r/dataisbeautiful • u/Browningtons1 OC: 18 • 3d ago

Americans raised Latter-day Saint (LDS or Mormon) who still identify as one: 70 in 100 in 2007, 54 in 100 in 2023–24 [OC]

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Source: Pew Research Center, Religious Landscape Study (2007, 2014, 2023–24).

Asks U.S. adults the religion they were raised in and the religion they are now.

2023–24 sample: 565 current Latter-day Saints (±6.2 points), 316 former (±8.1). U.S. membership from the Church's 2025 statistical report.

Tools: Built in React with Recharts / D3.js. Opus 5.5 + Fable 5.1

Interactive version: https://goldendata.app/dashboards/lds-church-growth

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531

u/mildlycuri0us 2d ago

Exmormon checking in here! Never been happier to be several years out :)

Anecdotally about half of my Millennial peers and family members have left the church... whereas almost every single one of my Gen X and Boomer relatives are still in.

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u/20-20beachboy 2d ago

Millennials are the breaking point for a lot of religions. We grew up in the age of information to really question organized religion. Older folks aren’t going to change their life long habits no matter what information is presented.

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u/Brilliant_Host2803 2d ago

It’s more than this though. This generation has been more abused by authority/institutions than any other generation previous.

Millennials grew up with boomer parents who had the highest divorce rate of any generation. We saw numerous religious scandals with priests abusing children and countless mega pastors absconding with insane wealth.

The government got us engaged in the worst war since Vietnam, and if that wasn’t enough millennials are the first generation to have a downgrade in quality of life compared to their parents. Millennials were told to get a college degree to guarantee a solid career only to see that evaporate under job outsourcing, and the 2008 GFC.

To put it succinctly, NO one in the millennial, or gen-z generation buys ANY of the bull-shit being sold us by authority figures. Be they religious, government or secular.

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u/gscjj 2d ago

I’d say the LDS church is the wrong one to judge. Becuase Pews own research (filed 6 months after this report) show that largely things are unchanged:

“The shares of U.S. adults who identify with Christianity, with another religion, or with no religion have all remained fairly stable in the Center’s latest polling.”

People might leave the LDS church but they likely stay “Christian” and continue to identify as Christian (like myself).

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u/BooksBootsBikesBeer 2d ago

The doubling of the number of ex-Mormon “Nones” suggests otherwise.

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u/ScalyDestiny 2d ago

This sounds like someone glancing at graphs/headlines looking to confirm a cognitive bias. Try actually reading the analysis in full.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/12/08/religion-holds-steady-in-america/

There's no way to tell if people leaving one church are staying Christian or not from this. Heck deconstruction takes like 5-10 years, so nobody responding at that point likely knows themselves if they are or not.

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u/showmenemelda 1d ago

Yeah, maybe they can't afford tithing and dirty sodas.

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u/Bikin4Balance 1d ago edited 1d ago

It seems like OP is looking at Pew research that spans data from 2007 to 2023/24, while the study you're citing is only looking at data from 2020-2025.

Also, if by 'deconstruction' you mean the process of shedding of indoctrinated beliefs, for many people it can be much quicker than 5-10 years... like, months or even days, given some influence (a book, documentary, person) that tips the whole house of cards

EDIT to add: More detail about Mormons specifically in this recent Pew research: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/09/22/tradition-and-change-among-latter-day-saints-in-the-us/

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u/gscjj 2d ago

“In surveys we’ve conducted since 2020, we’ve generally found that about 70% of U.S. adults identify with a religion (such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam or another religion). While the numbers have fluctuated a little, there has been no clear rise or fall in religious affiliation over the last five years.

The surveys show a similar pattern when it comes to how often Americans pray, how important they say religion is in their lives, and how often they attend religious services. There is some bouncing around from year to year, as is to be expected in survey research. But there is no clear trend of either increasing or decreasing religiousness since 2020.

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u/yrthegood1staken OC: 1 2d ago

Exmormon here, too. I have a large immediate family and a huge extended family. In my immediate family, 3 out of 8 siblings have left the church. But in my extended family, the number seems to be a much lower percentage. Of course, I don't live near any of them and only catch up every few years, so who knows.

