The American Religious Landscape in 2020

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Jeffret
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The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by Jeffret » Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:45 pm

For number nerds, the PRRI has updated their ongoing reports about religious affiliation in America. See The 2020 Census of American Religion. There are lots of different breakdowns across different aspects.

Some interesting points about the Mormon Church:
  • The reported number of Mormons appears to be about the same, within the reported granularity and the margin of error. About 2% or slightly less.
  • Some other groups have experienced some dramatic declines, particularly white evangelical Protestant.
  • Catholics have also seen some notable decline.
  • White mainline Protestant has experienced a bit of a resurgence.
  • Unaffiliated has seen a decline though it's still very high in the younger generations. 36% of those aged 18-29 are unaffiliated.
  • Mormons are getting older. In 2013 the median age was 44. It's now 47, which exactly matches for all Americans.
  • Mormons remain about 6th out of 15 for educational attainment (degrees).
  • The "The Religious Diversity Index, By County" map is quite interesting.
  • Utah is surprisingly more religiously diverse than Mormons and ex-Mormons would expect.
  • Utah County is the least religiously diverse county in Utah.
  • Summit County is the most diverse.
  • The least religiously diverse part of America is what we might call the Deep South: Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, and some surroundings.
  • The "Latter-day Saint (Mormon) Identity, by County" map clearly shows the Morridor.
  • But really, it's just Utah ... and a bit of Idaho.
"Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,
And the truth isn't what you want to see" (Charles Hart, "The Music of the Night")

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Hagoth
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by Hagoth » Fri Jul 09, 2021 10:38 am

Great to hear from you, Jeffret!
Jeffret wrote:
Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:45 pm
[*] Some other groups have experienced some dramatic declines, particularly white evangelical Protestant.
I hope this trend accelerates. If there is a Satan he would likely self-identify in this category.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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blazerb
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by blazerb » Sat Jul 10, 2021 6:25 am

Hagoth wrote:
Fri Jul 09, 2021 10:38 am
Great to hear from you, Jeffret!
Jeffret wrote:
Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:45 pm
[*] Some other groups have experienced some dramatic declines, particularly white evangelical Protestant.
I hope this trend accelerates. If there is a Satan he would likely self-identify in this category.
Ever since I was young, many years ago, I was told that liberal religions lose members and conservative religions gain members. This was used as an argument for keeping the church crazy. If we liberalized, after all, fewer people would find Christ. However, looking over the data, it appears that recently conservative Christians have declined in numbers and liberal Christians have recovered some of their numbers. Is this perception accurate?

If this is correct, I wonder why. Has the country reached the carrying capacity of conservative Christians? (Yay, alliteration!) Has the carrying capacity changed due to the increased availability of information, thus conservative Christianity looks less appealing? This is interesting data.

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Jeffret
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by Jeffret » Sat Jul 10, 2021 7:26 am

Thanks for the re-welcome! Just popping in the share this latest round of statistics.

The white evangelical Protestants are certainly one group I'm plenty happy to see decline. I can only cheer them on in those efforts, "Best speed".

And it's not too bad if traditional Protestants have some resurgence, especially at the loss for the evangelicals.

When the rise of the Unaffiliated first started, it hit membership numbers for more liberal churches the hardest. The conservative churches all shouted with glee how that proves banging people over the head with the Bible is the best way to go. People had started realizing they don't need church and it doesn't do anything for them. It was easier for people to extract themselves from more liberal churches and paradigms. But then the numbers for the conservative churches also started dropping and that glee faded. The Southern Baptist Caucus has lost a lot of members for years now. The decline of the overall white evangelical Protestant started a little later but has been pretty dramatic, in spite of all the noise from those who proclaim themselves leaders in that area.

Mormonism is fairly unique in that it hasn't started losing members yet. The percentage has remained pretty consistent at 2% for quite a while now. Or 1.9% in some surveys. The Church's own numbers show, though, that the rate of growth has declined dramatically. With this year's report, for the first time in decades (at least 4), the Church's growth has dropped below both world growth rates and replacements rates. We'll see how that continues, especially as things open back up after the pandemic.
"Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,
And the truth isn't what you want to see" (Charles Hart, "The Music of the Night")

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Hagoth
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by Hagoth » Sat Jul 10, 2021 7:48 am

Jeffret wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 7:26 am
The Church's own numbers show, though, that the rate of growth has declined dramatically. With this year's report, for the first time in decades (at least 4), the Church's growth has dropped below both world growth rates and replacements rates.
There are only two likely solutions for this, and one highly unlikely:

1) A return to demonizing birth control and renewed pressure for having large families

2) Africa

3) Start having actual revelations that come true and performing actual miracles
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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Jeffret
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by Jeffret » Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:46 am

Which is the unlikely one?

All three look highly unlikely.

Demonizing birth control isn't going to work. Mormonism "works" when it maintains a certain level of tension between its communities and "The World". If the tension is too low, there isn't enough unique about it and there's no reason for members to bother. If the tension is high, then members are too separated from society. They'll start to leave because of too much imposition and they'll have a hard time recruiting new converts. That's why the Church always lags 20 to 30 years behind the times. It's not accidental. It's built into the structure. The Church tried to mandate large families and prohibit birth control but they've lost that battle. Even the Catholics who have actual, doctrinal rules on those topics have lost in most of the world. Families and individuals make their choices. There's no going back for the church.

