The Future of the Community of Christ (RLDS)

[huckelberry]

Hey Huck,

I’m of a similar opinion as Jack, but I’ve come to it from a different social-science track than she did, so perhaps how I frame it might help with some of those puzzles.

The fundamental concept here is that social groups whose beliefs and lifestyle conflict (or are otherwise in tension) with broader contemporary culture always have better growth and retention rates than social groups that are not in tension with broader contemporary culture. Hasidic Jews and the Amish are not going to be dwindling into nonexistence anytime soon.

............

To Jack’s point, Churches that are comfortable co-existing with the broader culture they exist in are going to struggle to find ways to get people to stay and be committed to a religious identity. If Christ died for everybody and they benefit from it regardless if they embraced the Gospel or not, the act of evangelization rapidly becomes pointless. Sure, you can still do missions work where you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and house the homeless, to get your dopamine hit, but how do you distinguish that from regular charity organizations?

Now if churches with a more liberal theology struggle with building and maintaining a distinctive religious identity, churches with a more conservative theology struggle with maintaining a distinctive religious identity that doesn’t result in more radical expressions that cause harm.

I just don’t see a progressive Mormon Church being at all successful in staving off decline, much less actually growing.

DrStakhanovite, thanks for expanding thoughts on the subject. I have a quick reply though your post deserves more thought. There have been times when Christianity thrived being the overwhelming majority of the culture. It has often not been a minority group rejecting the larger culture. Instead it was and expression of hopes and ideals held by the majority of the society. Even today when for conservative groups where rejection of outsiders or outside beliefs applies, there is usually only rejection of certain selected aspects of the larger culture which is otherwise fully embraced.

It has long been generally assumed that the point of the atonement was establishing a ticket to heaven for people who correctly accept it. Perhaps that is a reduction of meaning of the atonement. An invitation to build upon and toward a better humanity does not have to be black and white. The horrors of not doing that do not have to be limited to a rather narrow mythological idea of hell. They might manifest in time in a variety of ways.

One might hope for a universal salvation as an ultimate end but that would not mean that there is not all sorts of hell standing in the way. Beware and repent. Live to build a better human life.

[hauslern]

"A theology which denies the historicity of nearly everything in the Gospels to which Christian life and affections and thought have been fastened for nearly two millennia - which either denies the miraculous altogether or, more strangely, after swallowing the camel of the Resurrection strains at such gnats as the feeding of the multitudes - if offered to the uneducated man can produce only one or other of two effects. It will make him a Roman Catholic or an atheist. What you offer him he will not recognize as Christianity. If he holds to what he calls Christianity he will leave a church in which it is no longer taught and look for one where it is. If he agrees with your version he will no longer call himself a Christian and no longer come to church. In his crude course way he would respect you much more if you did the same. C S Lewis Fern-Seed and Elephants p. 105.

Dan Petersen is a fan of Lewis and N T Wright. We have seen how some former Evangelical scholars have gone from believer to agnostic or atheist. They regularly appear on youtube videos. For example Bart Ehrman is the most famous. I am reading his book Forged looking at how some letters that Paul supposed to have written were written by someone else. N T Wright does the speech cuirit even here in Australia. The work of Ehrman has more people interested in reading the Bible. There is even a youtube channell dedicated to answering Ehrman. So all this reinforces many folks to ditch Christianity and religion.

[huckelberry]

"A theology which denies the historicity of nearly everything in the Gospels to which Christian life and affections and thought have been fastened for nearly two millennia - which either denies the miraculous altogether or, more strangely, after swallowing the camel of the Resurrection strains at such gnats as the feeding of the multitudes - if offered to the uneducated man can produce only one or other of two effects. It will make him a Roman Catholic or an atheist. What you offer him he will not recognize as Christianity. If he holds to what he calls Christianity he will leave a church in which it is no longer taught and look for one where it is. If he agrees with your version he will no longer call himself a Christian and no longer come to church. In his crude course way he would respect you much more if you did the same. C S Lewis Fern-Seed and Elephants p. 105.

