Mass Re-Resignation Protest

I’m announcing a protest against how the LDS church reports its membership, especially those who’ve resigned.

Why?  Because they out right lied again last Saturday, April 6, in their General Conference.  The LDS church listed annual membership numbers as follows (See http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2013/04/2012-annual-statistical-report.html):

·         Total membership:  14,782,473

·         2012 Increased members: 341,127

o   "children of record": 122,273

o   new baptismal converts: 272,330

If you sum the increase, you get 122,273 + 272,330 = 394,603.  This is 53,476 less than the stated 2012 increase. Where did those 53,476 members disappear to?  Deaths, resignations, excommunications…?

Death rates in the US are about 8.4 deaths per 1,000 (See http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/demographics_profile.html).  The 53,476 equals (53,476/14,782,473) about 3.6 deaths per 1,000.  (Also note that the birth rate on average in the US is about 13.7 per 1,000, and in the LDS numbers above computed as 8.3 per 1,000.  This seems low as well, but not close to as low as the death rate.)

Again, average death rate: 8.3/1000.
Mormon member death rate: 3.6/1000.

Does this mean that Mormons only die 43% as often, on average, as the rest of the industrialized world?  Recall, that 14+million membership includes at least half of its accounted membership from impoverished third world nations.  Likewise, are they having fewer children than the rest of the world?

So what is going on with the numbers?

What seems to be happening is that the LDS church formula assumes nearly 100% retention rates. According to BYU, the church’s university, members born in the church leave at a rate of about 34% (combined 20% never-active with 14% complete nonbelievers). For converts from 50 to 75% leave permanently.    See http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Vital_Statistics.

Apparently, the LDS church does not appear to be subtracting resigned and excommunicated members.  Also it would seem only the deaths of active members are reported to church headquarters and accounted, making its death loss much lower (3.6 in 1,000) than the actual death rate.

Thus, the additions made each year are overstated, and the subtractions are understated. This goes on year after year and the official number of members gets farther and farther from the truth.

If the correct numbers of losses were reported, the actual losses might have gone from 53,476, to around 160,000 (~40%) in 2012.  That's a large force to be reckoned with.

Membership in the LDS church consists solely as a number and record owned by Intellectual Reserve Inc. (IRI) (a church owned subsidiary). That membership number is listed in their Member Information System and other internal databases.  You are not actually a member of the church.  You are a subscriber to IRI by a number held by IRI.  As such, and as a non-profit, they do not have to disclose anything they consider proprietary (intellectual property at Intellectual Reserve) about you or information they hold about you. 

What happens if you resign?  When you resign, you're not removed. I verified this by re-resigning twice. Each time you re-resign, they confirm to you that they have a record of you already having resigned. And furthermore, there is evidence that they still count you in their records as still being members in the ~15 million persons (latest claimed numbers) listed in their IRI database (and counting).

The LDS church has been lauded in the press as “leading way in U.S. religious growth”.  It gives the impression that the stone cut without hands is growing by leaps and bounds.  And yet, the church misleads, severely, on this stone growth.

Book of Mormon DNA critic Simon Southerton, PhD, has reported on this misleading information here: http://simonsoutherton.blogspot.com/2012/04/google-apostasy-spreads-to-united.html and you will find great analysis at his site.

I am formally announcing my call to Protest the LDS Church’s misleading membership numbers by calling for a Mass Re-Resignation.  Yes, RE-resignation.

Former members can resend our information into Salt Lake, (even if you've already resigned previously).  The possible flood of extra, redundant paperwork should get SLC-LDS-COB attention.  That which costs them money gets their attention.  Until the church acknowledges our resignation in its reported numbers at conference and to census takers, I say we annually remind them that they mislead everyone about the membership, especially our family and friends.  A Re-Resignation Protest might bring more enlightenment to inactive members.  It could encourage those who left the church but never bothered to resign to join the protest and formally resign. Publicity about the church's unethical membership accounting could have impact on many, even providing Church Office Building employees job security amidst the lay offs in LDS-land.

The date of the protest could occur between May 19 – May 25, 2013 if there's enough support.  We could also hold it at the same time as the already planned first-timer's Mass Resignation on June 29.  Let's see how others respond to this call for protest and decide on a date.

Next year, if needed, we will move it to the same weekend they report the numbers in the April 2014 General Conference.

To resign or re-resign, please follow the instructions here.  And please add more ideas below and elsewhere this protest is announced.  I don't need to keep control or lead it.  It's for everyone!