robuchan Posted February 27, 2012 Posted February 27, 2012 (edited) From Daniel Peterson's blog.Richard Swineburn: "The Mormon . . . who knocks so unwelcome at our door," he continues, "is entitled to a small initial amount of serious attention. But I suggest that for most of us there is not nearly so much point in investigating the credal claims of religions which have not spread throughout the globe and into which we do not bump, as in investigating the other religions. The failure of the former to spread among those who do come into contact with them is some evidence that they are not worth more serious attention."Daniel Peterson:Refers to the Rodney Stark publications on LDS church growth and the comparison to Christianity growth in the first two centuries.Put another way, if Professor Stark is correct, Richard Swinburne would very likely have had precisely the same opinion about the global insignificance of Christianity at AD 200 that he had in the late twentieth century about the insignificance of Mormonism -- and would have been just as wrong.Stark's preliminary study was done in 1984. There seems to be an update to his work in 2005. Or at least that is the date for the book at Amazon Peterson links. There appears to be some fundamental issues with church growth right now. Five year growth rate for total members is 2.4%, but five year growth rate for stakes is 1.4% and wards/branches is 1.1%. These are all trending down and have been for long enough that it doesn't appear to be a random blip.Do these recent numbers negate Rodney Starks' analysis? Has he addressed this new trend? Do apologists using church growth as a positive, as Daniel Peterson does in this blog, need to change their message? Edited February 27, 2012 by robuchan
robuchan Posted February 27, 2012 Author Posted February 27, 2012 PS I'm not completely sure of board etiquette here. Sorry if this should have been posted as a reply in the Mormon Scholars thread and not a new one.
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