Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Special report -Mormonism besieged by the modern age [Lds church is hemorrhaging in member losses]
Reuters ^ | Jan. 29, 2012 | Peter Henderson and Kristina Cooke

Posted on 02/01/2012 4:50:21 AM PST by Colofornian

...A religious studies class late last year at Utah State University...was unusual for two reasons. The small group of students, faculty and faithful there to hear Mormon Elder Marlin Jensen were openly troubled about the future...asking hard questions. And Jensen was uncharacteristically frank...

Did the leaders...know that members are "leaving in droves?" a woman asked.

"We are aware," said Jensen, according to a tape recording of his unscripted remarks. "And I'm speaking of the 15 men that are above me in the hierarchy of the church."...

"My own daughter," he then added, "has come to me and said, 'Dad, why didn't you ever tell me that Joseph Smith was a polygamist?'..."Everything's out there for them to consume if they want to Google it."...

SNIP

...census data from some foreign countries...show that the retention rate for their converts is as low as 25 percent. In the U.S., only about half of Mormons are active members of the church...

SNIP

...the Web has intensified debate over...the history the church teaches.

Not since...the 1837 failure of a church bank in Kirtland, Ohio, have so many left the church, Jensen said.

"Maybe since Kirtland, we've never had a period of - I'll call it apostasy, like we're having now," he told the group in Logan.

SNIP

...a non-practicing Mormon...for years filed away on a mental "shelf" concerns about the historical veracity of the religion's central text..."It came to a point where the shelf was too heavy," he said. He quit attending ..."Ok, I'm done."

SNIP

"There have been discussions at LDS church headquarters about...Romney's presidential bid," a person briefed on the talks said. "One concern is that Romney's campaign could further energize evangelical antipathy toward the church..."

..."having a Mormon president could raise the church's profile and legitimize it in other countries."

(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Current Events; Other Christian; Other non-Christian; Religion & Culture; Theology
KEYWORDS: abandonment; faith; inman; lds; mormon
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 101-120121-140141-160161-177 next last
To: SZonian
But you Hateful BIGOTs DO have to admit that Joseph invented the wireless mouse!

--MormonDupe(He was WAY ahead of his time!)

121 posted on 02/01/2012 2:56:08 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 92 | View Replies]

To: surroundedbyblue
... will just prolong our miseries.

Or SPEED our downfall.

122 posted on 02/01/2012 2:58:23 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 100 | View Replies]

To: surroundedbyblue

GOD is not mocked.

Just look how long it has taken many of the Jewish disasters to overtake them; before they’d come to their senses and repent.


123 posted on 02/01/2012 3:00:09 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 100 | View Replies]

To: Osage Orange

There are OLD pilots,
and there are BOLD pilots.
But there are NO old, bold pilots!


124 posted on 02/01/2012 3:03:22 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 114 | View Replies]

To: Elsie
Especially those that can't read a fuel gauge.
125 posted on 02/01/2012 3:12:49 PM PST by Osage Orange (A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 124 | View Replies]

To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

I'm trying to decide whether this is some sort of dispassionate erudition that presupposes there is no such thing as absolute truth, or a Mormon analysis of Mormonism.

Either way it is laughably ignorant.

Are you a member of LDS or some other Mormon sect?

Do you call yourself Christian?

126 posted on 02/01/2012 3:32:54 PM PST by delacoert
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Colofornian

Sheesh..anyone living out west know lots of “Jack Mormons”...but since the second or third largest religious group in the US is lapsed/cafeteria catholics, I won’t point a finger at them.

Not all who leave are doctrinal problems: Many left due to a problem with the local bishop (similar to those who leave catholicism after meeting a bad priest).

I disagree with LDS theology, but I figure that those who blast the LDS will go on to blast the Catholics.


127 posted on 02/01/2012 4:27:19 PM PST by LadyDoc
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LadyDoc; Colofornian
I disagree with LDS theology, but I figure that those who blast the LDS will go on to blast the Catholics.

Poor logic. I am a former Catholic and I don't blast or bash them.

128 posted on 02/01/2012 4:31:41 PM PST by Godzilla (3/7/77)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 127 | View Replies]

To: LadyDoc; greyfoxx39; Colofornian; P-Marlowe; aMorePerfectUnion; colorcountry; SENTINEL; SZonian

Many left due to a problem with the local bishop (similar to those who leave catholicism after meeting a bad priest).

I disagree with LDS theology, but I figure that those who blast the LDS will go on to blast the Catholics.

- - - - - -
You are grossly incorrect on both points and your statement is VERBATIM of part of the pat mormon response (that has no bearing in truth) to why people leave Mormonism. Don’t drink the Kool-aid.

Ask any number of exmormons and none will tell you they left because they had a problem with the local bishop. They left because they no longer believed.


