I finally got around to calculating the Church leaving rates from the latest Pew Religious Landscape Survey. The PRLS is one of the few surveys that has questions about both former and current religious affiliation with a large enough sample size that it can tell us something about Latter-day Saints.
So what do we find? According to the 2023-2024 PRLS, 54% of people who were raised Latter-day Saint still identify as such. So about half.
However, when we run the same numbers for 2014 it was 64%. And when we run the same numbers for the 2007 wave it was 70%.* So it looks like we’ve had a decent drop-off in the past twenty years. That means for every ten people who were raised LDS about three would have left in 2007 world, and five would have left in 2024 world, so two more out of ten (or 1.5 out of ten depending on how you’re rounding). This isn’t insignificant (but, to be fair, neither is it the “nobody used to leave now everybody is leaving” story that some observe). So the anecdotes and general vibes people have been getting of more people leaving the Church do have some bearing in the data.
I thought this in turn would have an effect on the composition of the Church, making it more of a Church of converts. However, in 2007, 74% of Church members were raised in the Church. In 2014 this number was 69%, and in 2024 this number was back up to 74%. So it does look like the raised-in-the-Church crowd is still the demographic ballast. In terms of a percentage, about 0.4% of the U.S. population are converts to the Church across all three waves (well, technically 4%, then 5%, and then 4% again in 2024, but at this point we might be asking too much of our sample size to really be able to say much about those trends).
So how are we still growing? As I’ve said a bajillion times elsewhere here at T&S, I think we owe a lot to population momentum (Google site:timesandseasons.org “population momentum” for my more detailed thoughts on this), or the fact that our parents had a lot of children, so as that demographic wave crests we’re still going to be seeing some Church growth from that, but it’s essentially due to reproductive decisions made long ago, so it shouldn’t be seen as indicative of anything we’re doing now.
Of course, whenever I do one of these posts people are quick to point out their own solution, but I really don’t see an easy fix to the demographic fundamentals of a secularizing society that has exponentially more lifestyle options than our parents and grandparents had (you can tell why I wasn’t Mr. Popular in my European mission’s zone conferences). The fact is the only religious groups that are growing rapidly in the developed world are ones that very intentionally shut off those other lifestyle options like the Amish and Haredi Jews. (Although the Assemblies of God is doing okay for themselves right now), so no, this would not all be different if the Brethren listened to your hot take on this or that 21st century culture war issue.
It is what it is, but again on a global level the fundamentals are strong, we’re not doing as badly as most, and we’ve been through much worse.
*Quick caveat, in 2007 they did this stupid thing where they weighted the continental US and Hawaii/Alaska differently, so the 2007 numbers are for the continental US, but at these numbers it shouldn’t matter much.
Comments
32 responses to “A Lot More People are Leaving the Church Now”
The popularization of the internet is a one time historic event. So many young people are “discovering” new things about the Church they grew up in that they are leaving. After a life of hard knocks, they will discover the Truth and be back, with strong testimonies. Watch the Come Back Podcast for many, many examples.
This is why Biden was allowed, by God, to be elected. To show us what damage a President can do.
Leaving our Church inflicts the same pain of those that leave as Biden and his handlers did to US.
Ah yes Treyeshua, Biden, the practicing Catholic who inherited a 13.7% unemployment rate and a botched pandemic response that eventually killed over 1.1 million people from the adulterous failed-casino owner who preceded him, the same Biden who nevertheless swiftly got unemployment down to 4% via the largest stimulus package and vaccine rollout in our nation’s history and biggest infrastructure bill since Eisenhower, and who worked hard to finally bring down inflation to below 3% by last year—only to watch Tariffs McGee promptly reignite inflation, alienate all our allies, and ruin everything he touches yet again. I agree that one of the two men was sent here by God to show us how bad things can get.
The reasons why people leave churches are diverse and multifaceted with no easy solution in the short-term, as the OP has indicated; but our retention rates are surely not helped along when the Youth of Zion are raised up hearing their leaders preach against the evils of adultery, pornography, casinos, and vulgarity, only to watch them all turn around and vote for Trump instead. If we don’t believe our own teachings, why should they? To quote Alma to Corianton, when they beheld our conduct, they would not believe our words.
