Abstract
While the subject matter of this book is global Mormonism, it should not be forgotten that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah and is still a predominantly American church. Like other organized religions in twenty-first century America, the LDS Church faces significant institutional challenges in a society that continues to become more urbanized, ethnically diverse, more highly educated, and less religious—at least in terms of conventional denominational loyalties and orthodox obedience on the part of younger Americans to the moral and behavioral dictates of ecclesiastical authorities. In what follows we spotlight emerging generational differences in the religious orientations of “Millennial” Americans in general and those of Latter-day Saint Millennials in particular. These generational shifts of religious orientation arguably portend significant institutional adjustments and change for conservative religions like the LDS Church in the twenty-first century.
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Notes
- 1.
Richard Fry, “Millennials Expected to Outnumber Boomers in 2019,” Pew Research Center (blog), March 1, 2018, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/01/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/.
- 2.
Richard Fry, “Millennials Are Largest Generation in the U.S. Labor Force,” Pew Research Center (blog), April 11, 2018, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/11/millennials-largest-generation-us-labor-force/.
- 3.
Anthony Cilluffo and Richard Fry, “An Early Look at the 2020 Electorate,” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project (blog), January 30, 2019, https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/an-early-look-at-the-2020-electorate/.
- 4.
Pew Research Center, “Religious Landscape Study,” 2014 Religious Landscape Survey (blog), 2015, http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/.
- 5.
Luis Lugo, “Religion & Public Life: A Faith-Based Partisan Divide” (Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 2005), https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2005/01/religion-and-politics-report.pdf.
- 6.
Pew Research Center, “Religious Landscape Study,” 2014 Religious Landscape Survey: Gender Composition (blog), 2015, http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/.
- 7.
Pew Research Center, “Religious Switching: Change in America’s Religion Landscape,” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project (blog), May 12, 2015, https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-2-religious-switching-and-intermarriage/.
- 8.
Jana Riess, The Next Latter-day Saints: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 5–6.
- 9.
Riess, The Next Mormons.
- 10.
Paul Taylor, The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown, Reprint edition (PublicAffairs, 2016).
- 11.
Stella M. Rouse and Ashley D. Ross, The Politics of Millennials: Political Beliefs and Policy Preferences of America’s Most Diverse Generation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018).
- 12.
Corwin Smidt, Lyman Kellstedt, and James L. Guth, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Religion and American Politics, 1st edition (Oxford University Press, USA, 2009), chap. 1.
- 13.
Pew Research Center, “Religious Landscape Study,” 2015.
- 14.
In other words, there is a 95 percent chance that the actual value in the population of adult Latter-day Saints is within 5 percent above or below of the indicated statistics, but the margin of error increases when looking at subsamples (example: Millennials vs. those older than Millennials). Thus, we recommend that readers interpret the results presented here with this in mind.
- 15.
This is necessary because individuals often do not participate in public opinion surveys in the same degree to which those similar to them are represented in the wider population. The statistical weighting procedure artificially inflates or deflates responses from individuals in the proportion to which their demographic groups are under- or over-represented in the survey sample, respectively.
- 16.
Benjamin R. Knoll and Jana Riess, “The 2016 Next Mormons Survey,” in The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church (Oxford University Press, USA, 2019), 237–248.
- 17.
More specifically, with an online “panel-matching” procedure, surveyors specify criteria for responses which the survey firm then uses to recruit responses until those criteria have been satisfied. For example, a surveyor might specify that half of the sample must come from the western portion of a particular region and the other half must come from the eastern portion. The survey firm would then recruit respondents until 50 percent of the total sample self-identified as being from the west and the other half from the east. When employed using relevant criteria and in combination with other procedures (such as the post-stratification weighting approach described here), this allows surveyors to correct for the non-randomized nature of the online sampling procedure to ensure a representative sample of a given population.
- 18.
For more information about the Next Latter-day Saints Survey, see www.thenextmormons.org.
- 19.
