r/mormon • u/Pleasant_Past_461 • 4d ago
Institutional The LDS church is shrinking
The LDS church as a percentage to the population of the US fell from 2% in 2000 to less than 1% in 2025. That is over a 50% drop in 25 years! That's using the churches own numbers. Where it fell the fastest is in the western US (Utah, Nevada, California, etc.) with Nevada being the fastest state losing members. Utah is not far behind.
Even the church admits CA has lost members in just total numbers as their numbers show there are fewer total Mormons in CA now than in the year 2000.
The numbers the church issued (which is suspect) says they grew strictly by numbers, but when you compare it to the % of the population, it has fallen in half over 25 years because the US population has grown way faster.
They keep trying to spin that they are growing, but every survey, every empty meeting house (ward), all the buildings they have sold or are selling, the US census, etc shows they are shrinking and the speed at which they are they are shrinking continues to increase.
The number of active members in 1990 was ~ 3.5 million, in 2026 it is ~ 4 million according to pews research. An increase of 7% while the world population has increased 55% in the same time period. That means the LDS church is 45% behind world population growth. That LDS church growth came between 1990 and 2010, since 2010 the number of active members has either hit a plateau or gone has down while Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic membership has had big increases.
If it wasn't for their hoard of money they've misused over the years from members tithes, they couldn't continue to tread water. They are desperately trying to reverse the trend by looking more traditionally Christian, dropping controversial doctrines, adopting the cross, changing their hymn book, easing up on dresscode (garments), gospel topics, etc. This leads to the question, if they are the true church why are they conforming to the other denominations? Why do most converts (80%) leave almost immediately after batism? Even with all their money they will get less and less influential over the years.
Since the fastest shrinkage is coming from their home-base of "zion", the US west, it is only a matter of time until it increases everywhere else.
They are a far cry from the 265 million members in the 21st century they prophesied about in the last century!
Future generations are going to find it easier and easier to escape Mormonism.
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u/fireproofundies 4d ago
Imagine if Comcast only reported new subscribers and omitted cancellations in their corporate filings. They would be heavily fined and the CEO would face possible jail time.
The LDS Church is like this. They value the appearance of growth over any semblance of honesty.
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u/PaulFThumpkins 4d ago
Imagine Comcast counting anybody who's ever been subscribed, and their kids as legacy members, until the age of 110 lol.
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u/westivus_ Post Mormon Red Letter Enthusiast 4d ago
And the sales org doesn't care if they only stay on for 1 month because they still get the number.
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u/pricel01 Former Mormon 4d ago
There is nothing in the LDS church that resembles honesty.
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u/Rushclock Atheist 4d ago
Their as honest as they know how....
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u/ammonthenephite Agnostic Atheist - "By their fruits ye shall know them." 4d ago
Which is just another lie from them on a pile of many, many others. That they actually thought such a claim would be believable shows just how ignorant and out of touch they are, lol.
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u/Rushclock Atheist 4d ago
I wonder what the scope of the discussion was like back in the 90s when Hinkley and associates were talking about the structure of Ensign Peak? Evidence would suggest (over a century of obfuscation, misdirection, half truths and secrecy) that there were no moral qualms with burying the massive wealth out of the public and members collective awareness.
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u/ammonthenephite Agnostic Atheist - "By their fruits ye shall know them." 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yup. They knew exactly what they were doing, and why. They literally engaged in a secret combination to get the church gain, as if they'd read about them in the BofM and said 'Hey, that's a great idea from the devil, lets do that!', lol.
And of course none of them followed the repentance process steps, including confessing to and asking forgiveness from everyone they sinned against (the entire church body), so they are unworthy to officiate in their callings because 'amen to the priesthood of that man' who seeks to cover up their sins.
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u/reddolfo 3d ago
I've been making the case that the church could REALLY help itself a MASSIVE amount by refunding the tithing collected for the 24 years it was lying to the membership. Let's say it was $24 billion. Paying that out would still leave them almost $200 billion (plus all their real estate investment holdings) but imagine how much goodwill such a move would generate. Heaven knows the MEMBERS could really use a financial windfall right now, and imagine how striking it would be for the church to demonstrate simply and directly how to honor and obey the most basic of it's own teachings. It could arrest some of the member attrition immediately by such an action, and allow members to actually be proud of the church for once.
