Stark - So Far, So Good - A Brief Assessment of Mormon Membership Projections

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So Far, So Good: A Brief Assessment of Mormon Membership Projections

Rodney Stark

Review of Religious Research

, Vol. 38, No. 2. (Dec., 1996), pp. 175-178.

Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-673X%28199612%2938%3A2%3C175%3ASFSGAB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H

Review of Religious Research

is currently published by Religious Research Association, Inc..Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtainedprior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/journals/rra.html.Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers,and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community takeadvantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.http://www.jstor.orgWed Jul 4 21:30:38 2007

SO FAR, SO GOOD: A BRIEF ASSESSMENT OF MORMON MEMBERSHIP PROJECTIONS 

Rodney Stark

Review of Religious Research. Vol.

38,

No.

2

(December.

1996)

The first 15 years of projected rates of Mormon growth, 1980-2080,are compared with the actual growth of the church. As of 1995, Mormongrowth exceeds my highest projection by almost a million members.

Some years ago

I

was invited to contribute an article to a special issue of the

Review of Religious Research

devoted to research on the Mormons. The resultwas "The Rise of a New World Faith" (1984). In that essay

I

traced the history ofMormon growth from the first six members at the founding of the church onApril 6, 1830 to 4,638,000 members (worldwide) in 1980. It took neither origi-nality nor effort on my part to assemble such statistics. Detailed Mormon statis-tics are available biannually in the

Churclz Almanac

(these are the only denomi-national statistics

I

know of that are subject to audit). In fact, published Mormonstatistics are so plentiful that in the article

I

detoured to examine Mormon growthin Britain from 1837 through 1980 as well as recent growth in Latin America.But, it wasn't patterns of past Mormon growth that drew so much attention tomy short essay. What stirred up interest (and controversy) was my attempt toproject Mormon growth, world-wide, for the next century: 1980

-

2080.

I

offered two such projections.During the four decades 1940 though 1980, the Mormons grew by an averagerate of 53 percent a decade. Therefore,

I

calculated what would happen if theycould maintain a growth rate of 50 percent per decade for the next century. Theresult was more than 260 million Mormons in the year 2080. Being fully awarethat such a projection would be regarded as absurd by most of my colleagues,

I

also projected Moimon membership based on a substantially reduced growth rateof 30 percent per decade. This projected a total of more than 60 million Mormons.Since that essay appeared, the projections have, from time to time, attractedconsiderable media attention. Sometimes this has been prompted by Mormonauthorities who, understandably. take considerable satisfaction from my num-bers. Some attention has been prompted by Mormon-bashers seeking to alarmthe world against the impending Mormon takeover. Thankfully, most reporterswere simply seeking confirmation of rapid growth.Of greater personal significance is the amount of attention these projectionsreceived from my fellow social scientists. I have been given the benefit of anamazing amount of counselling concerning the pitfalls of straight-line projec-tions. In assessing this earnest advise,

I

had to consider several factors. First,many of these were the same colleagues who tried so hard to convince me thatevangelical Protestant bodies weren't

really

growing. Second, many of thesepeople had tried to help me realize that, despite my crude data indicating the

contrary, cult movements are rare in Europe compared with the United States.(Any reader who now agrees with either of these claims has not been payingattention). Third, it was clear that this advise was coming to me mainly frompeople who were utterly horrified at any conceivable possibility that a centuryhence there might be more than 260 million Mormons on the planet.These matters aside, I really didn't need to be warned that projections likemine rest on the assumption that tomorrow will be like today and yesterday.

I

amentirely aware that should significant conditions change, such projections will beinaccurate

-

perhaps too high, but also perhaps too low. Nevertheless, the bestassumption about any trend is that tomorrow

will

be like the recent past. When arate has held for a substantial period of time it is unlikely to respond to modestvariations in social conditions. Big changes are needed, and big changes are rare.To demonstrate how robust Mormon growth rates have been in the face ofseemingly immense changes, let us return to 1880. During the previous fourdecades, Mormon growth had averaged around 40 percent per decade. Supposethat back then a scholar had been asked to predict growth for the next century.Applying a growth rate of 40 percent per decade to the 160,000 Mormons of1880, results in a straight-line projection of 4,628,000 Mormons in 1980 or only10,000 short of the actual total of 4,638,000 Mormons in 1980. However, if weexamine this projection decade by decade in Table

1,

we see that immensesocial upheavals do register on Mormon growth, but only modestly. The lefthand column in Table 1 is the estimated Mormon membership based on the pro-jection. The middle column shows the actual Mormon membership for the des-ignated year. The right hand column reports the difference between estimatedand actual membership as a percentage of the estimated membership. In addi-tion, some very major factors influencing Mormon growth are identified.

Table 1Comparing Projected and Actual Rates of Mormon Growth, 1880-1980

Estimate Actual Membership

lo

Difference

1880 160,000

Polygamy Crisis

1890 224,000 188,000 -16.11900 3 14,000 284,000 -9.61910 439,000 399,000 -9.1

World

War

I

1920 614.000 526,000 -13.81930 860,000 670,000 -22.1

Great Depression

1940 1,205.000 863,000 -28.4

World War

I1

1950 1,687,000 1,111,000 -34.11960 2.361.000 1,693,000 -28.31970 3,306.000 2,93 1,000

-1

1.31980 4.628,OOO 4,638,000 0.2

The first of these has to do with the "Polygamy Crisis." The decade 1880-1890 was one of the most tumultuous in Mormon history. In

1882

PresidentChester

A.

Arthur signed the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Bill. Two years later the

of 00

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