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https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/3/6/18252231/mormons-mormonism-church-of-latter-day-saints conventional StayLDS wisdom might suggest that the LDS church has a harder time keeping members in the internet/information age because of some of our exagerated and whitewashed history that is now much more accessible to verification. One might think that the LDS church would be having a harder time than many churches whose foundations stretch back at least a few hundred years more.
The above article claims that the LDS church is doing a better job than its religious contempories at retaining the next generation and analyzes some of the reasons why.
Thoughts?
Interesting. Earlier today I listened to last week’s Mormon Land podcast with Jana Reiss on the release of her new book. https://www.sltrib.com/podcasts/mormonland/https://www.sltrib.com/podcasts/mormonland/” class=”bbcode_url”> (Note to Muggles: When was the last time you heard someone in authority assert TCoJCoLdS is the fastest growing church?)
Very simple. YSA. Easily one of the best programs in the church and far better organized than its equivalents in other churches. Pentecostal churches attract a lot of young people but they are less formally organized.
I read it. A key paragraph, for me, is here: Quote:
One-quarter of Americans are religiously unaffiliated today, a roughly fourfold increase from a couple of decades earlier. Christian denominations around the country are contending with massive defections.White Christian groups have experienced the most dramatic losses over the past decade. Today, white evangelical Protestants account for 15 percent of the adult population, down from nearly one-quarter a decade earlier. By contrast, Mormons have held steady at roughly 2 percent of the US population for the past several years. And perhaps as importantly, Mormons are far younger than members of white Christian traditions. They are talking about membership loss, not growth. In our church, you have to formally resign. I wonder how they are measuring membership loss in other churches? And how do the numbers come out after you consider less activity rates?
The average age of Mormons being younger than members of white Christian traditions is a good sign for our Church. I do wonder if this is due to larger families in our church than other churches – something the article acknowledges.
Lots of children translates in more kids to bring down the average age more than in other churches. I know this should flow through to the adults too, evening out the age distribution, but we rely on a lot of converts too who are adults and don’t have a lot of adult brothers and sisters in the church. So I think the large family sizes of young Mormons has something to do with our lower average age.
It sounds good on the surface, but when you look under the hood, I wonder.
Nonetheless, if the numbers support the conclusions in the article,that’s great as I’m not out paint the church into a corner
SilentDawning wrote:
I read it. A key paragraph, for me, is here:Quote:
One-quarter of Americans are religiously unaffiliated today, a roughly fourfold increase from a couple of decades earlier. Christian denominations around the country are contending with massive defections.White Christian groups have experienced the most dramatic losses over the past decade. Today, white evangelical Protestants account for 15 percent of the adult population, down from nearly one-quarter a decade earlier. By contrast, Mormons have held steady at roughly 2 percent of the US population for the past several years. And perhaps as importantly, Mormons are far younger than members of white Christian traditions. They are talking about membership loss, not growth.In our church, you have to formally resign. I wonder how they are measuring membership loss in other churches? And how do the numbers come out after you consider less activity rates? The average age of Mormons being younger than members of white Christian traditions is a good sign for our Church. I do wonder if this is due to larger families in our church than other churches – something the article acknowledges.
Lots of children translates in more kids to bring down the average age more than in other churches. I know this should flow through to the adults too, evening out the age distribution, but we rely on a lot of converts too who are adults and don’t have a lot of adult brothers and sisters in the church. So I think the large family sizes of young Mormons has something to do with our lower average age.
It sounds good on the surface, but when you look under the hood, I wonder.
