“Mormonism used to keep about three-quarters of its adherents. Among young adults it is now retaining less than half.”
For family sizes of 4 kids or less, they will not be able to retain the replacements for the parents. I see that as a net decline in church membership.
Keep working that bedside notepad Nelson... you will need real revelation to solve this problem.
Of those that stay, I wonder how many stay for social reasons. It’s not like they don’t have Internet. I can imagine those with well off parents would be inclined to keep up appearances.
given for leaving are all social reasons. Accordingly, it wouldn't be surprising if most of the millennials who stay also do so mainly for social reasons alone.
I get the impression that "social reasons" is almost the only thing that really matters for millennials.
Not to discount social reasons.... They are important. But I'm just surprised that the issue of whether the church's claims and authority are true or false doesn't seem to be important. Reading through the article, I was a bit shocked that it the true/false aspect wasn't even registering as important. (I think only one person even hinted at it by commenting about having problems with the history of the church.)
I actually could have been socially better off staying in due to the fact that I had an established network of family and friends and acquaintances that likely would have been very helpful to me in many endeavors if I hadn't partially alienated them all by rejecting their faith. I just couldn't go through the motions of pretending to believe something that I knew was a farce, so I left.
One young woman mentioned in the article that the first thing that bothered her was gender inequality in the church, and that she had noticed this starting at a young age. That was also my primary impetus for leaving the Catholic church.
Sometimes your reasons for leaving a church evolve as time goes on. It doesn't surprise me that millennials are noticing that women, minorities, LGBTQ, etc. are not treated well in the Mormon church. Eventually they may have other reasons for leaving as well. There is no bad reason for leaving.
Like I said, I don't discount the importance of social reasons. I was just surprised that the true/false issue was not also a very prominent reason given, since that always seemed to me personally to be a threshold issue.
Even though I hated the temple and all the crap associated with it, I would have had a hard time leaving the church if I had reason to believe that it (including the temple crap) was truly from God. I would have thought that no matter how weird it was, if it came directly from a being who had created the entire universe and everything in it and to whom a billion years of experience was a trifling span of time, it would possibly be a wise thing for me to humble myself to accept it as something that I would have to learn from (for purposes that the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent supreme being would know) even if I had a hard time understanding what was good about it. That kind of logic is probably outdated nowadays, I guess.
Fortunately, though, there was enough evidence in ample supply to prove to myself that it all came from a twisted guy named Joseph Smith who couldn't be trusted to guard a half-eaten sandwich.
I guess each person has to start somewhere and one thing leads to another and the starting points can be different.
all of those reasons given for leaving are quite valid and reasonable.
But I find it surprising that something like "because it's not true" or "because its divine-origin claims are manifestly false" is not included as even a significant reason for leaving.
All the reasons are basically related to lifestyle and social comfort issues (which would apply to any voluntary association with any social organization).
I kind of feel silly now for leaving just because it was a manifestly false religion, asserting false authority based on easily disproved divine-origin claims.
Wally Prince Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > But I find it surprising that something like > "because it's not true" or "because its > divine-origin claims are manifestly false" is not > included as even a significant reason for > leaving.
Hey, a Provo paper couldn't survive long writing about things like that, or even mentioning that other people think that way.
feeling judged is the number one reason millenials drift off. Utah county is a hard place to live if your trying to live up to the standard. But I wonder what the lived experience is with these people? Why are they feeling judged?
For me I can't nail down that anyone was exactly rude to me, or was offensive but I certainly felt uncomfortable going to church as if I wasn't measuring up or good enough. Which I guess is true because when a man or woman reaches the age of about 35 the chasm between those that are doing well and those that are not is humongous. It's extremely disheartening and discouraging and difficult to find ways to bridge the gap. We can talk about Jesus loves everyone, etc. But the reality is that a few do well and many struggle in situations that don't have a way out.
I think Utah is also undergoing some significant economy problems as well that may be affecting how people feel about their communities and religion. And this is bigger than what the bretheren realize. For one we are one of the fastest growing states in the nation. We are number 22 in terms of price of a house, but our wages are no where near the median of this country. We continue to be a poor state. With an average salary of $30,000 or less and an average house cost of $300,000. Millenials will have to work their whole lives to be able to quality for a normal house. It's really quite horrible. Millenials are increasingly finding themselves cut off from access to that traditional mormon middle class which was more attainable in the past. It's hard to associate with Mormons when the divide in lifestyle is so great!
The bretheren need to address this reality. Somehow reach out to the poor... But they hate the poor, and pretend they don't exist.
Long ago, for most Mormons the Mormon community they lived in was the only community that mattered.
As the world has grown smaller, that isolation and insularity has steadily broken down until now, the outside larger community and the influences of non-Mormon society are easily as influential if not more influential than Mormon society.
With media, movies, magazines, non-Mormon peers, social media, etc., etc., etc....all coming into play, young Mormons probably are "feeling judged" by the outside/non-Mormon world as much if not more than from Mormon society. Trying to keep judgmental Mormons happy can mean incurring harsh judgments (rolling eyes, sneers, whispered jokes and giggles) from non-Mormon society. As a result, I can see how many millennials don't want to be stuck in that situation, so they choose whichever is the more comfortable way to flow.
I don't know that they hate or ignore the poor; rather they use them for a stage prop. See us helping the poor? Aren't we amazing! The church is twuoooo! Send us more of your money so we can do even more! Of, you are poor? Well there are people worse off then you, send us your money and we will help them!
No! You can't give your money directly to the poor, it doesn't count. Jeebus said so. Trust me.
are they going to be more likely to return as they grow older and have families? I've seen many people I knew (including many cousins, etc.) return to the church as they grew older because they left for social reasons.
