There was a very interesting paragraph in an article in National Review on the influence of conservative Christians on politics. The point was that the number of devout believers in Christians churches is only about 10 percent. Here’s the paragraph:
All told, these are not the beliefs of a crusading army, and only a small portion of believers should be considered truly devout, Fr. John McCloskey told me. McCloskey, an evangelist and traditionalist Catholic who is credited with helping bring Robert Bork, Robert Novak, Larry Kudlow, and Sen. Sam Brownback into the Roman Catholic Church, says that only about ten percent of Catholics are “with the program,†by which he means they regularly attend Mass, go to Confession, and attempt to conform their lives fully to church teachings. The ten-percent figure turned up elsewhere as well. Dr. Albert Mohler, head of a Southern Baptist Convention seminary in Louisville, told me that only about ten percent of Protestants are serious believers, by which he meant people who take scripture not only seriously but as a guide to behavior and thought.
This of course raised the question in my mind of how many “serious believers” there are in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If forced to give an estimate, what would you say?
The first point in all of this is that being a “true believer” is in the eye of the beholder. None of us knows anybody else’s heart and would never pretend to try to judge the totality of their faith. However, it is clear that there are some people who are definitely no longer believers yet are on ward lists. There are others who are semi-active members but don’t believe in the basic doctrines of the Church.
The other point is that I am not trying to make any kind of political statement with this post. I am not trying to say that one needs to be a conservative Mormon to be considered a true believer (which IS the point others may try to make). I know plenty of “liberal” Mormons who have tremendous faith, and I would never try to impugn them or their beliefs.
I am mostly interested in comparing our faith to other Christian faiths in the United States. My instincts tell me the percentage of “true believers” is higher among Mormons than among other faiths. I would put our figure at 50-60 percent in terms of “true believers,” much higher than the 10 percent among Catholics and Baptists. What do others think?
Geoff,
It’s lower than that, almost certainly.
LDSLF just posted that in the US, only about half of baptized members self-identify as Mormon for a survey. So only half of baptized members think that they’re Mormon at all — the rest are fallen away.
(I think that a lot of them are the quickie baptisms we see here in places like here in the Bronx — in church for a month, never heard from again.)
So out of the 50% who self-identify as Mormon, you then take off another — I don’t know, 30% or 40% maybe — for people who don’t really follow the commandments or believe the teachings, but who still consider themselves Mormon (the classic “lapsed Catholic” type mentality, someone who doesn’t go to church but insists that he be classified as a Catholic).
That leaves a total of maybe 30% who are true believers.
Maybe less, I don’t know. It would be interesting to see some numbers.
50-60 percent is way too high. I posted some thoughts on this some time ago on Let Us Reason.
You are right that “serious believer” is a highly subjective term. But church activity is an indicator, and the demands of Mormonism allow for other indicators, such as payment of tithing, holding a current temple recommend, etc.
I think regular activity averages about 35% for the whole church (higher in the U.S., lower in most other places). If my impression is correct that about half of active members are full tithe payers, then we have about 2 million full tithe payers in the Church, and likely fewer who have a temple recommend (or could if they were old enough). My guess is that ten percent is probably a pretty good estimate of “serious believers” if you include paying tithing and qualifying for a temple recommend as criteria.
Kaimi, I’ve seen references to low “self-identification” figures, but I have my doubts. Do you have any information to back that up?
Christopher, I might be OK with your 35 percent figure, but I’m not ready to classify serious believers based on paying tithing and temple attendance. I know plenty of serious believers who do neither for a variety of different reasons. I still think we have a higher percentage of serious believers than other churches — but perhaps I’m wrong.
Kaimi, if you look at the comments to the post on LDSLF, you’ll see why the estimate that only “half of baptized members self-identify as Mormon” is way too low. The biggest problem is that the ARIS survey only counted adults over 18, but there are some other issues as well. I’d say a the percentage of adults who are counted by the church but who fail to identify as Mormons is more like 25% than 50%.
In stake conference this weekend, one of the GAs quoted President Hinckley as saying something to the effect that it would be difficult to truly bear testimony of the gospel without being a tithepayer. I had never heard that before but if you just take that basic law and combine it with regular church attendance, I don’t see how we get much higher then 20-25%. Just my guess. I have noooooo statistics on which to base this number.
Regarding self-identification, Kathleen Flake’s chapter on “The Mormon Corridor” in Religion and Public Life in the Mountain West (edited by Jan Shipps) notes that for Utah at least, more people self-identify as LDS than are on the Church records. Obviously, this doesn’t hold true everywhere.