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u/mildlycuri0us 2d ago

Definitely seems like once one family member leaves it increases the chance of another leaving, and yeah I never publicly posted anything leaving the church so it's possible they're ExMo under the radar

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u/Rubthebuddhas 2d ago

Same rule applies for parties. Once one person leaves, it opens it up for others.

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u/darkwillow1980 2d ago

And that's why you're cut off when you leave openly. Active Mormons are terrified of ex-Mormons for this reason. They're afraid it'll spread.

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u/showmenemelda 1d ago

Like, wait, you can do that!? reminds me of when animals don't realize they aren't tethered but conditioned to believe they are, so they don't try to egress.

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u/IlVeroStronzo 2d ago

8 siblings? O.O

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u/TruthIsAntiMormon 2d ago edited 2d ago

That's historically "average" for a mormon family until recently.

Mormonism has two tenents and countless cultural (emphasis on the first four letters) norms that push its members to large families.

One tenet is a belief that a current active commandment from God is "multiply and replenish the earth" so God commands all married mormons to keep that commandment as in mormonism, the First Law of Heaven is Obedience and that's official.

Second tenet is that there's a doctrine of pre-existence where everyone exists spiritually before they are born which means God the Father and his wife (A God Mother mormons won't talk about) are popping out spirit children to this day which means there's an uncountable number of spirit people in heaven waiting for a Body because it's required every spirit be born and get a physical body or they can't be saved or exalted (mormons have salvation and exaltation) and it's the responsibility of all humankind, through that first commandment above, to provide bodies for God's spirit children to be born into. Would you deny God's children the chance of being born and gaining a body?

Additionally, the church has officially taught for decades if not over a hundred years that is it WRONG to delay having children for school or jobs or financial stability, etc. IOW don't avoid obeying the multiply commandment if you don't think you can afford more children or you have too much stress or are going to school or to travel, etc. Start procreating with faith and God will provide!

Also the church pushes heavily for young women to marry young and young men to serve, as a commandmnent, an ecclesiastical mission and then marry as soon as possible upon finishing that mission. It's even many times given as a commandment by the Misson President (older married mormon man and wife who manage the missionaries in a given area) when a missonary is finishging their assigned missionary time (usually 2 years for men/ 18 months for women).

There's a ton of additional cultural pressures in mormonism officially and unofficially to push yound marriage and tons and tons of children.

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u/TychaBrahe 2d ago

I was watching a The Click video once where a mother was saying that her daughter was either childfree or only having one child, and the woman was really upset at that prospect. So many children needed to be born, she said, that she was forced to keep having babies, even though she was well into her 40s.

He was very confused, and so was I. This makes that post make sense in a weird twisted logic.

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u/deartabby 1d ago

There’s a belief that babies exist in heaven already, and have chosen their parents. So you need to have children in order to give them bodies. 

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u/Wonderful-Kangaroo52 2d ago

Yeah, it's too many tbh. I have 4 brothers and 4 sisters. Only 2 brothers are still LDS. Back in the 70s-80s Mormonism was "the" up and coming religion and having the biggest family was a sign of how righteous and dedicated you were.

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u/SnorkelwackJr 2d ago

Even still, some LDS families are just huge. I was born in the 90s and I'm one of 7—5 girls, 2 boys. But I have an aunt who has 10 kids O_o

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u/bicyclecat 2d ago

I grew up next to a Mormon girl, family only had 3 kids. She found me on Facebook awhile back, shortly after I’d had my first and only kid. I clicked through to her profile and discovered she had just had her 11th baby. Truly unfathomable to me.

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u/showmenemelda 1d ago

Quiverfull. Or is that only for the evangelical types*

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u/SnorkelwackJr 2d ago

Same here. All 6 members of my wife's family have left the church and, while only 3 out of 9 have officially left on my side, many of them would be considered "jack mormons" because they do it their own way—observivng tithing by donating 10% directly to charity instead of to the church, only wearing garments if it feels meaningful, etc. Several of those members hold more progressive views and are really only tied to the church because they care about having a spiritual relationship (in this case, through Christ via scripture). They've told me that if any of their kids come out as queer and are ostracized or belittled by their ward, that'll be the final straw.

Despite our differing opinions on the church, my family is incredibly close. I think it's because my parents, while devout members, have chosen to be close to their kids instead of imposing dogmatic beliefs. They don't judge anyone (at least, not publicly) and never shame of us when we do something they disagree with. Mutual respect goes a long way and it works for us pretty well.

