Amid the dramatic shift in religiousness in the United States, BYU researchers have worked to pull together available data on Latter-day Saints, examining their religiousness, well-being and retention. This comes at a time of growth for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as high levels of engagement in the Church Educational System.
This is true even as broad trends of religious disengagement have negatively impacted overall church retention rates. Recent decades have seen more and more individuals disengaging with institutions across the board and religious institutions have not been spared (though disengagement has leveled off recently).
Why and how people step away from faith will continue to be an important question; it always has been, all the way back to Jesus exploring it in the Parable of the Sowers.
To explore what is going on with Latter-day Saints, over the last few years, a team of Brigham Young University researchers have been gathering data on religious belief and retention drawing on four national data sets: The General Social Survey from 1977–2022, the 2024 Pew Religious Landscape Study, The Cooperative Elections Survey, the 2025 Latter-day Saint Religious Seismology Survey, and one regional data set of parents and youth, the Family Foundations of Youth Development Study from 2016–2024.
We’ve put together our initial findings in a working paper currently posted on our website (more of our work can be found at: foundations.byu.edu/pubs). Here are three highlights in the national data that are easy to miss in the broader conversation about religious belief and retention in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
1. Surprising faith resilience amid a national decline
Data show Latter-day Saints have maintained relatively high levels of faith even as the United States has experienced a general decline in religious activity. Latter-day Saints have the highest rate of church attendance of any major religion in the Pew Religious Landscape Survey and the highest rate of personal scripture reading and parents praying or reading scripture with their children. Using objective cell phone data, University of Chicago economist Devin Pope similarly found Latter-day Saints among the highest weekly church attenders in America.
Latter-day Saints are also among the highest in their well-being, indicating high levels of feeling “a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being” and being “very happy with life.” These trends also hold for Latter-day Saint Millennials and Gen Zs who are highly involved in their religion.
Based on the Pew Religious Landscape Survey and the Latter-day Saint Seismology Survey, the retention rate among Latter-day Saints — that is, those who say they were raised Latter-day Saint and continue to identify as Latter-day Saint in adulthood — is approximately 50%. That rate is higher than all other major Christian denominations, except Catholics and Orthodox Christians.
When focusing more specifically on those who were raised in a religion and actively participate in that religion as adults (defined as attending religious services at least monthly), Latter-day Saints had the highest percentage of retention of all religions at 42%.
2. Least likely to lose Millennial and Gen Z members
As some have noted (see here and here), it’s true that Latter-day Saint retention has decreased over time, in line with national trends. What was 82% retention in the 1980s, dropped to 58% in the 2000s and then to around 50% in the years since. This religious retention has decreased in all generations of Latter-day Saints, but especially Millennial and Gen Z members.
Strikingly, however, Latter-day Saints are one of the faiths least likely to lose Millennial and Gen Z members. When it comes to identifying as a Latter-day Saint and also regularly attending church, Latter-day Saints are retaining active Millennial and Gen Z members at a higher rate than all other Christian denominations, except Adventists.
Compared with other religions surveyed, Latter-day Saint Millennials and Gen Zs also participate more in their religion and are among the highest in measures of believing in God and considering religion important in their lives. They are also the most likely to feel a sense of spiritual peace and well-being and to be very happy with their lives.
A large body of social science research has shown that there is a “threshold effect” of religious involvement where greater benefits accrue to those who are most involved. As we confirmed in this review of data across faith communities, a greater proportion of Latter-day Saints tend to be highly involved in their faith, which results in greater personal and relational benefits. This likely helps explain why Latter-day Saints are less likely to disconnect from their faith community.
We should also note that although the retention rate has decreased over time, this does not mean the overall number of Latter-day Saints is not increasing or that there isn’t growing vibrancy of those who do engage. With the recent high rates of conversion and high birth rates for Latter-day Saints, it would be unsurprising that church membership is increasing.
3. Diversity among those who step away
BYU also examined the diversity of those who deidentify, it being important not to treat them as a monolithic group. Indeed, many of those who deidentify from the church continue to be religious in some form. In the Latter-day Saint Religious Seismology Survey, we found four distinct groups among those who deidentified, based on their feelings about the importance of religion and spirituality, warmth towards Latter-day Saints, belief in death as the end of existence, belief in Jesus as the Son of God, and belief about the place of religion in society.
Contrary to narratives sometimes offered by critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we found that the majority of those who deidentify still hold out residual levels of belief. Indeed, two groups comprising 54% of the sample, “Faith Keepers” (22%) and “Faith Leaners” (32%), continue to feel religion is an important part of their lives and hold somewhat favorable views about Latter-day Saints.
Many in these two groups say they would likely return if they had a friend at church. Of those who deidentified, only 10% were in a group that entirely rejected faith and spirituality (“Faith Rejectors”). The other type, Faith Distancers (36%), indicated religion was not important to them.
In our report, we further explore belief and retention among Latter-day Saints, including predictors of disaffiliation and gender differences in retention patterns over time.
Though it does not provide a full explanation of the current religiosity patterns of Latter-day Saints, all of the data confirms that of all religions in the United States, Latter-day Saints are in a relatively strong position.
Although retention is not as high as it once was, for Latter-day Saints it has remained remarkably robust across every major indicator of religious life. They lead the nation in church attendance, personal and family religious practice, and active retention, including among Millennials and Gen Z.
While acknowledging the challenges associated with the current cultural shift in religiosity, together these findings confirm the significant influence of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in fostering religiosity among its members.
Despite secular headwinds and trends away from institutions generally, the increasing numbers of young missionaries for the church as well as record levels of enrollments in church educational institutions suggest a remarkable resiliency of faith within the church’s rising generation. — Also contributing to this perspective are Jenet J. Erickson, Sam A. Hardy, Barbara Morgan Gardner and David C. Dollahite
Correction: An earlier draft stated that the Latter-day Saint retention rate according to the Pew Religious Landscape Survey was higher than “all other major Christian denominations, except Catholics” — omitting Orthodox Christians, who are also slightly higher. The article has been updated.