As to the percentage of “true believers,” I think any churchwide estimate–the 1/4 to 1/3 guesses sound plausible to me–would mask the regional variations, which I suspect are quite drastic.
Degree of devotion in the various Denominations aside, the 10% true believer comments are exactly the type of judgmental crap one would expect from leaders who have placed themselves above the flock and forgotten that they too need the atonement. Why should anyone follow some self righteous SOB like that?
Steve, but what do you really think about it? I’m sensing a lack of passion from you on this issue.
Steve is a little dispassionate, perhaps, but his point is well made.
Consider for a moment the amount of time spent in the Church criticizing members, or assessing the value of their testimonies, by leaders who are fundamentally no better than those they criticize.
I was in the High Priest group leadership a number of years ago, and I had a the Bishop and a member of the Stake Presidency in my quorum. Guess how often they did their home teaching? Less than 10% of the time.
I recognize the tremendous time burdens that are placed upon them and had no problem reconciling their lack of due diligence.
My point in all this is that we focus so much on the things that are not going to keep people active, i.e. home teaching, tithing, etc. that we make membership appear to be a burden.
If, as Steve suggested, we focused more on coming to Christ in our own lives, and led out, as Lehi did in his dream of the Tree of Life, and showed others that path,how many would stay active, and how many would pay their tithing and do their home teaching, because they want to. All because they want to give their all to Him who gave His all, so that we could inherit all that His Father has.
In other words, be Christ centered.
I think that the percentage of devoted members in the LDS church will always be higher than the Catholic or Baptist churches because the LDS church is not (and never will be) as “popular” as these two churches are. I am defining a “popular” church as one whose members are seldom (or never) subject to any serious criticism or persecution from other Christian faiths. Other unpopular churches whose lifestyles are not very “mainstream”(such as Seventh-Day Adventist or Jehovah’s Witnesses) I would guess have a higher “devotion percentage” than the LDS church.
From my experience in record-keeping in the Church in a variety of different cities in the United States and Canada, it seems fairly consistent that about 10-15% of adults on Church records have current temple recommends. I understand that outside of North America these figures are lower.
“Current temple recommend holder” may be too stringent a standard to qualify for “serious true believer,” however. Obviously, recent convert adults and others (recently reactivated, etc.) who are working towards the temple may be considered “serious true believers” and not have temple recommends, but what percentage would this add? Not even 5% of adults in most wards.
If one sign of “true believers” is 1 year of food storage, I believe it’s around 3%!!!
Galations 5:9
I’d guess 20-30% in my ward. I wouldn’t consider holding a temple recommend — too many YSAs and teenagers and converts and re-activated types around (it’s a big chunk of our ward, by the way — far more than 5% are reactivated or getting there.) If you just look at the parents of Primary-age children, we’re closer to 50-60%, I’d say, in attendance at least (I’ve got 80-90% attendance in my class.) If you look at Young Singles, we’re much worse; probably like 30% for the stake. I don’t know what our official numbers look like, obviously, that’s just a rough comparison of the names I know versus who shows up to activities/who’s preparing for a mission/etc.
Even if you just take pure attendance, the Church worldwide is struggling to get 25%, though it is higher than this in North America. And I doubt that you could say everyone who merely attends qualifies by your standards. I would bet on 15-20% worldwide, max.
“If one sign of “true believers” is 1 year of food storage, I believe it’s around 3%!!!”
1 year food storage? I thought they let that one die along with not playing cards, Adam-G-d, King Follet sermon, etc. Emergency preparedness, yes, but one year food storage, I haven’t heard that one in years. Let’s face it, it’s kind of an anachronism from pioneer times. We should have a rule that for every new church program, we have to kill two old programs to keep us from the trap of becoming The Church of JC of LDS of the bag of programs that obscures JC.
So, to be a “serious” believer:
1. Regular church attendance
2. Temple reccomend holding (or at least working towards it, if new or reactivated, etc.) – this covers tithing, etc.
3. 1 year food storage (still in official correlated materials, Steve)
I would add:
4. Does regular genelogical work on their own family history
5. Does regular member missionary work
So, I would say, it’s less than 1% now!!!!
Ivan, that’s not my definition of a serious or true believer, but I’m guessing you have your tongue at least partially in cheek.
Steve, Church leaders still advise us to have one year of food storage. Having lived through four hurricanes in Florida last year, I can tell you it’s still a pretty good idea.
