Latest MormonLeak: Ministering to YSA

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, california boy said:

Burden of proof?  I have made no claims.  I am only asking the questions.  I see a Christ that chastised leaders of the Jewish church, purposefully broke their laws of the Sabbath and was persecuted by church leaders for doing so.  I don't know how many times Christ attended synagogue.  But there is no record of weekly attendance and he doesn't appear to have done that.  I am just looking at what is recorded and wondering what people think about Christ and his relationship to the Jewish religion that most Jews at the time believed represented God's church.  

Again leadership has a different meaning in Judaism. It's not heirarchal the way ours is. So I think you're reading into those structures that aren't there. Plus there's inherent tension within Judaism at the time. Both between the zealot and non-zealot Pharisees, by the more ascetic movements who pull out to the wilderness like the Essenes and perhaps John the Baptist, and then the more established groups who work closely with Rome as found among many of the Sadducees. But there's not really a Jewish church the way we think of churches thanks to Catholicism or protestantism.

Likewise he didn't break the sabbath but as I noted emphasized the Hillel interpretation against the competing zealot interpretation. There were different schools within Judaism and Jesus was well within the doctrine of the main one. Again many of these can be picked up from Hillel's views which are found in the Mishnah. At times he differed with Hillel though such as on divorce.

The gospels account him constantly attending synagogue but they of course don't list how many Sabbaths he was there. The indication appears to be he was always there though.

The point is that there's not really anything you can point to that would put him out of the mainstream beyond some of his doctrinal teachings. And even most of those he taught more privately primarily to the 12.

There are quite a few books available that discuss Jesus in his Jewish context. I rather like Vermes' Jesus the Jew and The Religion of Jesus the Jew. But there are quite a few that discuss the issue. 

Edited March 24, 2017 by clarkgoble

[rockpond]

17 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

The people who have problem with those things really have problems with not allowing homosexual marriage or feminism. That is they're doctrinal issues not historical issues. I don't dispute in the least that lots of people fundamentally just want the Church to be more like a liberal protestant church. I'm not sure that ultimately matters much since those churches really aren't exactly picking up members. That is people say they want churches to be more liberal in that form - potentially going as far as an unitarian conception. However in practice what happens is these people join the Nones.

So I fully agree that's an issue. Indeed I'd say it's the most major issue. But it's just not an historic issue.

Note I'm here speaking in the aggregate. Of course individuals find fulfillment from moving from Mormonism to Unitarian churches or say a more liberal Lutheran or Anglican church. (Sorry - Episcopalian down here)  It's just that in general these groups aren't gaining members. They're losing them. They also skew overwhelmingly towards the old. So not only are they losing members but they really have a hard time with the young. For instance Episcopalians have only 9% of their self-identified membership in the 18-29 age group. Mormons have 22%.

1.  Your broad brush grossly mis-characterizes people.  But if it helps you, personally, to put people in boxes like that - I won't be able to convince you otherwise.

2.  You cannot separate our doctrine from our history.  They are inextricably woven together.  Our history is what is used to establish our authority and our authority establishes our doctrine.

3.  You claim that Mormons have 22% in the 18-29 age group (vs. 9% for Episcopalians).  I'm curious where you get those numbers.  If we take the 2004 data provided in the document linked in the OP and use the church reported total members of 12,275,000 from the same timeframe we only have 7% of our membership in the 18-30 age group AND less than 3% of them are believed to be active.  If you have other numbers, please share.

[sjdawg]

On 3/21/2017 at 8:09 PM, bluebell said:

I get that.  I don't know if i believe it, but i understand that's what he has stated. 

It would be interesting if our society has reached a stage where people are willing to spend so much of their own time and energy to create transparency for transparency's sake and not to serve any other purpose.  

It is rare for people to expend limited resources like energy and time for no personal pay off.

perhaps he is receiving a small stipend for his efforts

[rockpond]

20 minutes ago, sjdawg said:

perhaps he is receiving a small stipend for his efforts

In 3 months, the GoFundMe page created for MormonLeaks has accumulated about $3,500.

Definitely a small stipend if there is even anything left after paying hosting fees and such.

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, rockpond said:

1.  Your broad brush grossly mis-characterizes people.  But if it helps you, personally, to put people in boxes like that - I won't be able to convince you otherwise.

Again note my caveat that we're speaking of aggregates and not individual people. That's always important when discussing these trends. People are dynamic and often switch between various statistical categories. When talking of trends and causes we are speaking of these aggregates and what shift them and not why any particular individual does what they do.

