Heard of Jana Riess? A PhD Mormon convert with a working conscience and a knack for numbers, she's sure getting the attention of maniacal Mormon men who can't handle what they testify are her feminist writings from hell--ones that are turning the Mormon Church upside down and giving it quite a shake that's leaving these fraudly godly guys shaking in their temple slippers.
That sure as hell must mean she's doing her job.
An internet biography provides the following:
“Jana Riess is the Religion Book Review Editor for ‘Publishers Weekly’ magazine and is also the author of ‘The Spiritual Traveler: Boston and New England' (HiddenSpring) and 'What Would Buffy Do? The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide’ (Jossey-Bass). She holds degrees in religion from Wellesley College and Princeton Theological Seminary, and a PhD in American religious history from Columbia University. She is frequently interviewed by the media on trends in religion and publishing. A convert to the LDS Church, Riess has spoken at Brigham Young University Women’s Conference and other Mormon gatherings, as well as professional conferences. She lives in Kentucky with her husband and daughter.”
“(Jana Riess, under “Fresh Fiction for Todays’ Reader,”
http://freshfiction.com/author.php?id=27090)
Hold on, all ye members of the frantic faithful Mormon flock. According to a foaming, fit-to-be-tied Mormon priesthood holder, Riess is a degenerate soul-destroyer planted by Satan among the Saints to wreak blood and horror on this earth--or at least Salt Lake City. Below are the rabid rants from this manly Mormon Muppet who, in his inner upheavals over Riess, sounds like he may have soiled his garments in righteous response to this supposedly evil-hearted woman.
The author writes:
“Is Jana Riess a 'SJW' [Social Justice Warrior] Entryist Working to Destroy the Mormon Church?”
“Jana Riess is from an atheist family who decided that she wanted to be a Protestant preacher. After studying and graduating from a Bible college;, out of the blue she decided that she wanted to join the Mormon Church. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, as it turns out, she’s been doing lots of things to undermine the LDS Church and promote post-modern cultural degeneracy. Let’s take a look at some of Jana Riess’ accomplishments since joining the LDS Church.
-“What Has Jana Riess Done as a Mormon?
“Jana Riess wrote the book ‘Flunking Sainthood,' where she talked about how she doesn’t obey the commandments of the Church and made fun of things like the Word of Wisdom. She writes articles glorifying and celebrating homosexual ‘Mormons.’ She writes articles promoting feminism and she writes about how she doesn’t really believe in the Mormon Church but the LDS Church should conform to her leftist worldview.
"Jana Riess never passes up a chance to talk to the media and tell the media that the Mormon Church needs to become another leftist fake church catering to the whims of the most degenerate Americans.
-“Jana Riess’ Actions Show That She is a 'SJW'
“Everything that Jana Riess did since joining the Mormon Church is work to undermine it. She has made fun of obedience to the Gospel. She has worked to glorify Social Justice and try to make Mormons embrace Social Justice. She has advocated for feminism and acceptance of homosexuality. Everything she has done since joining the LDS Church is to attempt to bring Social Justice into the Mormon Church. When we look at the evidence we must conclude that Jana Riess is a Social Justice Warrior who joined the Mormon Church with the intention of undermining it.
-“Why Do People like Jana Riess Work to Undermine the Mormon Church?
"One of the interesting questions about 'SJWs' like Jana Riess is why do they do what they do? After all, they never ask themselves if they should make the Mormon Church ‘progressive.’ It never dawns on them that maybe they shouldn’t try to enforce their worldview on others. If the vast majority of Mormons are happy with living traditional lives, why do 'SJWs' like Jana Riess want to undermine their happiness? Well, its simple really; 'SJWs' are miserable people who nobody likes. They get offended when they see normal people living happy lives. It’s just that simple. When they see people happy, 'SJWs' like Jana Riess feel miserable. When people are miserable, then people like Jana Riess are happy. After all, misery loves company.
