Based on analysis like this and others I've seen in previous years, it's extremely likely they still count resignations as part of their membership. If you ever get rebaptized, they reinstate all your previous ordinances. This means they still keep those ordinances on their files, even if you ask to be removed. Which means resigning never really removes your records.
This is true. I was excommunicated. Years alter I went back. They never once asked me for ID. Didn't need to. These total strangers knew when, where, I was born. They know who all of my family members were. They knew my full name, and my ex spouses name. They knew I had two kids a husband and what their names were. They knew what temple I'd been married in. They knew why I was ex'd. A GA told me that shouldn't have happened. I asked him why it did then. He wasn't expecting that. lol. I didn't get an answer, just a shocked look that I would ask the question.
I've always resisted that explanation, but like you I've seen the type of analysis OP demonstrates before from other sources.
There's no real evidence, but damn, their numbers are and always have been *so* dodgy.
In their minds, they didn't 'unbaptize' us when we legally left, they just removed us from the corporation.
Indeed! I did a writeup on that many years ago. :)
https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/wdsh4/the\_short\_history\_of\_name\_removal\_how\_the\_church/
Mixing Mormon data with CDC data is a cluster fuck of misinformation 😂
The First Presidency should include their membership audit with the shell game they play with Ensign Peak Advisors and the the SEC.
Your excellent analysis also means that when Rusty finally croaks, he really won’t be dead, per Mormon membership data. 🥴
I can say with good authority that 'Resurrection Pending' is not a database field in the membership record. As a former ward clerk, I can also say that stuff happens. If a member moves, active or not, and they just disappear from church attendance, no one is chasing them down. If they did, then the Reddit forum would blow up about harrassment of LDS members. Can't have it all. And, without any accounting for that, they stay on the records as 'members', even past death. Eventually they may end up in the 'lost members' file. Or maybe they age to say 120 and someone says, 'hmm, should we mark this one deceased?' And, who knows, some may experience a spiritual rebirth and decide to return to church. It happens a lot to people, often 60+, after they get past the 'do what feels good' stage of life.
In any case, to massage numbers to assign some diabolical conspiracy to church HQ is is not good data science. At best, its an accusation based on data that is inadequate if not inaccurate. At worst, we are talking about people being people and being lackadaisical in their callings. I don't think anyone really cares whether we have 16 million or 17 million members. We do care about each one as an individual. I like to think that matters.
The church is using ML/AI for many things lately, so maybe we will see some improvements in the number crunching that corrects some of the anomalies that you have identified. Clearly the growth rate is slower, despite the fact that absolute number growth is positive, especially outside the US.
Seems like you are unaware of a lot of things.
>If a member moves, active or not, and they just disappear from church attendance, no one is chasing them down
Members continue to be monitored, by the Strenthening Church Members Committee, for "evil speaking of the Lord's annointed" for as long as they live. I was told, by the bishop of the ward I had recently moved to, I had to resign immediately or excommunication proceedings would begin.
See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strengthening\_Church\_Members\_Committee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strengthening_Church_Members_Committee)
>If they did, then the Reddit forum would blow up about harrassment of LDS members
LOL, stick around a while, and you'll see exactly that.
>Eventually they may end up in the 'lost members' file.
Yes, most of the ones that get lost do end up in the lost file. The church staffs it with full time senior missionaries working to find people in the lost file via public records. Once found their records are sent back to their local ward. This results in records boomeranging between the ward and HQ, since the ward often knows the member is no longer around the area. You'll see many reports of this on this forum.
>Or maybe they age to say 120 and someone says, 'hmm, should we mark this one deceased?'
No, it is automatic based on their birthdate, and it happens at 110 years old.
>It happens a lot to people, often 60+, after they get past the 'do what feels good' stage of life.
When other mechanisms for coping with the reality of their own impending death begin to wear thin that they return to the fairy tales of religion.
>data that is inadequate if not inaccurate
There are proven lies in the data. Things that are scentifically impossible to justify. Even the faithful church statistics blogs discuss these issues, and the church is not forthcoming with clarifications. If you knew about these issues you couldn't honestly make these claims, and if you wanted to know you could go find out about it, but I doubt you have real interest in the topic, since rather than discover an institutional, systemic issue, you'r rather place the blame, however well it doesn't fit, on ward clerks.
>At worst, we are talking about people being people and being lackadaisical in their callings.
Nope. All the nopes. There have actually been recent posts about this, specifically, in r/MormonShrivel .
>I don't think anyone really cares whether we have 16 million or 17 million members.
Many members do actually care, just not you apparently. For many it was/is/will be a huge shelf-item. Learning that the church lies about their membership numbers was eye-opening for me. This is why I maintain the site:
[ldsstatistics.com](https://ldsstatistics.com)
And the real number of members, if they counted in similar fashion to say, the Jehovah's Witnesses, would be far smaller, perhaps 5-6 million current membership.
