A few weeks ago, Elder Rasband gave a talk at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) to about 900 new missionaries. He spoke of six false narratives that we hear about the Church, and then tried (weakly IMHO) to debunk them. From the Church newsroom write up:
False narrative 1: The rising generation has less faith in Jesus Christ than previous generations.
Contrary to that narrative, more missionaries are serving Jesus Christ now than have in many years, Elder Rasband said. “Your generation is not less faithful; no, you have as much faith in Jesus Christ as any previous generation.”
No real evidence or numbers are given. He knows the exact numbers. What number does “many years” reference? By looking at the numbers, last year there was 74,000 missionaries. This is more that the COVID low of 52,000 in 2020, so if “five = many” then he is correct. But it is lower that the all time high of 85,000 in 2014. So maybe the rising generation is less faithful?
False narrative 2: The Church is declining as interest in organized religion decreases.
The last 12 months saw the largest number of convert baptisms in any 12-month period in this dispensation, said Elder Rasband. “It is a remarkable time to serve.” He added: “The future is bright, elders and sisters. And you are at the center of it.”
By pure numbers this is correct, but as a percentage of growth, it is about 1.5%, off from the 6% growth rate of the early 1990s. It hasn’t been above 2% since 2013. There is an increase from the COVID low, but overall the trend is downward from 1990s. If the current trend continues it will be under 1% growth in a few years. Then they will only talk about pure numbers of converts, that could still be the highest ever, yet represent a complete downturn on Church growth.
False narrative 3: Baptisms are increasing in some regions of the world but not in others.
The number of God’s children being baptized is “increasing in every region of the world,” Elder Rasband said. He added that the region with the highest percent growth in baptisms in 2025 was Europe.
No matter where a missionary is called, “you can have faith that the Lord is hastening His work in your area,” he encouraged. “His miracles are filling the whole earth.”
Here he uses statistics as a drunken man uses a lamppost-for support rather than illumination.(Andrew Lang quote) If Rasband wanted to illuminate (which he does not), he would have given numbers. “Increase in every region in the world”? So, again the lean COVID years supply the crutch that he can use, and he provides no time period for comparison. Yes, every region of the world has increased from 2020. And Europe has such low numbers that just a few more would be a big statistical increase. Just to throw out some made up numbers, if there was 100 baptisms in all of Europe during 2020, and there was 200 baptisms last year, that would be a 100% increase, and be the highest percentage in the whole world, yet still represent dismal growth. Unlike number 2 where numbers were used to bolster his claims, in number 3 he used percentage, because looks better.
False narrative 4: New converts are not being retained.
“New members actively participate after baptism in ways that are as high, if not higher, than any previous year,” said Elder Rasband. By attending sacrament meeting, performing vicarious temple work and eventually making temple covenants, hundreds of thousands are acting in faith after baptism to follow the Savior.
Here he doesn’t even try. “Are as high”? What are the numbers? Is this one year retention rate? 3 years?
False narrative 5: More missionaries come home early than ever before.
An “overwhelming majority” of missionaries are completing their service to the Lord Jesus Christ. This includes teaching missionaries who, due to physical or emotional health, transfer to a service missionary assignment to finish their mission.
Elder Rasband also expressed gratitude for missionaries who complete their missions. He said, “Remember, the call from our prophet is to serve two years, for our elders, and 18 months, for our sisters. Thank you for your willingness to heed the prophet’s call.”
Here he completely gives up. The “overwhelming majority” can complete their mission, and we can still have the highest rate of missionaries returning early than every before. AI says “overwhelming majority” means 75% or more. So Rasband could be right, in that 75% of missionaries are completing their mission, but 25% (the most ever) are coming home early. When I was a missionary in the mid 1970s, I did not know one missionary in my mission in my whole two years that came home early. I didn’t know anybody from my ward, or stake that came home early. I would be willing to bet that every active member today know somebody that came home early.
“Giving a school man only a little, or very superficial, knowledge of statistics is like putting a razor in the hands of a baby.” (Carter Alexander)
False narrative 6: Missionaries are not good enough and can’t measure up.
To training missionaries who don’t feel good enough right now, Elder Rasband assured they are in good company. Many leaders throughout Church history have felt inadequate to do such an important work.
“With all the energy of my soul, I share this truth: You, every one of you, can do this,” he said. “I testify that the Lord has a work for each one of you to do. As you trust in Him, He will make more out of you than you could have ever imagined.”
He should have stopped on number 5.
