I see that the Mormons have a new song book. I hope it’s better than the old one. I’ve been to a couple of Mormon Church services (and the Bible study that followed) and one big disappointment was the music. I guess they haven’t had as many years to accumulate good music as other traditions. A good Jewish service can be like attending a classical concert with sing-along sections. Same for an Episcopalian or Catholic service. Baptist and mega-church services I’ve been to have had more modern, guitar music but it’s been upbeat and peppy. Let’s just say i found the Mormon hymns musically uninspiring.
Sure!
Do you mind explaining this more?
do you mean that Southern Baptists need to be more independent?
As a Mormon I would identify myself as a member of The Church. This is both publicly and in my mind. I would only use/think Christian in certain circumstances. For example, if someone said we don’t believe in Christ.
I would consider Christian denominations (Baptists, Catholic, Church of Christ, etc.) as good and honorable people and will probably go to the Terrestrial kingdom. Then again, good and honorable atheists would also go there. To go to the highest kingdom requires much more than believing in Christ.
As a Southern Baptist, I would identify as Christian. I would use Southern Baptist if there was a reason to specify which denomination.
People of other denominations would be Christian, iff (if and only if) they really accepted Christ. And their lifestyle should indicate they are Christian. And it would have to be the biblical Jesus. Some parts of Mormonism would probably be outside of Christianity - This is the Southern Baptist me speaking.
Question from a former Catholic: how much of a deal is the Eucharist in the LDS Church? In Catholicism it’s a big deal, maybe the biggest, as they believe in the real transubstantiation of the bread into the flesh of Jesus. I gather that in most Protestant Churches it’s still of great importance, but rather understood symbolically. Is it even practiced in the LDS Church? And what does a typical Mormon service look like?
I can answer that last one, i think, having been to a couple of Mormon services. I’m sure I’ll miss some details, but y’all might be interested what the service looks like “from the outside”.
Hang on, i think i wrote up my impressions shortly after attending, let me go look.
here it is
Wow, that’s from a long time ago. I did end up going back to that congregation one more time. But between the architecture (reminscent of a bank) and the lack of ritual, liturgy, and professional serminizing, I didn’t find it very spiritually moving. Maybe Mormons go to Temple, not Church, for that.
The sacrament (bread and water) is taken every Sunday as part of the hour-long worship service (also known as the Sacrament Meeting). I don’t think it holds exactly the same weight as it does in the Catholic faith, but it’s very important – it serves as a reminder of the sacrifice of Christ and is intended to help members renew their covenants with God.
A typical service consists of three or four hymns, taking the Sacrament, and testimonies by members. There aren’t any professional speakers (i.e., pastors who are paid by the church and have been to seminary); instead, the Bishop or a member of his council asks three or four members each week to give their testimony based on specific scriptural topics. Each testimony is usually five to 10 minutes long, and members are given suggestions on resources to use – usually prior talks by church leaders in worldwide General Conference meetings and specific scriptures from the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and/or the Doctrine and Covenants.
One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that because of this approach, some members don’t have a firm grasp on the scriptures (particularly the Bible). I grew up having many parables and stories from the Bible repeated over and over in sermons and Sunday School lessons. That happens in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as well, but it’s not as overt, in my experience. Where a pastor might take the Parable of the Talents, for example, and use that as a way to emphasize being a good steward with what God has given you, it’s less likely to be the focus of a testimony in an LDS service. The Church places more of an emphasis on studying scriptures at home (or, for teenagers, as part of their weekday Seminary classes), and that’s a hit-or-miss proposition for many members.
Someone mentioned above the music in services, and I agree it’s … well, not exactly toe-tapping stuff. It reminds me of the hymns we sang when I was growing up as a Southern Baptist in the 70s, waaaay before many churches began modernizing their musical options. I recognize some of the hymns from that time (such as “Amazing Grace”), but many were written specifically for our faith and are drawn from the experiences of the early converts. Musical themes lean heavily on persevering through difficulties and trusting God to deal with tribulations.
I sometimes attend a Jewish service in a small congregation with no paid staff. But each week, someone reads Torah, someone reads Haftorah (the parts of the Bible that aren’t part of the Torah) and someone gives a D’rash, which is really just a sermon. But it’s always about that day’s readings, usually the Torah reading, but sometimes the Haftorah reading, or both. And, like a professional sermon, it also usually ties to current events (in the synagogue, or the world).
So, a Jewish service would never talk about stuff in the New Testament, of course, but:
That kind of thing is common in a Jewish service, even one that is lay-led. In fact, when a kid celebrates their bar mitzvah, they typically lead (most of) the service, read a chunk of Torah, and speak to the congregation about their Torah portion.
ahahahaha let me gather my music axes! hee. (I have a lot of musical training and therefore have been in official and unofficial musical callings most of my adult life, and I have Opinions.)