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2.  You cannot separate our doctrine from our history.  They are inextricably woven together.  Our history is what is used to establish our authority and our authority establishes our doctrine.

To a degree, but for many things we can. Polygamy really isn't a current practice other than the issue of temple second marriages after a spouse dies. That's history. The method of translation is history. Concerns about feminism and the priesthood or gay marriage I think can be mostly isolated from history. But of course all doctrine is tied to history if only recent history. But that doesn't mean distinctions aren't useful.

When people talk about members leaving the church over history it's usually controversial events in history like polygamy, polandry or violence in early Utah. It's not contemporary practices which to be frank are petty well known since you see them every Sunday. I can see people being surprised about polandry since most members would only encounter it when they start reading history books. The fact you'll have a good chance of being excommunicated for adultery or gay practices is pretty straightforward and is mentioned in most discussions on chastity (which are rather common). Likewise women not holding priesthood offices is well known and often discussed.

I'm not saying people don't leave for those reasons. They most definitely do. But there seems an easy distinction to make between them.

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3.  You claim that Mormons have 22% in the 18-29 age group (vs. 9% for Episcopalians).  I'm curious where you get those numbers.  If we take the 2004 data provided in the document linked in the OP and use the church reported total members of 12,275,000 from the same timeframe we only have 7% of our membership in the 18-30 age group AND less than 3% of them are believed to be active.  If you have other numbers, please share.

It's from the Pew Religious Landscape Study. 

http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

The link to the T&S story was discussing that data. Click on Mainline Proestant and then Anglican Family to get the data. It's the first chart that comes up. Ditto with the Mormon figure.

With statistics you need to be careful to distinguish between Church members of record and surveys of self-identification in the United State. They are measuring completely different things. For a discussion of the issue see this post from last year. Unfortunately even many news stories gets screwed up here comparing very different data sets improperly.

 

Edited March 24, 2017 by clarkgoble

[rockpond]

19 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Again note my caveat that we're speaking of aggregates and not individual people. That's always important when discussing these trends. People are dynamic and often switch between various statistical categories. When talking of trends and causes we are speaking of these aggregates and what shift them and not why any particular individual does what they do.

To a degree, but for many things we can. Polygamy really isn't a current practice other than the issue of temple second marriages after a spouse dies. That's history. The method of translation is history. Concerns about feminism and the priesthood or gay marriage I think can be mostly isolated from history. But of course all doctrine is tied to history if only recent history. But that doesn't mean distinctions aren't useful.

When people talk about members leaving the church over history it's usually controversial events in history like polygamy, polandry or violence in early Utah. It's not contemporary practices which to be frank are petty well known since you see them every Sunday. I can see people being surprised about polandry since most members would only encounter it when they start reading history books. The fact you'll have a good chance of being excommunicated for adultery or gay practices is pretty straightforward and is mentioned in most discussions on chastity (which are rather common). Likewise women not holding priesthood offices is well known and often discussed.

I'm not saying people don't leave for those reasons. They most definitely do. But there seems an easy distinction to make between them.

It's from the Pew Religious Landscape Study. 

http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

The link to the T&S story was discussing that data. Click on Mainline Proestant and then Anglican Family to get the data. It's the first chart that comes up. Ditto with the Mormon figure.

With statistics you need to be careful to distinguish between Church members of record and surveys of self-identification in the United State. They are measuring completely different things. For a discussion of the issue see this post from last year. Unfortunately even many news stories gets screwed up here comparing very different data sets improperly.

 

1.  I understand that you were speaking of aggregates.  I think your aggregation is wrong.  I find it to be a short-sighted conclusion that is likely rooted in what you seem to not understand about those who question (see my next point).

2.  But it's not "history".  There are some who feel that the church lost its authority when Joseph "went off the rails" via the way he implemented polygamy.  There are others who feel that the church lost its authority through the way that it ended polygamy.  Still others who feel if it took the church until 1978 to figure out who it would let marry in the temple, maybe there is still more left to figure out.  You see, polygamy and the temple/priesthood ban still affect belief regarding current authority of the Brethren.  Today.    Concerns about feminism, priesthood, and gay marriage cannot be isolated from history as our past doctrines and doctrinal changes still impact what the church teaches and what members believe now.  Today.  Your attempts to isolate these issues and push them into a historical dust bin don't work in a church that depends on its past to define and give authority to its doctrine today.