Dan Petersen is a fan of Lewis and N T Wright. We have seen how some former Evangelical scholars have gone from believer to agnostic or atheist. They regularly appear on youtube videos. For example Bart Ehrman is the most famous. I am reading his book Forged looking at how some letters that Paul supposed to have written were written by someone else. N T Wright does the speech cuirit even here in Australia. The work of Ehrman has more people interested in reading the Bible. There is even a youtube channell dedicated to answering Ehrman. So all this reinforces many folks to ditch Christianity and religion.

hauslern, I think your CS Lewis quote targets the problem pretty well. I am not sure how you intended to connect N T Wright to the discussion. I do not think that just because a person accepts Ehrman's observations about some of the Pauline letters that the person is no longer believing Christianity or only observing empty forms. Ehrman's decision that he no longer believes in God is a separate decision.

[hauslern]

For Bart Ehrman's journey his disbelief was what he was concerned about the reason for suffering. His views about being agnostic and atheist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6DUD1KHEnk&t=8s

[MsJack]

MsJack, I find myself with a couple of little puzzles. Both ELCA and PCUSA would be to my knowledge relatively conservative groups compared to what sounds like Unitarian universalism in Alphus and Omegus discription. The groups are liberal compared with fundamentalist groups but they hold basic Christian doctrines and dogmas. Your observation that tolerance and freedom from dogma is actually not much of anything makes sense to me. Perhaps I am wondering more what you have in view for more demands to make a difference. My wife spent years in the past with conservative evangelical groups. lots of hours going to church for prayer group, Bible study etc. She wondered, and I do not blame her, is this all there is to it?

Hello again Huckelberry, it's good to talk to you!

ELCA and PCUSA are certainly "conservative" compared to UU, but quite liberal when compared to a number of evangelical churches. I think this article explains it well:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontlin ... vmain.html

The thing with conservative churches is that they tend to create a social identity by demanding that their members abstain from certain things, whether that be coffee, tea, alcohol, drugs, sex-outside-of-marriage (Mormons) or excessive drinking, drugs, sex-outside-of-marriage (evangelicals), etc. The extra demands on time can come off as simply more busywork (as your wife experienced), but conversely, they tend to enroll the member in a two-fold vision: (1) that your life needs to change, and this church can help you change it (through prayer, Bible study, attending meetings, etc.); and (2) that the world needs to change, and you can be a part of that change through this church (through social programs, evangelism, and community action). The more people invest in this message, the more likely they are to continue to invest (which is probably, at least some of the time, a sunk cost fallacy), and the less likely they are to leave.

Some mainline churches are more successful with (1) and (2), but some pretty much have the attitude that you are fine as you are and the world is fine as it is, which creates less demand for the product they are selling (i.e. church) and less opportunity to bring in new members. Though, I do think mainline churches tend to be better at social action.

Like I said in my first post though: conservative churches are now starting to decline, and I'm not sure all of the reasons for that have been studied, but as someone who has been pretty disappointed with the evangelical movement for the last 6-7 years, I'm not sure I'm all that sad about it, either.

[MsJack]

Hey Huck,

I’m of a similar opinion as Jack, but I’ve come to it from a different social-science track than she did, so perhaps how I frame it might help with some of those puzzles.

The fundamental concept here is that social groups whose beliefs and lifestyle conflict (or are otherwise in tension) with broader contemporary culture always have better growth and retention rates than social groups that are not in tension with broader contemporary culture. Hasidic Jews and the Amish are not going to be dwindling into nonexistence anytime soon.

Individual churches want to keep people involved in their particular religious community and the best way to do that is to hold numerous meetings and events to fill out your schedule so that the majority of your socializing is taking place within a church context. Worship services, Bible studies, prayer groups, men/women/teen specific fellowships, ministries for the homeless, intramural sports, evangelization and missions work, etc, etc.

Now the more tension a group feels with the broader culture, the more important that inter-group socializing becomes and as a result, you build up a strong sense of identity. If you combine that with eschewing expressions of popular culture and offer instead media that conforms to your group’s ideals and sensibilities, the bonds are only further strengthened to the point that someone doesn’t really need to leave your community very often for any of their needs.

