The bragging number of 14 million Mormons is certainly a misnomer but I don't think the church simply fudges or makes that number up. I think they base it on a hard number and that is, anyone alive (including the missing 110 year olds) that's ever been born or baptized into the church. With that inclusion, we shouldn't be surprised that they report 14 million Mormons.

Most of us here have estimated that a more accurate number for believing and practicing members to be about 3-4 million. That leaves 10 to 11 million.

You have to remember that 4 out of 5 converts to the church go inactive. You also have to remember that MANY of those born in the church go inactive too. The church STILL COUNTS ALL THOSE PEOPLE. So we shouldn't be surprised that their active membership is only about 20-25% of the total number they brag about in General Conference.

So, I don't think the church leaders are outright lying about their statistics, but they are certainly MISLEADING people when they fail to mention that most of those "official members," never step foot in the church, which includes people who don't even self identify as Mormon.

This is exactly what they do.

In my mission, in Europe, activity rates were, on average, around 10%. We'd ask for a ward list, and we'd get this multi-page packet of hundreds of names, which we'd then have to sift through to find the handful of families that actually ever came to church.

There were plenty of times where we went out contacting "less-actives" only to find that the person who's name was on our list had died YEARS AGO!

Based on my experience as a missionary, I wouldn't be surprised at all to find that somewhere around a million of those "14 million members" are dead. I'm sure at least a few million are missing (They've moved and the Morg has no idea how to contact them). Judging from polls I've seen, somewhere around half of the "14 million" don't even consider themselves Mormon. They got baptized when they were kids and haven't had anything to do with the Morg for decades. These people are usually surprised to find that they're still on the records of the Morg.

nickname Wrote:
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> In my mission, in Europe, activity rates were, on
> average, around 10%. We'd ask for a ward list, and
> we'd get this multi-page packet of hundreds of
> names, which we'd then have to sift through to
> find the handful of families that actually ever
> came to church.

> Judging from polls I've seen,
> somewhere around half of the "14 million" don't
> even consider themselves Mormon.

Europe here. Former EQ ward clerk. We had a 10% activity rate too, and a lot of smaller towns didn't even reach 5%.

In the few instances where a census asked about religion and included 'LDS/mormon' the percentage of people who ticked that box was much lower than half of what the cult claimed. And that handful countries were on several continents, including, I believe, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, New Zealand and the UK.

The difference is that other churches report averages of active participants. And I believe that these other numbers have a very strong correlation with things like phone surveys where households are asked their religious affiliation. Mormons fail miserably in comparison to these surveys.

Please someone correct me if I am wrong!

The mormon numbers are a game to flatter their own members. By and large other churches report accurate participation numbers not in an attempt to flatter anyone, but to actually represent themselves within a given population. No game, just honesty.

If it was common for other religions to chase you down 15 years after you last set foot in their buildings voluntarily, these somewhat imaginary numbers would be a common thing amongst other religions. They ARE somewhat imaginary claims. What other church counts its members based on baptism alone? These other religions seem to want to count those who demonstrate uncoerced loyalty by actually showing up. Mormons would definitely coerce loyalty based on that crucial decision at "the age of accountability", if they could get away with it.

It's like TSCC just arbitrarily decided to use a criteria that others don't use to report their numbers. Sure, they are "honest" once you know what they mean when they report their numbers. They are counting a lot of people who don't consider themselves mormon though...

From one of my old posts FYI!

Sometimes I read a comment that says that mormon membership numbers are inflated, but so are other church's membership claims, but this quite often is simply not true.

Mormons count as members anyone who has ever fogged a mirror in a meeting house even if they have been gone for decades. A great many other churches ONLY count the people in the seats to determine their "membership," and they count them every year to determine the trends.

For example here is the 2011 Methodists membership report from the Methodist equivalent of lds.org:

http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=2789393&ct=12077811

The report unapologetically reports the declines in membership and attendance among Methodists. It also correctly cites the fact that membership in all churches in the US is declining and so it is sensible to expect some declines among Methodists as well.

Also, here is a similar report from the Presbyterians:

http://www.pcusa.org/resource/comparative-statistics-2009-introductory-essay-mem/

Benign NON-CULT christian groups that primarily promote a faithful community based on basic "do unto others" christian ethics have no reason to hide their actual membership numbers.

Notice how refreshing it is to read a believable disclosure, even if the result is less than optimal. Real organizations that care about their performance gain nothing from reporting false numbers of imaginary members and distracting their groups from possible effective programs and reforms that would address the declines.

In contrast, mormonsim never has a bad day, never has a down membership year, never can say anything except how wonderfully the cult is growing and prospering. Anyone, such as Marlin Jensen, who discloses that there are problems with member retention is shown the door, or in his case, the "emeritus GA" muzzle is applied. Cults cannot tolerate even the most harmless criticisms without lying or overreacting.

The cult always makes statements that are "technically" not a lie, but are designed to deceive.

> There are fourteen million members
> BYU does not have a policy on caffeine drinks
> We can't be exactly sure where the early church policy on blacks came from and we don't think its doctrinal
> LGBT people are welcome in LDS congregations and there are no restrictions on them
> Mormons provide more charitable service than any other church

All lies.

