What They Talk About: Inactivity & Mass Exodus

[Pyreaux]

I was watching the live stream of Thoughtful Faith when there was a spamming anti-LDS person in chat, who wouldn't confess his denomination, but his defense hints that he was a never-LDS Catholic. My impression is Catholic trolls have started haunting Thoughtful Faith ever since the Trent Horne debate. Its very interesting as I've never seen aggressive Catholic critics before. It almost seems like maybe they didn't exist until now, they seem to be amateurs, in that they are unfamiliar or not equipped to address LDS criticisms of Catholicism and only possess a googled set of LDS criticisms.

But while touting how small and insignificant we are, he used the "inactivity" and "leaving in droves" bash. There was also a topic here that touched the issue, though in a tangential manner. It seems the "inactivity" bash is a common theme in online discussions, particularly on ex-Mormon forums (like r/exmormon) and among other Christian and Atheist critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It centers on the vast disparity between the official ∼17.2 million reported members and the estimated 5-6 million active, weekly attendees worldwide. Critics seize on this to argue that the Church's official growth and membership numbers are inflated, which they view as either a clever burn or evidence of the Church is in decline.

An Example Online:

There is this gloating reaction to any data undermining the Church's growth numbers:

• Representative Link: Reddit r/exmormon: Turns out church membership isn't falling because people are losing faith...

  • (Snippet from comment section: "My parents had 4 children. We are all out or inactive. My parents had 13 grandchildren. All but one is out or inactive. We are 6th generation membership. The mormon church is dying.")

Its an effort to invalidate the Church, to validate the decision to leave, or for never-LDS, justify dismissing it outright.

Fallacies and Falsehoods

As for the claim that LDS activity is low or even the lowest: This is factually false. Studies consistently show that the LDS Church is among the highest, reporting weekly attendance rate (typically ∼67%) among its members compared to Catholicism (∼33%) and general Protestantism (∼44%) in the United States. While the gap between reported and active members is large for the LDS Church, a gap exists for virtually all religions.

They try to compare it to a business which is a false equivalence: For most churches, including the Catholic Church, baptisms are permanent and many Protestant denominations do not purge membership rolls simply for non-attendance.

Fallacy: No True Scotsman

The Argument (from the critics' perspective): "The only people who count are active members, so those inactives aren't 'true' members, and the Church should stop counting them."

The Flaw: This attempts to narrow the definition of "member" to suit the critic's desired outcome (a smaller number). By the Church's definition, membership is conferred through baptism and requires a formal action (resignation) to remove. The criticism is not against the Church's data, but against its policy of record-keeping.

Fallacy: Hasty Generalization

The Argument: "My ward is a ghost town; therefore, the whole Church is declining rapidly worldwide."

The Flaw: This is a generalization from a non-representative sample. While secularization may cause decline in many Western wards, global growth is driven by the Global South (Africa, Philippines, Latin America), and activity rates are often significantly higher than in the U.S. or Europe.

The activity bash functions as a way for critics to use the Church's own data policy against it, translating a legitimate statistical observation (high inactivity) into a rhetorical tool for declaring the institution's spiritual failure. However, a comparative analysis shows that the high activity rate among its members (compared to others) remains a distinguishing feature of the LDS Church.

The "Mass Exodus" or "Leaving in Droves"

Cradle retention is a the key metric for long-term survival. The Church has historically performed better than most other major Christian bodies in the U.S. Critics correctly point out that convert retention is terrible (25−35%). The true test of whether LDS are going extinct is not just new members going inactive but the BiC (Born in the Covenant) who fully leave or switch. Independent studies like the Pew Research Center's Religious Landscape Study show that the LDS Church's percentage of those raised in the faith who still identify as members as adults is often higher than that of Catholicism and mainline Protestantism, even if the rate is declining.

Virtually all Christian denominations in the West are experiencing net losses or stagnation. The Catholic Church has a massive net loss due to switching, and nearly half of those raised Protestant no longer identify as such. The LDS Church has a somewhat uniquely binary nature of membership: either you're "all in" or you're out, creating the "ex-Mormon" community to magnify inactivity as the perception of a crisis.

Fallacy: Confirmation Bias and Availability Heuristic

The Argument: "I see hundreds of people resigning on Reddit every day, and my local ward is shrinking, therefore the Church is failing globally."

The Flaw: This relies on the Availability Heuristic—the tendency to judge the frequency of an event by how easily examples come to mind. Online forums like r/exmormon or r/atheism are self-selecting echo chambers, making the "exiting" experience highly visible and giving a distorted view of the global membership trend. The Confirmation Bias ensures that only stories supporting the decline narrative are celebrated.

Fallacy: Focus on "Moral Failure"

The Argument: People are leaving due to failure of "the truth claims" (polygamy, historic evidence, church finances, etc) which is a unique moral failure of this church, unlike others.

The Flaw: While those issues are a powerful catalysts for LDS members, people leave all religions for doctrinal, moral, and social reasons. The "Leaving in Droves" narrative tends to ignore that there is also a vast secularization trend affecting all Western religions. Any exodus thought to be a sign of the LDS Church's singular fraudulence, is simply not true.

Is Mormonism Failing?

U.S. retention struggles, the Church does report record global growth in converts and activity in its youth education programs (Seminary and Institute). The reason for the loss in retention is the High-Demand challenge; time, tithing, mission, lifestyle. Millennials and Gen Z are struggling to reconcile the Church's conservative stances on social issues (like LGBTQ+ inclusion and gender roles) with their generation's more inclusive and pluralistic values.