(I think this may already have been stated in the thread, possibly even by me, but just in case: in a Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saint ward (congregation), all positions are “callings” where the bishop and counselors (“bishopric”) basically “calls” you to a specific position in the ward. The culture is that you do not say no or ask to be released unless you have a very good reason (which does often happen, of course). Basically everyone has a calling of some sort, and on the ward level all positions, including that of bishop, are unpaid lay callings. Some are wildly time-consuming (especially the leadership roles: bishop, Relief Society (women’s organization) president, Young Women’s president, Primary president – these roles may sometimes be as much as a full-time job; at least a part-time job) and some are less so (nursery leader is time-wise only one hour a week at church, though needs a lot of energy for that one hour). Sometimes people do great jobs in their callings, and sometimes adequate jobs, and sometimes not so great and others end up covering somewhat for them.)
So, Music in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints:
The big pro is that there is a culture of singing and of encouraging singing from an early age. Every Sunday the kiddos have part of their Primary time (what other churches call Sunday School time) devoted to singing a variety of songs. Every year they perform a “Primary program” in which the kids get up and both recite little one-liners/paragraphs (depending on age) and sing a bunch of songs to the entire congregation. They also sing in front of the congregation for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. (This could in theory vary by ward, but in practice I have never seen a Mother’s Day where the kids didn’t sing, and the one time in our ward when the music coordinator at the time forgot to coordinate it, someone else stepped in and was like, uh, of course the kids are singing.) Everyone is expected to sing the hymns. This may seem like a small thing, but when I have gone to other churches I find the singing anemic and I look around and maybe a quarter of the people are singing softly. (The exception has been my sister-in-law’s huge evangelist church as well as the two times I went to synagogue for bar mitzvahs – much more of a culture of everyone singing there too.)
The big con (from your perspective, certainly, although from my perspective it’s not exactly a con, or at least not always a con), compared to other churches I’ve been to, is related to everything on the ward level being volunteer untrained and unpaid labor and from it being a close-knit community of people. The first part means that the ward is dependent on whatever local talent it has; it will not hire musicians to make up any shortfall, as my husband’s Lutheran congregation will do (in addition, his church has a paid music director), and whoever is called as the music coordinator may or may not be very good at it (in particular, it is common for them not to be very good at the organizational part because the bishopric just figures they’ll call someone with some musical talent).
I’ve been in wards that had quasi-professional-quality singers and instrumentalists as well as awesome organists and a music coordinator dedicated to special music; in these wards, the music almost every Sunday was amazing. (Still not the same as at a church with a paid full-time music director, though, in quantity at least, simply because lay unpaid musicians can’t support the quantity that a full-time paid position can.) I’ve also been in wards that had very few “music people” and the ones that were there were stretched thin just to get a choir going, and they just had an extra congregational hymn in lieu of any “special music” at all almost every week, rather disappointing really. Sometimes it’s been the same ward at different times, depending on who had moved in and out of the ward! (I think all the wards I have been since I grew up have been in cities with a large transient-young-people population.)
The second part (being a close-knit community) means that often the music coordinator will go for special music that highlights the “community” aspect rather than the “good music” aspect – getting a family with small children to sing, for instance, or coordinating a couple of teenagers because it would be a Good Experience for Them. Sometimes these numbers are still pretty good (it turns out that family can actually sing!) and sometimes they are rather not so (that family… is not so great at singing…). Having been in the music coordinator role more than once, I can attest that it’s often a balancing act! That being said, my favorite memory as the music coordinator is coordinating a number with one of the great singers of the ward and his 10-year-old daughter who is in remission from cancer after a grueling battle with it. They sang a simple duet (“A Child’s Prayer,” for those of you who know it) and we were all in tears.
Another unfortunate thing that can happen, especially in wards where there isn’t a strong musical presence, is that everyone ends up singing the same 20 hymns over and over again because those are the hymns that they all know and that (perhaps more to the point) the organist can play. The old hymnbook has a hymn written by Bach and another by Mendelssohn, but we hardly ever sing those two.
ETA: I almost forgot to add this! Music is also one of those things where it can be veeeeery conservative, especially as it can depend on “bishop roulette.” I had one bishop who would not allow any music unless it was in the hymnbook or had been sung by the (then) Mormon Tabernacle Choir. (Fortunately they sing a wide variety of sacred music, so that’s a little less restrictive than it could be, but it still was pretty restrictive.) The handbook was changed to allow brass instruments a couple of years ago and my current bishop still had a very hard time allowing a trumpet piece for a single piece of music at church, even just as accompaniment for the congregation singing – I was the music coordinator trying to push it through and it took me several tries. So there’s that going on too. I did have a couple of other bishops who were much more lenient and would allow much more interesting music (obviously still reverent/spiritual, etc., but there was more latitude and you could perform, for example, more overtly classical pieces).
It’s got a wider variety of songs, which I do like. It hasn’t got fully released, so I can’t say all the way yet. I hope it keeps the Bach and Mendelssohn.
BTW, from your writeup:
That’s true of pretty much every ward I’m familiar with. Actually my current ward has fewer kids than average, but they pretty much all have a bunch of little kids running everywhere. When our kids were little, it was hard going to church with my husband because our kids were literally the only kids in the entire church and whenever there were any kid noises, it was clear it was coming from our kids.
I feel like until very recently, the Book of Mormon was treated this way but the Bible was not, both in terms of being prioritized for scripture study and in terms of having stories/scriptures repeated more in talks and Sunday School lessons. So members tended to know the Book of Mormon very well (and talk publicly about reading it every year or whatever) but not the Bible. Do you get the sense that in your ward members know the Book of Mormon much better than the Bible?
I feel the culture on this is slowly changing, and members are working a bit harder to be familiar with the Bible (although the Book of Mormon still takes precedence), but would be interested as to what your experience is.
I’ll add here that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does not believe in transubstantiation; our Sacrament* prayer even says “that they may eat in remembrance of thy Son” – symbolic only. But very important, as you say! It’s often said to be THE most important thing about church.
*Sacrament doesn’t mean the same thing as to a Catholic; it just means what you’d call the Sacrament of the Eucharist. We don’t have the other Catholic sacraments.
They don’t give a damn about any trumpet playing band
It ain’t what they call rock’n’roll
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. 
and on that note, I can’t resist adding this link
to a Christian comedian/guitarist playing a churchgoer’s version of Sultans of Swing]
(it’s a church-worship link, not specifically about Mormons, so maybe a bit off topic. But fun to watch.)
This varies a lot from church to church. Certainly, most Jewish services have participatory singing (most of what we are singing is the prayers that we are there to say in public) but a lot of Christian services, of various flavors, do, too. And, as you point out, some don’t.
Some other traditions don’t have any singing, but have chanting, which can be somewhat musical. Or, at least, they feel similar to me to group singing.
Jews have something very vaguely similar called a shabbas goy. A useful work-around for those both strictly observant and prone to rules lawyering. Kind of wonder if the LDS crowd have anything of the sort and what they might call such a helpful person.
While I am a complete outsider (not Christian of any stripe) I do happen to know about the telestial, terrestrial, and celestrial afterlife kingdoms, but I’m wondering if we might, from time to time, need to explain or link to explanations to some things unique to the LDS church, Just a thought, to keep this thread accessible to all who might be interested in the conversation.
I’ve been to a lot of Christian services where participatory singing exists but half the people don’t actually seem to be singing. Idk.
New First Presidency announced for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The second embedded video in that link has Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Qurom of the Twelve Apostles making the announcement. He got President Oaks’ first name incorrect, saying Dallis instead of Dallin. One could joke that President Nelson just got a new name.
With this announcement, the First Presidency is now:
- Dallin H. Oaks, President
- Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor
- D. Todd Christofferson, Second Counselor
The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is now:
- Jeffrey R. Holland, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
- Dieter F. Uchtdorf
- David A. Bednar
- Quentin L. Cook
- Neil L. Andersen
- Ronald A. Rasband
- Dale G. Renlund
- Gerrit W. Gong
- Ulisses Soares
- Patrick Kearon
- Brian K. Taylor
When President Nelson was alive, President Oaks was serving as a counselor in the First Presidency, thus leaving Jeffrey R. Holland to serve as the Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Now that Dallin H. Oaks is the church president, Holland is serving as the president, not acting president, of the Quorum of the Twelve.
You’ll also note there are only eleven members currently in the Council of the Twelve.
You might ask, Why is the church’s top guy called “President”? That answer comes from Section 107 of Doctrine and Covenants.
And his duties are in the same section.
We don’t have the complete new hymnal yet. It’s slated for church-wide release in 2030. The new book is called Hymns—For Home and Church. So far, 60 new hymns have been approved for current release. The rationale on the new book is discussed here.
That is a huge change! For some people, adopting the traditional Trinity or abandoning the Book of Mormon would be easier.
This is an overview. The basic belief is that all people were spirits with God in the preexistance.
One thing missing from here is the Great War inwhich Satan and his followers (1/3 of all the spirits) got kicked out. They will go to Outer Darkness after the Millenium.
We then all come down to the world, which is a test for worthiness.
Joseph Smith was really into diving deep into the theology. Various apostles since then had strong opinions about it, but I get the sense the the current leadership tends to not get as deep into the exact nature.