The LDS church is, like all organizations, changing over time. The question is, in what direction will it go? Those of us who were members of the church and are no longer associated, or those of us who still participate but no longer accept the foundational claims of the church, have a special interest in what direction the church moves in the future. Our family members and close friends are still intimately involved day to day in church activities. I think it is fair to say that most of us would like to see the church become more liberalized, more accepting of those outside the church (especially apostates), and more relaxed in its claims to "one true church" status. We would like to attend the wedding ceremonies of our children and close relatives. Are these reasonable expectations? Or will the church retain, or perhaps even amplify, some of its more differentiating practices?

From Sect to Church

An interesting book sheds significant light on the possibilities of the LDS church by examining the life-cycle of other churches in America over the last 200 years. The Churching of America, 1776 to 1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy by Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, examines the rise and fall (or perhaps, just the "stagnation") of several "main line" denominations in the United States. One of the fundamental premises of Finke and Stark (referred to hereafter as F&S) is that almost all churches began life as a "sect," and over time slowly transform into more respectable "churches." The differences between a sect and a church will be discussed more below.

From F&S page 42, "Churches and sects differ greatly in their ability to satisfy different human needs, needs that are always reflected in distinct segments of the religious market. ... it is very difficult for any single religious organization to be at once very worldly and very otherworldly or both strict and permissive. Churches serve the segment of the market with less need for a strict and otherworldy faith; sects serve the segment seeking those features. ... The sect-church process concerns the fact that new religious bodies nearly always begin as sects and that, if they are successful in attracting a substantial following, they will, over time, almost inevitably be gradually transformed into churches. That is, successful religious movements nearly always shift their emphasis toward this world and away from the next, moving from high tension with the environment toward increasingly lower levels of tension. As this occurs, a religious body will become increasingly less able to satisfy members who desire a high-tension version of faith."

One primary difference between a sect and a church is the level tension that exists between the members of the organization and the surrounding community. Sects exist in high tension with their neighbors, and churches generally have low tension. Sects have belief systems and practices that often challenge the status quo, are uncomfortable, or even "weird" to the general population. This creates tension. Churches are more often "respectable," and have beliefs that are generally accepted, if not followed, by most people in a community. My interest in this subject is to judge at what point the LDS church is in this evolution, and will it eventually become a full fledged "church," as defined by Finke and Stark, or does it maintain unique features that maintain its sect status?

Sects will always have some attraction for certain segments of the population. Like a start-up company, they have a "mission." They are distinct. They are "reformers." People like to be part of a select group. They have high requirements and high promised rewards, and often high tension with the surrounding community. They require high levels of commitment from the members. All of these things describe the early Mormons, and some of these traits still exist in today's church. Again from Finke and Stark (pg 238):

"...religious organizations are stronger to the degree that they impose significant costs in terms of sacrifice and even stigma upon their members. ... People tend to value religion on the basis of how costly it is to belong -- the more one must sacrifice in order to be in good standing, the more valuable the religion. ... in terms of real costs and benefits, the more "mainline" the church (in the sense of being regarded as "respectable" and "reasonable"), the lower the value of belonging to it, and this eventually results in widespread defection."

It is these differentiating traits that are likely more responsible for maintaining membership in a church than the content of the church's doctrine itself. Eric Hoffer commented on this phenomenon in his book The True Believer (pg 79): "Thus, the effectiveness of a doctrine should not be judged by its profundity, sublimity or the validity of the truths it embodies, but by how thoroughly it insulates the individual from his self and the world as it is. ... The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude."

This cost and stigmatization exemplifies a psychological phenomenon that has long been described by psychologists. The more someone invests in a particular idea and the greater the personal cost, the harder they will cling to that idea, even in the face of dis-confirming evidence. Some features of the LDS church that maintain this degree of "cost" on the members are tithing, temple attendance and accompanying wearing of garments, expectation of holding a potentially time-consuming church calling, required weekly attendance of meetings, keeping the word of wisdom, Sabbath day observance in general, women not being allowed to hold leadership positions or the official "priesthood," and recommended practices at home such as scripture study, family home evening, and family prayer. There are other cultural aspects of Mormonism that most members or former members are aware of that also add to the cost of being a member.

