Who Is Leaving the Church?

Authors

Stephen Cranney

Keywords

demographics, Church, Ex–Latter-day Saint

Abstract

Who is leaving the Church? The blogosphere and informal ward council discussions have no shortage of speculation on this point, but there is surprisingly very little representative research to help shed light on this issue in a clear, systematic way. Because members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints make up a small fraction of the total population, most random surveys that ask about religion and former religion pick up only a handful of people with a Latter-day Saint background or affiliation in any wave. (For example, the 2016 General Social Survey reported only twenty-three members.) Numbers like this do not make Latter-day Saint research from standard surveys completely futile (especially if multiple years are combined), but they certainly dull the precision needed for advanced analysis and severely limit the range of questions that can be investigated.

Recommended Citation

Cranney, Stephen (2019) "Who Is Leaving the Church?," BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 58: Iss. 1, Article 6.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol58/iss1/6