How Bad Is the Exodus?

[Meadowchik]

28 minutes ago, Chum said:

The people who care about sexual purity tend to be those who have the resources to care. In the face of hunger, homelessness and navigating a world that becomes immensely more complex and punitive each generation, notions of purity can't reasonably compete. If a lack of healthcare hints that you'll die without seeing your grandchildren grow up, who is sleeping with who is less likely to demand your attention.

If the joys we need today - just to sustain living - are negated by ceaseless stress, promises of eternal happiness might not be that relatable.

I'd say that a good message of hope is very attractive, or can be, to the downtrodden and world-worn. Certainly in the 1800s life was very tough for many people. People do want an alternative to the evils that abound and more of the good they've tasted. I think Blue planet has a point in implying that the paradigm in Mormonism does not answer those needs for many.

[Chum]

9 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

I'd say that a good message of hope is very attractive, or can be, to the downtrodden and world-worn.

I'd of mainlined hope if it would have lessened my 60 days of sheer panic in 2021. Likewise I found a message of hope isn't very hopeful when I'm regularly unable to feed my kids for years at a stretch. It just isn't.

[Meadowchik]

1 minute ago, Chum said:

I'd of mainlined hope if it would have lessened my 60 days of sheer panic in 2021. Likewise I found a message of hope isn't very hopeful when I'm regularly unable to feed my kids for years at a stretch. It just isn't.

I hear you. I am saying that today's woes are heavy but so we're the woes of the world at the times of the early church. In other words, decreasing interest isn't explained by suffering--suffering has always been around--its more likely that the church isn't addressing needs as much as it did in other times.

[Chum]

23 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

I hear you. I am saying that today's woes are heavy but so we're the woes of the world at the times of the early church. In other words, decreasing interest isn't explained by suffering--suffering has always been around

With kindness, I offer that this is a shallow take. Suffering comes in more than one size and flavor. And even one type of suffering doesn't land on equally on everyone.

I was homeless at 21. It sucked. It changed me fast but I schemed faster and worked past relationships. I survived until I got help (bc ~0 people get out on their own).

I was nearly homeless in my 50s - with 5 other people depending on me for their housing, ranging from tough to being permanently injured by it.  That threat in my 50s was life-changingly worse than the actual homelessness in my 20s. Nothing is equal.

34 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

its more likely that the church isn't addressing needs as much as it did in other times.

This is a really hard one. If I had full control over Church resources, I have no idea how to distribute them effectively. Welfare is hard to get right. There are 99 bad paths for one good one - and that one isn't all that long. It costs a lot to learn a little. Some seize on that reality to imply we shouldn't try but they're simply another obstacles to overcome.

[Teancum]

On 8/23/2022 at 11:46 AM, JAHS said:

Like you said, anecdotal. There may be an increase lately, but members have been leaving the church for decades. We hear about it more now because of social media. 

The level of active believing members leaving is most certainly increasing.  Otherwise you would not see the church focusing on this.  You can deny it all you want to the determined of your church. 

[Teancum]

On 8/23/2022 at 12:18 PM, jkwilliams said:

I was thinking another issue is that it's less socially costly to acknowledge you've left. When I left, I certainly didn't broadcast the fact on social media. I didn't tell very many people at all, and I'm sure there are some cousins who are blissfully unaware that I've left. Back then, I was an outlier, and people who did find out assumed there was something wrong with me, like I had pornography addiction or something. That social stigma seems to have diminished. Maybe that's part of it. Speaking of Herriman, one of my oldest friends is active in the church in Herriman but no longer believes. He harangued me for years about my leaving, and I refused to talk about it. I finally got frustrated and told him to do his own homework. He did. Another old friend of mine works for the church, but we went out for coffee regularly when I was living there. He says church membership is a social and business decision. 

I still have not  publicized my disaffection with the church on any social media platform.

[jkwilliams]

15 minutes ago, Teancum said:

The level of active believing members leaving is most certainly increasing.  Otherwise you would not see the church focusing on this.  You can deny it all you want to the determined of your church. 

Clearly the church is addressing these issues. It would be nonsensical to focus on something that isn’t happening. 

[Teancum]

On 8/23/2022 at 1:28 PM, LoudmouthMormon said:

Good blog.  I love raw data!

New Stakes in 2022: 22
Discontinued Stakes in 2022: 9

New Stakes in 2021: 43
Discontinued Stakes in 2021: 9

New Stakes in 2020: 30
Discontinued Stakes in 2020: 3

 

I also like the total number of members of record tracked over time.  Not sure where to get the latest data, but the last I heard, we're still growing, but the rate of growth has been slowing for a while, and these years we're barely growing at all.  In other words, we're doing far better than most of the rest of Christianity.

