I have very much benefited from your comments, so thank you.

I tend to agree with both of you. In fact, I would go so far as to say that sociology doesn’t “constrain” God as much as it “reflects the constant action” of God, in the same way we view the Restoration as reflecting the actions of God.

Vicarious ordinances do provide a problem. In fact JNS wrote a very interesting post on this recently

[http://bycommonconsent.com/2009/08/05/why-do-we-redeem-the-dead-dc-lesson-30/]

He also believes that although Work for the Dead is a nice doctrine it raises other theological issues that Mormons have not fully dealt with yet.

I like your statement: “I wonder whether God’s ability to work in peoples lives is constrained by environment more than the averag Mormon missionary might like to believe.”

I think this is certainly the case. We can send all the missionaries to many parts of the Middle East that we want, but if someone is going to be killed if they convert to Mormonism, it is somewhat limiting.

My own opinion, and this doesn’t necessarily go along with the “official” one-true-Church teaching, is that God is bigger than the LDS Church. I think there are different denominations that “fit” different cultures for various sociological reasons. I think our ultimate goal is to learn to be good people, to respect God and our fellowman, and to develop charity and compassion. To me, the ordinances that we preach as so essential are just hoops to jump through for a reason that I don’t completely understand. For 99.9% of the world, those ordinances will be done vicariously anyway, so it can’t be overly essential that they be done in mortality.

I think the success or failure of the Church in various areas of the world can’t be based purely on whether it is true or not, otherwise, there should be similar amounts of success in the different regions of the world as their soul “resonates” with truth when they hear it. Instead, I see it more as an organic approach. Send missionaries everywhere. In some socioeconomic and geographical areas the LDS “package” will resonate more and be more successful – so more resources are sent there.

I think you posit an interesting argument. I will assume by Church growth you mean conversions (i.e. people that stay long-term and that compared to the people leaving). The reason i say that is Baseball baptisms have proved to have a fairly massive change in the number of baptisms, in England at least.

However, I think it is alos possible to work from this premise to another position (not your thought about what God is doing) but rather than a changing set of sociological conditions are the major factor that determines the growth of the Church. I am training as a sociologist and so my interest is of course biased. I wonder whether God’s ability to work in peoples lives is constrained by environment more than the averag Mormon missionary might like to believe.

Moreover, i sense that the LDS Church acknowledges this and hence sends missionaries to areas that are baptising regularly because that is the best use of resources rather than because missionries/mission presidents/the message is somehow different in those areas.

Absolutely nothing internal to the church seems to effect its growth rate. In the late 1800’s, although our denomination had considerably less than 20,000 members, we were adding about 1700 people to our membership per year. Over roughly the next century, we added some 150,000 additional church members as potential witnesses. We built hundreds of churches. We trained and expanded the missionary quorums of the church several-fold. We established major church institutions such as Graceland University (of which this seminary is a part), the medical complex next door to us, the Auditorium Complex that preceded the Temple Complex a few blocks to your right, and Herald Publishing House. We experienced times of relative financial hardships and times of relative plenty. We knew times when the leading quorums were highly unified and times of great internal disputes among them. We undertook literally thousands of evangelistic initiatives at the local and regional levels.
And none of those things had absolutely any effect, positive or negative, on the numerical rate at which the church in North America grew! The church shook off the effects of every one of them after a few months or, at most, a few years and stubbornly continued, decade after decade, to add the same 1700 members per year.

Something overwhelmed that equilibrium in mid-century, but again, it seems to have had nothing to do with anything internal to the church. The start of the decline PRECEDES the first disputes between “liberal” and “conservative” in North America, and the growth of the church in the Third World seems to track more with the experience of other denominations than, again, with anything we’re doing. (We’ve never penetrated ANY non-Christian culture unless Christians from non-Restoration denominations paved the way.)

It is as if you’re driving a car, and no matter which way you turn the steering wheel, and no matter how hard you step on either the brake or the accelerator, the car continues to travel in a straight line at the same speed. Eventually it has to dawn on you that your controls aren’t really connected to anything, and, in fact, you aren’t really the one driving the car.

And that really raises questions about whether we understand what God is doing; I can make a scriptural case that what will happen depends on the response of the society to Jesus, not on the response of the church to Jesus.

The larger point is that I don’t think movements toward liberalism or conservatism within the church CAUSE changes in growth rate. Changes in growth rate are much more strongly controlled by changes in the surrounding culture, and then the church evolves as individuals and leaders respond to the changes in growth rate by trying new (or old) strategies to achieve the goals they believe they are supposed to achieve.