“When we understand that misery loves company. we can understand why 'SJWs' like Jana Riess come into the Mormon Church and try to destroy it. She could attend any number of 'progressive' and 'accepting' Protestant churches. She even could be a preacher at one of these churches, but she doesn’t want that. She is doing what 'SJWs' always do, find traditional organizations, enter them and take them over. She wants to push her demented worldview on the Mormon people and force us to embrace it against our will.
-“Conclusion
“What should faithful Mormons do about people like Jana Riess? It’s simple, really. The most important thing to do is stay away from them and keep them far away from our loved ones. Keep children and young adults as far away from degenerates like Jana Riess as humanly possible because she will try to corrupt them. Mormon Church leadership needs to take a serious look at 'SJW' entryists like Jana Riess and do everything possible to keep their sin and corruption out of the Mormon Church.”
(“Is Jana Riess a 'SJW' Entryist Working to Destroy the Mormon Church?” by Jeffrey Johnson, "Redgulls," 2 October 2016,
http://www.redgulls.com/2016/10/02/jana-riess-sjw-entryist-working-destroy-mormon-church/)
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Let's examine some of Sister Riess' sin-'n-Satan-spun stuff that's got this TBM priesthood peewee in such a tonsil-tossing-testimony tizzy.
Riess has produced a myriad of columns for the "Religion News Service" (RNS). We'll limit today's topics to just two: The Mormon Church's struggling growth rate and the Mormon Church's lack of racial diversity in its hierarchy.
A. The Mormon Church Convert Rate is Dropping?: The Result of Purposeful Centralization of Mormon Church's "Strength Centers"
“Mormon Growth Slows to Its Lowest Level Since 1937. Here’s Why That’s Great News”
“During General Conference, buried in the official statistics that make up the LDS Church’s annual report, we learned that the LDS Church grew by 261,862 people in 2015, a 1.7% annual increase.
“Lots of other denominations would be thrilled by a 1.7% increase, but for Mormons this represents the slowest growth in any year since 1937 (when it was 0.93%), so no one’s exactly throwing a party.
“But don’t despair: There are some silver linings in this seeming cloud.
"To find out more, I spoke with Matt Martinich, founder of the LDS Church Growth blog. For over eight years now, he has tracked just about every aspect of Mormon growth and loss, tracking baptisms, retention rates and more.
RNS: “What do you make of the 2015 Statistical Report which shows a slowing rate of LDS growth?"
Martinich: "Annual membership growth has steadily declined in the last 25 years. It used to be 4-5% a year, and now it’s only 1.7%. I don’t think it will decrease much more than to 1.5%, though."
RNS: “The report notes that convert baptisms are down by more than 13%. Why has growth slowed so much?"
Martinich: “The biggest reason is the ‘centers of strength’ policy, which has been in place since the early 1990s. There’s not much information about it, but it’s a policy where the Church intentionally restricts its missionary activities to only a handful of places in the world.
“Prior to the 1990s the Church would very aggressively and kind of indiscriminately open new areas for missionary work. A lot of the rapid growth in Latin America and elsewhere was due to that. But in the 1990s, the idea became that the Church needed to have a 'center of strength' and be well established in at least one city in an area so that administratively there would be enough leadership to run the Church.
"The problem is that many of these areas never become centers of strength. So, you have a number of cities where the Church has been there for some time, and they won’t create new wards or branches unless existing wards or branches are split, which is not very effective for growth.
“The Church in the 1980s and 90s had pretty poor standards for baptism, and changing that has also been a huge aspect of why growth has slowed. Low qualifications for baptism resulted in a lot of converts who didn’t come to Church and didn’t contribute much.
"Some would argue that secularism has also contributed. The Internet has nothing to do with it: In some areas, the Internet has increased growth, and in other areas it’s decreased growth.
"It has more to do with the function of secularism, not whether people have information about the Church that is negative or incorrect."
RNS: “The number of missionaries serving is also down by about 13%, but that doesn’t seem as surprising as the dip in convert baptisms. The 'surge' in missionaries that began after the age change in October 2012 has run its two-year course."
Martinich: “Right, the double cohort is pretty much gone now. So, it looks like the number of missionaries has dropped a lot in the last year, but that’s misleading because of the 'surge.'"
