March 4, 1999

LATTER-DAY SAINTS

IN A SECULAR WORLD:

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED ABOUT

LATTER-DAY SAINTS

FROM SOCIAL RESEARCH

MARTIN B. HICKMAN

OUTSTANDING SCHOLAR LECTURE

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

March 4, 1999

JAMES T. DUKE

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

PROVO, UTAH 84602

LATTER-DAY SAINTS IN A SECULAR WORLD: (Slide #1)

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED ABOUT LATTER-DAY SAINTS

FROM SOCIAL RESEARCH (Slide #2)

MARTIN B. HICKMAN

Let me begin by paying tribute to Martin Hickman. It was an honor and a pleasure to serve as a faculty member under his leadership as our Dean. He was a great and honorable man, and I express my gratitude for the many times he helped me and influenced my life. I express my best wishes to Sister JoAnn Hickman and to their children.

I love BYU and consider it a great blessing to have been able to spend my academic career here, to specialize in the sociology of religion and especially to study LDS people.

I also express my appreciation to Dave Orton, who is running this slide presentation, and to Lori Seely and Marilyn Webb for their great help in organizing this lecture.

INTRODUCTION

The last two decades have been wonderful years to be members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day. Likewise, this has been a remarkable era for social research concerning the LDS church. There are now enough LDS people in the United States (1.8% of the population) than LDS people now appear in many studies. Both LDS and Non-LDS scholars have accomplished good research. BYU now has more sociologists writing in the area of the sociology of religion than any other university in the world, and the LDS Church has the strongest research department of any denomination in the world.

Three new books mark this emergence of research on LDS people: Contemporary Mormonism, edited by Marie Cornwall, Tim Heaton, and Larry Young, published in 1994; Mormon Identities in Transition, edited by Douglas Davies and published in London in 1996, and Latter-day Saint Social Life, edited by me and published by the Religious Studies Center here at BYU in 1998.

God is the great sociologist as well as the great Creator, the great chemist and physicist and astronomer and psychologist. He knows the laws and principles of all these disciplines and makes use of them in bringing to pass His great work on the earth. My role as a sociologist, I believe, is to observe the LDS Church, the LDS people, and the manifestations of how God deals with us in this mortal sphere. I believe we can achieve sociological insights in this way and learn about great gospel principles.

OUTLINE (Slide #3)

My lecture is divided into four general areas. I will first examine the major trends in American religion to investigate the level of secularization that is present in our society. Second, I discuss Rodney Stark's use of the LDS Church as a model of the social and religious conditions that lead to membership growth. Third, I will then look at data (in the tables passed out to you) on where LDS Church growth is occurring, and examine some sociological conditions that seem to influence such church growth. Finally, I will look at a number of sociological studies of LDS people and describe what we know about the Saints at the present time.

AMERICAN RELIGION

American religion provides the social context within which the LDS Church was restored and in which it operates. I have faith that our Heavenly Father influenced the conditions in American society that enabled the true church to be restored in the last days. These conditions included the inspired American Constitution and the existence of religious freedom--the freedom to choose to be religious or not to be religious, to become a member of one denomination or another. In American society, there is no established church, and there are many competing churches.

SECULARIZATION THEORY (Slide #4)

The father of sociology, Auguste Comte (1858), felt he had discovered the most fundamental law of history, which he called the law of three stages. He argued that all societies and all people go through three stages, which he called theological, metaphysical, and positive (which in French means "scientific"). As people become more sophisticated and modern, according to Comte, they give up explanations based on religion and replace them with explanations based on science. Comte believed that by the end of the 19^th Century, science would have replaced religion and religion would be dead. When that didn't happen, sociologists at the beginning of the 20^th Century predicted that by the end of this century, religion would be passe and replaced by science (Bell 1980:326-327). Again, that didn't happen, but secularization did occur in many nations, especially in Western and Northern Europe. One major part of secularization theory is that well-educated people with a scientific education will be less religious than poorly-educated people.

One of the major themes in the Book of Mormon is the tendency for people to become less religious, to become more secularized, as they become more prosperous. See Helaman 12:1-3. Are the American people on a slippery slope down to Perdition, as some believe?

How far advanced is the process of secularization in the United States? (Slide #5) The United States is often used as a case study to refute secularization theory (Caplow, Bahr and Chadwick 1983:294-297). It is the most religious industrialized nation in the world, and from a religious point of view, is more like an underdeveloped nation than a modern nation. American religion is constantly changing, as it has for the past two hundred years. Let's look at a number of religious trends in American society to see the extent to which secularization is taking place in our society.

(Slide #6) One of the major trends in American religion is the decline in the so-called Mainline Protestant churches, a decline in membership and in financial resources. The Presbyterian church is threatening to split over what they call "the fidelity and chastity amendment." The next slide (Slide #7) shows the decline in the number of members (not the percent of the population) of what are sometimes called the "seven sisters" of Mainline Protestantism (Woodward 1993:46-48). You can see that all of these churches have lost members in the past thirty years. The classic case is the Methodist Church, which was once the largest church in the nation in 1850 with 32%, has now shrunk to about 8% of the population today. The Presbyterian Church (USA) has lost forty thousand members per year for the past twenty years, the Episcopalian church has lost 33% of its members and the Disciples of Christ has lost 47% of its members since 1965 (Woodward 1993:46-48).