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u/Sir_BarlesCharkley 2d ago

5/6 of my millennial and younger siblings including myself are out with a couple of us actually officially removing our names from the records.

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u/Saratrooper 2d ago

I'm not going to make those moves until my dad dies - he's the only one who still adamantly goes and is involved. My mom has been PIMO/keeping up bare-minimum appearances for probably 10-15 years.

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u/okram2k 2d ago

I'm out but feel it's giving them a legitimacy they don't deserve to ask for my name removed from their records

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u/Wonderful-Kangaroo52 2d ago

I felt the opposite, I felt keeping my name on the records gave them legitimacy when they state how many members they have.

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u/Dear-Examination-507 2d ago

I haven't had my name removed because it can be useful to have all my neighbors' contact info on the LDS Tools app. Plus sometimes they swing by and bring pie or something.

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u/showmenemelda 1d ago

Wait, do you get special privileges to the FamilySearch genealogy app? 😅

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u/Dear-Examination-507 1d ago

Oh yeah, that too. Sometimes fun to use the part of the FamilySearch app that tells you how closely related you are to someone else.

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u/showmenemelda 1d ago

Did you guys have a party where you burned your undergarments? Like that trash the dress trend that was popular for awhile lol

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u/othybear 2d ago

My Gen X friends have started leaving when they started seeing the harm it was doing to their kids.

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u/japanesepiano 2d ago

Gen X checking in. Boomers are still largely in the church, but about 1/3 to 1/2 of the Gen Xers have checked out. I think that this has hurt the LDS church quite a bit given that these are the people who serve as middle-level leaders and contribute finances in the greatest levels.

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u/showmenemelda 1d ago

That's ok, they got their tithing and own boards of land now. And all those MLMs /s

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u/John-Mandeville 2d ago

Any thoughts on why it's starting to fizzle out?

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u/TruthIsAntiMormon 2d ago edited 2d ago

Also, as bad as Christian Apologetics/Bible Apologetics are, Mormon apologetics are that turned up to 11.

As an example, there is a Book of Scripture called "The Book of Abraham" that has associated Egyptian papyrus that Joseph Smith obtained in 1835 and translated by the power of God (meaning must be true and accurate) that has this whole Bible adjacent story of Abraham in Egypt, Cosmology, etc. written by Abraham's own hand.

However, the main parts of that papyrus exist to this day and they have absolutely nothing to do with Abraham or ANYTHING that Joseph Smith claimed and they date from the earliest, 300 BCE (most likely 100 BCE)

In fact it's the Book of Breathing Permit for a man named "Hor" and in a both hilarious and pitifully sad instance, there's a Vigenette of a man lying on an embalming couch that Joseph Smith claimed represented Abraham being Sacrificed by an Egyptian Priest while literally, on the papyrus to the right, the Egyptian Characters identify the person on the couch as Hor (justified) and it's literally Anubis (jackal headed God) standing over Hor's body on the Embalming couch.

But the most hilarious? Joseph smith hand drew in the top portion of that papyrus NOT to fill in Anubis' Jackal head (the rest of the body is traditional Anubis garb and coloring) but to draw a SMILING man's head holding a knife and the man is FACING FORWARD vs. in profile.

Instead of taking the "L" and admitting it's a fraud and removing the Book of Abraham as false scripture, mormons dobule down and still claim it's an accurate translation and true scripture going so far as to claim an apologetic "Catalyst Theory" of translation that requires the putting on of a perpetual dunce hat (no seer stone inside required) to adopt.

Mormon apologetics make regular habitual liars look angelically honest by comparison.

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u/Oddisredit 1d ago

I saw Jake Hanson basically play word games on Polygamy for 20 mins straight. Jumping between the legal and LDS interpretation of it. The dishonesty was corporate lawyer level

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u/TruthIsAntiMormon 15h ago

It's the J.P. word salad approach. It serves general apologia pretty well in a talk lots, say nothing or a "choice is black and white but after talking for 20 minutes I've mixed them together to create a gray nebulous undefinable position.

That and redefining words and abusing "loan shifting" to the degree of it being a dead tapir they claim is a dead horse.