What do you think of these “False Narratives”? What do you think of his rebuttals?
To close I’ll share some of my favorite quotes on statistics, in honor of Elder Rasband
“42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.”
-STEVEN WRIGHT
“Then there is the man who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of six inches.”
-W. I. E. GATES
“I always find that statistics are hard to swallow and impossible to digest. The only one I can ever remember is that if all the people who go to sleep in church were laid end to end they would be a lot more comfortable.”
– MRS. MARTHA TAFT
“The average human has one breast and one testicle.”
-DES MACHALE
Wheat & Tares 
The leaders are all really hitting this message hard. It’s seems obvious it’s a coordinated campaign, they have all the same talking points. For me it is off putting, I just feel they are attempting to mislead. Even if their goal is good, to me it is just going to further erode trust.
I can only speak for my ward in the UK. We are having a lot of baptisms at the moment. Primarily immigrants and single men. It’s a diverse ward, and friendly, so I don’t think they feel out of place. Attendance on Sundays tends to be erratic, but there may be employment reasons for that. I know some converts no longer attend, but I don’t know what the retention rates are, and some may have moved away. We have two pairs of Elders, a pair of sisters and an older couple missionaries assigned to our ward at the moment. There was a baptism last week, and another this week.
There’s definitely been a change following Covid.
Anecdotally, my wife has a distant cousin living in the Midwest US who is a happily married Catholic man with four growing boys. His interest in organized religion has nothing to do with the Mormons. Ronald needs to give us some stats about the current public image of the Church.
If Bon Jovi or Dua Lipa join the Church, color me convinced.
I’m reminded of this quote (shared by a friend’s father): “Statistics are like a bikini. They reveal a lot, but what they conceal is vital.”
My ward has a ton of baptisms (mostly Spanish speaking immigrants) but very low retention
A relative of mine just went on to the mtc and likely heard this talk. I wonder what he (faithful tbm) thought.
When I entered the mtc Elder Eyring spoke to us. I still remember some of what he said. He hinted around a deeply spiritual experience and, like @Allie’s quote about bikinis, used what he didn’t say (because it was too spiritual and personal) more than what he did say to make his point. I think a lot of missionaries left that talk thinking that Eyring was personally visited by Jesus, specifically because that’s not what he said. Clever.
No one at the MTC expects to hear a statistical analysis of membership and activity rates, so Bednar’s decision to challenge rumors about statistics by not giving any statistics is not a great choice on his part. He should have stuck to faith-affirming stories. But the TBMs will hear what they want to hear. I know I would have, back when I was the MTC.
Science and secularism: eroding organized religions since the 1500s. The trend hasn’t stopped, it has accelerated. It has forced religions to abandon old positions, make a massive number of compromises, and lie more as we see in the above example. Atheism, agnosticism, loose cultural attachment to religion, and noneism is growing.
The church is no longer growing. It has stagnated. Future prediction: it is decline in numbers over the next 50 years.
I live in an area where developers are building housing as fast as they can. A new chapel was just completed about ten miles from us in another stake (a wealthier area). Our ward was split a few years ago and so many move ins have arrived that I don’t know most of the people that are newer. Our sacrament meetings fill the overflow and the cultural hall behind it. However, a good third to a half don’t stay for the second meeting. Baptisms that I am aware of are born in the covenant children. Just from appearances, you could argue our ward/stake is “growing”. There are two stake centers and five maybe six additional chapels in our town. No new chapels are planned.
Now about four hours drive away where my boomer parents live, they have a slightly different situation. The community has grown, but their ward was dissolved several years ago and the chapel they used to attend was torn down and the property sold to make more housing units for college students. My parents have changed ward buildings four times. The second chapel they attended was also torn down and the property sold. Chapels have not been rebuilt elsewhere. Supposedly their wards are so “nearly dead” they are being euthanized. I mean wouldn’t you think as more elderly folks pass on that their homes would be bought by younger people? Wouldn’t you keep a chapel in place for that reason? What really irks my parents is that each time their ward is reorganized, they have to drive further and further from home. Not only that, the chapels that were torn down were older, unique buildings that were built when ward members contributed to a building fund. These were modest but beloved structures that were sacrificed for.
I feel real numbers would be better. Why does the church build chapels in some areas and not in others? Is the church actually growing it is it shrinking? Why can’t the regular church members see the hard numbers?
We are adults after all.
