Years ago I wrote a very high-level, abstract post where I analyzed whether the Church was replacing itself, arguing that a lot of the “growth” we’re seeing is an artifact of population momentum, and that we shouldn’t pat ourselves on our back too much (although we should some, since we’re doing a lot better than most/almost all).
Now that I’ve run some numbers on Latter-day Saint fertility I am going to be more specific with my numbers to make a related point, although here I am putting conversion baptisms to the side and simply asking whether, without missionary activity, we are treading water in terms of membership in the United States.
Of course, this is still very much back-of-the-envelope, but I think I’m in the ballpark.
- For any group in the developed world to replace itself they need to have 2.1 children.
- According to the last solid estimate, we retain about 64% of our children in the faith.
- Therefore, in order to have enough children to offset the children lost to religious switching, we would need to have an average of 3.28 children.
- Latter-day Saints in the US have about three children on average.
- Therefore, we appear to be slowly declining from generation to generation without taking into account conversions. At that rate each generation is 91% of the size of the previous one.
- It is worth noting that this is probably conservative, since this is from numbers ten years ago. If we, say, only retained half of our children we would need to be having an average of 4.2 children to make up the difference. Assuming a TFR of 3, that means each generation would be 71% of the previous one.
- If we kept our TFR of 3, we would need to retain 70% of our children to tread water.
As an aside, this is one of several reasons why I’m empirically skeptical that liberalizing is the key to more robust growth. All theology and ethics aside, I simply doubt that the balancing equation of higher youth retention from liberalizing (which I don’t think is a thing anyway, but another post for another day), is greater than or equal to the loss of children born that comes with moving farther along the liberal side of the liberal/conservative continuum.
Of course, as noted in my post above, because of population momentum we won’t see the effects of such changes for a while, but they’re essentially baked into tomorrow’s membership population pyramid regardless of what we do today.
Finally, none of this should be seen as doom-and-gloom. As I have said elsewhere, the fundamentals of Church growth are strong (it’s growing in places that are growing, and declining in places that are declining), and there are obviously more moving pieces that make up the final number read out in conference. But to summarize, it appears that if the United States Church had no converts coming in, it would be losing enough members from generation to generation to be in a state of slow, steady (steady since fertility rates rarely go up) decline.
This fits from a narrative understanding of our restored movement: The gentile Church is a birth-maid for the return of the house of Israeli, specifically native, Latin,x and Polynesian and now an expanded view that includes growth in Africa and the Philippines.
Religious sociologists may see this as the browning of Christianity or the rise of the global South.
As a person that experience the end of the population boom in the US and expected it to last, it’s been a mindset change from expected growth in all demographics to a position of observing comparative decline in growth. WASP America has kind of come to its logical finish of individualism and self interest with a focus on materialism. We are often part of the larger trend and not as distinctly different.
I think the reserve fund the Church has set up is one of the most institutionally prophetic things our Church will witness in our lifetime. The sustained wealth transfer to developing nations will continue.
I expect wards to start looking more representative of the US population in the future with more diversity and benifits of having more immigrants among us.
One last thought, child production often correlates with wealth and the Church in the US for the larger families might end up with wards full of doctors, dentists, and MBAs and fewer truly Middle class folks, so we have to be careful to watch out for social stratification tugging at unity and inclusion. What are the benefits and risks of wards with the default Bishop with the biggest house in the congregation?
My ward pretty much fits the last paragraph. And in fact, the husbands’ two biggest houses in the ward (at least in the “best” location) were once bishops. (At one time, my rowhouse could have fit in the front hall of one of those houses.) For the first time, we have a bishop who doesn’t live in the richest part of the ward; he has ten children and works for the company that one of the past bishops was CEO, then board chairman of.
There is a good deal of social stratification. Those who have more, are most likely to ignore those who have less. Those who hae less, tend to be overwhelmed by those who have more. The lawyers are a clique that doesn’t always recognize those of us who aren’t lawyers. The folks in the “best” location often assume those who aren’t there don’t really count. Over time, the bigwig CEOs and other executives have been replaced by corporate lawyers. Lawyers now take up at least half of the elders’ quorum (including all four members of the quorum presidency). It doesn’t help that the most recent and current stake presidents fit in that group too.
