LDS Church Activity Rates

Several weeks back a rather amusing gaffe happened in an online article published in the Deseret News, a newspaper owned by the LDS church.  The article is called "LDS CIO helps LDSTech attendees better understand church membership."  This article reports on a representative from the church attending a conference and divulging a number of interesting statistics regarding church membership.  Some statistics shared in the article include:

• 48% of members live in the U.S. and Canada
• 36% live in Latin America
• 3% live in Europe
• 3% live in Africa
• 3% live in Oceania
• 7% live in Asia

But the single most interesting statistic originally shared in this article was that only 36% of Mormons attend church each week.  As you can see, this particular number is nowhere to be found in the article linked above.  That's because the original article was hastily edited after initial publication, with an editor's note saying "Some of the statistics originally reported in this article have been removed because they have not been verified by the LDS Church. The information was removed at the request of the speaker."  

For those familiar with the book "1984" by George Orwell, you will recall the concept of the "memory hole."  In the book, which depicts a futuristic totalitarian society, where the thoughts and actions of citizens are heavily monitored and controlled by "Big Brother," the main character works in a branch of the government responsible for editing history and news.  If the government wants the population to collectively "forget" something, that something is excised from all texts and publications and sent down the "memory hole." 

The LDS Church seems to naively think it can live in the far-fetched world depicted in 1984.  Perhaps Mr. Orwell could have never foreseen the invention of the internet, which makes any kind of "memory hole" impossible, but today's church leadership has no such excuse.  For, as you guessed it, someone took and preserved a screenshot of the article as it originally appeared.  You can view it here.

Tip for a church grappling with the age of the internet: the more you try to bury something, the more attention you are going to call to it.  It is understandable why they would want to bury it--this is the closest the church has ever come to releasing official numbers on activity rates, even if it was inadvertent.  It's hard to brag about "15 million strong" (if that even bestows bragging rights at all) when only a third of those members are at church on any given week.

So what are some of the implications of this statistic?  First, it's important to point out that the church doesn't keep specific attendance on a member by member basis (that I know of, at least).  Instead, someone in the congregation, often the ward clerk, will go around and count how many people are in attendance at sacrament meeting.  Babies, investigators, visitors, etc.  All will be counted.  Therefore, this figure could be seen as a rough "ceiling" on activity rates.  In any event, the statistic must be an average; therefore specific variations and outliers are unimportant.  This also means that church leaders should seriously consider dropping the "strong" qualifier to any claim that the church is "15 million members 'strong.'"  The word "strong" implies members who actively believe and participate in the church.  But if, on average, over 9 million of the people that the church claims as members want nothing to do with it, they can hardly be considered "strong" members.  Perhaps the claim should be revised to something like "5.4 million strong."  But that would be like time traveling back to 1983, and it would destroy the illusion of growth the church so desperately strives to maintain.

We really shouldn't be surprised by this kind of disparity.  The church is notorious for hiding or obfuscating data like this.  Take, for instance, the church's practice of keeping "lost" members on its rolls until they are 110 years of age. ("Lost" means that the church has not received any official notice of the member's passing.)  Well, how's that for optimism!  That means every member born since 1904 is still on the books unless the church has formal notice of death or--possibly--resignation.  Given the less-than-precise record keeping that happens in third world countries, this essentially guarantees a perpetual inflation of membership numbers.  And let's not even get started on the lack of financial transparency.  It's abundantly clear by now that the church will shout numbers from the rooftops when it thinks they will make it look good.  But when the numbers aren't so flattering?  Well, that's when you have to go digging.  Or, in this case, screen-capturing.

A Prescription That Doesn't Work

I was talking to a friend the other day about the church.  She is a church convert and participates actively.  Somehow we got onto the topic of church members who get divorced, and she mentioned a particular couple she knows in the church who recently got divorced.  Everyone was perplexed over how they got divorced because both of them were active, and from all appearances worthy, obedient, church members, both before and after the split.

Many might wonder why anyone would be perplexed over a couple divorcing.  That happens all the time, right?  True, but in the Mormon church, people are taught that as long as spouses are faithful to their church covenants and follow the church's rules, then they will have happy and successful marriages.

I told my friend that I didn't find the divorce surprising or perplexing in the slightest.  My own parents got divorced even though they were always faithful and compliant with the church's rules, and they remain so today in their new marriages.  (However, now they are both much happier, being married to spouses respectively far more compatible with each of them.)  Many other divorced couples can undoubtedly attest to similar experiences.  Clearly, then, the church's prescription for marital bliss isn't that reliable.  It's kind of like advising someone that as long as they exercise at least five days a week, they will be successful in their chosen career.  Without a doubt, such frequent exercise would bestow numerous benefits, but it would not necessarily result in career success.  And if it did contribute to career success, the contribution would be merely indirect (unless, of course, you're a fitness instructor or something similar).  The church's prescription for marital success is only effective to the extent it results in the parties doing things together or maintaining similar attitudes regarding various social/moral issues.  That kind of forced compatibility could also be produced if the couple became equally involved in a political party, fitness club, or community organization.  Except that in those scenarios, the parties will most likely have affiliated voluntarily, and not as a result of simply being raised in a particular religion.

The church's prescription ignores many other material relationship issues that could contribute to divorce.  It does nothing for sexual incompatibility, personality differences, financial stress, communication failures, inequality, or being unprepared for the marital commitment in the first place, all of which can create the type of tension that leads to divorce.  Sometimes people just aren't good together, and there is no amount of obedience to arbitrary rules and guidelines that will change that.  It also doesn't help that many church members base their decision of whom and when to marry on a highly subjective "good" feeling they either get or don't get while praying on the subject.  It hardly needs to be stated that such a decision-making method is an even more useless recipe for marital bliss than that of "just follow the commandments."

The things that make for a happy, successful relationship are many, and I don't pretend to know what they all are.  What seems clear, however, is that the church promise of marital happiness as long as both parties are faithfully living the commandments does not encapsulate all, or perhaps even most, of such issues.  Admittedly, I have never been married or divorced, so a lot of this is just idle pontification on my part.  Feel free to chime in and disagree. :)