Church cratering in First World, gaining elsewhere

[_sunstoned]

So now I bet Holland feels real silly for saying this.

[_Kishkumen]

I think there may be a substantial fear of local control and influence. I don't know if that's because of concerns over rogue units or the native culture having syncretistic effects. When you consider the blandness, irrelevance and vapidity of the correlated materials...

LOL. Yes, I agree that there is substantial fear of nativizing units. I recall the broad outlines of a story regarding German congregations after WWII. When contact with them was reestablished, they had incorporated a lot of their local Christian practices into their services, using crosses, etc.

[_Gadianton]

And the final stage? Self actualization? Does our job or church provide us with enough progression and growth to make it appealing?
Is the Church losing members because it is not hitting a need people have for religion on any of the levels?

The point was since the LDS church is the only way to achieve "eternal progression", the capability of becoming Gods and having a planet, then clearly it provides with enough growth to make it appealing. Unless people have no need of "ministering of angels" then maybe the needs aren't being hit.

The church can't, and interestingly it doesn't, address this like corporate America does. The apologetic for the Church needs to be a diamond-in-the-rough argument, that people's needs represent the corrupt natural man and until they properly discipline themselves they will not see the sparkle around the local ward house. Interestingly, the Brethren are actually consistent in this regard because they make no effort whatsoever to address people's needs, and double down chastising the membership for not serving enough or having enough faith, or paying enough tithing. They continue with the police state model of keeping people by fear.

Corporate America has a huge industry devoted to employee retention. The problem is similar to that of the Church. The Church is thinking, hmm, we're bluffing on salvation, priesthood and all of that, so how do we keep people? And Corporate America is thinking, we don't want to actually pay these people, so how do we meet their needs without spending a lot of money? By definition, the Church must meet the needs of people once a person repents, but corporate America has some flexibility in faulting itself. The programs corporate America has to solve the problem are stupid and don't work, but at least they are allowed to recognize the problem.

[_kairos]

Does anyone have the growth/decline figures for north america, specifically the usa? That number has to be the key one in whether the brethern are sweating about the slow growth of the church or not.
the lack of callings of GAs from the third and fourth worlds continues to reflect this is a white man's church from the power and control aspects.

k

[_Kishkumen]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that one possible reason the LDS Church is less appealing in today's West is the proliferation of neo-liberal ideology. According to neo-liberal ideology, people are viewed through their economic activity. Value is economic value. People are consumers, wage-earners, job-creators, investors, entrepreneurs, and so forth. Where does being a child of God fit into that? What does community and service mean in an enterprise that, as far as the members of the Church are concerned, has little to say, directly at least, with their acquisition of money, or ability to create jobs for others?

Now, the LDS Church itself is all about building God's investment portfolio and property holdings. But that is different. That is where we see the ideals of neo-liberalism applied at the institutional level. The kingdom of God is all about his revenues, savings, investments, cost-cutting, economic efficiency, marketing, etc. But the members only exist to serve God's neo-liberal agenda. God does not help the members realize their own neo-liberal agendas. That said, I think that implicit in this whole system is the idea that the best servants of God are the ones who go out and succeed as homo economicus. These are the people who will help the kingdom of God succeed and get called to leadership positions. The underclass of mere tithe-payers exist to assist Mr. World in building his heavenly corporation.

[_Craig Paxton]

It's evident that the more access to information an individual investigating the church has the less likely they are to convert. In other words, the churches truth claim become less believable with more information and more believable when a prospective convert has limited access to information. Why would this be? Shouldn't truth prevail...or maybe it actually does.

[_Simon Southerton]

Does anyone have the growth/decline figures for north america, specifically the usa?

k

Have a read of this from a pro-LDS site. Growth in the USA has tanked in the last couple of years.

http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com.au/ ... antly.html

[Guest]

But it's not mushrooming in the traditional turf of the U.S., Brazil and Mexico, says independent Mormon demographer Matt Martinich. For the past 15 years, those countries have grown at an annual rate of 2 percent to 5 percent.

In 2016, that range slipped to between 0.9 percent and 2 percent.

Martinich then outlines what he thinks is causing the decline.

ineffective proselytism tactics, lack of engagement of ordinary members in missionary activity, increasing secularism and materialism, and decades of low convert-retention problems.

On his Cumorah blog Martinich categorically ruled out the Internet as a contributing factor, but he provided no evidence to back his claim. Good at statistics, off with the fairies with his analysis.

[_kairos]

Have a read of this from a pro-LDS site. Growth in the USA has tanked in the last couple of years.

http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com.au/ ... antly.html[/quote]


thanx-very serious decline in usa

[_Maksutov]

But it's not mushrooming in the traditional turf of the U.S., Brazil and Mexico, says independent Mormon demographer Matt Martinich. For the past 15 years, those countries have grown at an annual rate of 2 percent to 5 percent.

In 2016, that range slipped to between 0.9 percent and 2 percent.

Matrinich then outlines what he thinks is causing the decline.

ineffective proselytism tactics, lack of engagement of ordinary members in missionary activity, increasing secularism and materialism, and decades of low convert-retention problems.

On his Cumorah blog Martinich categorically ruled out the Internet as a contributing factor, but he provided no evidence to back his claim. Good at statistics, off with the fairies with his analysis.

Perhaps he can team up with apologetic genius Warren Aston to flesh out his theories.