Monday, May 28, 2012

Is the Mormon church heading towards apostasy?

A post by a Mormon thoroughly details how the Mormon church is following in the footsteps of early Christianity's eventual apostasy. He does so to instill a sense of urgency in changing the direction things are going in: one that includes a change in scripture, a self-corruption that attempts to make the church seem normal to the world, a disgusting amount of money not spent on the poor (and goes instead, of course, to the shopping malls and grand temples), a complete lack of revelation (you're challenged to find a revelation from post-late-1800's), and so on. He did a great job on the post, though, so don't think that summary did the work proper justice!

Another blog posts an article from Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought about a kid who unwittingly reveals the same pattern while conversing with his dad about something he heard from his Primary teacher(read it here). Here's a fun sample of it:
“What do you mean ‘proud,’ Daddy?” 
“Well, [the "evil" people in a story from the BoM] would talk about how they were ‘a chosen and holy people.’” 
“My Primary teach said Mormons are the chosen people and we’re a special generation.” 
“Yes, honey, but that’s different.” 
“How?” 
“Because we are.” 
"Oh."
Of course, to me it seems inevitable that the church would decline. It's run by people who, I believe, don't have supernatural anything. And these people, like everyone else, can become corrupted by other people's interests, by groupthink, by mob mentality, and on and on. Of course the church had to reverse its position on blacks not getting the priesthood, and why was that a practice in the first place? Why were the Hoffman forgeries not found out before the apologist themselves started defending them? From what I remember, it was the most infamous "anti-Mormon" duo in recent times that revealed the truth! They didn't even have the Spirit to help guide their actions (or did they?).

The church allowed the Nazis their genealogy records to help determine who was Aryan or part Jewish (terribly useful moment of revelation) (also, a starting place for personal research)

It put a lot of money and organizational effort into going against Proposition 8, which failed (and backfired).

There has been a large decrease in the number of active Mormons, and people still wonder why?

I'm glad to see posts from Mormons who can see what's happening in the church and voice a criticism while seeing that criticism can, in fact, be useful and necessary.

But it's obvious to everyone else what's going on here and in the religious world as a whole: nothing is adding up.

Churches are presenting to their members the Truth they should believe--associating the belief and following of this Truth to the almighty supernatural; to this all-knowing and all-powerful, father-creator figure that blesses us accordingly. And everything is beautiful about it.

 People say they get job offers because they converted to a new religion. They were blessed financially because they tithed to God's Church. They found their wonderful spouse because God guided them to each other after joining His church.

And everyone who leaves or criticizes this beautiful interaction is lost, hopeless, and probably led astray by the Devil.

Meanwhile, big things have happened in my life after I stopped praying about them. I've found social circles that will stand the test of time. I've found that my blessings aren't so much a supernatural occurrence, but a by-product of self-confidence, a strong personal identity, and living in a goddamn first world country.

"Life is good", I said as a straight white male born into an upper-middle class family located in the Bible belt.

Riiiiight. Wonder why.

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