 

Weel the rest of Christianity is failing. If you want to compare your stats to the worst and if that makes you feel good even though your numbers are dismall, well hooray!  The largest growing segments are the nones. No religious affiliation at all.  While the nones have a long way to go they are making progress and that will be a good thing for humanity.

[Saint Bonaventure]

I don't know about people leaving, but I know divisiveness when I see it. This John Delin guy might not be Martin Luther, but he and others like him are trying to sow divisions. I've seen a few of his videos over the last few months, and there could be a drinking game based on every time he mentions that he's not trying to persuade people to leave your church (that is his intent) and on every time he mentions his credentials. 

[Chum]

34 minutes ago, Teancum said:

The level of active believing members leaving is most certainly increasing.  Otherwise you would not see the church focusing on this.  You can deny it all you want to the determined of your church. 

As much as I've whined here today, I have a tremendously positive perspective on the Church - one it has earned from me. It gets a lot of things right, some that few other churches (if any) do.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Chum

[ttribe]

19 minutes ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

I don't know about people leaving, but I know divisiveness when I see it. This John Delin guy might not be Martin Luther, but he and others like him are trying to sow divisions. I've seen a few of his videos over the last few months, and there could be a drinking game based on every time he mentions that he's not trying to persuade people to leave your church (that is his intent) and on every time he mentions his credentials. 

John Dehlin is a self-promoting opportunist, and I say this with all the energy my blackened ex-mo heart can muster.

Edited August 24, 2022 by ttribe

[ksfisher]

51 minutes ago, Teancum said:

active believing members leaving

This would seem to be oxymoronic, don't you think?

[ttribe]

5 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

This would seem to be oxymoronic, don't you think?

Insert 'once' before the rest of the sentence and you'll feel all better, I'm sure.

[Fair Dinkum]

5 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Just curious... do you know why they resigned?

Haven’t spoken with them yet as I was only informed yesterday 

[Fair Dinkum]

5 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I was our stake clerk for three years (now ward tech specialist), and while in the calling I had a look at attendance rates in our stake in England over the years where records were available, and the only decrease I could see was due to Covid. We're back to normal now, and just before being released, I noted that attendance had sprung back up to more-or-less normal levels. I know our ward sacrament meeting attendance looks pretty much what it looked like before Covid. 

We still have a few elderly or people in delicate health who prefer to attend online. Were it not for the online pathways they would no doubt be staying home, so that may have marginally improved attendance. But it's hard to be sure.

I have yet to visit a Church of England service, but I understand that attendance in their services have been steadily declining over the years. Apparently, in 1983 2/3s of people in the UK self-identified as Christian, but that has declined to about 1/3. In general, Europe's religiosity has been declining pretty steadily since WW2. I'd say that LDS participation has held fairly steady over that time, in comparison.

My UK family is painting quite a different picture than the one you are painting. They are reporting stake closures and Wards being combined due to attendance drops

Edited August 24, 2022 by Fair Dinkum

[pogi]

I think this research might be of interest on this thread.  Might have been discussed before (can't remember):

It doesn't measure how many are leaving, but it does measure religiosity - as in how important religion is to a person.   I imagine there is some level of correspondence in these numbers with how many are leaving the church (perhaps a delayed indicator).  

Quote

In 2008 more than three-quarters of U.S. Latter-day Saints said religion was “very important” to them, but by 2020 that had declined to just under 62%, according to the national Cooperative Election Study as analyzed by sociologist Ryan Burge of Eastern Illinois University.

This finding, drawn from nearly 7,000 LDS total respondents over the course of 12 years, is in line with what is happening to other religious groups in the United States. More people are leaving religion, and many of those who stay are characterizing themselves as less religious than they once did. In terms of long-term trends in America, here’s a telling factoid: In 1952, Gallup found that 72% of Americans ranked religion as “very important” in their lives, and by 2018 that had dropped to 51%.

Mormons, it would seem, are still more deeply religious than the nation as a whole, but not quite as devout as they used to be. And that’s not even factoring in the possible effect of COVID-19 on religiosity, which future studies can track.

There are some silver linings in the data. For example, while the percentage of Mormons who rank religion as “very important” in their lives shows a clear decline, if you add together the percentage who said it was “somewhat important” with those who called it “very important,” that hasn’t changed too much. In 2008, 93.4% of U.S. Mormons said their religion was either very or somewhat important to them. In 2020, that same combination yielded 88.5%.

https://religionnews.com/2021/11/23/for-us-mormons-religiosity-has-declined-over-time-study-shows/

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by pogi

[jkwilliams]

25 minutes ago, ttribe said:

John Dehlin is a self-promoting opportunist, and I say this with all the energy my blackened ex-mo heart can muster.

