The Next Mormons — Part 9

101 for teams is a valuable resource for anyone wanting a simplified view of the Mormon religion from a Christian perspective is one-to-one for teams is available at the Utah lighthouse bookstore in Salt Lake City or MRM.org .1 is the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective viewpoint on Mormonism sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Mormonism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism welcomed this additional viewpoint on Mormonism.

I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry with me today is Eric Johnson. My colleague at MRM we continue our look at a book titled the next Mormons how millennial's are changing the LDS church. It was written by a Mormon blogger by the name of Jana Reese and published in the spring of 2019 by Oxford University press. We found through this study that certainly the younger generations that are moving up into leadership positions and that's what's going to happen eventually with their views of the culture in their views of theology and their views of just about everything seems like it's going to be going against the grain of where the church leadership is right now. So when she says in her subtitle how millennial's are changing the LDS church, but perhaps were not seen a huge change right now but I am expecting down the road. There are probably going to be some huge changes in one of those areas that is probably going to see some changes in the area of sexuality and one thing that we do know by the survey that she sent out called the new Mormons survey what she calls an MS in the book certainly shows that the younger generation of latter-day Saints. Do not share the same views of sexuality as their older counterparts in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She writes on page 145 overall Mormons acceptance of homosexuality grew from 24% in 2007 236% in 2014 and 48% in the 2016.

The next Mormons survey. The view of homosexual marriage reached a tipping point between 2015 and 2016. In 2015. Two thirds of Mormons that 66% oppose same-sex marriage and in 2016, barely half did 55%. This 11 point erosion of opposition and corresponding 11 point spike in support from 26 to 37% occurred during the exact period in which the church's official position against same-sex marriage was made abundantly clear through its November 2015 policy changes, even as a church stiffened in his posture the rank-and-file. So often there's contributing to a growing disconnect between the leadership and the membership bill. Let me just mention to that was a lot of numbers I just gave, if you want to see that quote you go to our website MRM.org/the next Mormons with hyphens in between, and you can see those numbers but these are astonishing numbers again. Let me read this 24% who accepted homosexuality in Mormonism 2007. It was 24% and went to 36% in 2014 and just two years later from 36% to 48%. Half of all Latter Day Saints. Apparently, according to the survey except homosexuality as a viable lifestyle. No, I'm not totally surprised on that and here's why Mormons rarely ever go to the Bible to substantiate a lot of these things having to do with the changes in our culture and I've said it many times and say it again. Rarely do I ever hear any Latter Day Saints defend their position by using the Bible of course the book of Mormon doesn't talk about homosexuality. The doctrine covenants doesn't talk about homosexuality, pearl of great price doesn't talk about homosexuality, but the Bible does and you have to really go into the mode of twisting those Scriptures in a way that makes that behavior look positive, but this tends to show me the problem with setting Scripture aside and allowing the culture to dictate your belief system yet bill isn't that happening even within the Christian world itself. Perhaps Mormons are taking from the liberal Christians and even some whom I consider themselves conservative because we've even seen a swing with an evangelical Christianity of those who also are accepting homosexuality as a viable lifestyle and I would say that even in those cases, very few of them will try to defend their position using the Bible because you can't smell. I've heard liberal scholars try to use certain Bible verses in a certain way, but even they disagree with each other on how those verses should be use.

The fact is you can't take something that's considered an abomination in the Old Testament and somehow make it holy. In the new. It's impossible to do that, but I'm not totally shocked and see in these kind of stats.

Although there was one set of stats that I was a little bit surprised and had to do with what she mentions and that's the 2015 policy change regarding the banning of children of same-sex couples from being baptized or blessed. That did kind of take me back when I looked at her numbers there because she has a chart in the book table 7.2 title current Mormon support for both parts of LDS LGBT policy by generation. Sorry for all the letters but that's the way our culture goes, but notice what she has to say there Eric, especially under part two, which is titled barring children of same-sex couples from being baptized or blessed know this was a controversial move that the church made in 2015.

Towards the end of 2015.

