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John Gee has recently ripped off Mike Ash's "Shaken Faith Syndrome" with a new book called "Saving Faith: How Families Protect, Sustain, and Encourage Faith". He explains who it is for and why he has felt the need to write it.

This book—for parents, leaders, and others interested in youth and young adults—discusses the studies and identifies factors that lead youth away from faith as well as those practices that protect, sustain, and encourage faith. On the bright side, parents are probably already doing a number of things that encourage faith in their youth. Close examination shows that weekly church attendance, daily prayer, frequent scripture study, and avoiding sexual activity outside of marriage make a difference in maintaining and preserving faith, confirming what scriptures and leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have advised for many years.

https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Faith-Fam ... oks&sr=1-1
So it's a book in response to youth leaving the Church in sufficient numbers for it to be deemed enough of a problem that Gee needed to come to the rescue. However...Gee starts his introduction with the claim that youth aren't leaving the Church and therefore don't need saving in the first place.

In recent years, a number of stories have been circulating claiming that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is losing youth in droves. This notion contradicts a 2005 study, cited by President Gordon B. Hinckley in a general conference address, that showed that Latter-day Saint youth know more about their faith and show greater commitment to its teachings, particularly when it comes to social behavior, than do their peers.

These dismal accounts of the youth fleeing the Church are usually based on anecdotes rather than on data. Large-scale, well-structured studies give more reason for hope.

Presumably his book is also an underhanded criticism of the Apostles and leadership of the Church for not providing sufficient resources for parents, leaders and others interested in youth and young adults. Because if he thought they were doing a stand-up job he'd not feel the need to write the book in the first place.

Perhaps an email to the SCMC pointing out Gee's disloyalty is in order...

I see Gee is still reduced to working for brownie points instead of actually developing and sharing credible scholarship. No surprise.

This is an elegant point you make, IHAQ.

At one and the same time, John Gee is arguing there is no need for the book he has produced.

Which tells you all you need to know about how honest Professor Gee is.

Magnificent!

Gee's book relies heavily on the National Study of Youth and Religion - and there are a number of problems with that core foundation.

The NSYR was a survey that took place starting in 2002 and finishing in 2012. The data is 8 years out of date, and a lot has happened since then.
The NSYR was a survey that tried to utilise a representative group of all faiths across the USA, which is problematic when trying to tie those results to specifically Mormon problems.
As the NSYR study progressed the representative group became smaller and smaller - 2002 = 3,370 people, 2005-2008 2,600 people...by 2012 it was only 261 people.
These latter groups may or may not have included Mormons.
https://youthandreligion.nd.edu/research-design/
In order to hide these issues with the data, Gee makes a point in his book of expressly stating he won't be explaining the methodology behind the gathering of the data he uses in the book. I can see why he wouldn't want to explain it...

Isn't there a more recent survey, with a representative group of Mormons? Why yes, there is.

The NMS was in the field from September 8 to November 1, 2016, though the majority of responses were collected during September. In all, 1,156 self-identified Mormons were included in the final sample, as well as 540 former Mormons, for a total of 1,696 completed surveys. The current Mormon sample has a standard survey margin of error of 2.9 percent and the former Mormon sample one of 4.2 percent, based on the sample sizes and the estimated size of those populations in the United States. For simplicity, we consider the margins of error to be ± 3 percent and ± 4 percent, respectively. The survey design and question wording received approval from Centre College’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) on September 1, 2016 (Centre College IRB Assurance #FWA00017871; IRB approval code 140-Knoll-NMS-F16).

https://thenextmormons.org/methodology/

Gee is using old data from a non representative group to try and make assertions about current specifically Mormon youth.
This is like taking a survey of people who ate food from 2002 -2012 and applying the results to make assertions about vegans in 2020.

Why produce this book at all when there was a more recent, more appropriate set of data and insights?
Why base this book on the NSYR rather than the more up to date, more relevant Next Mormons information?

Chapter 1 of his book starts with a reference to “a General Authority” claiming that youth were leaving the Church in droves. Gee chooses to not mention Jensen by name, nor quote what Jensen actually said. He stops at simply stating he’s only interested in whether the claim of Church youth leaving the church in numbers was true. He rebuts the claim by referencing Elder Cook’s talk in 2015 in which he claims the Church has never been stronger.

In which case, why the need for a book on saving faith if there isn’t a problem with numbers of youth losing faith?

For reference (because Gee chooses not to clarify what the mysterious anonymous General Authority actually said) here is what Jensen said;
“The fifteen men really do know (First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 Apostles), and they really care. And they realize that maybe since Kirtland, we never have had a period of, I’ll call it apostasy, like we’re having right now”
https://leadingsaints.org/the-root-caus ... -about-it/
I can see why a person wanting to portray that the Church has never been stronger (I repeat, in which case why the need for the book?) would not want to promote what Jensen actually said. But stooping so far as to obfuscate by not even using Jensen’s name...well, that’s Gee in a nutshell.

