angsty wrote:... I have always wanted to believe that the church is more like the best Mormons I've known (my mother, for example) than the worst. The longer I live, the more I realize that if the church really was filled with people like my mother or people who even wanted to be like her, it would be a far different organization than what it has become. There would be no "1,2,3 ... let's go shopping!" and far fewer hungry mouths and needy people in this world.
Eh, I think by and large the membership is made up of decent folk like your mother. The reason this isn't reflected in the current leadership has more to do with the particular organization of the Church as an institution: the stranglehold of gerontocracy and "royal Mormon families." If there was some avenue for bottom-up discussion and input, as opposed to the rigid top-down management, I think you would see a far different organization.
I don't know if this will ever change or when. On the one hand, there is the notion that only doctrinally controlled and controlling churches survive, on the other hand, I see much more of a broadening of "Mormon identity" on a grass roots level than I thought possible post-correlation. And the Church has re-invented itself several times over since Joseph Smith and always in response to development or pressures from outside. And undoubtedly it will continue to change.