LDS Church Growth and Innovation

[Anonymous]

DA and I disagree about quite a few things, but I agree completely in wanting to see a decoupling of the temple attendance requirements from the baptismal requirements.

1) I agree that such high expectations are a stumbling block for lots of people who would benefit greatly from membership in the LDS Church;

2) There is NO scriptural justification for it – and, in fact, the passages about baptism tend to argue against it;

3) Philosophically, I believe there should be a difference between the standards – especially since we allow people who are born in the Church to continue as members even if they never attend the temple, for whatever reason. For example, we don’t excommunicate members who smoke or drink (rightfully so, imo), but we won’t let people be baptized if they drink or smoke. I don’t like double standards, and holding investigators to standards not required of lifetime members is a HUGE double standard.

To put it a different way, we believe in growing into temple attendance over time, so to speak, with communal and ordinance/covenant support – but, in practical terms, we don’t allow investigators the opportunity to do so with the same benefit of church membership that is available for those born into membership.

[Anonymous]

Great points.

Ray, agree completely. The idea that someone has to be ready to be perfect before getting baptized seems a bit over the top.

It reminds me that my father, who is a convert, couldn’t quite nip his smoking habit in the bud. The Bishop didn’t care and let him get baptized anyway thinking that the relationship with the church would be more beneficial and at some point he would quit (which he did).

Seems like a pretty good way to approach things. Perhaps its this whole mentality we have that once a person is baptized they have some greater light and if they now sin against that light they are in a more perilous position. But that, IMO, would seem to negate our teachings of the mercy of the Creator and the whole point of the organization of the church.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

DA and I disagree about quite a few things, but I agree completely in wanting to see a decoupling of the temple attendance requirements from the baptismal requirements…I agree that such high expectations are a stumbling block for lots of people who would benefit greatly from membership in the LDS Church;…There is NO scriptural justification for it…Philosophically, I believe there should be a difference between the standards – especially since we allow people who are born in the Church to continue as members even if they never attend the temple, for whatever reason. For example, we don’t excommunicate members who smoke or drink (rightfully so, imo), but we won’t let people be baptized if they drink or smoke. I don’t like double standards, and holding investigators to standards not required of lifetime members is a HUGE double standard…

SunbeltRed wrote:

…Ray, agree completely. The idea that someone has to be ready to be perfect before getting baptized seems a bit over the top…It reminds me that my father, who is a convert, couldn’t quite nip his smoking habit in the bud. The Bishop didn’t care and let him get baptized anyway thinking that the relationship with the church would be more beneficial and at some point he would quit (which he did)…Seems like a pretty good way to approach things. Perhaps its this whole mentality we have that once a person is baptized they have some greater light and if they now sin against that light they are in a more perilous position. But that, IMO, would seem to negate our teachings of the mercy of the Creator and the whole point of the organization of the church.

Even though I don’t really expect it to happen anytime soon, official top-down changes to the baptism and temple recommend questions, lessons, instructions passed down to stake presidents, bishops, etc. would probably be the ideal way for the Church to be reformed significantly because it seems like that would be the easiest and fastest way to change the culture to be more tolerant and allow the Church to appeal to a wider range of people over the long term. Actually members/investigators already don’t even need the permission of Church leaders to disregard their advice about things like the WoW, garments, tithing, chastity, testimony etc. if they don’t believe some of these points are nearly as important as the Church continues to act like they are but the hard part is dealing with the judgmental reactions of other members to any outward signs of deviation from the traditional LDS expectations and the idea that this is what being a practicing Mormon is supposed to be all about.

Especially in the case of the WoW it seems like the majority of members that drink and/or smoke will typically bow out or be alienated completely fairly quickly simply because of the idea that Mormons aren’t supposed to do this, so even if the Church doesn’t excommunicate members for this most of them certainly aren’t getting the message that they are welcome to come as they are and they still belong in the Church. In fact it seems like there is a general attitude that members that struggle with or simply don’t agree with the way things are now are always the ones with a problem that supposedly need to repent, try harder, etc. and the Church couldn’t possibly be wrong about anything not just for temple worthiness requirements but even in cases like members not enjoying the meetings, callings, etc. that could be improved without even needing to publish any new revelations or official statements.

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