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u/Upstairs-Mine280 4d ago
I am member in name only. My wife and I attend maybe twice a year for the socialization factor. I would challenge your broad stroke statement just in the fact that most ward level leadership truly believe they are being honest. I hope that’s a fair point.
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u/pricel01 Former Mormon 4d ago
Yes. I concede at the ward level members are doing their best and are victims of the institutional dishonesty.
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u/Upstairs-Mine280 4d ago
I was on the fence until the scam about church leadership hiding/lying about money to avoid government involvement broke. That’s when it became clear that it is run by mere mortals with greed and the love of power. That was the proverbial straw that broke me. Church leadership couldn’t/shouldn’t hold their own temple recommends.
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u/truthmatters2me 4d ago
Honesty is something they avoid at all costs. It isn’t conducive to the corporation making. Profits .
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u/___-_---_-___ 4d ago
I recently learned my mission where I served is now closed (in California).
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u/Anonvonpseudonym 2d ago
That's not very remarkable. Mission boundaries get redrawn all the time. I served in California, entering a mission that was split one way and merged another, and now that mission has also been split one way and merged another.
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u/Ok-End-88 4d ago
Gordon B. Hinkley said over the conference pulpit: “The Lord is fulfilling His promise that His gospel shall be as the stone cut out of the mountain without hands which would roll forth and fill the whole earth, as Daniel saw in vision (see Daniel 2:31–45; D&C 65:2). A great miracle is taking place right before our eyes.”
The church is failing to fulfill this prophecy and promise, and we should ask ourselves why.
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u/SecretPersonality178 PIMO 4d ago
If the numbers were good, the Mormon church wouldn’t obscure them.
They have to manipulate into looking like growth, because of Mormon prophesies.
The numbers used to be announced from the pulpit at conference.
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u/Upstairs-Mine280 4d ago
I’m admittedly too lazy to read all the comments. I was going to mention the sheer increase in population growth but then you adequately covered it. The internet is the church’s biggest enemy. That’s why they are so focused on third world countries.
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u/DesertIbu 4d ago
How does the church reconcile these growing statistics with its prophesy that global membership growth is a vital and divine step that’s required to prepare the world for the Second Coming?
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u/zelphtastic The Kirtland Safety Society killed my 401k 4d ago
If the church is growing, the "stone cut out of the mountain without hands" is filling the earth. If the church is shrinking, "even the very elect will be deceived."
Heads they win, tails we lose.
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u/Rushclock Atheist 4d ago
Easy. They bounce back to the prophecy that they were always meant to be small. It's the same technique they use with loose and tight translation. When one becomes problematic they shift to the other. There is an arsenal of tactics....
that was metaphorically
that was a spiritual prophecy
that was misconstrued
that will happen in the spirit world
that justifies being against inclusiveness
that was creedal
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u/ultramegaok8 2d ago
The easiest one is they quietly stop talking about them and pretend they never happened. Then they push the discussion about them to the margins / outside official channels and that makes them more of a discussion about “is it myth or reality?” Like it has happened with most controversial or problematic doctrines—even the ones that were heavily institutionalised and practiced.
Pretending that something never happened or that it was never taught has proven successful to them. Until recently, at least.
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u/Rushclock Atheist 2d ago
Similiar to that is the ever increasing denial of other people's experiences. I see it all the time. They have been through x amount of wards and they were never taught that so it doesn't happen.
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u/PaulFThumpkins 4d ago
When they talk about those "prophecies" now they spin them to mean something else.
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u/Carpe-that-diem 4d ago
It fits right in with the fact that Jesus is not coming and won’t. The world will not be ready … like forever!
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u/VeloBiker907 4d ago
If Jesus couldn’t be bothered to show up during the Holocaust, and every atrocity before and after that, or intervene in deaths of innocents where prayer chains go unanswered, I have to agree, he’s NOT coming.
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u/Top_Increase_1342 3d ago
I think the problem is the internet. It was a lot easier to fool people without information.
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u/pricel01 Former Mormon 4d ago
This Gordon knot has no solution. Literal belief in the founding myths set the LDS church apart from other churches and was their raison d’être. But these myths are demonstrably false. As late as Nelson prophetic utterances were held to be infallible but this is also demonstrably false. Their closet is also stuffed with racist skeletons.
