnation. It really isn’t rocket science. But the fear of change or innovations coming from the grass roots rather than octogenarian white Utahns is so overwhelming that time and again the Mormon with the temerity to suggest a better way to fulfil Joseph Smith’s vision of global triumph is slapped down, patronised, suspected of apostate rebellion and called an antichrist online, or to their face by ecclesiastical leaders.
So our steady decline into a small remnant of unimaginative and defeatist homophobic Amish with food storage instead of farms will inexorably continue. We are being sucked back into the pre-Hinckley feedback loop of impending doom.
I also thought his use of the Monty Python parrot sketch was poignant.
While I completely agree with most of this article, I didn’t appreciate the hyperbolic humor and condesension rhetoric. I’m sure many who agree with the article loved the writing style, but it feels too antagonistic to do any good. Don’t get me wrong, I hope the Church changes as much as anyone; but Peter’s approach will not be very effective in helping that happen. We’re dealing with the strongest forms of doublethink, cognitive dissonance, and the backfire-effect. Poking fun will only make TBMs feel like martyrs.
Had a butcher’s at the post, savvied it all no probs, me muckers. SamBee wrote:
Had a butcher’s at the post, savvied it all no probs, me muckers.
Do me mincers deceive me, or are you takin’ the mickey? His was perfectly good chitty-chitty now wa’n’t it? Does your trouble an’ strife know you rabbit like this, mate?
(For those not in the know, this is
Cockney rhyming slangdande48 wrote:
While I completely agree with most of this article, I didn’t appreciate the hyperbolic humor and condesension rhetoric. I’m sure many who agree with the article loved the writing style, but it feels too antagonistic to do any good. Don’t get me wrong, I hope the Church changes as much as anyone; but Peter’s approach will not be very effective in helping that happen.
My wife tried to get through it, but couldn’t. I didn’t predict that. I should keep this in mind when I accuse others of being tone deaf. All of us are deaf to the tones that resonate with us, so it takes some thinking to identify when they’ll fall flat for someone else.
I suppose one reason the article speaks to me is that its tone captures some of my frustrations so well.
This is the paragraph that stood out for me: Quote:Making it acceptable to decline in the same way as other churches in an increasingly secular world is to declare that all of the stuff about being the only true Church perfectly suited and prepared for the latter days and better than the rest is nonsense. It is totally deserting the ramparts, abandoning the battlefield, surrendering.
We should be hoovering up the disillusioned multitudes fleeing the dead churches. We should be swamped by Millennials, not demoralised and scared by them – we have the gospel for the modern age and the Hubble universe.Our theology embraces the positive social action and community they crave AND the trillions of galaxies with their hundreds of billions of solar systems teeming with life. Every Stake boundary is full of millions of decent, tolerant, compassionate human beings who care about freedom and feeding the poor and not bullying people for their race or sexuality. People who will flock to the True Church if only they can be shown where to find it. This is the moment we have been preparing and working for – but apparently that party has been cancelled.Lately I don’t look for what the church “needs to do.” I’m only on the lookout for ways to describe how I think and feel about it. And this gets to some of that. I picture my convert parents from the so-called dead churches attracted to a theology and community that seemed strong and agile, and here at the end of my mom’s life, the church seems to be struggling under the too-heavy weight of its long? – no, very
short– history. We find ourselves pointing at the millennia-old churches to talk about why change is hard. Quote:Just take the April 2017 General Conference. If people quote Elder Mark A Bragg’s completely delusional propaganda – “The Church is a beacon of light to a darkening world. This is a wonderful time to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! The Church is stronger than it has ever been and quite literally grows stronger each day as new members join us, new congregations are formed, new missionaries are called, and new territories are opened to the gospel. We see those who have slipped from activity in the Church for a time returning as the rescue envisioned by President Thomas S. Monson brings daily miracles.” – we need to gently but firmly point out the real statistics and the waves of falling attendance and closing wards and stakes and suggest this isn’t the time to rest on our laurels, because there aren’t any.
Just to point that these statements by Elder Bragg are not necessarily objectively false. Church is a beacon to a dark world = matter of opinion. wonderful time to be LDS = also opinion. “The Church is stronger than it has ever been and quite literally grows stronger each day as new members join us, new congregations are formed, new missionaries are called, and new territories are opened to the gospel.” The church is growing, maybe at a slower pace but still growing. New members are joining. New congregations are being formed. Missionaries continue to receive missionary letters. And (I imagine) some new territories might become accessible that were not accessible earlier. “We see those who have slipped from activity in the Church for a time returning as the rescue envisioned by President Thomas S. Monson brings daily miracles.” I suppose that some inactives have returned to activity. I am not sure that this constitutes a miracle or daily miracles but that too is in the eye of the beholder. September Six member Maxine Hanks being re-baptized was pretty special. Perhaps this statement might qualify as “puffery” but not false advertising.
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