The Salt Lake Tribune
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Measuring Mormonism
The Pew Religious Landscape Survey is a religion researcher's dream — a mountain of statistics that theology wonks are just beginning to mine.

LatterdayMainStreet used it to discover that the replacement rate of the Mormon Church has dropped to 80% in the United States. For those who don't do math, it means that for every five Americans who leave Mormonism, four new converts join the Church.
If that number were correct, and that is what the evidence says, it would indicate a substantial demographic challenge for LDS leaders and the Mormon community.
J. Nelson-Seawright digs into the study to argue that in the U.S., Mormonism is "no longer a missionary religion."
U.S. Mormonism now has the demographic profile of an established intergenerational church more than a missionary one.
Lamentably, the Pew study didn't survey the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin.

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