“What might be more accurate is to measure today’s number of missionaries against 2012, which is before the surge, and that’s an increase of about 15,000. That’s a sizable increase over such a short period of time.”
RNS: “A lot of those ‘surge’ missionaries served in the United States. Was there a corresponding spike in baptisms here to reflect that higher number of missionaries?”
Martinich: “The answer is no. That was a frustration of mine, the 'surge.' The reason they sent the bulk of that missionary group--a large portion were Americans--here in the U.S. was that the U.S. had the resources to accommodate such a 'surge,' versus other countries where it would be hard to secure housing, get visas, etc. The U.S. has 124 missions, the most of any country.
“There were some good results in some areas, especially reactivation in the southwestern U.S. That was good news and, in my opinion, that’s a lot better development in the long run than just baptizing new members.
“There were certain countries where they experienced a significant increase in missionaries. In the Philippines, the number of Filipinos serving missions doubled. There are countries that have historically sent very few people on missions, like Micronesia and some nations in Africa, where more people from those countries are serving than ever before."
RNS: "You say in your blog that the good news about the statistical report is the creation of new wards and stakes, which is the largest increase in wards since 2005. What does that mean?
Martinich: “Congregational growth and stake growth are the best measurements of the increase of active members. Those numbers really say a lot about active membership and leadership.
“There’s a net increase of 60 stakes, the most new stakes created in any year since 1998, though there were also several stakes closed. That growth has happened all over the world.
“This year, 2016, is an unprecedented year for growth [in stakes], so far. A second stake was created in Kenya last month, and the creation of two new stakes in Hong Kong will occur later this month. But despite these encouraging developments, most of Latin America remains stagnant."
RNS: “So, you’re saying that even though baptisms are down, the rate of already-baptized Mormons who are active and involved is increasing?”
Martinich: “In some areas, it is. The Church in Mozambique has achieved good results improving convert retention and member activity rates. This success resulted in the organization of the first two stakes in that country during 2015.
“The Church has also achieved some marginal progress in some other nations with sizable numbers of Latter-day Saints such as Brazil, Guatemala and Taiwan. Rapid growth is currently occurring in West Africa. However, many of the nations with the most Latter-day Saints continue to experience essentially stagnant growth, such as Chile, Peru, Ecuador and the United Kingdom.”
(“Mormon Growth Slows to Its Lowest Level Since 1937. Here’s Why That’s Great News.” by Jana Riess, under “Flunking Sainthood,” at "Religious News Service," 19 April 2016.
http://religionnews.com/2016/04/19/mormon-growth-slows-to-its-lowest-level-since-1937-heres-why-thats-great-news/)
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B. Activity Rates Up?: Activity Rates Among Current Young, Unmarried Mormons is Only 25% Globally
“Worldwide, Only 25% of Young Single Mormons are Active in the LDS Church”
“ . . . [I've] posted more than a dozen videos taken behind closed doors between 2007 and 2012, showing the LDS Church’s top leadership in discussion on issues ranging from cyber security, to homosexuality, to the 2008 economic crisis. . . . [I]f there’s a silver lining to that, it’s that at least one of them reveals helpful information about the Church’s challenges today.
“The November 12, 2008, briefing titled, ‘In Which They Fret over the Young Sing Adults,’ intersects directly with the issues I’m addressing in my research on Mormon Millennials . . . . (Note that this information is now seven years out of date, and if we have learned anything from previous surveys about Mormon retention, it’s that things have only gotten worse over the last decade, so understand that these figures may in fact present a too-rosy picture of the present situation--at least in the United States).
“The information presented at this meeting was straight-forward and well-researched. I encourage you to watch the whole briefing if you are interested in the question of the next generation of Latter-day Saints and whether/why they are leaving the Church, but here are some key facts as presented to the Brethren by Alan Wilkins, a BYU professor and former mission president:
-“The current activity rate for Young Single Adults is 30% in North America and 20% internationally, with an overall worldwide activity rate of about 25%.
-“Of those who are inactive, many are people the local bishops have never heard of and have no way of contacting.