I even know of some scientific evidence to suggest that the individual strategies chosen relate to fundamental personality traits — which are illustrated in the “conservative” and “liberal” self descriptions above.

So maybe a lot of theology isn’t just culture, but psychology as well.

I like your definition of religious liberalism. Putting this in the context of the LDS church, I think we are going the other way. We have the correlation committee, with the latest message that when the “manuals are written, the preparation is done” to paraphrase another common phrase. I think there is a DECREASED amount of spiritual autonomy. This goes down to something as simple as how many earrings to have, etc. As society becomes more tolerant, I think the Church is becoming less so. My personal opinion is that this is fundamentally behind the decline in baptism rates, but that could be wrong.

However, I think you raise an interesting question about the changing meaning of liberalism and its role, particularly, for religion.

For me, religiously speaking, liberalism is a turn toward toleration of religious diversity and also a increased amount of spiritual autonomy.

I’m said this before but it bears repeating, ceterus paribus, we’ll see things liberalize as they must do to survive with a realigning culture, however, and I will use the term progressive, no matter how progressive our society becomes, it isn’t a guaranteed thing. I see lines on the horizon of increased conservatism worldwide, and an increased libertarianism and more localism here in America. This would in essence provincialize Utah and other Mormon strongholds against a wider cultural conglomeration.

#34 – I agree that some of what you have highlighted would be beneficial to the Church. I also agree that all these factors have an impact, however I think there impact can be both negative and positive as in the case cited. I see the possibility that some of what you say is possible. For example, if the fourth mission of the Church is taken seriously then we should se a greater emphasis on humanitarian missions? Moreover, the Church has started to move in that direction in some ways with the beginning of helping hands.

#35 – Thank you for your interesting insights. Although I would probably see myself as a liberal, I am more conservative than some (maybe most). So although some liberalising changes i would like to see most I think are a double-edged sword. I am not sure the I see changes in how the 12 are led, particularly with strong hierarchical progression that currently produces people of talent. Moreover, with medical advances it is clearly becoming less of an issue than it might have been in the 60′s-early80′s.

#36 – I think that liberalism won’t change growth but might be an epiphenomenon of it. Birth’s/convesion split is interesting and although I have never heard of it makes intuitive sense.

On another point that is interesting in the UK. A large proportion of conversions in some areas of the UK are from migrant populations. This may have a interesting influence on Chuch culture here as these people move into leadership positions (which is just starting to happen). Moreover, our leaders (here) are aware of ensuring that an appropriate number of the people from these other ethnicities are represented in the Stake leadership, for example, and this might create new tensions at the local level.

#35 -

In the CofChrist statistics, national cultures show up more strongly in differences in growth — at least in those countries where there are enough members to get reliable disaggregated data — than any factor we can measure within a culture. The rapid decline in the (aggregated) North American data is more responsible for the relative importance of the third world in the councils of the CofChrist than the baptismal success there, though the success is quite real.

It could easily take many decades for such a decline to produce similar changes in the LDS, but the stresses that can produce fissioning can happen sooner. Our church began its evolution leftward in only 10-15 years after peak baptisms, with disputes first breaking out over liberalizing the Sunday school curriculum. Using Mike S. comments above on the LDS peak, that’s only 30 years away for the LDS.

The forms this can take can depend on seemingly little things. In our history, all elders were ex officio voting members of conference. Since many of our elderly faithful “gathered to Zion” after retirement, the elderly in Independence effectively controlled the legislative body of the church during the 1950′s when peak baptisms were reached. In the early 60′s, the leading quorums slipped through major reductions in ex officio membership (from 1000 votes in the conference chamber to at most a few dozen. It was only after this seemingly non-theological change that the church could move in a new direction.

Maybe the rigidity that most dictates how the LDS evolves depends on the ties to age and seniority under the structure of succession in the 12.

It does bring up an interesting point. It is fairly obvious that Church growth is slowing down. This brings up a few questions:

1) Is this just a correction of a “blip” (ie. baseball baptisms, etc.) or a longer term trend? I think the latter if you look at charts of growth going back decades, but who knows?

2) Is there something specifically “wrong” in the Church’s policies that is a hurdle? There are other denominations, Christian and not, who are growing faster than us in the US, Africa, Asia, etc., and these are groups that don’t specifically have the institutionalized missionary program that we have. What is it about our Church that is holding us back?