Mhermitmom:
I was on a tour of a city a couple of years ago, given by a mayor in the Utah League of Cities and Towns. He talked about all the deals he had to make to help his city grow and be a great place to live. One deal he talked about was with the Church and how there was a trade between the city, the church, and a business, each getting something they needed. The whole deal hinged, though, on the old chapel being torn down. It couldn’t be repurposed; it had to be gone and something else built on its site. Since then, I’ve noticed many LDS churches being torn down, particularly in older areas of towns. They aren’t replaced by new chapels but by housing of some sort or businesses with new construction. After a few months, you can’t tell that a church was ever there. I’ve often wondered why the church does this. I doubt they will ever say. I’m speculating it has something to do with appearing to grow, be new, be changing with the times, being where members are, not wanting to show where members have been, not wanting to “share the wealth” with other churches or businesses, or maybe feeling like if they did, it would defile the sacred edifice. Ultimately, I don’t know. I’d love to find out, though.
Instereo, the opposite happened here in my two in Southern California. We had an old chapel in the down town area, that was dedicated by David O Mckay (it is that old). It had stained glass windows, and looked more like a Protestant church than an LDS one. It had a lot of charm. It was sold a few years ago to another church, and it is being used way more during the week that the Mormon’s ever used it!
Not only is Elder Rasband using a lot of spin and ambiguous half-truths here, he’s doing a rather poor job of it. He’s taking advantage of the fact that he’s speaking to a captive audience of mostly faithful, orthodox-leaning young members who lack the ability to fact-check his statements (limited access to technology) and are primed to take anything he says at face value because he’s an apostle. What makes it worse is that we know he is privy to the accurate numbers and statistical reports, and willingly conceals and misleads. In doing so, he sets these young missionaries up for disappointment and disillusionment, on the mission and beyond.
Meanwhile, all of us, in our respective corners of Mormondom, have collectively amassed plenty of anecdotal evidence and data points that contradict every one of Rasband’s assertations. My stake (Western US, not Utah/Idaho), in the last 8-ish years I’ve lived here, has seen substantial ward shrinkage/consolidations, a very low rate of adult convert baptisms (avg. 1 per ward year) and a new member retention rate of effectively zero. No ward splittings or unit creations have occurred. The only people who missionaries manage to make any connection with are unstable/unhoused/mentally ill/chronically lonely/all-of-the-above types, and while they are all human beings deserving of community and a sense of belonging, they are not being sufficiently prepared for a lifetime of exclusive commitment to a unique belief system, and we as members are not always equipped to properly help them with their complex needs. Most sane, relatively stable adults in America know enough about Mormonism to have made the decision that it’s not something they want to be a part of, long before any missionaries show up at their doorstep. Literally, only a crazy person would willingly join this Church nowadays.
Another observation: Rasband said “Your generation is not less faithful; no, you have as much faith in Jesus Christ as any previous generation.” This claim is really impossible to quantify, but anecdotally the current crop of young 20-something Latter-day Saints seems to have more relaxed attitudes about drinking coffee, wearing garments, tattoos, multiple piercings, shopping on Sundays, swimsuit choices, LGBTQ tolerance, etc., all things that would have been non-negotiable to my cohort at that age (about 20 years prior). These young folks are often freshly off their own missions, but they are empowered to interpret the rules more flexibly than my generation was. I welcome such self-empowerment. The Church, being slow to react, has no choice but to quietly tolerate it. And Rasband is inadvertently helping move this trend by planting seeds of disillusionment and dissatisfaction with orthodoxy.
I think we need to consider what kind of impact the recent growth has had on the church irrespective of percentages and whatnot. We might argue that because there were less baptisms during Covid that it shouldn’t surprise us that there would be an increase afterwards. And I’d say that there’s a lot of truth in the idea that what we might be seeing–at least in part–is a sort of springing back into normal activity. But even so, we have consider the real effects of a global pandemic–as Tevye says: “Wars, revolutions, floods, plagues–all those little things that bring people back to you…”
I honestly believe that the pandemic had the effect of humbling much of the global society. And so we have to factor in a change of sorts–something that looks different than merely returning to the status quo. My sense is that a general increase in faith has opened the doors to an increase in the workings of the spirit. And even though these things are not easily measured in terms of raw numbers–their effect is real and palpable and must be taken into consideration when mapping out the actual progress of the Kingdom.
