Mormon Church replaces it's historian w attorney

[_Willy Law]

I don't recall seeing this in the article linked above. Where is this from?

It's audio, I'm not sure if anyone has transcribed the talk yet.

http://www.simplemormonspectator.blogspot.com/2012/01/elder-jensen-q-and-audio.html

[_Mercury]

I saw that statement by Elder Jensen. It amazed me that he acknowledged this in such a way.

I see hand slapping on Jensens agenda soon.

[_Drifting]

I saw that statement by Elder Jensen. It amazed me that he acknowledged this in such a way.

I see hand slapping on Jensens agenda soon.

He is the only one treating members as adults so perhaps he will get a kick in the secrets from each of the other 14.

[_DrW]

Why is it surprising for a church where businessmen are the "theologians" to have an attorney as the "historian"?

[_Willy Law]

Here is some of the talk transcribed.

http://www.simplemormonspectator.blogspot.com/2012/01/i-recently-attended-q-and-session-at.html

I have not listened to the entire talk yet, but my initial take is that he is being overly optimistic that the church is going to be able to respond to any of these issues. Reminds me a little of reading Studies of the Book of Mormon. BH Roberts was also quite confident that the brethren would be able to answer his issues about the Book of Mormon. That did not work out too well for him.

[_Willy Law]

Some other interesting quotes:

Just in case you were under the mistaken impression that this church is led be inspiration:

“The church has a very progressive research and information division, with tremendous public opinion surveyors. And the church is constantly running surveys, and employing consultants that do focus groups on a variety of topics, but especially on the ones that we are talking about right now, that are so sensitive to the faith of members. Where has the prophet laid his emphasis right now? It’s on something called ‘The Rescue’. And with good reason, because we are suffering a loss; both in terms of our new converts that come in that don’t get really established in the church, as well as very faithful members who because of things we’re talking about, as well as others, are losing their faith in the process. It is one of our biggest concerns right now.”

“It’s a different generation. Everything’s out there for them to consume if they want to Google it. There’s no sense kidding ourselves. We need to be very upfront with them, tell them what we know, and give answers to what we have, and let them fall on their faith for things that we don’t completely understand.”

“I don’t want anyone to understand from what I’ve said that we don’t value the doctrine of the church. It [the doctrine] is almost inseparable from our history. That’s another lesson that I’ve learned. Doctrine and history really go hand-in-hand. Maybe it’s because the doctrine is often nestled in the history and provides the context for it."

The questioner then asked, “Has the church seen the effects of Google on membership? It seems like the people who I talk to about church history are people who find out and leave quickly. Is the church aware of that problem? What about the people who are already leaving in droves?”
“The fifteen men really do know, and they really care. And they realize that maybe since Kirtland, we never have had a period of, I’ll call it apostasy, like we’re having right now; largely over these issues. We do have another initiative that we have called, “Answers to Gospel Questions”. We are trying to figure out exactly what channels to deliver it in and exactly what format to put it in. But we want to have a place where people can go. We have hired someone that’s in charge of search engine optimization. We realize that people get their information basically from Google. They don’t come to LDS.org. If they get there, it’s through Google. So, we are trying to create an offering that will address these issues and be available for the public at large and to the church leaders, because many of them don’t have answers either. It can be very disappointing to church members. And, for people who are losing their faith, or who have lost it, we hope to regain to the church.”

[_Blixa]

Thanks for the excerpts, Willy Law. Some interesting stuff to think about.

[_Fence Sitter]

I really don't think we realize what hand held devices are going to become in the next ten years, especially those of us over 50, who have had to learn computers as adults. The smart phone will/has replaces all media devices, GPS, our wallet, camera, online instant access, books (including our scriptures) etc etc. The Church is not prepared for this access to instant information about anything. The problems Jensen talks about in this area will get worse.

[_Sethbag]

He mentioned the church had hired someone who does "search engine optomization". That's just a euphemism for finding ways to fool a search engine into changing its mind about how to rank the pages it has about something, in order to get one's own pages up at the top. So has anyone noticed the church playing any of the familiar games like link-farming and whatnot to try to drive out all of the anti sites from the first pages of Google? Sounds interesting.

[_sock puppet]

I thought Jensen's comments were pretty candid. Implicit in the comments' phraseology, particularly those about the internet making information, including about early Mormon history, available for all and that being something that the Brethren have come to accept and now want to deal with, is that the way the Brethren have in the past dealt with the problematic early Mormon history has been to keep it out of sight.

zeezrom's quote from Jensen is confirming what the mopologists have online disputed for years: the Church is hemorrhaging members (similar in scope to the Kirtland days) now that the problematic early Mormon history is easily available.

I wonder how that jives with D&C 93:36, "The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth."