And I will add: Not only does it exist, but it is a very powerful institution in our time for good. It is one of the fastest growing churches in the world and will continue to grow because the Lord is leading and guiding our prophets for the purpose of getting the world ready for his second coming.
It may still be in the positive for now (thanks to growing missions in West Africa), but its growth is slowing from what it was even as recently as the 1990s.
According to this religion columnist's analysis of the LDS 2018 report, the 'growth' in the USA is at half the level of that outside of the country, and more or less matches general (non-LDS/overall) growth rates -- i.e., it is virtually indistinguishable from what you'd see by just looking at reproduction rates overall. That's pretty curious given the Mormon preference for large families. Exactly how long do expect Mormon membership numbers to remain in the black due to family size and missionary work in the third world? And what apologetic point do you plan on moving on to when these two pillars start faltering even more so than they already are?
Face it: There is simply not much conversion to Mormonism anymore. Under 200,000 people in the entire world in the year (which is not even saying that these are all through conversion anyway, but just the number added to the rolls, so it must include births to Mormon families as well) is not very much, particularly in contrast to what sometimes happens outside of Mormonism:
(From 2013)
"Syriac Orthodox Church Receives as many as 800,000 New Converts in Central America"
(From 2010; in Russian)
"Half a Million Guatemalan Indians Accept Orthodoxy"
These are much more than the ~195.5 K figure in the 2018 Mormon report, both in a single year, and not for the entire world, but only two examples taking place in specific states/regions within it. Do you believe they make the respective churches (Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox) true? You probably shouldn't. They don't.
Only Mormonism, Islam, etc. make this argument from "fastest growing religion in the world!" or whatever, because it sounds very 'sexy', in a quick media soundbites sense. But reality is much less exciting. Probably if we were to take the question out of specifically religious confines and rephrase it as "fastest growing worldviews with regard to religion", the fastest growing one in the world overall would be secularism, atheism, or agnosticism. And of course that doesn't make
anyone's religion look good. Maybe focus more on that than how great your religion supposedly is for growing less and less every year.
A lot of work needs to be done before that can take place, so buckle up and get ready for a rather wild ride.
Pfft. I await the second coming and nothing else.
Tradition is fine, but it can stagnate a church. The Jewish church and religious system is the perfect example of a stagnant, stuck in 1400bc for all time.
What "Jewish Church"? I have nothing to do with any so-called 'Messianic Jews'. What do such people have to do with anything?
The doctrines of the gospel will never change, such as baptism. The policies of the church will change depending on how the Lord wants to navigate the perilous times we go through as time winds on.
What does such a thing even mean when this has already happened many times over, and can only be wiggled out of by the fact that Mormons themselves get to decide which is which? (As it should be, of course.) What do you make of the example of early Mormon leaders like Brigham Young, who argued against miscegenation saying that the law against it will "always be so", and yet the vast majority of Mormons would regard such a view as crazy? (Thankfully.) Does it matter, then, that he did not specify whether or not he was giving 'policy' vs. 'doctrine', or 'revelation' vs. 'personal opinion', or whatever other way you can slice and dice all the ways your leadership walks back its previous statements? Not really. The world in general, outside of those who have given over their brains to octogenarian men in Utah, simply sees the change from one era or one leader to the next and says "Yeah, this is not consistent. One leader says 'this will never change', and then those who follow him spend their time changing it."
Don't get me wrong, we will never jettison JS.
Indeed. No JS, no Mormonism.
He is too important a person and gave us a great deal of knowledge through the Lord. But if we would have put our heads in the sand and not listened to Jesus Christ and stayed with plural marriage, we would not be a world-wide, dynamic force for good in the world today.
Did you? Did you really give up on it, or do you just
limit it now to your temples?
We would be like Jeffs and his group, running for cover and dodging the law
Huh...that reminds me of another you might know about:
Joseph Smith and the criminal justice system - Wikipedia
When you look at that table, pay close attention to the outcomes listed for events in January 1838 ("fled from Ohio to Missouri"), August 10th 1838 ("...but Smith fled to Illinois"), November 12th 1838 ("...fled from Missouri to Illinois"), and August 1842 ("In hiding from Aug 10 to Dec 30"). That's a whole lot of "running for cover and dodging the law" by your favorite guy.
We do and Jesus acknowledges that what JS did with regard to plural marriage was the right thing to do because in a relatively short time, the Lord has another people to do his work in these latter days. The foundation was set and so the Lord instructed WW to end the practice or the church would have been torn apart. Luckily he listened and the Lord has prospered the church even to this day.
Meh. I disagree, but whatever. These are all
religious claims, substantially different than things that can be answered without saying anything about the truth or falsehood of anyone's religious beliefs, like whether or not the Mormon religion still practices polygamy (it does in a modified form, as per the RNS link), whether or not JS hid from the law (he did), whether or not conversion happens in greater numbers outside of the Mormon religion than within it (it does), etc.