Evidence that the LDS has already begun the sect-to-church transition may be found in the doctrines and practices that have been changed or dropped over the years, sometimes under significant community pressure. Tension with the surrounding world will naturally seek relief. This will usually be done by conforming to that with which the tension exists - rarely can the sect expect the rest of the world to conform to their unusual practice(s). In the case of the LDS church, this relieving of tension has come several times. First, and probably most famously, is the issue of polygamy. Polygamy was a huge "cost" of belonging to the church, and a very distinct social marker. However, when outside pressure was applied to the point of the church losing property and its leaders facing jail time, eternal doctrine was dropped in a pragmatic move to accommodate society. While believing members would argue that this was done with the sanction of the Lord by revelation, there is no question that the practices of the church were aligned to society, and not vice versa. Probably the second most well-known instance is the LDS church's stance on blacks holding the priesthood or participating in the temple. While doctrine justifying the practice still exists in the church's scripture and many writings of the past leaders, the move allowing any male person to hold the priesthood was, again, a move that brought the church into line with the prevailing views of surrounding society.

Additional evidence is found in the LDS church's temple ceremonies. At one time oaths were taken where members would pledge to lose their lives, even in most graphic manner, rather than reveal the secrets of the temple ceremony. I experienced them myself. These have been toned down considerably to be only promises without physical penalty. At one time persons going through the temple were bathed completely in ceremonial perfumed whiskey, then anointed with oil. Later, only small dabs of water and oil were used to bless parts of the body; and most recently, no touching of any part of the body is done except on the head of those receiving the anointing. The temple ceremony also contained a protestant preacher, who represented the "philosophies of men" teaching in the world, and worked directly for Satan. This role was dropped, and the ceremony became less offensive to outsiders who learned of this portion of the ceremony, or to those who were converts from protestant religions. Again, one may argue the source of the mandate to make these changes, but you cannot argue that they resolve "tension" between the LDS church members and outsiders.

Most recently and visibly have been Gordon Hinkley's interviews to national and international news programs and agencies. He has been very careful not to emphasize the differences between the church and others, but the similarities. He avoids questions about the doctrines of who was worthy to hold the priesthood, how Mormons believe that God is an exalted man, and the implications of a male-dominated church hierarchy. He is very anxious to present a modern, down-home, non-threatening image to the rest of the world. Anyone who has visited Temple Square in Salt Lake City should recognize the changes in the visitors centers, done under the direction of Mr Hinkley. Displays demonstrating the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith receive much less prominence than in times past. The image that is presented to the world is that the LDS church is a Christian Church, believes in the Bible, and has strong family values.

In fairness, I should consider counter examples where the LDS church has become more strict in its doctrines or practices. Originally, the "Word of Wisdom" was just that - a recommendation for the wise. But coffee, tea, beer, and tobacco were used by the early saints, even by Joseph Smith himself, with no impact on their "worthiness." However, the WoW was elevated to "commandment" status sometime later, with compliance necessary for baptism into the church and for a temple recommend thereafter. But even the word of wisdom may be easing slightly - when I was young my stake president would not give temple recommends to those who drank cola drinks. This is not a requirement now (and may never have been universal). Another counter-example is tithing. Compliance has arguably become more strict since the time of Wilford Woodruff, when the church was in dire financial straights. But even the law of tithing is a backtrack from the early attempts at living the "united order," where members were expected to give everything they have to the church. Even now those attending the temple still pledge to give everything they have to the LDS church should it be required.

The Effects of Mainstreaming

Finke and Stark examine several examples of churches that have made the "sect to church" transition, including Methodist, Lutheran, Congregationalists, and Episcopalians. All of these denominations, though not actually shrinking in size, failed to keep pace with other religions that took their "market share." Originally, Methodism was one of those "sects" that grew rapidly in the early and mid 1800s, but then growth faded as it matured into a "church." At the time Methodism was maturing, Southern Baptists were growing rapidly. While some have viewed this maturing process of many mainstream religions as a maturing of the overall religions market in America, Finke and Stark demonstrate that religious affiliation has never been higher. People have simply moved their allegiance to churches that satisfied their particular need. This process continues even today, as witnessed by the amazing growth of Pentecostal and "Evangelicals" in the 1990s.

F&S propose that "mainstreaming" of religious denominations results in disaffection of a certain portion of the membership, and eventually, church growth will stagnate if not stop all together. Those that desire the high-cost, "otherworldy" church may become concerned that the church is getting off track. These adherents may stress a need to "get back to basics." One of the signs that a sect is evolving into a main-line church is the formation of splinter "fundamentalist" groups. By this criterion, the LDS church may be well on its way to "church" status, since there are a number of fundamentalist LDS groups that have separated from the main body of the church. Many of these embrace the principal of polygamy, which was dropped by the mainline church over 100 years ago. As much as the modern LDS church wishes to distance itself from polygamy, anyone who studies the writings and speeches of early church leaders will discover just how important they thought it was.

