U.S. Faith Is Collapsing...But Don't Tell the Latter-day Saints
- Gary Toyn
- Mar 22
- 10 min read
What the data shows and why it surprised researchers
AT A GLANCE:
The headlines say American religion is collapsing. Maybe so, but the story is different for Latter-day Saints. A team of BYU researchers analyzed five major national datasets and found something social scientists didn't expect:
Latter-day Saints lead every religion in the United States in active participation. Not just Christians. All of them.
54 percent of those who've left still value faith or spirituality. Only 10 percent report they'll never return.
The single strongest predictor of a young person leaving the faith has nothing to do with doctrine or church history.
Among Latter-day Saints, the higher someone's educational attainment, the greater their religious commitment, not less. That finding has held up for forty years.
Roughly 1 in 5 less-active members who still value faith say they would return if a real friend invited them.
Here’s a headline that probably landed in your feed last fall:
“US Decline in Religion Among Biggest in World.” (Newsweek, November 2025)
Axios put it even more bluntly, citing the same Gallup data: the United States is undergoing one of the world’s most dramatic cultural shifts, moving away from faith faster than almost any nation on earth.
So it’s no wonder the story about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that gets the most traction online sounds a lot like this: the church is hemorrhaging members, the younger generation is walking away, and it’s only a matter of time.
I’ve heard that story a lot. You probably have too.
There’s just one problem. When a team of researchers actually sat down with five major national datasets, including the 2024 Pew Religious Landscape Study and a 2025 survey of 100,000 Americans, what they found was something quite different. Something that surprised even them.
Here’s what the data actually shows.
1. The LDS church isn’t uniquely failing. It’s actually among the most resilient faith communities in the country.
Yes, LDS retention rates have dropped. From 82 percent in the 1980s to roughly 50 percent today. That’s a real decline and nobody should wave it away. But it reflects an cultural drift from joining any type of membership group. Not just religious groups.
Harvard’s Robert Putnam, is not an LDS researcher, but he's spent decades studying how Americans connect with each other. He documents a broad collapse of institutional belonging that started in the 1960s. Civic groups, alumni associations, professional associations, philanthropic organizations, religious communities. All of them declined together. Religion wasn’t singled out. It got caught in a much bigger cultural current.
So when you put LDS numbers inside that context, the story changes. According to the 2024 Pew Religious Landscape Study, Latter-day Saint retention is higher than every Christian denomination in the country, with the possible exception of Catholics and Orthodox Christians.
But the more interesting number is what researchers call active retention: the percentage of people who still identify with the faith and attend services at least monthly. And on that measure, the results are striking:
Latter-day Saints lead every single religion in the United States. All of them. At 42 percent active retention, no other faith community comes close.
Critics often pejoratively say that the LDS church is a 'high-demand religion,' meaning it asks a lot: tithing, weekly attendance, dietary restrictions, volunteer service. To them its a significant weakness, assuming that asking members to do more will drive them away.
But the data suggests the opposite.
When a faith asks its member to makes sacrifices of their time, talents and resources, some will go away. But the ones who choose to stay tend to be genuinely invested. The result may be fewer members, but they tend to be far more committed.
2. The people leaving aren’t who you think they are.
This one wasn't anticipated at all by the researchers, and frankly it left me a bit surprised too.
Using a national survey of former Latter-day Saints between ages 18 and 25, the researchers ran statistical analysis to see if distinct groups existed within that population. Four groups emerged, and the breakdown doesn’t match the narrative that dominates the online critics.
Faith Keepers (22 percent). Still believe. Still feel warmly toward the church. Still think Jesus is the Son of God. Why did they leave? Mostly, they moved. Or life got too busy, or somehow they just lost connection to other members of the church.
Faith Leaners (32 percent). Spirituality still matters to them. They drifted away as other things took priority. They’re not angry. They’re not activists. They’ve just gone quiet.
Faith Distant (36 percent). No longer find organized religion important. Left mainly because they stopped believing. Skeptical of all organized religion, though some still cling to some spiritual beliefs.
