SALT LAKE CITY — A new study on membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints finds that for the first time ever, a majority of Utahns do not identify as Latter-day Saints or Mormons.
The study, published last week in the Journal of Religion and Demography, was based off a survey conducted by sociology professors at the University of Tampa, Utah Tech University and the University of North Florida.
"It just speaks to how Utah is changing," Dr. Bethany Gull, a sociologist at Utah Tech and one of the study's authors, told FOX 13 News on Friday.
The study used Qualtrics to survey 1,909 Utahns and its authors have 99.9% confidence in the data. What it found is that only 42% self-identify now as Latter-day Saint or Mormon — a significant drop for a state that was founded by the faith.
"As a scholar who studies the LDS Church, I was like, well, that's kind of surprising," said Dr. Ryan Cragun of the University of Tampa, another of the study's authors. "The Salt Lake Tribune just a couple of years ago said it was still 60%."
The study attributes the decline to several factors:
- Secularization, where people place less importance on religion in their lives;
- Migration, with more and more people who are not Latter-day Saint moving into Utah;
- Declining birth rate in Utah with families having fewer children (or none at all).
"I do want to say the most important as far as numbers is migration," Dr. Gull said. "It seems the rest of the country has discovered Utah is fantastic in a lot of ways."
As those people move in, they're not necessarily of the Latter-day Saint faith. That changes how neighbors interact and how people behave, Dr. Cragun noted.
But another surprise for the researchers was how many people have chosen to "self-identify" as not belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church itself keeps records differently, tracking members from birth to death.
"Anybody who gets baptized into the church, they're officially a member and unless they formally resign, they keep them on the records until they're 110 years old and they can't find them," Dr. Cragun said. "We actually show this in the paper is that there are probably tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people in the state of Utah, who the church still considers members of the Church because they haven't formally resigned but those people no longer self-identify as members of the Church."
They're not listing themselves as "active" or "inactive" members of the faith. They're not listing themselves as part of any faith. Dr. Gull said it's not that people are converting to other faiths — but secularization in Utah like it is across the nation.
"When we looked at the numbers of people who were raised LDS and then identified as something else as an adult, we saw more people identify as 'no religion at all' than all the other religions combined," she said.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints declined to comment on the study to FOX 13 News on Friday. The study certainly changes perceptions about Utah in a state where the Mormon faith has been a significant cultural and political presence going back to 1847. It could also upend culture and politics in the state in the years ahead.
Dr. Leah Murray, the head of Weber State University's Olene Walker Institute for Politics and Public Service, said she found the study's number of Utahns no longer self-identifying as Latter-day Saints interesting. But she noted a disconnect between Utah's changing demographics and those of Capitol Hill, where roughly 89% of the legislature is Latter-day Saint.
"So whether the body politic does or not is irrelevant. The effect will be felt in the laws we see coming out of the legislature as a result of that identity," she told FOX 13 News.
But can speak to changing culture and waning influence by the Church.
"When it comes to them weighing in on important political topics of the day, that’s where I think more immediately you’ll see some effects where it’s going to matter less what they say," Dr. Murray said.
That has already been observed in some hot button issues the Church has opposed in the past. Voters disagreed with the faith on medical cannabis and approved it; and a recent poll by the LDS Church-owned Deseret News and Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah that found 72% of Utahns support recognizing same-sex marriages as a legally valid.
