What Keeps Mormonism Ticking

Last updated on: November 16, 2015 at 9:54 pm by J. Paul Valley

What Keeps Mormonism Ticking 2015-11-16T21:54:58+00:00 J. Paul Valley

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We Mormons aren’t no. 1 at everything, but in at least one way we rise above the rest:

That’s right. Mormons win at being highly involved in their religious community. This chart, which is a visualization of data from the the Pew Research Center’s recent “Religious Landscape Study” via Pew’s Fact Tank, shows that:

Among Mormons, 67% have a high level of engagement, while a comparable share of Jehovah’s Witnesses (64%) are highly involved. Indeed, these two groups have the highest level of involvement by all three measures – membership, church attendance and small group activities – we used to create our scale.

So I suppose that’s something to chew on for a little while. One of the things it brings to my mind is our own Melissa Inouye’s assertion that Mormonism “is not an organizational machine of cranks and cogs that are easily replaced.” As the Pew report suggests, engagement of the membership is a defining factor of Mormonism and damaging that engagement would be detrimental to the faith (that last part is me editorializing). While it’s certainly true in all faiths that without the involvement of members the organization would shrivel up, it seems especially true to Mormonism.

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