In the Catholic church (Slide #8), my friend Pat McNamara (1992) from the University of New Mexico calls the change "from committed Catholics to cafeteria Catholics," or Catholics who pick and choose what aspects of Catholic doctrine they will believe and practice. A major example of this is the rejection of the pope's teachings concerning birth control. Catholic church membership has been stable, but their church attendance has declined very sharply in the past forty years, from about 75% attending mass in 1950 to 28% today. Catholics are also experiencing a substantial decline in the number of priests and nuns, called the "vocational crisis." The Catholic Church is now replacing only about 60% of priests and nuns who die, retire, or leave the ministry. But Catholics as a group have made substantial economic progress in the US, have essentially achieved parity with Protestants, and have become part of "the establishment."

(Slide #9) Jewish people are split into three major factions, and they have become one of the most liberal religious groups, both politically and religiously, in the United States. Conservative Protestantism has also changed, not necessarily in numbers, but in political influence, with the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition being the two best examples of this new assertiveness. Another major shift is the growth of alternative religions, including New Age religion and "personal" religion. What sociologists now call "Sheilaism" is named after Sheila Larson, a nurse interviewed by Robert Bellah. Sheila was not a church attender, but she called her personal religion "Sheilaism," which simply meant to her to listen to "my own little voice....It's just try to love yourself and be gentle with yourself" (Bellah, 1985:221). That was the extent of her religion. A final trend of many others I could cite is the increasing tolerance for once formerly stigmatized religions such as Jews, Catholics, and Latter-day Saints. Increased tolerance is one of the most significant long-range trends in American society, in the judgment of Theodore Caplow.

Roger Finke and Rodney Stark (Slide #10) recently published a study of American religious history. They called their book The Churching of America 1776-1990, because they found, contrary to popular notions, that more Americans today are members of a church than was true in 1776, and that there has been a gradual and consistent growth in the percentage of Americans who are church members. You will notice that they skip lightly over the numbers from 1952 to 1980. Gallup poll data show a different trend (Slide #11), a gradual decline in the percent of people who are church members from the late 1940s to 1998. Some 35% of Americans are classified as unchurched.

The percent of Americans who believe in God (Slide #12) is very high, well over 90 per cent, and the trend is essentially a flat line with very little decline over the past forty years. No secularization is evident here. However, the Gallup Poll stopped asking this question after 1986, for reasons I can't explain.

(Slide #13) Church attendance is another controversial subject for sociologists. The Gallup Poll, which has been tracking church attendance for the longest time, reported an increase in church attendance during the immediate postwar period, followed by a decline, especially among Catholics. But since about 1970, the rate of church attendance has varied at about the forty percent level.

Recently Kirk Hadaway (1993), a very good researcher for the United Church of Christ, has argued persuasively that many American people lie about their church attendance, and that the more accurate figure is about 20% of Protestants and 28% of Catholics attend church on any given week, an average of about 23% nationally. If people will lie about their church attendance, what won't they lie about? Is this an indication of secularization? I think so.

(Slide #14) There is also disagreement concerning the percent of Americans who do not have a religious preference, the people we call religious "nones." The General Social Surveys conducted by the University of Chicago show an increasing percentage of "nones" to about 12%.

Next look at the percentage of people who say that religion is very important in their lives (Slide #15). This trend is essentially flat, at about 59%, with perhaps a very slight increase in recent years.

(Slide #16) Many sociologists today believe that American religion looks quite vigorous on the surface, but that there is a decided lack of depth, of commitment, of real knowledge, of real belief, or real obedience. While 94% say they believe in God, only about 23% attend church on any given week.

THE CHANGING AMERICAN FAMILY

I believe we can observe secularization best by looking at recent changes in the American family. With regard to the divorce rate since 1867 (the longest trend I was able to find) (Slide #17), we see a gradual increase in divorce from 1867 to 1945, a huge increase in divorce following World War II, another huge increase in divorce from 1967 to 1981, followed by a gradual decrease in divorce since 1981. While the divorce rate is still very high by historical standards, the decline since 1981 has been about 20%, which is not negligible.

In the next slide I show attitudes of the American people toward premarital intimacy since 1972 (Slide #18) to illustrate what may be called "the decline of chastity." In the past twenty-five years there has been a decline in the percentage of Americans who believe premarital relations are always wrong, to only 25% in the most recent period, and an increase in those who say that it is never wrong, to over 43% today. Americans are more traditional and moral in condemning extramarital relations.

The next slide shows the number of children born to unmarried mothers (Slide #19), which is now 32 percent of all births, with major differences between racial and ethnic groups.

