I recently listened a podcast interview with Ryan Burge, renown religious sociologist who just published a book (that is apparently *not* on my library app) called The Vanishing Church. Burge is religious, but is also interested in the trends in American society that show declining religious participation, and the downstream impacts to culture and societal bonds. In the interview, he outlined four groups of people who identify as non-believers. Here are the groups:
SBNRs (Spiritual But Not Religious). Burge calls these the “woo-woo” types
NINOs (“Nones” In Name Only). They do religous stuff, maybe even attend church regularly, but they reject the label of believer or identification with particular traditions.
These first two groups encompass the majority of “non-believers,” roughly 60% of them.
Dones. These are the ones who have had it with religion, don’t believe in any of it, don’t pray, don’t attend church, and aren’t interested in it anymore. 77% of them believe that after you die, that’s it; there’s no afterlife.
Zealous Atheists. These are the ones actively seeking to deconvert people from religion. This is the smallest group of non-believers, probably under 10%.
From a mental health perspective, Burge notes that the “Dones” are the non-believers who are thriving. The ones doing the worst are the “Zealous Atheists.” (I guess they can leave it, but they can’t leave it alone, amiright?)
Several years ago, there was a discussion here or maybe even on our predecessor site Mormon Matters where it was observed that when people left the LDS church they tended toward atheism or agnosticism rather than changing to another sect of Christianity. That was someone’s anecdotal observation, not exactly scientific data. The theory that was floated at the time was that the church’s strong stance of being the “only true Church” went further than some others in claiming exclusive priesthood authority and deliberately (as a restoration church) debunking the truth claims of more well-established sects like Protestant churches and the Catholic church. After all, if you are teaching people as a missionary why their longer-lived church is wrong or insufficient, you have to justify your own as having restored or added something imperative. (“They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”)
I did a little digging to see what types of non-believers were exiting various churches to see what the trends are, and here’s what I found:
Evangelical Protestants. The clear and absolute truth claims and higher behavioral demands tend to produce equally strong feelings of non-belief, mostly atheists or agnostics who reject the entire belief system they are leaving.
Mainline Protestants. These groups don’t have such strong claims of exclusive authority, often accepting baptism from other sects and not engaging in much proselytizing. These churches tend to create non-believers who either consider themselves spiritual but not affiliated with any specific religion, or who claim to be “nothing in particular.” Rather than breaking ties completely, the non-believers tend to drift away.
Catholics. The majority who disaffiliate trend toward saying they are “nothing in particular.” Catholics are also unique in that you can be Catholic as an identity without having any active belief in the doctrines. It’s often used as more of a cultural identity. Rather than deconverting, many Catholics claim to be “lapsed” or “bad Catholics” (said in a joking or self-deprecating way) to explain their non-belief. They disengage rather than deconvert.
Mormons. (Did Satan just high five himself?) Tend to make a decisive break rather than drifting away like Catholics, and either move toward atheism or agnosticism or a total reworking of spirituality.
Jewish. Because Judaism is both a religious identity and a cultural / ethnic identity, there are many who remain culturally Jewish while openly stating they do not hold Jewish beliefs. Many Jewish people identify as atheists or agnostics while remaining part of the body of Judaism.
And lastly, people who were raised in a non-religious environment usually stay non-religious, never developing belief in the first place.
Having said all that, I know many people who have left the church, and they’ve landed all over the map. Some are non-believers while others joined other churches. Some are actively trying to deconvert people, while others just walked away. What makes the difference? It seems to me that part of it is family of origin, part of it is personal experience, and part of it is individual temperament.
Family of origin. I’ve said it many times that I don’t really think Mormonism is a cult, but some Mormons act like it is. This is particularly true in families where the parents are very controlling and love is conditional on one’s status in the relation to the church.
Personal experience. There’s going to be a huge difference in how someone feels about the church if they were personally in need and not given support, or if they were abused, or if they were unfairly blamed as a victim. We also talked about this on Bishop Bill’s mission thread this week–some people had mostly positive experiences, and some mission presidents ran things in ways that bordered on mental illness.
Temperament. Some people get very entrenched in their surrounding culture, and other people don’t. Some people tend toward scrupulosity; others don’t. Two people who experience the same events can still have a different perspective on what happened. Siblings can both know their parents yet perceive them completely differently.
Burge believes that society is losing important ties as people leave religion, and that the non-religious who are seeking connection should just go to church (as non-believers). While this is doubtless true, it probably also sounds about as appealing as a Democrat going to a Trump rally. As identified above, the more demanding a church is in terms of behavior and the more exclusive its truth claims are, the more difficult it is to participate as a non-believer. And although your average Catholic or Jewish person is likely to be accepting of non-believers, there are higher-demand versions of both of these faiths that are not at all accepting.
- Have you seen Burge’s four types of non-believers among your LDS acquaintance?
- Are any of these descriptions surprising to you?
- Do you see a problem with replacing church community for those who don’t believe?
- Would your ward be accepting of a former believer or suspicious and cold? Or a mix of both?
- Do you think non-believers should attend church (as Burge recommends) or do you think that would suck?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
I think a lot of LDS just drift away. Used to be called “inactive,” then “less active,” and I’m not sure what it’s called now. The Church makes it a lot easier to just drift away than to jump through the hoops of getting a formal member termination done. It’s easier on friends and family, who can usually accept that one is taking a break as opposed to actively forfeiting a place in Mormon heaven for one of those lesser kingdoms. It’s easier on the person or family drifting away. Mormons are always nicer if they think you might come back someday, whereas a formal exit marks you as a heretic and/or apostate.
