Sorry I keep coming back to this every few days colton, but I pick it up when I have time. Lots of the last two days of jazzfanz time got spent on Archibald and Honzward.
Who ARE these sociologists, though? That's what my question was--what are your sources. That news article just quotes anonymous people for that 5 million source. (The source that is named in that article agreed with my U.S. estimate of 50% activity.)
The previous sentence in that article indicates that the number to get to a 30% estimate (and everyone is giving estimates) comes from a comparison between claimed church members by the LDS organization vs. census numbers in developed countries. I did an example of this arithmetic in my previous post for Brazil whereby the church claims 1,138,740 members in Brazil, but in the 2010 census only 225,695 Brazilians claimed they were LDS. In other words 93% of the supposed church membership in Brazil is missing.
Obviously Brazil is an extreme case (although oddly one that the church brings up of its own accord very frequently) but that's how you go about making estimates of this kind.
Less thorough estimates exist for the United States (because nothing is more thorough than a census), but the Pew Research organization determined the percentage of self-described mormons in the United States is about 1.7%.
https://www.pewforum.org/2009/07/24/a-portrait-of-mormons-in-the-us/
In adding up all the data I could find from the 2012 church release, I estimate claimed US church membership at 6,331,380 or approximately 2.3% of the US population. That puts active membership at around 66% for the United States, but at a much lower rate in the rest of the world. To some extent this isn't surprising given that the LDS church is a largely regional religion.
That powerpoint cites cumorah.com, the same site I ran across earlier in this thread. But no one there seems to be a qualified sociologist.
https://www.cumorah.com/index.php?target=about_us. As near as I can tell, the figure that everyone quotes is just an estimate they made with no real evidence.
I think you're quibbling some here. For one thing, I note that your'e not disputing the discrepancies between LDS death rates vs. those of everyone else in the United States or the world. I think one of the questions you need to be asking yourself is "how many claimed church members are actually living human beings on the planet earth"
Secondly, the powerpoint I linked to is not an anti-mormon source. It's from a self-described believing member.
Thirdly, cumorah staffs a person whose apparent job is "church growth researcher." No description of education is given by anyone on the cumorah website but I think a quick look at the "church growth researchers" blog (
https://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/) is indicative that he's not a total yahoo and doesn't appear to have any bias against the church. In fact, I've never seen a more exhaustive or complete information source regarding church/stake openings or growth numbers. As his source for his belief in a 30% activity rate worldwide he states:
As for where I ascertained the 30% activity rate for the Church as a whole, this was calculated by estimating the member activity rate for each individual country (a process that literary took years to complete). This process was done by obtaining reports from church leaders, missionaries, and members from around the world in regards to sacrament meeting attendance and other measurements of activity for individual countries. 70% may seem high for inactivity, but when you consider that the countries with the most members generally have some of the lowest member activity rates in the world (less than 25%), then this makes a lot more sense.
The LDS Church doesn't directly release those numbers, but that seems like the fairest estimation procedure I can get ahold of.
Come on colton, look at those death rates again and tell me there isn't a serious institutional bias problem with how the numbers are calculated? Do you really think there's not a problem with a system where gains are locked in forever and losses are assumed to absurdly low rates?