I know there are faith promoting rumors about an explosion of converts in Africa. Any minute now it's really going to take off. I'm very doubtful, though. I'm sure they'll have some success there but I really doubt they'll repeat the success of the 80's in Latin America into Africa. And of course, we're more aware now that we didn't really have the success in Latin America in the 80's that the numbers suggested.

The numbers I first mentioned, 2%, are from studies like the PRRI about participation in America. Africa may help prop up worldwide numbers may a while, they won't help the U.S. numbers.

I think it would take actual revelations and miracles to accomplish either of these previous ones, so it's about the same likelihood.

The Church is holding steady so far, which is a good accomplishment in these conditions. There's little evidence it will achieve Rodney Stark's ludicrous projections for growth. And it's not going to grow to fill and consume all the earth.
"Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,
And the truth isn't what you want to see" (Charles Hart, "The Music of the Night")

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Hagoth
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by Hagoth » Sat Jul 10, 2021 11:28 am

Jeffret wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:46 am
Which is the unlikely one?

All three look highly unlikely.
You're right. I chose my words poorly. I should have said two possible, however unlikely. One is impossible.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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nibbler
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by nibbler » Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:00 pm

How does the survey capture atheists? The methodology appears to be cold calling; do the percentages only reflect the respondents that identified as religious in some way or are the atheists represented in the unaffiliated and don't know/refused groups?

The unaffiliated group could be the people that have strong religious beliefs but don't "belong" to a particular church/denomination, similar to my family growing up, or it could be where the atheists got grouped, or some mixture of both. The percentage of atheists are hidden by the results.

It's interesting to see white mainline Protestants gain ground. They had to poach from other groups. Unaffiliated and Evangelicals took the largest hits... but it shows that groups can recover.

I may be wrong but I think that the decline in Evangelicals may be related to how they went all-in on Trump. Evangelicals have been on the decline for a while but they took a large hit in 2016. We weren't buds before, but their fanatical support for Trump made me lose what little respect I had for them. Maybe that group will recover once the Trump movement is behind us and once they stop advertising the more hypocritical aspects of their culture as virtues.
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
– Anais Nin

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Jeffret
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by Jeffret » Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:23 pm

As far as grouping, I think this survey just lumps atheists together with everyone else in the Unaffiliated category. At a lower percentage, Mormons are lucky they get a separate grouping themselves.

Yes, the Unaffiliated category contains a wide range of different beliefs, atheists being just one of them. The number of people who self-identify as atheist on surveys like this is quite low. Typically I've seen results as low as 3% and as high as 6%. Though when the question is whether someone believes in god, the number is higher -- 10% or more who don't agree with a belief in god. Many of those in the Unaffiliated still have some sense of belief in divinity, spiritualism, a higher power, or something but don't identify with or affiliate with any specific group.
"Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,
And the truth isn't what you want to see" (Charles Hart, "The Music of the Night")

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Jeffret
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by Jeffret » Sat Jul 10, 2021 4:55 pm

Thinking about it personally, I suppose I wouldn't answer as atheist, though I'm certainly a member of the unaffiliated. Haven't been to church in years now and have no intention of participating in any. I may grace the grounds of a temple next weekday for photos celebrating my brother's wedding, if I can bring myself to it for his sake. We'll see if anyone or anything bursts into flames. With the high temps these days it's certainly possible.

Mostly I would identify as an apatheist, but even there I'm not really sure.
"Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,
And the truth isn't what you want to see" (Charles Hart, "The Music of the Night")

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2bizE
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by 2bizE » Sat Jul 10, 2021 9:48 pm

Do we know how many Americans are converts vs born into the church?
A post from Mormon Reddit states,
“ That would mean there are 3,282,000 people in the US who self-identify as LDS. On the books there are 6,592,195 LDS people in the US, meaning only about 50% of US members still think of themselves as members. Of the remaining 50%, I think it's safe to say that not all of those are active members.”

This means roughly 50% of the people who the church thinks are Mormon did not claim to be. I would think this number would be higher as usually about 75% of Mormons are not active. I suppose that some inactive Mormons may still claim being mormon on the census.
~2bizE

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glass shelf
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by glass shelf » Sun Jul 11, 2021 3:49 am

2bizE wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 9:48 pm
I suppose that some inactive Mormons may still claim being mormon on the census.
i'm going to go with the jackmormon quotient which is a group of people that i have struggled to understand as both an active Mormon and a post-Mormon.

I would identify myself as an atheist on that survey, but I know many people who never go to church, have no interest in religion, and still hold onto some kind of belief. They would be another part of the unaffiliated for sure.

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Jeffret
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by Jeffret » Sun Jul 11, 2021 6:37 am

I imagine some portion of jack-Mormons still identify as Mormon but don't consider themselves very good Mormons. These may still identify as Mormon on surveys because they consider that is the religious group with which they identify. This is different, of course, from who active members of the Church may consider jack-Mormons. Generally TBMs will consider everyone who isn't fully engaged and active to be jack-Mormons -- "they still believe deep in their hearts that it's true, even if they can't keep the commandments".

It's similar to lapsed Catholics. Many of them still believe it's true but they just can't live up to it and will identify as Catholics on surveys.
"Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,
And the truth isn't what you want to see" (Charles Hart, "The Music of the Night")

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moksha
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Re: The American Religious Landscape in 2020

Post by moksha » Sun Jul 11, 2021 7:16 am

For older members, it must be astounding how many of the younger members in their families have left the Church.
Good faith does not require evidence, but it also does not turn a blind eye to that evidence. Otherwise, it becomes misplaced faith.
-- Moksha

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