I think a lot of active Mormons are RBNS (Religious But Not Spiritual). Mormons don’t meditate. Mormon prayers, even private ones, are rather perfunctory. There is a lot of what I call “Spirit talk” in the Church, but not much “Spirit feeling,” if you catch my drift. So a Mormon who drifts away or formally exits is likely to become NRNS (Not Religious, Not Spiritual). Add a few vowels and you get Narnias. I think many Mormons who drift or exit are Narnias. Maybe even some still active Mormons are Narnias.
Because anecdotes data, I’ll simply hypothesize that for Mormons whose individual and family experience is most closely associated with the fast growth 1990s and later, the patterns of leaving are most like Evangelical. And for Mormons whose individual and family experience is most closely associated with with the pre-1990s church, the patterns of leaving are most like Catholic.
The latter connection—Catholic—may be hard to see because for all of my twentieth century life we were definitely absolutely never to talk to each other NOT Catholic. But hierarchy and theology aside, I see many similarities in culture and social dynamics and I think those things matter a lot for people entering and leaving a church community.
I’m a one and done. But where are the Jack Mormons? They don’t seem to fit any of these. They still may believe but don’t go to church.
The lapsed Catholics that I have known are all still believers, but they just do not enjoy worship services, so they do not attend church. Or maybe they are Christmas and Easter Catholics. But they are like Jack Mormons who still believe, but just do not want to live by all the rules or sit in meetings. They still think their babies need to be baptized, but they don’t follow up well in getting that baptized kid to church. So, spiritual but non religious. They will call themselves lapsed Catholics, but they DO still believe in God.
And I really disagree with calling Spiritual but not religious the woo woo group. That might fit the “new age” stuff but there are tons of people who still believe in the old fashioned God stuff, but have reasons to reject organized religion. Maybe they think organized religion is corrupted or too controlling and they just don’t like *organized* religion but are fine with their religious beliefs. Maybe they dislike someone else thinking they sit between the person and God. Maybe priests or GAs telling them how to think is bothersome. Maybe they are too independent and free thinking to fit into the organization. Maybe they are ADHD and can’t sit through meetings. Maybe they are extreme introverts and don’t like being in large groups for meetings. There are thousands of reasons a person might not want to be part of organized religion, but still have strong faith in God. So, spiritual but not religious. They probably have exactly the same faith in God as the people sitting in pews, but they just do not need or relate to organized religion.
But then, I myself am spiritual but not religious. But far from the woo woo stuff. So, maybe the categories in the OP have different definitions than mine. For me “Religion” being the ritual worship, ceremonies, shepherd & sheep kind of group with a leader. While I define spiritual as the belief in God that is internal to the person. So, maybe I am separating “religion”from “spiritual” in a different way.
Me and my two closest friends all left the Church in our 40s or 50s and all three of us are DONES. There’s a zero % chance that any of us will ever attend another religious organization. It’s just an anecdote but that’s my experience.
Don’t put graduated Mormons in a corner, hawkgrrl =)
I don’t fit any of these completely. No one I know fits any of these completely once the dust settles. The rage phase is real but few take up permanent residence there. As for being spiritual, I still enjoy a good hike and sometimes talk to my deceased father but don’t do triangles or grounding blankets. I never considered this woo.
As for finding a new church, that’s extremely personal. I personally didn’t need a new set of rules and people telling me what to do. But some people find value in that. I also was able to find a few non-church communities but for those who lose all relationships when they leave our faith tradition, I can appreciate the value in a new faith community, especially if the values align. And trauma bonding will always be part of those initial relationship but the hope is that those roles evolve.
I think most wards I’ve attended would welcome a former believer, assuming they toe the line, and use them as an object lesson for their kids. So hard pass for me. As the munchkins sing in Wicked:
“No one mourns the wicked
No one cries, “They won’t return!”
No one lays a lily on their grave
The good man scorns the wicked
Through their lives, our children learn
What we miss when we misbehave”
Mormons have been taught to believe in a comparatively small god who is subject to the “laws of the universe”. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but what if god IS the “laws of the universe”, NOT anthropomorphic, etc.
My husband calls himself a “cultural agnostic mormon”, and participates as PIMO. He hasn’t felt betrayed by what we have been taught over the past 50+ years, perhaps because he converted in his early 20s, and is a scientist/math person. This is a little baffling to me, as a BIC person.
I don’t know how long we’ve been nuanced progressives, but I finally did formally resign less than a year ago, so I’m still deconstructing and feeling extremely betrayed and deeply disappointed with LDS leadership. I feel a loathing to call myself LDS or Mormon in any way at this time, especially since MAGA! (btw, resigning was dead easy- but only if you don’t have close family that would be hurt by that decision. I have none- all 4 children left decades ago, parents are deceased.) I’m also ADHD, an extreme introvert, and a visual artist, none of which helped me “endure”.
At this point, I identify as an agnostic humanist, and enjoy sleeping in on Sunday.