To Jack’s point, Churches that are comfortable co-existing with the broader culture they exist in are going to struggle to find ways to get people to stay and be committed to a religious identity. If Christ died for everybody and they benefit from it regardless if they embraced the Gospel or not, the act of evangelization rapidly becomes pointless. Sure, you can still do missions work where you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and house the homeless, to get your dopamine hit, but how do you distinguish that from regular charity organizations?

Now if churches with a more liberal theology struggle with building and maintaining a distinctive religious identity, churches with a more conservative theology struggle with maintaining a distinctive religious identity that doesn’t result in more radical expressions that cause harm.

I just don’t see a progressive Mormon Church being at all successful in staving off decline, much less actually growing.

Good thoughts, Stak.

[Alphus and Omegus]

In logical form:

• Mormonism taught me that all the other religions are false
• I now believe that Mormonism is false
• I still believe that all the other religions are false because Mormonism taught me so.

Huh?

I think you have slightly missed the point. This is the sentence you need to pay attention to:

'As a devout member who takes it seriously, you soon learn all the problems with the "other guys." '

And there are a LOT of quite real problems with all of the world's major religions. The point is, at least according to Alphus and Omegus, that Mormons get told what those problems are. Thus, for instance, they are taught to ask where did Jesus say that all Peter's successors should have jurisdiction over all Christians? Does it make sense, as some Protestants do, that the last sentence of the Book of Revelation marks the end of what God has to say to humanity? And so on.

The aim is to end with Mormonism as the 'last man standing'. But a result is that if the believer gives up Mormonism, the criticisms of the other churches still stand, thus deterring the ex-Mormom from joining them. That is, I think, what Alphus and Omegus is suggesting to us.

You accurately summed up my point. It describes my own experience, as well as many other people raised in LDS Mormonism of my acquaintance.

As a faithful Mormon who takes it seriously, you learn about many of the logical contradictions of Nicene Christianity, as well as the problem with making theology through committees. Mormonism was constructed with the goal of fixing some of these "problems," such as the idea that innocent infants needing to be baptized, the idea of Jesus praying to himself, or the idea of universal damnation for non-Christians.

These logical inconsistencies and controversial doctrines are controversial, regardless of the source from which you learned them. In fact, as I began reading atheism advocates, I recognized that they made many of the same arguments I had heard from LDS authors like Bruce McConkie.

[Alphus and Omegus]

Finke and Stark cover in The Churching of America how the more costly religions that place more demands on their members are, paradoxically, the ones most likely to generate growth, and how this has been the case for most of American history. There's nothing wrong with generic universal connection in principle; there's also hypothetically nothing wrong with "Don't believe in that crap in the Bible? We don't, either."

I don't think that Stark's research has aged very well. Certainly his ludicrous predictions of exponential LDS Mormon growth have failed to come to pass.

The core part of his problem is that, especially in industrialized countries, growth of more fundamentalist faiths always came from people who had been raised in the Christian tradition. Fundamentalists cannot convert people with well-formed knowledge of science and history because the Bible and Book of Mormon's claims about these subjects are verifiably false.

The overwhelming trend for religious switchers is to leave religion entirely. However, it's possible that a smaller trend is emerging of people raised more literalist departing for more liberal sects. This appears to be happening in the Jewish community, where the Reform tradition is growing while the more center-to-right Conservative and Orthodox traditions are in decline. I think Christian sects which adhere to non-literalist interpretations of the Bible which are inclusive to women and LGBTQ people are well-positioned to make similar membership gains among younger millennials and Gen Z who are increasingly dissatisfied with discriminatory doctrines and absurd histories of the literalists.

The growth that fundamentalist sects are likely to achieve in the U.S. is going probably be from less-educated Hispanic immigrants, which should make for some very interesting debates with the elderly white leaders who are currently in charge.

Nonetheless, it is true that until the internet became commonplace, the more literalist sects were seeing growth. And they still do see growth in areas where scientific literacy and personal technology are uncommon.

