The Mormon news arm, like Singapore’s government, loves to control the message. Sometimes this is done incredibly well. [1] The “I’m a Mormon” campaign, the Book of Mormon advertising that accompanied the musical, and this week, a piece on garments so frank and direct that it made the Well-Behaved Mormon Woman uncomfortable, even more than the lace elastic in the legs of her drysilque midcalf garment bottoms. All three of these great media approaches fit into the idea of steering into the skid. The horse is out of the barn, so let’s quit pretending the horse is still in the barn. Let’s deal with the roaming horse, leading it back to the corral, keeping our sense of humor and humility in the process.
Less successfully, there have been a few missteps in the media in the last week: during General Conference, the Women’s Meeting was referred to a session of General Conference in Pres. Uchtdorf’s remarks and one of the prayers. Then church PR put out an official statement, lest the feminists get their hopes up, that the Women’s session was not part of the sessions of General Conference. The prayer was even rewritten to omit the reference. After which, there was an article on LDS.org showing 10 recent highlights of conference, including that the Women’s session was now a session of General Conference. Come again? Right hand, meet left hand.
In related news, a few days ago, Blaine Maxfield, Chief Information Officer for the church was quoted in the Deseret News explaining the church’s demographics as if the entire membership were 100 people. For those who may have missed it, here’s where those 100 members would live:
- 48 would live in the US & Canada
- 36 would live in Latin America
- 3 would live in Europe
- 3 would live in Africa
- 3 would live in Oceania
- 7 would live in Asia
- 21 of those above live in countries that are very poor.
How long have they been Mormons?
- 48 would have joined the church after the Proclamation on the Family was published (1995 for those who are checking, although it wasn’t worshiped until recently). Which, all I can say is, ugh. Although maybe that correlates with age, too. Those who were baptized after 1995 would include children who turned 8 in 1995 or later, and they would be as old as 27 now, likely a fairly sizable chunk of the membership.
How old are they?
- 35 adult males
- 42 adult females
- 13 are in primary
- 10 are youths. Or in New Jersey, “youts.”
Two other statistics were shared:
- 36 attend sacrament meeting on a regular basis. 35 are bored. 1 lied. OK, I made up that last part.
- 5 can’t read or write. On the upside, they are unlikely to be blogging.
The attendance statistic was suddenly, and in my opinion, unjustifiably, picked up as a bastion of the disaffectosphere. [2] See? There aren’t 15 million active members! I really can’t imagine who thought there were. Certainly nobody who has ever held any calling in any average Mormon ward. We all know there are plenty on the records who don’t attend or who rarely attend, and some that have requested no contact. Knowing that this is so is hardly news. But this statistic was yanked from the Deseret News (as readers watched and noted it on social media) because it hadn’t been verified by the church. Okaaay.
Personally, I’m not sure it warranted yanking which looks even more suspicious, although the Deseret News stated that Maxfield was the one who requested pulling that statistic, and yet rather than publishing a statement that the 36 hadn’t been verified, they completely pulled the number, as if it had never happened. Here’s how that looks to me, a lay person:
- Maxfield: Here’s a completely unsurprising statistic that every person in the church could probably guess at unless they are completely unobservant.
- Disaffectosphere: Ha ha! I knew they were lying when they implied [thing they never said nor implied that was obviously not true anyway].
- Maxfield: I withdraw that unsurprising statistic because the church hasn’t verified it even though it’s pretty much common sense. I am definitely not being pressured to do this by unseen forces such as my employer. These are not the droids you are looking for.
- Disaffectosphere: Conspiracy! Conspiracy! Who has a screen shot?
- Enterprising Internet-Users: (seconds later) Why here’s a screen shot right here. Forever. Because the internet.
And thus we see how something as obvious and uncontroversial as 36% of members attending church weekly (which is actually pretty doggone good given that the church counts you as “active” if you attend once per month or more) becomes a huge conspiracy through redaction.
Are there valid reasons to redact? Sure. Maybe the 36% don’t attend weekly. Maybe that was “active” (so attendance might be less frequent). The number could be simply unverified or misreported or questionable. I imagine it’s not a million miles off the mark, though.
Here’s the birth process of internet conspiracy theories:
- Thing is said.
- Unfavorable reaction.
- Mormon social media freak out. (This is the foreplay stage. Still time to turn back.)
- Thing disappears. (Conception. The spark of life.)
- Theories of a cover up spread like wildfire.
- Alternate theories that an insider intentionally screwed up to expose the church are put forward.
- The church pretends it never happened.
- Lather, rinse, repeat.
Angels are silent notes taking, indeed.
In response to this incident, I’ve come up with my own set of statistics about church. [3] Warning: these are also not verified by the LDS church. Also, I made them up. In a ward of 100 active, adult, regularly attending members, you can bet your bottom dollar that:
- 91 of them are terrified of porn. 11 of the 91 think Victoria’s Secret ads are porn. 6 of them use Victoria’s Secret ads as porn.
- 74 think Sean Hannity is smart.
- 65 have never made it past 2nd Nephi in the Book of Mormon.
- 49 think Mormon Doctrine is.