I think we shouldn’t oversimplify what is going on. Some of the “inactive” LDS in my life believe on an almost fundamentalist level. Others are selective in their religious practice. Some just choose not to attend meetings. Some of the “active” LDS in leadership roles give lip service but really have not immersed themselves religiously or spiritually. For those folks, church is a social thing, almost like a club or lodge or fraternal organization. One past Bishop in my area has convinced local leaders to leave his membership in the ward and he lives at another location across the state, doesn’t attend church there. He returns to the home ward every two years for recommend interviews. It has been so long that the majority of the members in the area wouldn’t recognize him if they saw him. The members in his current hometown have no idea he even exists. No callings. No obligations to others. He has literally retired from the church but keeps the benefit plan.
gebanks: I think maybe the Jack Mormons fit the NINOs bucket (I mean, I’m not Ryan Burge, so this is my best guess). The NINOs in general feel like the libertarians of post-church according to what he was saying. They object to labels, being told what to do or what to believe, but they are also fairly quiet about it and want to believe whatever they believe without being pushed into a box. And I think his NINO category might apply equally (in a weird way) whether you believe and act like you don’t or you don’t believe and act like you do (PIMO). All that matters to his category is how you fill out the survey, and both those groups might object to being labelled, hence they claim “None,” but they are hard to distinguish in real life as “None.” I think most Mormons would consider a Jack Mormon to be a (cantankerous, oddball) Mormon–still part of the tribe.
Anna: I agree with you that calling the SBNRs “woo-woo” was very dismissive of Burge who seems a little too pro-religion for a sociologist in this field IMO. He kind of lumped all sorts of things together: astrology, nature walks, Hindu practices, and flat out superstition. In essence, he’s saying people want meaning without being forced to make a system work for them that doesn’t, which is a better explanation. But whenever I hear that phrase “spiritual but not religious” I’m reminded of an older guy I met at a leadership retreat who said he was really surprised that I was a Mormon because I seemed like a spiritual person to him, and he had never really met a Mormon who was–they were mostly just religious.
Chadwick: Those lyrics from Wicked are so spot on. Mormon faith feels somewhat fragile to me, but also extremely good at protecting itself. The act of self-protection is why it feels fragile. For a proselytizing religion, Mormons sure aren’t very interested in hearing about non-LDS spiritual and religous experiences.
Anon: I think one key distinction in what you are describing is that how someone is oriented toward the things they believe. Some things we believe and we want them to be true, but we also believe some things that we wish weren’t true. We hold beliefs we don’t like or that we’d be relieved to find out were false, and vice-versa. To your second point, church does function on multiple levels, and for some it is primarily social. Ryan Burge seems to think the social value cannot be overstated and is a real loss for those who leave, and for sure there is a loss of community. People trust you if you go to church with them, whether you believe or not so long as you show up and are polite. But for some, being in a social group is primarily a means to status. They care about their placement in the group, about being respected, having a voice, having some amount of control over others, about being “prominent.” To me, that’s a strictly religious endeavor that is essentially anti-spiritual. I’m not sure it’s possible to strive for social status and not erode your soul.
I’m not a Done or a Zealous Atheist. I have a hard time deciding whether I’m an SBNR or a NINO. I engage in simple forms of reflection/meditation/prayer, feel that there is a purpose to life and in some kind of afterlife, can feel at peace (spirituality?) running a trail or hiking a mountain, and every once in a blue moon feel like I maybe (or maybe not?) have some sort of fleeting connection to the divine/the universe/(?).
On occasion, I enjoy and find meaning observing or participating in organized religious services/practices of various religions, including Mormonism. I typically ignore the dogma of the religion and try to translate the experience into something that works for me.
I do not agree with Burge that being “active” in my local Mormon ward has done much good for me since some point in my early adulthood. While there have been, and continue to be, occasional bright points, I’ve found Mormon church services to be largely very dull, other activities/callings to not be very meaningful, and while I have a lot of Mormon friends, 99% of those relationships to be very superficial. I think that attending a Mormon service a few times a year might be fine, but I don’t enjoy attending weekly like I do to make my wife happy. I’ve actually been travelling internationally, much of the time solo, for the last couple of years, and it has honestly been a breath of fresh air not to have to attend church every week like I feel obligated to do when I’m at home.
mountainclimber479: Well, regarding how Burge would characterize your Mormon upbringing, he was a Baptist pastor and that’s his background. As a Baptist, it’s totally possible his bias would be against the LDS church, but IDK. He doesn’t talk like that’s the case, but I have a hard time imagining most Baptist pastors would consider the LDS experience equally valid with their own church. I’ve decided to do a deeper dive next week on the SBNR category, and I think you’ll find some of that resonates.
In thinking about Burge and his dismissing spirituality without religion as woo woo, and his over emphasis on the social benefit of the social aspects of religion, I bet he is in a category of religious but not spiritual and he can’t even see his own prejudice. A good researcher should be aware of his own biases, so he doesn’t unknowingly skew his results or insult people by labeling what they feel deeply about “woo woo.” Not good form. It is like he doesn’t quite “get” spirituality. And I have to admit that I don’t quite “get” all the benefits of religion he seems to think there are
I never did benefit from the social part of church after the block schedule. There is kind of a spiritual disconnect between me and the church because I have never had a warn fuzzy spiritual type experience. I am too introverted and never fit the mold very well. I need smaller groups, small class size and once RS stopped doing mini classes of 10 or less, it stopped having any value as far as a social group. I become part of the woodwork in the big adult SS class, or the RS class with all the women in the ward. My ADHD makes paying attention impossible with the chaos of 30 people. So, I sit and have an ADHD stress session. I really hate it. My last attempt at being active, I started going to the gospel essentials because it is the size of class I can function in. I took the investigators under my wing and contributed to the class and the teacher really appreciated my contribution. Then the rule followers got involved and said the class is for new members and investigators, NOT life time members who dislike a class of 96 people What about fellowshippingfor those new members? Nope, not allowed. New members should not make friends with ward members. They might stick around for more than two months if they have friends and we can’t have that. I was pissed and so was the teacher and a little while after that I asked myself why I was even trying. I didn’t get anything spiritual from church, because Mormonism isn’t really spiritual. It deals in emotion, but not spirituality, and a warm fuzzy feeling is the best it can do, only I never got warm fuzzy from anything it offered. Just a spiritual disconnect. I didn’t get anything social from church. And I don’t really believe in the restoration or even *like* Joseph Smith. So, there really is nothing the church offers that I am interested in.
