“Torn” by Jeff Strong thoughts
I watched a podcast with Jeff Strong and his upcoming book “Torn” and while I appreciate the effort, I think the church could provide valuable data in addition to these surveys.
The data I would like to see and would provide a lot of insight into the health of the organization:
Run a report church wide of members who at one time had an active temple recommend who no longer do. This would provide valuable information on disaffiliation among once “active” members. While not a perfect metric, because there will be many who have a recommend who no longer believe, it would at least give an idea of the “health” of the current membership.
Pick a time scale-5,10,15 years, whatever and run a report of all convert baptisms of age 18+ members during that time frame. Then run a report—today—of those same membership records and see what percentage have an active temple recommend today. This would provide valuable insight into convert retention and “activity”. This would be a fascinating metric and I hesitate to venture a guess what this would be for the entire church. The “record number of convert baptisms” means nothing if they all go inactive. From my experience in bishoprics, I probably saw ~30 people baptized in a 5 year span and only 1 stayed active beyond 1 year. Yes you can blame the ward for not fellowshipping, but by and large these were people who had very little understanding of what they were committing to, and once they realized, they were out.
I know Jeff has been active in this group before, so Jeff, if you ever see this message, I appreciate your effort and trying to understand those who choose to leave or disaffiliate with the church. I am one of those that spent 5+ years wrestling with truth claims and my own conscience. One of the challenges of such a project is ALL of us who were once active believing members know what it’s like to be an active member of the church. But NONE of the active TBMs know what it is like to be on the “outside” so the perspective often feels one sided.
Maybe you discuss further in your book, but on your podcast interviews you seem to focus more on the culture “soil” and ways to help those who leave, but I would love discussion about the 40+% and 30+% that leave due to historical and social issues. What specifically are those issues? General Conference talks shy away from the specifics and just say “church history issues” and I understand why. Why share problematic specifics with someone devoted to your organization? But the problem is when the person finds out, it perpetuates the narrative that the church is dishonest.
I would love more honest discussion about what historical issues—specifically—are people leaving over? Polygamy/polyandry, book of Abraham translation issues, multiple first vision accounts, bank fraud, why the printing press was really destroyed, etc. Why might they be problematic? I’m not looking for an apologetic, just a fact based acknowledgement that these are real issues, they are hard, and people may choose to dissociate from the church because of them. I made it to 38 years old growing up in the church, seminary/institute graduate, missionary, married in temple, bishoprics, bishop and never learned any of these things. And then I’m called lazy for not knowing this information which is obviously available. Huh?
What social issues-specifically? Prop 8, SA coverups, 2015 policy of exclusion, temple exclusions, transparency with church finances, excommunication of members and then adopting the policies they were advocating for (Sam Young) etc. No more surface level “historical and social issues” lumped together and hope the general population remains ignorant or indifferent. Trust that people are intelligent and can think for themselves, even in light of new information. If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.
Rant over.