Nonetheless, if the numbers support the conclusions in the article,that’s great as I’m not out paint the church into a corner
The bolded sentence is a very good point, and perhaps why I’m seeing a difference in the two. While Riess is also talking about loss (at least in part), her measurement of loss includes those who are on the rolls but are not active by choice. She also includes in her stats those who do attend church at least sometimes but don’t necessarily live all the standards of the church – like WoW (she notes coffee and alcohol use are somewhat common among Mormon Millennials). I do want to read her book but have not yet. However, I have read much of what she has written in promoting the book and I have heard her in multiple podcasts. I think she would assert that the church is generally following the trends of other churches and American society in general when it comes to Millennials. From the societal point of view, specifically, she would point to Mormons marrying later, having fewer children, and more women working (and more women professionals) as trends as well, but not necessarily at the rate of general society (in other words, Mormonism is a little behind the curve). I’m not trying to say Riess is right and Cox is wrong, I think they’re both right and both wrong – it just depends on what you’re looking at and how you’re looking at it. My own anecdotal experiences (as the parent of four Millennials) skew more toward what Riess says.
I found this quote to resonate with me the most: “The reasons Americans leave religion are varied,
often complex, and incredibly personal. “ I used to treat faith transitions as one-dimensional experiences that people “fell into” for the common reasons (which wasn’t going to happen to me because I was “better” than that). That thinking evaporated like steam coming off a pot of boiling water.
I wish that our culture could understand that. I am hopeful that as more faith transition stories are shared (especially on our website), that this truth will alter our actions towards others. In Pathways and in Relief Society (when I can) I carefully point out that when one stumbles across a person whose view of God has changed (marked by no longer attending church and so forth), it is safe to assume that a lot of thinking went into that process and that there were elements of mourning that person went through. Something to keep in mind when getting to know them is that that person probably went through/is going through a grieving process and we should treat them accordingly.
I mourn. I mourn the understanding of the relationship with God that I thought I had. I mourn the warmth/comfort/certainty I had when my world view was different. At this point, I know that I can’t go back to my previous worldview, but I can do my best to act with dignity and compassion (for myself and for others) going forward.
Thanks for the perspectives given so far. Excellent comments! I don’t doubt that the LDS church does a better job than other churches when it comes to retaining people but I think it would be more interesting to see a study that attempts to explain the reasons why. A good retention rate may be an indication that we do an extremely good job when it comes to social programming. It could also indicate that the church is filling people’s needs. It would be interesting to learn the reasons for the retention. I can guess what church leaders would say and what the author of the article might say.
To drive the point home by employing some hyperbole, a group that doesn’t allow members to leave and uses threat of force to retain members might experience a more favorable retention rate than other groups, but the retention rate is
notan indication of that the group must be doing something right when compared to other groups. I’m not saying the LDS church does this, I’m just saying that a high retention rate alone isn’t very telling. SamBee wrote:
Very simple. YSA. Easily one of the best programs in the church and far better organized than its equivalents in other churches.
When I was a YSA I did enjoy the feeling of community. I’ve also felt this in smaller units, like branches. As an adult in a larger ward the feeling of community is mostly absent. At this stage in life, church feels like it’s all business. Full disclosure, I’ve got to do my part to create a community but life is so busy already; I like to unwind with my free time rather than be given more tasks to do, and more tasks to do appears to be the only thing the church has to offer to someone in my stage of life. So it really comes down to me laying the groundwork for my children to enjoy the precious, fleeting YSA years but not deriving any direct benefit.
One of my big regrets about my inactivity was I did it as a YSA. Wish I’d waited later… Only joking. My family’s denomination had little or nothing for that age group. Sunday school for small children, then boring services and nothing during the week for everyone else. Maybe a coffee morning for the old people during the week.
LDSLiving did an article on the Vox article.
Quote:The reason for the success? The “unrelenting focus on the family,” writes author Daniel Cox.
…
The biggest reason, says Cox, is the Church’s continued emphasis on traditional family life and roles.
IMO we need to be careful with this one. Maybe I’m an extreme outlier but I don’t think the church should take the same tack that they’ve taken in the past, namely placing a lot of emphasis on strictly defining what a family is and what it is not. I’d prefer messages that say, “Whoever you consider to be your family, love them.” but often the message is, “This is a family. That is not a family. No… I’m serious, that’s really not a family. Stop it.”
