One thing this raises for me is that religious activity, religious identity, and personal conviction are not always the same thing. A group can look more committed on paper either because faith is genuinely deepening or because the core is staying while the edges are falling away. That’s why the revival/retrenchment distinction feels so important. The numbers may show more visible commitment, but they do not yet tell us whether that reflects broader renewal or a smaller, more consolidated base.
On gun control. Anecdotally, after the attacks, people around me were more likely to want the Church to remove its restriction on guns in church so that gun-toting members could help protect other members against attack from outside.
The CES survey is fascinating to me. Back in 2008, roughly 2.0% of US population was on the rolls of the church, regardless of activity. According to that survey, 90% of those on the rolls were identifying with the faith, which is absolutely not true, not even close. The decline doesn't make a lot of sense to me personally. I was curious what things looked like back then and gathered the data from the Cumorah project to get a rough estimate of activity based on members per unit.
In 2008, there were roughly 4,975,957 members in 13,370 units (ward and branches), for an average unit size of 447 members per unit. In 2024 (the most recent year data is available, though the church should be releasing the updated metrics sometime within the next week), there were roughly 6,929,490 members in 14,637 units, for an average unit size of 473 members per unit, an increase of roughly 6% since 2008.
Assuming the average unit has 150 active members (which I think is a fair assumption, I've lived in 4 states - Michigan, Washington, Utah, and Texas - and attended 7 wards in the past decade and 150 is average in my experience), that's an activity rate of about 34% in 2008. With the same assumption of 150 active members, that's an activity rate of 32%, in 2024, a small decrease, but not the 50% drop that we see in the CES survey.
I think the current 0.9% is probably right on the money in terms of self-identifying membership, and probably has been for some time (including back in 2008), and the earlier 1.8% is massively inflated. If there is a drop, it's likely at the edges, like you mention; those who culturally identify with the church but don't attend.
Anything I might have missed in my assessment? Great post as always Alex!
One thing this raises for me is that religious activity, religious identity, and personal conviction are not always the same thing. A group can look more committed on paper either because faith is genuinely deepening or because the core is staying while the edges are falling away. That’s why the revival/retrenchment distinction feels so important. The numbers may show more visible commitment, but they do not yet tell us whether that reflects broader renewal or a smaller, more consolidated base.
On gun control. Anecdotally, after the attacks, people around me were more likely to want the Church to remove its restriction on guns in church so that gun-toting members could help protect other members against attack from outside.
The CES survey is fascinating to me. Back in 2008, roughly 2.0% of US population was on the rolls of the church, regardless of activity. According to that survey, 90% of those on the rolls were identifying with the faith, which is absolutely not true, not even close. The decline doesn't make a lot of sense to me personally. I was curious what things looked like back then and gathered the data from the Cumorah project to get a rough estimate of activity based on members per unit.
In 2008, there were roughly 4,975,957 members in 13,370 units (ward and branches), for an average unit size of 447 members per unit. In 2024 (the most recent year data is available, though the church should be releasing the updated metrics sometime within the next week), there were roughly 6,929,490 members in 14,637 units, for an average unit size of 473 members per unit, an increase of roughly 6% since 2008.
Assuming the average unit has 150 active members (which I think is a fair assumption, I've lived in 4 states - Michigan, Washington, Utah, and Texas - and attended 7 wards in the past decade and 150 is average in my experience), that's an activity rate of about 34% in 2008. With the same assumption of 150 active members, that's an activity rate of 32%, in 2024, a small decrease, but not the 50% drop that we see in the CES survey.
I think the current 0.9% is probably right on the money in terms of self-identifying membership, and probably has been for some time (including back in 2008), and the earlier 1.8% is massively inflated. If there is a drop, it's likely at the edges, like you mention; those who culturally identify with the church but don't attend.
Anything I might have missed in my assessment? Great post as always Alex!
Here's a link to my spreadsheet for reference: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yPCUlzFMHZpTJW3lkRK3gSLCOIuZZ1HZG0D2olilZ1w/edit?usp=sharing
The 2024 data can be found on the Church Newsroom; 2008 data can be found at the Cumorah Project.