{"id":83183,"date":"2020-02-27T20:33:13","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T03:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=83183"},"modified":"2020-02-29T01:09:47","modified_gmt":"2020-02-29T08:09:47","slug":"who-is-leaving-the-church-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/02\/who-is-leaving-the-church-part-three.html","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWho Is Leaving the Church?\u201d (Part Three)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"It's<\/a>
The Boston Massachusetts Temple \u00a0\u00a0(LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s installment of my bi-weekly column in the Deseret News<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHow Mary\u2019s \u2018Immaculate Conception\u2019 is about her origin:\u00a0The Virgin Birth and Immaculate Conception can be commonly confused, yet are quite distinct\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I offer a final note \u2014 a quotation \u2014 drawn from Stephen Cranney, \u201c\u201dWho Is Leaving the Church? Demographic Predictors of Ex-Latter-day Saint Status in the Pew Religious Landscape Survey,\u201d\u00a0BYU Studies Quarterly<\/em>\u00a058\/1 (2019): 99-108<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because there is no information [in the Pew Religious Landscape Survey on which he\u2019s basing his conclusions] on when<\/em> people left the Church, it is difficult to speculate about why ex-Latter-day Saints tend to be divorced more than those who remain in the Church. \u00a0It is theoretically plausible that the trauma of undergoing a divorce led to a loss of faith, activity, and ultimately identification with the Church; it is also possible that a loss of faith led to intermarital strife with a member spouse; finally, it is possible that Latter-day Saint marriages tend to have lower divorce rates overall. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly, there are a number of theoretically plausible stories for why ex-Latter-day Saints tend to be less educated and have lower income. \u00a0It could be that there is a Latter-day Saint emphasis on education and occupational success that leads to higher incomes and more education, or it could be that people are more likely to stay in the Church if the lifestyle is working out for them socioeconomically. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

While on their face the political findings support the familiar narrative of liberal Latter-day Saints leaving over social issues, the fact that only a minority of ex-Latter-day Saints identify as liberals and that hardly any of them switch to liberal Protestant denominations nuances this perspective. \u00a0While social issues are undoubtedly salient for some people\u2019s exodus from the Church, it is likely that this narrative receives a disproportionate amount of attention in informal and online discourse on this subject, and the size of the liberal Latter-day Saint exodus over social issues should not be exaggerated. \u00a0(107)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an interesting article by two members of the faculty \u2014 David Dollahite<\/a> and Loren Marks<\/a> \u2014 in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRomantic Love and Religion \u2013 A Match Made in Heaven?\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor most of the couples who have allowed us to visit their homes over the years as we conducted research on their time-tested marriages, their relationships embrace a shared marital vision that include a loving God who in turn taught them to love each other deeply and, Heaven willing, eternally.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Today\u2019s installment of my bi-weekly column in the Deseret News: \u00a0 \u201cHow Mary\u2019s \u2018Immaculate Conception\u2019 is about her origin:\u00a0The Virgin Birth and Immaculate Conception can be commonly confused, yet are quite distinct\u201d \u00a0 *** \u00a0 I offer a final note \u2014 a quotation \u2014 drawn from Stephen Cranney, \u201c\u201dWho Is Leaving the Church? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[701,8748,2433,1809,4,3754,55],"class_list":["post-83183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apostasy","tag-attrition","tag-church-growth","tag-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints","tag-future-of-faith-mormonism","tag-growth-rate","tag-mormonism"],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cWho Is Leaving the Church?\u201d (Part Three)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Today's installment of my bi-weekly column in the Deseret News:   "How Mary\u2019s \u2018Immaculate Conception\u2019 is about her origin:\u00a0The Virgin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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