Yes, that's exactly it! Thanks for the links.

There is definitely some funny accounting going on though.

If someone is a child of record they count that person as a member. Even if that person never gets baptized they are counted as a member until age 110.

To me that is VERY misleading, especially for a church whose doctrine makes such a huge deal about infant baptism and waiting until the age of 8 to allow a choice of whether to be a member.

Also as I look at the numbers I find it highly suspicious that they continue to count excommunicated and resigned members as members until the age of 110.

I also believe 110 is a rather extreme age. A much more honest approach would be some kind of statistical average on life expectancy.

I believe that accurate count, but I also believe their criteria for counting is rather disingenuous to attempt to look bigger than they really are.

The Oncoming Storm - bc Wrote:
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> Also as I look at the numbers I find it highly
> suspicious that they continue to count
> excommunicated and resigned members as members
> until the age of 110.
-------------------------------------------------------

Wait, they do that? Are you sure? That just seems like straight lying.

The thing is that they know exactly how many people actually come to church. They count in Sacrament Meeting and they take attendance in Sunday School and Relief Society/Priesthood classes.

I used to belong to an on-line forum (not religious related) which had many thousands of members. As one of the leaders of the group, one day I decided to delete all of the members who had joined, but had never posted, just to clean up the member list and see how many people we actually had.

Those I deleted could still be there. They could post as a Guest. They weren't banned, so they could just join again, if they wanted to.

But I got into trouble for it. I didn't realize that they wanted to look a lot bigger than the competing forums, so they weren't interested in cleaning up the list. Oops. I didn't think that mattered, but apparently it did.

The Church reminds me of that forum.

Yes! That's right! I've never seen anyone take attendance at my apostate church, but the Morgs at DW's ward all sign in. They know what they're activity rates are and if they counted the same as us apostates do, their numbers would be way less. Plus Pew and other groups do the research. What's the real number? Two or three million worldwide?

There is good probability that "children of record" and "conversions" are the accurate numbers births and baptisms every year. What is obvious though is that the number you get when you add this number to the former total and then calculate the difference between this number and the new total and thus get the supposed unpublished number of deaths plus resignations, that number is OBVIOUSLY completely made up. For starters death rates and resignations cannot possibly go into negative numbers like they did in 1999, it's just that simple.

Also, children born doesn't equate children baptized. Unless these kids are baptized at age of 8 they are not members and should not be counted. That in itself may be a way to fudge the numbers. Do we know if the kids eight years later aren't added to the "conversion" number and thus are counted effectively twice?

It isn't even that they are dishonest. It's also that they are dishonest for the basest reasons. They are trying to present a prettier face, and to manipulate the members.

Wwjd.

I find it fascinating that they seem not to know the number of people who have resigned, yet they eagerly roll out the 14 million members number. They will quickly tell you the number of missionaries, but not the number of people actually going to church.

They can add, but not subtract.

That has been my point.

Thus the cancer analogy, they've metasticized and can't stop growing, even when they've died. It needs to stop getting a pass on the 14 million number, it's a fraud lie to protect its' perceived standing and value. It's a dying, contracting, organization. It has money though, money, property, and bought advocacy in power positions.

You are wrong. When I did the count I always counted pregnant women twice, and on counting months we always had dinners and special events to boost attendence. And if anyone was usually there, or we knew they went to a different ward for some reason...

They all got counted, they had to because the budgets depend on the head count.

Then the clerk would "pad" the number I gave him(We did not know we were both helping the count for a while).

If even 30% of the wards did this, think about how much bigger the number is than it actually is.

Same kind of things went on in the ward where I live, numbers were actually fudged on a local level so the branch could be upgraded to a ward, get a chapel built and get more money back from SLC. Every member on the rooster was contacted, everyone that was found was contacted and this contact, usually by phone learning of their uninterest, was considered adding to the congreations "activity". Open-houses and attempts to get temporary visitors added to the "active members" count aswell.

At the time a so called "second harvest" had been prophecied by some GA schmuck, don't remember who, so the fudging was excused with the argument that soon enough there would be enough members to justify the upgrade anyway. Finally after a few months they had stretched the numbers above that magical limit (200 members or something, don't remember) so it could be organized into a ward instead of a branch and get the other perks.

Needless to say, now 15 years later there still hasn't been any great "second harvest" and attendance has instead dropped below what it was back then.

That might be how the local units count their members (in order to get benefits from the Stake) but I don't think headquarters uses those numbers for their total membership.

I think they just add up all names that have ever been recorded on a baptism or child of birth slip (less the active members who have died).

Thing is, THE BRETHREN KNOW VERY WELL how many of those 14 million are either not active or not believers. They just won't share that with the public.

Instead of saying, "We have about 14 million members on record, but according to our diligent ward clerks who keep track of how many attend each week, we only have about 3 million who attend at least once a year."

....but the will say the are growing and thriving. That is a purposeful lie. They have knowledge that they are lying, and they lie to deceive. There is no other reason for the lie. It is not parsed, or cute mistake, or caring about lost members.