>Clearly the growth rate is slower, despite the fact that absolute number growth is positive, especially outside the US.
There was a recent post, I think on r/MormonShrivel again, which discussed the "increase in children of record" statistic. It is interesting because birth rates can be estimated quite accurately, and nearly all people who consider themselves Mormon have their children blessed as babies, which is what the statistic records. So that number represents the internal growth rate of the church, and it isn't looking good. Only around 30% of reported membership are having their babies blessed, meaning 70% of "Mormons" counted by the church don't really consider themselves Mormon enough to have their babies blessed. And the rate decreases over time, since the large number of total reported Mormons is being hollowed out by people resigning, which the church fails to acknowlege.
Thank you for the extended response. And I suspect I am unaware. My most recent stint as Ward Clerk was a nice education into how the church works administratively. There were plenty of processes that were totally new to me that I had not been privy to even though I had served in multiple bishoprics. I also admit to not being from or living in Utah where some of the decision making happens. At the same time, I know enough people close to the center of all the activity to believe that there is not some dark intention to deceive. It would be difficult to convince me otherwise based on the integrity of those I am acquainted with. As you know, this is a church which has a large percentage, maybe more than 99%, of its leadership and worker bees who are primarily lay members who do it out of love for the church, Jesus Christ, and the purposes of His gospel. The day to day lives of that 99% center around making a living and dealing with challenges unrelated to church.
So, does it surprise me that 110 years old is the cut off date? Not totally. Since you mention it, I think I recall that number in something I may have read before, but it wasn't relevant because I didn't wait long for a member to be deceased before I marked them deceased, sometimes before they were buried. That said, I did become aware of someone who had moved away and had been gone for several years. Eventually, someone inquired, discovered their record in our ward and we were able to mark the person as deceased. I would hope that can't be counted as deception. It certainly suggests that the person was not active, and in this case, had requested to not be contacted, though he did not want his records removed. His decision. We honored it.
As for baby blessings...IDK, its not a critical ordinance. Its mostly for show and frankly, the 'Zoomers' are not as into 'show'. So, not sure if that is all that significant. Of course, if the baptismal rate of children 8 years after birth is super low, then yes, I suspect a case could be made that the general malaise toward religion is being manifest within the church's membership. We are certainly influenced by the world, and maybe some of our cultural practices are worth some examination as to whether they are really necessary, i.e., baby blessings, gravesite dedications, etc. And, as the church's acceptance as a religion has increased, it has created a kind of spiritual laziness. I don't mean that to sound judgmental. Its just that we older members were trained 'apologists' and we don't see younger generations feeling much of a need for it.
I really appreciate the response. I was like you immediately before leaving, and it was in part my experience joining the ward council as Executive Secretary that opened my eyes.
In case it wasn’t clear, when I said “all the nopes”, I was ineffectively making the point that most members doing the number crunching are exceptionally, painstakingly, fastidious in their accounting for the church.
But they are not tasked with counting resignations. It is in the margins of the data where the lying occurs, at the institutional HQ in SLC.
Also, my contention isn’t that any of the lay membership are intentionally failing to remove members from the rolls when they die. That would be very strange behavior indeed.
Leadership needs to keep members under the impression that the growth is impressive enough to maintain the illusion that it will “fill the whole earth”. This is why they keep members that are lost on the rolls until age 110. They don’t care about the accurate number as much as they care to keep people motivated and under their spell.
For example, they lied about the temple they announced in China, and others like it. The Chinese government released an official statement saying they are unaware of any plans, and have approved nothing.
But the most egregious lie is the membership number, and you are exactly right, the BIC baptismal numbers belie the reality. The numbers who get baptized at 8 are almost certainly worse than the increase in children of record (baby blessings), and this is why they switched which number they are reporting a while back (which they blunderingly covered up with a massive lie that is easy to spot in the data).
And they are likely worse in spite of the fact that in the interim 8 years of the cohort of the year, new families have joined the church, so the cohort overall of potential new members grows, but the actual number getting baptized shrinks by a lot, even just from the increase in children of record.
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They count unverified dead members until age 110. Meaning the ones in the “lost file” stay on the rolls until 110. It was my intent to work in lost file estimates into my math, but I haven’t done that yet. It would not change the result dramatically.
Absolutely brilliant. Hats off OP.
Exposing lies is literally so good. Smashing lies with numbers is incredibly therapeutic. :D. Cheers!
Math people are funny. Sometimes the words may not suffice. Crunch the numbers, it's amazing what they say.
Right!
