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Old 05-27-2011, 04:22 PM   #21
ChinoCoug
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I'll have a chance to meet Givens in an intimate setting. If you have any questions for him, list them today.
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Old 05-27-2011, 07:20 PM   #22
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I would ask him something along the lines of whether he thinks that convert baptisms in the USA have slowed, or been disappointing, and whether that is more a reflection of the church and its changing relationship with the public, or whether it is general reflection on American society and the growing irreligious of it.

Along the same lines I might ask what he feels the impact of the Godmakers et al. has been on church growth, esp. in the internet age.
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Old 05-31-2011, 02:12 PM   #23
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I would ask him something along the lines of whether he thinks that convert baptisms in the USA have slowed, or been disappointing, and whether that is more a reflection of the church and its changing relationship with the public, or whether it is general reflection on American society and the growing irreligious of it.

Along the same lines I might ask what he feels the impact of the Godmakers et al. has been on church growth, esp. in the internet age.
He said that growth is dying in Europe as well, and we are becoming a Southern hemispheric church. I followed up by pointing out that the US is more religious in Europe, and it's secularizing, but we've lost the #1 growth spot to JWs and SDAs.

He said the internet has had a HUGE negative impact on Church growth. The Church recognizes this and is taking action.

He said we need to reconstruct our CES system. We are creating fragile testimonies. If you tell a 14-year old that Joseph Smith used a peepstone, he'd say, "Whoa! That's cool!" Instead, they are not finding out until later, and they leave the Church. Not because they found some other truth, but they feel they've been betrayed.

I talked to him about five years ago and he said that in order to get non-LDS people to subject the BoM to critical analysis, we should start by treating it as a literary piece.

http://cougarguard.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20024

Last weekend I asked him how much has Grant Hardy's book done in that regard. He said that's a critical step, but he hasn't heard any non-LDS people cite the book yet.

It was a very interesting symposium, with even heated debate. Maybe I'll post notes when I get the chance.

His wife Fiona was also present. She taught seminary, and junked the CES materials.
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Old 05-31-2011, 02:44 PM   #24
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Some CES people are great. But there have been others that I have been very much less than impressed with. And I've always felt like the watered-down served-on-a-platter history that the church teaches BETRAYS the legacy of the REAL people who sacrificed for this church. Even in people that are loyal to the church, there can be SKEPTICISM and DISTRUST of the curricula, because they know the TRUTH is not the number one priority.

When I was a young teenager, my father asked me if I had been reading "The New Era." He got a little ticked at me when I said, "I'm not going to read that propaganda."

Not everything in this church needs to be recounted in the General Conference sing-song voice.

Later on in college, I was doing some work for a BYU history professor, going through a diary of an early female Utah settler. I thought to myself, now this is interesting, this is something that makes me feel connected to this pioneer heritage. It's a real person with real desires. WHY DON'T THEY ASSIGN SOMETHING LIKE THIS in all these required BYU religion classes?

Needless to say, no one asks me for my advice.

I may be a little bit of a hypocrite. When I give a lesson, I go straight from the manual. Because it only takes me 5 minutes to prepare the lesson. And that's what I'm supposed to do anyway. I'm not supposed to reinvent something or give my own personal take on whatever topic is on my mind.

Anyway, my personal opinion on why the church isn't doing well missionary-wise is because very few people are interested in it. And most of the ones who are interested are the least educated and informed people in the country. Nothing wrong with these folks, but it sure doesn't bode well when there are whole swaths of demographics you can't touch.
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Old 05-31-2011, 02:46 PM   #25
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Also, my wife teaches Sunday School to the older teenagers. They tell her about all the crap they have to put up with. People mocking their religion, citing the infamous South Park episode, etc. I have the impression that for Mormonism, ignorance has been replaced with vitriol. And a few "family first" radio ads are not going to cut it.
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Old 06-01-2011, 02:30 PM   #26
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeWaters View Post
Some CES people are great. But there have been others that I have been very much less than impressed with. And I've always felt like the watered-down served-on-a-platter history that the church teaches BETRAYS the legacy of the REAL people who sacrificed for this church. Even in people that are loyal to the church, there can be SKEPTICISM and DISTRUST of the curricula, because they know the TRUTH is not the number one priority.

When I was a young teenager, my father asked me if I had been reading "The New Era." He got a little ticked at me when I said, "I'm not going to read that propaganda."

Not everything in this church needs to be recounted in the General Conference sing-song voice.

Later on in college, I was doing some work for a BYU history professor, going through a diary of an early female Utah settler. I thought to myself, now this is interesting, this is something that makes me feel connected to this pioneer heritage. It's a real person with real desires. WHY DON'T THEY ASSIGN SOMETHING LIKE THIS in all these required BYU religion classes?

Needless to say, no one asks me for my advice.

I may be a little bit of a hypocrite. When I give a lesson, I go straight from the manual. Because it only takes me 5 minutes to prepare the lesson. And that's what I'm supposed to do anyway. I'm not supposed to reinvent something or give my own personal take on whatever topic is on my mind.

Anyway, my personal opinion on why the church isn't doing well missionary-wise is because very few people are interested in it. And most of the ones who are interested are the least educated and informed people in the country. Nothing wrong with these folks, but it sure doesn't bode well when there are whole swaths of demographics you can't touch.
In DC we are still getting top-level converts (Manager of the largest directorate in the CIA converted in 2007, she has as Harvard MPA).

Including only faith-promoting stuff is nothing new to religion (John 20:30-31). As Archaea has documented, little in the scriptures can be considered "history" in the modern sense. I don't think The Church is doing anything egregious. It's just that it won't work anymore.

I called my little sister (22, nine years my younger) in Cali last night to tell her about the peepstone, and she already knew. Now that Bushman is at Claremont they hear him speak quite often.

I don't know what we'd do without Givens and Bushman.
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Old 06-01-2011, 03:10 PM   #27
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I have a few observations which may or may not be useful. I had some friends whom I invited to Church, who began reading the BoM and were interested. However, the interest waned over time.

I asked why. One was a lack of time for the investment required. Another criticism was a good and honest one. Even though we have lay persons, our sacrament meetings are downers and poorly constructed.

We have people using cookbook talks without insight. Here is what I mean. The typical talk is somebody reading some GC talks and some scriptures. I have recounted now numerous sacrament meetings where the speakers fail to tell any personal stories highlighting the principle being presented. It's Elder X said this. Alma Y says this.

Not, I was wondering how I could help my son feel the spirit so that he could look to God. So we were working in the yard and I felt inspired to stop and to ......

We seem to be a busy people, filled with facts and numbers, but no inspiration. We've lost the charisma, inherent with faults and instability, which informs the heart and propels us to action. Our sacrament meetings are often dead. Yes I can feel the Spirit but the Church feels like a walking zombie, uninspired and lacking passion.

And another issue are our hymns. They are such downers. No upbeat happy, healthy hymns of praise and glorious joy. The pace of the hymns is downtrodden. Yes we're suffering horrible economic times. I get that.

We need some talks about how to give talks and how to share the inspiring experiences so others can have them. We need a GA or two to step it up and say.

This Church is still inspired, and I have seen God, he still lives. We are His People and we invite all to come to Christ.

Instead we're becoming so ecumenical, we are indistinguishable and unrecognizable to our forefathers.
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