If we consider only first births (Bachu 1994) (Slide #20), we see an even more disturbing picture, a dramatic increase in the number of first children born to unmarried women, reaching over 40% in the most recent period. Another 12% of children were conceived premaritally but born after the mother had married (presumably the father). So more than 52% of all first births today are to women who were not married when the child was conceived, which I not only find shocking, but also clear evidence of the decline of American religious values. If you want to find secularization in American society, look right here. I attribute this decline in chastity mostly to the American media, whose influence has been extremely powerful and extremely negative.

(Slide #21) This trend toward births to unmarried mothers is very high in the United States, but about comparable to the United Kingdom and Denmark, and considerably lower than Sweden (Bianchi &Spain 1996). On the other hand, only one percent of babies born in Japan are to unmarried mothers. Japan has been able to retain its traditional values in the face of great modernization in its economy.

To place these figures in perspective, however, we next look at a little-discussed fact about American society (Slide #22), the high number of illegitimate births in historical times (Smith 1978), reaching a peak of almost 34 percent in the revolutionary period. Illegitimacy today in no higher than it was in the Revolutionary period. Those of us who have done family history research can attest that such conditions existed in our own ancestry. I can't think of any more powerful indicators of secularization than the figures we have seen on the number of children born to unmarried mothers.

So what's the story here? On the one hand, Americans are still more religious than the people of any other industrialized nation. On the other hand, we see declining membership in the major Protestant churches, declining commitment to the Catholic church, Americans lying about their church attendance, increasing numbers of religious "nones," personalized and alternative religion filling the void, and illegitimate births extremely high and increasing.

WHY HAS THE LDS CHURCH BEEN ABLE TO SUSTAIN SUCH STRONG MEMBERSHIP GROWTH? (Slide #23)

Rodney Stark, a non-Mormon sociologist at the University of Washington, who is the most prestigious sociologist of religion in our time, has studied new religious movements for thirty years. He observed that many newly-formed religions attract a few members, exist for only a few years, and then disappear. But the LDS Church seems to have "got it right," from a sociological point of view, and so has shown steady and even spectacular growth, even in adversity. So Stark studied the LDS Church to discover the sociological conditions that led to its success, and developed a theory of church growth based specifically on the LDS Church (Stark, "The Basis of Mormon Success"). Let me briefly run through the social conditions Stark has observed in the LDS Church, and either are not present or only partially present in other churches. I'll have to go through these very quickly, but I hope you will read Stark's latest discussion in Latter-Day Saint Social Life.

A growing church must first maintain cultural continuity (Slide #24) with the host society-that is, it must fit in, and it must maintain a medium level of tension with that society, neither too high or too low (Duke, "Continuity and Tension") . What is called "the Dean Kelley thesis" (1972) is that strict churches that have moderate tension with the host society usually grow in membership, while lenient churches that have low tension tend to decline. Strict churches avoid what we call "free riders," or people who belong but rarely attend or contribute to the church.

Legitimate leadership (Slide #25) is another condition for growth, as well as the feeling by members that they participate in the system of authority. A church must be able to motivate people to give service to the church (Slide #26), and the LDS Church is remarkable in being able to motivate both its young and old people to serve as missionaries and to serve in callings. A successful church must have an adequate level of fertility, and will grow best in an open religious market (such as the United States) where other churches have been weakened by secularization. It must have strong bonds of friendship (Slide #27) among members, as well as members who reach out to non-members to fellowship them. Finally, a church must avoid secularization, including inactivity and disobedience to its teachings, and it must socialize the young people effectively.

OTHER CONDITIONS CONDUCIVE TO GROWTH

While I agree with Stark completely that these ten conditions foster church growth, and that they apply directly to the LDS Church, I believe his conditions are not exhaustive, and would like to add another ten to his list-so here comes "Duke's ten." (Slide #28) Perhaps Stark's major omission concerns doctrines and theology. In order for a church to grow, it must teach true and appealing theological doctrines. Most Latter-day Saints would say that the basic reason for the success of the church is that it is true and teaches true principles. A successful church must appeal to people of all socioeconomic classes, and it must unite people from diverse countries and cultures. It must avoid schisms (Slide #29), which tend to occur in all religious traditions, and respond effectively to current issues, as the LDS church has done in the past with the issues of polygamy and blacks and the priesthood. It must have adequate financial resources, (Slide #30)nourish effective wards, and support strong families. To grow best, a church must proselyte in the most receptive areas, and it must help its members, especially its young people, deal with the negative stigmatization they will receive from detractors and critics, that is, to "bear the shame of the world."

Organizationally and functionally, the LDS Church is a true sociological marvel, a social organization that stands as a model of church growth and success. It is wonderfully organized and is able to motivate its members to serve and to support the church.

