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Good info, CC, though the statistics don’t sit right with me. I don’t accept the premise that the Church is inflating membership numbers. More on that later.

~”Mauss says the worldwide retention problem stems from missionaries attempting to baptize as many people as possible, some of whom are not prepared for the demands of an LDS life. New members are often not provided the support they need during their first year in the faith.”~

I can see that, given the anecdotal evidence I’ve seen. In South America, where the Church’s growth is explosive, about 90% of new converts go inactive within a year. Those are some pretty severe growing pains. What I don’t know is how many of them are eventually reactivated. It’s not an insignificant number, though.

In Italy, where I served my mission, a convert was a very rare thing. The average missionary in the Rome mission was baptizing one person a year. But we had a retention rate of almost 100%. Our running joke was that one Italian conversion is worth 20 South American conversions.

There has been a real emphasis, particularly by President Hinckley, to fellowship and support new converts, and I’ve seen significant improvement. Of the last ten or so new converts that I’ve seen, only about three have gone inactive. It’s all anecdotal, and the shift is too new for quantitative analysis to confirm that the emphasis is meeting with success; but it seems to me that the situation is improving (at least from my perspective - from yours, that may not be the best word :-) ).

I don’t agree with the alarmists who say that the Church is stagnant or even collapsing. When we are consistently bursting our buildings at the seams despite new chapels being built all the time, I just don’t see it. Our numbers are growing, even though the American population is roughly keeping pace.

One way to judge the “real growth” of the LDS Church is to take a look at the number of stakes and wards. A stake or ward is formed in response to a specific number of -active- members (particularly worthy priesthood holders able to fill the leadership positions). It takes active members to fill the positions necessary to maintain a well-functioning stake or ward, no matter how many inactive members may be on the roles - and sometimes the number of inactives on the roles is several times the number of actives.

Here’s an interesting video that visualizes the growth in the number of stakes since the Church settled in Utah. The soundtrack is a bit melodramatic, but the visualization is effective:
http://www.allaboutmormons.com/ENG_Video29.php

Take a look here:
http://mormonstories.org/?p=252

Note the graph of stakes. I noticed that the increase the number of stakes flattened about 1997, while the increase in membership stayed linear. This denotes a lessening rate of convert retention, and lasted about 5-7 years. The chart is starting to pick back up; we’ll have to wait and see if that’s a blip or the beginning of a new trend.

What I’d really like to know is what happened in 1989. I don’t think anybody’s been able to isolate any specific factors, though.

The following figures are derived from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States

According to the U.S. Census, there were 281 million Americans in 2000. Of that, 1.4% claimed to be LDS. That totals to 3,934,000 members in 2000. Assuming the same percentage applies today, the Census Bureau estimates the U.S. population at about 302,500,000 today. That comes out to 4,235,000 self-identified Mormons in the U.S. today. This does not count the number that are officially on the LDS roles, such as yourself, but do not self-identify as such. How many? Impossible to know for sure. Perhaps we could estimate that at an even 4.5 million total. If you are correct, of course, that 1.7 million live in Utah, then 2.8 million live in the rest of the country. I think I spotted somewhere that California has 700,000.

So, it appears my number of 6,000,000 was too high, and your number of 2,500,000 was too low.

My logical flaw was that I assumed that the distribution of new converts was about 50/50 between inside the U.S. and outside. This, of course, is ridiculous in the face of the numbers. In fact, Church growth outside has been significantly greater outside the United States for several decades, and a decided majority of Mormons are now non-Americans. Is roughtly 8.5 million non-American Mormons an outlandish claim? Given the explosive growth of the Church worldwide, particularly in South America, non-communist Asia, and more recently in Africa, I don’t find the number to be incredible.

As a percentage of population in the U.S., the Church’s growth does appear to be flat in recent years. I wonder if our detractors’ biggest fear is that a Romney presidency would change that? Get us up to a whole 2%? I don’t think that will be the case; but I must admit, there’s a small part of me that chuckles when I see this fear expressed.

I didn’t suggest that the Church inflates it numbers. I simply pointed out the discrepancies between “member of record,” and those who self-identify. To count on votes from Mormons who simply aren’t there would be dangerous.

I will say this however, the LDS Church has a practice of making it appear that it’s growth is larger than it actually is. “In 1998, President Gordon B. Hinckley stated: “We are experiencing a combined growth of converts and natural increase of some 400,000 a year. Every single year that is the equivalent of 160 new stakes of 2,500 people each.” This statement has been widely quoted as evidence of the Church’s rapid growth. In fact, the Church has never yet experienced a net gain of 400,000 members in a single year, nor has there ever been a year in the history of the Church when 160 or more stakes were formed. The highest stake gains ever were of 142 in 1995 and 146 in 1996, which were up from annual gains of 32-78 over the preceding decade. Over the most recent five-year period forwhich data are available (1998-2003), the Church gained a total of 119 stakes, or an average of only 24 stakes per year. The low number of congregations and stakes being formed reflects fractional retention of converts.”

As far as your assertion that LDS Church growth in larger in other countries, we find this information from the article which appeared in the Miami Herald’s Mexico edition:

Thanks to converts like Gabriel and his neighbors in San Juan Guichicovi, Mexico now has the second-largest Mormon population in the world, after the United States. And it continues to grow. In 1990, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS, counted 617,455 members here. Today, it reports a membership of 1,037,775: a 15 year growth of 68 percent. In Mexico City alone, LDS officials say they are adding 1,000 new members each month.

Apparently, in the 2000 census, people were asked to identify themselves in Mexico by religion. A book I am reading entitled, “El Fenomeno Religioso en el Occidente de Mexico” has results for the census. 88% of Mexicans consider themselves Catholics. Almost 5% consider themselves Evangelicals. They have a category called “Others” which includes Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. There were over One million people who categorized themselves as Jehovah’s Witnesses, about 489,000 that considered themselves Seventh Day Adventists and only 205,000 people that consider themselves Mormons.

So after decades of missionary work in Mexico and all kinds of bragging about growth rates, the LDS badly trail Evangelicals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Adventists in members. They’ve hardly made any dent in the Catholic population. So much for the idea that Lamanites are going to blossom like a rose in Mexico.

Tant, How did you say it?...... there’s a small part of me that chuckles when I see this fear expressed in.... over inflated numbers.