I could go on . . .
Thanks, Stephen. Good thoughts. Anecdotally, I’d say there’s been quite a shift in retention of children since 2015, and I’d assume it’s lower now and will continue to drop. I’d also say that the church continues to struggle with retaining its converts, adding up to what I assume will be a somewhat faster decline.
In the older post you mentioned the possibility of overbuilding, with a comparison to Scientology. Interesting, given President Nelson’s subsequent focus on new temples.
It does seem like a strong likelihood that temples are being overbuilt now, at least in the US, outside of the Mormon corridor.
From what I’ve heard from my local stake leaders (PNW), the retention rate of youth is lower than 50%, perhaps much lower, and it’s not just a local problem.
I think the leadership of the church are inspired with Pres. Nelson leading the charge to make temples and ordinance participation for the children and youth more accessible. Our youth are always going to the temples now whereas before it was a 1-2 time a year trip only as a big youth group. Other changes are occurring to better prepare children and youth for the endowment. I think the Lord knows a surge in temple attendance is going to occur as temple ordinances keep getting streamlined and modified to get more work done more efficiently. We are not far removed from where we will view getting endowments as the next step for youth after high school and before the world, before mission calls, college, marriage, etc. come into play.
The Lord in turn will bless those who seek the Lord and his holy temple and work herein with great prosperity and large families will once again flourish. In my own ward we are seeing lots of young families having lots of children again.
Kibs, you see this as God changing things. I respect that. I see it as the leaders scrambling to keep the youth from leaving as fast as they are. If we get them in quorums earlier we may not lose 50% of them= YM being ordained sooner. If we get them on missions earlier, we may not lose 50% of them= lowering ages to serve. If we get them in leadership positions earlier, we may not lose them= YSA wards/stakes having YSA serve in bishoprics and high councils. If we make the temple endowment shorter and less “culty” the youth may like going and stay in the church= constantly changing temple words/meanings that were hardly ever changed in my life time. Combining the 2 priesthood quorums, Saints church history published, calling ward stake leaders that are younger, all business moves to stop the bleeding of younger members leaving.
Surge in temple attendance? We will never know since the church doesn’t share that info. More efficient temple work? If efficiency was important I am sure there are many members that could suggest a more efficient way to get the living/dead endowed.
The church has a big problem with younger members leaving and are scrambling to stop the bleed. That is what all these changes are for. IMO.
Whenever I see the following rhetorical formula:
“You believe X. I respect that. [Unqualified disagreement with and contradiction of X.]
I have to wonder what function the assertion of “respect” fills. It feels more like a salute before a duel than anything else.
Feels like a ritual formula from a more civilized age.
RLD: I agree completely. Gradually “pioneer stock” is being replaced, which is on the whole a good thing, The Church is becoming more about choice and less about ancestry.
Stephen Fleming: It is hard to know what the “retention” rate is since it’s a lifelong probability, so the kids who leave at 19 might come back, or the guy who is “retained” might leave at 60, but the Pew’s average of adults is probably as good as any. They do have another wave coming out in the next year or so, so that number will be updated relatively soon.
Enterprisecaptain; I definitely think overbuilding is a possibility, I wonder (totally speculating, zero information on this), if the temple building is a way to let some steam out of the Church’s wealth. I’d be fine with #makeitatrillion, but some aren’t, and at some point it becomes difficult to know where to use the cash for direct ecclesiastical purposes.
But I also think Kibs has a point, I suspect having temples close by and making that a more consistent part of the youth experience could also help the retention.
Rec911: I wonder how much of this is us being used to a 90% retention rate in pioneer Utah and gradually having to acclimitize to something that’s more along the lines of what other organizations and institutions are seeing in the 21st century. 64% of 50% might seem like not lot from a pioneer-Utah perspective, but on the whole it’s not that bad *relative to others.*
This sounds about right to me, especially the gloomier version (keeping more like half of our youth). Converts really are the lifeblood of the Church.