Thanks for breaking this down, Stephen C.
Didn’t expect this post to go political so fast, and a priori I doubt the president has much influence on this one way or the other. But empirically it’s also hard to make that case since the time trends we’re talking about here started in the George W. Bush years and continued through Barack Obama’s two terms, Donald Trump’s first term, and Joe Biden’s term.
I speak from my own experience and what I have seen in my children, the people around me, and what I have seen in my service in the Church.
The Church is very focused on one way of achieving spiritual progress, which is the path of covenants and the temple. That’s fine, but notice how they use every trick in the book to say that, for example, PFJ (in South America) is an activity that changes your life… In reality, it is a spiritual retreat in the format of a “mission training center” where for five days there are “spiritual” classes, a little music, testimonies, and a couple of parties for the youth to socialize, in a school or place that is full of people all day long. What about those people who don’t like crowds, don’t like parties, enjoy sports and social activities more, and don’t feel very comfortable with testimonials? You then have a group of people, which is not insignificant, who will not feel part of the group that is enjoying themselves and will therefore gradually break away from the crowd.
Sunday classes are repetitive, focused on repeating the same basic teachings over and over again, with questions or invitations to participate answered with the same responses: “You have to pray, you have to read the scriptures, you have to go to church.”
Church manuals are too redundant. If you pick up any manual, even from a seminary or institute, you will see that it repeats the same thing as another manual, but does not delve deeper into the content.
They promise you that you will have great spiritual experiences and that this will shape your future, when in general, emotional stability in life is based on resilience and a faith in simple things, and that day by day, almost imperceptibly, a relationship with God develops.
You are taught that there is one way to worship, when in reality spirituality and connection with God depend on certain natural aptitudes: for some it is prayer, for others service, for others music, for others the study of the scriptures, for others meditation, for others nature, etc.
The sacrament meeting talks are repetitions of general conference talks with stories centered on American life, tears, and repetition without adding personal reflections, personal testimonies of learning, etc.
If you ask sharp or difficult questions in Church meetings, your classmates will look at you strangely, and at best, the teacher will tell you that we can go deeper into that at the end of class so as not to stray from the context.
In our testimonies on the first Sunday, we say that we are happy because of the gospel, but with a tone of sadness (which we call spirituality) or with an exaggerated tone of “joy” that is characteristic of emotionally unstable people and probably not a good example to follow in life. There are others, but they are hidden among the different nuances.
In short, something that does not seem to satisfy the diverse spiritual needs of the people who attend church. The older ones attend church out of discipline and commitment, while the younger ones, being a little less tolerant and authentic, are not willing to sacrifice their attention, preferring to continue on their own personal quest for spiritual fulfillment without the Church.
Finally, and this is a little sad, there is a general feeling of moral superiority towards other people who are not of our faith. This is detected by members who have many friends outside the church and realize that there is something strange that does not add up.
I like how you focus on the abundance of different lifestyles. I made a comment on a different site about how people want different lifestyles and was quickly accused by the offended that I was really saying that people who leave the church just want to sin. And while that can be part of it, it’s not the entirety of it. Many times it is just a desire for a different lifestyle.
I’m currently listening to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy with my son and we recently got to the point where Arthur asks the Mice why they’re searching so hard for the Ultimate Question and the mice reply, “I dunno. Momentum at this point I guess”. The church has wonderful answers for those who are searching the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything. But honestly most people just don’t care. They might care occasionally, but not enough to do anything about it. THGGTTG references the concept of not worrying about the big questions and just get on with life repeatedly through the book.
I think that the church is doing a good job with the Saints series, and with the many examples of very difficult circumstances that leaders and members of the church have suffered through. It shows that bad things happening to righteous people is not evidence of a lack of God. But I suspect that most church members haven’t read the books. And because so many Sunday School lessons are focused on blessings from righteous living, that once bad things start happening to you, it’s easier to conclude that God isn’t real and just walk away. You compartmentalize all of the evidences of the church being true in a spot in your mind as stuff to forget about, and go about day to day living.