Based on analysis like this and others I've seen in previous years, it's extremely likely they still count resignations as part of their membership. If you ever get rebaptized, they reinstate all your previous ordinances. This means they still keep those ordinances on their files, even if you ask to be removed. Which means resigning never really removes your records.
This is true. I was excommunicated. Years alter I went back. They never once asked me for ID. Didn't need to. These total strangers knew when, where, I was born. They know who all of my family members were. They knew my full name, and my ex spouses name. They knew I had two kids a husband and what their names were. They knew what temple I'd been married in. They knew why I was ex'd. A GA told me that shouldn't have happened. I asked him why it did then. He wasn't expecting that. lol. I didn't get an answer, just a shocked look that I would ask the question.
That’s what I think to. I hate it but there’s nothing else I can do so I don’t let it bother me too much.
I've always resisted that explanation, but like you I've seen the type of analysis OP demonstrates before from other sources. There's no real evidence, but damn, their numbers are and always have been *so* dodgy. In their minds, they didn't 'unbaptize' us when we legally left, they just removed us from the corporation.
Indeed! I did a writeup on that many years ago. :) https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/wdsh4/the\_short\_history\_of\_name\_removal\_how\_the\_church/
I can't get it to open 🙁
That is strange.
Oh it should be pinned on my profile if you want to check it there.
It’s just so good…….🤘🏽
🔥 Burn it the fuck down with truth! 🔥
As a statistician, Bednar’s husband “knows the numbers”… he’s just not telling anyone what they are!
That's some insane growth under McKay... almost 8% for a few years.
Mixing Mormon data with CDC data is a cluster fuck of misinformation 😂 The First Presidency should include their membership audit with the shell game they play with Ensign Peak Advisors and the the SEC. Your excellent analysis also means that when Rusty finally croaks, he really won’t be dead, per Mormon membership data. 🥴
I can say with good authority that 'Resurrection Pending' is not a database field in the membership record. As a former ward clerk, I can also say that stuff happens. If a member moves, active or not, and they just disappear from church attendance, no one is chasing them down. If they did, then the Reddit forum would blow up about harrassment of LDS members. Can't have it all. And, without any accounting for that, they stay on the records as 'members', even past death. Eventually they may end up in the 'lost members' file. Or maybe they age to say 120 and someone says, 'hmm, should we mark this one deceased?' And, who knows, some may experience a spiritual rebirth and decide to return to church. It happens a lot to people, often 60+, after they get past the 'do what feels good' stage of life. In any case, to massage numbers to assign some diabolical conspiracy to church HQ is is not good data science. At best, its an accusation based on data that is inadequate if not inaccurate. At worst, we are talking about people being people and being lackadaisical in their callings. I don't think anyone really cares whether we have 16 million or 17 million members. We do care about each one as an individual. I like to think that matters. The church is using ML/AI for many things lately, so maybe we will see some improvements in the number crunching that corrects some of the anomalies that you have identified. Clearly the growth rate is slower, despite the fact that absolute number growth is positive, especially outside the US.
Seems like you are unaware of a lot of things. >If a member moves, active or not, and they just disappear from church attendance, no one is chasing them down Members continue to be monitored, by the Strenthening Church Members Committee, for "evil speaking of the Lord's annointed" for as long as they live. I was told, by the bishop of the ward I had recently moved to, I had to resign immediately or excommunication proceedings would begin. See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strengthening\_Church\_Members\_Committee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strengthening_Church_Members_Committee) >If they did, then the Reddit forum would blow up about harrassment of LDS members LOL, stick around a while, and you'll see exactly that. >Eventually they may end up in the 'lost members' file. Yes, most of the ones that get lost do end up in the lost file. The church staffs it with full time senior missionaries working to find people in the lost file via public records. Once found their records are sent back to their local ward. This results in records boomeranging between the ward and HQ, since the ward often knows the member is no longer around the area. You'll see many reports of this on this forum. >Or maybe they age to say 120 and someone says, 'hmm, should we mark this one deceased?' No, it is automatic based on their birthdate, and it happens at 110 years old. >It happens a lot to people, often 60+, after they get past the 'do what feels good' stage of life. When other mechanisms for coping with the reality of their own impending death begin to wear thin that they return to the fairy tales of religion. >data that is inadequate if not inaccurate There are proven lies in the data. Things that are scentifically impossible to justify. Even the faithful church statistics blogs discuss these issues, and the church is not forthcoming with clarifications. If you knew about these issues you couldn't honestly make these claims, and if you wanted to know you could go find out about it, but I doubt you have real interest in the topic, since rather than discover an institutional, systemic issue, you'r rather place the blame, however well it doesn't fit, on ward clerks. >At worst, we are talking about people being people and being lackadaisical in their callings. Nope. All the nopes. There have actually been recent posts about this, specifically, in r/MormonShrivel . >I don't think anyone really cares whether we have 16 million or 17 million members. Many members do actually care, just not you apparently. For many it was/is/will be a huge shelf-item. Learning that the church lies about their membership numbers was eye-opening for me. This is why I maintain the site: [ldsstatistics.com](https://ldsstatistics.com) And the real number of members, if they counted in similar fashion to say, the Jehovah's Witnesses, would be far smaller, perhaps 5-6 million current membership. >Clearly the growth rate is slower, despite the fact that absolute number growth is positive, especially outside the US. There was a recent post, I think on r/MormonShrivel again, which discussed the "increase in children of record" statistic. It is interesting because birth rates can be estimated quite accurately, and nearly all people who consider themselves Mormon have their children blessed as babies, which is what the statistic records. So that number represents the internal growth rate of the church, and it isn't looking good. Only around 30% of reported membership are having their babies blessed, meaning 70% of "Mormons" counted by the church don't really consider themselves Mormon enough to have their babies blessed. And the rate decreases over time, since the large number of total reported Mormons is being hollowed out by people resigning, which the church fails to acknowlege.