@Jack, yes, “an increase in the workings of the spirit” is not measurable. However, it is well-known through leaks (and when numbers are favorable, through the Church’s own selective sharing) that the institution internally tracks all kinds of very measurable metrics regarding membership and growth. The Q15 generally chooses not to share those numbers publicly. Instead, as noted in the OP, they cherry-pick, obfuscate, or outright lie to the membership so that the news is always good.
This is exactly how modern companies operate — they typically don’t disclose numbers publicly unless those numbers make the company look good. Since the Q15 is almost entirely composed of businessmen and lawyers, it should be no surprise that the Church/company/corporation they run is about as transparent as a modern corporation (unless compelled by law to be more so).
But…it doesn’t seem to me like the Church ought to behave like a modern corporation. Its mission is supposed to be to draw people closer to Christ, which is quite a different mission from that of modern corporations, whose sole purpose is to maximize profits. Why not just be honest and transparent about what is actually happening within the organization? The truth *will* set you free, and all that. Would Christ hide the numbers if He were physically on the earth running His Church?
“I honestly believe that the pandemic had the effect of humbling much of global society.”
Interesting perspective. My experience has been nearly the opposite. People have become much less trusting. Much less open to ideas and perspectives. Much more sure that whatever they believe is correct. Much less willing to listen. Much less willing to treat others with respect. Much more likely to perceive of people who disagree with them as actively evil. I am not able to believe that change reflects humility. I struggle to escape the infection.
mountainclimber479,
Yes the church is a corporation of sorts–but it is also a priesthood organization. And in that light its goal is not merely to increase its “profits” across time–but more importantly it is to address the needs of the kingdom in the moment. And so, criticizing Elder Rasband for what he is not saying rather than trying to understanding what he is saying bespeaks a faulty approach in the OP’s argument–IMO.
When, for example, Elder Rasband speaks of how the vast majority of missionaries do complete their missions–he’s addressing the false perception that most missionaries return home early these days. And he’s right–that assumption is plainly false. And so invoking an argument based on the way things were 40-50 years ago says nothing about whether or not Elder Rasband was being honest in addressing the pressing issue. Of course the world has changed–everyone knows that. Of course more missionaries come early nowadays than they did when I served a mission some 40+ years ago. But the situation is simply not as bad as some folks make it out to be.
Also invoking old percentages as a way of showing that the church isn’t growing as much as it claims doesn’t take into account the fact that growth percentages are typically higher when an organization is young–and then tapper off as it matures. The raw number of convert baptisms over the last couple of years is something to be truly excited about regardless of how it looks on a per capita basis. And the fact that Elder Rasband didn’t digress into some sort of apology for the percentages being lower than they were 30-40 years is not an obfuscation of facts–for the simple reason that he’s focusing on the wonderful things that are happening now.
That said, I return to the theme of my previous comment: great things are happening irrespective of how we might calculate the percentages. 370,000 convert baptisms in 2025 is, among other things, a sign that not all is as bad as some folks believe–and that we have every reason to be positive about about the spreading of the gospel. Great things are happening–and the raw numbers prove it even if the church was doing better (by some metrics) in the past. And most importantly, it’s the spirit of the whole thing that matters most. The rising generation has every reason to be positive about the future of the Kingdom.
@Jack, Rasband explicitly labels this a “false narrative”: *”False narrative 5: More missionaries come home early than ever before.”* But that statement is almost certainly **true**. More missionaries do come home early than ever before. The OP acknowledges that the vast majority still complete their missions — but that’s beside the point. Saying more missionaries return home early than in the past is not a false narrative; it’s an accurate one.
I also want to flag that you’ve quietly shifted the goalposts. Rasband’s claim is that it’s false that *more missionaries come home early than ever before*. You’ve reframed it as the false perception being that *most missionaries return home early these days* — which is indeed false, but that’s not what most members believe. They’re simply aware of the real and observable trend that early returns have increased. Those are two very different claims.
Finally, if Elder Rasband wants to tout convert baptism numbers as evidence of the Church’s health, intellectual honesty requires him to also address convert retention rates and the number of people quietly disengaging from activity. When that fuller picture is considered, the Church is stagnating — or even declining — in parts of the world.
The Church almost certainly compiles very insightful statistics about membership and growth on a regular basis. If these numbers were great, you better believe that they’d publsh them on the Church website and repeated brag about them in talks. Instead, we get obfuscation and dishonesty like we see from Rasband here.
