Over the years the LDS Church has made some mighty bold claims on how fast they’ve grown. From the infamous Rodney Stark prediction in 1984, to the yearly Statistical Reports they release at the April General Conferences, it’s difficult at best to decipher where the truth lies. Somehow, the claims at their General Conferences seem to fly under the radar of anyone’s notice, which is quite surprising considering their stories are just as outrageous as Rodney Stark’s. (A link is provided here for Stark’s full article on the BYU website.)
As far as the Church and their creative record keeping goes, it seems there’s never a dull moment. Case in point is the latest Utah Vital Stats Report we published earlier this year. One of the topics we found interesting was the claim of a huge growth spurt of LDS population inside of Utah.
This prompted us to take a closer look at the Church’s statistical claims to see how (or if) they match up to reality. In particular, we’re looking at a three items of interest –
1.The Mormon Population Inside of Utah
2.LDS Missionary Age Requirements & Convert Rates
3.Total Membership Numbers & Growth Rate of the Mormon Church
