Recovery Board
: RfM
Recovery from Mormonism (RfM) discussion forum.
Cumorah.com, the "missiology" website, recently released a study called The Internet and LDS Church Growth. It can be found here:http://cumorah.com/index.php?target=view_other_articles&story_id=485&cat_id=30.
Although their conclusion reflects typical Mormon slant, the statistics they provide are remarkable. They show that in the top ten countries with the most Internet usage, LDS congregational growth has declined in every single one of them. In the bottom ten countries with missionaries, LDS growth is going at a nice clip.
These are great statistics. Somehow, they conclude that the Internet is a neutral for the church by their special pleading that all congregational decline is from rule changes. They claim from "anecdotal mission reports" that active membership is actually growing there. That is silly though. Anecdotal mission reports are as untruthful and biased as any twisted and overoptimistic information in a Communist bureaucracy and they should know that. Check out their tables and draw your own conclusions.
Although their conclusion reflects typical Mormon slant, the statistics they provide are remarkable. They show that in the top ten countries with the most Internet usage, LDS congregational growth has declined in every single one of them. In the bottom ten countries with missionaries, LDS growth is going at a nice clip.
These are great statistics. Somehow, they conclude that the Internet is a neutral for the church by their special pleading that all congregational decline is from rule changes. They claim from "anecdotal mission reports" that active membership is actually growing there. That is silly though. Anecdotal mission reports are as untruthful and biased as any twisted and overoptimistic information in a Communist bureaucracy and they should know that. Check out their tables and draw your own conclusions.
know they reflect wishful thinking. The internal tithing decline report would be the one to see. You can bet that one is factual...secret and disappointing.
It says it can be viewed by any browser except Explorer. Guess I could download some Firefox or something, if it's free, but I'm too lazy and/or old to figure out how.
Also, your subject line made me think it applied to Methodists, Lutherans, etc. - Nope, just LDS.
Also, your subject line made me think it applied to Methodists, Lutherans, etc. - Nope, just LDS.
Congregational growth rates have remained stagnant or have declined in the past decade in many of the countries with the highest rates of internet usage, but this has been largely the result of other factors.
What are those 'other factors'?
What are those 'other factors'?
Just a list of numbers that may or may not be correlated.