-“The Church’s internal research shows that most young members who leave do so before age 20.
-“Mormons are a little older now when they get married; according to Wilkins, 'the average age for members of the Church who marry outside of the temple is 27 for men and 25 for women. When they marry in the temple, it’s 24 for men and 23 for women. Those are numbers--averages--that have been increasing over the last couple of decades, and so they cause significant concern. The principle concern is that delaying marriage in an era of high immorality--more, increasing access to pornography--constitutes significant, very high risk for our YSAs [Young Single Adults]. What we’ve noticed is that Church activity begins to decline in the teenage years and continues to decline into the 20s.'
-“Church activity for singles is much lower than for married people of the same age, who are twice as likely to remain active. Drawing upon social science research by Robert Wuthnow of Princeton University, Wilkins concludes that across religions, 'young single adults don’t feel as welcome. They don’t feel as needed. They’re not given positions and opportunities to serve as much, and they don’t feel that their interests and needs are being addressed.'
-"Only 6% of international members have married in the temple by age 30, 'and that’s been declining over the last couple of decades. The implication of that for us is significant. It’s beyond what’s happening with the YSAs and becomes an issue of the establishment of the Church as a multi-generational institution. The elements that would be required to have a multi-generational Church include, first, retaining our young people throughout their youth and YSAhood, having them marry in the temple, and then having them have children. Each of those three areas shows declining rates in the last couple of decades. We’re having declining activity, we’re having declining marriages in the temple, and the fertility rates are decreasing.'
-“Around the world, there are only 70 active single men for every 100 single women. Many of these single women are better educated than their male LDS counterparts.
-“85% of YSAs around the world 'are not in YSA wards, and are often invisible to Church leaders.'
-“Of the minority of single adults who remain active, statistically, very few hold positions of significant authority in conventional/family wards, like as a member of a bishopric or an auxiliary president.
“After Wilkins’s presentation ends around the 15-minute mark, the rest of the 50-minute meeting is the Brethren considering what to do. I found this part even more depressing than the inactivity statistics themselves.
“For one thing, while then-Relief Society president Julie Beck is present at the meeting, she doesn’t speak until two-and-a-half minutes from the end, when Elder Boyd K. Packer says, ‘President Beck, we should hear a mother’s point of view.’
“Despite his use of the title ‘President,’ the invitation has the pro-forma feel of indulging the one woman in attendance--especially since he closes the meeting immediately after her remarks and no one appears to take her ideas seriously. (For the record, President Beck challenged the whole paradigm of having singles wards, which she said ‘drain the lifeblood’ of conventional wards internationally and aren’t all that successful in promoting marriage in the first place. But no one at the meeting seemed to be listening).
“The other reason I found the back-and-forth depressing is that it seemed clear that the Brethren were promoting bureaucratic solutions to the problem (Let’s improve the way we keep our records, Let’s plug YSAs into the Church’s mission by sending them on service projects we decide upon), rather than actually listening to what they have to say about why they are not interested in attending.
“Also, they seemed bent on treating the YSAs in the same way the Church treats youth. This is evident in the structure under consideration: There’s to be a stake YSA committee and a ward YSA committee, and grown-ups with certain leadership callings are expected to serve on them--a member of the bishopric, a member of the RS presidency, etc. And then ‘some young single adults’ will also be on each committee but they, frankly, feel more like afterthoughts than vital members, let alone leaders. The feel of this is that they are not seen as grown-ups.
“What’s strange about this solution is that Dr. Wilkins’s presentation was clear that the data consistently show that ‘if we don’t use them, we’ll lose them.’ Singles, he said, will thrive in real leadership callings where they are given actual responsibility to set the course for something—not merely follow direction as the least important members of a committee that is supposed to serve their needs.