RECENT GROWTH OF THE CHURCH (Slide #31)

In 1984, Rodney Stark published "The Rise of a New World Faith." He argued that the LDS Church was the first new world religion in the past 1400 years, that its growth since 1830 had been remarkable, and that it is destined to grow exponentially in the next hundred years. Stark presented two projections. Using 1980 as a base, he showed that if the growth of the church were 30% per decade, there would be 65,000,000 Saints in the world by the year 2080. If the church grew at 50% per decade, it would have 265,000,000 members by the year 2080.

We first show the LDS Church growth rate each decade from 1830 to the present (Slide #32). Up to 1950, LDS Church growth varied from 27% to about 43% each decade. Since 1950, however, church growth has consistently been close to or over 60%. Growth was 67% in the 1980s.

Next Stark looks at yearly LDS Church growth since 1980. (Slide #33 and Table 3 in your handout) In every year since 1980, church growth has been greater than the high projection of 50% growth per decade. Thus Stark concludes "So Far, So Good."

However, if we look more closely at year to year growth rates (Slide #34), we see a huge jump in membership from 1988 to 1990, reaching a peak of 8.7% growth in 1989. Since that time, however, growth has been considerably slower, with especially slow growth in 1996, the smallest yearly rate of growth in at least fifty years. Thus the rate of growth during the decade of the 1990s has been closer to 39%, which is still high but not as spectacular as in the previous four decades. The number of convert baptisms (Slide #35) also shows a leveling off during the 1990s.

Three reasons might be given for the slower growth of the church in the last decade. First, church leaders have consciously limited growth, especially in certain areas, not wanting to baptize too many members without adequately trained leaders. Many returned missionaries have told me this has been the case in their missions.

Second, the church has been involved in a most remarkable expansion in the number of nations in which it currently proselytes (Slide #36). The church has opened a total of 43 countries to proselyting since 1990, including many countries in Africa and in Eastern Europe [see the handout]. These 43 countries did not have an organized branch in1990 but do have at least one organized branch today. I do not count such nations as China, however, where the organized branch is primarily for American diplomats or students.

There are still 88 countries in which the church is either not now able to proselyte or in which we do not have native members. [see your handout] In 19 of these there is an LDS branch, but typically it is only for Americans. For example, there is a branch for military personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but we do not proselyte yet in Cuba.

For most of these nations I have shown the religious heritage. Many of these nations have a Muslim religious tradition. Others are among the poorest in the world, and many provide very significant challenges to church leaders and to prospective missionaries. If typical sociological conditions prevail, many will not be opened for decades. But if unusual circumstances occur, such as the breaking down of the iron curtain ten years ago, then it may be possible to send missionaries to some or many of these countries.

In the handout that you have received (Slide #37), I have calculated the rate of growth of membership in the LDS Church for all countries for which the Church Almanac reports membership figures (see Table 4). This shows growth rates for both the period 1989 to 1997 and for 1995 to 1997. The latter is more short-term, but was deemed necessary because we have opened so many new countries in recent years. The Church Almanac reports only rounded membership figures, which can introduce some bias. I can tell you that I have also obtained confidential data from the Church and have calculated growth rates with real, rather than rounded, numbers. I can also tell you that this more accurate calculation displays changes for a few nations, especially those with a small membership, but that the overall trends are the same.

For the period 1995 to 1997, church growth has been 7.8%, or a decade growth rate of 39% (Slide #38). Church membership growth is strong in Eastern Europe and Africa, and fairly strong still in Latin America. Growth is fairly slow in Asia and the South Pacific, and even slower in the United States, Western Europe and the U.K., and especially in the Nordic region.

A third reason for a slower rate of church growth in recent years is that social conditions that foster such growth are changing and becoming less favorable. Let me consider briefly the influence of what we call macrosociological conditions on the rate of church growth. First and most obviously, the presence or absence of religious freedom impacts our growth. We can say with fair assurance that the LDS Church proselytes in every nation in which there is religious freedom to proselyte, and we don't proselyte in nations that lack such freedom.

The best proof of the influence of social conditions on the LDS Church is found in Table 7 on the back page of your handout, showing the scatterplot between the growth rate of Church membership in individual countries and the country's GNP Per Capita. The church has grown much faster in poorer nations and much more slowly in the industrialized nations, especially in Western Europe. (Slide #39) The correlation between church growth and GNP per capita is -.73, which for sociologists is a very strong correlation. Certainly the secularization in the rich nations must be the major reason for this. I consider this table to be the most important statistic I will show you tonight.

In 1981, Barry Johnson and I did a study for the Church called "The National Indicators Study." This study sought to understand why the church was growing more rapidly in some nations than in others. Then we studied the rate of conversion to any religion (Duke, Johnson & Duke 1993), using data from David Barrett's World Christian Encyclopedia (1992). We found that Africa was the continent where the most religious ferment and conversion was taking place, and also found that the conversion rate was highly correlated with both GNP per capita and with the competitiveness of the religious market. The present correlation between the growth of the Church and the competitiveness of the religious market is r = .53.

