Significant Problems

Mass exodus from Mormonism? LDS stats paint a different picture

By Peggy Fletcher Stack, The Salt Lake Tribune

First Published Nov 02 2016 10:09PM

(Excerpts from article.)

.  .Attorney Mark Naugle, a former Mormon in South Jordan, says he has personally submitted about 12,500 letters to the LDS Church in the past year from members asking to have their names removed from the faith's membership rolls. He has received requests from most states, Naugle says, as well as from Japan, New Zealand, Thailand, France, Germany, Great Britain and South Africa, to name a few.

     "And there are plenty more," he says, "who tell me my services are not necessary" — that they know how to excise their memberships without his help.

     The LDS Church acknowledges "periodic increases or decreases in [such] requests," explains spokesman Eric Hawkins, but "the number of people asking to have their names removed from the records of the church has been less than one-tenth of 1 percent (less than 1 in 1,000) for more than 20 consecutive years, including in 2015 and the first eight months of 2016."

     That means of the 15,634,199 members reported by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April, fewer than 15,634 have or will resign this year.

     That figure pales in comparison to, say, the 257,402 converts who joined the church in 2015.

Hawkins says other "important statistics" demonstrate the continuing "activity [rate] of individual adult members, such as endowed members with a current temple recommend and full tithe payers."

     In all areas, he writes in an email, "the upward growth has continued [during that same period]." . . . . .

Comments:

John P. Hatch: I'll keep saying it: the quip that "they leave the church but they cannot leave it alone" is false. Those who resign, those who post at r/ex-Mormon, they are the least of the church's worries. It's those huge numbers of inactives, the people who just don't care anymore because they're bored to tears or don't see the church as relevant to their lives, that's what is really (or should be) troubling.

Rick Robison: Exactly! I've had two family members (one is my son that was in a bishopric two years ago) recently go inactive because the "policy" triggered him to do more research and they are nonbelievers now. No resignation (yet) though...

Maxine Hanks: Very interesting story Peggy, thanks. Losing 15,600 members per year who resign-- is still a huge number of people -- whose lives are drastically changed, deeply affected, with enormous far-reaching effects on other lives. An annual loss of 15,600 in any organization indicates significant problems in need of solving. And if they aren't solved, more will leave. Every member's life, contributions, sacrifices matter. If 15,600 people can't be themselves or authentic or contribute in real ways, or be safe, or nourished, or appreciated or needed or belong, but feel they have to leave, that's a clear failure. We can do far better and must do better than making 15,600 people feel they must leave. It's not about numbers or quantity....as Jesus demonstrated with the one. It's about Lives and quality.

Kristine Miller Anderson: 1 in 1000 is what I probably would have guessed, but for everyone I know who had their name removed there were 10 that stopped going. For every 10 who stopped going I know 25 holding on by their fingertips. For every 25 just holding on I probably know 100 whose relationship with the church is permanently altered. etc.

     Maxine Hanks touched on a subject that has long been on my mind. When the 1993 September Six were excommunicated, President Hinckley quipped something like, “What’s six compared to 9 million?” I lamented to Lavina that perhaps he had forgotten the parable of the Lost Sheep.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Luke 15:3-7 King James Version (KJV)

3 And he spake this parable unto them, saying,

4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?

5 And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

6 And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.

7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.
            ( Although, in my mind, they were not sinners. For me, the parable emphasizes that each life is of great worth.)

             “Every member's life, contributions, sacrifices matter. If 15,600 people can't be themselves or authentic or contribute in real ways, or be safe, or nourished, or appreciated or needed or belong, but feel they have to leave, that's a clear failure.”

Personally, I’m not just thinking about LGBT and their families. I’m thinking about the disabled, special needs, the elderly, divorced, single, women; the judged, the poor; the sick and tired and their families – everyone on the fringes who doesn’t feel he/she belongs, let alone needed or appreciated; or valued in any way.

Maxine Hanks was excommunicated as one of the September Six in 1993 for her involvement in compiling and editing the book Women and Authority: Re-emerging Latter-day Saint Feminism. At the time she said how she was happy to be out and done with the church. She took a 20-year journey of faith where she became a chaplain in a Protestant church, and recently went through the long process of being re-admitted into the Mormon Church.