“In other words, the proposed solution feels patronizing. We are treating YSAs in their 20s and 30s like teenagers who need adult supervision. This came home clearly during the Q&A when this comment was made:
’"'I wonder if the trend that we see emerging at the YSA age doesn’t start much, much earlier. And we should, must, do what’s been recommended . . . but if we watch the pattern among the Aaronic priesthood, that pattern of loss simply carries through into the YSA effort. I’m curious as to whether we couldn’t go back further and start addressing the needs of YSAs in terms of their service in the Church instead of being entertained in the Church. In terms of significant callings in Aaronic priesthood with the responsibility that goes with it--not to the exclusion of activities, but something really substantive—and start to develop a new trend, a trend that says to a very young man, This is precious. I really do believe, Brethren, that the opportunity for young people who bear--young men, for example, who bear the Aaronic priesthood--in terms of substantive service and contribution to the kingdom [there] is far more than we are tapping. And the pattern they become used to is simply a pattern, an expectation, that continues into their YSA life. They’re used to being entertained. They’re used to being given things. They’re used to staying on the sideline while others do things. And when they’re YSAs, that’s where they end up.' [Note: retaining women and girls is not mentioned here at all]
“So,the idea is that single adults just want to have fun, that they’re only interested in entertainment. Really? Where are we getting this?
“Then Elder Packer chimes in with this:
“'The one word that’s been missing in all of this is family. It hasn’t been said once. [It had, actually.] I wish you’d go back and analyze everything you’ve done and intrude the family into the middle of it, and see what’s happening there. The original jurisdiction until they’re married is in the parental home, in the family. We spend a lot of time on what they do, as compared to trying to figure out what they are. And if you do some real skull practice on that . . . and also where’s the family fit into all this. This activity we have, running in all directions, and where’s Dad and Mom?'
"Again, this makes it sound like single adults are overgrown children, still in need of their parents’ direct supervision.’’
“I hope that in the intervening eight years, there has been more listening and less programming of our single adults in the Church. (There has, at least, been a very slight improvement in having a few women present at some high-level Church meetings.) If we’re serious about retaining our young adults, we need to be serious about treating them like young adults, not like children we’re trying to marry off so they can join the land of the grown-ups.”
(“Worldwide, Only 25% of Young Single Mormons are Active in the LDS Church,” by Jana Riess, Religious News Service under “Flunking Sainthood,” 5 October 2016,
http://religionnews.com/2016/10/05/leaked-worldwide-only-25-of-young-single-mormons-are-active-in-the-lds-church/)
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C. The Future is Bright for Mormon Church Growth?: Then Why Young Are Mormons in Their 20s and 30s Exiting the Mormon Church?
“Are Mormons in their 20s and 30s Leaving the LDS Church?”
“1. Millennials as a Generation are Taking Longer to Grow Up
“The Millennial generation as a whole is departing from the traditional script of adulthood: job, marriage, children.
“Here’s . . . Pew data comparing first marriage for each of four generations: the Silent Generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials. By the time members of the Silent Generation (the generation born between 1928 and 1945, who are now among the top leaders of the LDS Church) reached their early 30s, almost two-thirds of them (65%) were already married.
“Every generation’s age of first marriage has dropped since then to the point where only one-quarter of Millennials (26%) are married by their early 30s.
"Millennials are also delaying childbirth, having fewer children, and living at home with their parents in greater numbers than previous generations (the 'Boomerang' effect).
“2. Millennials Value inclusion and Diversity
“Diversity for Millennials isn’t just a nice thing, or something to tolerate. It’s essential. In one study of Millennials in the workplace, 83% said they were more likely to be engaged with their work in a diverse, inclusive environment. Only 60% thought they could stay engaged in an environment that was not diverse.
"This attitude stems directly from their experience of a rapidly changing America. In the early 1960s, when the Silent Generation entered adulthood, 85% of the nation was white, 10% was African American, and 4% was Hispanic. Other racial categories were so small as to not even be blips on the statistical radar.
But look at our nation’s mosaic half a century later in 2010, and at Pew’s projections for 2060, when there will be no racial majority in America. So long, Caucasian hegemony. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
“3. Mormon Retention is Down.
“There’s an abundance of good news if you’re a Mormon leader. Mormons still have the highest rates of marriage in the United States, extremely high self-reported findings about belief in God and religious practices such as daily prayer, and low incidence of high-risk behavior.