Do we send poor missionaries and Mission Presidents to Europe and good ones to Latin America? I don't believe so. If social conditions are not conducive, proselyting work will be slow and difficult. In other areas where conditions are favorable, the church will grow rapidly, not because the missionaries we send there are superior, but because the social conditions are more favorable.

I believe the insight to be gained is that when conditions are ripe, as they were in Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil, Chile, and all of Central American in recent years, we must strike while the iron is hot and do our best job to convert many people. We also must realize that these favorable conditions do not last forever, and that the rate of conversions will decline in later years, as seems to be the case in Mexico, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. If a sizable membership can be built up during the good years, the Church will be able to maintain a strong membership when conditions are less favorable.

Generally we expect modernization to take place in most if not all nations of the world. If our analysis is correct, the process of modernization will lead to a decline in the rate of growth of the membership of the Church in most nations in which we are now proselyting.

I don't want this conclusion to sound pessimistic, for I personally am not at all pessimistic about the future growth of the Church. I believe the church will grow as our Father in Heaven wishes, whether rapidly or slowly, and I believe at any time He can step in to change the social conditions present in the world. Some event such as the appearance of the Savior to Paul on the road to Damascus, or the conversion of King Lamoni by Ammon, could occur. I believe it is possible, when God deems the time is right, for millions of souls to be brought into the gospel net.

To summarize our conclusions on this section, macrosociological conditions really do matter, the Church has achieved a herculean effort in opening 43 nations since 1990, there are huge challenges ahead in opening 88 more nations, and the rate of growth in the membership of the Church has been slower in recent years.

SOCIAL RESEARCH ON LATTER-DAY SAINTS (Slide #40)

We now turn to a review of recent social research on LDS people. Unfortunately, almost all of our current knowledge applies only to Americans and not to LDS members throughout the rest of the world.

My survey will be limited and highly selective. I cannot touch on the technicalities of the studies or their findings. If you desire further information, I hope you will read the studies themselves.

Most of these studies show very positive findings and make LDS people look very good. However, there are some cases in which I wish we looked a little better. But with remarkable consistency, LDS people demonstrate the fruits of living the gospel and present a very positive image to the world.

First, some interesting data from Roof and McKinney (1987) (Slide #41) concerning the status hierarchy of American denominations. These authors show that in 1945, Latter-day Saints were almost at the bottom of the status hierarchy, whereas by 1985, LDS people had risen to the top of the second tier, just below Jews and Mainline Protestants. The social mobility of Latter-day Saints was the most notable of any denomination in the United States.

Next we consider the activity and inactivity of LDS people. One of the most notable early studies done by the Research Information Division of the church was done by Stan Weed and Joe Olsen, and was called the Young Men's Study ("Key To Strong Young Men")(Slide #42). It is one of the few pieces of social research reported in the Ensign and the Church News. A somewhat discouraging statistic was that of 100 males born in the church, only 76 were ordained Deacons, 65 were ordained Teachers, 58 were ordained Priests, and only 32% went on missions. My understanding is that these statistics have not improved since 1984 when this study was published. If there is a major challenge in the Church, it is to retain our young people, the rising generation.

The factors (Slide #43) that had the greatest influence on the religiosity of young men were: home religious observance (family prayer, family home evening, and family scripture study), agreement with parents' values, having one's own spiritual experiences, having a priesthood advisor or other adult leader who cared, and being integrated into the ward. Programs and activities seemed to have little influence except as they encouraged the other factors listed above.

What was called the "Activity and Inactivity" study done for the Church, with Stan Albrecht as the lead investigator ("Consequential Dimension"), found some very interesting things (Slide #44), and happily most of these findings have been published in sociology journals. Data from this study are among the strongest we have, from a scientific point of view.

Strikingly, of every 100 people born in the Church, only 22% remain active throughout their lives. That means 78% are inactive for a year or more at some time. Most, 44%, return to activity, while 34% remain inactive. When President Hinckley emphasizes activation and retention, he obviously understands how vital it is that we keep our members active and strong.

Those who become inactive usually do so during the teenage and young adult years. Those who return usually do so during young adulthood.

Lifestyle issues, which usually involves some degree of disobedience to commandments, are major reasons why people drop into inactivity, but members give many different reasons for their inactivity. Lack of social integration into the ward is also a major cause of inactivity.

(Slide #45) If young Latter-day Saints grow up in a religious home in which many gospel principles are practiced, 44% will remain active their whole lives. I find that figure amazingly low and quite discouraging-if the parents are doing everything they can, there is still over a 50% chance their children will become inactive for a year or more. On the other hand, of the young Latter-day Saints who grow up in an inactive home, 13% of them will remain active. That figure is much higher than I would have guessed. There are some people who do marvelously well even with poor parental examples.