I don’t entirely buy that fertility is a function of the Church’s position on a “liberal/conservative continuum” such that if we recognized same-sex marriages our women would have fewer children. But one change that I suspect has had and will have that effect is dropping the exhortation that mothers should not work outside the home. As the oldest of eight children, I know from experience there are significant returns to scale in big families if a parent is the primary caregiver. Professional childcare? Not so much. So if you’ve arranged your lives such that your family can live on one income (which ties to RL’s comment about doctors, dentists, and MBAs), the additional cost of another child or two is a lot lower than if both parents are working.
Of course “we should be conservative to keep our fertility rate high” is no better than “we should be liberal to retain our youth” and I don’t think anyone’s arguing for that. I’m actually much more comfortable with the Church’s current practice. But it has and will contribute to demographic changes.
No doubt “retention” is hard to track and I look forward to the updated data. My guess is that the rate won’t be constant over several decades into the future.
And I’m sure that our leaders/Pres Nelson do hope that more temples will help with retention among the youth and membership as a whole. I’m not sure the temples will be as effective as the leaders hope, however.
I also believe that the huge push for more temples and more focus on temples is at least partly an attempt to retain young people. My opinion may be harsh, but I believe this will prove counterproductive. Temple worship does not build community. I believe the youth are being spiritually and socially starved in the church and time in temples does little to remediate that. I would love to see many more resources going into the Sunday and weekday youth programs, and seminary, and camps.
I asked ChatGPT: “How many children will the typical family in Utah have if the birth rate fell from 18.0 per 1,000 Utahns in 2012 to 13.4 in 2022?”
Here is the response: “To estimate the typical number of children a family in Utah will have given the drop in the birth rate, we can first calculate the total fertility rate (TFR), which is a measure of the average number of children a woman would have in her lifetime based on current birth rates. The crude birth rate (births per 1,000 people) is not a direct measure of fertility per woman but gives some insight into broader demographic trends.
Let’s break down the situation:
1. **2012 Birth Rate**: 18.0 births per 1,000 Utahns
2. **2022 Birth Rate**: 13.4 births per 1,000 Utahns
If the crude birth rate falls, this usually reflects fewer births per woman on average. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) for Utah in 2012 was around 2.45 children per woman, aligning with the birth rate of 18.0 per 1,000 people. With the birth rate decreasing to 13.4 per 1,000 in 2022, we can assume that the TFR would also drop proportionally.
The ratio of the 2022 birth rate to the 2012 birth rate is:
\[
\frac{13.4}{18.0} \approx 0.744
\]
If the TFR was 2.45 children per woman in 2012, applying the same ratio for the 2022 birth rate, we estimate the new TFR to be:
\[
2.45 \times 0.744 \approx 1.82
\]
Thus, if the birth rate fell from 18.0 per 1,000 people to 13.4 per 1,000, the typical family in Utah is expected to have about 1.82 children on average.
This means that families in Utah would have, on average, fewer than 2 children as of 2022.”
RLD: With the liberal/conservative fertility relationship I’m not making the case that it’s directly related to sexuality and gender positioning (Bill and Bob are getting married, guess we’re not having that third kid…), but rather that socially conservative/communitarian norms and values cluster together, and socially liberal/individualist norms and values cluster together, and that clustering often comes with various lifestyle decisions like both parents working outside of the home (because, as you point out you simply can’t have two careers with eight kids), so movement on one issue is usually accompanied by movement on other issues. I mean, in theory I guess you can have some gay-affirming splinter Amish group with ten kid families, but that’s not usually how it works.
Stephen Fleming and E: I don’t think temple building is primarily meant for retention per se, I think the brethren consider it a good in-and-of-itself, but at least in our ward taking recent converts and youth to the temple has proven to be a great way to expose them to an added spiritual, liturgical experience beyond sacrament meeting, and I don’t think we could do it as a routine thing if we didn’t have a temple within 30 minutes.
Sterling: Yes, the Utah fertility rate is now below replacement, but Utah does not equal Latter-day Saint. My Deseret News article that I cite goes into that.
Having a closer temple and more opportunities for the youth to go there is good. The difference between driving 4 hours one way and 2.5 hours is dramatic – it’s the difference between an all-day event and a half-day event.