A potentially larger group of people may be affected by the watering down of doctrines and relaxing of practices as well. These are those who leave because the rewards of membership simply no longer cover the costs. A comparison could be made with the Catholic church and the advent of "Vatican II," which dropped, changed, or made optional a significant number of unique practices of the Catholic church. Meatless Friday was no longer required, and church attendance was demoted from "commandment" status. "This new norm regarding fasting also opened the door to independent thinking for the Catholic believer. The fact that eating meat on Friday was no longer considered a mortal sin raised for many Catholics the larger question about the attribution of sinfulness to other actions. It had, for many Catholics, a kind of "hole in the dike" effect... In sum, the result of the changes of Vatican II was that Catholics began to believe that sin was perhaps not an objective phenomenon out there for all time, determined by some external unchanging authority, but highly situational and subject to legitimate redefinition over time." (F&S, pg 264)

If the church reduces its requirements on the members, then many of those members will begin to think that the church is simply not so important, or that the requirements that are left are not worth the effort. I had a friend who is in a bishopric comment to me that he simply sees so many members who appear to be "dead in the harness." The rewards have dropped to a point where they simply no longer wish to put forth effort to participate.

I see a parallel between a business and the church going through "mid-life" crisis. An established business has a current set of customers that they would like to satisfy, but the market has stagnated. They also recognize that the product needs updating or perhaps a complete overhaul to reach new market segments and compete with newcomers. But it is very difficult for a business to re-invent itself wholesale - there is a large amount of institutional inertia, and there is fear of making a mistake and losing current customers. In the extreme a business may go bankrupt because of cash-flow issues while they prepare a new product. So, often they are paralyzed into doing almost nothing, or making minor cosmetic changes and hanging on and hoping for the best. It takes a whole new company created from scratch to set in place the culture and product design to service new markets. So it seems to be with churches.

Interestingly, there are a few examples of what happens to a religious organization when it attempts to institute a drastic change in the core doctrines in response to intellectual inquiry or historical findings. First, is the Reorganized LDS Church, now known as the Community of Christ. Once they acknowledged that Joseph Smith actually did practice polygamy, contrary to their claim for nearly 150 years, they lost some of their unique claims to legitimacy against the LDS church, and it seemed that anything was fair game. Some members still believe the Book of Mormon is scripture, but not a real translation, and some believe it is literal. They claim to accept anyone who believes in Jesus Christ; but then why would someone join them and not another larger, more well established organization? As a result they have seen significant losses of members, and have recently combined with another small LDS offshoot to become the Community of Christ.

Another example is the Seventh Day Adventists. In the early 80s it was uncovered that many of the "revelations" of Ellen G. White were actually plagiarisms. At that time the leadership attempted to stonewall, but many could see the obviousness of the copying and left the church. In one report I read it claims that over 100 ministers were fired from the church over this issue, with many members and congregations following (reported at http://www.bible.ca/7-white-inpsired-100-pastors-fired.html). Since then the church has attempted to carry on, though there appear to be factions within the church that still debate the prophetic abilities of Ellen White. It is apparent that this controversy has not been good to the Adventist church membership - in the United States they were enjoying high growth rates in the 70s and before, much like the LDS church, of around 50% per decade; but growth has since fallen off significantly, to only around 8% during the decade of the 1990s (see http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.html).

Boyd Packer Saves the Church?

How could a sect avoid this stagnation? One of the main motivators of the sect-to-church transition is the accommodation of secular society into the core doctrines. In the examples given by Finke and Stark, these accommodations often come from the professional preachers and seminarians that have the time to think about religion and theology and attempt to resolve the inconsistencies they find. This rationalization waters down the fire and brimstone aspects of the faith, makes the religion more gentile and accommodating, and admits that we often do not know exactly what was meant by certain passages of the bible. Pronouncements become softer, because those that delve into these matters come to realize that making iron-clad announcements about the facts of heaven and the afterlife are fraught with uncertainty.

The fact is, most people could care less about theological consistency. Religion appeals to people on an emotional level. People crave certainty and answers to life's greatest questions. No one wants to go to church to hear a sermon on how we really don't know what God is like. They would rather have the emotional catharsis of repentance, acknowledgment of their unworthiness, but being caught up and saved by Jesus. Churches that become too cerebral in their preaching lose audience.