- 46 pronounce Giddianhi Gid-ay-ahn-hay. 37 pronounce it Gid-ee-ahn-hay. 12 pronounce it Gid-ee-ahn-ee. 5 just wrinkle their nose and ask the teacher.
- 42 find sexist jokes funny and appropriate for sacrament meeting talks.
- 34 did home or visiting teaching this month. 12 of the 34 count nodding your head at someone in the hall as a visit.
- 31 think that Saturday’s Warrior is an accurate depiction of pre- and post-mortal life.
- 22 display the Proclamation on the Family in their home. 28 received it as a gift. 4 have read it. OK, really only 2 and that’s because they had to give a talk on it.
- 12 would break the Sabbath if they were out of Diet Coke.
- 8 display a picture of the first presidency in their house. 2 have it in their bedroom. Watch out for these folks.
What made up stats would you like to publish in the Deseret News?
Discuss.
[1] And other times, you get National Night brought to you by Mentos and the Singaporean government:
[2] In related news, Catholic attendance is highest around Christmas and Easter.
[3] Completely fictional.
Wheat & Tares 
Pres. Uchtdorf only said “we open another General Conference”, at least in this video (edited after the fact?? I didn’t see it live.) So the editing of the prayer to remove “session”, while strange and awkward, is technically not at odds with Pres. Uchtdorf’s remark.
hawkgrrrl,
You mentioned:
•36 attend sacrament meeting on a regular basis. 35 are bored. 1 lied. OK, I made up that last part.
I think you may be incorrect. If you take the number of people that are asleep and assume a few of them reach REM sleep, they may be having some really interesting dreams. So maybe 1 of them out of the 36 are actually not bored.
I think the church’s proactive PR is pretty good. The reactive PR is, well, really struggling. I keep think even I could do reactive better, but that’s probably delusional. Besides, maybe, just maybe, they’re doing a better job than I think for the people it would actually influence.
As for “now you see it, now you don’t”, I can’t see who authors posts now. Is that just me? It’s important, because it helps me firm up my personal biases so I know how to react before I even read the post. Oh, and someone deserves credit, of course.
Martin – we are resolving some upgrade issues so we are missing our customizations until we get it fixed. I’m the author of this one – just FYI.
For the “Disaffectosphere:” The sacrament meeting attendance figure is only reported by clerks (at least in the U.S.) for the last month of each quarter. So, 36 is the average for March, June, Sep, and Dec. Even more nonsensical–even if designed to make it easier on lazy ward clerks and priesthood leaders–the same is true for home teaching statistics.
FYI
56 consider Matt Walsh as doctrinely sound as an apostle. 14 of which are now blogging as a “mormon” Matt Walsh wannabe.
61 think feminists are apostates, 34 of which will stop talking to you if you wear pants to church.
90 think the founding fathers were all devout Christians, and 82 keep a copy of the constitution in their scripture case
22 participate in the bloggernacle, 0 of which have ever changed their minds on a topic based on a post or comment
8 are liberal and have replaced the family proc on their walls with copies of Hollands talk on the poor, 4 of which have more than one identity on the bloggernacle
1 finds their mission of sharing goodness to spend all their time in the Bloggernacle and write lengthy comments of personal experience to disprove the claim of gender inequality or the hope of improvement upon current practices.
This is fun
i did think it was creepy/pointless to take the stat out, “we can’t let the unwashed masses know attendance statistics!!!” Salt lake could use a bit more transparency in their lives.
Quick! Somebody take a screen shot of this post before it evaporates!
you are not accurately capturing the way the church portrays 15 million. They never offer a disclaimer that ( most these dont attend!)
The fact is, monson and many of his prophets have said this year, quote “We are 15 million strong”
I think its pretty clear what they are trying to claim with that statement.
Hawk– your regular fans knew it was you immediately. This was some of your best stuff since issuing your jargon thesaurus.
I know who is the 1 in a 100 who both attends and is not bored in Sacrament mtg. By fortunate happenstance I occasionally attend my mother’s branch which is held at one of the many “senior” residences/ independent living centers along the Wasatch front. They have compressed the consolidated mtg schedule into 60 minutes max. The older folks love it, my toddler loves it, we all love it. Not trying to hijack this post but Hawk’s views get wide dissemination. Somebody in charge needs to check this out!!
@Roger
I think you have given me my first thing to look forward to getting old! Boy do I wish we could cut down on the meetings. I for one am getting burned out.
I don’t think anyone in Outer Blogness was really surprised, per se. It’s more like they latched onto it because the LDS church was finally admitting to the outside world what everyone inside it knew: That the “15 million members” statistic they’ve repeated all over the place is far disconnected from the number of people who actually self-identify as Mormons and participate in Mormon congregations.
The schadenfreude they experienced was completely justified, IMO. Many of them are part of that “15 million members” for various reasons despite not wanting to be there, and nearly all of them have had their hurts and concerns dismissed as irrelevant because they appear to be in the minority (among other reasons). But now LDS church leadership has come out and admitted they’re not.