Thanks for the post, Stephen. As with a lot of other things, it’s easy to think that some other church must have it figured out and we should just follow their example and…nope. People may think sacrament meeting is boring and have holy envy for high mass or rock bands, but our boring meetings get more of our members out to church.
I tend to want to believe we aren’t a reactionary church. Many of the changes that happen do so years, even decades, before the world changes. The Lord, who knows all things, is in charge. I’ve worked with youth in the church in callings pretty steady for the past 25 years and have also seen the changes the church has made and the impact it makes.
A few years back at one of the local temple kickoff events for the youth the general authority spoke and prophesied that frequent temple attendance by the youth would be the number one protection against the temptations of the adversary. Now, several years later I am witnessing those blessings. These youth are being driven by the spirit to attend and they attend a lot! Many times the baptistry is so packed with youth who are coming without parents, leaders, coming on their own.
And I teach these kids in Sunday School and they truly have the desire to want to follow Christ, who want to do what’s right. And more of them are discussing come follow me lessons at home, they know the doctrine. Having Nelson at the helm right now, in this dispensation, was planned by God Many Many years ago. He’s doing what the Lord is revealing which will benefit us not only now but 10 years from now and we will have those aha moments 10 years from now and know God is in charge and reveals and moves ahead of the world.
I’m still bullish of Church growth. Last year membership grew at a 1.49% rate while world population grew at .88%. The Church is continuing to grow especially in places us Westerners are usually disconnected from. Africas growth will more than compensate for birth rate decline in the US.
With the increased emphasis on Temples we are kind of decentralizing in a way with a lot of smaller communities facing the Temple in their local area. I know Europe went on a Cathedral building spree right before they all started losing faith after WW1. I’m hopeful we don’t repeat this. The biggest threat is egoism of members and sin IMO. White men just love to talk themselves out of religion.
I’m here for the future for whatever it brings, I think it’s smart not to bet against a dynamic religion like ours.
Stephen C. wrote, “socially conservative/communitarian norms and values cluster together, and socially liberal/individualist norms and values cluster together.”
I genuinely do not understand this framing. I think that equating socially conservative and communitarian or equating socially liberal and individualist is questionable at best. It’s a fairly shallow look at complex issues. It would be very easy to justify exactly the opposite take on the relationships between those outlooks.
Kibs, Jonathan, and RL: Amen!
PWS: Haidt’s moral foundations theory talks about this to great length (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory), but given that in the American political landscape fiscally “liberal” is more communitarian things can get confusing, that’s why I specifically said *socially* conservative.
Two different (unconnected) thoughts, though probably not as well formed as would be most helpful, mentioning them on the run.
1) On any speculated effectiveness of “liberalizing” on future church growth/membership… Based on many past comment battles and OPs here and elsewhere, I think the current T&S permas clearly don’t favor any “liberalizing” for a host of boundary-maintenance and ideologically-driven reasons. But the empirical assertion that liberalizing doctrine or practice is unlikely to produce a better retention (or even influx) of young people is, in fact, certainly consistent with the empirical data from other faiths who HAVE liberalized (female clergy, lgbtq friendly, etc)… that is, those faiths aren’t declining any less fast than more conservative faiths. (As an aside: the associated/emboldened notion that conservative/high-demand faiths somehow do better or are stemming the exodus better is also wishful thinking and easily debunked with data trends.) The point is, the “rise of the nones” is affecting all faiths, essentially irrespective of how high or low demand they are, or how “conservative” or “liberal” they are. Folks are fleeing, statistically, writ large. Which, as the OP suggests, is probably fine. It is what it is.
But given that state of affairs, I have a slightly different take on whether or not our church should worry about whether we are driving out more progressives than we are conservatives (and I believe that we currently are). Turning that approach around, while unlikely to statistically solve any aggregate retention trend, would potentially do something else: it could appreciably impact the NATURE of the congregations and church “body” that remains. This is what i don’t see many folks discussing. If indeed we faithful are essentially destined to be a temple-attending, faithful/practicing people in the face of worsening retention stats (one way or the other), the real question is: do we want to introduce a selection tendency where only the conservative/MAGA/homeschool/strident “types” remain and are comfortable? Or is it the case that we’d like to see more progressive-leaning members continue to stay as well? For the sake of argument, let’s just assume that the aggregate retention/conversion/activity trends will be largely unswayed either way… and therefore the question (or at least AN interesting question) is: what do we want those wards/communities to look like? Do we want to work to retain the kind of cross-pollinated, diverse-perspective church that has largely been a thing? Or are we comfortable pursuing rhetoric and policy that may tend to favor a bit more ideological homogenization over time, all the way down?
