Why Mormons Leave

[jay santos]

As I think back over to what I listened to, I think I can take a stab at those.

They are defining a member as someone who self reports as being a member as opposed to someone who is on the roles. They said the general tendency across all religions is for people to over report or over identify. That is, there is a decent portion of that group who self identify or say they go to church who never set foot in a chapel.

So when they say over reporting they are talking about the discrepancy between the numbers the church uses (every one who is on the roles and younger than 110 years old and not known to be dead) and the number of people who say they are Mormon.

As far as the 60%, if memory serves they are saying that there are roughly 2/3rds as many single men aged 18-30 in Utah who self report as being Mormon as there are women who self report as being Mormon in the same age group. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "standard definition of member" but I do seem to recall Cragun saying that in his field the standard definition is self identification.

This is all from memory. Like I say, I don't know that he is right. But I think that is approximately what he said.

OK, makes sense. I thought the term "over reporting" was used in a way to imply dishonesty or deceit by the LDS church. But it sounds like it's just used as a way to compare church's method vs the other method. And I can see how those numbers would make sense using the "self defining" method.

[Indy Coug]

If you get baptized, you're in. If you get excommunicated, die or ask for your name to be removed, you're out. Pretty simple accounting standard.

[Portland Ute]

The thread title strikes me.

I think the answer is simple.

It's true of any group.

When a person feels that the cost of belonging is more than the benefit derived, they leave the group.

The cost could be monetary, psychological, emotional, related to time, etc.

[TripletDaddy]

Given that there have been multiple dispensations over recorded history, either God hasn't figured things out yet or mankind sucks at the exercise of their agency.

Why "either/or?" Both can be true.

[UtahDan]

OK, makes sense. I thought the term "over reporting" was used in a way to imply dishonesty or deceit by the LDS church. But it sounds like it's just used as a way to compare church's method vs the other method. And I can see how those numbers would make sense using the "self defining" method.

I didn't get the sense that he thought it was deceptive, but he did make some remarks along the lines that they probably know better than anyone that a lot of those people having nothing to do with the church or can't even be found (especially outside the US) but that they have been defining member in the same way for so long that it would be very hard for them to back away from it. So if they decided to clean up that rolls and it turned out they only had 8M members and they reported that at general conference this spring that would be very disturbing to people.

[UtahDan]

If you get baptized, you're in. If you get excommunicated, die or ask for your name to be removed, you're out. Pretty simple accounting standard.

But not the one the sociologists use. That is not a criticism of how the church is reporting, necessarily, but it is obvious that one method tells you a lot more about what is really happening than the other right?

[Non Sequitur]

The thread title strikes me.

I think the answer is simple.

It's true of any group.

When a person feels that the cost of belonging is more than the benefit derived, they leave the group.

The cost could be monetary, psychological, emotional, related to time, etc.

But it's not that simple. The reasons you cite are the kind of reasons why people leave the Elks club. With religion, there are things like eternal salvation at play. Makes the dynamics of membership a lot more complicated.

[Portland Ute]

But it's not that simple. The reasons you cite are the kind of reasons why people leave the Elks club. With religion, there are things like eternal salvation at play. Makes the dynamics of membership a lot more complicated.

Not really, IMO.

Perhaps, for instance, one deems their eternal salvation as not derived from membership in a specific church.

If that's the case, then the benefit of eternal salvation isn't an issue to belonging to that group or church.

[RobinFinderson]

Not really, IMO.

Perhaps, for instance, one deems their eternal salvation as not derived from membership in a specific church.

If that's the case, then the benefit of eternal salvation isn't an issue to belonging to that group or church.

A 'Mormon' who doesn't believe his eternal salvation is tied to his religious covenants, or that a specific church holds the exclusive keys to the pearly gates? You may as well be talking about SU.

[NorthwestUteFan]

If you get baptized, you're in. If you get excommunicated, die or ask for your name to be removed, you're out. Pretty simple accounting standard.

Those are the easy cases. The more difficult case is when somebody simply quits attending and cannot be found. The church used to keep those cases on the records as 'members' until they reached the age of 110 years, but now they are removed when proven to be deceased (EQP/Bishopric contact, missionary, datamining, etc).

One interesting thing of that podcast was the comment that the numbers the Jehovah's Witnesses report is in line with ARIS and Pew*, and Seventh Day Adventist report FEWER members than those who self-identify as Adventist. Another interesting comment is the facts that the Adventist church is adding a full 1 million new members a year, and that the JWs are adding 11 congregations PER DAY in Africa, even in predominantly Muslim countries. Those are absolutely explosive growth numbers.

These are even more interesting when one considers that the Adventist and Jehovah's Witness churches require between 6 months and 2 years of study and participation before one can become a member, whereas we require only a person to sit through a certain number of missionary discussions, meet with the bishop, attend meetings for a few weeks, and get baptized.


ARIS and Pew simply report the number of people who self-identify as members of that religion. I believe the church uses a standard of calling a person a 'member' when that person attends one meeting per month. But when they claim their membership numbers (14 million+) they are reporting all who are 'on the records', and the number seems to be higher than the number of those who self-identify as Mormon.



*the term 'Pew' makes me giggle a bit, because that is the code word my brother and I use when we want to get together and play Call of Duty on Xbox live... "Pew! Pew!?"

[Non Sequitur]

Not really, IMO.

Perhaps, for instance, one deems their eternal salvation as not derived from membership in a specific church.

If that's the case, then the benefit of eternal salvation isn't an issue to belonging to that group or church.

But the factors you cited were financial, psychological, emotional, time related, etc. If you really believe your eternal salvation is at stake, aren't those other factors pretty insignificant?

[TripletDaddy]

What is the bigger issue at play here? I'm trying to figure out why it matters whether the Church's membership really comprises .2% of the global population or if it is, in actuality, only approximately .14%.

[NorthwestUteFan]

But the factors you cited were financial, psychological, emotional, time related, etc. If you really believe your eternal salvation is at stake, aren't those other factors pretty insignificant?

If a person no longer believes the church is what it claims to be or that it holds the exclusive keys to his eternal salvation, then those factors become more important and the cost/benefit ratio goes through the roof. But he still must retranslate and reinterpret his 'Mormon-ness', as this is still a fundamental part of his psyche. This is particularly true for those who spent an entire life in the church.

[Portland Ute]

But the factors you cited were financial, psychological, emotional, time related, etc. If you really believe your eternal salvation is at stake, aren't those other factors pretty insignificant?

What if a person didn't believe their salvation was at stake?

There are plenty of LDS member, several here on CUF included, that would probably fall into this category.

You are speaking to the "benefits" aspect of the equation.

Again, if the benefits don't outweigh the costs, you leave.

[Portland Ute]

A 'Mormon' who doesn't believe his eternal salvation is tied to his religious covenants, or that a specific church holds the exclusive keys to the pearly gates? You may as well be talking about SU.

Well, SU would definitely fall into that category.

However, having spent some time on CUF, I would gather there are several participating/active/self-identifying members here that don't necessarily believe the LDS church is the sole gateway to eternal salvation.