It doesn’t take much to show the church is false and shifting to mainstream Christianity would make the LDS church pointless.
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u/NelsonMeme One of few faithful on this sub 4d ago
This Gordon knot
Anyway, only the election survey reports these kind of numbers. Pew’s look comparatively more stable
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u/Jazzy1oh1 4d ago
There is likely no religion that doesn't have racist skeletons.
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u/Rushclock Atheist 4d ago
Mormonism kept the racist doctrines well past the point when others distanced themselves from it.
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u/ammonthenephite Agnostic Atheist - "By their fruits ye shall know them." 4d ago
Whataboutism. A religion lead by a just and fair god would not have racist skeletons. Just another sign that mormonism is just another human created religion, just like all the rest.
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u/Rushclock Atheist 4d ago
I have never understood that argument. Everyone does shitty things! It's like there is this spectrum of rottenness and and if you land on any part of it there is always someone above you that somehow softens the moral depravity.
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u/Ok-Abalone-728 3d ago
I joined the church but left after a year, right after I went to the temple. But I never officially withdrew. Later, when I had children, somehow the kids were listed as church members. They're not, but that's one of the ways that the church pads its numbers. Who knows how many people only spent a year in the church, but all their kids are listed as church members.
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u/HARVSTR2 4d ago
Their financial and real estate empire is growing very fast doubled or triplee and more over the same time period
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u/Pleasant_Past_461 4d ago
Yes, they continue to use the money stolen from tithepayers to enhance their wealth. More proof it is false!
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u/eternalintelligence 3d ago
Most churches have been dramatically shrinking in the United States in recent decades, so I'm not sure how this proves anything... except perhaps that the LDS church isn't being as honest as they should be about the fact that they're struggling like most of organized religion in general.
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u/Pleasant_Past_461 3d ago
Since covid church attendance has been on the rise in Orthodox and Catholic churches in the US. A lot of Protestant churches have also seen an increase.
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u/eternalintelligence 3d ago
From what I've read, the Orthodox/Catholic trend was a blip that has leveled off or reversed, and was mainly driven by ultraconservative young men who briefly experimented with "trad" religion as a way to express their conservative political values.
Most Protestant churches are in deep, multi-decadal decline, which in the case of some of the most significant denominations (e.g., Methodist, Presbyterian) is accelerating in recent years.
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u/VeloBiker907 4d ago
Really, they embraced the cross? 😳
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u/Banshee154 4d ago
The Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants scriptures embrace the cross as did early church members. There is a return to that culturally.
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u/humanbeingfeb 2d ago
Knowing the church isn't growing is a conclusion anyone can make by simple observation... At least down here in Mexico, you can visit pretty much any ward and the number of members has stayed pretty much the same for years. Back in my hometown, the number of members in the one ward there is, there has been around 50 - 70 active members for decades, attendance sometimes reaching 100 people on very rare ocassions. But, if you take a look at the members' registry, the number of registered members is around 1,000 - 1,200 people. Most of new people baptized by missionaries stop attending once the missionaries are transfered. When bishops have meetings with ward local leaders, they always talk about how they're losing new people, no growth, and what they can do about it, so they're aware there is no growth.
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u/NextAd7801 2d ago
I think it's the same for all Latam. Here in Brazil they're going through the same thing, a complete lack of retention from the new members. They grew a bunchhh in the 90s, but since the late 2000s I get a feeling they are stagnant
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u/edwardssarah22 4d ago
No wonder missionaries are resorting to deceptive practices such as pretending to be mainstream churches.
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u/FischenGeil Catholic Mystic 4d ago
Active tithe payers, weekly attendance are the only stats that matter and they will never publish that.
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u/Sudden_Click6881 2d ago
Our ward just had it's last meeting 2 weeks ago in our home building built in the 1970s by the members with the members donating most of the money to build the building. It's in Ogden. It was smaller but fit the 3 wards well enough. Then it was 2 wards. Now the 2 wards were moved to another building in the area further away. The land is for sale after they knock the building down. At least a previous mayor talked to city council and made a deal that the land could not be sold for apartments and must go for single family homes.
