Trib Article Re: Status of the Church

[Dario_M]

I'm so agree with you. It really seems to be that the most devoted latter day saints always get the most succes in anything. At least that's what i always see in the church. They seem to have a lot of spiritual peace. A nice big car. Money. And they look young for their age. It clearly pays off to be a devoted LDS community member. "Go to church," "Say your prayers," "Read your scriptures."

[Calm]

11 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

I'm so agree with you. It really seems to be that the most devoted latter day saints always get the most succes in anything. At least that's what i always see in the church. They seem to have a lot of spiritual peace. A nice big car. Money. And they look young for their age. It clearly pays off to be a devoted LDS community member. "Go to church," "Say your prayers," "Read your scriptures."

While education does seem to correlate positively with devotion for members, which implies higher income may correlate positively as well given education levels correlate positively with higher incomes, I have known a lot of devout members without a nice car (including a few families who use second hand vans to cart their kids around since regular minivans are too small).  

Leaders are often chosen from the better off, I am guessing because that makes the long volunteer hours less likely to cause financial stress on the families, though I have known several bishops who lived frugally and showed no signs of substantial wealth and their jobs were unlikely to provide such (one was a police officer, another in my extended family, another was a school teacher iirc).

And given the cautions about wealth and pride in the scriptures, I don’t think it’s a good idea to tie wealth to spirituality in any way, even in or especially in a faith community.

Looking young for their age probably ties in with no smoking or drinking and the lifestyle of partying that sometimes goes along with that.

Edited February 27, 2025 by Calm

[Dario_M]

10 minutes ago, Calm said:

While education does seem to correlate positively with devotion for members, which implies higher income may correlate positively as well given education levels correlate positively with higher incomes, I have known a lot of devout members without a nice car (including a few families who use second hand vans to cart their kids around since regular minivans are too small).

Yeah that can also be a reason indeed why they experience so much welfare. Because they have enjoyed a good education at a well respected university. Like Bringham Young University for example. 

But... why do they always look so young for their age? That really seems to be a gift from God himself. Those devoted latter day saints always look so young and healthy. 

10 minutes ago, Calm said:

Looking young for their age probably ties in with no smoking or drinking and the lifestyle of partying that sometimes goes along with that.

Offcourse. But maybe they have also just received a gift from the Lord? 

Edited February 27, 2025 by Dario_M

[Robert F. Smith]

21 hours ago, The Nehor said:

No, it is not. You have a large number of people identifying as Catholic who haven’t attended in years. Same with a lot of Protestant faiths. Judaism even more so. There are some people who identify as “Mormon” without attending but not nearly as many. Part of this is our culture of expected levels of proactive participation. Part is worthiness requirements. If I stopped attending I probably wouldn’t identify as a member anymore. I have pretty much internalized that I shouldn’t.

A unique Nehor doesn't determine social psychology.  Mormon culture is particularly ethnic (a way of life) in the Mormon Corridor, which is a good reason for not referring to inactive Mormons as Latter-day Saints.  I challenge your supposed stats on the rate of inactive Mormons and Catholics identifying with their Church.  Lots of erstwhile Mormons actually continue to identify as Mormon -- perhaps for a lifetime.  I don't expect them to be active.  One of my long-time inactive neighbors died not long ago, and he had never gone to church meetings in the years I have been here.  A wonderful, nice guy with a large family.  Reminds me of the late Sterling McMurrin, who did not attend church, but was an active voice in the Mormon intellectual community.

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

A unique Nehor doesn't determine social psychology. 

So if I clone myself I can rule the entire discipline?

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Mormon culture is particularly ethnic (a way of life) in the Mormon Corridor, which is a good reason for not referring to inactive Mormons as Latter-day Saints.  I challenge your supposed stats on the rate of inactive Mormons and Catholics identifying with their Church.  Lots of erstwhile Mormons actually continue to identify as Mormon -- perhaps for a lifetime.  I don't expect them to be active.  One of my long-time inactive neighbors died not long ago, and he had never gone to church meetings in the years I have been here.  A wonderful, nice guy with a large family.  Reminds me of the late Sterling McMurrin, who did not attend church, but was an active voice in the Mormon intellectual community.

Not a lot of them compared to erstwhile Catholics. It happens with Mormons but is mostly limited to a small geographical area which you acknowledge. That ethnic culture is very limited to compared to other religious identities that tend to stick more like being a Jew or a Catholic in many much larger areas of the world.