OK, I was sloppy–and I went overboard. But just to clarify–when I said “most missionaries return home early these days” I was trying to convey the picture that we get from the many stories that are floating around about missionaries coming home early. (It’s kinda like the sense we get from the media that mass shootings must account for a very large percentage of gun deaths when it’s really a very small percentage–that sort of thing.) If all we listened to was “Mormon Stories” we’d get the idea that practically *no one* completes their mission. But–yes–I moved the goal posts a bit.
Still, I don’t see a problem with Elder Rasband’s answer to the claim–however true that claim may be irrespective of qualifying data. (It would be like speaking to the claim that the reservoirs are at a record-breaking low by pointing out that there is still more than enough water to meet our needs.) To me it sounds like he’s reassuring the audience by giving them a sense that we’re doing better than some folks would have us believe.
Plus, I’m wondering how much of what Elder Rasband had to say was left out of the article. It only takes 6 minutes to listen to it–surely he must’ve spoken for at least 20 minutes.
As Jack admits/does here, and he has done this countless times, he, Jack, is fine with lying. He’s fine with church leaders doing it and he’s fine doing it himself. He doesn’t believe in facts if they contradict what he believes. I remember something . . . Seems like someone said something about liars being thrust down to hell. Oh well, that was long ago; modern day revelation changes that. And thus we see the sad state of the contemporary church. I say a pox on the liars. Follow this simple advice. Stop it. Believe that God is happy with your lying if you like, but I say it leads to damnation. Respond with any rationalization you want, Jack, but I assure you, you can’t hold darkness to the light. We have no trust in you; or any liars, for that matter.
Jack, media-savvy people often answer the question they want to answer rather than the one that was asked. That’s precisely what Elder Rasband is doing here.
When Elder Rasband counters the “false narrative” that more missionaries are returning home early than ever before with the fact that the overwhelming majority of missionaries complete their missions, he is giving the game away. If it were not true that more missionaries were coming home early than ever before, he would say so. But it is true. So he, instead, points out that most missionaries don’t come home early, which is a non sequitur to the narrative that he can’t refute.
This talk does that at every turn. It’s a rather pathetic exercise in goalpost shifting, and it’s embarrassing that he has so little respect for our intelligence that he thinks we’ll fall for it.
I don’t think any of the numbers being discussed over the pulpit lately are wrong; I just think they are getting excited over a short-term upturn, and are probably drawing conclusions before the evidence really supports it. It may well be as much for their own morale as for the missionaries they are talking to. Like other commenters, I’ve seen some recent increases in convert baptisms in my own ward, so I’m inclined to believe the short-term trends may well be real. But given the statistical oddities created by the aftermath of the pandemic, and the longer term trends that were happening before it, I’d say let’s check back in 5-10 years before we get too excited about a religious revival.
@Jack, your two examples of statistics — gun deaths/mass shootings and reservoir levels — are useful here. These are metrics that governments, not corporate entities, track and release. Yes, it’s imperfect, and sometimes good data gets suppressed, but in the United States and other free societies, governments by and large make these metrics publicly available.
Consider the current political moment. Trump makes sweeping claims about his administration’s accomplishments and his predecessors’ failures. He’s managed to suppress some information the government previously released, but vast amounts of data still flow from government agencies to the public. He makes his claims, journalists and citizens fact-check them against available metrics, and the result is that anyone paying attention can see he misrepresents reality — a lot. Other politicians do the same; Trump is arguably an outlier only in degree.
Now consider the Church. It is not transparent about its finances, membership numbers, or growth statistics. When Rasband makes claims like those in the OP, there is almost no hard evidence available to verify or challenge them. This is analogous to a world where a president makes inflated claims and has fully suppressed the underlying data needed to evaluate those claims. In that world, many people simply accept the leader’s narrative, while others lose all trust. This is how authoritarian regimes operate. It’s how corporations typically operate. And it’s how the Church operates.
Your most recent comment gestures at this very gap — you acknowledge growth is hard to measure in “raw numbers” and instead appeal to the spiritual effects of the pandemic as something “real and palpable.” I understand the impulse. But that framing is actually an argument for the transparency I’m calling for, not against it. If real growth is happening, the Church should be able to point to verifiable evidence. The fact that we’re reduced to impressionistic claims about pandemic humility is precisely the problem.
Should the Church operate in a way where leaders make positive claims about growth that no one outside can verify? I don’t think so. The result is predictable: one group of members believes unverifiable claims at face value, and another group loses trust in everything the Q15 says. Neither outcome serves the Church well — and the second group tends to grow over time as the cheerful narratives accumulate and begin to ring hollow.