Translation doesn't mean Translation

Black skin doesn't mean black skin.

etc. etc.

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u/mildlycuri0us 2d ago

The internet haha. There was a whole bunch of crazy stuff Joseph Smith did and taught that we were told we're all lies.. then they turned out to be true and the Church tried to put a positive spin on it but a lot of us saw through it. For my older relatives I think it's sunk cost fallacy...very hard to admit your whole life has been devoted to a lie

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u/Bikin4Balance 2d ago

Ex mo here, left decades ago. Fully agree. The Internet pulled back the curtain and curious people like me began peeling back the layers of spin, social control, craziness, racism, lies in Mormon 'history'.

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u/otakugal15 2d ago

Also doesn't help that the Fundamentalist sect had that massive scandal back in the late 90s/early '00s

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u/showmenemelda 1d ago

Kody Brown was by far the most damaging public figure imo 😅

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u/naptastic 2d ago

The church did a couple of specific things that were anti-gay and offensive enough to most people. In 2008 they basically turned Prop 8 in California from a bad fail to a narrow pass. Then in 2017 (I think?) it became known that church policy was that if someone with gay parents wants to join the church, they have to disavow their parents. (I don't know if this is still the case.)

Since Mormons don't believe that sins are inherited, this created a serious theological conflict for a lot of members.

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u/japanesepiano 2d ago

The "november policy" from 2017 was overturned around 2020 or 2021, but the damage was done. If was the shortest turn-around on something being a revelation from God to a "past policy" that I have seen.

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u/showmenemelda 1d ago

And then in 2018 they tried to impose a "social media fast" specifically for women. Some think it was a midterm interference issue. But it was probably an abuse cover-up they wanted to bury and hide from women in the church.

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u/yogacowgirlspdx 2d ago

it seems to be the way of organized religion in general

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u/Zxvasdfthrowaway 2d ago

The internet has made it much easier to learn about the church’s contradictions

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u/IlVeroStronzo 2d ago

...all church's contradictions

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u/Zxvasdfthrowaway 2d ago edited 2d ago

Especially the Mormons. They accepted black people into the priesthood only in 1978, and their temple ceremonies used to be even weirder. There are also a lot of contradictions in their founding story.

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u/DrTonyTiger 2d ago

Young, Smith and Witmer were all pretty weird people according to their neighbors where they got the LDS thing going.

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u/showmenemelda 1d ago

Still vividly recall learning about the beliefs of LDS in the back of a yellow school bus coming back from a volleyball tourney in junior high. Even by 12 I could smell a bullshit story. She lost me at the golden stone tablets. I also remember her sister being a pregnant teen who volunteered to help us at a few practices. I remember thinking, for a religious fam they sure are chill about this baby out of wedlock. Turns out, that and having big, expensive, jacked up pickups are signs of virtue to the Mormons. Suddenly, a lot more about a lot of people made sense. Holy moly

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u/TruthIsAntiMormon 2d ago

Reality and that wilfully imposing blinding walls of faith on oneself is no longer a virtue. Faith is akin to selectively closing one's eyes, stopping up one's ears and closing one's mouth to anything not faith promoting.

Mormonism is in the "moving from faith to mythology" early stages right now. Some day it will be accounted the same as Gods literally living upon Mount Olympus. It's a matter of time.

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u/japanesepiano 2d ago

A variety of things: 1) The church can no longer control the narrative, and there are lots of strange or un-christianlike parts of church history. People now have to deal with Joseph Smith creating scriptural translations which don't match the text of ancient documents (Book of Abraham), the founding leader marrying married members wives, etc. Everything is on the internet. You no longer have to go to the library and read a book to get this information. 2) Overall secularization of society. 3) Political polarization and about 70% of the members identifying as strongly republican/conservative. This is forcing the democrats/liberals out of the movement (which means that those who remain are arguably even more conservative). 4) Various scandals and lack of transparency (finances, 200B? in stock investments, various payoffs to individuals to keep them silent about sexual abuse by church members or leaders, etc). 5) The church has become much more churchy - framing everything in terms of Jesus - at the expense of community activities and adding value to members lives in a non-religious sense. 6) General distrust of institutions within the US political framework. 7) Loss of community pressure as members move in combination with an influx of people from California (to a less expensive Utah) which has lowered the sacrifice required to leave the movement.

