The Mormon Graveyard: A Halloween Requiem For The Ghosts Of Past Programs

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Happy Halloween! It's truly terrifying to imagine all the ghosts of defunct Church programs like Road Shows, Boy Scouts, and MIA Maids, rattling their chains in the hallways of the cultural hall.

[Fence Sitter]

So many things could be added to that graveyard of discarded doctrines and slogans.

Catchphrases like “Raise the Bar,” “Lengthen Your Stride,” “Every Member a Missionary,” “I’m a Mormon,” and even “white and delightsome.”
Whatever happened to The Lamanite Generation?

The Hill Cumorah and Manti pageants are gone.
The High Priest and Seventies quorums dissolved.
The office of Church Patriarch—once passed through the Smith family bloodline—quietly retired.

Then there was the push for a “year’s supply” of food storage—a well-intended but often absurdly expensive effort. When my parents passed away a few years ago, we found 6 decade old, forty-five-gallon containers of wheat they had hauled across the country through multiple moves.

And of course, some of the old classics: needing at least three wives to reach the top tier of the celestial kingdom; patriarchal blessings promising the recipient would live to welcome Christ’s return; gathering to Missouri; and the literal return of the “Lost Ten Tribes.”

It’s been a massacre of once-core beliefs and practices. Scary indeed.

[drumdude]

The legacy of Russel Nelson, RIP.

[Tom]

That is a frightening scene. (I do tend to think that polygamy is alive and well.)

A few other deceased Mormon-related programs (I am not making up some of these):

*Bishop for a Day Program (1971)
*Building Missionary Program (1970s)
*EFY Program (2019)
*Family-to-Family Book of Mormon Program (1990)
*Family-to-Family The Seer Program (1865)
*Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies’ Ziggurat-Raising Program (1995)
*Home, Family, and Personal Enrichment (2009)
*Indian Student Placement Program (2000)
*Mormon Reformation (1858)
*Nauvoo Whistling and Whittling Brigade Program (1845)
*Prophet, Seer, and Revelator for a Day Program (1830)
*Ward Teaching Program (1964)
*Youth Nauvoo Expositor Destruction Reenactments (1930)

[Dr. Sunstoned]

Let's not forget ward conference, the Duty to God award, and the Perpetual Emigration Fund.