Finally, on False Narrative 5: “More missionaries come home early than ever before.” What Rasband called a false narrative is, by the evidence available, true. Pointing out that an “overwhelming majority” still complete their missions doesn’t refute it — both things can be true simultaneously. That’s the whole problem with his rebuttal. He didn’t debunk the claim; he changed the subject.
And, @Jack, one quick follow up. You’ve said you think (incorrectly, I believe) that there really is a problem with many Church members believing that the majority of missionaries don’t complete their missions. Well, one way the Church could address that misconception is to clearly publish the real metrics for this very thing that it surely has (I have heard mission presidents state that this is tracked by the Church–if a mission president has too many missionaries returning home early, then questions are asked). That kind of transparency would completely eliminate the need for Rasband and other Church leaders to obfuscate, lie, and change the subject,. The numbers would speak for themselves. The problem is that the real numbers would, in fact, demonstrate that “More missionaries come home early than ever before.”, which Rasband has incorrectly identified as a false narrative. It’s true, but the Church doesn’t want its members to know it’s true.
Mr Person: “it’s embarrassing that he has so little respect for our intelligence that he thinks we’ll fall for it” On one level I agree, but the reality here is that he’s talking to brand new missionaries who are barely out of high school and will be more likely to buy what he’s selling. If they had a few more years of life experience, were less susceptible to social pressures and sunk cost logical fallacy, and knew anything about statistics, he’d have to do a whole lot better than this. Then again, certain politicians say obviously false things at rallies, and adoring followers swallow it hook, line and sinker.
mountainclimber479,
I agree that misconceptions can be corrected by good data–but sadly all too often narratives are built on truths that are bereft of context. And so while it may seem like I’m changing the subject if I talk about how there’s enough water in the reservoir to meet our needs–what I’m really doing is directly addressing the larger issue at hand: which is the public’s fear of not having enough water rather than focusing on the fact that the reservoir is at an all time low–which is true enough.
Now would it have been more “honest” of me to acknowledge the fact that the reservoir is at an all time low before launching into my argument for having no need to fear a shortage? Maybe–but the facts remain the same. And on top of that, with respect to the specific environment of the church, I would want to build faith by focusing in on the positive things that are happening in the moment rather than stoking any fears vis-a-vis the challenges involved in the work of building the Kingdom.
That said, I suppose it’s possible that Elder Rasband might’ve done better by addressing the negative issues right then and there–though my guess is that there’s a better time and place for that discussion. (And who knows but what he may have spoken a bit on those issues–at least more than we know. Remember the article at the church’s newsroom is a truncated version of his talk.) Even so, I’m of a mind to leave that judgment in his hands. My sense is that he conveyed a message of hope by focusing on what’s happening in the moment rather than getting bogged down in the details of the church’s successes and failures over the last generation or so. 370,000 convert baptisms is truly something to excited about regardless of how the church may or may not have done better in the past.
@Jack, you said, “Now would it have been more ‘honest’ of me to acknowledge the fact that the reservoir is at an all time low before launching into my argument for having no need to fear a shortage? Maybe–but the facts remain the same.”
With your reservoir example, the underlying data is publicly available. The government agency tracking reservoir levels almost certainly publishes this on a public website. A politician may try to spin the situation positively, but citizens can still form their own informed opinions based on the data itself.
With the Church it’s very different. We repeatedly hear messages from the Q15 along the lines of, “If you could only see the data I’ve seen, you’d be convinced the Church is growing faster than ever!” The problem: they almost never release that data. And they almost certainly would release it if it were compelling — but it isn’t, so they don’t. Because members don’t have access to the data, some choose to take leaders’ statements at face value. Many others lose trust in the Q15 because it seems increasingly clear that these positive claims are exaggerated or outright false.
Yes, I expect Church leaders will generally try to paint a faith-promoting picture. But it is deceptive and dishonest to do so when they have access to data they are cherry-picking or exaggerating — data the rest of the membership cannot see or evaluate for themselves.
I agree that the church is different–that it is by no means a government organization nor a profit making corporation. The leadership may have good reasons for not sharing everything they know–and I would grant them the wisdom to know what to share with the membership and what not to share. I’m not convinced, for example, that it would be very useful for the general membership to know that one region has a 40% retention rate while another has only 20%–in fact, such knowledge could prove to be very damaging to the rank and file members. What the church cares about most is getting people to live the gospel–and that involves focusing on the best thing to do in the moment. And so we need not suppose that the church must have nefarious reasons for not making all of its data publicly available.