RFM todays tackles the Deception of LDS Leaders that the Church in shielding membership from being aware of a significant loss of members to disaffection. In this part 3 episode RFM shows using Leaders own words juxtaposed against the data that they are lying about Church growth and are downplaying disaffection. He then proceeds to show that Mormonism has begun a sleight of hand as they begin to shift what “growth” will mean for future members of the Church.
RESOURCES:
A Deep Review of LDS Growth Statistics
Elder Cook’s Deceptive Statement
Elder Holland Apparently Lying about Double Digit Stake Creation
Elder Holland’s Tantrum on Disaffection
Elder Eyring’s Redefining of Growth – (15:48)
Discussion of decreasing ward per stake
Links from 2016 on LDS.ORG refuting Elder Holland’s Imposed Growth of Stakes
1.March
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Great job Radio Free Guy; love your podcasts.
Great podcast as always!
I am going to act the prophet here and prophecy by the all powerful phleterpul that the church will discontinue the reading of statistics in GC in the next two years! They will simply just stop announcing them with no explanation or reference that they previously did this. Down the memory hole! Just like one year they stopped sustaining the church patriarch as a profit, sear, and levitator with no comment. I mean, it’s just too easy to do some analysis and prove that growth is stagnant/decreasing, and you can’t keep talking about the huge growth if you share the actual numbers!
But I do have to give the church a little credit on thing. In spite of their outward opposition to the Ordain Women movement, within a conference, the Relief Society presidency pictures (in all their bright colors) and young women presidency pictures showed up on the walls of the conference center; and magically, overnight, the 9 women leaders in the church were moved from the far right side of the red chairs facing the conference center to front and center, just below the pulpit! And then a woman gave the opening prayer in conference for the first time in 180+ years. Then it was told us that women would be on the major committees for the church. So, yeah, peer pressure works.
I hate to say “I told you so”, but……
However, I am not going to start a new church, or become the profit (heh,heh). However, Any type of financial support you wish to give, PLEASE send it RFM… He is the one who deserves it.
One additional item to consider. While I am sure that the 110 year rule helps the church membership numbers and this is a consideration, the primary reason for the 110 year rule is family history. All the membership records of the church are in the FamilySearch family tree. They are hidden until the person dies and is marked deceased in the membership system. Since many members are in the lost file (those that they church does not know where they live), they needed a way to determine when their information would be visible and available for members to submit for temple ordinance work. Hence the 110 year rule. This has primarily been driven by FamilySearch (the family history department) rather than by general authorities of the membership department.