As a 53y male raised in the church, having lived on east and west coasts and several places in between, I strongly suspect I’ll remain personally unmoved by these things, either way; I’ve been occasionally rolling my eyes in EQ for decades already. But as a longtime early-morning seminary teacher, I actually worry more about the retention of youth and WHICH youth will stay vs leave. Candily, I worry a great deal more about the retention of progressive-leaning youth. And if they DO systematically turn out to be more likely to leave, that DOES have a structural implication for the wards of the church. (I guess if you think libs don’t belong here anyway, this might even feel welcome. But I for one worry about the longterm effects of org choices that might marginally push more progressives away.)
tl;dr — assuming the church (as with all other faiths) will, over time, likely decline in USA membership while increasing in the global south, do we want to maintain space for folks of all stripes, or are we comfortable constricting membership to make it most consistent with folks who adhere to a set of ideological/political beliefs that conform most closely to USA GOP/conservatism? And what are the future-manifesting implications of making those kinds of choices now?
2) On the new temple stuff… others have commented extensively on the current temple trends (building? overbuilding? motivations? increasing focus on temple attendance as the core of our faith? symbolism of Jesus in the temple? etc), but I wanted to mention something anecdotal that I just experienced. In July, one of my kids was endowed. It was in the “middle” of some of the current changes (there was the introduction of a more extensive “narrator” voice; commitments explained in advance; more equality for Adam and Eve; etc) and that generated some discussion amongst us in the Celestial Room. But his second temple trip was a month later in August, which revealed the newly even-more streamlined/efficient/shorter endowment. The change was fascinating, as I’m sure others have found, as well. And again: others even here on this thread have weighed in on the impact of changes like this on potentially making temple attendance more accessible, ostensibly for younger members.
However – and I haven’t spoken about this to anyone yet – I will admit that I found something to be a bit ‘stripped away’ from the new shorter ordinance. It was hard for me to put my finger on it at first, but what i actually experienced was that my longstanding practice of looking for (and discussing with my temple mates) a “new” insight …. well, it just didn’t work with the current endowment. I didn’t come up with anything. Which was, honestly, a first. After three and half decades of temple worship. I was simply hard pressed to notice anything that struck me in a new way. And I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was just a fluke.
But upon reflection, I think that the changes that have reduced the “storytelling” element of the endowment down, and essentially made it a clearer set of specific covenants almost to the exclusion of any extraneous story elements, left me feeling poorer. And this was somewhat unexpected. I’ll be the first to say that plenty of old versions of the endowment have felt “weirder” or culty, going clear back to my first experience with the Michael-Balaam-as-Satan version (what i used to refer to as “asteroids” given the way the film started, lol). So maybe it’s a gain to lose some of that stuff? Not sure. Probably. But i also felt like some of the narrative humanity got stripped out of the endowment at this point, such that I honestly had a difficult time envisioning something new or sensing something that impacted me in a new way (from a character’s comment, or the look on Eve’s face, or the voice inflection, or some narrative story element, etc). What i felt left with was certainly more Jesus (this is good!), more explanation and ‘omniscient narrator’ exposition (not sure if it’s a net gain), less mystery (depends on who you ask), and an experience that just sort of felt like: hey we’re getting through the technicalities of several covenants as fast as we can here. But if felt like the life had been squeezed out of the endowment, sort of. It just felt mostly like a bunch of handbook-y explanation. Not sure if that makes sense. But this is coming from someone who has been generally very pleased (ecstatic even) about recent changes over the past few years. Nevertheless the whole thing just seemed so stripped back that it’s now a bit more sterilized and overall it fueled less insight for me. It’s only an “N of one” so far, but that’s my observation. YMMV.