I have a question wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:09 pm

Chapter 1 of his book starts with a reference to “a General Authority” claiming that youth were leaving the Church in droves. Gee chooses to not mention Jensen by name, nor quote what Jensen actually said. He stops at simply stating he’s only interested in whether the claim of Church youth leaving the church in numbers was true. He rebuts the claim by referencing Elder Cook’s talk in 2015 in which he claims the Church has never been stronger.

In which case, why the need for a book on saving faith if there isn’t a problem with numbers of youth losing faith?

For reference (because Gee chooses not to clarify what the mysterious anonymous General Authority actually said) here is what Jensen said;
“The fifteen men really do know (First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 Apostles), and they really care. And they realize that maybe since Kirtland, we never have had a period of, I’ll call it apostasy, like we’re having right now”
https://leadingsaints.org/the-root-caus ... -about-it/
I can see why a person wanting to portray that the Church has never been stronger (I repeat, in which case why the need for the book?) would not want to promote what Jensen actually said. But stooping so far as to obfuscate by not even using Jensen’s name...well, that’s Gee in a nutshell.

Mopologist hate Jensen. He made their life hell first by the shift to a “more honest history” at least compared what was before. This brought more attention to their work by questioning members. And interaction, which they totally failed at doing in a effective way. That lead to the eventually 2012 purge. Which Jensen was also heavily involved in. Jensen also continues to be on the Maxwell Institute board.

Wait! Gee isn't sharing his methodology and is using cherry picked data .
I am shocked I tell you shocked!

Quite early on in the book Gee invokes Dunning-Kruger as a means of explaining why young people lose faith in the Church. Briefly, here's the gist of Dunning-Kruger's hypothesis:

...the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

Gee attaches Dunning-Kruger to people who lose faith by asserting that they do so because they overestimated the strength of their faith in the first place and couldn't see that was what they were doing.
"The Dunning–Kruger effect is alive and well among Latter-day Saints. This is one of the reasons we have interviews with someone else to assess our worthiness and are not allowed just to determine for ourselves if we are worthy. People have a tendency to think their self-assessments are more accurate that than other’s assessments are."
(Gee, John - Saving Faith: How Families Protect, Sustain, and Encourage Faith Section 1 "Hardly perfect")

I assume, based on his acceptance and promotion of this K-D idea, Gee now recognises that Ritner's assessment of his professional work is likely more accurate than what Gee thinks about it himself...

Gee quotes Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin
"Unfortunately, some in the Church may believe sincerely that their testimony is a raging bonfire when it really is little more than the faint flickering of a candle. Their faithfulness has more to do with habit than holiness, and their pursuit of personal righteousness almost always takes a back seat to their pursuit of personal interests and pleasure. With such a feeble light of testimony for protection, these travelers on life’s highways are easy prey for the wolves of the adversary. . . ."
(Gee, John - Saving Faith: How Families Protect, Sustain, and Encourage Faith Section 1 "Hardly Perfect")

So the reason young people lose faith is because they lack ability and don't recognise it, claims Gee.

Now, whilst quick to blame the individual young person and tie that to Dunning-Kruger, Gee neglects to fully apply the findings of Dunning - Kruger and explore other reasons for it being in play in cases of young people leaving Mormonism.

Studies of the Dunning–Kruger effect usually have been of North Americans, but studies of Japanese people suggest that cultural forces have a role in the occurrence of the effect.[20] The study "Divergent Consequences of Success and Failure in Japan and North America: An Investigation of Self-improving Motivations and Malleable Selves" (2001) indicated that Japanese people tended to underestimate their abilities, and tended to see underachievement (failure) as an opportunity to improve their abilities at a given task, thereby increasing their value to the social group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–K ... ecognition

So Dunning - Kruger has to be looked for through a lens of culture, something Gee does not do. His assertion that Dunning - Kruger is a reason for young people leaving the Church is quick, dirty, lazy (deliberately misleading?) and likely not accurate enough to be used in a book claiming to be a resource in correcting the problem of young people leaving the Church in significant numbers (even though Gee also claims young people are not leaving the Church in significant numbers).

...the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.

Now in addition to accusing people of losing their faith because they sinned, the faithful elect can also tell people they are just too stupid to keep their faith. This is going to go over really well with someone who is questioning their faith.

Hauglid may have understated his assessment of Gee's scholarship.

IHAQ, I think I understand the point Gee is making here, and I don't know that it is entirely off base. Now, we can argue about how important it is or should be that people understand the LDS gospel. We can also fairly critique Gee for perhaps implying, intentionally or not, that apostates are stupid or misinformed, but I think it is fair to make the argument that many people who leave do so with an incomplete understanding of Mormonism. I think it is also fair for Gee to point out that some people have stronger spiritual convictions than others.

Of course, many of us can say that the LDS Church does not really facilitate an accurate or full understanding of Mormonism anyways, and that such an understanding really leads to the conclusion that the whole thing is garbage.

But I can see how a deeply committed believer who knows an awful lot about Mormonism might measure the knowledge of many leave-takers as severely wanting.