The Mormon Church Is Dying
Bloodletting Is Not A Good Plan, President Nelson!
The Mormon PR team will argue vehemently that the opposite is the truth. But hey, what would you expect them to say? The Mormon church leaders will never admit to the decline in church membership that has taken place over the last 40 years. If you look in the right places, you see the continuation of the closing down of local church congregations or Wards and the consolidation of multiple church Stakes. Many meetinghouses or church buildings have also been sold or demolished. And yet, millions of dollars are spent on erecting temples to appease the remaining members by suggesting more temples equals more members. Obtaining land as real estate is not an idea your regular member considers. Refrain from mentioning tax evasion to the members.
The Salt Lake Tribune published an eye-opening opinion piece by Dave Winslow three years ago. It suggested that to keep its tithe-paying, dedicated older generation happy and faithful, the Mormon church had decided to forgo the much younger and more questioning membership. Hmmm.
This is a plan that has no future! Over the next thirty years, those people will die, and hey, a vastly diminished population is all that will be left. It is not the best business plan I have ever seen.
You will die if you deliberately cut off or remove part of your blood supply because you don't like the color you see. It may be a slow death, but it will be a painful one. Bloodletting was the purposeful withdrawal of blood from a body to cure or prevent illness or disease — an ancient practice that has been discredited. Bloodletting doesn't sound like a good business plan. After all, the Mormon church is just a business.
Using my analogy further, someone may have rainbow-colored blood but is still human. Whether part of the LBGTQ+ community, a Feminist community, any group advocating for equal rights, or anyone, not an aged white man living in 1950s Utah, everyone should have the right to be loved, especially in a church! If bloodletting to remove these human beings you disagree with is your plan, then just as doctors of old found it . . . it does not work.
Mormon church membership is now at less than a 1% growth rate and declining. Why is that? Dave Winslow pointed to some of these areas.
1 — The demonization of the LGBTQ+ community.
2 — Sanitized church history or Sunday School history is the only acceptable read!
3 — Suggesting that 'Pro-choice' and same-sex marriage are weapons of Satan.
4—Counseling the church's youth and young adults not to use the Internet when seeking the truth. The truth can only be found in the voices of very old white men who live in Utah.
5 — Ignoring that 1 in 8 Brigham Young University students are gay.
6 — Financial non-transparency, meaning secret accounts that even members are not privileged to see.
7 — Knowing that the $100 billion stock portfolio would have never seen the light of day only due to a whistleblower.
8 — The betrayal felt by dedicated tithe payers who could not obtain assistance when required or were demeaned.
9 — Watching a worldwide pandemic, $100 billion stayed in the bank while people suffered and died. It is not what you would expect from a church, a business, maybe, but not a church.
10 — An old problem that has come to light again in recent years is significant child abuse, and the Mormon Church helpline used to bury abuse accusations.
11 — Members and non-members (Gentiles) find that the official truth will not set you free. Strangely, the Church's Articles of Faith #11 states, "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our conscience and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may." But, of course, if you use your conscience to discover the truth, you will be informed quickly that you do not have that privilege.
Do your dictates, and then the truth will indeed set you free, totally free.
[I wrote the original piece in June 2021 and rewrote and edited it further to illustrate the continuing downward spiral of membership and the revealing of, until recently, significant issues that will continue to diminish Mormon church membership.]
© Stephen G. Arrowsmith 2024
