Are Christian faiths addressing contemporary secularization?

[poptart]

Since we have other denominations/faiths here besides the LDS I figured this was as good a place as any to ask.  Do any of you guys have any plans at all to address the current state of affairs as far as people leaving, wanting nothing to do with and resenting Christianity to the point where they regard them as a societal ill and a political enemy?  Covid and politics isn't helping the cause as is a lot of the court rulings as of late.  Please keep politics out of this, be nice.  

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by poptart

[Scott Lloyd]

One suggestion for shortening a title that’s way too long: Are Christian faiths addressing contemporary secularization? 
 

Twenty-five words cut down to six. 

[poptart]

3 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

One suggestion for shortening a title that’s way too long: Are Christian faiths addressing contemporary secularization? 
 

Twenty-five words cut down to six. 

How do I do that?

[Navidad]

My plan is to do better to fulfill the Biblical (Paul's) admonition to all Christians of whatever group. It is found in Ephesians 4 - "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

I would add to this that it is time for us (all Christian individuals and groups) to put away all vestiges of group and collective onlyism, rankism, generalizations, prejudice, and bias from our doctrine. I would also suggest we, as Christians each submit twice a year to going to the eye doctor to get checked for blind spots and beams. In conclusion I would suggest that all Christians of every group undergo an annual checkup for certainty and in its place take a daily dose of trust and faith. That is my plan for myself and my own faith group - Evangelical Mennonites!

[Teancum]

13 hours ago, poptart said:

Since we have other denominations/faiths here besides the LDS I figured this was as good a place as any to ask.  Do any of you guys have any plans at all to address the current state of affairs as far as people leaving, wanting nothing to do with and resenting Christianity to the point where they regard them as a societal ill and a political enemy?  Covid and politics isn't helping the cause as is a lot of the court rulings as of late.  Please keep politics out of this, be nice.  

 

Form an Latter day Saint standpoint this article points out some disturbing trends and even the start of a decline in LDS membership starting in the 2030s.

https://www.wherewillyougo.life/mormon-membership-will-begin-decline-by-2030/

 

Some quotes:

Quote

The rate of growth in the Mormon Church is on a sharp decline (from 6.2% in 1990 to 1.2% in 2018)¹.

 

 

Quote

 

If we assume that the respective rates for the entire Mormon Church are similar, then the rate at which people are currently leaving the official membership is about 2.9%.

I’m sure that it’s troubling to Mormon leaders that people are leaving Mormonism at double the rate that people are converting to Mormonism.⁶

 

 

 

 

Quote

 

What the Future Holds

If this trend of slowing over the last 10 years, continues, Mormon membership will peak around the year 2034 and then begin to decline for the first time in modern history.

That means that total membership would look something like this:

 

 

 

Quote

 

My Prediction: Membership Will Decline Before 2030

I think that several factors are currently in-play that will make membership decline even faster.

• Convert Baptisms Will Decline:
  • People Are More Informed: I expect first-world convert baptisms to continue to decline. Today, educated people are used to doing research on the web before buying a sofa or even dry erase markers. So, most people will do some serious online reconnaissance before changing religions too. When they do, they are likely to discover true and disturbing history that their Mormon friends don’t even know about and are unprepared to address (e.g. Kinderhook plates⁷, the GAEL⁸, BOM witness accounts⁹).
  • Fewer Baseball Baptisms: You’ve probably heard stories about certain Mormon missions where huge numbers of people were baptized who really had no business being baptized. Today, this is commonly referred to as baseball baptisms (probably named after one well-known such event that occurred in England). This happened on my mission in the mid-’90s just before I arrived. From all accounts, it was awful. At that time, missionaries couldn’t call home and were encouraged to write only uplifting things to family. If they wrote to general authorities, their letters were returned to my mission president (who was a vindictive person and the cause of all the problems). Today, however, missionaries have their own phones and they are encouraged to call home once a week. Among other positive things that are sure to come from this, it will most likely reduce the number of baseball baptisms, because word about awful mission presidents will get out quickly.
• Resignations Will Increase:
  • Truth Crisis: The Mormon Church is in the midst of a crisis¹⁰. Many believing Mormons are leaving the Church after learning disturbing history of their own religion¹¹. Most believing Mormons are still completely unaware of this information. I suspect that this will change in the coming years as it becomes more normal to know “apostates” and information becomes more prevalent and difficult to avoid.
  • Doubling Down: I predict that this problem will be exacerbated as Mormon leaders continue to deny that a truth crisis exists — instead telling the world that they are being transparent and honest about their version of history¹². This will only compound the problem when more Mormons learn that this is not the case¹³. Many formerly faithful Mormons report feeling lied-to and deceived by their Mormon leaders, and that this was an important factor in their decision to leave¹⁴.
  • The Unpopular Side of Social Issues: One prominent example that has caused many Mormons to leave their religion behind, is the Church’s stance on homosexuality. They are slowly moving to be more accepting, but for many people, it’s too little, too late. Many Mormons will continue to question their faith until gay Mormons feel like first-class citizens in their own church.
    Another important social issue that’s causing many Mormons to question their faith is Church’s response (or lack thereof) to the spate of Mormon leaders in the news for accusations of sexual abuse.
  • Easy Resignation: Another factor that I predict will increase resignations is that a lot of former Mormons are being counted in the official numbers¹⁵ because they never took the time to remove their records. Removing your records used to be a cumbersome and irritating process. Today, you can do it for free on quitmormon.com in a few minutes. Former Mormons are more likely to resign in the future as they become aware of this resource.
• Fewer Mormon Children: The birth rate — even for Mormons — is on a decline.
• Boomers Will Die: Many baby boomers are senior citizens now, so, many of them will die in the next 10 years. Since they represent a spike in the population, this is likely to increase the death rate slightly.