“The bad news is that retention is slipping, and younger generations appear to be leading the way.
“Let’s get some context for this. Millennials are the most religiously unaffiliated of any generation in recorded U.S. history. More than a third of them have dropped out of organized religion altogether.
“Young adult Mormons show some signs of following the national trend. When Pew surveyed this in 2014, 64% of all Latter-day Saints who were raised Mormon still self-identified as Mormon as adults. That 64% rate is very decent, actually. It’s smack dab in the middle of the stats on religious retention in America, as you can see from the Pew table below.
“But a 2007 Pew study, which asked the same questions as the 2014 one, had shown Mormon retention at 70%.
“And Christian Smith’s ‘Souls in Transition,’ based on research conducted in the early 2000s, had the retention rate (specifically among Mormon young adults) at 72%.
“Moreover, retention rates among Mormons reportedly used to be as high as 90% in the 1970s and 1980s (though, frankly, those samples were small enough and that retention rate so optimistic that I’m not entirely confident we’re comparing apples to apples).
“Even if we just consider the national research that has been done in the last 15 years, Mormonism’s retention rate has been dropping, though not at the precipitous rates experienced by other groups like mainline Protestants.
“If we’ve gone from a retention rate of 72% to 70% to 64%, that’s not half bad considering the times we live in. But I doubt many LDS leaders are going to throw a Munch-n-Mingle to celebrate those numbers.
"There are reasons for Mormons’ successes and failures in this area. . . . I've] tried to lay out some of the things we do wonderfully by young adults: sending them on missions; gathering them into singles wards (yes, really) where they are allowed to exercise responsibility; and simply modeling, as parents, the beliefs and behaviors we hope to inculcate. Parental influence is still, statistically, the single most influential factor in determining whether people stick with the religion of their childhood.
“But there are also existing or potential problems in the ways the LDS Church is interacting with Millennials.
"For one thing, there has never before been such a wide generation gap between young adults and the highest leaders of the Church.
“It’s not just that apostles, like other people in America, are living longer than ever before. They’re also getting appointed much later in life. Recall that Thomas S. Monson was only 36 when he became an apostle. Reverse those digits and you’re getting closer to the age of appointment of our three most recent apostles (64, 62 and 60).
“And, of course, the Church’s hard-line stance on LGBT issues is alienating to a generation that, as a whole, accepts inclusion and diversity as a way of life. The issues that previous generations have with homosexuality are not nearly as problematic for Millennials. What is problematic is the marginalization of minority groups."
(“Are Mormons in Their 20s and 30s Leaving the LDS Church?” by Jana Riess, "Religious News Service," under “Flunking Sainthood,” 14 April 2016,
http://religionnews.com/2016/04/14/mormons-20s-30s-leaving-lds-church/)
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D. The Mormon Priesthood is God’s Authority on Earth?: Then Why, Particularly in “Zion” Utah, are Mormon Men (More Than Mormon Women} Leaving the Mormon Church?
“. . . Rick Phillips . . ., with Ryan Cragun, has authored the forthcoming study on the sex ratio disparity among Utah Mormons. Both scholars are past presidents of the Mormon Social Science Association. . . .
RNS: “You note that Mormonism has the worst sex imbalance ratio of any church except the Jehovah’s Witnesses. And this is especially true in Utah as compared to the rest of the nation. Why?”
Rick Phillips: “Conservative denominations in the United States tend to have more women than men, so the sex ratio imbalance in Mormonism is not particularly surprising, even if it is rather severe. What is surprising is the regional concentration of this imbalance.
“We began to investigate sex ratios in the Church when we compared data from two large censuses of religious bodies, one conducted in 1990 and the other in 2008. The data show that between these two censuses, the proportion of self-identified Latter-day Saints that were female increased rather dramatically . . . but only in Utah. Outside Utah and Mormon strongholds in the Intermountain West, sex ratios within the Church remained stable, and were closer to parity than in Utah.
“The ‘shortage of Mormon men’ we’ve heard so much about lately is far worse in Utah than it is in the rest of the nation."