Anna,
I agree with you on your thoughts on spirituality within Mormonism. Some here would categorize me as TBM, I would lay claim to the category of “Interfaith LDS.” I enjoy the liturgical practices of our Christian neighbors, especially in what we would call the “high church” traditions (Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican). So I am a bit of a religoius nomad. I attend LDS services almost every week. But anyone who knows me would not be shocked to see me worshipping with my friends inside other faiths, including nondogmatic communities within Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. I have never felt uncomfortable doing so and have felt what LDS call “the Spirit” inside of each faith.
I believe you have suffered in your situation. I have many friends who volunteer to serve in the Primary or who attended the old Gospel Essentials class for fellowshipping purposes. They valued a “softer” approach to spirituality. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. The leaders who did this to you were motivated by compulsion and control, which as Hawkgrrrl noted, is the antithesis of spirituality.
Haekgrrrl,
I am looking forward to your examination of SBNR.
It’s great to see such lies from Christians. I’m a “zealous atheist” and I’m doing fine. It’s a shame your cult has to use lies and fear to exist.
Why would I attend a cult meeting that lies and has no evidence for its claims? I don’t need social events that much.
Such a relevant and fascinating phenomenon to understand, as it’s creating such interesting faultlines and dynamics in a “micro” sense (i.e. within families and interpersonal dynamics), but also has interesting larger “macro” sociocultural implications.
In the context of a conversation regarding two (one of his, and one of mine) immediate family members who have recently ‘stepped away’ from the LDS church in this current wave, I had a conversation with an extended family member last week who was also describing a semi-close friend (so, a third individual) who was explicitly lamenting: “Why can’t we just be ‘less active’ any more? I’m probably not gone for good, but I’m drifting in and out slightly… why isn’t that ok?” There’s such an in-or-out imperative these days, at least anecdotally, and this friend of my nephew’s not only recognizes it but recognizes it as a problematic ‘forcing function’. This seems like such an important observation. Has the church (socially, and even perhaps officially) become more prone to purity tests and virtue signaling that the marginal “in group” (what Christian Kimball would describe as ‘living on the inside of the edge’) is increasingly being forced to choose either formally leaving/disaffiliating or true-blue stridency? It’s fascinating, and might be yet another factor — in addition to factors like family of origin, temperament, etc that Hawk describes well in the OP — that may be driving the exodus of some of these formerly-known-as-less-actives out of the faith entirely.
As the OP points out, there’s plenty of variance, of course, and those who leave the church might fall into multiple categories. For instance, the three individuals I was discussing with my nephew (two family members and a friend) cover quite a gamut…. 1) a strident, articulate, and vocal objector and now harsh critic of the church who is very active on social media, 2) a somewhat passive leaver who points to doctrinal or social objections as the quote-unquote reason for disaffiliating, but seems to lack high passion or engagement in those identified issues and likely uses their visibility on tiktok etc simply as a rationale to step back, rather than having a deep desire to think about or engage with those issues, and 3) the friend who would simply prefer to be a bit “less active” for a while, but finds it hard to do so these days, and feels increasingly forced to choose either complete (or more explicit) disaffiliation, or active mainline loyalism.
Interestingly, scholar/journalist Jana Riess gave the most recent “Joseph Smith Lecture” at the University of Virginia in October 2025, and in that context gave a preview of her currently in-the-works book that is a followup to her previous volume “The Next Mormons” (2019 Oxford U Press). This upcoming book will reportedly focus on LDS “liminals”… as opposed to “leavers” and “loyalists”. The three L’s. And the preliminary data she showed was fascinating. I think what we’re talking about here is what life is like for liminals within the church, and whether it’s an existential/structural long-term risk to the church to drive them away, pushing them into the “leavers” camp. Ryan Burge seems to think so for the larger Christian project, and I tend to agree with respect to our church specifically.
One observation is that, within the broader trends of disaffiliation and “dechurching” that’s been happening over the past two decades, it seems like an odd and self-defeating maneuver for the LDS church to (either formally or culturally) make life difficult for marginals, nuanced members, PIMOs, “liminals”…. Shouldn’t the church instead be looking for ways to make anyone/everyone feel as welcome as possible WITHIN the LDS community, in some shape or form, in the context of the larger hemorrhaging of faithfuls to nones? Yet it anecdotally seems that the church is becoming MORE “boundary maintenance” focused and looking to alienate progressives and liminals. I find this baffling. And those who respond that this is a sophie’s choice between abandoning our doctrine or high-demand approach vs. being ‘welcoming’? I think they miss the point. There’s plenty of ways to signal that it’s ok to have diverse political views or whatever, or have Relief Society Presidents sit on the stand. Back when I was at BYU, there was more variance on this; more nonmember students and faculty, more “acceptable protest” (alt student newspapers like the Student Review), more acknowledgement of wide views among the student body etc. I mean: I get that our faith is “higher demand” than other faiths, and I think that’s ok. But what’s less clear to me is why we’d rather have anyone less than the absolute loyalists pushed out of the congregation entirely. Why is that preferable to more heterogeneity in the ward family? What problem, exactly, are we trying to solve? Particularly in the context of the rise of the nones, etc. I recall a youth Sunday school teacher in my teenage years who was clearly “less active” – smelled strongly of cigarettes each week! – and my youth group kinda tracked with that, recognizing that the church takes “all types” and we’re all struggling with something, etc. But now that would be unheard of, methinks.
