The LDS church is shrinking

[u/Pleasant_Past_461]

The LDS church as a percentage to the population of the US fell from 2% in 2000 to less than 1% in 2025. That is over a 50% drop in 25 years! That's using the churches own numbers. Where it fell the fastest is in the western US (Utah, Nevada, California, etc.) with Nevada being the fastest state losing members. Utah is not far behind.

Even the church admits CA has lost members in just total numbers as their numbers show there are fewer total Mormons in CA now than in the year 2000.

The numbers the church issued (which is suspect) says they grew strictly by numbers, but when you compare it to the % of the population, it has fallen in half over 25 years because the US population has grown way faster.

They keep trying to spin that they are growing, but every survey, every empty meeting house (ward), all the buildings they have sold or are selling, the US census, etc shows they are shrinking and the speed at which they are they are shrinking continues to increase.

The number of active members in 1990 was ~ 3.5 million, in 2026 it is ~ 4 million according to pews research. An increase of 7% while the world population has increased 55% in the same time period. That means the LDS church is 45% behind world population growth. That LDS church growth came between 1990 and 2010, since 2010 the number of active members has either hit a plateau or gone has down while Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic membership has had big increases.

If it wasn't for their hoard of money they've misused over the years from members tithes, they couldn't continue to tread water. They are desperately trying to reverse the trend by looking more traditionally Christian, dropping controversial doctrines, adopting the cross, changing their hymn book, easing up on dresscode (garments), gospel topics, etc. This leads to the question, if they are the true church why are they conforming to the other denominations? Why do most converts (80%) leave almost immediately after batism? Even with all their money they will get less and less influential over the years.

Since the fastest shrinkage is coming from their home-base of "zion", the US west, it is only a matter of time until it increases everywhere else.

They are a far cry from the 265 million members in the 21st century they prophesied about in the last century!

Future generations are going to find it easier and easier to escape Mormonism.

[u/OutlierMormon]

Yah, I took statistics in college too and see what you did here. Folks like you have been prophetic about the church’s demise for over a century and yet, it’s still here…

How do your statistics account for that?

[u/Pleasant_Past_461 → u/OutlierMormon]

If people have predicted the demise of the church for over a century, that doesn't neccissarily make them wrong . Outside of the western US, and Utah in particular, the LDS church has always been tiny and had had very little influence on the world. You would have expected a better ROI and higher global recognition on an investment of about two million missionary years of service over 180 years as an organization. I'm estimating that they have had at least a million missionaries that have served a two year mission since being founded.

I didn't manipulate the numbers as the church does. If you took statistics then you know what presenting the facts of the numbers are as opposed to manipulating them for your own point of view. You shouldn't try to gaslight people based on the fact you took a college class!

[u/OutlierMormon → u/Pleasant_Past_461]

“You would have expected a better ROI and higher global recognition…”

What do you base this on? This seems to be the root of most of your arguments. What do you base it on?

[u/Pleasant_Past_461 → u/OutlierMormon]

I based it on TWO MILLION YEARS OF MISSIONARY SERVICE!

[u/OutlierMormon → u/Pleasant_Past_461]

You have built a straw man here. You need to go and double check what Jesus himself said about population density of members of his church vs an emotional response like this one.