RNS: “Your research suggests that the increasingly imbalanced sex ratio among Utah Mormons is like the canary in the proverbial coal mine: This is a sign of something bigger, that Utah Mormons are actually becoming less religious. You attribute the gender gap to a growing trend of apostasy among Mormon men. Can you explain?”
Phillips: “There has been a general secularizing trend in the United States for the past 25 years. People are abandoning organized religion in large numbers, and those with no denominational affiliation now constitute about 20% of the population.
"Mormonism is not immune from this trend, and defections from Mormonism are more common than they have been in the past. In the 1970s and 80s, surveys showed that the Church retained about 90% of its cradle members. But in the latest Pew Religious Landscape Survey, 36% of respondents raised LDS have abandoned their faith. Just as women outnumber men in conservative denominations, men substantially outnumber women among those abandoning religion. This is true for Mormons as well.
“Also, this trend in religious disaffiliation is most pronounced among young people in their late teens and early 20s, which is a datum that is important to remember.
"So, one explanation for what’s going on is that we are seeing how a general pattern in American religious demography is manifesting itself in a Mormon context.”
RNS: “You note that, in Utah, Mormonism is losing ‘market share,’ with only about 60% of Utahans now being LDS. You also say this has an impact on people leaving the Church. How?”
Phillips: “We noticed that the widening of the sex ratio in Utah is accompanied by another, concomitant trend. Beginning in about 1990, the percentage of Utah’s citizenry belonging to the LDS Church began to decline, and has continued to drop until stabilizing just recently.
“Utah’s Mormon majority has always fostered a unique religious subculture. The sheer density of Mormons in Utah means that ward boundaries and neighborhood boundaries are often coterminous. Associates--at work, school and in the community--are also likely to be co-religionists in this setting. This fuses Church and community norms and makes violating Church standards subject to disapproval and sanction in non-Church settings. Traditionally, this has provided added incentive for Utah Mormons with marginal personal religiosity to remain in the Church, and to follow Church behavioral mandates.
“However, as Mormon majorities in Utah have declined, the salience of this religious subculture is waning. And once offices, neighborhoods and civic organizations became sufficiently stocked with non-LDS associates, Latter-day Saints who are not constrained by their personal religious commitments have less to worry about if they are observed wearing apparel that is incompatible with garments, or shopping on Sunday or putting coffee in a grocery cart.”
RNS: “Why does this affect men more than women?”
Phillips: “We hypothesize that the consequences of declining Mormon majorities in Utah affect men more than women for one simple reason. At age 18 (19 when these data were collected), LDS boys are confronted with the mandate to serve a full-time mission. This is precisely the age when religiosity is at its nadir. In the past, social pressure to serve a mission prompted many young men in Utah with marginal religious commitment to bite the bullet and go. The stigma of failing to serve a mission in some Utah towns was severe, and had serious social consequences. This is well documented in the sociological literature.
"Now, however, the stigma is waning. Non-LDS friends and others who have chosen not to serve missions are more abundant, and provide refuge from disapproval.
“We suggest that the mandate to serve a mission forces the hand of young men in Utah, and essentially 'outs' those who don’t want to go as less committed to the Church. Being thusly 'outed' then lowers the costs of, and provides a pathway for, eventual disaffection. And this contributes to a rising sex ratio disparity among Utah Mormons that doesn’t manifest elsewhere.”
RNS: “Finally, what do you see happening over the next ten years? Are Utah’s rates of gender imbalance going to become more common elsewhere? And will the rate of people leaving Mormonism continue to rise?"
Phillips: “Only a foolish social scientist predicts the future. But we suppose this is where fools rush in . . . The most firm prediction we can make is that as the religious demography of Utah comes to resemble the religious demography of a typical state, the Church activity of Utah Mormons will come to resemble the Church activity of Mormons in a typical state. This is not all bad news for the Church. The good news is that those who stay are staying largely because they are personally committed to the cause. Latter-day Saints in the “mission field” are fond of saying that where Mormons are a small minority, one must stand on one’s own testimony. You are either in or out. Well, now Utah is the mission field, too.