129 posted on 02/01/2012 4:40:58 PM PST by reaganaut (Ex-Mormon, Now Christian - "I wasn't brainwashed, just brain pre-soaked.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 127 | View Replies]

To: reaganaut; LadyDoc
I WAS in the bishopric when I resigned after I found out I had been lied to by the church my whole life, and then told to cover it up.

I went to check a referenced quote where Joseph Smith claimed to be greater than Jesus Christ to prove folks here on FR LIARS !....But it was the CULT that had been lying all along !

I would venture to guess that less than 5% of bishops after serving two years who are not "in the know" and INTENTIONALLY IN ON THE COVERUP !

130 posted on 02/01/2012 5:01:50 PM PST by SENTINEL (Romney is to Conservatism what Mormonism is to Christianity.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 129 | View Replies]

To: LadyDoc
Figures lie, and liars figure....

At least I always heard that....

131 posted on 02/01/2012 5:09:10 PM PST by Osage Orange (A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 127 | View Replies]

To: LadyDoc

Your church teaches that Mormons are not Christians, why aren’t the Catholics helping Christians instead of usually showing up to defend Mormonism.

To me the most common thing I see on Mormon threads and the used to be Romney threads, from Catholics , is first announce they are good Catholics, and then they proceed to start defending the cult. Atheists are big Mormonism defenders as well.


132 posted on 02/01/2012 5:38:57 PM PST by ansel12 (Romney is unquestionably the weakest party front-runner in contemporary political history.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 127 | View Replies]

To: LadyDoc
I disagree with LDS theology, but I figure that those who blast the LDS will go on to blast the Catholics.

Not in THIS thread!

We recognize an attempt to get Catholics and Protestants going at it; while MORMONs slink away to lick their wounds.

133 posted on 02/02/2012 4:26:11 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 127 | View Replies]

To: Godzilla
Poor logic.

LOGIC?

That word is NOT found in the BoM!

It is a poor TACTIC.

134 posted on 02/02/2012 4:29:09 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 128 | View Replies]

To: ansel12
... first announce they are good Catholics, and then they proceed to start defending the cult.
135 posted on 02/02/2012 4:30:42 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 132 | View Replies]

To: Elsie; LadyDoc

Poor logic.
LOGIC?

That word is NOT found in the BoM!

It is a poor TACTIC.


136 posted on 02/02/2012 4:34:13 AM PST by BlueMoose
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 134 | View Replies]

To: LadyDoc

Well, I waited a while to see if you’d reply to those who rebutted such a stupid and baseless comment.

So I’m going to weigh in a bit as an ex-mo.

I didn’t quit because of my “fragile psyche”, or a “problem with the bishop”, or “my feelings got hurt”. No, I quit because I found out that mormonism is heresy.

Your statement indicates that another has apparently fallen for the mindnumbing psychosis that SLC perpetrates on their members by laying ALL of the blame at the feet of those who quit mormonism. It couldn’t possibly be that mormonism is false.

But I wonder, what you would say to the women I know who are ex-mormon because they were ex-communicated? Why were they ex-communicated? Because their husbands were either cheating on them or abusing them and they dared to report it to church “authorities” and when that didn’t work, start divorce proceedings. Which got them promptly ex-communicated.

I guess, if one stretches their imagination pretty far, this could be classified as a “problem with the bishop”.

As to your “figuring” comment...you “figure” wrong. Mormonism is what we have a problem with. Have you seen many or any of us on a Catholic thread bashing Catholics?

It shouldn’t be too hard for you to prove your statement either true or false now, would it?


137 posted on 02/02/2012 8:21:40 AM PST by SZonian (Throwing our allegiances to political party's in the long run gave away our liberty.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 127 | View Replies]

To: reaganaut; LadyDoc; greyfoxx39; Colofornian; P-Marlowe; aMorePerfectUnion; colorcountry; ...

The mormon church is engaged in a campaign of systemic character assassination against ex-mormons and “anti’s”.

Whenever one of their “authorities” gets up in front of the members and states that a person is ex-mo because their “feelings got hurt”, they are lying.

They are denying the truth that is told to them in the hundreds, if not thousands of resignations letter rec’d each year.

It is condoned by the most high in mormonism because ALL of the words spoken at GC are vetted and approved beforehand.


138 posted on 02/02/2012 8:30:40 AM PST by SZonian (Throwing our allegiances to political party's in the long run gave away our liberty.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 129 | View Replies]

To: SZonian
No, I quit because I found out that mormonism is heresy.

GMTA!


139 posted on 02/02/2012 9:10:49 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 137 | View Replies]

To: BlueMoose

O... K...


140 posted on 02/02/2012 9:11:46 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 136 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 101-120121-140141-160161-177 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson