The volume, written with political scientist Benjamin Knoll at Centre College in Danville, Ky., includes data from their 2016 Next Mormons Survey, a large-scale, nationally representative study of four generations, including 1,156 current church members and 540 former members, plus 63 in-depth individual interviews.
Riess’ book is a “momentous achievement,” said David Campbell, a Notre Dame professor of political science.
The volume is the “new standard for the empirical study of Mormonism — rigorous but accessible,” Campbell wrote in an email. “It is filled with rich insights, confirming some long-held assumptions about Latter-day Saints’ beliefs and behaviors, but also illustrating where previous assumptions have gone awry.”
The research contributes to many fields, he said, including religious studies, sociology, political science and anthropology.
“The genius of the book is that Jana designed her survey to be relevant to today's church, which enables her to uncover new and important insights,” he said. “It is as though she created a Mormon MRI: able to see below the surface to understand what LDS folks really think.”
Retired sociologist Armand Mauss seconds that opinion.
It is a “major contribution to the sociology of contemporary American Latter-day Saints,” said Mauss, who lives in Southern California, “both because of its craftsmanship and because of its recency or currency. It will remain relevant for several years to come.”
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2019/02 ... ay-issues/
I hope the Apostles all grab a copy, they'll learn something.
That’s why the data’s biggest surprise, Riess said, was coffee.
According to the church’s health code known as the Word of Wisdom, coffee drinking is prohibited and would bar those who drink it from entering the faith’s temples.
But some 40 percent of current millennial and GenXer members said they had had a cup of coffee in the previous six months, Riess reported, including some who reported having a “temple recommend.”
There was a “clear generational divide” in how Latter-day Saints viewed the Word of Wisdom. Older members saw adherence as “essential” to their identity. Youngers saw it as “important, perhaps, but not essential.”
Coffee Drinkers in the temple!!! Whatever next...
What this all says to Mauss is that millennial members “define their ‘Mormon’ identity more in terms of social integration and participation with the Saints than in terms of strict compliance with church rules and requirements [as the preceding generations did].” Riess characterized this general posture as “hold[ing] institutional authority more lightly,” he said, which Mauss described as being more “laid back.”
That divide is a serious issue that maintaining an increasingly geriatric institutional authority will never be able to understand or address.
For his part, Campbell would like to see further research into “the continuing reverberations of the LDS Church's stance on LGBT issues.”
His “hunch,” he said, “is that LDS attitudes on LGBT matters will be much like those toward gender equality: on average, lagging behind the rest of the country, but still moving in the same direction.”
The leaders of 1978 today need to decide if their cultural racism homophobia is a hill they want the Church to die on.
