Episode Description
In the 1980s, sociologist Rodney Stark projected the LDS Church would reach somewhere between 63 and 265 million members by 2080. Today, it has just 17.8 million—and only four in ten Gen Z women raised in the faith still identify with it.
Everyone has a theory about why. The culture got worse. The church did this. Jana Riess names three P's—politics, purity culture, powerlessness.
This episode proposes a fourth: pressure. Pew's data shows certainty declining far faster than belief, which means a religion that demands certainty is asking for something a whole generation can no longer produce.
So what would a community look like with real claims, real expectations, and room to say you don't know?
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction: Why Women Are Leaving Mormonism
04:10 Cultural Explanations and Critiques
06:08 The Three Ps: Politics, Purity Culture, Powerlessness
13:58 The Fourth P: Pressure
17:57 Reimagining Faith: Support and Challenge in Communities
29:55 The Future of Faith Communities and Belief
Resources- Jana Riess, "Why are so many young women leaving the LDS Church?"
- Tamarra Kemsley, "For Latter-day Saints, the retention decline is more than a people problem"
- Barbara Morgan Gardner, "Why are young Latter-day Saint women struggling?"
- W. Justin Dyer, Jenet Jacob Erickson, Sam A. Hardy, Barbara Morgan Gardner, and David C. Dollahite, Latter-day Saint Trends in the United States: Religiousness, Well-Being, and Retention
- Ryan Burge, "Belief Isn't Dying, It's Just Getting Less Certain"
- Ryan Burge, "The LDS Church Has a Retention Problem"
- Pew Research Center, Religious Landscape Study
- Jana Riess, The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church. Oxford University Press, 2019.
- Jana Riess and Benjamin Knoll, Leaving Mormonism: Who Is Exiting The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—and Why. Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
- Rodney Stark, "The Rise of a New World Faith," Review of Religious Research 26, no. 1 (1984): 18–27.
- Dallin H. Oaks, "Pornography"
- Katie L., "Breathing Room"