Catholicism and Mormonism

[Anonymous]

I’m starting to see a big parallel between Catholicism and Mormonism. Catholicism also has many of the same problems and claims as Mormonism — one true church, a bigger than life religious leader at its head, various shades of infallibility for leaders, and a litany of bad history (inquisition, sale of indulgences etcetera). They also tend to hang on to objectionable values claiming inspiration, while the rest of the world embraces current culture, and tends to grow (like the Pentacostals did, taking from the Catholics based on a documentary I saw some time ago).

Do you think that the state of current day Catholicism could be a proxy for what Mormonism will look like eventually in terms of membership growth?

Here are some 2014 stats that show Catholicism is falling, as is membership in most Christian churches, while non-Christian and unaffiliated status appears to be growing..

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

[Anonymous]

I think there is some validity, but when you get down to the congregants it seems it is vastly different. The “average” catholic doesn’t go to church every week and generally doesn’t feel all that bad about it. I can’t say that is true for Mormons. As a Mormon you KNOW you are supposed to be in all 3 blocks every week or your salvation has a bit of a question mark by it.

From some things I have read and heard, I see some real parallels between Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

Do you think that the state of current day Catholicism could be a proxy for what Mormonism will look like eventually in terms of membership growth?

While I believe both churches struggle concurrently with the same issues I do feel like Catholicism is a more mature religion with more members than our church will ever see. They have a 1000+ year head start and we colonized the Wasatch Front, they colonized a continent or two.

I’d be interested to see if there are parallels between the beginnings of the secularization of Europe (if that is indeed a thing) and what the United States is currently going through. If so, is looking at Europe like peeking into America’s future? It’s not that simple but it might offer some insight. I’d also like to look at numbers from other countries, just for kicks.

I was reminded today that just because religion is currently on the decline doesn’t mean that trend will continue ad infinitum. To be brief, society in general may be at the top of a pride/prosperity cycle.

[Anonymous]

I see lots of corollaries between historical Catholicism and Mormonism. I believe there are doctrinal corollaries as well. Given that at the inception of the Catholic church technology was very limited and correlation was next to impossible, it’s very easy to see why it has developed the way it has over its much longer history. The biggest problem in early Catholicism, IMO, was lack of correlation which allowed individual priests, bishops, etc., to do and teach whatever they wanted. This is what eventually led to the Protestant movement (and I know this is very simplified). At the start, Martin Luther was asking for reform and a return to Biblical teaching. The near absolute power of the church in the middle (or dark) ages contributed to the corruption of doctrine and the corruption of church officials – the people had no choice, the church was God. (Yes, I believe a correlation can be made between that time for Catholicism and modern Mormonism, at least among the active membership.)

I also see correlation between Judaism, which is much, much older than Catholicism. Judaism also lacked (and lacks) correlation, but Catholicism has something Judaism doesn’t have – a pope, a central leader. Taking into consideration the orthodox churches (Eastern, Russian, Ukrainian, etc.) I think this central leadership is what has prevented Catholicism from the splintering that Judaism as seen..

The modern LDS church has correlation and the technology to “enforce” it, a central leadership, and membership control to some extent (many members equate the church and the gospel and believe the prophets speak directly with and for God). The merits of correlation can be argued, with the main argument against it being that it discourages thinking outside the box and is probably largely responsible for the whitewashing of history or betrayal (hat tip to Otterson) that trouble some members. Conversely, correlation does have a unifying effect, and we know when someone is saying something that’s probably not doctrine.

So, we have Judaism which is somewhere around 6000 years old. And we have the Catholic church which is around 2000 years old. And we have the LDS church which is less than 200 years old. The church has this advantage of technology and central leadership so it probably won’t splinter in the same way Judaism has (despite the splintering already in place). The other interesting thing with Judaism is that after their 6000 years, their membership is about the same as our 200-year-old church. The technology and correlation will likely also prevent the kind of corruption that has existed in Catholicism. Nevertheless sans the second coming happening in the next few hundred years, I do believe the the LDS church of that time would look as different to us as Judaism does to its founders and Catholicism does to its founders. That kind of change is inevitable, and we already see some of it – I have often wondered what Joseph Smith would think if he attended a modern three hour block or GC. Would he recognize this as the church he organized?

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

I was reminded today that just because religion is currently on the decline doesn’t mean that trend will continue ad infinitum. To be brief, society in general may be at the top of a pride/prosperity cycle.

I agree — as we saw with the plague, people turned to the Catholic church for help and answers. And as the BoM teaches all it might take is a major calamity, famine, etcetera to bring people back to remembrance of their God.