Being strict and ultra-conservative about nuclear families and gender roles is going to appeal to a lot of people. Is there any appeal or draw for people that are different? Does being more accepting of families or people that are different make the church experience lesser for all the traditional folk?
Quote:Cox attributes this to the willingness of the Church’s leaders to alter its approach on tough issues. While The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintains its conservative theological stance, it has adopted more inclusive language when discussing LGBTQ members and is “offering a kinder and gentler approach on hot-button social issues” like LGBTQ rights.
So long as it’s not a session of general conference where DHO gives a talk.
nibbler wrote:
Quote:The reason for the success? The “unrelenting focus on the family,” writes author Daniel Cox.
…
The biggest reason, says Cox, is the Church’s continued emphasis on traditional family life and roles.
IMO we need to be careful with this one. Maybe I’m an extreme outlier but I don’t think the church should take the same tack that they’ve taken in the past, namely placing a lot of emphasis on strictly defining what a family is and what it is not. I’d prefer messages that say, “Whoever you consider to be your family, love them.” but often the message is, “This is a family. That is not a family. No… I’m serious, that’s really not a family. Stop it.”
Agreed. My husband reports getting some flack periodically for staying at home with our children (a non-standard family paradigm) – I think it was in EQ. It has been my experience that we usually have a 1-2 defensive sentence we use at the same time I/we disclose (I am usually disclosing to sisters) that he stays at home and I don’t. Most of the time we get an awkward “That’s cool – I know [insert relation here] who did so as well.”
Sometimes it also leads into a sisterly “that must be really tough on you to go back to work” comment – which does neither the asker or myself justice. If you are a mom and you work outside the home, you deal with your adjusting body and meeting the baby’s needs more remotely. If you stay at home, you get to try to tear yourself out of babyland after being a 24 hour baby caregiver. If you work from home, you get the best (and worst) of both worlds.
nibbler wrote:
Being strict and ultra-conservative about nuclear families and gender roles is going to appeal to a lot of people. Is there any appeal or draw for people that are different? Does being more accepting of families or people that are different make the church experience lesser for all the traditional folk?
I try to design more inclusive R.S. lessons when I have the opportunity. From where I stand, I see a lot of non-verbal relaxation/relief gestures when I describe more inclusive families, and focus on identifying best practices for “where you are at with what you have” as an individual. I try to set up the partner/small group activities so that they are more about opportunities to develop friendships and to cheer each other on and less about forming cliques or echo chambers.
All churches report membership numbers as broadly as possible – meaning they use whatever measurement shows the highest number that can be defended reasonably. I don’t mean to imply they lie or intentionally deceive, although that happens sometimes, but rather that they report in a way that best expresses how they want to define their membership. For example, I know some Protestant denominations have reported growth numbers in Africa based on how many people attended a revival and verbally committed to accept Jesus and be affiliated with that denomination. We would roll our eyes at that method, but it fits their overall theology. That means, basically, that the official membership numbers and trends can be compared in most cases with a decent degree of reliability.
My opinion based on absolutely no social science experience or data to back me up, is that these days the trend of the younger generation towards becoming a “none” will continue to grow and expand. But the religions that will best fight this trend are the most fundamental religions where being a part of that religion is baked into the culture. What immediately comes to mind besides the LDS tradition is orthodox Judaism, Islam, and Jehovah’s Witness. Of course there are others too. But the religions that will best fight the trend towards disaffiliation are those in which religion is such an ingrained part of daily cultural experience that the social cost of leaving is very high. Of course, actually fulfilling a social need also helps retention, but I think the potential negative backlash is a greater motivator.
Free thought is always going to be dangerous for religion, and the more fundamental the religion, the more dangerous it becomes.
One factor that is overlooked in the article is the active, individual-member missionary effort. One core aspect of total membership AND active membership is a stream of new membership outside just babies born to members. As a percentage of total membership and “active membership”, the LDS Church does well in that are in comparison to other denominations.
Number of babies born to members also is a factor, but that was addressed in the article.
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