[Calm]

7 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

So if I clone myself I can rule the entire discipline?

Not a lot of them compared to erstwhile Catholics. It happens with Mormons but is mostly limited to a small geographical area which you acknowledge. That ethnic culture is very limited to compared to other religious identities that tend to stick more like being a Jew or a Catholic in many much larger areas of the world.

Because I am lazy and it’s simple numbers, just using wiki…

Quote

As of October 2018, the LDS Church membership records reported 1,383,799 members in Brazil.[1] The 2010 Brazilian census reported 226,509 self-identifying specifically as LDS Church.[4] Brazil has the most members of the LDS Church in South America and the 3rd most members of any country worldwide, behind the United States and Mexico.[5]

This would seem to indicate that for outside those raised in multigenerational LDS families (most common in the Mormon Corridor and much less common in Brazil) identifying as “Mormon” drops when no longer attending/believing.

I wonder if the most common path of leaving the Church outside of the US is “no religion” as it appears to be inside the US iirc.

Back to Brazil for comparison purposes….

For Catholics self identities in 2010 was 65% of the country***.  Does the Catholic Church have official membership numbers they publish so that we can compare self identification to church identification and see how that compares to LDS?  I don’t know how excommunication affects such records if they exist given once baptized a Catholic, always a Catholic in the view of the Church as I understand it so it seems likely there is no way to remove one’s name from any registry that exists.

***Pew has it at 74% in 2000 and AI as it at around 50% now…which is shocking to me and I wonder if this is mostly a the result of the internet where we might take our identities from those we engage with online rather than local communities that would tend to have more family and church presence (the churches don’t disappear from your offline life just because you stop attending, they are still on the corner; but you stop going to your church’s website and related ones online, you may never encounter a mention of that faith community to be reminded you were once a part of it or you may even get heavily involved in a community that makes a point of not being a part of it, much harder to do offline)

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/02/13/the-global-catholic-population/

It is hard though to separate out how pressures to stay close to at least a heritage or culture interact with pressures to disconnect.  My best friend in my youth was raised Catholic, but never came across as very committed.  She came back to BYU for a few years and ended up getting baptized (it never occurred to me to asked her if she was interested because she never expressed interest, she never said anyone else suggested it either; she requested them herself).  When I got married though, it got awkward for some reason (I think she had an hard time seeing how she could fit in my life then and that made her upset as we were quite close) and she didn’t come back to BYU after a summer at home (I stayed in Provo).  She didn’t attend on her own as far as I know at all.  Anyway, long story to get to the point…her family and friends’ reactions according to her were “thank goodness you are back to normal”.  Members who are surrounded by nonmembers in their local community are likely going to find it easier to no longer identify as Mormon and if they haven’t developed that habit, seems likely it is easily put aside.  My question is if they don’t become active in a new faith are they likely to revert back to a previous identity, in my friend’s case her Catholic heritage or do they drop a religious identity altogether and does this vary much outside the Mormon corridor.  I would assume a Catholic dense country would lead to more self identifying again as Catholic after deconverting from the COJCOLDS rather than nonreligious, but maybe not.

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, The Nehor said:

So if I clone myself I can rule the entire discipline?

6 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Not a lot of them compared to erstwhile Catholics. It happens with Mormons but is mostly limited to a small geographical area which you acknowledge. That ethnic culture is very limited to compared to other religious identities that tend to stick more like being a Jew or a Catholic in many much larger areas of the world.

I'll need to see a formal study.

[smac97]

Deseret News: Survey shows Utah’s religious landscape is slightly different than you might guess

Quote

Utah is widely believed to be a particularly religious state, but the share of Utah adults who identify as religiously unaffiliated is actually several points higher than the national average, according to a major new religion study from Pew Research Center.

The survey, which was fielded in 2023 and 2024, showed that more than one-third of adult Utahns (34%) are religious “nones,” compared to 29% of U.S. adults overall.
...

The share of Latter-day Saints in Utah is down slightly from 2007, when Pew released its first Religious Landscape Study.

In 2007, 58% of Utah adults identified as Latter-day Saints. In 2014, when Pew fielded its second RLS, 55% did.
...

Pew’s report, which is nearly 400 pages long, offers an in-depth look at the U.S. religious landscape, including how it’s changed over the past two decades.

Most of the main report is focused on national trends. State-level data is available in an accompanying interactive website.

