{"id":9067,"date":"2009-07-28T12:30:49","date_gmt":"2009-07-28T17:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=9067"},"modified":"2009-07-28T12:30:49","modified_gmt":"2009-07-28T17:30:49","slug":"what-i-found-interesting-and-unusual-in-the-pew-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2009\/07\/what-i-found-interesting-and-unusual-in-the-pew-report\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Found Interesting and Unusual in the Pew Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For Pioneer Day, the Pew Research Center&#8217;s Forum on Religious &amp; Public Life released its report on Mormonism, based on responses to its 2007 Religious Landscape Survey. I was surprised that the initial coverage was so mundane, but when I read the report, so many details were fascinating!<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The press coverage of the report has either looked at Mormons fears about Hollywood, or the fact that Mormons are the most conservative of religious traditions. BORING! Tell me something that I didn&#8217;t know already.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, the report says a lot that I didn&#8217;t know already. For those that don&#8217;t want to read through the report itself, I&#8217;ve pulled out, and listed below, a lot of the results that I found particularly interesting or unexpected:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Demographic information<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mormons are younger<\/strong> than the adherents of most other religions (only Hinduism and Islam are younger). What surprised me is that this is NOT due to converts, who, the survey found, are older than the U.S. population as a whole. I assume this means the youth comes from a higher birth rate.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormons are more likely to be married,<\/strong> be married to somone of the same faith, and have children. Only Hindus are more likely to be married, and to be married to someone of the same faith.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormons are less diverse<\/strong> than the general population, but not as bad as some other religious traditons (Jews, Orthodox Christians, mainline Protestants). In terms of proportion of a race that is Mormon vs. the proportion of that race in the general population, the largest gap, by far, is clearly among African Americans.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormons include fewer immigrants<\/strong>, but converts are more likely to be immigrants that the U.S. population as a whole. 14% of Mormon converts are immigrants compared to 12% of the population as a whole (may not be statistically significant difference).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormons are more educated and wealthier<\/strong> that the U.S. population as a whole. However, Mormon converts are not.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormon converts are more like the general population<\/strong> than those who grew up in the Church. However, they still are more likely to be married and have children than the general population.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Religious Beliefs and Practices<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mormons are more certain about their beliefs<\/strong>. We&#8217;re the only religious tradition to have 100% claim to believe in God. 90% of Mormons say they absolutely believe in God (the rest believe, but are less certain). This same pattern appeared in questions about life after death and miracles.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Most Mormons don&#8217;t believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible<\/strong>. 57% don&#8217;t, versus 35% who do believe in a literal interpretation. In comparison, of those in the general population of the U.S. who believe the Bible to be the word of God, more than half take it literally.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Home and religious schooling less likely among Mormons<\/strong>. In U.S. 15% of the general population either home school or send their children to religious schools. Among Mormons, just 6% do.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Missionary efforts less frequent, but more likely among Mormons<\/strong>. We are far behind groups like the Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses when it comes to how many Mormons try to share the gospel weekly. But only 24% never try to share the gospel. Among Mormons, Utahns are less likely to share the gospel than those who live elsewhere.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormons retain converts as good or better than most<\/strong>. 70% of those who grew up Mormon stay in the Church. Half of those convert to another religion, the rest end up with no religion.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormons most likely to believe that religion solves problems<\/strong>. Just 3% completely agree with the statement &#8220;religion causes more problems than it solves,&#8221; fewer than any other religious tradition.<\/li>\n<li><strong>More education leads to stronger belief among Mormons<\/strong>. This is the opposite of the general population of the U.S.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The unmarried are less faithful among Mormons<\/strong>. Those who are not married are less likely to say they attend Church weekly, pray regularly and less likelty to believe that religion is important.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Social and Political Views<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Significantly fewer Mormons are Republican outside of the West.<\/strong> In Utah 69% of Mormons are Republican or lean Republican. Outside of the West, just 55% are Republican.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormons less strident about Abortion than Evangelicals<\/strong>. Following the Church&#8217;s lead, members say abortion should be illegal in most, but not all cases. Just 9% want it outlawed all the time, versus 25% of evangelicals.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormons are strongly anti-evolution<\/strong>. 75% said evolution is NOT the best explanation for human life. I find this odd because from what I&#8217;ve seen the Church&#8217;s statements have focused on the fact that God is behind the creation of man, not how he did it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormons are evenly split on Church involvement in politics<\/strong>. Again, the Church&#8217;s position\u00a0 seems pretty clear &#8212; it can get involved whenever it thinks it should (statements at election time are about endorsing individual candidates and political parties, not the Church&#8217;s position on issues). I should also note that this survey was taken in 2007, before the Proposition 8 battle.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormons support stricter environmental laws.<\/strong> 55% to 36%.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormons are not isolationist<\/strong>. A majority say U.S. should be active in world affairs, the opposite of the U.S. population as a whole.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mormons favor diplomacy over military strength<\/strong>. Half say diplomacy works better, and 37% say military strength is more important.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Methodology<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I should note that the Pew report seems like it was well done. They surveyed more than 35,000 in the U.S. to get their results, and ended up with 581 who identified as Mormon. But that includes some members of the Community of Christ and various fundamentalist and other non-LDS groups. The report says these are just 4%, or 21-25 of the 581 Mormons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For Pioneer Day, the Pew Research Center&#8217;s Forum on Religious &amp; Public Life released its report on Mormonism, based on responses to its 2007 Religious Landscape Survey. I was surprised that the initial coverage was so mundane, but when I read the report, so many details were fascinating!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[984,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-country-profiles","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9070,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9067\/revisions\/9070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}