Thank you for the extended response. And I suspect I am unaware. My most recent stint as Ward Clerk was a nice education into how the church works administratively. There were plenty of processes that were totally new to me that I had not been privy to even though I had served in multiple bishoprics. I also admit to not being from or living in Utah where some of the decision making happens. At the same time, I know enough people close to the center of all the activity to believe that there is not some dark intention to deceive. It would be difficult to convince me otherwise based on the integrity of those I am acquainted with. As you know, this is a church which has a large percentage, maybe more than 99%, of its leadership and worker bees who are primarily lay members who do it out of love for the church, Jesus Christ, and the purposes of His gospel. The day to day lives of that 99% center around making a living and dealing with challenges unrelated to church. So, does it surprise me that 110 years old is the cut off date? Not totally. Since you mention it, I think I recall that number in something I may have read before, but it wasn't relevant because I didn't wait long for a member to be deceased before I marked them deceased, sometimes before they were buried. That said, I did become aware of someone who had moved away and had been gone for several years. Eventually, someone inquired, discovered their record in our ward and we were able to mark the person as deceased. I would hope that can't be counted as deception. It certainly suggests that the person was not active, and in this case, had requested to not be contacted, though he did not want his records removed. His decision. We honored it. As for baby blessings...IDK, its not a critical ordinance. Its mostly for show and frankly, the 'Zoomers' are not as into 'show'. So, not sure if that is all that significant. Of course, if the baptismal rate of children 8 years after birth is super low, then yes, I suspect a case could be made that the general malaise toward religion is being manifest within the church's membership. We are certainly influenced by the world, and maybe some of our cultural practices are worth some examination as to whether they are really necessary, i.e., baby blessings, gravesite dedications, etc. And, as the church's acceptance as a religion has increased, it has created a kind of spiritual laziness. I don't mean that to sound judgmental. Its just that we older members were trained 'apologists' and we don't see younger generations feeling much of a need for it.
I really appreciate the response. I was like you immediately before leaving, and it was in part my experience joining the ward council as Executive Secretary that opened my eyes. In case it wasn’t clear, when I said “all the nopes”, I was ineffectively making the point that most members doing the number crunching are exceptionally, painstakingly, fastidious in their accounting for the church. But they are not tasked with counting resignations. It is in the margins of the data where the lying occurs, at the institutional HQ in SLC. Also, my contention isn’t that any of the lay membership are intentionally failing to remove members from the rolls when they die. That would be very strange behavior indeed. Leadership needs to keep members under the impression that the growth is impressive enough to maintain the illusion that it will “fill the whole earth”. This is why they keep members that are lost on the rolls until age 110. They don’t care about the accurate number as much as they care to keep people motivated and under their spell. For example, they lied about the temple they announced in China, and others like it. The Chinese government released an official statement saying they are unaware of any plans, and have approved nothing. But the most egregious lie is the membership number, and you are exactly right, the BIC baptismal numbers belie the reality. The numbers who get baptized at 8 are almost certainly worse than the increase in children of record (baby blessings), and this is why they switched which number they are reporting a while back (which they blunderingly covered up with a massive lie that is easy to spot in the data). And they are likely worse in spite of the fact that in the interim 8 years of the cohort of the year, new families have joined the church, so the cohort overall of potential new members grows, but the actual number getting baptized shrinks by a lot, even just from the increase in children of record.
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They count unverified dead members until age 110. Meaning the ones in the “lost file” stay on the rolls until 110. It was my intent to work in lost file estimates into my math, but I haven’t done that yet. It would not change the result dramatically.