In other words, I think that Rb will decine, Rc will decline, Rd will increase slightly, and Rr will increase.

 

 

 

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What Does This Mean?

I think that the leadership of the Mormon Church should be in full panic mode because the viability of their Church is being threatened.

Probably nothing can be done to reverse this trend in the short-term, but they can plan for the long-term health of the Church. I think that the only way to do this is to take accountability for their past inaccuracies and commit to complete honesty in the future¹⁶.

Personally, I don’t think there’s any chance they will do this.

I’m very curious to see what impact this will have upon Mormon Church membership numbers in the future.

 

 

 

This trend should be alarming and I agree with the bolded statement above that the LDS leadership is in full panic mode.  I also think long term they are fighting a losing  battle.  The historical issues and truth claims are easily researched and the plethora of problems so readily obvious it is easy for an investigator to do some homework and readily run away from the idea of joining the church. And we already see the church is bleeding many devote, committed, smart and economically well off member because of the almost impossible task of defending the sticky issues. 

Also I think many conservative religions will fall more out of favor over the social issues especially as older members die and younger people who have views contrary to many of the social positions of the the Church and other conservative religions simply opt out.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, poptart said:

How do I do that?

It will allow you to edit the title when you edit the opening post.

[poptart]

7 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

One suggestion for shortening a title that’s way too long: Are Christian faiths addressing contemporary secularization? 
 

Twenty-five words cut down to six. 

Done, thanks!

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

My plan is to do better to fulfill the Biblical (Paul's) admonition to all Christians of whatever group. It is found in Ephesians 4 - "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

I would add to this that it is time for us (all Christian individuals and groups) to put away all vestiges of group and collective onlyism, rankism, generalizations, prejudice, and bias from our doctrine. I would also suggest we, as Christians each submit twice a year to going to the eye doctor to get checked for blind spots and beams. In conclusion I would suggest that all Christians of every group undergo an annual checkup for certainty and in its place take a daily dose of trust and faith. That is my plan for myself and my own faith group - Evangelical Mennonites!

You're one of the voices of reason, if Christiandom here had more guys like you we wouldn't be having these problems.  

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Form an Latter day Saint standpoint this article points out some disturbing trends and even the start of a decline in LDS membership starting in the 2030s.

https://www.wherewillyougo.life/mormon-membership-will-begin-decline-by-2030/

 

Some quotes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This trend should be alarming and I agree with the bolded statement above that the LDS leadership is in full panic mode.  I also think long term they are fighting a losing  battle.  The historical issues and truth claims are easily researched and the plethora of problems so readily obvious it is easy for an investigator to do some homework and readily run away from the idea of joining the church. And we already see the church is bleeding many devote, committed, smart and economically well off member because of the almost impossible task of defending the sticky issues. 

Also I think many conservative religions will fall more out of favor over the social issues especially as older members die and younger people who have views contrary to many of the social positions of the the Church and other conservative religions simply opt out.

This is what I've thought too.  Lets look at US history, Christianity was always corrupt here in a lot of places, Europe did not send us their best esp. post Revolutionary war.  It's why I became a fan of Joseph Smith, I don't believe he was a prophet but what he had to say about the other churches in his area was spot on, for the most part they were corrupt, much like today.  Most of the USA never really had Christianity, they had and still have dens of thieves wrapped in the flag and cross.

58 minutes ago, Calm said:

It will allow you to edit the title when you edit the opening post.

Learned something new today, poof like magic the title is now tidy.  Thanks!

[The Nehor]

12 hours ago, Navidad said:

"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:”

Sadly my faith doesn’t have any religious orders that include an oath of silence.

[Navidad]

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Sadly my faith doesn’t have any religious orders that include an oath of silence.

Not sure I understand. Are you saying your choice is bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking, and malice . . . or . . . silence? Are you suggesting a binary choice? Not sure I understand.

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, Navidad said:

Not sure I understand. Are you saying your choice is bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking, and malice . . . or . . . silence? Are you suggesting a binary choice? Not sure I understand.

That is what I am saying.

It was (partially) a joke.

[MiserereNobis]

14 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Sadly my faith doesn’t have any religious orders that include an oath of silence.

C'mon over and join the 900 year old Carthusian Order: https://chartreux.org/moines/en/

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

C'mon over and join the 900 year old Carthusian Order: https://chartreux.org/moines/en/

I’d be kicked out within a day.