Some of this may arise from the inevitable conformity culture that accompanies correlation, but there also does appear to be an additional, deliberate effort to drum out liminal saints. See Elder Gilbert’s initiatives at BYU over the past few years, or Holland’s musket fire talk there… plenty of things to point to. But all these signals do beg the question of: why? Why the strident boundary maintenance? At the Jana Riess event’s panel discussion, a question was posed to Professor Matt Hedstrom, a non-LDS UVA scholar who studies post-Protestant religious modernity in the United States, about whether the LDS church is somewhat unique in this head-scratching (self-defeating?) effort to drum out questioners or marginal members, as compared to other faiths, particularly in the modern context of ALL faiths shrinking? His answer was essentially: yes Mormonism is kind of an outlier, along with deep southern Baptist evangelicals, whereas most other Christian denominations recognize the hemorrhaging of membership and are doing less of the “push-out” behavior. Truly fascinating.
It strikes me as a fairly long-run existential/structural question for the church: do we desire a bigger-tent church that’s certainly high demand, yet still makes place for all kinds of participation levels? Or do we prefer a smaller-but-more-doctrinaire faith that would rather lose “less actives” or nuancers in the name of having a tighter phalanx of vociferous loyalists?
I ran up against this in a more ‘micro’/local way in my early morning seminary calling (two different tours of duty over the past decade), in which it definitely became clear to me that the more intellectual/progressive/questioning/nuanced kids were the ones MOST at risk of leaving the church as they matured and grappled with their membership and testimonies… yet the curriculum and even the stake activities and involvement efforts continued to bend over backwards for the most conservative/loyalist/“Sunday school answer” youth. Which always seemed upside down to me. My sense was that among the youth, the prairie-dress-and-home-school crowd is doing just fine, thank you very much, and the church is working for them. But it’s the more cosmopolitan/intellectual/questioning kids who feel most out of sorts. They’re the ones most uninterested in the typical stake activities, etc. What I saw (and continue to see) is a failure of the church to sufficiently engage THOSE youth, so – no surprise! – they’re the ones who turn out to be most likely to switch from the “liminal” to the “leaver” camp. In an effort to create better engagement, there have been a few of us in the ward who have continued some “extracurricular” efforts such as sending our kids to HEXP trips etc – which has provided great experiences for those individual youth – but also doesn’t solve the more institutional/structural problem. (In other words, it works for those of us with means to fund those kinds of optional activities, but does nothing for the rest of the youth, nor the youth in aggregate. Meanwhile, these same youth are the ones who ‘stand up’ to thinly-veiled homophobic jokes at FSY, not just originating in their peers, but from the counselors/leaders themselves! So that’s the experience they’re having in the institutionally supported structures.)
And the structural problem all this raises is: if all the liminal GenZers run for the exits, what WILL the church look like in 20 years? What will a typical ward look like? Or will there even be a comfortable place for the liminal youth who “hang on”, if there are very few future adult peers they can relate to?
The larger argument that a healthy “church” (writ large) is key to democracy and social functioning is a fascinating (and to my mind, somewhat convincing) argument. Others outside our faith have noticed our model and its applicability; see for instance the work of David French (an evangelical) and Jonathan Rauch (an atheist Jew) who recognize the general uniqueness of the high-demand LDS model of faith community.
(See https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/opinion/christianity-democracy-religion.html and Rauch’s recent book “Cross Purposes” – – both of which make a pretty interesting sociological argument for the vibrancy of religion and religious practice. Notwithstanding many of the leavers who enjoy sleeping in on Sunday morning, post-leaving, or who never experienced those social or spiritual ‘benefits’ when active in the faith. Of course those experiences are valid also. But there are larger dynamics around social cohesion, collective causes, structured sacrifice… all of these things are more difficult as a lone-ranger solo spiritualist… and while maybe that’s individually ok for many, these authors, and Burge, are making a more macro social argument about that shift.)
I wonder what French and Rauch would have to say about all this, in a conversation with Burge.
What a compelling post and conversation! Sorry so long winded.
BlueRidgeMormon, you raise a good question about why is the church tightening its boundaries when it is already losing so many members? My guess is that they think the pressure to be more involved, dedicated, loyal, and obedient will force slackers to step up and get fully involved and fully loyal. They do not seem to think it possible that people might be “slacking” because they are questioning or already unorthodox in beliefs. They assume that people just “know” it is true and of course the pressure will make them realize how important it is. They do not even realize their pressure for more time, money, and obedience will backfire and drive members out rather than in, because those member stopped believing in the questionable truth claims.
It is like MAGA people are so sure they are right, in spite of tons of evidence to the contrary. They disbelieve all the piles of evidence that they are wrong, and anyone who doesn’t agree with them is purposely being evil. And the church doesn’t want the purposeful evil. They are so certain, that they just cannot comprehend any thinking person disagreeing with them.
