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Religiosity and Retention

Religiosity and Retention

Last updated on: June 18, 2026 at 6:04 pm by Dan Peterson

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Religiosity and Retention 2026-06-18T18:04:02-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The Joseph and Polly Knight family were based in Colesville, New York, on the Susquehanna River, when they encountered Joseph Smith and the Restoration. (Map from LDS.org)

Just a reminder that I’ll be speaking in American Fork, Utah, tomorrow (Friday) night at the Joseph Knight Sr. Family Reunion. My topic will be “A Time of Decision: The Knights Follow Brigham and the Twelve into the West.” My remarks are scheduled to run from 7 PM to 8:30 PM, and they will be given at 165 North 350 West there in American Fork. So far as I’m aware, attendance at my fireside is open to anybody and everybody. (I mean, they’re probably going to admit me, right?) I’m just hoping that I won’t be completely alone in the room. (Even my wife can’t come.)

Evening sunlight on the ruins of Whitby Abbey in England, by Colin Park (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I’m genuinely happy to see that Jeff Strong’s recent book Torn: Why People We Love Are Leaving the Church and What We Can Learn from Them is generating considerable conversation. It’s a discussion that we need to have. Meridian Magazine, for example, has just published a response by Christy Lakip under the title “Misrepresented Members: A Reaction to Jeff Strong’s Book “Torn.”” And this new item, a defense of the book by Jim Bennett, went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “A Reply to ‘Beyond “Church Culture.”‘”

The transept of Furness Abbey’s main church (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I was pleased the other day to see that my hard copy of Latter-day Saint Trends in the United States: Religiousness, Well-Being, and Retention had arrived in the mail. This special short book, written by W. Justin Dyer, Jenet Jacob Erickson, Sam A. Hardy, Barbara Morgan Gardner, and David C. Dollahite, is going to be very good reading. (It’s also available online, at the link provided above.) Here, directly quoted, are the book’s Key Findings at a Glance:

Highest religious activity in America. Seventy-six percent of Latter-day Saint Millennials and Gen Z attend church at least monthly—more than any other major US religion. Eighty percent of Latter-day Saint parents pray and/or read scripture with their children, also the highest.
Strong well-being, even among the youngest generation. Latter-day Saints rank among the very highest in feeling “deep spiritual peace” and being “very happy with life.”
The highest active retention in the country. Forty-two percent of those raised Latter-day Saint still identify as such and attend monthly as adults—the highest active-retention rate of any religion. Among Millennial+ Christians, only Adventists retain active members at a higher rate.
Some data suggest retention has declined, a trend similar to that seen in other religions. The current retention rate is ~50%, down from 82% in the 1980s. This is higher than other Christian denominations except Catholics and Orthodox Christians.
Two factors stand out as the strongest predictors of leaving. Among Latter-day Saint youth, not feeling God’s presence in daily life and political ideology were the most significant predictors of deidentifying in their early 20s—a pattern seen across US religions today.
Most who leave still value faith. Of those who deidentify, 54% still consider religion or spirituality important, and roughly 2 in 3 leave open the possibility of returning.

The Executive Summary will also reward a quick reading.

As you can see, there’s good news in the report and there’s bad news. Arguably, more of the former than of that latter, but still . . . (I’m pleased by the last point, which suggests that potentially useful work can still be done.)

Another view of the Furness Abbey complex, in a Wikimedia Commons photograph by Ian Taylor. Among the great things about ruins in England are the rich, manicured lawns that set them off so very elegantly. Ruins in Italy, Greece, and the Middle East . . . umm, well, they don’t usually have such lush greenery around them.

I found this short article by the Anglo-American Protestant theologian and ecclesiastical historian Carl R. Trueman very interesting, and I hope that you will, as well: “What Is the Church of England For?” And it seems to me to be directly relevant to the emptying out of Christianity in Europe and elsewhere.

Incidentally, Professor Trueman was a featured speaker at the 2021 edition of the annual FAIR conference. The title of his remarks there was “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution.”

J. M. W. Turner, “Tintern Abbey” (1794)
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

By the way, the late comedian Robin Williams was apparently an Episcopalian (meaning that he was, at least nominally, a member of the American version of the Anglican Church or the Church of England). And, at one point, he evidently made a list of the “Top Ten Reasons to be An Episcopalian”:

No snake handling.

You can believe in dinosaurs.

Male and female God created them; male and female we ordain them.

You don’t have to check your brains at the door.

Pew aerobics.

Church year is color-coded.

Free wine on Sunday.

All of the pageantry – none of the guilt.

You don’t have to know how to swim to get baptized.

And what, according to Robin Williams, is the number one reason to be an Episcopalian?

No matter what you believe, there’s bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you.

Tintern Abbey, again. Is this the future of American Christianity? Is it the future of the Restored Church? (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo by Saffron Blaze)

Here’s an exciting opportunity for service in the Kingdom: “Applications now open to participate in historic Salt Lake Temple open house and celebration: Volunteering as part of the historic Salt Lake Temple celebration is a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunity. Here’s how to apply”

Some people, I expect, would be surprised to see that some areas of Iran — not all! — look like this. But they do. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

By the way, for whatever it’s worth, the current Wikipedia entry for “2026 Iran war” lists its “result” as “Iran victory.”

One of Donald Trump’s most famous lines during his 2016 presidential campaign was the promise that, “We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning. And you’ll say, ‘Please, please. It’s too much winning. We can’t take it anymore, Mr. President, it’s too much.’ And I’ll say, ‘No it isn’t. We have to keep winning. We have to win more!’”

So one way of viewing the outcome of the war with Iran is to think of it as a relaxing and long overdue change of pace.

From the Babylon Bee: “World Leaders Line Up To Ask Trump To Bomb Their Countries For A While And Then Give Them A Few Hundred Billion”

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