Thanks for the feedback. Maybe I can try this another way.
I asked ChatGPT: “Let’s say children on record announced in LDS general conference since 2010 has averaged about 105k per year. We note the total membership announced in conference over those years averaged about 15.5M. And we can calculate the annual birth rate across the U.S. and Latin America (equally weighted for similar numbers of LDS members) over that period averaged 14.8 per 1,000 people. What percentage of those births to LDS members were recorded as children of record over that period?”
Here is the response: “To determine the percentage of births to LDS members that were recorded as children of record, we need to compare the number of children of record with the estimated total number of births to LDS members.
1. **Average children of record**: 105,000 per year.
2. **Average total membership**: 15.5 million members.
3. **Average birth rate**: 14.8 births per 1,000 people annually.
### Step 1: Estimate the number of births among LDS members annually
Using the birth rate of 14.8 per 1,000 people:
\[
\text{Estimated births to LDS members annually} = 15.5 \, \text{million members} \times \frac{14.8}{1000} = 229,400 \, \text{births per year}.
\]
### Step 2: Calculate the percentage of children of record
The percentage of births that were recorded as children of record is calculated by dividing the number of children of record by the estimated number of births to LDS members and multiplying by 100.
\[
\text{Percentage of children of record} = \left( \frac{105,000}{229,400} \right) \times 100 = 45.8\%.
\]
### Conclusion:
Approximately 45.8% of births to LDS members were recorded as children of record during the period in question.”
I would call this a conservative estimate by ChatGPT, because it does not use a higher annual birth rate (most likely 18 per 1,000 people) for the 16% of LDS members who live outside of North America and Latin America.
I think at this point we can consider the difference that a denominator makes. Would you say the estimated 64% of children who are retained in our faith is 1) a proportion of all children born to LDS members or 2) a proportion of all children born to LDS members who were recorded as children of record? If it is the latter, how does that impact your other conclusions? Would we need 4 to 4.5 children born to LDS members each year to maintain our current membership levels, not counting conversions?
BlueRidgeMormon–that is *exactly* how I felt after experiencing the most recent changes to the endowment. I couldn’t articulate what the issue was for me, but you were able to put it into words perfectly. I was glad to have it be shorter, but that came at a cost for sure.
On another note, however, as a homeschooler, I’m not keen on being lumped in with conservative/MAGA/strident-types.
Lisa – excellent point. And actually a great reminder of (in an analogous way) the very thing I was trying to point out. You offer a great reminder that (for instance) the homeschool community is a “big tent” that includes both folks who lean Waldorf AND folks who lean MAGA, and everything in between. Wouldn’t that community be poorer if it shrunk to something less varied and more homogenous?
BlueRidgeMormon, funny that you should mention Waldorf because that’s the philosophy I use.
I agree, the religious homeschooling community definitely tracks more toward the extreme conservative side, and that is something that I hope to see change. Same for the Church in general. We definitely need balance!
@Sterling, Lisa, BlueRidge Mormon: I discuss this a little bit in my other post, but in my humble experience homeschoolers are either far-left, granola hippies or far-right survivalists. I’m being a little tongue-in-cheek but the there’s definitely a bimodal distribution in homeschooling ideologies, which makes homeschool coops all the funner…
Sterling: 64% is the percent of adults surveyed by Pew who had a Latter-day Saint background who identified as a Latter-day Saint as adults. Of course it’s not perfect, but short of the dataset in the sky that can track thousands of members in each birth cohort across time until they die, it’s probably as good a number as we’re going to get.
Also, I’m assuming only a fraction of the people on the Church’s books report their children as members of record.
I don’t think the Christ will ever swing his doctrine and policies from its conservative nature as the left’s views and philosophies run contrary to his doctrine. Where other churches have caved in things like abortion, same sex marriage, all the lgbtq issues, etc, the church hadn’t budged at all, won’t give those worldly ideas the time of day. We still remain the church Christ runs, patriarchal in order as it should be with gender roles well defined. There truly is joy in the conservative ways and eternally, peace in this life and the life to come. As a society we will ultimately come to realize that nothing good that has lasting joy comes from the left.