It would be interesting to see the religion statistics during the economic and foreclosure crisis between say, 2008 and 2012, for example. Did interest in organized religion increase? This could test the hypothesis of the prosperity cycle. Also, statistics during the Great Depression etcetera.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

nibbler wrote:

I was reminded today that just because religion is currently on the decline doesn’t mean that trend will continue ad infinitum. To be brief, society in general may be at the top of a pride/prosperity cycle.

I agree — as we saw with the plague, people turned to the Catholic church for help and answers. And as the BoM teaches all it might take is a major calamity, famine, etcetera to bring people back to remembrance of their God.

It would be interesting to see the religion statistics during the economic and foreclosure crisis between say, 2008 and 2012, for example. Did interest in organized religion increase? This could test the hypothesis of the prosperity cycle. Also, statistics during the Great Depression etcetera.

The plague also caused a falling away from the church because people recognized that the church was not all powerful when it could do nothing about the plague. It was somewhat akin to the “one true church” idea with a realization in the end that it may not be what it said it was. And since they were almost all members of the church (by choice or not) they also recognized that God did not discriminate based on church membership. (And it was far from better for the Jews even though they were spared from the plague to an extent.)

[Anonymous]

Judaism would have a much bigger presence in the world but for World War II. They are no larger than the LDS church for a reason — They were systematically killed off. Between that and modern smaller family sizes, they will never recover those losses in numbers.

About prosperity cycles .. We teach so much about how prosperity moves people away from God, and how strife and hardship beings people back to God and religion. IMHO, that is a fallacy and a lie. Many people lose their faith through hardships and strife. They feel abandoned by God. In US culture, adversity is too often seen as a Golden Opportunity by various denominations — not just the LDS missionaries. We were stunned at the churches who arrived at our doorstep to help us find “The Truth” during a time of adversity in our lives. I especially remember 2 baptist ladies who kept coming by and telling us that our children needed to be in Sunday School. They didn’t consider the LDS Sunday School to count, but they did feel that our family would fit well within their congregation.

Sometimes, it felt like religious vultures were circling our house during that time. Each looking for an opportunity to use the situation. Now when someone talks about sharing the gospel with someone going through horrifically bad times, I just cringe. It is better to just love them and be kind.

[Anonymous]

amateurparent wrote:

Now when someone talks about sharing the gospel with someone going through horrifically bad times, I just cringe. It is better to just love them and be kind.

I think it’s a real “look beyond the mark” moment. The gospel is loving others and being kind. When we share the gospel we’re mourning with those that mourn and comforting those that stand in need of comfort but somehow “sharing the gospel” has morphed into presenting people with a set of doctrines and rules for them to follow.

I think there’s something to be said for the prosperity cycle but as with anything it has it’s limits. A poor person may look to god to shower them with blessings in the afterlife to atone for the blessings they feel they deserved in this life. A person that has been wronged may feel that this world will not bring the justice they crave but all the injustices they’ve faced will be addressed by god in the afterlife. When a person discovers the chaotic and random nature of life they may hold tighter to beliefs in a god that will one day restore the order and reason they hope for.

That said people have their breaking points, I think most people here can attest to that. Maybe there’s a balance, if things are really good people don’t feel the need to look towards god as much and if things are really bad people stop looking towards god. Maybe it’s related to the perspective of the person when a trial hits. I.e. if someone doesn’t believe in god a large trial may prompt them to seek god out, if someone does believe in god a large trial may prompt them to question, the idea that whatever I’m currently doing didn’t work out for me, I’m going to try something new.

Or maybe the whole phenomenon is every bit as chaotic and random as life appears to be. It’s that human nature thing kicking in again, desperately trying to find meaning to explain the unknowable human condition.

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

amateurparent wrote:

Now when someone talks about sharing the gospel with someone going through horrifically bad times, I just cringe. It is better to just love them and be kind.

I think it’s a real “look beyond the mark” moment. The gospel is loving others and being kind. When we share the gospel we’re mourning with those that mourn and comforting those that stand in need of comfort but somehow “sharing the gospel” has morphed into presenting people with a set of doctrines and rules for them to follow.

I don’t want to derail to much here, but do you think that other churches conflate the gospel and their particular religion/church as well? I had seen this as pretty much an LDS thing since we hear so much in F&TM about knowing “this gospel” is true, etc. I hadn’t really thought about whether Catholics or some Protestants might also equate the gospel and their particular church.

[Anonymous]

Not trying to disagree with AP’s point of “taking advantage of a situation to help increase chances of conversion” as I also am a bit bothered by this and I do think many look at it just like that. There may be a few that have a bit more altruistic motivation in that their faith sustains them and they want to share that “balm”. But to give AP credit, if somone’s heart is really in that place, they are just going to shower with love and help even if they have a hope that something will come of it (but they don’t stop loving if that does not occur).