Great information here and I am fascinated by the population momentum concept and dynamic. Your article from a number of years back introduced me to it and I’ve read a number of interesting articles and studies about it.
And the first comment on this post is both amusing and concerning. But glad to see that some people have figured it all out lol ?
Just from looking around my ward and extended family, it certainly appears there are more people leaving.
Certainly I have noticed people leaving in larger numbers, especially among family and friends. It can be quite disheartening. However, I think that we ought to look closely at the reasons why as I tire of people saying that people leave just because they want to sin. While there may be a few cases of the reddit style imbecile, this is usually not the case. For example, my entire immediate family converted to non-denominational Christianity because they did not apparently feel close to God while in this church. So their leaving was out of sincere desire to find truth, even if I disagree with them, rather than to shirk responsibility, and hopefully we can find better ways to minister to these folks in the future.
I was mildly alarmed when I first looked at the PRLS data, but upon further inspection it seems to be a classic case of Mormon oversampling. This has been an issue for the entirety of the PRLS going back to 2007. The self identified LDS population in 2007 and 2014 was 1.7% and 1.6% respectively, which I think both pro- and anti-LDS can agree is certainly much higher than reality. 80+% of membership on the roles do not identify as LDS, much less attend church at the rates identified in those surveys. The percentage of the population raised LDS in both 2007 and 2014 was 1.7%, with 1.1% of the population raised LDS still identifying as adults in 2014. The percentage of raised and self identified LDS was exactly the same in 2023 (1.1%). The supposed large drop in retention is due to the percentage of those who who raised in the church increasing almost 25% in the 2023 survey, from 1.7% to 2.1%, with that increase exclusively contributing to those who no longer identify as LDS (from 0.6% to 1.0%). This is extremely unlikely, as it suggests that the number of people raised LDS is greater than the entire reported membership. Considering that 0.4% of the population are LDS identifying converts, and that convert retention is (generously) 50%, roughly 3% of the population was either raised in the church or baptized at some point. This would mean that there are roughly 3 million people who have had their records removed to arrive at the roughly 6 million members (2% of the population) on the rolls. That just hasn’t happened. The reality is that self identified LDS is lower than the survey suggests, and that disaffiliation may have had a slight increase, but not the jump that the 2023 survey suggests. I’d love to hear any thoughts on my math and reasoning.
Slight correction: *roughly 7 million members on the rolls
We are watching a significant meltdown of the core of the LDS community. As previously noted
it is not as devastating as some religions have experienced, but the longterm effects of this are serious. I know of no families who have not felt the impact of it. No one can estimate the changes coming to LDS culture due to this event. Twenty years ago, I could name a dozen families off the top of my head who had no members who have left the Church. I certainly can’t do that today, and it’s not due solely to a worsening memory!
Something I heard recently that resonated with me was a comment that the #1 reason people used to leave the church because of historical questions/issues, but over time it’s turned into a feeling that the church isn’t “good” anymore (eg misogyny, homophobia, classism, racism, or general “meanness” in our politics). It’s easy to have a nuanced look at our history, but it’s much harder to push back against a culture that feels like it’s lost its way.
I’ve enjoyed this series of posts. I would be interested in seeing in how the data breaks down in the United States. For instance, I’m middle aged but the concept of a jack Mormon no longer exists like it did when I was young. Those folks might have answered surveys stating they were Mormon in previous samples, even if they weren’t active participants. To what extent is this just people on the margins disaffiliating?
It’s also frequently framed as an issue, but I question if it isn’t better off for the institutional church. You have a more committed group of core members creating more doctrinal cohesion and buy in. I don’t mean this as a moral judgement, but you also lose religious free riders.
In the end I’m not certain this is the cause of concern many think it is for Church leadership or that frankly they should be concerned.
“So how are we still growing?” I don’t know how representational this is, but in my area we are growing because we have several baptisms a month. However, most of those people only come to church a month or two and then disappear. Zero percent make it to the one year mark.
