Analytics Jason is right; this number seems reasonable. Call 25,000 a year for 40 years and you get 1 million served.
My sense of the question was that Polygamy Porter was asking for a definition. Like Clinton's "It depends on what your definition of is is." Or was. Or might be. So here, what is the definition of "missionary"? Is it a person who spends significant time witnessing to others, teaching Mormon doctrine, and baptizing? Or are we to understand that the rubric "missionary" includes "Kids that come home early? How early? Out only for a day? An hour?"
The question seems to be focused, in other words, not on the number as a mere, flat quantity but on the number as a representation of effective missionary activity (proselytizing and baptizing) -- or of dedication within the missionaries themselves.
A million missionaries serving for two years each is impressive. But if 200,000 served in non-proselytizing roles, another 200,000 were local seventies and elders helping out, and another 100,000 of them quit in less than a year, the significance of "a million missionaries" is lessened, and the credibility of the man who posited "a million missionaries" (implying full-time, proselytizing missionaries), falls into disrepute.
I do not offer these numbers as actual or probably. They are just an example. I don't know the actual numbers. And that is what the problem is. Would the Church be so kind as to break these numbers down for us?
The thing is, "the number of missionaries the church has had" is a well-defined term. Clearly, he was talking about full-time missionaries. Every Spring the number of missionaries is announced in General Conference, an the historical number of missionaries is in the Church Almanac. 1,000,000 in the history of the church is entirely consistent with these easily accessible sources.
Porter was implying that the church was being dishonest by fudging the numbers through some watered-down an unexplicit definition of "missionary". In this case, his is just acting paranoid.
It’s relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don’t really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.
Bond...James Bond wrote:So when is the Catholic church going to come out and announce:
"Since the Roman Catholic Church was formed, we've had 423,543,233 nuns and priests serve the Lord. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Mormons".
Yeh, but ours had authority. We do appreciate them spreading the Bible around though and laying all that foundational belief in the Savior. That is, after they decided people could have a Bible and stopped killing them for having one.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. - Plato
Bond...James Bond wrote:So when is the Catholic church going to come out and announce:
"Since the Roman Catholic Church was formed, we've had 423,543,233 nuns and priests serve the Lord. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Mormons".
Yeh, but ours had authority. We do appreciate them spreading the Bible around though and laying all that foundational belief in the Savior. That is, after they decided people could have a Bible and stopped killing them for having one.
The Nehor wrote:It's a factoid that some members would be interested in and hence the announcement.
If so he would have released it within the church. Instead, contrary to your assumption it came to use via press release, like something a corporation would do in order to enforce marketing.
It went to a paper that has a readership that is over 50% Mormon, hardly a press release. I checked the Dallas Morning News, wasn't in there.
It WAS mentioned in a UK paper. CLick on this link for the article...very interesting
Analytics Jason is right; this number seems reasonable. Call 25,000 a year for 40 years and you get 1 million served.
My sense of the question was that Polygamy Porter was asking for a definition. Like Clinton's "It depends on what your definition of is is." Or was. Or might be. So here, what is the definition of "missionary"? Is it a person who spends significant time witnessing to others, teaching Mormon doctrine, and baptizing? Or are we to understand that the rubric "missionary" includes "Kids that come home early? How early? Out only for a day? An hour?"
The question seems to be focused, in other words, not on the number as a mere, flat quantity but on the number as a representation of effective missionary activity (proselytizing and baptizing) -- or of dedication within the missionaries themselves.
A million missionaries serving for two years each is impressive. But if 200,000 served in non-proselytizing roles, another 200,000 were local seventies and elders helping out, and another 100,000 of them quit in less than a year, the significance of "a million missionaries" is lessened, and the credibility of the man who posited "a million missionaries" (implying full-time, proselytizing missionaries), falls into disrepute.
I do not offer these numbers as actual or probably. They are just an example. I don't know the actual numbers. And that is what the problem is. Would the Church be so kind as to break these numbers down for us?
The thing is, "the number of missionaries the church has had" is a well-defined term. Clearly, he was talking about full-time missionaries. Every Spring the number of missionaries is announced in General Conference, an the historical number of missionaries is in the Church Almanac. 1,000,000 in the history of the church is entirely consistent with these easily accessible sources.
Porter was implying that the church was being dishonest by fudging the numbers through some watered-down an unexplicit definition of "missionary". In this case, his is just acting paranoid.
well put
And crawling on the planet's face Some insects called the human race Lost in time And lost in space...and meaning
The Nehor wrote:It's a factoid that some members would be interested in and hence the announcement.
If so he would have released it within the church. Instead, contrary to your assumption it came to use via press release, like something a corporation would do in order to enforce marketing.
It went to a paper that has a readership that is over 50% Mormon, hardly a press release. I checked the Dallas Morning News, wasn't in there.
It WAS mentioned in a UK paper. CLick on this link for the article...very interesting
I hope you're being as serious as I am when I post Onion articles :)
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
1 million seems reasonable. In fact, since the founding of the church 1 million missionaries actually sounds like a low estimate. It seems like there would be more. The obvious follow up to Hinckley is if the church has had 1 million missionaries, why does it only have 13 million members? That's pretty poor sales performance, it seems to me at least.
"We of this Church do not rely on any man-made statement concerning the nature of Deity. Our knowledge comes directly from the personal experience of Joseph Smith." - Gordon B. Hinckley
"It's wrong to criticize leaders of the Mormon Church even if the criticism is true." - Dallin H. Oaks