[Anonymous]

Quote:

Dark Jedi wrote:

“I don’t want to derail to much here, but do you think that other churches conflate the gospel and their particular religion/church as well? I had seen this as pretty much an LDS thing since we hear so much in F&TM about knowing “this gospel” is true, etc. I hadn’t really thought about whether Catholics or some Protestants might also equate the gospel and their particular church.”

My experience was that the Baptists and the Evangelicals do look for opportunities to share the gospel. When we have moved, we have each time had neighbors ask if we had a “church home.” When they found out we were LDS, they looked for ways to fellowship us and urged is to attend with them. In time of adversity, they were very helpful, but also took it as an opportunity to do missionary work.

Funny thing, at our oldest daughter’s funeral, we had a Baptist neighbor give the opening prayer and a dear Jewish friend gave the closing prayer. We were attempting to be very inclusive to people who were important to us in our lives. The Baptist neighbor’s opening prayer was more like a 15 minute fire & brimstone sermon. When we had our next child’s funeral, we asked this same neighbor to read a scripture. We still wanted him involved, but we were trying to limit him. Sigh. He read the scripture and then preached on it for 15 minutes. He really thought he was bringing the Lord’s Gospel to the Mormons. He thought he was bringing light and truth. I have seen this same dynamic by LDS peeps. They think they are taking a small opportunity and they are going to do Great Things.

In the end, I respected the friends who just supported us and our beliefs. Our Jewish friends went to great lengths to do LDS appropriate things to show their love and concern. I remember them tracking down a CTR ring when one of our children was baptized. That is not an easy thing to find in the Bible Belt — and they had to do some research to even find out about CTR rings.

That is the type of example I follow now. I wasn’t to be the type of Christian who supports a person’s faith and values and traditions and simply shows love and concern. In the end, God converts people. It is my job to be kind.

[Anonymous]

I work at a Catholic university. There are a lot of similarities.

Joseph Smith believed he was restoring the Church of Jesus Christ – but he also believed he was restoring what the Catholic Church was supposed to have been.

Theologically and structurally, we are FAR more similar to Catholicism than to Protestantism. (and, minus the central concept of a Savior, theologically more similar to Buddhism than to Protestantism)

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

I’m starting to see a big parallel between Catholicism and Mormonism. Catholicism also has many of the same problems and claims as Mormonism — one true church, a bigger than life religious leader at its head, various shades of infallibility for leaders, and a litany of bad history (inquisition, sale of indulgences etcetera). They also tend to hang on to objectionable values claiming inspiration, while the rest of the world embraces current culture, and tends to grow (like the Pentacostals did, taking from the Catholics based on a documentary I saw some time ago)…Do you think that the state of current day Catholicism could be a proxy for what Mormonism will look like eventually in terms of membership growth?…Here are some 2014 stats that show Catholicism is falling, as is membership in most Christian churches, while non-Christian and unaffiliated status appears to be growing

I don’t remember where I saw this but there was some website that showed the changing number of followers for different churches in real time and it actually showed the number of Catholics increasing at a fairly high rate only a few years ago while many other churches were losing numbers. Maybe this was mostly reflecting the number of children born into the Catholic Church whereas the Pew Survey results reflect how people currently self-identify in terms of religious affiliation so of course there are a certain number of people that were raised Catholic that no longer self-identify as Catholic. Also this Pew survey is only for the United States but the highest concentration of Catholics are currently in Latin American countries.

In addition, the Pew survey shows an estimated percentage of the US population so when the estimated percentage of Mormons went from 1.7 to 1.6 between 2007 and 2014 that doesn’t mean the total number of self-identified Mormons decreased it simply means the measured growth didn’t quite keep pace with the population growth so that it looks like their overall market share decreased slightly. In any case there, are currently over a billion Catholics worldwide so the Catholic Church could technically decline for hundreds of years and still be much larger than the LDS Church. Personally I see the Catholic Church as a positive example that the LDS Church would do well to emulate to some extent.

For example, it seems like the typical practicing Catholics I have known wouldn’t generally feel like they need to leave their church because of some of the embarrassing history surrounding it, not believing in specific doctrines such as transubstantiation, all-too-human imperfection of the leaders, etc. because for them it seemed like it was more of a familiar tradition that feels like home to them than something they would expect to be more than it really is. By contrast the LDS Church basically tries to enforce a very strict set of beliefs and practices that end up weeding out and excluding many members/investigators that don’t fit this narrow profile of what it means to be temple “worthy” which I think is going to become increasingly difficult to sell now that some of the justification for this (truth claims about prophets and revelation, future promises about eternal families, etc.) is so easy to effectively discredit for anyone interested in doing so nowadays.

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