Faith Rejectors (10 percent). Have walked away from religion entirely. Atheist or agnostic. Most say they’re not coming back.
That last group, the Faith Rejectors, is the one you encounter most on social media. Vocal, organized, and telling a story about why the LDS church is broken. But here's something worth knowing about that noise: the largest ex-Mormon podcast publicly reported that well over half its audience has never been LDS at all.
The most strident online anti-Mormon content isn't primarily reaching former members. It's functioning more like true crime entertainment, and is more akin to something I'll call "freak porn" or what another observer has called "cult porn." It's content produced for people who are drawn to the perceived otherness of "Mormons," the same way some are drawn to shows like Hoarders or My 600 lb Life. While this content has an online audience, these content creators are relatively few in number, representing about 10 percent of people who've actually left the church.
The other 54 percent? Still religious. Still broadly positive about the church. And here's the part that should stop every ministering brother and sister cold:
Roughly 1 in 5 of those who still value faith said they would return if invited by a real friend
They don't want to be a project, but they long to be welcomed, needed and loved.
President Hinckley said it a long time ago. Every member needs a friend, a calling, and nourishment by the good word of God. Turns out he was describing the formula for reactivation, not just for conversion.
3. The biggest threat to faith isn’t doubt or church history. It’s a social media feed.
The research team had access to something unique: data on the same young people tracked from age 13 all the way to age 21. That matters because it’s a dataset that let’s them identify trends. It helps them see what was true about kids before they left, not just after. Most studies can only look backwards. This one can help them look forward.
What best predicts whether a young person eventually walks away from the faith?
Not church history questions.
Not doctrinal disagreements.
Not the things that generate the most online clicks.
The single strongest predictor, by a wide margin, was whether they felt God’s presence in their daily life.
Among youth who felt God’s presence every day, only 4 percent later disaffiliated. Among those who almost never felt it, 25 percent did.
That gap is enormous. And it suggests that the most important question to ask about a young person drifting away isn’t whether they’re attending seminary or participating in their Come Follow Me study. It’s whether God feels real to them on an ordinary Tuesday.
The second major predictor was political identity. And this is where it gets complicated, yet important.
It’s not just that liberals are leaving. Both ideological extremes are at elevated risk. Very conservative and very liberal young people are both more likely to disaffiliate than those in the middle. The mechanism is the same regardless of direction. During the late teen years, when religious identity is naturally at its most fragile, political identity surges. For those at either extreme, the feeds, the podcasts, and the online communities they enter tend to reinforce political belonging while quietly eroding religious belonging.
Here’s a stat worth thinking about: thirty years ago, Democrats and Republicans were equally religious. That is no longer true. Politics is now in the driver’s seat, and for many people, politics becomes their de facto religion.
That’s not a left problem or a right problem. It’s an American problem. And it’s showing up in LDS wards on both ends of the spectrum.
4. Education doesn’t erode faith. For LDS, it’s the opposite
You’ve probably heard this one: the more education people get, the less religious they become.
It’s a common assumption, and it’s largely true across the general American population.
But not for Latter-day Saints.
Fully 92 percent of college-educated Latter-day Saints score high on Pew's index of religious commitment, compared to 78 percent of those who stopped their education at high school. That’s a 14-point difference that runs exactly opposite to what critics predict.
That finding has held up across four decades of data. It was first documented in a 1984 study published in the Review of Religious Research, confirmed again in 2010, and confirmed once more in Pew’s most recent work. It is one of the most consistent findings in the sociology of American religion.
The likely reason is baked into the theology. “The glory of God is intelligence." (D&C 93:36). It isn’t just decorative language. It reflects a tradition that treats learning and faith as partners rather than rivals. If a religion frames inquiry as an act of devotion, it stops being a threat to belief and starts reinforcing it.
Many critics claim that educated people inevitably see through organized religion, yet the Latter-day Saint data has been a persistent counter to that claim for forty years.
So What Actually Keeps People Engaged?
Across every dataset in this study, the answer keeps pointing back to the same thing. Not attendance. Not callings. Not doctrinal mastery.
