- Sure on Filet-O-Fish and Keeping Mormonism Weird: ““when we look at the changes that the Church has made, especially since President Nelson took office” I’m going to get controversial, but I’ll say it now that some time has passed. What President Nelson did will eventually be seen to be more destructive to church than anything else in the last 50-100 years. What is that you say? What is by far, the most successful program of the church? Not the missionary program. Not the young women’s program. Not the bishoprics, elders relief societies and stake high council’s. It’s the Primary. And the amount of time kids spend in Primary got cut in half. And they were the ones that loved it. That is proving and will prove to be more devastating across this rising generation then anything else. I’ve served in multiple wards in primary and I’ve got a front row seat to it. Kids that age are so impressionable, and we’ve cut their time in half, all in the name of fitting more people into buildings. There was no missionary impetus to move to 2-hr church. That’s nice, but it’s not THE reason. There was no real concern with Bishops spending too much time at church that necessitated this. The issue was not that parents need a break (so let’s put them individually in charge of teaching rother than collectively doing it as a community????) — that doesn’t even make sense from operational man hours perspective. President Nelson, whk never or rarely went to primary himself, doesn’t really ever have seemed to even like being a “Mormon”, cut the amount of time in half that our little ones learn about scripture stories and sing songs. We can tell ourselves we need to pick up the slack in the home. But what got cut isn’t truly being replaced. All that said, whoever is in charge, whatever decisions get made, it’s still up to us to live and teach the gospel (same thing). So the burden still falls on our shoulders. There’s just less of a community doing it and more kids are falling through the cracks. There are some GREAT outlier examples though.” Jun 18, 13:15
- on Finding Meaning in Sacrament Meeting: Participation and Meaning in Church (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About) Yesterday, 6/14?: “No profound lessons this week, but I was touched by the testimony both speakers bore. One read their talk word for word, but it was well-prepared and heartfelt. A few grammar choices that strongly suggest chatpgt was greatly involved in preparing it, but surprisingly that didn’t seem to impact the spirit of the talk. That gives me a little hope for AI models. Kent, Adding to your discussion of ways to ponder and meditate during meetings, I often times find myself thinking through why the speaker brought up a particular story or scripture and how they relate to it, particularly when it does not resonate with me.” Jun 18, 10:56
- on Filet-O-Fish and Keeping Mormonism Weird: “Which is why I do appreciate Pres. Oaks calling out members for not letting their kids play with non-member kids.” Jun 18, 10:01
- on Filet-O-Fish and Keeping Mormonism Weird: “There are a good handful of things that church leadership could do to make us different for the sake of being different. For example, shunning everything Harry Potter related. I’m glad that leadership doesn’t do that. I think that the church is overall good at picking and choosing its battles when it comes to lifestyle decisions. What I think makes for bad trying to fit it, is trying to identify as just one more Christian denomination. Especially when it comes to Bible literalism. That said, I think that the way that the church needs to push more for being seen as normal is to discourage (okay ban) home schooling and home schooling co-ops. Being scared that your kids would interact with fellow peers is not how we can be a light to those who would need us.” Jun 17, 22:23
- on Filet-O-Fish and Keeping Mormonism Weird: “@Not a Cougar: I didn’t listen to that podcast. I have no problem with making the Church more palatable and practical as long as it doesn’t make it a glorified self-help institution that is competing with thousands of other similar institutions. The religion-specific virtues are important for their own sake. Jonathan Green: Amen. JTB: I remember that op-ed when it came out, it was a very interesting angle. I imagine the community support issue is tricky. Such support often comes from sacrifices made by families and members, and the Church has to thread the needle between building up strong communities while not asking so much of members and families that they get exhausted and see the Church as an energy drain.” Jun 17, 18:23
- on Finding Meaning in Sacrament Meeting: Participation and Meaning in Church (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About) Yesterday, 6/14?: “To try to bring this back to the purpose of the post… One of our speakers told how in high school he ended up playing in a Christian worship band at his friend’s church just because the friend wasn’t afraid to talk about his faith and make friendly invitations. The suggestion was that we should do the same. My wife was introduced to the Church by someone who is similarly fearless (filterless?) so I have to agree. The other spoke about having to come home from her mission early due to mental illness and feeling like a failure. She identified with the woman with the issue of blood, but felt like she didn’t have the strength to reach out and touch Jesus’s robe. She’s okay now, but it reminded me that so many of our members need to be told, repeatedly, that Christ’s atonement should make us feel loved and safe. Yes, we’re all inadequate, but he made it okay to be inadequate.” Jun 17, 18:09