But I think it will drive most of the younger generation out. My grandchildren are 100% out now. Well, the youngest is still being drug to church by her parents and she has friends there so she isn’t fighting it much. But she will never attend once she is out of the house on her own. This generation has grown up with openly LGBT friends and relatives. My grandkids thought LGBT was perfectly normal because their aunt has been out, living with her partner/wife all their lives. You are just not going to convince kids raised that way that LGBT is evil because they grew up seeing that love is love and really there is no difference except for gender. The homophobia will make them question and then they will be out.
I myself stayed active with a major disbelief in Joseph Smith for some 30 years. My TBM husband was happier and if I came out as an unbeliever just might divorce me. Then the boundaries got more strict and I couldn’t even voice my true feelings about anything and didn’t like the idea of teaching stuff I didn’t believe. Instead of reacting with curiosity if I expressed doubt, people reacted with horror and shunning. I had no friends after being in that ward over 20 years. Finally, I looked at the whole picture of “why am I doing this to myself when it makes me SO miserable?” Then after 40+ years of marriage, I just decided that honesty and happiness were more important than my marriage.
I’ve been increasingly nuanced over the last 20ish years, currently leaning hard into PIMO territory. Came out to my wife in a moment of family crisis about a year ago. Never shared previously out of fear that I would be viewed as “breaking the contract”, and risk having her leave me. Turns out, she is also nuanced, but over different but overlapping issues.
I’ve come to the conclusion that a good 1/3 to 1/2 of active members straddle the loyalist/liminal space. There’s no bright line, but a spectrum. How far someone can comfortably be on the liminal side of the spectrum is going to be largely a function of local leadership.
Unfortunately, there are a handful of GA’s (Q15 & Q70) who pressure local leadership to be more exclusive than they would otherwise be.
I want to stay associated with the church and I want to help it do good in the world. I’m just not sure if there will always be a space for someone like me.
clubschadenfreude: You said “It’s a shame your cult has to use lies and fear to exist,” and since Ryan Burge is the one who said zealous atheists are the least thriving among those who leave religion, and he’s not here, and he’s not LDS, your use of “your” makes no sense. And second, I’m not sure who you’re yelling at about how terrible religion is as a social institution that requires belief in unproven/unprovable claims–if you had spent any time here, you’d know that basically 95% of us have said similar things. “I’m a “zealous atheist” and I’m doing fine.” Sure, Jan.
BlueRidgeMormon: Thanks for the additional resources. I still struggle to think of a good alternative social group to church in society (as Burge points out), but I also think church just doesn’t work long-term for non-believers. Trump rallies are also said to be very fun, cohesive activities, like state fairs used to be, but if your values don’t align or you don’t believe what’s being said, you’re not really going to enjoy it. Lots of people enjoy book clubs, but if you don’t like the books they choose, you’re eventually going to lose interest.
There are some very big tent churches out there in terms of belief. The best example I can think of is the UU, although having said that, I was in a discussion years ago where people were asking what were things various churches would not tolerate to be expressed in the group, that would lead to social ostracization, and even the UU has its limits. They don’t even care if you believe in God, but they probably would balk at someone who sounded too Republican, particularly in our current politically polarized environment. I said years ago (pre-Trump) that most people saw their religion through their political lens, not the other way around (one reason that reminding people what Jesus actually said and stood for never works–they wishcast their own political views onto Jesus and cherry pick actions and stories to fit their beliefs).
And I don’t want to overplay Burge’s fealty to “church” as a great social solution for all. He did say it doesn’t work for all, and that people need to find groups that share their interests and values to replace it. But he also felt that people were trying to replace “church” with things that lack the same meaning. Fair enough, but being in a group where the meaning isn’t meaningful to you doesn’t work either. If so, why wouldn’t I be enjoying an amazing Catholic fish fry every year? I love fish, but I’m not Catholic.
“I’d rather have questions I can’t answer than answers that can’t be questioned,”
(attributed to the American theoretical physicist, Richard P. Feynman).
BlueRidgeMormon,
My admittedly anecdotal experience is that the church tries to be super accommodating towards those who struggle with being fully active. My little family is riddled with mental illness–we cover the entire activity spectrum from folks who hardly attend at all to some who regularly attend to everything in between. And the interesting thing is that 7 out of 8 of us have temple recommends–and the 8th will get hers soon enough.
That said, I suppose our leaders know that we’re TBMs because of the interview process–plus our having been in the ward for 20+ years now. And so maybe everything I’m saying is moot because they know how we feel about the restoration. Even so, I think we have to keep in mind that that as much as the church desires to include all commers it also has to establish the boundaries of the gospel covenant–albeit, with a gentle hand. As the Savior said:
“Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
Jack’s “has to establish the boundaries of the gospel covenant” is likely to draw negative reactions from typical W&T readers and personally I’d want to investigate the normative aspect of the phrase. Who says we have to? Why to we have to? Is “has to” one man’s opinion about the society he wants to belong to? Or some sort of Platonic ideal? All to suggest I don’t agree with the “has to.”
On the other hand, taken as a description or observation, I think there’s something important there. Acknowledging individual and local exceptions which I celebrate, in the main, in most places at most times, I see the temple recommend as the great divider. Not belief per se but fifteen questions and a piece of paper. As Jack suggests, with a TR in hand one is a presumed insider without regard to actual beliefs or activity beyond the threshold of what it takes to have a temple recommend. And without a temple recommend, we find ourselves in the world BlueRidgeMormon bemoans where we regularly feel the blows of boundary maintenance.