3.  I found my error and I apologize for my mistake.  The data from the report in the OP is only for the US and I don't have a "denominator" for total number of LDS in the US.  Anyone have that?

And, yes, Pew is using self-identified Mormons.  I also didn't notice a margin of error posted for the study.  Did you see it somewhere?

 

[clarkgoble]

20 minutes ago, rockpond said:

But it's not "history".  There are some who feel that the church lost its authority when Joseph "went off the rails" via the way he implemented polygamy.  There are others who feel that the church lost its authority through the way that it ended polygamy.  Still others who feel if it took the church until 1978 to figure out who it would let marry in the temple, maybe there is still more left to figure out.  You see, polygamy and the temple/priesthood ban still affect belief regarding current authority of the Brethren.  Today.    Concerns about feminism, priesthood, and gay marriage cannot be isolated from history as our past doctrines and doctrinal changes still impact what the church teaches and what members believe now.  Today.  Your attempts to isolate these issues and push them into a historical dust bin don't work in a church that depends on its past to define and give authority to its doctrine today.

Of those who leave I don't see much sign that it's people who think the church lost authority but once had it. They just think it's wrong. 

If you think it's a recent "going off the rails" you're fairly unusual relative to people I've spoken with. I don't think that's a common view. There's no doubt that in the past that was a big issue. And there's no doubt there are some like the Manti group from the 90's or the Denver Snuffer group today who think that way. But relative to the population of those who leave the church that a rather small number. There are a few feminist groups who think the Church went off the rails with the shift towards correlation and centralization against an independent Relief Society and giving of blessings. However again the number who actually leave the church over that issue typically (again in my experience) just ultimately reject the truth claims or see them in more allegorized fashion.

Anyway, I think you have an uphill battle showing that's a statistically significant trend. If you look at the ARIS or Pew data most Mormons who stop being Mormon join the ranks of the Nones. Some join protestantism and a few become Catholic. I don't see the numbers you describe who see it as a loss of authority being significant.

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And, yes, Pew is using self-identified Mormons.  I also didn't notice a margin of error posted for the study.  Did you see it somewhere?

It's at the end of the main study where they list methodology. I should note I have some issues with Pew due to a few things. First their Mormon study came by tracking who answered Mormon to the main study. They then called back as many of those as they could to ask followup questions. This however resulted in to my eyes unjustifiably high figures for being a temple recommend holder or full tithe payer. I have far more faith in the details of the ARIS studies than Pew. But often Pew is the best we have for certain questions. It's also the most recent data. Hopefully ARIS releases their latest study in a year or two.

Edited March 24, 2017 by clarkgoble

[rockpond]

5 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Of those who leave I don't see much sign that it's people who think the church lost authority but once had it. They just think it's wrong. 

If you think it's a recent "going off the rails" you're fairly unusual relative to people I've spoken with. I don't think that's a common view. There's no doubt that in the past that was a big issue. And there's no doubt there are some like the Manti group from the 90's or the Denver Snuffer group today who think that way. But relative to the population of those who leave the church that a rather small number. There are a few feminist groups who think the Church went off the rails with the shift towards correlation and centralization against an independent Relief Society and giving of blessings. However again the number who actually leave the church over that issue typically (again in my experience) just ultimately reject the truth claims or see them in more allegorized fashion.

Anyway, I think you have an uphill battle showing that's a statistically significant trend. If you look at the ARIS or Pew data most Mormons who stop being Mormon join the ranks of the Nones. Some join protestantism and a few become Catholic. I don't see the numbers you describe who see it as a loss of authority being significant.

It's at the end of the main study where they list methodology. I should note I have some issues with Pew due to a few things. First their Mormon study came by tracking who answered Mormon to the main study. They then called back as many of those as they could to ask followup questions. This however resulted in to my eyes unjustifiably high figures for being a temple recommend holder or full tithe payer. I have far more faith in the details of the ARIS studies than Pew. But often Pew is the best we have for certain questions. It's also the most recent data. Hopefully ARIS releases their latest study in a year or two.

We could have really accurate data if the church would share what it has stored in its database.  

Regarding your first paragraph, I wasn't using "authority" with a capital A.  But I can't get you to an understanding of this through a few short exchanges on a message board.  You'd have to invest the time in listening to people. 

Responding to your second paragraph, I didn't say I believed that the church recently went off the rails.  And, all the points you mention in this paragraph have their root in "authority" - which was my point.  Yes, many people have very individual reasons for parting ways with the church but most of the go back to authority.