Wow...the Church grew a whopping 0% in the US from '90-'08!

[_mms]

Color me dubious.

I'll be interested to see what the statisticians and demographers who examine this study have to say.

(I hate to be the village atheist on this issue. But, well, there it is.)

It is hardly news that the Church's way of counting its members is a joke. For example, 80% of my own immediate family would never claim Mormonism, and have not for multiple decades. Yet, the Church continues to count them. Check out this press release from four years ago:

http://newsroom.LDS.org/ldsnewsroom/eng ... le-purpose

Here's the heading/title and beginning of the press release:

Over 12 Million Worldwide United in a Single Purpose--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Salt Lake City, UT 1 April 2005 A fledgling faith founded 175 years ago on 6 April 1830 by Joseph Smith and a handful of men in a log cabin in upstate New York has grown to a worldwide faith of over 12 million members in 170 countries and territories. Observers of American religious history and culture have described Mormonism as “the rise of a new world faith.”

In a dramatic demonstration of the reach of this global religion, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will gather this weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah, and across the world in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and South America to participate in the Church’s 175th Annual General Conference.

Are we really supposed to believe that the Church did not know that the title of this press release was entirely misleading or did the Church think that there were "Over 12 Million United" in the "Single Purpose" of that April Conference? Being perceived as a more significant religion than Mormonism actually is continues to be of enormous importance to the leaders (and members) of the Church. Thus, as the next Conference is upon us, are we now "Over 13 Million Worldwide United In A Single Purpose"--lol. At some point this ridiculousness needs to end and the Church needs to be more forthcoming about its true membership numbers.

[_bcspace]

I would like to see a new movement where people gather together and join in an effort to live good lives, support one another, and help our world improve its condition without all the doctrine, dogma, rigidness, and what many consider unhealthy or odd, outmoded teachings and rituals.

What's the definition of a "good life"? Eventually, you have to codify, doctrinize, and dogmatize it. You can't escape it.

[_Chap]

It does not seem unfair to take the overall US Mormon rate of population growth as represented by the Utah figure, does it? That would mean that from year to year you would have to multiply by (1013.8/1000) to get next year's population.

You are being conservative, that is, more favourable to COJCOLDS. Mormons make up roughly 70% (and shrinking) of the Utah population, so if the Mormon and non-Mormon figures were separated out, the Mormon alone rate would be even higher. Your 24000 missing Mormons is likely to be on the low side of an estimate.

oops I mean't 24000

I agree that my calculation was done in a way that would tend to show the CoJCoLDS as 'missing' fewer members. I was only trying to establish the limited point that that this organisation does not seem to be successful at converting people faster than people leave the church. Since I was doing the calculation in a way that underestimates the LDS growth rate, that makes my conclusion harder to attack.

If I was to try to estimate the actual Utah LDS population growth rate (birth rate - death rate), then if only 70% of the Utah population is LDS and the other 30% are assumed to have the overall US growth rate, we may write this equation, the LDS growth rate being M:

0.7*M + 0.3*5.6/1000 = 13.8/1000
-> 0.7*M = (13.8 - 0.3*5.6)/1000
-> 0.7*M = 12.12/1000
-> M = 17.31/1000

If we apply this estimate of LDS growth rate to the present data, and start from the figure for the total number of LDS in 1990, the predicted numbers would look like this:

1990 2487000
1991 2530000
1992 2573000
1993 2618000
1994 2663000
1995 2709000
1996 2756000
1997 2804000
1998 2853000
1999 2902000
2000 2952000
2001 3003000
2002 3055000
2003 3108000
2004 3162000
2005 3217000
2006 3272000
2007 3329000
2008 3387000

Now 3,158,000 is the actual number yielded by the survey estimate for 2008. That means we face a deficit of 229,000 members from the number predicted by LDS population growth since 1990, about 7%. This would represent the difference between numbers converting to the LDS faith since 1990, and those who have left it, in the sense that they no longer describe themselves as LDS.

Anyone who wants to can try to estimate the annual percentage rate of loss represented by the difference between leavers and converts: If you start from the 1990 figure and target the actual number yielded by the survey for 2008, you will I think find that if you use the LDS population growth rate of 17.31/1000 you get a result close to 0.4% for (annual leavers - annual converts).

On the whole I prefer to stick to my earlier point: The figures suggest that the CoJCoLDS is currently just maintaining its percentage share of US religious belief only because its members breed faster than the general US population. If the missionary program is doing anything useful, it is no more than balancing the effect of those who leave the church, and possibly less.

[EDITED TO ADD:
If you start from the 1990 figure of 2,487,000 and calculate a predicted number for 2008 on the basis of a 0.4% overall deconversion rate, and the overall US growth rate of 5.6%, you would get only 2,559.000 predicted for 2008. Without the high LDS breeding rate absolute numbers would barely have been maintained, resulting in a significant fall in the percentage of LDS believers in the US. Fertility is clearly crucial here.]

[_harmony]

If the same mathematical formula was applied globally, how short of the 12 or 13 million are we? Or should the formula be reconfigured to reflect the huge rate of inactivity worldwide?

If we've only got 3.2 million members in the US, how many of those are in the Zion Corridor?

[_harmony]

If the same mathematical formula was applied globally, how short of the 12 or 13 million are we? Or should the formula be reconfigured to reflect the huge rate of inactivity worldwide?

If we've only got 3.2 million members in the US, how many of those are in the Zion Corridor?

[_John Larsen]

Secularism grew (hallelu-nihil!) considerably, as did unwillingness to declare.

This is due the the influence of the Great God of the Secularists, Atheismo, look on His works, ye Mighty, and despair!

[_Chap]

If the same mathematical formula was applied globally, how short of the 12 or 13 million are we? Or should the formula be reconfigured to reflect the huge rate of inactivity worldwide?

If we've only got 3.2 million members in the US, how many of those are in the Zion Corridor?

The basic numbers in the survey don't really come from a mathematical formula of the type used in my posts. Basically the people concerned simply phoned a large sample of Americans and asked them to say what their religion was (if any). Then, using the size of the sample and the size of the US population they were able to make estimates of (for instance) the total number of people in the US who would have responded 'Catholic' if you had asked everybody in the country.

Clearly that is a more realistic way of estimating the actual membership of a group than relying on church records, which may include people who long ago ceased to regard themselves as members, but never bothered to have their names removed from the rolls - a problem which many people say affects the CoJCoLDS particularly seriously.

If you wanted to know about the rest of the world, you would have to do a similar type of survey in every country where results are required. I believe that a similar 'self-identification' survery has been done in Mexico, and the results for LDS are way below what the CoJCoLDS claims - as one might have expected, given the fact that both LDS and critics seem to agree that activity rates among the supposed 'members' in non-US countries are very low.

[_silentkid]

Great posts, Chap and Danna. I think you've nailed it.

[_krose]

If the 3.2 million is closer to reality...

What is the church's stated membership number for the USA?

On the LDS.org site all I could find was 7.9 million for all of North America, which includes Canada, Mexico and Central America.

[_cinepro]

If the 3.2 million is closer to reality...

What is the church's stated membership number for the USA?

This site references the Deseret News 2009 Church Almanac as claiming 5,873,408 members in the United States.