- on Filet-O-Fish and Keeping Mormonism Weird: “This opinion piece on the Church’s “shift towards the mainstream” has stuck in my mind ever since reading it and I feel is especially relevant to this conversation: https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2022/02/07/stuart-c-reid-lds-church/ (paywall-free link: https://archive.ph/0Ya73) I agree wholeheartedly that our uniqueness and peculiarity is part of the appeal (look at what mainstream acceptance has done to Mainline Protestantism over the last 100 years). But I think there needs to be a strong community to support members who might be shunned by the outside world, and it seems that a lot of changes the church has made recently weaken that community (two hour church, the emphasis on home centered church, discontinuation of Gospel Principles classes, the ending of Boy Scouts with no real replacement, etc.). If we’re going to make Mormonism weird again (which I agree we should), we should also be doing whatever we can to Mormon communities strong again.” Jun 17, 14:17
- on Filet-O-Fish and Keeping Mormonism Weird: “As long as we retain a lay clergy, assign talks to youth and congregation members, and have open-mic testimony meetings once a month, there’s going to be some tension with surrounding society. Given the opportunity, people can say some remarkable things. Beyond that, it’s important to retain behavioral expectations – conversions that don’t entail any particular change in one’s life are not a sign of a healthy church. Plus it’s important for the strength of relationships inside the community – one of our strengths – if everyone there has to shoulder the burden of being a bit weird in some way.” Jun 17, 13:09
- on Filet-O-Fish and Keeping Mormonism Weird: “Stephen, I’m curious if you listened to the recent Mormon Stories interview with Lance Kennedy. I know a lot of folks who read, write, and post on this blog are likely not big fans of John Dehlin, but I found the interview quite interesting. Lance is the son of a very successful Evangelical pastor and joined the Church around 2008. He cited some of the unique doctrines of the Church as being the impetus for his conversion (e.g., “As God now is, man once was”; Adam-God; the Word of Wisdom, the temple endowment mirroring free masonry (he’s a mason)). The second half of his interview (he’s still active by his own account) is his perspective on the Church’s attempts to move closer to mainline and/or Evangelical Protestant churches. Lance explained that his experience growing up in his father’s church is, to him, instructive on why the Church is doing what it is doing. It mirrors efforts many Protestant churches made as part of the “seeker-sensitive” growth strategy of the 90s and 2000s pioneered by Bill Hybels of the Willow Creek Community Church and Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church. The focus of that strategy was (as I understand it): (1) Welcoming Environment: Use contemporary music, modern visuals, and informal dress; (2) Accessible Language: Avoid overly technical or culturally specific terms; focus on relatable, everyday issues; (3) Practical Sermons: Emphasize self-improvement, life application, and biblical principles in ways newcomers can grasp; (4) Community Services: Offer programs like ESL classes, childcare, and community outreach to attract and retain visitors; and (5) Short, Engaging Messages: Often 20 minutes or less. I will say that the “seeker-sensitive” focus does start to sound familiar when we look at the changes that the Church has made, especially since President Nelson took office, but you can argue that the Church has been doing some version of trying to make itself more palatable since President McKay was in office. I’d also point to the 1990 changes to the endowment and the implementation of the three-hour block in 1980 as huge initial steps in sanding down our unique practices.” Jun 17, 12:26
- on Filet-O-Fish and Keeping Mormonism Weird: “Steven C: Are we about strict differences that really dont matter or are we about saving souls with the true gospel? Are we converting people to God and following the Savior or to a church? And, we could never look like everyone else even if we tried. We would have to get rid of 90% of what we do now. Having said all that, if our religion is JUST for getting people to the CK and the other faiths are getting people to the lessor kingdoms, then sure lets be different. But how about we get people in with the lessor law and help them go the higher law if/when they want to? We tend to be all CK or nothing and if that is not what you want, go be a Baptist your not welcome here. God gave the saints plenty of years to learn to live the higher laws and we now want converts to do it day one. Lets start out being more like them (Christians) and let them progress like the church had to. Even if we taught the WOW but did not require 100 compliance of it for baptism, that would be a good start. Our church culture has taught us that smokers and drinkers are bad people that are sinning. This is unfortunate. So there is a simple step we could take to look more like other faiths. IMO.” Jun 17, 11:04