In November 3 and half years later the Mormon church reverses itself and changes that to where if you are a child in a household with a same-sex couple. Now you can be baptized and blessed under certain conditions, but look at the statistics, let's talk about those on the set table 7.2 she gives the percentages and I think they are surprising for the boomers and the silent generations together, they held at 63%. That barring children of same-sex couples from being baptized or blessed was a good decision. 63%. If you go the Gen X they are at 62% and if you go to the millennial. It is 60%. And so you have very high percentages of Latter Day Saints. Overall it's at 61%. If you average the mall who either strongly agree or somewhat agree that, barring children of same-sex couples from being baptized or blessed was a good decision that you do have across-the-board 24% who strongly disagree but I think if I were to watch the news and I look at the social media of all of what Mormonism is about. You would think that that would've been a much lower percentage of people who agreed with the church on the decision they made and then they change their mind in the spring of 2019 and now they are allowed but that was a vocal minority who apparently got the church to change its opinion. I think you're right because when you see for instance, 60% of the millennial generation either strongly agreeing with the ban, or somewhat agreeing with the band. It makes you wonder will if the majority seem to be in favor of it, even among young people and certainly it only gets better with the older members. Why did the church changed that position. Apparently it is the vocal minority that was putting pressure on the leadership to get them to make the change. Eventually, in 2019. Now that also raises an interesting question who's running the show. Is it really inspired prophets and apostles, or is it the pressure from those who seem to be upset within their ranks among nobody amount of people who may have been upset within their ranks. I find that quite incredible effect is even surprising when we read a quote on page 131 and this is what Reese writes so while acceptance doesn't command majority support. That support has doubled in less than a decade. This movement is driven in large part by millennial's more than half of whom say homosexuality should be accepted and among younger millennial's like Ellis, a person that she quoted earlier in an era in her chapter and that would be those in the 18 to 26 age bracket.

Six in 10 believe it should. By contrast, only 38% of the combined boomers silent generation feels homosexuality should be accepted by society, a view that is reinforced by many statements from LDS church leaders who are themselves of the silent generation or even older will does not seem a little bit contradictory, though, when she says more than half of whom say homosexuality should be accepted but yet at the same time, he had 60% of the millennial say they were in favor of the ban you had a same-sex couple in a in a household that had children. Why wouldn't they go against the band that seems a bit of a contradiction, a man understand that we talked about how the privacy of this survey probably allowed the respondents to be more honest in their in their answers and what really surprised me to do was 95% of all Mormons who were ages 18 to 88 consider themselves heterosexual. So 95 there so 5% do not consider themselves heterosexual 1% say their homosexual 3% claim bisexuality okay but if you just put millennial Mormons in that category of ages 18 to 36.

Then if they're the only group considered only 90% say they are heterosexual, and 2% say their homosexual and what seems to be a very high 7% are bisexual. That means if you're talking to a latter-day St. who is a millennial between ages of 18 and 36 there's a 10% likelihood that they're not heterosexual. You can even assume if the even if they call themselves a latter-day St. that they believe in the kind of sexuality that the church has supported for all of its history when one form of millennial Mormons were pulled 83% are heterosexual, 5.5% are homosexual, 9% are bisexual document.

Good point when you're talking to a millennial Mormons you can't even be sure that they fit this the traditional sexual patterns that the church is supported for all of its history, but when you throw that number out only 83% of far Mormons are heterosexual. That's far less than what the rest of society as a whole would be. We are talking about 90% plus. So I'm wondering if you're a latter-day St., and you are homosexual, you're probably going to leave this church and you're going to head over to that kind of a lifestyle and be proud about it.

I mean 5.5% of those former latter-day St. millennial's are homosexual 9% bisexual to me that surprising that I get a lot of people asking me if the church is going to change his position on that and I don't really see that happening in my lifetime. I'm not going to say absolutely not, because we've seen changes in the Mormon church that they kept saying were never going to happen and yet they ultimately did polygamy would be one of those issues and of course the ban on Blacks and the priesthood. But it does make you wonder what's going to happen down the road as these younger members start growing up and start taking on leadership positions in the church that I think is probably causing some concern among the leadership now, even though I think that the church really doesn't know what to do with the subject again. They don't use the Bible to support their position.

So they're coming up with all these kind of remedies that I don't think you're going to be helpful down the road as these millennial start becoming more and more prominent in leadership positions.

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