Comments about ‘LDS Church, 4 others report growth’

The reason for the mainline denominations decline and the ascendency for the LDS Church and some Evangelical churches is spelled out in the 2005 UNC-Chapel Hill study of teenagers' religiousity:

mormonteenagersreligiousity blogspot

A creed to believe,

a place to belong,

a calling to live out,

and a hope to hold onto

The growth in the Catholic Church is largely due to immigration from Latin America.

The reason the Southern Baptist Convention has begun to shrink is that it has tied itself to a conservative political agenda. This dilutes its credibility.

@ Bot: Silly man! Immigrants don't just come from Latin America.

Vince, I'm not sure I understand your point. What political agenda, and what's the relationship then to the lack of credibility ... and what is your source?

Vince: So, I guess the GROWTH in the Mormon Church number would be for the same reason?

A vast majority of immigrants to the United States are indeed from Latin America. Immigration from developed countries is statistically insignificant. Europeans have higher standards of living in their home countries (see Human Development Index online) and relatively few immigrate to the US.

Immigration statistics are available online. I took less than thirty seconds to find a government website listing the origins of immigrants.

The source doesn't list the immigrants' religion but I'm with Bot on this issues. Most immigrants to the US are PROBABLY Catholic. What Bot doesn't discuss is the high birth rate of US born Catholics. I suspect that contributes just as much to Catholic growth as immigration.

...Because there is one born every day.

I wonder how many churches count members who are on record but never attend? I'd bet, just a guess, that's 99%. Studies show that Churches will have a tough time in the future, a majority of the "under 30's" don't claim to be religious or want anything to do with organized religion. I'm sure those numbers will eventually change as those in said age group get older (we tend to become more conservative the older we get, thus more likely to become "religious"). But it does present a potential problem for growth in most, if not all churches.

Maybe missionary work might have to do with some of this. High birth rate is obviously a factor as well. The birth rate overall in the U.S. is declining significantly however.

The real numbers we should be looking at are the so-called faithfull. Numbers that are passed around by the LDS faith indicate >40% inactivity. Many are still on the LDS Church rolls but are not really active in their faith. Each denomination is probably close to this. If the churches wanted a clear look at their activie members, they would see only about half of the members can claim that they attend at least once per month. Rather than reporting growth, report on actual members who are active.

Activity rates are definitely a factor to consider, but one the LDS church should be proud of- especially in North America.

Each denomination has it's own way of reporting membership and consequently comparisons between each is useless. The LDS Church's statistics, for example, count anyone who joined the Church at one time or who was born into a Mormon family (including people they can't find who may be dead since they count them until they are 110) while other denominations only count attending members. If the Mormon faith counted it's membership in this later way it would probably report more moderate or even zero growth.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you have a bone to pick with the LDS Church. For some reason in the past you were offended by someone or something. Whats that saying? "you can please some of the people some of the time..." My advice would be to look at yourself and quit judging others. Hows your relationship with God and his church?

I'm thinking both these churches have dismal activity rates.

I think the Jazz will Ok without a trade, they just need to work hard............

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints saw a 1.7 percent increase in its U.S. membership to just under 6 million?

Shhhhhh!!!.....

Don't tell that to the anti's. They think we're shrinking.

It seems to me that growth rates and activity rates are related but separate. If one religion has a much higher activity rate than another, one would expect to see its growth rate also be higher over the years assuming a missionary minded doctrine - less actives typically don't evangelize. It is, therefore, a bit silly to argue that religious growth is positively linked with inactivity rates barring an external factor such as high immigration rates or conversion for non-spiritual reasons (handout programs in Africa tied to baptism or "baseball baptisms" in the 1950s in England come to mind". Further, for "Inconsistent Numbers" to claim differing approaches to counting membership also misses the growth rate point while potentially speaking to absolute numbers. Even then, such a claim begs for citation.

If you are going to take all the immigrants from Latin America and say that is why the Catholic Church has grown so much, you must take into account that many of these immigrants are illegal and therefore are not accounted for on the immigration stats of the US government.

Also, it is not impossible for a person to claim membership in more than one church. But the LDS Church does not allow for this. You are either a member or you are not. So, I am questioning the validity of some of these church statistics.

This is just another testimony to the truthfulness of the Church. As God has said the true church is “A stone rolling forth encompassing the entire earth”. Many individuals will continue to be attracted to the truth.

There is the growth in physical church and the growth in the ivisible Church. Only God can see someone's heart and know if He is indeed a true beleiver in,"The Great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13) The Bible states that the true beleivers (the remnant) of the church is small.