In terms of lifestyle, the challenge I’m seeing in my extended family is that the church doesn’t fulfill the promises it makes of lifestyle. Not when the 20-somethings can look at their peers and see that their lives are just as meaningful, rewarding, and positive without having to deal with the negatives of Mormonism.
@JTB: So, if I’m reading your concern correctly, it sounds like there may be some oversampling of raised-Latter-day Saints in the 2024 PRLS (something that happens in other surveys like some years of the GSS when they do a coarse-grained multistage cluster sample and some of the clusters happen to land in Utah). But in that case the exact same 1.1% of raised-and-still-LDS is a smaller proportion of the total raised LDS in 2024 than 2014 because of the oversampling of LDS in 2024. So (again, if I’m reading this right), I don’t think that’s a issue to the main take-away here because the issue is *specifically* if raised-and-left LDS were oversampled *relative* to raised-and-stayed; I don’t see how that would be affected if raised LDS were simply oversampled. I tried checking distribution by state to see if it was an Utah thing, but my 2024 dataset has all missing values on state, probably for deidentification purposes.
Vic says “because they did not apparently feel close to God while in this church. So their leaving was out of sincere desire to find truth”
I don’t think that those two are necessarily related. You can find truth, without feeling close to God. You can also feel that you’re close to God (when you might not be), and not have the truth, or even feel that truth is important. It’s the feelings that are important in that case.
I think the US Church has plateaued for now and we remaining active members are slowly realizing we aren’t the main character in the global Church anymore and the millennial US LDS moment of optimism building up till the 2000s has passed. Partial activity while still identifying as LDS seems rarer. Folks are more likely to be ex Mormon than Jack Mormon. We have fewer kids. Gay issues and secularism don’t fit and are hard to navigate for many trying to bridge the outside world with community. We’re becoming more self centered and less Churched in our broader country.
Reading the BOM this past year was a good reminder the US Gentiles were never the main character, but during the US baby boom and more religious era it felt like it. The Church is browning and globalizing.
I’m grateful for the sacrifices of all the US faithful that have made it possible for the Church to become as sustainable world religion that is starting to look more like the world in race.
Secularism and individualism is the broader US current right now. Some theorize the nones are finally plateauing too. We’ll see. Conversion and commitment is hard in the current era.
I’m not one to count out the Church in the US but we have less political power than we used to. Most professionals don’t do Church anymore. We’re once again more on the outside culturally but we also take on mainstream trends like reduced fertility.
I wonder the limits of secularism and if there is a bounce back. Religious people breed more even if less than they used to.
This year will set a record for baptisms. The Church will pass the 1 million member mark in Africa. Children of record needs to start moving to show better fundamental growth.
We’ll see where things go from here.
jader3rd, indeed, that is a more accurate statement. I should have said that they were trying to feel closer to God. I just meant that there was however also an aspect of them trying to explore somewhat the nature of God and Christ as they felt our religion had a deficient view.
When I was in my youth, the main message I got from the world about my faith was “You’re weird.” Sometimes “You’re gullible.” For young people today, and I’m including people up to at least 30 in that group, the message they’re getting is “You’re a bigot.” Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic. Those are serious sins in the eyes of their generation, as they should be. What makes it sting all the more is that they stand accused of not following the example of Jesus Christ by loving and including everyone. Of course that’s going to cause anyone whose not fully committed to fall away.
I don’t have a hot take on how to fix that. No, we can’t just change our theology. It does help wavering individuals when Church members conduct themselves in ways that demonstrate those accusations are not true. We can gently push back on the narrative that simply to disagree with someone is harming them, though we need to be consistent about it (no insisting LGBT people be invisible lest they harm children, for example). But the main thing young people need is stronger testimonies, and yes, this is a concern for Church leadership. Everything from FSY Conferences to more temples is their attempt to respond.
The one thing we must not do is give up on following the example of Christ and stop following the commandment to love even our enemies.
RLD, I think you have to qualify that in light of recent events. Someone can be crudely sexist, loudly transphobic and overtly racist and still receive a plurality of votes, while increasing support among nearly all age cohorts, especially young men.