However, sociologists of religion often point to the stability of high-demand religious groups those that require significant time, financial, and behavioral commitments (like tithing, missions, and a strict health code) as a strength. While the LDS Church struggles with convert retention, the members it does retain demonstrate exceptionally high commitment. Surveys show Latter-day Saints are far more likely than mainline Protestants and Catholics in the US to say religion is "very important," pray daily, and attend services weekly.

The high demands create a highly cohesive, supportive, and insular community. This strong social fabric is a powerful defense against the general trend of secularization and the "rise of the nones" that is eroding mainline denominations. For an active, core member, the financial (tithing) and time (callings, temple attendance) investments are so high that leaving becomes a much more costly proposition, strengthening loyalty and reducing "casual" disaffiliation.

Outpacing the Competition in Core Activity

In a comparison that matters more than total population, the LDS Church is outperforming the declining Christian sectors in terms of activity and institutional stability in the US. The LDS Church's high activity rate means that despite having smaller membership totals than Catholics or Evangelicals, its actual, participating membership is a much larger proportion of its total.

If the future of Christianity in the US is one of decline, the LDS Church is sociologically structured to be one of the last religious institutions standing, due to its high demands creating high commitment and its distinctive theology creating ideological clarity. The "win" would be measured in sustained commitment and organizational integrity, not necessarily in outgrowing the world population.

Strong Familial Cohesion

The emphasis on family life is perhaps the most critical driver of long-term membership retention, especially in developed nations where religious affiliation is declining. The core doctrine of eternal families and the practice of temple sealings provides an ultimate, transcendental purpose for marriage and child-rearing, incentivizing larger-than-average families.

LDS families, particularly active ones, tend to have higher fertility rates than the surrounding populations in many countries. This factor is crucial for organic growth and offseting attrition from switching, a major challenge for many other denominations.

Financial Security

Estimates place the Church's investment fund is so large that its investment returns alone are reportedly sufficient to perpetually cover the Church's annual operating costs, effectively making the organization self-sustaining and financially secure for the long term, regardless of future fluctuations in membership.

Catholic Church's financial structure is complex and often faces fiscal challenges, especially at the Vatican level, primarily due to its decentralized structure and heavy historical and operational burdens. Unlike the LDS Church, the vast majority of financial assets and income within the Catholic Church are managed at the level of individual dioceses (local jurisdictions), rather than flowing to a single central authority like the Vatican. The Vatican runs an operating deficit. Its income sources (real estate, museum tickets, and donations like Peter's Pence) often fail to keep pace with expenses.

Unique Defense Against Secularism

In the end, while seen as weakness to our Brethren, the Open Canon and Continuing Revelation means that truth is not seen as being constrained by the limits of ancient scripture alone. This allows the Church to offer new revelation to address contemporary issues, offering a mechanism for the Church to adapt or issue new guidance without betraying a "closed" scriptural record.

By rejecting the traditional Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) and instead teaching that matter is eternal and was organized by God, LDS theology bypasses the classic philosophical dilemma of theodicy (why evil exists in a world created by an omnipotent, benevolent God). This cosmology places a strong emphasis on radical free agency and the independent, eternal nature of human intelligence.

Edited September 28, 2025 by Pyreaux

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

It almost seems like maybe they didn't exist until now, they seem to be amateurs, in that they are unfamiliar or not equipped to address LDS criticisms of Catholicism and only possess a googled set of LDS criticisms.

I have seen very few, they were former Fundamentalist Evangelicals and likely carried their distrust of our faith and habits of argument from their previous faith.

[InCognitus]

On 9/27/2025 at 6:08 PM, Pyreaux said:

Its very interesting as I've never seen aggressive Catholic critics before.

I have come across a few aggressive Catholic critics through the years, but they are rare. 

The Catholic Answers group published the book, Inside Mormonism - What Mormons Really Believe  back in 1999 (written by Isaiah Bennett), and one Catholic I met told me I should get it and read it.  I have the book, and I've read pieces and chapters of it here and there, but haven't read it cover to cover (I'd like to honestly, I just have had other priorities).  The book takes a slightly more accurate approach to Latter-day Saint beliefs when compared to the typical Protestant book published against "Mormonism", but it still perpetuates some of the common criticisms.  I like that the book focuses on key points of difference between Catholics and Latter-day Saints (like the Great Apostasy), but it also repeats a lot of old arguments (Book of Mormon anachronisms, for example). 

So aggressive Catholic critics do exist.

[ZealouslyStriving]

On 9/28/2025 at 8:22 PM, InCognitus said:

I have come across a few aggressive Catholic critics through the years, but they are rare. 

The Catholic Answers group published the book, Inside Mormonism - What Mormons Really Believe  back in 1999 (written by Isaiah Bennett), and one Catholic I met told me I should get it and read it.  I have the book, and I've read pieces and chapters of it here and there, but haven't read it cover to cover (I'd like to honestly, I just have had other priorities).  The book takes a slightly more accurate approach to Latter-day Saint beliefs when compared to the typical Protestant book published against "Mormonism", but it still perpetuates some of the common criticisms.  I like that the book focuses on key points of difference between Catholics and Latter-day Saints (like the Great Apostasy), but it also repeats a lot of old arguments (Book of Mormon anachronisms, for example). 

So aggressive Catholic critics do exist.

Was it Catholic Apologist Trent Horn that said the Book of Mormon should be burnt?

[Calm]

28 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Was it Catholic Apologist Trent Horn that said the Book of Mormon should be burnt?

This was the only thing ChaGPT could come up with something recent about burning the Book of Mormon (I specifically asked if Horn said something similar)…

 

Edited October 1, 2025 by Calm