How politics and polarization are shaping Latter-day Saints in the U.S. | Episode 383

A new report by the Pew Research Center, the Religious Landscape Study, has given members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints plenty to pat themselves on the back about.

According to the survey of 37,000 U.S. adults, including 565 self-identified Latter-day Saints, active members of the Utah-based faith are some of Christianity’s workhorses, showing up for church each Sunday and finding time in between services to pray, read scriptures and teach their children about their faith — all at enviable rates.

At the same time, the study’s authors found a significant drop in U.S. retention rates since the last time they polled members in 2014. And women, long heralded as the more reliable sex, appear to now be in the minority.

On this week’s show, sociologists Marie Cornwall and Tim Heaton, former professors at church-owned Brigham Young University and editors of the 2001 book “Contemporary Mormonism: Social Science Perspectives,” contextualize those numbers and other findings — including Latter-day Saint views on politics, abortion and climate change.