Fiannan wrote:I disagree with you -- uneducated people will not be looking for a religion that stresses study and commitment on the scales that the LDS faith requires.
The people who I have found are most interested in talking about the LDS religion are actually those with a lot of education, high IQs but also tend to be classified as outsiders. These are non-conformists who the teachings of Joseph Smith would be received by quite well; the only problem is that Mormons as a whole do not relate to such people. I have seen it -- someone sincerely interested in asking gospel questions but happens to have his neck graced with tattoos -- and trying to carry on a sincere conversation with a 19 year old missionary from Provo. The man may as well have been naked as the missionary was totally shut off and seemed more interested in ending the conversation than doing his work. I then took over and had a very good conversation with the man and I believe he has since visited our services a few times.
I have discussed the church with gays, goths, hippies and red necks. It takes guts to be different in today's conformistic USA and these are the people who would be most likely to connect to our teachings.
It is an established fact that converts to the CoJCoLDS in the US are less educated and less rich on average compared to those born into the church. See this post:
Demographic Characteristics of Converts to Mormonism
The 26% of Mormons who are converts to the faith differ markedly from lifelong Mormons in several ways. First, converts tend to be older than lifelong Mormons. Nearly half of converts (48%) are over age 50, compared with about three-in-ten lifelong members (29%). Converts also tend to be less educated than nonconverts (16% did not graduate from high school, compared with just 6% of lifelong members) and they earn decidedly lower incomes (40% make less than $30,000 a year, compared with 21% among nonconverts).
Converts are more likely than lifelong members to come from minority racial and ethnic groups. One-in-ten converts to Mormonism are black, and nearly all black Mormons are converts. An additional one-in-ten Mormon converts are Hispanic, and just 72% are white; by contrast, 91% of lifelong Mormons are white. Converts are also more than three times as likely as lifelong members to be immigrants to the U.S. (14% vs. 4%).
I don't deny that "those with a lot of education, high IQs but [who] also tend to be classified as outsiders" might well be more interested in discussing Mormonism. Heck, I am pretty interested myself. But converting? Quite apart from my own reactions (the more I have found out the less I have felt able to understand why anyone would want to join this church in full knowledge of its beliefs and practices), the figures suggest not.