The kind of “diversity” observed in Roman Catholicism and Islam is possible only because each disavows continuing revelation.

It is continuing revelation, not only to prophets and apostles, but to individual members, that produces the miracle of uniformity throughout the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I actually see “correlation” as a sign of the true church. What other organization could possibly function with a requirement for unanimity in all its councils?
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/107/27#27

A photo-essay by Scott Proctor of his visit to the Nungua First Ward, Accra Ghana Stake, convinces me that any faithful Latter-day Saint from “Deseret” would feel very much at home in Ghana. http://www.meridianmagazine.com/photoessay/040204nungua.html

Although there is no doubt still much room for growth in numbers, prophecy indicates that we will always be numerically small, but that our influence will become sufficient to arouse world-wide enmity. The backlash to our involvement in California’s Proposition Eight might well foreshadow extermination orders yet to come.
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/1_ne/14/12-14#12

Tracy Hall Jr
hthalljr’gmail’com

Lots of LDS students at UCSC fall into the category of getting away.

There are always a few people who have drifted away but have sort of a fuzzy warm feeling. These are few and far between here.

Here in Texas we have plenty of people who show up once a year, twice a year. Or those who go through spurts of activity then lapse, then spurt again. Perhaps it’s not a matter in Texas of the LDS church being everywhere, but in Christianity being everywhere. Perhaps being asked by everyone “do you have a church home?” some casual Mormons are quick to say they do.

My point was that return missionaries were rare until eighties and that my generation was more likely to leave Mormonism than its non-serving predecessors.

My contention with this work is similar to my comment in part 1. It seems to me that the attribute that the author is ascribing as a delimiter of world-religion status arises as a function of societal prominence, not with anything about the religion. For example, there probably aren’t a lot of casual Muslims in rural Alabama. I’m also interested in how the demography of the Church plays into this. If the bulk of the Church is converts, how does that affect identity? Also, and interesting counter point to Europe is Latin America – one of David Knowlton’s post comes to mind.

There are Mormons, however, who are semi-active, show up every other week, don’t meet their financial and calling obligations but are ardent about their Mormon identity.

I would term those people casual Mormons.

It depends on what you call casual Mormons. In places where Mormons are less than 10% of the population, a majority of “official” members are not only inactive, but a large percentage don’t even consider themselves Mormon.

Contrast that with Utah where people who haven’t attended church in 40 years or more still vocally and proudly call themselves Mormon.

In Utah, the connection is not just religious. It’s cultural, historical and personal. Most inactive Utah Mormons are descendants of the original pioneers. Most of their friends and relatives are Mormon. That’s a lot to walk away from.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by committed Mormons, Hellmut. If you mean dogmatic Mormons who are committed to outward forms and are fixed in dogmatic answers, then I suppose that you are almost certainly correct. If you mean covenant keeping, temple attending Mormons who are spiritually mature and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, then I’m afraid there is an aspect of the religion that you continue to miss. But, possibly, these are not the folks you are targeting? ~