Personal, felt connection with God. On regular days. In ordinary moments.
The practical implication for parents, bishops, and ministering brothers and sisters is significant. If someone you care about is drifting, the most important conversation you can have with them probably isn’t about their doubts or their attendance record. It’s about whether God feels present to them in their day-to-day life.
There’s good news in the broader numbers too.
LDS parents lead every religion in the country, with 80 percent praying and reading scripture with their children.
LDS Millennials lead all religions in reporting a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being.
Latter-day Saints top the charts in church attendance, daily prayer, and scripture reading.
The Bigger Picture
None of this is a reason for complacency.
The retention drop is real.
There’s also a significant gap among young women. They are leaving the church at higher rates than older women. Meanwhile men’s retention has stayed largely steady.
Much of it is driven by the politicization of religious identity, and remains a challenge we have yet to solve.
But the narrative that treats every departing member as evidence of a church in freefall simply isn’t supported by the data.
Ryan Burge is a political scientist who studies American religion and is not a member of the church. He looked at the LDS demographic picture: high birth rates, high participation, a young median age. His conclusion might surprise people on both sides of this conversation: “a bright future ahead.”
The broader decline of American religion also appears to be leveling off. Pew’s data shows the Christian share of the U.S. population holding steady in the low 60s since 2019. The wave that many assumed was permanent seems, at least for now, to have crested.
Against all of that, the LDS data point looks less like a community in crisis and more like one that has navigated a genuinely difficult period better than almost any comparable faith tradition, and may be better positioned than most for what comes next.
One last thing
If you’re an active member worrying about someone who’s drifted: the research says most of them are closer than you think. Not lost. Not gone. Often just waiting, without quite knowing it, for someone they trust to reach out.
If you’re someone who has stepped back from active participation for a bit, the data doesn’t agree with the loudest online voices who say you’re an angry, disaffected ex-mo. Most people in your position still believe more than they let on, and the door is genuinely open.
And if you’re neither, just someone curious about what’s actually happening inside one of America’s most distinctive religious communities, here’s the short answer: it’s more resilient, more complex, and more interesting than any headline is going to tell you.
The real story of Latter-day Saint faith in America is almost nothing like what you’ve heard. And the data reveals something social scientists didn’t expect.
But just like you wouldn't ask Pepsi to give you a fair assessment of Coca-Cola, be thoughtful about where you get your information. If you’re curious enough to want to know more, skip the comment sections and the YouTube rabbit holes. Find a Latter-day Saint and ask them directly.
You might be surprised by the conversation.
I’d love to hear your take. Whether you’re a lifelong member, someone who’s stepped away, or just an observer of American religious life, what do these findings bring up for you?
If you liked this article, I write regularly on faith, history, and ideas that don't fit neatly into anyone's narrative. You can subscribe HERE.
SOURCES
1. W. Justin Dyer, Jenet J. Erickson, Sam A. Hardy, Barbara Morgan Gardner, David C. Dollahite. “Latter-day Saint Religiousness, Well-Being, and Retention in the United States.” BYU Working Paper, updated December 16, 2025.
2. Pew Research Center. 2024 Religious Landscape Study. pewresearch.org
3. Pew Research Center. “In America, Does More Education Equal Less Religion?” April 26, 2017. pewresearch.org
4. Gallup. “Drop in U.S. Religiosity Among Largest in World.” November 13, 2025. news.gallup.com
5. Newsweek. “US Decline in Religion Among Biggest in World.” November 14, 2025.
8. Stan L. Albrecht and Tim B. Heaton. “Secularization, Higher Education, and Religiosity.” Review of Religious Research 26:43–58, 1984.
Full disclosure: I used an AI assistant to help research, outline, and draft this article. The thesis, the arguments, the editorial judgments, and the conclusions are entirely my own. I directed the research, verified the sources, and shaped every section. AI image generation tools also were used to produce the illustrations from prompts I wrote. I believe in being transparent about this. AI did not write this article. It helped me write it better.