A Minority Church in Utah

hawkgrrrl

Jan 2

The first time I was ever in Utah, it was a very strange experience for me. I had always lived in places where the Church is so much in the minority that I was usually the only church member my friends knew. People didn't talk about church in public. In fact, I only discovered as a senior in high school, kind of by accident, that the majority of my classmates all attended the same local Church of the Brethren congregation. It was bad manners to talk about your religion in public, and religious freedom meant pluralism, respecting the rights of everyone to privately hold their own religious beliefs while also supporting everyone else's rights to do so.

The biggest culture shock of my life was that people in Utah talked openly about church--all the time--and it was clearly the main thing in their lives. It had been a big thing in our lives, too. We just didn't talk about meetings and activities with people who weren't also involved. I overheard people talking about religion and their religious assumptions in the grocery store in Utah. It was bizarre. The other thing that surprised me was how much influence the church exerted in politics. When people said the liquor laws were based on the Church's word of wisdom, I was completely thrown. How on earth could a church be involved in politics, openly? (Bear in mind that this was the mid-80s, back when people were more religious and talked about it a whole lot less).

It occurred to me that maybe being Mormon in Utah was like being Catholic in Rome. The Church could do whatever it wanted because it had so much power and could exert its influence over the voting public. I didn't know if I liked that at the time, but my views weren't really being tested either. And by 2006, I didn't live in Utah. There has always been a strain of resentment within Utah among those who feel that their views are overridden by the Church in the public sphere.

A recent study published by Ryan Cragun using Qualtrics data describes the shrinking majority of Mormons in Utah. While the Church reported that 60% of Utah residents were Mormons in 2019, this study shows that only 42% of Utah residents self-identify as Mormons. That's a big difference! But it's also not indicative of an 18% drop in 4 years, if that was your first thought. The Church reports based on membership rolls, not on attendance (as most other Christian churches do, particularly because baptism is considered transferable between many sects), nor on self-identification (as polling usually does). If you haven't set foot in a Mormon church in decades, but didn't bother to officially resign, the Church will continue to count and report you as a member until 110 years after your date of birth. In fact, the report shows that the Church's method may be overcounting membership by as high as 50%, and in one county, the Church reported more members than there were residents of the entire county.

While Mormons are no longer the majority, that doesn't mean that it isn't the largest group in the state, but it does bring into question the outsize political influence the Church wields in a state that it no longer represents. A different study, done by Pew, was based on research done in 2007 and 2014. These results were re-published by the Church in a story in the Deseret News in August of 2023, perhaps because the results were much more favorable to the Church. This study showed 55% of Utah residents stating that they were Mormon and was about Utah's unusually high percentage of weekly church-goers. That earlier Pew study had already identified (10 years ago!) shifts in the political landscape of Utahns that revealed that many of the Church's conservative positions were no longer majoritarian in the state:

54% of Utahns self-identified as Republican. 46% considered themselves either Democrats or independent / no affiliation. 45% considered themselves conservative. 51% said they were either moderate or liberal. Attitudes about the role of government did lean conservative, though (66% preferred smaller government with fewer services; 53% said that aid to the poor did more harm than good).
In 2014, Abortion was nearly a 50/50 divide with 47% believing it should be legal in all or most cases, while 51% took the opposite view. I'd be extremely surprised if this hasn't changed after Dobbs in ways that would surprise Church leaders.
58% of Utahns believed that homosexuality should be accepted. 35% said it should be discouraged (which still feels high to me, but nowhere near where the Church wants it to be given their policies and rhetoric). 51% supported gay marriage--in 2014! By 2022, this had exploded to 72% support for gay marriage in the state, according to a Dan & Jones poll.
In 2014, only 42% were opposed to stricter environmental laws & regulations, vs. 51% who said they were worth the cost. That's certainly going to be higher given the eroding Salt Lake crisis. You can read more about the rapidly shifting attitudes of Utahns regarding climate change here.

It's not surprising that the Church would continue to publish ten year old stats that make their heavy-handed political influence in the state seem less inappropriate. In the 2014 data, 22% of respondents identified as "Nones" or no religious affiliation, and that was the second largest non-Mormon demographic by far (7% identified as mainline Protestant). Based on Cragun's data, that's the group that is really gaining ground. It's a national trend, but particularly true for those who leave the Mormon church, most of whom do not convert to other faiths, instead leaving religion altogether. So, why the shift? Cragun's study points to 3 factors that have caused a rapid decline:

Secularization. This refers to religion waning in importance in people's lives and is noted in the rise of those claiming "None" as their religious affiliation. Compared to other sects, Mormon retention rates (those who were Mormon at age 12 and still claim it as adults) and "secularization" rates (those raised Mormon who now state "no religion") look similar.

Mormons: 67.3% retention / 24% secularization
Catholics: 62.3% retention / 20% secularization
Non-denominational Christian: 55.6% retention / 22% secularization
Other Christian: 48% retention / 22% secularization

Fertility. While Mormon family size is still larger than national averages, that difference has dramatically shrunk in the last few years, from 20 births per 1000 people to 14 births per 1000. Mormon women are having fewer children, and Hispanic immigrants moving to Utah have higher birth rates which has further shifted the non-LDS percentage. Mormon birth rates are now approaching parity with non-Mormon averages.

Migration. There are many people moving to Utah from elsewhere, mostly from California. Most of these new state residents are not LDS. Additionally, many church members have migrated out of the state during this influx.

At the aggregate level, the church is losing its ability to influence behavior in neighborhoods, workplaces, and civic organizations. This in turn makes it easier for Mormons who are questioning their faith to leave it behind without social penalties. The social costs of leaving the church in an era of large Mormon majorities is well-documented.

From Cragun's report, page 177

Based on the people I know in Utah and their families and friends, it doesn't surprise me that Mormons are now a minority in the state. Personally, I think that's a good thing. Power corrupts, and nothing corrupts quite so much as being an unopposed and unopposable majority. Especially when it comes to creating public policy, persuasion and discussion should be how things get resolved, not a phone call to the Church Office Building who don't even represent the membership, and certainly not the interests of the non-LDS people in the state.

Do you find these survey results surprising? Are they similar to your own observations?
Do you think the Church has an outsized influence in Utah politics? Do you see that shifting?
Do you prefer when the Church is in the majority or minority?
Do you see a decline in the social pressure to remain affiliated with the Church as more people leave?
Do those you know who have left join other churches or choose to be unaffiliated?

Discuss.