The Pew Research Center has some interesting demographic studies that are more realistic for today's stats that are worth checking out. More importantly, they do not make Stark's error of assuming current trends are inevitable.

The problem is, if that's the main product that a church is promoting, it's one that a person can get almost anywhere: from a yoga class, from a favorite podcast, from a book club on Meetup. Why go to church for that? Every church has to have a product or a message that it promotes, one that makes a case for itself in the market, and plenty of people are already selling tolerance, understanding, and freedom from "dogma." In my view, many liberal / mainline churches simply never figured out what they were offering beyond that (although, social justice and attention to poverty was a strong attempt in this direction).

Once again, I think you are misunderstanding these traditions. There are a lot of people who have a belief in God and also strongly dislike Christians who are dogmatic. They just want a community to experience God and fellow members and to do good deeds together. While they don't believe the Bible is literally true, they do still maintain belief in the atonement. Yoga studios and book clubs cannot provide for these people.

I would also take issue with your claim that fundamentalist Christian sects are more "costly" for members. That is true for some (such as LDS), however, many of the major fundamentalist Protestant sects that experienced significant growth in the late 20th century were permissive in many ways toward members. Sects like the Southern Baptists or non-denominational evangelicalism demand very little from members in terms of community service, helping the poor, and opposing racism. These sects also have zero repercussions for members who engage in divorce, abortion, and child neglect, even though many may claim to oppose them. As a result, divorce rates for evangelicals are significantly higher than for Mormons, where there are spiritual consequences.

As a historical matter, the ecumenical Protestant sects of the 20th century experienced the most disaffiliations by far-right members who supported segregation, hated the welfare state, opposed equal rights for women, and despised queer people. Right-wing evangelicalism was much "easier" for these people because it did not require them to re-think any of their old bigoted beliefs. David Hollinger, an emeritus professor of history at UC Berkeley, has an excellent book on the subject.

[huckelberry]

Finke and Stark cover in The Churching of America how the more costly religions that place more demands on their members are, paradoxically, the ones most likely to generate growth, and how this has been the case for most of American history. There's nothing wrong with generic universal connection in principle; there's also hypothetically nothing wrong with "Don't believe in that crap in the Bible? We don't, either."

I don't think that Stark's research has aged very well. Certainly his ludicrous predictions of exponential LDS Mormon growth have failed to come to pass.

.....

The problem is, if that's the main product that a church is promoting, it's one that a person can get almost anywhere: from a yoga class, from a favorite podcast, from a book club on Meetup. Why go to church for that? Every church has to have a product or a message that it promotes, one that makes a case for itself in the market, and plenty of people are already selling tolerance, understanding, and freedom from "dogma." In my view, many liberal / mainline churches simply never figured out what they were offering beyond that (although, social justice and attention to poverty was a strong attempt in this direction).

Once again, I think you are misunderstanding these traditions. There are a lot of people who have a belief in God and also strongly dislike Christians who are dogmatic. They just want a community to experience God and fellow members and to do good deeds together. While they don't believe the Bible is literally true, they do still maintain belief in the atonement. Yoga studios and book clubs cannot provide for these people.

I would also take issue with your claim that fundamentalist Christian sects are more "costly" for members. That is true for some (such as LDS), however, many of the major fundamentalist Protestant sects that experienced significant growth in the late 20th century were permissive in many ways toward members. Sects like the Southern Baptists or non-denominational evangelicalism demand very little from members in terms of community service, helping the poor, and opposing racism. These sects also have zero repercussions for members who engage in divorce, abortion, and child neglect, even though many may claim to oppose them. As a result, divorce rates for evangelicals are significantly higher than for Mormons, where there are spiritual consequences.

As a historical matter, the ecumenical Protestant sects of the 20th century experienced the most disaffiliations by far-right members who supported segregation, hated the welfare state, opposed equal rights for women, and despised queer people. Right-wing evangelicalism was much "easier" for these people because it did not require them to re-think any of their old bigoted beliefs. David Hollinger, an emeritus professor of history at UC Berkeley, has an excellent book on the subject.