It's fraud.

When the media reports 14+ million members they are being lazy and somehow the challenge needs to be thrown down that they should not just accept whatever number the Mormons give them, it feeds into their agenda and mission.

At least add the words,

Heavily disputed reported total membership to 14+ million.

The Mormon church doesn't grow and doesn't have 14 million members, news media should not be parroting back the Mormon lies.

Yeah, the media really should know better than to use their numbers. They really should do a tiny bit of research and clarify for the reader that this number is not representative of the practicing Mormons.

In my opinion, some 14 year old kid in Mexico that got dunked Mormon because he liked the missionaries and and the basketball court they let him play on, should not be counted as a member if he went to church once 10 years ago. Today he probably self identifies as Catholic, but he's still on the rolls of LDS Inc., so they count him.

Any national survey shows that Mormons are no where near what they claim.

You and I agree, this pleases me.

As per Dec. 31, 2012, the exact numbers were:

Dead: 1,900,000
Inactive: 3,002,702
Missing: 5,400,000
Active: 4,138,644

Actually, I did need to do some calulatin' on the dead and missing numbers but I'm willing to bet a substantial sum that my numbers are closer to reality than the church's.

Don't know where those numbers came from, but they look a lot more accurate to me than 14 million plus. Excommunications and resignations?

It's misleading, which is also known as the appearance of lying.

So I'm forced to conclude that if they do that kind of creative accounting of membership, their financial accounting, secret anyway, is probably equally creative. Thus another of many reasons they aren't getting another dime of tithing ever from me.

I didn't see this thread and started my own continuation thread. I would have posted here if I had seen it, therefore I'll copy it below.

A previous thread was closed http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,941052,942297#msg-942297

Concern was expressed over the church reporting, and boasting of, 14 million + whereas most estimates from board members is 3-5 million. My personal guess was 4 million.

So where are the missing 9 or 10 million? Obviously many have resigned, died while inactive and are alive but inactive.

Here is some food for thought about some 'real' numbers regarding U.K. membership.

In 1987 worldwide membership was 6,394,314 from the Church almanac (Deseret News) and the Church membership in Great Britain numbered 132,810, a figure nearly eight times greater than twenty-five years earlier.[42] Cuthbert, The Second Century, 1:197.

In 2002, membership reached 135,819. (England only?)

In 2011 the U.K. Church membership was "Country information: United Kingdom Published: Monday, Feb. 1, 2010 Print | Email | Share Jan. 1, 2009: Est. population, 72,848,000; Members, 183,672"

So, figures from Church sources state:-

1987 Great Britain 132,810 (worldwide membership 6,394,314)
2011 U.K. 183,672

Leaving aside the definition of 'Great Britain' and 'U.K.' (the difference will be minor in church terms), membership grew by 50k in 14 years. In my days U.K. baptisms were about 3k per year = 42k plus some births and deaths.

Figures above are from church sources except my comment on baptisms. Someone could research and come up with an accurate figure.

Now here is the INTERESTING PART - Address Unknown File.

I used the 1987 membership figure above on purpose because, in that year, I know the U.K. had approximately 100k members in the Address Unknown File. Also, I was told by a COB employee that the worldwide figure was well over a million.

At the time we launched a special missionary effort, using full time missionaries, to locate these 'lost sheep'. These records were often transferred backwards and forwards between wards and church HQ because local units did not want to be judged on low activity due to most members not being locatable.

Historically there had been many suspect baptisms such as the 'baseball baptisms' in the 1960s. Teenage boys were invited to play basketball with the American missionaries and were baptised without really knowing what was going on. Needless to say they never attended church and were lost as soon as they moved from their parents' home.

In the 1970s I was asked to prepare a special report for one of the apostles concerning more 'suspect' baptisms. One lady was offered a new rug by the missionaries to get baptised. Another was baptised in their own home in a bathtub. I personally witnessed the District Leaders going out into the street on the last day of the month, and baptising a man who was drunk. Because of these incidents, which had become widespread, a new rule was implemented. Before baptism a convert had to be introduced to the bishop.

Now, to the crux of the matter. In 1987 there were 132,810 members but 100k of these could not be located leaving only 32k for whom we had reliable addresses and not all these were active.

Question is how many of the current claimed membership of 183k is in the address unknown category? Is it still 100k, or is it more, or have they found them. Reality is those in the file did not consider themselves Mormons and. although very few were reactivated (less than 1%) they usually did not last and knew how to become lost again.

I do not believe the church has excluded this 100k (or whatever the current figure is) from their membership count. Neither do I believe they take off those who resign.

If the 100k is in addition to the 132k (1987) or 183k (2011) it would still mean 40% of the members cannot be found and are still included in the overall 14.7 million.

The activity level of those whose whereabouts are known used to be 50% or more in U.S. with an average of 20% outside the U.S.

So, that's my explanation of how you can claim 14.7 million members when only 3-5 million are 'real' members. This also explains why census data always report such low numbers of Mormons, compared with the claim by the church.