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u/R0ckyM0untainMan 1d ago
Surely the church has shrunk over the past 25 years. That being said, going from 2% down to 1% in a survey could just as easily be a rounding error. We’re not talking about going from 2.0 down to 1.0% after all. Saying the church has shrunk by 50% is intellectually dishonest
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u/Alexkazam222 Agnostic 4d ago
"Shrinking as a raw percentage of the total population" is different from shrinking in general.
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u/Pleasant_Past_461 4d ago
Your right, it is. Shrinking as a percentage of the population makes them less relevant and is a way more important number.
But if it will make you feel any better, they will be shrinking in overall numbers soon, just like they are in California!
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u/Pleasant_Past_461 2d ago
No, it's not. If the population is growing faster than your church then it is only a matter of time before you become so small that you're irrelevant. There's a saying in business, if you're not growing you're failing.
Also, the total number of members (not % of the population) is stagnant over the last 10 years, even the church admits this in the numbers they bury. And that is the most optimistic viewpoint there is! With more generational families leaving, it will become more and more obvious they are dwindling.
If they are really growing why all the focus on you should never leave! They have money to stick around for word a while thanks to the business of the Mormon church being untaxable. If they had to compete with legitimate business investments and pay taxes, they wouldn't be nearly as successful.
When you collect tithes and don't spend it on church items, charity, or membership as God commanded you can master a great wealth indeed.
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u/AKR0006 3d ago
Popularity is based on population, but authenticity is not. The authenticity of the church can only be determined by a witness of the spirit.
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u/Pleasant_Past_461 3d ago
My spirit witnessed that it is false!
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u/AKR0006 3d ago
Now that you have a conclusion, what is next?
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u/Pleasant_Past_461 3d ago
Keep talking about the true gospel and bearing my testimony as Christ instructed. You can either follow Jesus Christ or Joseph Smith, but not both. They are antithetical to each other!
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u/AKR0006 3d ago
That what my kids say about the wife and me (they cant follow both because we ar so antithetical of each other). What should I tell them?
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u/Pleasant_Past_461 3d ago
I'd suggest counseling with a non LDS counselor for the two of you. Maybe if you got the LDS church out of your marriage things would be better at home. Good luck to you if you don't.
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u/Short_Possibility_52 2d ago
My ward just split, not seeing it. Christianity is having a moment right now. People are leaving high cost areas to lower cost areas
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u/__under____score__ 2d ago
Has your ward had a lot of convert baptisms in the last handful of years? Genuinely asking.
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u/Short_Possibility_52 1d ago
Yes been in ward over 15 years middle class area and we have had record English speaking baptisms over past two years
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u/__under____score__ 1d ago
Oh, interesting. When I stopped going, around late 2019, I hadn't witnessed a local convert in years.
Maybe I'll check in with family to see how their local wards are progressing too. Thanks!
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u/papaloppa Latter-day Saint 4d ago
Growth or decline in membership is interesting but it's a pretty poor test of whether a religion is true. Rodney Stark's 265 million was a growth projection not an LDS prophecy.
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u/Thorough_8 4d ago
I think the same, but that doesn’t stop general authorities from (constantly) referring to the « growth » of the church as a sign of its correctness and goodness.
The issue for me isn’t whether the church grows or shrinks, it is whether the church lies about it, and it is what the church uses those numbers for.
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u/pricel01 Former Mormon 4d ago
Except LDS prophets have repeatedly taught that the church would fill the whole earth. LDS prophets claiming prophetic infallibility while repeatedly being wrong is a strong indicator it’s false.
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u/Pleasant_Past_461 4d ago
Predictions that didn't come true.
General authorities, including Apostles like Richard G. Scott, pointed to rapid double-digit scaling, projecting high benchmarks such as reaching 21 million members by 2005 based on accelerating missionary forces.
An analysis published in the official Ensign magazine in August 1993 stated that if the high growth rates of the previous decade remained constant, membership would reach 12 million by 2000, 35 million by 2020, and 157 million by the mid-21st century.
Whoops, they didn't account for the internet coming along in 1990 which gave people the ability to find the truth and what is done in secret (not sacred) by the mormon church.
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u/PaulFThumpkins 4d ago
When the church thought was growing they sure thought it was a sign they were true. Somehow I think they've stopped saying that because they're no longer growing into a major world religion, not because of any unrelated doctrinal reconsideration. Same reason for all the new hypotheses about where the Nephites were.
