This week, two commentators referenced large-scale data in considering Latter-day Saint retention. But as with all statistics, it’s beneficial to situate them within the overall religious landscape to clarify what’s going on with U.S. Latter-day Saints.
Different ways to measure retention
In the first post, Ryan Burge, a leading analyst of U.S. religion, begins with a rather startling statistic that Latter-day Saints have lower retention than any other religion. Burge reports Protestant retention at 71% with Latter-day Saints apparently 17 percentage points lower, at 54%.
This stat is not new. The Pew Research Center noted this last year in one of their reports. Because of this, I’ve frequently received questions like, “What are Latter-day Saints getting wrong that Protestants seem to be getting right? Why are the Lutherans, Methodists and other Protestant groups doing so much better at keeping their members?”
But they aren’t. Retention is being measured in a very different way. The 71% retention number doesn’t count people switching within Protestantism. It’s instead measuring retention within a category containing dozens of denominations.
They aren’t the same kind of number. When you start comparing more specific numbers, Latter-day Saints are nearly even with Baptists, who have the highest retention among Protestants at 54%. Lutherans have the next closest retention rate at 47%, with many other Protestant denominations retaining a third or less of their members. Methodists, for instance, retain 37% and Presbyterians retain 30%.
Many of the biggest shifts don’t show up in the larger number at all. For example, the United Methodist Church recently had 7,600 of its congregations split from it in a single year, losing 26% of its congregations. But because many of these congregations are still Protestant (indeed, many are still Methodist), the tremendous blow to this denomination does not show up in the 71%.
The 71% raw retention rate also doesn’t account for retention and participation. Many individuals are “retained” in a religion in name only. When looking at those who are retained and attend religious services at least once a month, Latter-day Saints have the highest retention levels.
Retention among women
Jana Riess also explored retention among Latter-day Saint women this week. She is right to be concerned about younger Latter-day Saint women, who may have a lower retention rate than males — indeed, I believe this is one of the most important concerns of our day.
The question is whether this concern is unique to Latter-day Saints. If it is unique, then causes are likely to be found within unique Latter-day Saint practices. If it is not unique, then causes are likely to be found within the broader culture that impacts Latter-day Saints as well as others.
When looking at the broader landscape of data, it seems clear that Latter-day Saints are not unique in this. Indeed, the Latter-day Saint retention rate of younger women is slightly above the retention of younger women in other religions.
Here is another way to think about overall Latter-day Saint retention. Imagine you had 10 kids, all of different religions, and you needed to guess which one would be participating regularly in that religion as an adult. But the only thing you knew about them was their religion.
You would be wise to guess the Latter-day Saint youth every time.
I don’t offer these comparisons as some kind of horse race or wrestling match — trying to find which religion comes out on top. I see religions as “all in this together,” as essential efforts to infuse the divine into the lives of individuals, communities and societies. I offer these comparisons as a way to accurately situate Latter-day Saints within the overall U.S. religious landscape.
Unfortunately, when people misunderstand retention statistics, it leads to misdiagnoses. Thinking Latter-day Saints are dramatically lower in retention may lead to calls for shifts in practices that are actually helpful in retaining members.
Even so, 54% retention is not where we want it. Our best efforts are needed to help individuals, perhaps young women in particular, remain connected to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and reap the benefits of participation.
Paul’s words can easily be applied to our efforts to understand what’s going on with religion today. “We see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror ... All that I know now is partial and incomplete” (1 Corinthians 13:12, New Living Translation).
Unfortunately, the “puzzling reflections” only get worse when we misread the numbers. But with properly situated statistics, the reflection sharpens, and we can see ourselves a little more clearly.