This number includes some young children who have been blessed as babies but not yet baptized. If they reach the age of nine and have not yet been formally baptized, their names are dropped from the rolls of the Church. Mormon Social Science Association, “What are ‘Children of Record’ and Are They Included in the Total Membership of the LDS?” MSSA website, May 22, 2008, https://www.mormonsocialscience.org/2008/05/22/q-what-are-children-of-record-and-are-they-included-in-the-total-membership-of-the-lds/.
- 20.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Facts and Statistics,” https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics/country/united-states.
- 21.
Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), chap. 6.
- 22.
Rouse and Ross, The Politics of Millennials, chap. 1.
- 23.
William H. Frey, “The Millennial Generation: A Demographic Bridge to America’s Diverse Future,” Brookings (blog), January 24, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/research/millennials/.
- 24.
Pew Research Center, “The Gender Gap in Religion Around the World,” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project (blog), March 22, 2016, https://www.pewforum.org/2016/03/22/the-gender-gap-in-religion-around-the-world/.
- 25.
Numerical mean and standard deviation reported.
- 26.
Frank Newport and Joy Wilke, “Desire for Children Still Norm in U.S.,” Gallup.com, September 25, 2013, https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.aspx.
- 27.
Newport and Wilke.
- 28.
Newport and Wilke.
- 29.
Terryl L. Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity, 1 edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), chaps. 8, 11.
- 30.
We qualify this, though, with findings from the NMS that Millennials are about 10 percent less likely than those in the Boomer/Silent generation believe that scriptures should be interpreted metaphorically rather than literally.
- 31.
Terryl L. Givens, People of Paradox: A History Of Mormon Culture, Reprint edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Usa, 2012), chap. 1.
- 32.
Pew Research Center, “Attendance at Religious Services – Religion in America: U.S. Religious Data, Demographics and Statistics,” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project (blog), 2014, https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/.
- 33.
Karsten Strauss, “The Most and Least Charitable States in the U.S. In 2017,” Forbes, December 4, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2017/12/04/the-most-and-least-charitable-states-in-the-u-s-in-2017/.
- 34.
Riess, The Next Mormons, 155.
- 35.
It should be noted that this is an informal standard that is unevenly emphasized in Mormon communities.
- 36.
Young Latter-day Saint men are strongly encouraged to serve a two-year proselyting mission (or equivalent) as part of their “priesthood duty,” while young Latter-day Saint women are enthusiastically invited to serve an 18-month proselyting mission but without the same degree of obligation as are men.
- 37.
General Conference is a semi-annual gathering of LDS Church members to hear discourses by Church General Authorities.
- 38.
This is a certificate from an ecclesiastical leader attesting to the individual’s orthodoxy and orthopraxy so as to gain entrance to temples which are separate buildings from standard local congregational meeting houses that Latter-day Saints refer to simply as “churches” or “church buildings.”
- 39.
These are all forbidden by the Mormon dietary code known as the “Word of Wisdom,” along with tobacco and illicit drugs.
- 40.
Taylor, The Next America, chap. 10.
- 41.
Taylor, The Next America.
- 42.
Rouse and Ross, The Politics of Millennials.
- 43.
David E. Campbell, John C. Green, and J. Quin Monson, Seeking the Promised Land: Mormons and American Politics (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
- 44.
Taylor, The Next America.
- 45.
Alex Vandermaas-Peeler et al., “Emerging Consensus on LGBT Issues: Findings From the 2017 American Values Atlas,” May 1, 2018, https://www.prri.org/research/emerging-consensus-on-lgbt-issues-findings-from-the-2017-american-values-atlas/.
- 46.
David E. Campbell and J. Quin Monson, “Dry Kindling: A Political Profile of American Mormons,” in From Pews to Polling Places: Faith and Politics in the American Religious Mosaic (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2007), 105–129.
- 47.
William H. Frey, “The US Will Become ‘Minority White’ in 2045, Census Projects,” Brookings (blog), March 14, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/.
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Knoll, B.R., Riess, J. (2020). Changing Religious and Social Attitudes of Mormon Millennials in Contemporary American Society. In: Shepherd, R.G., Shepherd, A.G., Cragun, R.T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Mormonism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52616-0_10
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