Alphus and Omegus, I checked out your link to the discussion with David Hollinger. Interesting and his reverse considerations make a point. It might not be the whole story however. In the link a comparison appears between magazine, Christian Century and Christianity today. I have read Christian Century at the public library on occasion but not frequently. I may push myself to accept it but it can be dry and elitist sounding. I subscribed to Christianity Today for a while some years ago. It is pleasant open to regular people and not aggressively one sided. It also does not pursue its subjects in much depth. The difference may illustrate a broader difference between mainline protestant groups and ev groups. A professional religious elite may hold the mainlines in a grasp which just does not touch the everyday concerns of many regular folks. A family working hard to stay afloat does not have to be racist to find religion aimed at social justice as outside of what they feel they can do much of any thing about. They want something to help them have courage and hope to face the everyday crisis and difficulties. I think Ms Jack is pointing out that the mainlines have not been connecting with people on that level.

Then there is the large subject of how money and influence can manipulate fear and suspicion to establish political ideology inside Christian activity. Racism might get used for that , it could be useful even if vague and only semiconscious.localize a group . Calling other views nonChristian can work like the disparagement of social gospel by speaking of it in opposition to saving gospel. Or like some LDS leaders in the 1960 associating the civil rights movements with communists.

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Some trickster spirit advised me to type into google Eric Metaxis and what a bit a you tube of him. I was starkly reminded of the intoxicating effect of thinking that you know it all or al least more than all those experts. Mix a little fear with that and you have serious leverage to control peoples thinking.

[Alphus and Omegus]

Alphus and Omegus, I checked out your link to the discussion with David Hollinger. Interesting and his reverse considerations make a point. It might not be the whole story however. In the link a comparison appears between magazine, Christian Century and Christianity today. I have read Christian Century at the public library on occasion but not frequently. I may push myself to accept it but it can be dry and elitist sounding. I subscribed to Christianity Today for a while some years ago. It is pleasant open to regular people and not aggressively one sided. It also does not pursue its subjects in much depth. The difference may illustrate a broader difference between mainline protestant groups and ev groups. A professional religious elite may hold the mainlines in a grasp which just does not touch the everyday concerns of many regular folks. A family working hard to stay afloat does not have to be racist to find religion aimed at social justice as outside of what they feel they can do much of any thing about. They want something to help them have courage and hope to face the everyday crisis and difficulties. I think Ms Jack is pointing out that the mainlines have not been connecting with people on that level.

I think some of the points you make about more intellectualized faiths not being appealing to people who want more emotional support have likely contributed to some growth of more literalist Protestant sects. That said, I think it may be unfair to imply that all modernist Protestant traditions do not fulfill these needs.

There is considerable space between Unitarianism and literalism. Rick Warren, whose Saddleback church was recently cancelled by the Southern Baptist Convention for wanting to ordain women, is a great example of how people want a more rational and compassionate evangelicalism:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/an-ev ... r-AA1couTX

Then there is the large subject of how money and influence can manipulate fear and suspicion to establish political ideology inside Christian activity. Racism might get used for that , it could be useful even if vague and only semiconscious.localize a group . Calling other views nonChristian can work like the disparagement of social gospel by speaking of it in opposition to saving gospel. Or like some LDS leaders in the 1960 associating the civil rights movements with communists.


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Some trickster spirit advised me to type into google Eric Metaxis and what a bit a you tube of him. I was starkly reminded of the intoxicating effect of thinking that you know it all or al least more than all those experts. Mix a little fear with that and you have serious leverage to control peoples thinking.

Metaxas is indeed a terrible person, very manipulative and dishonest, especially about the guy he pretends to understand most, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Eric Metaxas is a Republican consultant disguised as a Christian author. Here he is claiming that Jesus told him to whine about the 2020 election. Naturally, he doesn't even pretend to address Paul's and Jesus's repeated calls to submit to civil authorities:

https://religionnews.com/2020/11/30/eri ... n-triumph/