Another major finding of the activity/inactivity study was the relationship between education and religiosity (Albrecht & Heaton) (Slide #46). In their report of this study, Stan Albrecht and Tim Heaton first showed that for the American people as a whole, people with a grade school or high school education are more likely to be religious than those with a college education. For LDS people, the opposite is true. For men, the more education they receive, the more likely they are to attend church and to be religious in other ways. The same is generally true for women, except that women with a graduate school education are slightly less likely to attend church than those with a college education. On other dimensions of religiosity, the trend is not as apparent (Slide #47). I can only show a little of this research. On the dimension of gospel study, men with higher education are likely to study more. For LDS women, those with the least education spend the most time in gospel study, a truly non-intuitive finding.

The authors say [quote] "having a calling is a key link between education and attendance," [end quote] and that the lay character of priesthood organization leads to the greater activity of well-educated men. The serious concern, here, is that the Church does not do as well in providing success experiences and encouraging the activity of men with a lesser degree of education.

Another study concerns the influence of life events (Albrecht & Cornwall) on one's religiosity (Slide #48). The major findings are, first, that people who experience what they consider to be positive events in their lives are likely to become more religious. People who experience negative events tend to become less religious (although this does not happen to all such people). People who observe negative things happening to other people experience an increase of their own religiosity.

(Slide #49) Barry Johnson and I ("Life Cycle") did a study a few years ago of LDS families. We included 31 different items or measures of religiosity. Of these items, women were more religious on 26 items, one item was essentially even, and men were more religious on only four items. I have chosen to present only a few of these comparisons on this slide. Women are more likely to feel they are strong members, to attend church weekly, to pray daily, to feel their prayers are answered, and to have spiritual experiences. (Slide #50) When we add up all the 31 factors, a higher percentage of women have high religiosity scores, 69% of women and 63% of men.

However, men are more likely to believe that if they died tomorrow, they are worthy of the Celestial Kingdom (36% of men, only 29% of women feel this way). When I told Martin Hickman of this finding, he said to me, "The men are just kidding themselves."

We next look at changes of religiosity through the life cycle (Slide #51). Concerning church attendance, females are consistently more religious than males. Attendance starts high at the single stage, declines when first married, then generally increases through the child-rearing years. Both men and women experience a decline at the empty nest stage, but men make a small come-back upon retirement.

(Slide #52) One of our most notable findings is the decline in daily prayer by LDS women. Women experience a great increase in prayer after marriage (no jokes, please), but then exhibit a long and very significant decline in the percent who say their prayers daily. Men are much less consistent.

Finally, with regard to total religiosity (Slide #53), using all 31 dimensions combined, we see a long and consistent increase through time. Men seem to experience more ups and downs in early life, and women exhibit more ups and downs later in life.

RESEARCH ON THE LDS FAMILY

(Slide #54) Let's look briefly at social research on the LDS family. LDS people are more likely to get married (Heaton, Goodman & Holman). They are less likely at any one time to be separated or divorced, but they are just as likely to have ever been divorced.

As far as children ever born (Slide #55), both LDS men and women report about one more child per couple than the national average (Heaton, Goodman & Holman). When asked about the ideal number of children in a family, LDS men say about four, and LDS women average 4.61 children.

With regard to marital happiness (Slide #56), a lower percentage of LDS men report being very happy than do American men, whereas LDS women are more likely to be very happy than American women.

(Slide #57) Tim Heaton was the principal investigator of the Church's demographic studies in 1981 and 1990, plus other studies of Great Britain, Mexico, and Japan (Heaton, "Cross National Comparisons"). With regard to fertility, LDS people in the United States have a larger number of children than the American populace. Saints in both Great Britain and Japan are moderately more fertile than the national population of those countries. The opposite is found in Mexico, where Mexico saints have fewer children than the national average. This is almost certainly due to the fact that LDS members in Mexico have higher socioeconomic status than the average, and are more likely to be socially mobile.

Also with regard to fertility, saints who marry in the temple have more children than those who do not, and those who attend frequently are likely to have more children than those who attend less frequently.

Tom Holman and John Harding (1996) recently published a wonderful study using data from the National Survey of Families and Households. Holman and Harding show (Slide #58) that LDS people are more moral and chaste with regard to attitudes toward premarital intimacy, and are much less likely ever to have cohabited, that is, lived with a person of the opposite gender without being married. Then they pose the question, does the teaching of premarital abstinence and the practice of chastity influence LDS people once they get married? Do they have more adjustments in their intimate relations, either inhibitions or the tendency to overcompensate once they are married? The data show no such problems. The frequency of intimate relations for LDS couples is very normal.

Next we look at data from Roof & McKinney (1987) concerning what they call the "New Morality" scale (Slide #59), or what my son Jeff calls the "old immorality" scale. This scale measures attitudes favorable to premarital and extramarital relationships, as well as attitudes favorable to homosexuality and pornography. LDS people are very unfavorable to the New Morality, although not as extremely as Jehovah's Witnesses and members of the Assembly of God.

I turn now to an excellent article on divorce in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism by Kristen Goodman (1992), a researcher for the Church (Slide #60). These data show that temple marriages are much more stable than non-temple marriages, and that people who marry outside the temple are five times more likely to get a divorce. Goodman has found that Saints who are more likely to obtain a divorce either married young, did not go to college, or married outside the faith. Divorced people demonstrate lower religiosity, which is one of the sad results of divorce.

