Today Radio Free Mormon offers a prediction for General Conference using a quote by Elder Cook from a recent General Conference. Elder Cook strangely imposed that Mormons will in fact always be “Small in number” due to “wickedness in the world”. This seemed odd in light of you and me and everyone else having grown up with a Mormonism where dynamic Growth was told to us to be an indicator of the truthfulness of the Church. As RFM goes to into detail to prove…. such seemed like blatant “Gaslighting“. And RFM postulates that if this is the new narrative of the Church that they will need to reiterate such on more than one occasion including this weeks October 2018 General Conference.
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RFM,
Thank you for another interesting podcast.
Apparently, the move to this theme (i.e. rebranding) has been afoot within the general leadership for some time now. Listening to the podcast reminded me of a conference address given by Boyd K. Packer in the April 2010 conference titled, The Power of the Priesthood, wherein he quotes 1 Nephi 14:12 too. http://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/general-conference/april-2010-general-conference/2010-04-1020-president-boyd-k-packer-eng.pdf
This was a well done podcast. I am just curious as to why there wasn’t a comment about the reason for the drop in membership or membership growth – “because of wickedness”. This comment appears to be not only a way to control members (if you are not a member it is because you have chosen wickedness), or, at a minimum, a very judgmental comment (all who are not accepting the LDS gospel are wicked). Is there an argument for the comment “because of wickedness” that it may be even more problematic than the presentation on the change in growth.
Fantastic and fun podcast as always RFM. It really makes you stop and think about the thoughts put in our heads in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s by church leadership and how that shaped the arrogant Mormon narrative about being the one true church. I’m so happy to have completed my mental shift to see things as they are.
The church is a multi-billion dollar corporation. Nothing more, nothing less. Instead of a publicly traded company making an annual report to stockholders, the church reports twice a year to its stockholders (regular members) that the corporation is doing great and that we are all going to be rewarded with great dividends. However, sales are slipping (slower/stagnant growth of new members), so corporate leaders are restating their outlook on returns by changing the narrative. Meanwhile like Sears and K Mart, the stock value is going to plummet.
The corporation of the church will never go away. The doctors, lawyers, and businessmen at the helm will not allow that due to their savvy business decisions, real estate purchases, and multi investment income strategies outside of tithing. However, the stock and market share awareness of the world will come to see that it is another man-made corporation that does a lot of good, but the corporation holds its members hostage with fear and a demand for obedience to the current and living Prophet and Apostles.
Thanks again for your work in putting this together! Looking forward to conference this weekend with my TBM spouse!
Wholly Hell! Saint’nism!
OH, MY, GOTH!™ “Obey Us! Don’t question Us! The debate is over!” IS “The Other Brother’s Plan™.”
That “son of a gas-lighting Father of all Lies™.”
“Ravening leaders in fine wool suits!™”
RFM, I can’t wait to hear your GenCon (Con of all cons – “The Only True Con™”) Corporate analysis.
Oh, gotta go now. GenCon is starting! I might miss, “Our father in heaven…”. Must hear… words of Profit!
Numbers would be small because of (whose?) wickedness…..That is the monumental question.
Who wants to join a church which is obviously wicked? No one! That’s why the numbers are small and shrinking.
So both quotes are valid.
Plus, Elder Ballard had just spent 15 years living in the deep south where we all call the Book of Mormon profit, “Nephah”. Gees RFM, get a clue! (wry humor of course)
Numbers would be small because of (whose?) wickedness…..That is the monumental question.
Who wants to join a church which is obviously wicked? No one! That’s why the numbers are small and shrinking.
So both quotes are valid.
Plus, Elder Ballard had just spent 15 years living in the deep south where we all call the Book of Mormon profit, “Nephah”. Gees RFM, get a clue! (wry humor of course)
This episode was really tedious and belabored. In general I enjoy your willingness to analyze the heck out of a focused topic, but there was so much repetition here that it was hard to stay interested.
Excellent podcast, as usual. The reason why church stats was discontinued, is because it’s all bad news. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have done the same thing. They used to brag all the time, in their “conferences” about growth. Now, because growth is so slow now, they’ve simply discontinued it. Same thing. Same mentality. Same horse and pony show. In my religion (Daheshism) growth means nothing. Most people can’t comprehend my religion, and that is the way it should be.