Millennials are leaving Christianity in droves.

The American religious landscape appears to be changing dramatically, particularly among young people:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/12/living/pew-religion-study/index.html

(See an Evangelical reaction to the data here.)

This is the socio-spiritual environment with which American Latter-day Saints (and LDS missionaries working in the United States) need to deal.  We need to understand it.

It presents challenges, of course.  But I think, if we respond well to it, that it also offers opportunities.

In Acts 2:2, we’re told that “every man heard [the early apostles of Christ] speak in his own language.”  And a revelation given to Joseph Smith at Kirtland, Ohio, on 8 March 1833, predicts, of a future time, that “it shall come to pass in that day, that every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language, through those who are ordained unto this power, by the administration of the Comforter, shed forth upon them for the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Doctrine and Covenants 90:11).

The word language here may not be referring only to the grammar, syntax, and lexicon of Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese.

We need new approaches.  New ways of speaking, teaching, drawing interest, conveying the existential power of the Gospel.

And ordinary Latter-day Saints can do much of this themselves.  Bloggers, musicians, visual artists, scholars, writers, ordinary people in ordinary daily interactions can play an enormous role in what needs to be done.  They shouldn’t simply leave it to Church leadership, to employees of the Missionary Department or Public Affairs.  It’s certainly a time for creative members of the Church out there to be creative, and to speak to their fellows in their own language(s).

For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.

Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;

For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves.  (Doctrine and Covenants 58:26-28)

Posted from Park City, Utah