Had the South American nation added 4,000 more converts, last year would have marked the first time in church history that a nation outside the U.S. Brazil, which accounted for more than 14% of the church’s growth in 2019, nearly eclipsed the U.S. Yet there remains a bright spot, as highlighted by this year’s statistical announcements: conversions to the church, particularly outside the U.S., are enjoying an upward trend, adding nearly a quarter million new members in 2019. Larger societal trends play a key role in this dynamic, but so too does the number of young members who leave the church before their childbearing years due, experts believe, to the demanding nature of church culture. But there is general agreement that falling birthrates bear a good portion of the blame. Teasing apart exactly what is happening with respect to LDS membership can be difficult, because of multiple, often conflicting, narratives.
Is controversy driving members away from the church? The reality, scholars say, is complicated. In the LDS stronghold Utah, where more than half the population is raised LDS, protests and mass resignations tied to controversial church policies have made the news in recent years-from the news Religion Unplugged reported that the church has amassed a $100 billion stockpile using member tithes in the last 22 years, to the now-revoked 2015 policy banning the baptism of children with gay parents. As a result, growth is sitting at just over 1.5% annually, significantly less than the 3-4% annual growth rates the church enjoyed in the 1970s and 80s.
While the church reported a slight uptick in the number of conversions in 2019 during its General Conference in April, that growth was offset by rapidly declining birthrates, which continue to fall despite the church’s emphasis on traditional family values. SALT LAKE CITY - Among religions, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints puts a unique emphasis on the importance of growth, dispatching tens of thousands of missionaries each year in pursuit of a prophecy that says the church will one day fill the entire globe.īut recently, despite record missionary service, growth in the 16-million-member church has hit a 100-year low in the United States.
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