Please stop dismissing other people’s experiences, using the same tactics I have come to associate with my physically and emotionally abusive parents of origin.
I love your additional statistics, hawkgrrrl!
I do think the 36% statistic is a big deal, even if people could guess at it, precisely because the Church plays it so close to the vest with their data. I mean if they reported activity rates in the Conference statistical report or something, or if they wrote a carefully-worded gospel topics essay on lds.org where they conceded that not all members on the rolls actually attend, then the number would have been no big deal. But when they’re so careful to never release data like this, it becomes a big deal even if it’s about what we would expect.
And Kristine A, I love your additions, particularly this one:
“22 participate in the bloggernacle, 0 of which have ever changed their minds on a topic based on a post or comment”
I also thought the adult woman to adult man ratio was interesting to know (1.2:1), although like the activity rate it’s probably not surprising.
I agree with tiger, with the new upgrade I read posts on my phone and try to guess who the author is. I knew this was hawk right away 🙂
“We are gathered together as a great family, more than 15 million strong, united in our faith and in our desire to listen” Monson’s feel good statement letting all know all is well in Zion from April, 2014 conference. Not only are the 15 million active and faithful but they were all listening to conference.
I thought I changed my mind about one of Kristine’s posts once, but upon further reflection, I was wrong.
Seriously, does anyone believe that church activity rates are even close to, say, 50% at the outside? Is that one of those Utah myths, like Joseph was never a polygamist and didn’t use a seer stone? And what possible significance does that fact have? The Church is (not true/bad/evil/fattening) because we don’t have a 90+% activity rate, with inactives consisting only of quadriplegics, Antarctic explorers and people in comas?
Worst kept secret in the Church if you take attendance at the meetings. We have a 50% attendance in our ward, but in California it was 35%.
The 36% is not the number to be concerned about. It’s the 67%.
I suppose my point is that (as Jeff says) it’s the worst kept secret ever, but if you are right that the church is trying to claim 15 million ACTIVE (and going strong or whatever), well, that’s just patently absurd, so I’ll just skip to step 6 of the conspiracy theory process and offer kudos to Maxfield for his (intentional?) slip up.
Jewelfox: “Please stop dismissing other people’s experiences” I would never want to dismiss other people’s experience. I think my blogging record stands on its own merit on that front.
Don’t they realise they continue to undermine their own credibility?
When President Monson says in GC, “We’re 15 million strong,” I don’t think he’s trying to make any special claims about the numbers of butts in seats on Sundays. He’d simply sound stupid saying, “We’re 15 million numerically, but really about 6 million strong, of whom a large number are small children; welcome to Conference.” See what I mean? Commenters who have seized upon general statements like these are missing the point, which is itself a point the OP makes.
Hawk’s post, I think, underlines the “memory hole” aspect of disappearing pieces of press releases. We’ve always been at war with
EurasiaEastasia; when the Church does silly things like remove the 36% number, it simply feeds the “Disaffectosphere.” Leaving that number there could instead give us all an opportunity to respond to the inevitable “See? There aren’t 15 million active members!” with a blase’ “Yeah? No kidding? Come back to church long enough to get called as membership clerk or RS VT coordinator, and that will be obvious.” We could easily remove the teapot, and voila, no tempest.While most Mormons, ex-Mormons, and careful observers of Mormonism are aware that the 15 million number includes millions of people who don’t attend church regularly and may not even identify as Mormons but were baptized once upon a time, there are a lot of people, including journalists, who would not be aware. Churches count membership differently, and many casual observers, hearing the 15 million number, do assume that the church is larger, and growing faster, than it really is. The church is happy to allow these misconceptions to persist, because clarifying them would not benefit the church’s image.
I am reminded of the LDS Newsroom Mormonism 101 graphic, where they claimed 14 million total members and then stated, in the same graphic, “A recent Pew study reported 77 percent of members attend church at least weekly, compared to 39% of the U.S average.” They did not clarify that it was 77 percent of self-identifying Mormons, but allowed people to make the logical, but incorrect, inference that 77 percent of the 14 million members attend church weekly. Turns out we are actually below the U.S. average.
At a certain point it begins to look less like honest mistakes and more like intentional misleading.
I agree with New Iconoclast. Just like the Race and the priesthood being on lds.org let’s us talk about the truth instead of all pretending. It just takes the wind out of the sails for those that want to poke at the issue. Another “we admit we are not perfect.” Maybe then we could more seriously ask and try and understand WHY people are leaving.
“When President Monson says in GC, “We’re 15 million strong,” I don’t think he’s trying to make any special claims about the numbers of butts in seats on Sundays. He’d simply sound stupid saying…..”
I think he sounds stupid saying exactly what he is saying. He is painting of picture of something that doesn’t exist. He is writing of book of fiction, passing it off as reality. He knows better but it doesn’t stop him. Inactive, I could have stayed on the rolls of the church but it bothered me every time I heard the membership number being used to prop up faith.
Geoff – Aus: “Don’t they realise they continue to undermine their own credibility?” No.
Please provide the names of the five actual people who care about the number of Mormons and who were actually misled by the “15 million strong” thing, and then we can talk.