Yep, that's my take, too. 

[ksfisher]

15 minutes ago, ttribe said:

Insert 'once' before the rest of the sentence and you'll feel all better, I'm sure.

Yes, my feel bads are all taken care of now.

[Stargazer]

22 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

My UK family is painting quite a different picture than the one you are painting. They are reporting stake closures and Wards being combined due to attendance drops

I'm pretty sure things are going to be different in different areas. One thing that distinguishes my area of England is that it is quite politically conservative. That may have a bearing on our relative stability in comparison to other areas. 

[The Nehor]

19 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

That only takes 100,000 $10,000 tithe payers. Why so skeptical?

A minority of members pay tithing already. I am sure some of those who leave stop paying but many never were. A huge portion of the church’s tithing intake comes from the members who are mega-rich.

I don’t think the church budget is impacted at anywhere near the level you theorize.

[Duncan]

35 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

My UK family is painting quite a different picture than the one you are painting. They are reporting stake closures and Wards being combined due to attendance drops

in all fairness there was one stake closed recently, the Lichfield Stake-IIRC it was the only one in a long time.

[jkwilliams]

8 minutes ago, Duncan said:

in all fairness there was one stake closed recently, the Lichfield Stake-IIRC it was the only one in a long time.

Where I grew up in California the church is really in decline. Our building once housed three wards; now it’s just one. Our stake center once housed three wards and a Spanish-language branch. The building is now for sale. What once were 4 stakes are now one spread-out stake with a few wards. I’m not sure what has caused the decline, but I don’t think it’s people leaving the church. 

[bsjkki]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

Where I grew up in California the church is really in decline. Our building once housed three wards; now it’s just one. Our stake center once housed three wards and a Spanish-language branch. The building is now for sale. What once were 4 stakes are now one spread-out stake with a few wards. I’m not sure what has caused the decline, but I don’t think it’s people leaving the church. 

It could be church members don’t like living in California. Demographic shifts of an area.

Edited August 24, 2022 by bsjkki

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

I don't know about people leaving, but I know divisiveness when I see it. This John Delin guy might not be Martin Luther, but he and others like him are trying to sow divisions. I've seen a few of his videos over the last few months, and there could be a drinking game based on every time he mentions that he's not trying to persuade people to leave your church (that is his intent) and on every time he mentions his credentials. 

You have him precisely, lol. 

[Meadowchik]

2 hours ago, Chum said:

With kindness, I offer that this is a shallow take. Suffering comes in more than one size and flavor. And even one type of suffering doesn't land on equally on everyone.

To be fair, any generalisation is probably going to be relatively shallow. But on the other hand, life wasn't easy in the 1800s. It was harder on multiple measurable levels. I think it would be inaccurate to say that modern times is overall harder. But I do agree that different issues fall differently on people. And I would speculate that in many ways life now is more complex, thereby creating different kinds of hardship which didn't exist before.

2 hours ago, Chum said:

I was homeless at 21. It sucked. It changed me fast but I schemed faster and worked past relationships. I survived until I got help (bc ~0 people get out on their own).

That's horrible, I'm sorry that happened to you. But I am glad others helped, and I agree that people need people. I'm not just idealistic when I say it. Humans needing humans to living is generally and plainly a biological fact.

2 hours ago, Chum said:

I was nearly homeless in my 50s - with 5 other people depending on me for their housing, ranging from tough to being permanently injured by it.  That threat in my 50s was life-changingly worse than the actual homelessness in my 20s. Nothing is equal.

That's ironic, this is actually the brink I've been teetering on the last several days. With many people depending on me too. Realistically it would be temporary and we'd never be out on the streets because we have friends and a social safety net, but it would still be traumatic for us if we were forced to seek last-resort shelter.... But I think I have found a solution today and should be moving into a new less expensive place soon.

2 hours ago, Chum said:

This is a really hard one. If I had full control over Church resources, I have no idea how to distribute them effectively. Welfare is hard to get right. There are 99 bad paths for one good one - and that one isn't all that long. It costs a lot to learn a little. Some seize on that reality to imply we shouldn't try but they're simply another obstacles to overcome.

No kidding. And I agree, failure or imperfection isn't a valid reason to stop trying. But to be clear I wasn't thinking specifically about church welfare programs, but you do make a good point.