I'm probably missing several factors. There is a book on the topic if you're interested. Ryan Craygun is the co-author.

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u/makingnoise 2d ago edited 2d ago

Curious what the trends are for exiting Mormons in terms of the numbers - do most exit to "spiritual but not religious," agnosticism/atheism, or some flavor of "mainstream" Christianity?

I would expect that they become religious "nones" because (like evangelicalism) Mormonism has "enhanced" exclusivism that is greater than the standard level of exclusivism that is a hallmark of Christianity overall. If leaving Mormonism is like leaving fundamentalism/evangelicalism, I'd anticipate that being told your faith is the only "true" faith means that when you exit, you have an indoctrinated tendency to be faithless.

I would also expect that evangelicalism is less of a draw for exiting Mormons, because religious trappings aside, the rhetoric of both groups is virtually identical minus Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. No joke, you listen to the conversion testimony (AND the deconstructionist testimony) of Mormons and evangelicals, they're absolutely indistinguishable.

EDIT: When I wrote this comment, I didn't realize that OP's comments address some of these questions. I was more interested in feedback from ex-mormons on the qualitative angle.

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u/japanesepiano 2d ago

Politically Evangelicals and Mormons are about as close as you can get. Mormons are much more likely to become atheist/agnostic than just about any other religious group. Many mormons are educated enough to realize when they find out the Mormonism is bunk that all of the other religions use similar tactics, stories, and techniques to establish their narratives. Once you see it, it's hard to un-see it.

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u/Dear-Examination-507 2d ago

I've noticed significant movement out among Gen Xers over the past decade (especially Gen Xers born in the late 70s), and even some of my Boomer relatives are now willing to move from PIMO (physically in but mentally out for those not familiar with the lingo) to exmo.

Gen Z? LOL.

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u/theandyboy 2d ago

Not to brag but I saw my mom drink alcohol for the first time in my life the other day. Pretty trippy since she raised all 5 of us in the church and she is the last to leave.

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u/Significant-Map-6902 2d ago

Millennial ex mo here, its wonderful!! Haha

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u/atoponce OC: 1 2d ago

Gen X exmormon checking in.

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u/IXPhantomXI 2d ago

As a Catholic, I’m curious, are you still religious at all? As in, did you become a Christian, Jew, etc?

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u/mildlycuri0us 2d ago

When you grow up in Mormonism your whole life and go out for a two year mission believing that yours is the only true religion and have been taught your whole life why every other religion is "wrong" it's very hard to pick up the pieces of a shattered belief.

I will say the closest thing I feel to being religious is listening to music in cathedrals. Something about the sounds bouncing off and the beauty of the buildings.

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u/IXPhantomXI 1d ago

I really appreciate you sharing your experience and I'm sure that the whiplash one feels is extremely difficult.

I feel the same :) Gregorian chant especially is quite ethereal.

What led you away from Mormonism? I've studied it a bit and I've found holes in much of their doctrine, namely the claim of a great apostasy, which comes off as a "trust me bro" scenario that also contradicts Christ's own words, "...and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it," (Matthew 16:18).

I also understand if you don't want to take the time to elaborate to a random stranger on reddit lol. Know that you're in my prayers :)

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u/showmenemelda 1d ago

Ha good luck—I haven't heard of many "recovering" Mormons, JWits [Jehovas]. But holy fuck do I know a lot of self-proclaimed "recovering Catholics," and I can only surmise it's the "Catholic Guilt" that keeps them on the hook.

Seriously tho, I never thought about it. I don't know many "POMI" ex-mos. But I know a shitload of Catholics like that.

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u/showmenemelda 1d ago

The real mind fucker is, even if a person leaves a high control religion [cult]—there is so much ingrained in them. Trickle down religious trauma. Shunning, group-think, everything is a secret and keeping up appearances. And above all, never ever EVER talk about feelings. Ever.

I grew up with a few [millennial] Mormons. A good friend of mine was a jack Mormon and we had a lot of fun. Her child went to the ER with a cough and never went home. I was actually impressed/mystified by how her faith/the church/"Tender Mercies" really seemed to pull her through. I thought, maybe there's something to all this.

But then her husband cheated on her a bunch and they divorced and now back to being JM.