As others have said, their dissatisfaction evolves. My daughter hated Mormonism in her late teens/20, but now she is in and has been for over 10 years. She has too much to lose, like her best friend. Her Mormon mother, whose house she is housesitting while she and her husband are on a mission.
Feeling judged? That just goes with the religion. This ward I live in is the nicest ward I ever lived in, but they are lower middle class. Not much to compete with here unless your husband leaves. Mormons always judge something like that, your marital status.
My first feelings of not believing came just before I met my ex and that was more of a feeling of Mormonism just wasn't working and somehow it was my fault that it wasn't. I was doing something wrong.
But I left completely over life experience. The rest was just icing on the cake.
I laughed and laughed that they call this a predicament. haha Ha. Predicament! Your church is falling apart at the seams folks. This ain't no predicament.
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." Churchill.
I didn't know ole Winston knew so many Mormons, haha.
The information age has given a turbo charge to what evolution has been doing for millennia--ever increasing the importance of knowledge and fact in order to maneuver through an ever more difficult existence where mankind has become his own worst enemy. So the younger generations aren't picking themselves up and dustin themselves off to scurry away, but are instead engaging what is right in front of them. Mom and Dad's word just doesn't cut it anymore.
Another sage addage comes to mind. One person's predicament is another person's triumph. Or, as Morticia Adams said, "Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly."
The flies figured out what a web is. That's the predicament for the spider. Turn around is fair play.
It may seem petty but social interaction is a huge.
Its been said ad nauseam here about how correlation killed the church. Put all the loopy doctrines and historical issues aside and the church still used to be - for the most part - fun for kids growing up in it. That started changing in the 90's when everything had to start having a gospel sledge hammer taken to it. Anything fun was reduced to a brain washing seminar.
Growing up in the 70's I know that the only thing that kept a lot of the kids my age coming was that we still had fun activities. Sure, half of us were sexually active and smoking pot but the activities and social aspect of the church kept us coming anyway. That kept some of these kids active enough to decide to go on missions, temple marriages and stay in the church. I KNOW that if they'd been chased away in their teens that they wouldn't have stayed with the church.
Bottom line: the church is the one chasing the kids away with their correlated, joyless, loveless, uninspired dipshit programs. The COB have their heads so far up each others asses they can't and won't see this.
When I was a kid living on the East Coast, the only Mormons I knew were the devoted ones who came to church. I occasionally heard about this thing called "inactives" but I thought they were weird, rare exceptions.
But when we moved to Salt Lake City in the late '60s I discovered there was this entire parallel culture of people who called themselves Mormons but didn't think or live like Mormons. They were either inactive or active but faking it — for social reasons, for family reasons.
So the idea people leave or stay for social reasons is nothing new. And it's not just a Mormon thing. When I lived in the Bible Belt, your choice of church was more about the social network than the doctrinal specifics.
I think what has changed is that it's easier than it used to be in Utah to have a life outside Mormonism without needing to give lip service to it.
I think many members harbor many dislikes and doubts about the church but they don't want to rock the boat in their family or with their peers.
Once they see their friends and family leave it's easier for they themselves to leave. I think there is a chain reaction and I think this is what scares the church leadership more than anything because they know they can lose the future of the church if the youth leave en mass. They lose the next generation of tithing payers and that means losing billions of dollars and they lose the children of those tithing payers.
I was the most devout. None of my siblings thought I'd leave, but 3 had already left, THOUGH they still thought they had to believe. Once some of them knew they didn't have to believe if I didn't, then they either completely let go or are gradually doing so and definitely NOT going back.
My niece and nephews were some of the leaders. They left before I did. The minute they were old enough, they were out of there. My daughter is the only mormon of the bunch. Wow, mormon didn't capitalize. I changed to Firefox from Bing on the "new" computer for my new job.
I agree with you, Wally. I think finding a reason for escape, such at the church's stance on LGBT issues, is just an easy way out for members who are not ready to admit to themselves that the church is not true. The indoctrination runs too deep for that. Easier to blame something else like being offended or the church's racist, discriminatory practices. At least once people leave the church they will be able to, after time, admit to themselves that it's all made up nonsense.
I was struggling as a member for years until I finally blamed a member for "offending" me as the reason I left. I wasn't able to admit that the church was not true but I could easily justify leaving because of members who were jerks. Once I'd been away from the church and its indoctrination, my brain started to normalize and I could finally admit to myself that the church was full of boloney. The member who "offended" me was just a more mentally comfortable excuse for my exit.
Members with cog dis are looking for a way out. They aren't ready to declare the church to be a fraud so instead they find another reason to leave. It's easier for them that way. Baby steps. Once out they begin to see the light.
Aside from family pressure to stay in, it's hard to understand how any young person can stay in the church. There's so much information loaded with cold facts to lead a thinking person out. I also fail to understand how missionaries can serve without having a serious mental breakdown trying to peddle the church. It's an incredible waste of time.
IMO, the reasons Millennials leave the Mormon Church are some of the same reasons that anyone of any age would leave. For me, it was all those reasons, plus the MMM. We have that wealth division in the "stake" and "ward". The wealthy houses have a road and a fancy sound wall that separates them from our houses. When we were active and attending church, it never failed that in SS, someone from there would say something to everyone like: " Thanks to us, your property values will rise." or: "I hope you're keeping up with your yard and house maintenance". When my husband has been working out in the yard, he's either asked if he'll go get the homeowner, or "do you live here"?, or even better: "You live HERE?!" Being offended is what led me out and to do research and find out the truth.
Number one reason why people leave —- Finding our it’s not true.They can call it “feeling judged” all day all. It always comes down to finding out it’s not true.