But given recent educational sorting, however, it could be a real problem for educated, professional-class Church members, the kind of person who has traditionally been in a position to serve in ward auxiliaries and leadership callings. If they drift away, more callings get filled by members who are less educated, lower in professional hierarchy, maybe less likely to have grown up in the Church, maybe with less management skill. And that’s okay.
Fair point Jonathan! According to Tufts CIRCLE, I live in one of the few states where people under 30 voted more heavily against Trump in 2024 than in 2020 (and in a deep blue city plus a ward that feels like it’s mostly grad students) but that’s the exception. Thanks for the reminder that I live in something of a bubble. :)
I’m a little less sanguine than you about the effect of losing educated people. Being poor, or even lower-middle class, is hard. A lot more time and energy have to go into just getting by. Some people can add a time-consuming Church calling on top of that and make it work, but the proportion that can’t be relied on seems higher–and I don’t blame them at all.
The trend towards young men being more religious than young women is a fascinating one, though I’m actually not sure if it applies to us or not (paging Stephen C). In the past we’ve tapped into “Muscular Christianity” (e.g. our involvement in scouting) but it feels like we’ve been moving away from that and I have a hard time seeing us trying to appeal to “bro” masculinity. Some of the rhetoric I hear (not in the Church) about catering to men’s supposed need to compete or to dominate seems problematic, to say the least.
On the question of religiosity by gender, it would be more accurate to say that while men used to be much less religious than women, that the differences have narrowed or gone away (for example, see the graph I made for a Wheatley Institute report, https://wheatley.byu.edu/00000193-1d85-d861-adbb-7dff23e20001/the-tides-of-religion-report-pdf). Some datasets, but not all, show a very slight male advantage in religiosity if you squint. So it’s probably more accurate to say that the gender differentials have collapsed than to paint a picture of women leaving in droves because of patriarchy while men flock towards masculine Jesus bro religion. Women might be leaving because of patriarchy, but if so that is counterbalanced by something causing the men to leave at about equal rates.
A March 2025 Salt Lake Tribune article cites a Pew Research Center study as showing the LDS Church membership in the US is 52% male. I am not qualified to address the study methodology or analysis.
• 52% of members are male (up from 44% in 2014), 47% female (down from 56%).
Pew Religious Landscape Study.
The article is likely behind a paywall, but here’s the link:
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/03/05/lds-attitudes-toward-abortion/
@ Stephen C: Thanks for the response, I appreciate your insight. To clarify, I am suggesting that raised and left LDS is significantly oversampled compared to both the overall population, and raised and stayed LDS in this survey. The main factors being the significant increase in raised LDS between surveys (25% increase in 9 years), with the corresponding 66% increase in raised but left in the same time period. It seems unrealistic that there was such a dramatic increase in such a short period of time, and that the entire proportion of that increase in raised LDS happened to leave the church (0.4% increase in both the overall percentage raised in the church *and* those who left). Taking the numbers at face value just for the sake of illustration, there would be 7.14 million individuals who were raised LDS, compared to 5.4 million in 2014. Around 3.5 million of those no longer identify per 2024 survey. There are 6.9 million members on the rolls. There are an additional 1.4 million converts who self identify in 2024. Just looking at those numbers, we’re at around 5 million self identifying LDS and 3.5 million non-identifying for a total of 8.5 million that were at one point affiliated with the church, with 1.5 million removing records to get us to the 6.9 million on the rolls as of YE 2024. This is still excluding all the converts who no longer identify. Looking at 2014 numbers, the ratio is much more realistic. 5.4 million raised LDS, with 1.9 million no longer identifying. Roughly 3.5 million raised and identifying and 1.5 million converts, for a total of 5 million self identifying LDS and 6.9 million that were at one point affiliated out of 6.5 million members on the rolls in 2014 (still excluding converts who no longer identify). With that, we have a deficit of 400,000~ in 2014, compared to 1.5~ million in 2024 (again, excluding converts which would greatly increase the missing members depending on estimated retention), when we know there has not been that many records removed during that time. Hopefully that makes more sense than my initial post in illustrating why I am having a hard time believing the sudden surge in disaffiliation based on this survey, the numbers just aren’t there when looking at total membership.