Enter Boyd Packer. If he became president of the church he could stick to the hard line that the enemies of the church are the intellectuals, feminists, and gays. He could insist that NO ACCUMULATION OF FACTS could shake a testimony firmly grounded in the spirit. Those that attempt to intellectualize are being deceived by Satan. The more authoritative and sure of himself he sounds, the better. As Hinkley said, they may lose some here and there, but the core would be strengthened in their belief that their sacrifice is worthwhile. I have heard a number of ex-mormons say the thing that got them headed down the path to apostasy was Hinckley's equivocations when confronted on a public forum. Packer may have a chance to reverse that. Churches that water down the doctrine and lower the bar for entry also make it much easier for members to leave. Packer may be the best thing to happen to the church since Joseph Fielding Smith.

The LDS church does not have a seminary system equivalent to other churches where professional leadership is trained in theology. This type of seminary is often the breeding ground of liberal doctrines that tend to weaken the absolute claims of a church. LDS seminaries, on the other hand, are carefully correlated indoctrination for young members. By controlling the program, a la, Packer's "Faithful History," they make sure that the critical questions do not get bantered about. The closest thing to a Methodist seminary that the LDS church has is perhaps the religion department at BYU. Thus, the implementation of the "continuing ecclesiastical endorsement" is a step in the right direction (from the church's point of view) to containing the egg-heads who want to actually think about their religion. All Packer has to do is make sure (and I believe he's done this) that people like Eugene England and Lowell Bennion never achieve a leadership position where they could exert any broad influence.

Probably one of the best things going for the church is the local lay leadership. These men are not full time pastors and receive no theological training. They are usually extremely busy just fulfilling the basics of their church calling. Thus, they will have little time to delve into they mysteries of the doctrine or the historical realities of the church itself. They will continue to be the vanguard that maintains the membership, even at great personal sacrifice. In fact, this sacrifice contributes significantly to their testimony of the work.

Just to reiterate, all these things that could help the church keep its uniqueness and core membership are not necessarily good for the individual member. Members that desire more depth in theological discussion and intellectual stimulation will probably be unsatisfied. But for those that seek tribal affiliation, simple declarations of faith and obedience, this approach works well.

Some Final Thoughts

I believe that the church is at an inflection point in its development. The US "market" is saturated and foreign missionary work does not bring in the quality of converts that the church needs to sustain its financial expectations. It very well may be that the Joseph Smith freight train has run its course. The ideas that brought people into the religion to begin with no longer have the pull they did in the beginning. People are no longer interested in where the Native Americans came from - that question has been answered by science. People have written so many books on spirituality that the Book of Mormon is no longer quite so unique. The leaders of the church have to decide where to go from here. Do they retrench and remain an organization with fundamentalist-type doctrine, or do they increasingly mainstream? I believe they are currently trying to do both - present a greater appearance of a "respectable" church while maintaining doctrine. But the temptation to appear credible to the rest of the world, and thus, draw more membership, is great. Look no further than Hinkley's television interviews for evidence of this. At a time when he could have stood firm and verified some of the LDS church's more unique doctrines, he chose to soft pedal. Over time I believe more quirky doctrines will be jettisoned and down-played. God was once a man? "I don't know that we teach that." Polygamy is essential for salvation? Already gone. Lamanites are the "principle ancestors" of all native americans? Enter the "Limited Geography Theory." The temple ceremony has been changed and "toned down" a number of times. All these things will make the church and its doctrine more acceptable to outsiders, but at the same time reduce its uniqueness.

However, I could see the church maintaining some strict observances to keep the "cost" and differentiation at a high enough level to appear credible to the core membership. The Word of Wisdom will likely remain a significant social marker. Temple exclusivity will still be important, especially in the Mormon corridor - there is significant pressure to be part of the "club," and to be a club member requires full tithe payment. However, outside the corridor this may not be such a strong motivation. And the more certain the declarations from the pulpit that the LDS church is indeed the only church in whom the Lord is well pleased, the more the core members will embrace it.

The leadership will continue to walk a tightrope between making allowances for changes in society and being acceptable to outsiders, but keeping enough tension to be unique. They frankly don't have much choice - to admit that Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon would be a disaster, regardless of the evidence. But I think we can count on the inevitable move towards "church" status to continue to liberalize some of the core doctrines and practices. Tension seeks relief. As one sage said, "scientific progress moves forward one death at a time." The same can be said of the church leadership - as new leaders fill the ranks, those that have been exposed to and accepting of a wider range of ideas, change is inevitable. I just hope to see more of it in my lifetime.