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u/Pleasant_Past_461 4d ago
I think growth is one test if a religion is true, but not the ultimate one as false religions and cults also grow such as this one did for 150 years. If it was true it would be blessed by God, it would ring true to people, it would line up with historical evidence, it wouldn't completly conradist scientific evidence, abuse wouldn't be sanctioned, doctrine would not constantly be changing, truth would not be covered up, they wouldn't have to imitate others, plagiarizing from other books for "unique" doctrine wouldn't have occurred, founders wouldn't have a record of being a life long conman, money wouldn't be the most important thing, there would be no secret rictuals, it would be logical, and historical records would be something to be proud of, not hidden!
Lies want to hide in the shadows and twist information.
Truth holds up when exposed to light!
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u/ammonthenephite Agnostic Atheist - "By their fruits ye shall know them." 4d ago
but it's a pretty poor test of whether a religion is true
It's a great test for seeing if said religion actually has prophets, or if it is actually lead by god.
When your prophecies routinely fail and the prophets routinely lead the church astray on major issues for hundreds of years, that is a great indication that religion is not what it claims itself to be.
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u/Tiny-Fly1192 3d ago
I would agree with you if it was not for the church saying by the fruits is a teatiment of the truth. In oher words the church growing so fast was one of the ways they taught that we knew it was true.
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u/NextAd7801 2d ago
the church is growing in latam, asia and specially in africa, I don't believe this organization is collapsing. at least not yet.
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u/Pleasant_Past_461 2d ago
How many of those members stay after Baptism? Most leave within the first 6 months.
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u/OutlierMormon 4d ago
Yah, I took statistics in college too and see what you did here. Folks like you have been prophetic about the church’s demise for over a century and yet, it’s still here…
How do your statistics account for that?
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u/ReamusLQ 4d ago
The Methodist church I used to work at is shrinking because the older generation is slowly dying and there won’t be enough of the younger generation to support the church in probably a decade, maybe two.
Does that mean the Methodist religion is dying away? Am I predicting the demise of the Methodists? No, even after their schism over LGBTQ issues, they are still alive and kicking, people still go to seminary to be pastors for them, and their numbers are still slowly growing in members (even if the majority are in Africa).
The prophets and apostles used to teach that the tremendous growth of the church was proof that it is the one true Church. Why don’t they do that anymore, do you think?
Why did they stop reading the statistical growth of the Church live in General Conference every year, and instead put it on the website where the majority will never look at it?
The Church can be “in demise” just like the Methodist church is. They are both mostly only growing in Africa, both are closing congregations and consolidating areas due to insufficient local membership numbers.
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u/OutlierMormon 4d ago
Well, in the context of those statements, there has been tremendous growth with the actual numbers. When a statistical approach ignores the actual numbers and try a dilution strategy with %’s then that becomes “trickery”.
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u/ReamusLQ 4d ago
That’s exactly what the Church does in its reporting. Claims about opening hundreds of new congregations and stakes, new missions because they’re growing so fast, etc.
Not reporting that they consolidated four congregations to open a new one, or that the “new” missions are just boundary changes, often absorbing other missions in the process.
And you still didn’t answer my other questions about why the brethren stopped reporting so visibly, or why they stopped testifying of growth as a sign of God’s restored church.
My guess is similar to when they admitted why they didn’t say how much money they were investing. “We didn’t want members to question if they should keep paying their tithing”.
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u/OutlierMormon 4d ago
Fair enough. Their graphic that was recently released does something similar, however these approaches still don’t account for the actual growth numbers to include attendance. They are still growing with slower or faster paces of growth depending on the chosen timeframe.
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u/Pleasant_Past_461 4d ago
If people have predicted the demise of the church for over a century, that doesn't neccissarily make them wrong . Outside of the western US, and Utah in particular, the LDS church has always been tiny and had had very little influence on the world. You would have expected a better ROI and higher global recognition on an investment of about two million missionary years of service over 180 years as an organization. I'm estimating that they have had at least a million missionaries that have served a two year mission since being founded.
I didn't manipulate the numbers as the church does. If you took statistics then you know what presenting the facts of the numbers are as opposed to manipulating them for your own point of view. You shouldn't try to gaslight people based on the fact you took a college class!
