I've heard it claimed here by some that the church still includes ex-Mormons in the total membership number of 15 million. When I say "ex-Mormon," I am not talking about inactive members or those who no longer consider themselves members but haven't officially resigned. I mean people who have actually went through the process of resigning and/or had their "name removed."

However, upon seeing Kimball's membership graphs it looks like the church does NOT include ex-Mormons in their membership totals.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1572038,1572038#msg-1572038

Per the following graphs, it looks like there are 5 million active members, 10 million inactive members, and 2 million "former" members.

http://www.fullerconsideration.com/membership.php

If you add just the 5 million active members and the 10 million inactive members, then that equals the church's claim of 15 million members. If they had included the 2 million former members, then they'd be claiming 17 million members.

Am I reading this wrong or does the church really not included resigned members' names in the totals?

If that's true, then its just another reason to reason. For every person who reasons its one less person the church claims in its total membership numbers.

Don't know...don't care.

RB

Lethbridge Reprobate Wrote:
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> Don't know...don't care.
>
> RB

So why post here?

To express my feelings that I for one am not bothered if I as an ex-mormon, am included in church membership numbers. I am past that. I was expressing my opinion. That's what this site is for, I thought.
I haven't quite figured out why some folks are so worried their name may still be in a file in SLC even though they have officially resigned from the COJCOLDS. It's not like any of us can force the church to do anything about it. Just my $.02 worth.

Ron Burr

I resigned but don't care either if they have my name on record at headquarters. Its no different than any organization or business; its just for record keeping. As long as the wards don't have me on their local records as a member (since they are supposed to harass inactive members).

I was just curious as to whether the church includes ex-Mormons in their total membership numbers, which they use for bragging and faith promoting purposes.

I'm sure any number that enhances their PR will be used whether it's real or made up.

RB

This is excellent work and jives with my experience as a Bishop, EQ President and high councilman.

Ward activity rates in my 25 years of ward and stake leadership was always less than 50%. Everyone knew my ward, and the other wards in the stake, averaged anywhere between 175 and 225 in attendance on a given Sunday.

What was NOT discussed or ever divulged in leadership meetings or with the non-leadership members was the fact that we had 500 plus members assigned to our ward (and every ward).

Thus the number 5 million "active" attending members passes my reasonableness test. What cannot be know if how many of those 5 million have come to the conclusion that Joseph Smith was a fraud and TSCC is not what it claims.

I'd guess that's another million members. Also included in this million is a huge number of converts who have not idea of the true history and doctrines of the church. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "I never knew that" or "I've never believed we are the only true church."

Obviously these members have no idea what the religion is teaching beyond the missionary discussions and the simple lessons taught year after year that white wash true history and true doctrine.

I've told this story before, but it's been a while. I used to live in a pretty well-to-do area where the ave. home price was up over 1 mil. Our "ward" had 500 members on the roster, yet the "ward" was lucky to get about 150 on any given Sunday. About 50 of those left after Sac meeting. This was a "nearly dead" ward full of mostly well-off/rich empty-nesters. The only youngin's in the ward besides us were people who moved back in with their parents or who were lucky enough be able to afford the place. We moved there only because it split our commute 50/50, and we had family close by. About 90% of my wife's home teaching assignments (I refused as always) were for people in gated communities who never answered their phone, almost like they knew "uh oh, the Mormons are calling us again" kind of thing. It was funny and sad. The ward had it's own building, some very pricey real-estate, and it took in parts of two cities and all of one city. They even extended the boundaries and leap froged some other wards to take in some apartment complexes not anywhere near the ward building just to get some "young blood" in there. Again, it was funny and sad. It wouldn't surprise me to see that building sold off in the near future.

The numbers the church publishes are pretty much pulled out of someone's butt.

Once the person's name is removed from the member records it is no longer there to be counted, which is probably done by some computer program.

The truth is we don't know whether resignations are subtracted from their figures or not. You can make assumptions about deaths vs resignations, but if you increase one then you have to decrease the other to make the figures balance. Even if they don't count any resignations, the death rate is too low. The simplest assumption is that they don't count resignations AND they don't count deaths of inactives until they reach the age of 110.

As shown in the detailed methodology, linked below, the reported LDS death rate over the years has always been about half of the death rate of the United States, which seems absurdly low, but when the absurdly high birth-rate is plugged into the equation, it becomes reasonable and lines up pretty well. The life expectancy was confirmed using two known points, so the annual deaths can be known with a moderate degree of certainty. The inactives who reach age 110 have also been accounted for, which leaves a pretty clear remainder in the number balance, which must be resignations and excommunications.

http://www.fullerconsideration.com/membershipmethodology.php

humm, i think if u resigned and went through the name removal process oyou may well be on the bottom of the list with some kind of notation with your info.

would be interesting if say after 15 years you moved to a differnet part of the country and rejoined, who knows what they still have on file and weather or not u were countedfor the last 15 years?

I don't know what you read but the "chart" assumes that LDS numbers have a basis in reality.

It's quite obvious to anyone who looks at them with an eye based in the real world, they are bogus numbers. How exactly? Hard to say with any precision, but it's clear that they are dishonestly reporting millions of non-mormons as mormons. Occam's razor is that they lie about people leaving the LDS church by not removing people who quit, nothing I have ever seen comes remotely close to evidence that occam's razor is wrong in this case.

Or as Stray mutt much more pithily said: They pull the numbers out of their asses.

So how many active, inactive and resigned members do YOU think there are?

5 million active
10 million inactive
2 million resigned

I think the numbers look pretty good actually.

These numbers are revealed by proven liars and are never audited or reviewed except by other proven liars.

I'm serious. The numbers are bloated and not based on any kind of real facts.