Evelyn Lehrer and Carmel Chiswick (1993) (Slide #61) reported some very interesting data regarding divorce. Latter-day Saints who marry within the church, what we call religious homogamy, are the least likely of all Americans to become divorced. If both spouses are LDS, the rate of divorce is only 13%. However, if a member marries a non-member (Slide #62), what we call religious heterogamy, the rate of divorce is 40%, and is one of the highest in the nation. Only Jews who marry outside the faith have a higher rate of divorce.

Next we look at the political behavior of LDS people (Duke in Davies 1996) (Slide #63). This slide shows that Mormons are much more likely to be Republicans than Democrats, and that LDS men are slightly more likely to be Republicans than LDS women. The same is true of political ideology (Slide #64), where LDS people are more conservative than American people, and LDS men are more conservative than LDS women.

Since the election of November 1998, there are now five LDS Senators and eleven LDS Representatives in Congress, plus one non-voting delegate from American Samoa. Of the sixteen voting members of Congress, only two, or 12.5%, are Democrats.

Bruce Chadwick and Brent Top (in Duke 1998 and Ensign March1999) have completed an excellent study of seminary students (Slide #65). I hope you will read their report in the March 1999 Ensign. They tested what is called the "moral communities" thesis. Chadwick and Top studied LDS youth on the East Coast, in the Northwest (Portland and Seattle), and in Utah County. They found no differences in the level of delinquency of LDS youth in these three places, which suggests that the LDS Church is able to create a moral community for its youth even when the rest of the community is not religious.

Finally, I turn to an extremely important study of the physical health of LDS people (Slide #68), done by James Enstrom (in Duke 1998), a non-member at the medical school at UCLA. President Hinckley met Dr. Enstrom in Los Angeles in 1997, and has quoted this study frequently, including his October 1997 conference address, and the Mike Wallace and Larry King interviews.

Enstrom was able to obtain the help of the Church in studying the health practices of all high priests and their wives living in California in 1979. He has followed this cohort of active LDS people since that time.

Enstrom reports what medical researchers call "standardized mortality ratios," with 100 representing the national average. LDS people have a much lower rate of mortality than other Americans for all cancers, all cardiovascular diseases, and for all causes of death, The California high priests do slightly better than their wives, probably because they are being compared to other American men who are more likely to live unhealthy and risky lives. LDS people have already achieved the 50% reduction in cancer that is the goal of the American Cancer Society.

Enstrom's findings concerning life expectancy (Slide #69) are equally striking. Using life expectancy at age 25 as the base, thus excluding such things as infant mortality and most accidents, Enstrom was able to see the full effects of living the Word of Wisdom and other gospel principles. LDS high priests who used three good health practices--never having smoked, getting moderate exercise, and getting adequate sleep--had a life expectancy of 85 years, a full eleven years more than American males. Truly amazing! Wives of high priests had a life expectancy of 88, or eight years more than American women. If you live the gospel fully, you are much more likely to have good health to a ripe old age.

Enstrom also found that, for these people, other types of health practices didn't have much further effect. This included whether people ate red meat, fish, or poultry, whether they ate more fresh fruits and fresh vegetables, and whether or not they used Vitamin A or Vitamin E supplements. Only Vitamin C supplements seemed to add much to the longevity of these LDS people.

CONCLUSION

So what can we conclude from this review of recent sociological research on LDS people? The findings are too diverse to summarize quickly.

On the whole, social research shows LDS people in a very favorable light. We are normal in some areas in which I hope we would be normal. We are exceptional in some areas in which I am happy we are exceptional, such as the physical health of High Priests and their wives. We don't always appear to be as good in some areas as I would have hoped, but there is no question that this research reflects positively on the LDS Church and its people. The Church and the gospel are true, and the fruits of the gospel are tangible and obvious.

REFERENCES

Albrecht, Stan L., "The Consequential Dimension of Mormon Religiosity," in James T. Duke (ed.), Latter-day Saint Social Life. Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1998, pp. 253-292.

Albrecht, Stan L. and Marie Cornwall, "Life Events and Religious Change," in James T. Duke (ed.), Latter-day Saint Social Life. Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1998, pp. 231 -252.

Albrecht, Stan L., Marie Cornwall, and Perry Cunningham, "Religious Leave-Taking," in David Bromley (ed.), Falling from the Faith. Beverly Hills, Sage, 1988, pp. 62-80.

Albrecht, Stan L. and Tim B. Heaton, "Secularization, Higher Education, and Religiosity," in James T. Duke (ed.), Latter-day Saint Social Life. Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1998, pp. 293-314.

Bachu, Amara, Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau, www.census.gov/ population.

Barrett, David B., World Christian Encyclopedia. New York: Oxford, 1992.

Bell, Daniel, "The Return of the Sacred? The Argument on the Future of Religion," in Daniel Bell, The Winding Passage. New York: Basic Books, 1980, pp. 324-354.