Here are some other Utah-specific religion facts from the website:

• Two percent of Utah adults identify as a member of a non-Christian faith group.
• Around half of Utah adults (51%) pray at least daily. That figure has dropped 16 percentage points since 2007.
• Forty-three percent of adult Utahns say religion is “very important” to them.
• A similar share of adult Utahns (41%) goes to religious services at least once each week. Just 33% of U.S. adults overall fall into that camp.
• More than 8 in 10 Utah adults (84%) believe in God or a universal spirit, compared to 83% of all U.S. adults.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Tony uk]

On 2/27/2025 at 11:21 PM, Calm said:

Because I am lazy and it’s simple numbers, just using wiki…

This would seem to indicate that for outside those raised in multigenerational LDS families (most common in the Mormon Corridor and much less common in Brazil) identifying as “Mormon” drops when no longer attending/believing.

I wonder if the most common path of leaving the Church outside of the US is “no religion” as it appears to be inside the US iirc.

Back to Brazil for comparison purposes….

For Catholics self identities in 2010 was 65% of the country***.  Does the Catholic Church have official membership numbers they publish so that we can compare self identification to church identification and see how that compares to LDS?  I don’t know how excommunication affects such records if they exist given once baptized a Catholic, always a Catholic in the view of the Church as I understand it so it seems likely there is no way to remove one’s name from any registry that exists.

***Pew has it at 74% in 2000 and AI as it at around 50% now…which is shocking to me and I wonder if this is mostly a the result of the internet where we might take our identities from those we engage with online rather than local communities that would tend to have more family and church presence (the churches don’t disappear from your offline life just because you stop attending, they are still on the corner; but you stop going to your church’s website and related ones online, you may never encounter a mention of that faith community to be reminded you were once a part of it or you may even get heavily involved in a community that makes a point of not being a part of it, much harder to do offline)

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/02/13/the-global-catholic-population/

It is hard though to separate out how pressures to stay close to at least a heritage or culture interact with pressures to disconnect.  My best friend in my youth was raised Catholic, but never came across as very committed.  She came back to BYU for a few years and ended up getting baptized (it never occurred to me to asked her if she was interested because she never expressed interest, she never said anyone else suggested it either; she requested them herself).  When I got married though, it got awkward for some reason (I think she had an hard time seeing how she could fit in my life then and that made her upset as we were quite close) and she didn’t come back to BYU after a summer at home (I stayed in Provo).  She didn’t attend on her own as far as I know at all.  Anyway, long story to get to the point…her family and friends’ reactions according to her were “thank goodness you are back to normal”.  Members who are surrounded by nonmembers in their local community are likely going to find it easier to no longer identify as Mormon and if they haven’t developed that habit, seems likely it is easily put aside.  My question is if they don’t become active in a new faith are they likely to revert back to a previous identity, in my friend’s case her Catholic heritage or do they drop a religious identity altogether and does this vary much outside the Mormon corridor.  I would assume a Catholic dense country would lead to more self identifying again as Catholic after deconverting from the COJCOLDS rather than nonreligious, but maybe not.

Hi Calm

My understanding, as RC. The Church membership figures, as far as I am aware are based on Baptism records. Once baptised into the Church you are a member for life, so to speak. Here in the UK, and I presume around the world. There is a basic head count of people attending, usually split between adults and children.

[The Nehor]

10 hours ago, smac97 said:

Deseret News: Survey shows Utah’s religious landscape is slightly different than you might guess

Or as I heard from a visitor from Utah last night: “For every Mormon there is an equal and apostate anti-Mormon.”

[Robert F. Smith]

On 2/28/2025 at 2:22 PM, smac97 said:

Deseret News: Survey shows Utah’s religious landscape is slightly different than you might guess

..........................

The Utah population has been growing by leaps and bounds in recent decades, and the vast influx of non-LDS people has led to a natural dilution of homegrown religious traits.  Many of these new families are less interested in religion, and came to Utah for low crime and good neighbors.

[Stargazer]

On 2/26/2025 at 4:06 PM, Nofear said:

Well, here I come to post the article and Smac beat me to the punch. And we do all this while still using our cell phones at church.

 

I used to regularly consult my phone or tablet during sacrament meeting to look up a scripture or something pertaining to the subject of a talk being given, and so on. Now that I am forced to sit on the stand I feel I cannot do this any longer! Their thoughts would be "What is Bro. Stargazer doing? Is he texting? Is he browsing Reddit?" and so on. It's exasperating, thinking to myself, "Now what was that scripture again?" [stab, stab, stab] "Hey, that's a cool thought, I should write it down!" [tap, tap, tap]

Sigh.