“With respect to the sex ratio imbalance, there is preliminary evidence that women’s patterns of religious apostasy are beginning to resemble those of men. If this is true generally, it will probably be true within Mormonism.”
(“More Mormon Men are Leaving the LDS Church, Say Researchers — but Especially in Utah,” by Jana Riess, "Religious News Service," under “Flunking Sainthood,” 16 September 2015,
http://religionnews.com/2015/09/16/more-mormon-men-are-leaving-the-lds-church-say-researchers-but-especially-in-utah/)
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E. The Mormon Church is Seeking to Attract Members from All Races? Then Why are All of the Mormon Church’s Apostles White?
“The Mormon Church Missed an Opportunity to Engage Race, International Diversity”
“Consider the numbers. The LDS Church had 15.3 million members as of April 2015.
"Nearly 1.3 million of them are in Brazil alone, and more than 1.3 million live in Mexico. Other nations with LDS populations exceeding half a million include Peru, the Philippines, and Chile.
“But all of our 12 Apostles are white, our nine female auxiliary leaders are white, and most of the members of the Quorum of the Seventy are white.
“And while the statistics in a ‘Salt Lake Tribune' article demonstrate that more international diversity is now entering the ranks--in 2013, only 66 %of all General Authorities were born in the United States--that demographic change hasn’t yet trickled up to the Quorum of Twelve.
“One of the comments on my recent blog was that ‘God chooses the new Apostles and reveals His choice to His living oracles.’ My expressed desire for racial diversity was ‘irrelevant’ since ‘God has prepared whom He has prepared and they will be called.’
“But it’s not this simple. I do not believe that apostolic callings happen so very differently and miraculously than other callings occur in the Church. It is the combination of divine inspiration and human agency working together that makes a calling happen. When we issue callings in the Church, we do so under the guidance of prayer and the Spirit’s leading, but our own experiences and inclinations factor in as well.
“Which is why we need to think very carefully as a people when there is such a growing discrepancy between the beautiful racial and international diversity that characterizes our religion around the planet and the much narrower range that is evidenced among our most visible leaders.
“What would it be like to have an apostle like Elder Joseph W. Sitati of Kenya, a nation which has only about 12,000 members of the LDS Church?
“What that could mean is having an apostle who is not the product of generations of Mormonism, a proud descendant of pioneer stock. What it would mean is that he would be a pioneer himself.
“He would know what it’s like to be a convert, with all the fresh energy and trials that converts experience.
“He would know firsthand the challenges of establishing and expanding the Church in places where it is untried.
“And he would be a light to all of the people of his heritage who currently cannot look at the Quorum of the Twelve and see a single person whose race and cultural experiences resemble their own.
“Currently, the only apostle in the Quorum who was not born into the Church is Dieter F. Uchtdorf, who is also the Quorum’s only non-American.
“He is, not coincidentally, one of its most popular apostles. He has been a breath of fresh air precisely because he’s not like everybody else.
“I would love to see more apostles who represent the diversity of the broader LDS Church. Some of those will continue to be white, Utah-born, upper-middle-class American professionals.
“And I pray that one day the Quorum of the Twelve will also include people who are converts themselves, from every corner of the globe, bringing with them a wider range of experiences, expertise, and concerns.
“If we are striving to be the Lord’s Church, then our leadership will mirror the diversity of the Lord’s people.”
(“The Mormon Church Missed An Opportunity to Engage Race, International Diversity,” by Jana Riess, Huffington Post, 5 October 2016,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jana-riess/the-mormon-church-missed-an-opportunity-to-engage-race-international-diversity_b_8247776.html)
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So, is Mormon convert Jana Riess an evil-doing, atheist-sired, Commie-sympathizing, Satan-inspired, damnably-deceitful "Social Justice Warrior" who is viciously attacking God's One and Only True Church?
Or is she a "Straight-shootin' Justice Woman" just doing damn good research?
Do the numbers.
Edited 17 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2017 03:38PM by steve benson.