This is a presentation given at the 2000 Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium entitled: “The Decade of the Sixties: The Early Struggles in the RLDS Shift from Sect to Denomination”. It is a discussion of how, during the 1960s the RLDS Church made very decisive steps toward shedding its sectarian past. It began the decade clearly rooted in the sectarian world view. But by the end of the decade, many of the church’s leaders and a reasonable number of its members had adopted liberal views, down-playing traditional unique Latter Day Saint doctrines.

Today, the RLDS Church (or Community of Christ as they are now known) has lost not experienced the same growth as the LDS Church — particularly since the 1970s. What lessons can the LDS Church learn from the Community of Christ? What did they do right, and wrong?