3) If there are things holding us back, does anyone think they could be changed? Could the Church come out and say that white shirts, tattoos, earrings, 3-hour block meetings, no drums in sacrament meetings, etc. don’t really have anything at all to do with the core of the restored gospel but are cultural artifacts that have been overlaid? Could the Church modify the Word of Wisdom to where it really is a code of health as a suggestion – ie. a glass of wine or coffee is probably healthy, too much wine, coffee, or food for that matter, is unhealthy? For places where the tax burden is high, could the Church still have the principle of tithing, but say that it could be on “net” or “increase”? Could we still have a missionary program, but have much of it turn into a humanitarian missionary program? I think for many youth, building wells or serving the poor in Africa would be a better 2-year experience than walking through the streets of a country where they might baptize 1 person their whole mission. It would probably be better for the Church’s image as well.

I see many of the things in (3) as my interpretation of “liberalization” of the Church as suggested in the OP. But, are they needed? And would any of those actually ever be passed?

My SS teacher is the Bishops wife and they are the most conservative family in the ward. She even has a uniform, which a number of other conservative women follow, of ankle length black skirts, flat black shoes, and a loose pastel coloured blouse with long sleeves, which is worn year round whether 15c or 40c.

I believe the conservative position of the church is a function of the culture of the area it’s headquarters are located. That culture is carried by Area Presidencies to areas where a more liberal culture is standard and their choice of leaders flows down to choice of Bishops. What is acceptable belief in Utah is considered extreme in liberal societs such as northern Europe, Australia etc. hence the lack of appeal in those societies.

Were I investigating the Church now I would have trouble getting past the culture to the Gospel but as I have been an active member for 40 years plus and have a testimony I have to try to find a place in a sometimes unwelcoming Church.

#18 – I don’t see the Church in that way either. In fact my post tried to present the church as a place where variation occurs but where there are different processes that try to contain and direct certain patterns of change, as any organisation would (and probably should). But thank you for your thoughts.

#19 – I think that the distinction you create between following the prophet and coming to christ is not easily defensible. I sense that Joseph intended for himself to be an archetype o fthe process of coming to christ, while the trend more recently has been to follow my words in coming to christ. I agree that there is a slight difference here but the intent is the same. Moreover I think both ideas are useful because of the weakness of our leaders but also the need we have to see them exemplify the process of moving toward God.

#22 – Is this has any bearing on the Quinn discussion this is an older essay, as I recall?

#25 – Don’t worry about the diversion, I am as interested as everyone else in these matters, particularly becauise I do like Quinn.

As an aside, I have suspected that Origins of Power is a quite respected text primairly because FARMS did not do a critique of it as they have done with the second volume (Extensions) and also that it is positively cited in BYU Studies.

#28 – Thats interesting that you draw parrallels between the two. I need to get more into CofC history. I know your previous posts here at MM have looked at the role of non-US membership, how do you see this playing out in the LDS.

A couple of points strike me as important:

Stress induces change. Stress CAN induce speciation. If the church were to continue to grow strongly, change could be deferred. But as sincere leaders (at all levels) and believers strive to fulfill the mission when success seems to retreat before them, I suspect individual differences in personality come to the forefront. Conservatives will pull more toward conservatism; liberals will pull more toward liberalization. EACH will feel that the pulls are warranted by the importance of holding to the truth.

Since conservatives are dominant, at least in the US, I expect the Conservatives will make the church more so. Liberals will increasingly find their own place and institutions to represent the gospel faithfully as THEY understand it. Attitudes of the leadership will largely determine whether those institutions are within the body of the church or not.

I am sure God loves both “sides” for the portions of the truth they hold, so I would expect God to continue to love and support each one,hopefully, together in one body. But the Restoration has been shedding denominations (like Catholicism and Protestantism before it) for a long time, so I certainly can not predict that God will intervene to stop this process on the basis of His past actions.

I also think that the debate about causes of the leveling in growth is futile. No matter what the CofChrist did, we could neither speed up OR slow down our growth; it ultimately was controlled by factors OUTSIDE of the church. Still is, in fact. Our efforts may certainly have influenced WHOM we baptized, but not how many.

Before we castigate him further though, it’s only fair to point out that many of the church manuals have played “fast and loose” with many events as well. I know, I know, two wrongs don’t make a right, but if we were to compare the amount of twisted truths in our manuals with Quinn’s writings, I think Quinn comes out looking pretty good. Just saying…