So I still might be missing something, but I don’t see how we can distinguish whether the increase in the raised LDS is due to oversampling the raised-and-left folks (as you imply) or whether they simply oversampled raised LDS folks and also there was a decline in those who stayed between the two waves. It seems like either of those two scenarios would look the same at the end of the pipeline, so all things being equal without a mechanism for how exactly they would oversample leavers it seems like the most likely scenario is that raised LDS were oversampled and there was a decline in stayers.
That’s very fair, I appreciate the discussion. I am also interested in the 75% increase in non-white membership, but that is probably best left to a different post. I think that was a huge and underscrutinized aspect of the survey (as much as I am still skeptical of it’s overall accuracy).
wow–responding to treyeshua.
The popularization of the internet is a one time historic event. So many young people are “discovering” new things about the Church they grew up in that they are leaving. After a life of hard knocks, they will discover the Truth and be back, with strong testimonies. Watch the Come Back Podcast for many, many examples.
So the old “they wanted to sin or got offended” thing is what you think? They will never come back. There is nothing for the youth- no sports, no scouts, no activities, no nothing- just seminary and cleaning the building.
Biden rubbed many people wrong, but he isn’t a criminal, a felon, a rapist, and destroying the constitution—all while enriching himself thru corruption. The church and its far right are another reason people left.
This is why Biden was allowed, by God, to be elected. To show us what damage a President can do.
Leaving our Church inflicts the same pain of those that leave as Biden and his handlers did to US
wow–responding to treyeshua.
The popularization of the internet is a one time historic event. So many young people are “discovering” new things about the Church they grew up in that they are leaving. After a life of hard knocks, they will discover the Truth and be back, with strong testimonies. Watch the Come Back Podcast for many, many examples.
So the old “they wanted to sin or got offended” thing is what you think? They will never come back. There is nothing for the youth- no sports, no scouts, no activities, no nothing- just seminary and cleaning the building.
Biden rubbed many people wrong, but he isn’t a criminal, a felon, a rapist, and destroying the constitution—all while enriching himself thru corruption. The church and its far right are another reason people left.
This is why Biden was allowed, by God, to be elected. To show us what damage a President can do.
We are all seeing it daily with donald tRUMP destroying everything that was important to most—as a retired naval officer- I am repulsed
Leaving our Church inflicts the same pain of those that leave as Biden and his handlers did to US
Obviously you can’t argue with unreasonable—leaving the church is only painful to those who leave when they felt they were lied and misled to. So if the young people leave- the parents of future children, the children wont be around to fill the primary room. Why do they have 11 yr olds passing the sacrament now? Because there are not enough 12 and 13 yr olds—
Tariffs will hit soon- then you can see what tRUMP has done–and FYI- the inflation? It was from tRUMP first term of adding 7 trillion to the deficit.
In my ward and extended family, for every new convert we gain, about two or three leave the Church.
I do think more people have left in the past 5 years then ever in the inter generational core since the Heber J Grant days. I think a comparable period could be in the 1920-1940 period when WOW was enforced.
I put a post up many moons ago that I thought the LDS Church was headed to schism like the US based Mainlines have.
I think we are seeing the same schism but because SLC controls the buildings and all the callings and the money the schism looks different. Congregations do not leave. There is no vote on disaffiliation. When raised LDS people get “woke” or “secular” they bounce out eventually leaving the traditional core behind. This is our version of a Schism.
I do think there are less of these folks now to eventually leave because the process is 6-8 years ongoing now and there are less and less of these folks that are still active.
Stephen C.,
Thanks for the stats and summary! Illuminating!
You said ” . . . we’re not doing as badly as most, and we’ve been through much worse.”
What did you mean? Have there been stat slumps this bad in the past? Did you mean crossing the plains or facing the Missouri Mormon War?
I don’t know that the church has faced this big of a threat in the past. At least, not an existential one this big before.