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?