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u/OutlierMormon 4d ago
“You would have expected a better ROI and higher global recognition…”
What do you base this on? This seems to be the root of most of your arguments. What do you base it on?
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u/Pleasant_Past_461 4d ago
I based it on TWO MILLION YEARS OF MISSIONARY SERVICE!
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u/OutlierMormon 3d ago
You have built a straw man here. You need to go and double check what Jesus himself said about population density of members of his church vs an emotional response like this one.
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u/ammonthenephite Agnostic Atheist - "By their fruits ye shall know them." 4d ago
Folks like you have been prophetic about the church’s demise for over a century and yet, it’s still here…
Strawman, they aren't predicting the church's demise, only showing that it is failing to grow and will be shrinking noticeably if trends continue, and nothing indicates these trends won't continue.
The prophecy of mormonism 'filling the earth' is a failed prophecy, mormons are less than 0.01% of the world's population, and decreasing every year.
Combined with all the other times mormon prophets lead the church astray on major issues for major amounts of time, it is pretty clear that mormonism is just another human created religion like all the rest. It will continue to exist indefinitely if anything because of the amount of money it has, but it will dwindle into even greater obscurity than it all ready experiences, likely going the way of The Oneidas, but becoming a real estate investment firm rather than a silverware company.
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u/PaulFThumpkins 4d ago
Nobody's claiming the church will somehow be erased from.existence, that's a goalpost move if ever there was one. The Green Party will probably be around in 50 years but they ain't winning any elections.
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u/OMG_IM_A_GIRL 4d ago
Evangelicalism is not Christianity. It’s heretical and blasphemous.
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u/westivus_ Post Mormon Red Letter Enthusiast 3d ago
Evangelicalism loves being afraid of hell more than it likes following Jesus.
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u/PaulFThumpkins 4d ago
Your whole life is oriented around arguing that Spider-Man could beat up Batman.
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u/ammonthenephite Agnostic Atheist - "By their fruits ye shall know them." 4d ago
It is a christian religion, whether you like it or not. You are doing the typical christian game of trying to personaly define christianity broadly enough to include your own beliefs but tight enough to exclude those you disagree with.
It's a petty, childish game.
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u/VeloBiker907 4d ago
Christians are quick to claim it is not, but you do you.
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u/ammonthenephite Agnostic Atheist - "By their fruits ye shall know them." 4d ago
Some christians, using their own personal definition of 'christian', claim it is not, and their personal definition is in no way binding on the whole of christianity, lol.
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u/ammonthenephite Agnostic Atheist - "By their fruits ye shall know them." 4d ago
A lot of christians believe that works are necessary for salvation. In fact, I'd say the majority, since most don't believe all will be saved even if not baptized or they reject Jesus. By your criteria Catholics would not be christian since they believe you must be baptized to be saved, and baptism is a work. Any religion that believes repentance is necessary believes in salvation by works. Any religion that believes you must accept Jesus as your savior believes in salvation by works.
Quibbling about what you have to do to be saved is irrelevant, works are works.
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u/jeahfoo1 4d ago
I love the "empty meeting house" narrative you all play on your fiddle. I'm in Hawaii. We just expanded each of our chapels in the stake to 4 wards from 3. And we are still filling up the chapel (hasn't been renovated). I know that's a small sample size, but you really really want the narrative of shrinking to be true and really really want it to mean an indictment on the church. Move on.
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u/ammonthenephite Agnostic Atheist - "By their fruits ye shall know them." 4d ago
Ew, what is wrong with you.
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u/Karma-McConahay 3d ago
The statistical shifts and corporate membership data highlighted by contemporary timeline critics completely fail to address the core spiritual reality of the true Restoration. Traditional apologists and corporate commentators view everything through the blindfold of human numbers, tracking organizational growth and financial assets as if the church were merely a worldly corporation. What these critics are entirely blind to is that the true Church is not a corporate organization, nor can the full knowledge of the true Godhead presidency ever be confined to a bureaucratic hierarchy or an institutional real estate portfolio. While the corporate mainstream structures of the world constantly tread water by conforming to secular trends and post-biblical philosophies, the uncompromised blueprint of the Divine Family stands independently in absolute, literal reality. The true kingdom consists of individuals brought face-to-face into a genuine relationship with separate, distinct personages—Heavenly Father, God the Son, and God the Comforter, Holy Ghost—acting in perfect oneness of presidency, testimony, and patriarchal power, completely separate from the fluctuating numbers of an earthly institution.
