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On the Church’s impending death

On the Church’s impending death

Last updated on: December 22, 2019 at 6:35 pm by Dan Peterson

On the Church’s impending death 2019-12-22T18:35:05-07:00 Dan Peterson

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An illustration from an objective and scholarly nineteenth-century study of Latter-day Saint theology and practice
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

The Church exaggerates its growth. Most converts drop out. It is in sharp decline:

The Mormon rulers take great pains to have it believed that their community is continually and rapidly increasing. This, however, is a very great mistake. There has always been a curious state of accumulation and loss going on with them, and the loss is at present probably the largest part of the account. There is no society in the world in which there are so few permanent members, in proportion to the converts originally made. Many of the newborn Saints very soon lose the soda-water enthusiasm which is first experienced, and fall away; many, who have zeal enough to commence the mighty pilgrimage toward the modern Zion, cool off, and lodge like drift-wood by the way. Each emigrating body tapers off, something like the army of Peter the Hermit in the first great crusade . . . [Mormonism is like] a miniature whirlwind upon a dusty plain [which grows rapidly] until it somewhat suddenly subsides . . . it needs no great degree of prophet-sagacity to foresee its [Mormonism’s] subsidence in like manner.

Benjamin Ferris, Utah and the Mormons (1856), 322. Ferris had formerly served as Utah territorial secretary.

Whereas the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints once had effective and charismatic leaders, those days are past, and it is in sharp decline:

Though it would be rash to assume that Mormonism is dead, it would be equally rash to believe it can survive, for any extended period, the death of its great leader.

Indianapolis Sentinel, following the death of Brigham Young, 1877

The Mormon church was stronger at four o’clock Sunday afternoon than it ever will again become; the remarkable will and organizing force of the dead leader departed with him, and have been transmitted to none other in his church; and we may now watch with complacency, if not with joy, the gradual disintegration of the whole Mormon fabric.

Salt Lake Tribune, following the death of Brigham Young, 1877

Mormonism did alright in isolation but, as Latter-day Saints come into contact with the wider world and with alternative worldviews (e.g., via the Internet), their provincial ignorance will give way to broader perspectives and the Church will decline sharply:

The click of the telegraph and the roll of the Overland stage are its [Mormonism’s] death rattle now. The first whistle of the locomotive will sound its requiem; and the pickaxe of the miner will dig its grave.

Samuel Bowles, editor of the Hartford Times

By encouraging the influx of Gentile population . . . in the course of a decade, the Mormon ascendency would be destroyed . . . and the great octopus, shorn of its political power, would be obliged to assume its proper station among the ranting sects which come and go and are forgotten.

George Seibel, The Mormon Problem (1899)

Anyway, it needs to go:

I think Mormonism is doomed, sooner or later — the sooner the better . . . this foul blot upon our civilization [that is, Mormonism] shall be known only as a horrid night mare of the past — this “hideous she monster” shall retire to the black caverns of hell from which she came. God grant it may be so!

Reverend Edgar Estes Folk, The Mormon Monster (1900)

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