Long ago, in a different century in fact, I gave up any hope of the institution or the general membership welcoming or nurturing inside the edge folk (thanks for the call-out, BlueRidgeMormon) and especially people who want to maintain a connection but without a temple recommend. Instead, I argue for what amounts to a DIY church or gospel, or a church within a church, or as some true-believer TR-holding folk might chastise, a Telestial class within a Celestially-bound community. That has some awful implications for belonging and fitting in in this world, and for promises of glory in the hereafter. But it may be the best we can do. Most of all, these are treasured friends I’m talking about.
Referring back to Hawkgrrrl’s OP, I would suggest the function of the temple recommend in defining insiders and outsiders complicates Burge’s characterizations and labels that focus on belief and participation, when applied to Mormons and Mormon-adjacent folk.
Jack — “Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” (John 3:5)
It’s understandable how this verse is often connected to specific ordinances like baptism and formal church membership. But it’s worth being careful about reading the text backwards, starting with a conclusion we already hold and then interpreting the verse in a way that confirms it.
When we approach scripture primarily through the lens of what we’ve already decided must be true, it’s easy to miss other meanings that may have been more immediate to the original context or audience. In this case, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus about spiritual rebirth—something deeper and more transformative than ritual alone. The language of “water and Spirit” has been understood in a variety of ways across Christian traditions, many of which don’t tie it exclusively to a single institutional process.
That doesn’t make one tradition right or wrong by default, but it does suggest we should hold our interpretations with some humility. Rather than asking, “How does this verse support what I already believe?” it can be more fruitful to ask, “What is this passage actually trying to say, on its own terms?”
Approaching scripture this way doesn’t weaken faith—it often deepens it by allowing the text to speak more fully, rather than fitting it into conclusions we’ve already reached.
And this eliminates the “has to” you refer to and Christian commented on.
Jack, I was “born of water and of the Spirit” many years ago, but I still can’t get a temple recommend because I don’t believe that President Oaks’ opinions about my gender—an issue that affects me way more than it affects him—come from God.
I was going to make a comment about the temple recommend being a key differentiator that makes Mormonism more prone to binary all-in or all-out thinking, but I see christiankimball beat me to it. I think it very much changes the social dynamics of these categories. I think some church leaders sincerely want the church to be more welcoming, for those who are at the margins to feel they have a place, perhaps including for those who aren’t fully believing. But that only works by thinking of members as either recommend holders or prospective recommend holders. Intentionally opting out of the system just doesn’t compute for many church leaders, particularly in this era where everyone gets a new temple in their neighborhood. And I think that’s frankly a barrier to progress. They need to better understand why some are opting out, which I don’t think they do.
Being careful not to over generalize, I do think most people benefit from being part of community organizations. That role was filled by religion for most of human history. Now we’re entering a new era. Not everyone needs it to the same degree, but I think most benefit from it, and I think those leaving religion should consider that. In my extended family the one who seems to be doing the best of those who have left the church is highly involved in his community, running a local business and participating in a volunteer fire department. If someone doesn’t have those kinds of things in their life, I think that yes, I might just advise them (if anyone ever asked my opinion) to consider showing up at church as a nonbeliever, at least until they have found an alternative.
Todd S et al,
In the most general sense that verse from John 3 is saying that there are some things that are important for us to do in order to enter the Lord’s Kingdom. And as such it would be wrong for the church not to teach those things–even if it causes some division. In fact, I would say that it has an obligation to teach them–though, as I say, with a gentile hand.
Gentle– not gentile.
@Jack,
You have said multiple times in comments on previous posts that you are a strident believer in the standard Mormon model of Church governance: that God/Christ clearly and reliably communicate their will to the Q15, and that the Q15, as a body, is infallible on any doctrine or policy of import. If that’s what you believe, and you also feel that God/Christ is telling the Q15 exactly where and how to “establish the boundaries of the gospel covenant,” then your point of view makes sense. It is your assumption—that the Q15 is infallible and that their current and past teachings always represent the will of God—that I think is wrong.
@Former Nonbinary Sunbeam’s comment raises one of the most disturbing cases where the Q15 is almost certainly not following the will of God today. Do you really think trans people shouldn’t have a temple recommend? Do you really think monogamous gay couples should be excommunicated? Do you really think Christ is behind the policies the Q15 continues to enact that drive the vast majority of LGBTQ members out of the Church?
We’ve been over the other issues before: race, women, polygamy, birth control, historical claims. For me, the pattern is clear—the Q15 has made a number of major mistakes over the years, and there is every reason to believe they will make more in the future.
It doesn’t have to be as black and white as you seem to believe. You don’t have to throw out your belief in Mormon prophets and priesthood, or in the idea that Christ is guiding them. If they got the priesthood/temple ban on Blacks wrong—which I believe they did—it doesn’t have to mean you stop believing they are prophets. Unless, of course, you are so inflexible that you cannot conceive of a prophet who sometimes gets something very important very wrong.
Survey data consistently shows that every Mormon congregation has a significant percentage of people who live in the gray area. They have faith, but they don’t think all the boundaries the Q15 has put in place come from God. Some think polygamy was a mistake. Others think the priesthood/temple ban was a mistake. Some feel the Church was wrong to discourage birth control. Many feel the Church’s LGBTQ positions are wrong. Some struggle to see the meaningful difference between drinking water boiled with tea leaves and water boiled with peppermint leaves. Some don’t feel closer to Christ by wearing out-of-date underwear with masonic symbols on it. Some find the evidence against Book of Mormon historicity overwhelming. Others wonder why women still can’t serve in Sunday School presidencies. The Q15 established every one of these boundaries. Some have already shifted or disappeared. Others will undoubtedly shift in the future.
