A Million Mormons Go Missing--Link

[_Abaddon]

I am surprised LDS Inc doesn't boast a membership number that includes all the dead for whom baptisms have been done.

They do, but in more discrete, hushed tones.

One of the last EQ meetings I attended a member of the EQP said to the quorum that he had heard from a general authority in the Temple that the acceptance rate was over 90% for Temple work for the dead.

That was followed by satisfied smiles, raw-raw to your neighbor and some comments of "wow. that's awesome."

Silly sheep, haha.

[_angsty]

This is one of those issues that kind of bothers me. I want to think well of the church, I really do. But, it's hard not to see the inflation of membership numbers as intentional deception. And that's hard to respect.

Anyone who has spent time in a position in the church where they are responsible for attendance records, home teaching or visit teaching knows that there's a substantial discrepancy between the numbers of the people on the rolls and the numbers of people in the pews. I learned that lesson early on when I first served as Beehive class president. While looking at the class roll that first week, I noticed that while I thought I was the only Mormon girl at my school-- I wasn't (according to church records, anyway). There were a few other "Mormon" girls at my school. Only they didn't know it and they seemed to be very bothered by my inviting them to beehive class activities.

Counting people as members who have had nothing to do with the church in decades seems pretty questionable at best. Counting people as members who never participated as adults seems questionable at best. Counting people who have been out of contact with the church until they would have been 110 seems blatantly dishonest (why not report a number that uses average age of death by gender instead?). It's one thing to hang onto records because Sister So-and-So might still be alive waiting to be found by the church and reactivated at the age of 102 after forty-plus years of being out-of-fellowship. It's another thing entirely to make a practice of reporting it as a fact unless proven otherwise.

Offering stories about building construction and the number of congregations as more accurate indicators of growth is a convenient change of subject and just avoids the question. If the church claims they only build to accommodate current membership needs, and so the church must be growing accordingly, then they must have some measurement process by which they gauge actual active membership in order to justify expansion (according to their own policy). That would suggest that they can indeed provide accurate membership numbers for their own use. And yet, the numbers they claim are easily shown to be highly questionable (14+ million members, my arse). If they can use accurate numbers for their own purposes, why not report those numbers honestly to the media? What is so wrong about a frank and accurate accounting?

[_ludwigm]

900,000 brazilians? That sounds like a huge number!

How many is in a brazilian?

When told that Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq, GW Bush looked dumbfounded.

"How many is a brazillion?" he asked.

[_moksha]

I have three alternate apologetics:

1. The numbers were fudged.

2. These missing members have joined the lost tribes of Israel. Might be hanging out in the hollow earth.

3. They did not identify themselves as LDS because of persecutions from anti-mormons on boards such as this one, as well as, fear of the Sandinistas.

[_Drifting]

Mitt read the headline and panicked.
Now that he realises its members in Brazil that have gone missing he will have to ring Obama back and withdraw his concession.

[_Polygamy-Porter]

I don't find this surprising at all. I've seriously disliked how the LDS Church goes about converting people and reporting about who is a member for a long time. Membership should be a privilege and if they haven't seen you in the past 3 months, they should kick you out (with understandable exceptions of course).

And the whole 19 year old missionary thing should also be given the boot. Have them get an education first, then if they wish to serve their communities in actual service and feel called upon by God to do such a thing - then the Church should support them in that.

The Church should also use its vast wealth in community causes like opening hospitals, food banks, and other worthwhile programs. That would do far more to promote the gospel than anything they do now.

Surely you jest.

[_Drifting]

I don't find this surprising at all. I've seriously disliked how the LDS Church goes about converting people and reporting about who is a member for a long time. Membership should be a privilege and if they haven't seen you in the past 3 months, they should kick you out (with understandable exceptions of course).

And the whole 19 year old missionary thing should also be given the boot. Have them get an education first, then if they wish to serve their communities in actual service and feel called upon by God to do such a thing - then the Church should support them in that.

The Church should also use its vast wealth in community causes like opening hospitals, food banks, and other worthwhile programs. That would do far more to promote the gospel than anything they do now.

Surely you jest.

I'm finding myself in agreement with most of Tobins post
Instead of 'kicking' non attending members out after a period of time, the Church should when talking about membership, put a realism into their words. Such as "We have 14 million people who are baptised as members of which around 25% attend on a regular basis.
If I choose to not attend Church for years or decades I should still be able to identify myself as Mormon.

Most wards I have ever been in see missionary work as the job of those nice young boys in suits. Helping them is a bit of a chore. We're they not to exist, the responsibility of swelling the numbers of members would fall squarely on the membership shoulders. Once they start having to hold two or three callings and cleaning the Chapel once a month they would soon see the benefit in recruiting newbies.

I also agree wholeheartedly that missionary service should be just that. Service orientated. With the Church offering sponsorships for people willing to take time out to go and serve actually helping others in a tangible way, rather than trying to sell them on the idea of getting baptised and handing over a big chunk of their disposable income. This would paint the Church in a far better light and would arguably result in it losing the title of Cult.

The real issue the Church faces is that it has sold its religious soul to PR and Commerce.

[_sansfoy]

I have a few friends who have taken their wives on trips to their mission areas only to find out that everyone they baptized has been inactive for years...and none of the active members recognized/remembered them.

So, not only have all of the people these missionaries baptized disappeared, but the entire active membership has turned over in the meanwhile as well.

I suspect this would be true even in many parts of the US. In my parents' old branch in California, where I lived as a kid in the 1970s before we returned to Utah, my father's entire bishopric is inactive/apostate, as is the EQP, the HPGL (before he died), and the women of my mother's Relief Society presidency. If you want to get out of the church, convince your wife or husband to move to non-Mormon part of the country. It's a lot easier to leave when you can see all your neighbors happily going about their business with little knowledge of or interest in Mormonism.

[_Drifting]

I have a few friends who have taken their wives on trips to their mission areas only to find out that everyone they baptized has been inactive for years...and none of the active members recognized/remembered them.

So, not only have all of the people these missionaries baptized disappeared, but the entire active membership has turned over in the meanwhile as well.

I suspect this would be true even in many parts of the US. In my parents' old branch in California, where I lived as a kid in the 1970s before we returned to Utah, my father's entire bishopric is inactive/apostate, as is the EQP, the HPGL (before he died), and the women of my mother's Relief Society presidency. If you want to get out of the church, convince your wife or husband to move to non-Mormon part of the country. It's a lot easier to leave when you can see all your neighbors happily going about their business with little knowledge of or interest in Mormonism.

Or...seemingly...move to Brazil...

[_Drifting]

Monson was overheard saying to someone in the Membership Record Department "jeez...and you think I'VE got Alzheimer's..."