[Stargazer]

On 2/26/2025 at 3:30 PM, smac97 said:

Latter-day Saints among the most devout of any U.S. religious group — and their efforts appear to be paying off

Some excerpts:

When I was a kid, we sometimes joked that there were only three answers to any question from a seminary teacher: "Go to church," "Say your prayers," "Read your scriptures."

I think there was, and is, a kernel of truth in this humor.  These small and simple daily/regular observances go a long way in maintaining faith.  The article goes on to address that:

Well, yes.  This is sort of like people who have a gym membership.  The benefits come not from merely holding the membership, but from the use of it.

Regular attendance seems to be an important ingredient.

Everything is relative.  I hope we as Latter-day Saints improve ourselves.

Huh.  I would think that reading the Bible would be a mainstay of Christian living.

I think this is a correct assessment.

Also accurate.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

-Smac

This was in the TRIB of all places? OMG, has the world gone mad? I go to the link, and...

And then the paywall came crashing down on me... $15 per month? $150 per year? I might pay a buck to read the article, but not to subscribe to that rag.

Edited March 4, 2025 by Stargazer

[Stargazer]

On 2/26/2025 at 8:08 PM, let’s roll said:

Not everyone takes their mobile device to Church.  I don’t.

I haven't taken my physical scriptures to church in years.

As far as I can determine, nearly everyone in my ward brings a mobile device (or two) to church. It does seem that most members in Sunday School use a device instead of printed scriptures. What is very nice is that the church Library app can have several "tabs" or "screens" open at the same time, which makes it extremely easily to flip back and forth not only between verses, but between entire books. I can have my virtual "thumb" on every other verse or passage that refers to a particular subject -- all bound up with a particular "tag". I can mark verses in various colors, tap in personal notes right next to any verse I want, and access the notes, tags, and my own references at any time. And when I am home and operating on my laptop, all I have to do is sign in to the church website, and all that is instantly available, even if I am not at home and on someone else's computer. I love it!

But it's perfectly OK to be a Luddite for scripture study. Sometimes it might even be preferable, for one reason or another. Less distraction, for example.

[let’s roll]

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

I haven't taken my physical scriptures to church in years.

As far as I can determine, nearly everyone in my ward brings a mobile device (or two) to church. It does seem that most members in Sunday School use a device instead of printed scriptures. What is very nice is that the church Library app can have several "tabs" or "screens" open at the same time, which makes it extremely easily to flip back and forth not only between verses, but between entire books. I can have my virtual "thumb" on every other verse or passage that refers to a particular subject -- all bound up with a particular "tag". I can mark verses in various colors, tap in personal notes right next to any verse I want, and access the notes, tags, and my own references at any time. And when I am home and operating on my laptop, all I have to do is sign in to the church website, and all that is instantly available, even if I am not at home and on someone else's computer. I love it!

But it's perfectly OK to be a Luddite for scripture study. Sometimes it might even be preferable, for one reason or another. Less distraction, for example.

All good stuff, but not my cup of tea.  I rarely follow along with the lesson material and its derivatives.  While striving to keep one ear on the discussion, I’m more often than not engaged in a spirit-driven pursuit, making notes or working on a poem in my notebook.

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, let’s roll said:

All good stuff, but not my cup of tea.  I rarely follow along with the lesson material and its derivatives.  While striving to keep one ear on the discussion, I’m more often than not engaged in a spirit-driven pursuit, making notes or working on a poem in my notebook.

Perfectly understandable. 

I can sympathize with your spirit-driven pursuit, and I've done that too, sometimes. Before they stuck me in the bishopric my wife and I used to sit in the back during Sacrament meeting, and I'd be pursuing, too, albeit electronically (I've been doing computer work for longer than many people have been alive, so I'm quite conversant with technology). Nowadays I have to present a bit better of an example during meetings, and leave the meandering to others.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Stargazer said:

This was in the TRIB of all places? OMG, has the world gone mad? I go to the link, and...

And then the paywall came crashing down on me... $15 per month? $150 per year? I might pay a buck to read the article, but not to subscribe to that rag.

For some reason the Trib has not chosen to put the reader option (removes ads and makes the text easier to read and copy imo, but sometimes does not display the complete article or page for some reason even when website is free) behind a paywall as well.  It doesn’t work on all devices, but it works for my IPad.  It has been this way for years, so it seems like it must be a choice rather than they forgot, so they must not care that much.