On May 1st, 2012, the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) released its 2010 U.S. Religion Census, which includes county-level data on congregations for 236 American religious bodies, and includes data on adherents available for 153 participating bodies. Primary media sources for this post include the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News.
The ASARB compiles this study once per decade; consequently, the 2010 version measures growth from 2000-2010. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reported an increase from 4,224,026 U.S. members in 2000 to 6,144,582 members in 2010, a 45.5 percent jump. While only second overall to Muslim growth of 66.7 percent during the same period, the LDS Church was the fastest growing Christian denomination. The LDS Church is also the largest religious body in 107 counties of the United States, and not all of them are in the Utah-Idaho corridor.
Here's a navigational guide to the ASARB study, which is spread out between the ASARB website and the Association of Religious Data (ARDA) archives where the raw numbers are posted:
-- U.S. Religion Census 2010: Summary Findings
-- ARDA Portal Page for membership breakdowns. From this page, you can browse reports stratified by state, county, and metro area.
-- Salt Lake Tribune's LDS Census Map
Information on the Community of Christ (formerly RLDS) is also available through the ARDA Portal Page.
LDS Membership as a percentage of total population:
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| Click map or go HERE for larger version |
LDS Membership Penetration:
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| Click map or go HERE to download larger version as a ZIP file |
It should be noted that the LDS Church defines membership differently than most other denominations. Because records are centralized, this means that when a Mormon moves from one ward to another, that person still remains on the Church membership rolls. In contrast, if a Southern Baptist moves from one church to another, the person must affirmatively join the new church to still be counted as a Southern Baptist. Once one joins the LDS Church, one is considered a member until death, excommunication, or voluntary resignation, even if one becomes totally inactive.
Official LDS Church Reaction: "Surveys and statistics are sometimes helpful in understanding various aspects of the church, but, ultimately, we reach out to individuals, not numbers," said LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter. "By all indicators — including the church’s building program — the church is growing and we are grateful that people are embracing the gospel of Jesus Christ."
Dr. Marie Cornwall, a professor of sociology at BYU, made an interesting observation. She noted that the most interesting LDS data in the Religion Census is seen while looking at the membership penetration map (posted above) and seeing where the church is not growing. "There are areas in the heartland of America where there has been an LDS presence for a long, long time, but we just don't seem to be growing much," she observed. "We've never really appealed to the blue-collar industrial demographic. These are the same people that Mitt Romney can't seem to impress. Why is that? I think that's something the church is probably taking a good long look at."
You can spin it any way you like, but regardless, the LDS Church is one of the top fastest growing churches in the US and also continues to bring in more and more converts and build new chapels and temples all over, which indeed runs counter to your obtuse, prejudiced thinking.
ReplyDeletePlus Romney won the nomination and a bigot like you is going to have to be prepared for living under a LDS president of the US.
It's not accurate to say that the LDS Church counts membership numbers as compared to other denominations. I know that for the United Methodist Church, a member's records are transferred to the new congregation when the member(s) moves, apparently like you're saying the Mormons do.
ReplyDeleteI believe it's the Catholic church has the highest membership numbers, but there's actually very few when you go in to see a Mass.
LDS is not growing. At least not in the U.S. The numbers simply don't bear it out. And even the non-U.S. extrapolations demonstrate a very low adherent rate. Attrition is huge. Ask any MP who's honest and they'll tell you the RM inactive rate is over 50%. And that's among the highly observant Mormons.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't some sort of anti-Mormon propoganda. No religion is growing. At best, religions including Hindu, Muslim, Christian, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera... are all generally declining.
The best numbers/trends for any religion in a developed country is basically matching birth rate with adherent rate. And it is a solid bet that birth rate will not track persistently with adherent rate over a generation. In other words, birth rate will not match adherent/active rate over time.
The only quantifiable, provable, demonstrable expanding religious belief is non-belief.
I'm not saying I think this is good or bad. I'm just saying that modern people seek consistent results and religion doesn't produce consistent results.
Think of it in these terms: Your child is dying. Do you seek the most righteous holy man to pray the cancer away or do you seek the proven atheist surgeon with a 95% success rate to treat your kid?