Alphus and Omegus wrote: ↑Wed Dec 01, 2021 6:26 am
Mormons have such grand viewpoints of their small numbers. Assuming there are 5.6 million believing LDS adults (a very generous assumption of the 14 million claimed members), that means they are 0.07% of the world's population. The numbers aren't much better if you believe there are 8 million believing Nelson-Brighamites, that total is 0.1% of the global population.
The truth is that Mormonism has become yet another fundamentalist white American sect which can only really gain converts in areas of the world where internet use isn't commonplace. And these converts don't stick around. Satan doesn't have to do anything to oppose Mormonism, it's already lost. The world population is increasing at a much greater rate than the LDS church is growing. The stone cut from the mountain has slowed to a crawl and is gathering moss.
I can appreciate this, Alphus, and I don't mean to be disagreeable for disagreeable's sake, but....If Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon and added this passage of there being few members in number that are spread across the world...that's a pretty good prediction all things considered. They are few in number, relatively speaking, and they are, to some extent or another, spread across the world. Mormons should be singing this type of stuff from the housetops along with Matthew's prediction of many elect will get deceived and run off. And I think some of them do. Certainly it gets a little less impressive when you poke into other things said, but it's something.
Something interesting about Church growth over the decades is it runs in spurts in different areas. While the Church was having successes in Latin America and much of the Pacific, gaining converts by the thousands, the Church was leveling off in Europe, with perhaps a steady growth in the US, and the rest of the Pacific (NZ and Australia). Asia might have always been kind a slow slog, but it appears to have largely followed Europe in recent years, showing signs of the Church dying in both of those regions. Once Latin America grew wise, as we may like to see it, or got bored, or the excitement grew old, it was learned that much of that growth, from previous decades or generations was fairly hollow. Those who converted quickly left and as that news was coming out Africa was showing signs of the same type of explosion of converts that Latin America had, perhaps at an even faster rate. The thing is, Africa could have taken off much like Latin America and the Pacific did in previous times, but the Church was absolutely hesitant due to it's own racism.
Granted we're not talking as if the Church is dominating in any particular area. It's still creeping underneath. largely unseen by the rest of the world. I don't know how long the Church will ride the wave of Africa conversion, but if it gets strung out as long as it seemed to have run in Latin America, we may have a couple of decades of the Church cheering its great successes. Although it may end sooner with the rate of information flow we have these days. ANd considering we have, perhaps, better tools to determine the degree of hollowness the reported growth represents Whenever the wave runs down I'm curious what the Church will do. It feels like it will just slowly peter out, over the next century or something. It has massive resources though, so that may be a little hard to imagine. But I don't know how it will find invigorating successes. In a way it's really lucky that Africa started coming on board a couple decades back. IIf Africa ran along with the excitement of Latin America, the Church may have run out of steam by now. Mormons could be like, "look God knows what he's doing. We'll always be small in number but the nations are being reached. He'll raise up the Arab world next...just wait and see. We got to cover the world." I mean if the Church finds a way to succeed in the Mulsim world, to a similar degree it has reached Latin America and south of Sahara Africa, well we might all have to head back to Church humbly seeking forgiveness.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos