Ephraim Belnap
The truth you don’t wanna hear? Religion - and Mormonism specifically - will always exist. A lot of younger Ex-Mormons - us - think of the modern Church as doomed and vulnerable, but it isn’t. Sooner or later, its leaders will pivot to the position that will allow it to survive, because when they’re well and truly backed against the wall, enough of them will decide that surviving is more important than making a point.
Because that is exactly what happened when polygamy was threatened.
The church was threatened over and over and finally put in a slow stranglehold. And leadership can rewrite the narrative however it wants - God said it was time, God was just testing everyone, individual church leaders were wrong - the truth is that it never would have been repealed if the government hadn’t put the pressure on them. So in fact, the church can be changed by outside pressure. But faced with the chance of self-contradiction which would destroy their credibility, the church was able to adopt a policy that let them satisfy outsiders without destroying their acumens.
The equivalent of polygamy facing the Church right now is homosexuality. There's increasing pressure for the Church to accept it, but all the instructionals and talks have said that it's not okay. There are some people who think that the church is going to reverse its position and suddenly say homosexual relationships are fine. But I disagree. The Church, like before, has endorsed its position too publicly for it to suddenly reverse itself. But doing what they did before would work. Don’t 180 flip to a full endorsement, but switch to not condemning; a covert repealing of the present non-endorsement.
For example, the pamphlet For The Strength of Youth says only this of homosexuality:
“Homosexual and lesbian behavior is a serious sin. If you find yourself struggling with same-gender attraction or you are being persuaded to participate in inappropriate behavior, seek counsel from your parents and bishop. They will help you.”
Delete that paragraph. Don't mention homosexuality at all. Suddenly it goes from a bad thing to a simply unmentioned thing.
In General Conference, just switch to vague language like, “God loves all his children”. The church has already been doing versions of this already for years. Its video campaign on the topic is one example. Church leaders will keep on asking how to handle it, but just say, “We want people to make their own decisions.” Do that for a few years. And then suddenly, it won't be crazy if you start saying, "homosexuality is all right." You'll have a built a precedent of not attacking it. You can say that leaders have aged out and taken their opinions with them. You can say the Church has always had a policy of embracing homosexuality to different extents. And then you can retain your core beliefs while playing ball with the homosexual demographic.
I'm not sure if this will necessarily need to happen, because it could be that pressure on the Church won't maintain on that particular issue. There's plenty of other things to occupy attention after all. And perhaps the Church won't even choose to do that. It's allowed to make its own decisions. But that seems the best way for it to maintain its alleged credibility and change enough that it doesn't get wrecked by cultural drift.