@Kibs- I didn’t know Times and Seasons had a comedy section. You clearly don’t know the history of the doctrine in the Church or it’s policies. You have got to be kidding me with your pure assinine comment. Conservative views are akin to Korihor like philosophy and we know how he turned out. To quote Joseph Smith, “Our Heavenly Father is more liberal in his views, and boundless in his mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive, and, at the same time, is more terrible to the workers of iniquity, more awful in the executions of his punishments, and more ready to detect every false way than we are apt to suppose him to be” Is why I feel saddened for the conservative poison makers that infect the church. Alma told his son Corianton and I can include the host of conservative commentators in lieu of Corianton “O my son, how great iniquity ye brought upon the Zoramites; for when they saw your conduct they would not believe in my words”
As a society we will ultimately come to realize that nothing good that has lasting joy comes from the right, US or otherwise. If God has given up his “when ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” if that ever changes , we should run for the hills to God’s actual true Church and not the conservative nonsense.
Critchlow,
Maybe you have a different set of definitions than the real world. Christs church has overwhelmingly conservative views. Whoever can’t see that needs to open a dictionary.
You obviously don’t understand Korihor, his views, nor what being conservative means. Of all religious groups in the US, according to Pew research, our church is the most conservative. I’m pretty sure we don’t have a bunch of anti-Christs making up the majority of our congregations.
@Stephen C: Church members have shown some ability not to be sucked into the clusters that are typical of society in general. Attitudes towards immigrants are an example. I suspect that will increase, in part because member who prioritize politics (right or left) over Church teachings will increasingly fall away. Also, those clusters aren’t all that stable over time: in the 70s and 80s no one thought same-sex marriage would ever be an issue because being pro-LGBT legal status clustered with thinking marriage was an oppressive, patriarchal institution on its way out. So the tendency you identify probably exists, I’m just not confident enough in it to try to make predictions based on it.
On retaining youth, I do think there’s a determined effort to get them more involved in the gospel earlier in the hope of increasing retention. Another example is having youth be members of the ward councils for missionary work and temple and family history work. I think it’s a good strategy. I completely disagree with the suggestion that temple work doesn’t build community among youth–that’s not my experience at all.
On the temple changes, I like them overall but really hate the “slideshow” presentation. I think that’s the source of the disconnect from the people and the story that folks are describing. I definitely feel it.
On Haidt’s moral foundations: one of these days I’m going to have to rewrite my talk from last year as a candidate T&S guest post. I went through some of the many stories from the Gospels that put two or more of Haidt’s moral foundations in conflict so we can see which one Jesus wants us to prioritize. (Yes, it’s always one…except when it’s in conflict with something not on Haidt’s list.)
@Kib & critchlow: “Principles compatible with the gospel may be found in various political parties….Members should not judge one another in political matters. Faithful Latter-day Saints can belong to a variety of political parties and vote for a variety of candidates. All should feel welcome in Church settings.” Handbook 38.8.30
RLD, I’d like to read that rewritten talk, and I hope you’ll send it our way soon.
“All should feel welcome” through belief on his gospel which are heavily conservative. Someone who believes in something like abortion or same sex marriage isn’t going to feel real welcome when the same handbook spells it out that we are against those practices. The church drives on a well defined line between what is right and what is wrong. We can see, politically, the divide is getting greater and greater. The church will grow, and continue to grow, only through maintaining its highly conservative and dare I say, “patriarchal” order.
I feel like something is missing here. The subject has to do with the growth of the church. But that seems to assume the church is one thing, unchangeable (or slow to change) that just expands or contracts in population size. The church of my younger days was the one and only true church. We were in the church to help us become gods. And to go to ward carnivals. Those things are barely blips on the radar now. It seems like there’s a rush toward becoming a bland and innocuous version of ourselves. Christians instead of Mormons. The “The Mormon Jesus” book described the possibility of the church becoming the great new major religion of the world, but that doesn’t seem likely now because we don’t want to be different. So, what is growing or contracting? It seems like we aren’t measuring the growth or contraction of the same institution, but of one institution at one time, and a similarly named institution at a different time.
Also, critchlow: Perhaps yesterday was just a bad day for you.