Bellah, Robert N., Richard Madsen, William M. Sillivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Society. New York: Harper, 1985.

Bianchi, Suzanne M. and Daphne Spain, "Women, Work, and Family in American," Population Bulletin, Vol. 51, No. 3, December 1996.

Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970.

Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States 1998. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998.

Bureau of the Census, Monthly Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 45, No 3(s)2, October 4, 1996.

Bureau of Justice Statistics, www. ojp.usdoj.gov/glance'proptrd.txt.

Caplow, Theodore, Howard M. Bahr, and Bruce A. Chadwick, All Faithful People: Change and Continuity in Middletown's Religion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983.

Chadwick, Bruce A. and Brent L. Top, "Religiosity and Delinquency among LDS Adolescents," in James T. Duke (ed.), Latter-day Saint Social Life. Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1998, pp. 499-523.

Comte, Auguste, The Positive Philosophy. Translated and abridged by Harriet Martineau. New York: Calvin Blanchard, 1858, Vol. 1.

Cunningham, Perry, "Activity in the Church," Encyclopedia of Mormonism, New York: Macmillan, 1992, Vol. I, pp. 13-15.

Deseret News, 1999-2000 Church Almanac. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret News Press, 1998.

Duke, James T., "Cultural Continuity and Tension: A Test of Stark's Theory of Church Growth," in James T. Duke (ed.), Latter-day Saint Social Life. Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1998, pp. 71-103.

Duke, James T., "Latter-day Saint Exceptionalism and Membership Growth," in Douglas Davies (ed.), Mormon Identities in Transition. London: Cassell, 1996, pp. 46-51.

Duke, James T. and Barry L. Johnson, "The Religiosity of Mormon Men and Women through the Life Cycle," in James T. Duke (ed.), Latter-day Saint Social Life. Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1998, pp. 315-343.

Duke, James T., Barry L. Johnson, and James B. Duke, "Rates of Religious Conversion: A Macrosociological Study," Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion 5 (1993): 123-155.

Enstrom, James E., "Health Practices and Mortality among Active California Mormons, 1980-1993," in James T. Duke (ed.), Latter-day Saint Social Life. Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1998, pp. 461-471.

Finke, Roger and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America 1776-1990. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992.

Goodman, Kristen L, "Divorce," in Encyclopedia of Mormonism. New York: Macmillan, 1992, Vol. 1.

Hadaway, C. Kirk, Penny Long Marler, and Mark Chaves, "Chat the Polls Don't Show: A Closer Look at U.S. Church Attendance," American Sociological Review 58 (1993): 741-752.

Heaton, Tim B. "Religious Influences on Mormon Fertility: Cross-National Comparisons," in James T. Duke (ed.), Latter-day Saint Social Life. Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1998, pp. 425-440.

Heaton, Tim B., Kristen L. Goodman, and Thomas B. Holman, "In Search of a Peculiar People: Are Mormon Families Really Different?," in Marie Cornwall, Tim B. Heaton, and Lawrence A. Young (eds.), Contemporary Mormonism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994, pp. 87-117.

Holman, Tomas B. and John R. Harding, "The Teaching of Nonmarital Sexual Abstinence and Members' Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors: The Case of latter-day Saints," Review of Religious Research 38 (September 1996): 51-60.

Kelley, Dean M., Why Conservative Churches are Growing: A Study in the Sociology of Religion. New York: Harper, 1972.

"Key to Strong Young Men," Ensign 14 (December 1984): 66-68.

Lehrer, Evelyn and Carmel Chiswick, "Religion as a Determinant of Marital Stability," Demography 30 (August 1993): 393.

McNamara, Patrick H., Conscience First, Tradition Second: A Study of Young American Catholics. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992.

National Opinion Research Center, General Social Surveys 1972-1996: Cumulative Codebook. Storrs, CT: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, 1996.

Princeton Religion Research Center, Religion in American 1990. Princeton, NJ, 1990.

Princeton Religious Research Center, The Gallup Poll Monthly, January 1998.

Roof, Clark Wade and William McKinney, American Mainline Religion. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987.

Smith, Daniel Scott, "American Sexual Revolution," in Michael Gordon (ed.), The American Family in Social Historical Perspective. 1978.

Smith, Tom, "Liberal and Conservative Change: A Summary of Trends," American Sociological Association, August 1998.

Stark, Rodney, "The Rise of a New World Faith," in James T. Duke (ed.), Latter-day Saint Social Life. Provo, Religious Studies Center, 1998, pp. 9-27.

Stark, Rodney, "The Basis of Mormon Success: A Theoretical Application," in James T. Duke (ed.), Latter-day Saint Social Life. Provo, Religious Studies Center, 1998, pp. 29-70.

Top, Brent and Bruce A. Chadwick, "Raising Righteous Children in a Evil World," Ensign, March 1999.

Woodward, Kenneth L., "Dead End for the Mainline?," Newsweek, August 9, 1993, pp. 46-48.