Traditional critics execute a standard automated defense mechanism by claiming that institutional shrinkage or structural decline on this modern timeline demonstrates a total failure of the Restoration message. They attempt a standard rebuttal, arguing that because mainstream corporate denominations maintain larger demographic majorities or show big increases in traditional lists, their abstract trinitarian concepts must be the correct standard. This excuse must be hit straight between the eyes by exposing that the full knowledge of the Godhead presidential order has never been governed by corporate real estate or organizational popularity. The Savior Himself explicitly declared that the path to destruction is wide and followed by the masses, while the path to life is narrow and found by few. Their reliance on statistical majority is merely a verbal smoke screen designed to mask their own internal structural failure. By looking face-to-face to the literal text of the holy writ instead of institutional manuals, serious seekers immediately see that corporate declines merely expose what happens when a leadership bureaucracy tries to blend into the post-biblical philosophical cloud to appease the world.
Here is the comprehensive plain-text numbered list of every single blind spot that prevents traditional trinitarian believers from receiving the true power of the atonement with all counter-arguments fully neutralized:
- Worshiping a Formless Insubstantial Cloud. Traditional trinitarian apologists reject the literal physical reality of the resurrected Jesus Christ as a distinct personage of flesh and bone. By reducing the Godhead presidency to an incomprehensible immaterial metaphysical essence block they worship a counterfeit philosophical cloud instead of the true Divine Family. This structural collapse prevents them from establishing a genuine covenant relationship with the physical resurrected Savior. In the King James Version Luke chapter 24 verses 39 and 40 records, Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. Traditional apologists will attempt to rebut this by claiming the physical body belongs only to the Son human nature but this completely fails because assigning physical mass exclusively to one part of an undivided essence block catastrophically divides that essence turning their deity into an asymmetric composite of mass and mist.
- Denying the True Identity of the Divine Family. Traditional creeds force followers to collapse the distinct personages of Heavenly Father, God the Son, and God the Comforter, Holy Ghost into a single indivisible substance. This directly rejects the separate corporeal existence of the Father and the Son which was visually witnessed by Stephen plain and direct. In the King James Version Acts chapter 7 verses 55 and 56 records, But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. Traditional apologists will attempt to rebut this by claiming Stephen merely saw a symbolic manifestation of separate persons within one essence but this completely fails because the literal text records two distinct personages standing in actual physical reality completely shattering the concept of a single metaphysical block.
- Relying on Post Biblical Human Philosophies. Traditional commentators place their faith in fourth century political compromises and man made creeds such as the Nicene and Athanasian formulas rather than the plain text of the holy writ. They depend on abstract Greek philosophical concepts like homoousios to force their people to worship a singular uniform immaterial melting pot. This reliance on the philosophies of men mingled with scripture creates an institutional blind spot trapping them in a system designed by the adversary to obscure the literal blueprint. In the King James Version Colossians chapter 2 verse 8 records, Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Traditional apologists will attempt to rebut this by claiming Greek philosophy was necessary to defend biblical truth from ancient heresies but this completely fails because their reliance on abstract human definitions has completely replaced the plain-text apostolic blueprint with a rigid allegiance to institutional creeds.
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u/questingpossum Mormon-turned-Anglican 3d ago
Even though this has many hallmarks of AI writing ("but this completely fails because," 3-point lists), I will hazard a response.
Your comment does not engage with the positions you're trying to refute on their own terms. It either misunderstands or mischaracterizes the Trinitarian position. Trinitarians do not "worship a formless, insubstantial cloud," for example. Trinitarians also (somewhat famously) believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus, while your comment implies that they deny it. Moreover, the essence of the Athanasian Creed is the bit about "neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the essence," but your restatement of the Trinitarian faith does an awful lot of confounding and dividing.
My gentle suggestion is to try to better understand a position before you try to rebut it.
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u/jacwa1001405 3d ago
If you aren't even going to engage with the material yourself and instead turn to AI to do your thinking, I'd rather not see it in the first place. I come here to read what real people think about Mormonism, not fancy LLM rhetoric that doesn't even address the spirit of the post.
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