I think this is going to be different everywhere. I recall serving in a ward in Oklahoma with about three hundred members on the roster. The average sacrament meeting attendance was 60 I think. On the other hand, in my current YSA branch in California we have about 170 members, and average sacrament meeting attendance is 115, with most, if not all of those attending all of their classes regularly; our Elders quorum is the largest I’ve ever seen. I think this really varies by where you look, and not only that, but how you look. One thing is for sure, no matter what the percentage of true believers, it’s not enough.
Ivan,
Your list left off the following:
Home or Visiting Teaching (Larry wanted us to remember that)
Family Home Evening (with a lesson, not just watching TV as a family)
Family and personal scripture study
Family and personal prayer
At this point I have to join the apostles who asked after the parable of the camel and the eye of the needle, *Can any one be saved then?*
Well, sure we can, through faith on Jesus, after all we can do (not after all we should have done). Let’s not get Pharisitical about it. Rather than trying to compare the numbers of active members of other churches with the number of card carrying celestial members of our church, let’s try to get some measurement basis that is equivalent (z.b. regular attendance).
1. Um…if teens are any guess, then there are for more than 10% that are ‘strong’ members of the Church; which is a far higher % than any other faith in the U.S.
2. I’d say more like 50% of those that attend Church are probably solid/same level of committment as mentioned in the NR article. Remember, this is a demanding faith after all.
3. Sounds like the Bronx needs to work on its retention…(among other areas)
See the recent National Study of Youth & Religion…
Money quote:
When researchers at the University of North Carolina finished a four-year study on teenagers and religion, they found a surprisingly religious group in the United States.
The majority, though, demonstrated vague knowledge of their beliefs and loose commitment to their faiths. Not so the Mormons. In almost every measure, LDS teens, who made up 2.5 percent of the survey sample, stood above the crowd.
“It is Mormon teenagers who are sociologically faring the best,” Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton wrote in “Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers,” a book based on the study.
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/dailystar/78430.php
Geoff –
My tounge was well planted in the cheek, but I also based it (somewhat) on a talk my father gave once. I doubt this is totally true doctrine, but as a pedagogical point, it worked within the narrow context he was discussing it in. Anyway – his point was that the Celestial kingdom has 3 degrees, and there are the three missions of the church. He made a connection between the two sort of like this: Most people are concerned with perfecting themselves and their friends, so most people fulfill the first mission of the church: to perfect the saints. They will likely lmake the first level of the CK. After that, a smaller percentage do some missionary work, and so will make the 2nd level. Only those who do all three (which includes redeeming the dead) – and my dad emphasized geneology, not just temple attendence – can make it to the 3rd and highest level.
Of course, then he said this was not likely how it actually worked in the celestial realms, but it was something to consider, especially if you weren’t doing all you could to fulfill all three missions of the church.
Anyway, that’s a bit of digression. I wasn’t totally serious – just trying a reductio ad absurdum on the direction the topic was going.
Adding in what Flyod added, we now have a 0% of serious members.
Cool. 😉
Ivan Wolfe:
I guess that means that 100 % of us need the Atonement. Surprise !
Pres. Packer talks about how many are “living the Gospel.” There is a couple in our district who are regular tithepayers, attend regularly, and even have leadership callings. They are called as companions for Home Teaching, and each month have their home teachees over for dinner as their home teaching. I have had one of the widows on their list beg me to get him to go to her house, as there are simple repairs she needs and he could easily do.
I have never met more judgmental people in my life. One example: they met a couple of fellow Nebraska football fans in line at the post office, and started a friendship, of sorts. They had this couple over for dinner, for game night, and other activities. My wife and I would occasionally be part of these activities, too. But as soon as this couple said they weren’t interested in the Church, the friendship was dropped, and it was clear that the lack of interest was the reason. What happens a couple of years from now, when they may be more open, and they are approached again? They will more than likely remember Mormons as people who only want to be friends if they think you will join their church.
Their is a difference between those who do the outward things, and those who really live the Gospel. This couple is the best living example I have seen of the Savior’s description of “whited sepulchures.”
Alamojag, I don’t know the couple to whom you refer, and I’m sure they have their faults like all of us. You may be correct that they are “whited sepulchres,” (again I don’t know them), but one thing I have learned the hard way is that the Lord has different uses for lots of different people and even people like this may have important things to give to the kingdom. You have no way to judge the totality of their contribution. I know very imperfect people who nonetheless go to the temple once a week and have done work for hundreds of others — yes, they have their faults, but the people for whom they are doing the work probably don’t care much. I think the best advice is to remember that the gospel makes bad men good and good men better.