For the many Mormons who live in the gray area, it is tiring and frustrating to participate in congregations where so much of every talk, lesson, and conversation is about maintaining these boundaries–even when done “gently”. The Q15 needs to remove the silly boundaries that really aren’t necessary to live a Christlike life. In the meantime, fellow members ought to spend a lot less time on boundary maintenance and a lot more time embracing everyone who finds meaning in participating in their local congregations.
mountainclimber479,
As is the case in every home some degree of boundary maintenance is a must. But that doesn’t mean that that’s the stuff that good family life is made of. No, it’s loving and caring for one another that makes it meaningful. Even so, if we take away the boundaries then we risk losing everything–because it’s difficult to find happiness in the home when alcoholism or infidelity or other destructive elements make their way past those barriers.
That said, of course the church is a larger organization and, therefore, can absorb some of those destructive elements more gracefully than a single family. But even so, the boundaries of the covenant must be clearly established–otherwise the church would be overrun by a deluge of, not only destructive compromises, but fleeting whims as well.
With respect to the fallibility (or “in”) of prophets: I’ve always maintained that my default position is to give them the benefit of the doubt–to take their counsel seriously and then work things out with the Lord if I have trouble accepting their message. But when all 15 apostles speak with one voice it goes beyond that–it’s more like scripture to me. And if I ever felt the need to approach the Lord for clarification when his servants speak as one it would be with fear and trepidation–because I’d want to be sure that I’m not tempting him. But that’s me.
The modern prophets have spoken clearly and with one voice on the Law of Chastity. There is no room for error.
Now in saying that I realize that I’m speaking from the stand point of faith. And so from my perspective there’s only one point of contention to be addressed in this argument–and that’s whether or not the modern prophets have spoken the mind and will of God on the subject. And my answer to that question is: Yes! They have.
Jack,
I’m going to paste in the entire 1949 First Presidency letter regarding the priesthood/temple ban on Blacks:
“The attitude of the Church with reference to negroes remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time. The prophets of the Lord have made several statements as to the operation of the principle. President Brigham Young said: ‘Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a skin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the holy priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the holy priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to.’
“President Wilford Woodruff made the following statement: ‘The day will come when all that race will be redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have.’
“The position of the Church regarding the negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality, and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the principle itself indicates that the coming to this earth and taking on mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood, is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the negroes.”
You said, “The modern prophets have spoken clearly and with one voice….There is no room for error.” But the Church has completely disavowed everything in this letter—which represents the united voice of the Q15 (FP letters were the way the Church pronounced that united voice during this period; formal proclamations were rare). They’ve officially disavowed the seed of Cain theory and the lack of valiance in the premortal existence theory, and Church leaders now describe the ban as a “policy”—which this letter explicitly identifies as fundamental doctrine, not policy. All of it has now been completely disavowed.
So…no room for error?
I know you personally believe that God wanted the ban in 1949 and gave the go-ahead to drop it in 1978. But the ban wasn’t the only thing at issue. There were also all of the explanations—seed of Cain, premortal unfaithfulness, official doctrine rather than policy—pronounced repeatedly over many decades by top Church leaders, all now completely disavowed. False doctrine that harmed a great many people was taught for decades. Clearly there was room for error by modern prophets.
Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow all made very strong statements that the Church could and would never end its practice of polygamy. All four (and many other apostles at the time) were wrong. The Church did stop practicing polygamy. Apparently there was room for error from the united voices of four consecutive prophets and the Q15s who stood with them.
The November 2015 Policy of Exclusion, and its 2019 reversal, is another clear recent example of the Q15 making an error they had to reverse. And these are just a few examples among many.
In light of all these instances where prophets got it wrong, are you still so certain there is “no room for error” in the Church’s current stance on LGBTQ issues (which is what I assume you mean by your reference to the “Law of Chastity”)?
It pains me to hear you describe Church leaders as being “gentle.” LGBTQ members are real people. It is not gentle to excommunicate a gay married couple or to deny a trans person a temple recommend. Even the Church now concedes that people don’t choose to be gay or trans—another example of a teaching the Q15 previously got wrong when they taught it was a choice.
I simply cannot bring myself to believe that the Christ who called a despised tax collector to be an apostle, who protected the woman caught in adultery from stoning, who spoke at length to a despised Samaritan woman at the well, and who proclaimed that God had “anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor…to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,” really wants to exclude LGBTQ people from full fellowship in His Church.
To generalize beyond the Church’s incorrect LGBTQ policies, the Q15, when acting collectively, has a long record of incorrectly declaring the will of God. They would be wise to learn from their own history and be much more cautious about making such proclamations in the future. They should also work on removing boundaries that were mistakenly set by their predecessors. Boundaries like “we care for the poor and needy”, “we strive to follow the Golden Rule”, and “all are fully welcome here (including LGBTQ people)” seem true and universal to me. Boundaries like “have as many children as you possibly can”, “don’t drink water boiled with the leaves of one particular bush”, “gay people can’t marry”, “you need to wear this kind of underwear”, “don’t marry someone outside your own race”, and “the only way to be exalted is to have multiple wives” ring false and manmade to me.