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18

THE RISE OF A NEW WORLD FAITH

RODNEY STARK

University of Washington

Review of Religious Research, Vol. 26, No. 1 (September, 1984). This essay suggests the unique opportunity the Mormons present to sociolo-

gists of religion: a chance to watch an extraordinarily rare event, the rise of a new world faith. Patterns of Mormon growth are traced from the start of the movement in 1830 through the present. Data on where the Mormons are growing, and their rates ofgrowth, suggest that within a century there may well be more than 250 million Mormons. The essay concludes with suggestions for future research.

The formation of a new religion must occur almost daily somewhere in the world (Stark and Bainbridge, 1984). For all that, it is exceedingly difficult to study the rise of new religions. Virtually all new faiths are born and die in obscurity, thus giving sociologists no opportunity to see what factors lead to success. And, nearly all of the others can be said to "rise" only in comparison with the utter failures, for they too pass into history as no more than a footnote, and that, only because of their novelty. Indeed, it has been nearly 1,400 years since a new religion has appeared that became a major world faith.

It is, of course, much too late to study how Islam arose in the 7th Century, as it is too late to study the rise of the other great world faiths. Their formative periods are now forever shrouded in the fog of unrecorded history. Despite the many admirable efforts to deduce "histories" of these great movements by sociologizing upon shreds of texts (Scroggs, 1980; Theissen, 1982; Meeks, 1982), there are severe limits to what can be learned by these means. Sociologists of religion must await new developments to provide them with critical evidence.

In this essay I suggest that we need wait no longer, that the time of deliverance is now at hand. I shall give my reasons for believing that it is possible today to study that incredibly rare event: the rise of a new world religion. I shall attempt to demonstrate that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons, will soon achieve a worldwide following comparable to that of Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and the other dominant world faiths.

In other essays I offer a preliminary analysis of why the Mormons have succeeded and a general model of why new religions triumph or fail (Stark, forthcoming). Here I limit my attention primarily to describing the Mormon "miracle" of rapid growth and to presenting plausible projections of the immediate future. Finally, I will explain why intense study of the Mormons is urgent for sociologists of religion, and suggest some useful directions for such study to take.

IN THE BEGINNING

On April 6, 1830, Joseph Smith, his brothers Hyrum and Samuel, Oliver Cowdery, and Peter and David Whitmer met in the Whitmer home in Fayette, New

19

York-a farming village in the western part of the state. That day these six young men organized the Church of Christ, and afterwards Joseph Smith served commu- nion and "confirmed" the world's first Mormons. Of course, they did not call themselves Mormons then, and it was not for several years that they adopted the name the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. But they were Mormons nonetheless (Arrington and Bitton, 1979).

In the 150 years since these obscure beginnings, the Mormons have sustained the most rapid growth of any new religion in American history. Indeed, today they stand on the threshold of becoming the first major faith to appear on earth since the Prophet Mohammed rode out of the desert (whereas the Mormons gained strength initially by riding back into the desert). To understand where the Mormons may be in the near future, it is first necessary to see how they got where they are.

Initially there were six Mormons. But, within days they were joined by others, mostly their relatives and close friends, and by September 1830 there were 62 Mormons. Almost immediately, missionaries were dispatched to bring the Mormon message to the world. Thus, late that first year four members led by Oliver Cowdery (who had been sent as missionaries to the Indians in Missouri) stopped in Kirtland, Ohio. While there they succeeded in converting Sidney Rigdon, a Camp- bellite preacher who had just broken with the Disciples of Christ, and more than 100 of his followers.

In the spring of 1831 Joseph Smith led his followers from western New York to Kirtland, thus merging the two groups and establishing a center for the Mormon movement. By the summer of 1835 there were at least 2,000 Mormons living in and around Kirtland and work was nearly complete on the first Mormon Temple, a 15- room, sandstone structure. Meanwhile, a second major center had been established in Missouri, where thousands more flocked to the new faith (Arrington and Bitton, 1979).

The rapid growth of this new religion, a faith that proclaimed that the Age of Revelation had resumed, provoked anxiety, opposition, and, soon, serious persecu- tion. In Missouri public officials moved against the "heretics" and jailed Joseph Smith for six months in 1838-1839. Seeking elbow room to freely construct their own Mormon society, 5,000 Mormons migrated to western Illinois where they founded the city of Nauvoo in 1839. Joseph Smith joined them there and the city flourished, soon becoming the largest in the state with a population of more than 11.000, while many other Mormon families settled on farms nearby.

It was in Nauvoo that the Mormons fully demonstrated their capacity to build a civilization in the wilderness and to create a rich and distinctive culture. Indeed, it was in Nauvoo that Smith revealed the full scope of his revelations thus giving final form to a Mormon theology that clearly made it a new religion. The Book of Mormon, first published in 1830, may not have added enough doctrinal novelty to the Christian tradition to have made Mormonism more than a Protestant sect. The doctrines revealed in Nauvoo, however, added as much novelty to Christianity as it, in turn, had added to Judaism.

Once established in Nauvoo, the Mormons not only continued to send out large numbers of missionaries across the nation, but they opened an official mission in England. Within months, converts began to board ships chartered by the Mormon agency in Liverpool, headed for Nauvoo, Illinois. Thus, by 1840, only a year after the founding of Nauvoo, and only a decade since the original six young men organized the church, there were approximately 30,000 Mormons.

20

The next decade was the most tumultuous and painful in Mormon history. Illinois proved no more hospitable than Missouri. Intermittent conflicts with state officials and nearby non-Mormons began to escalate. Then, on June 25, 1844, a lynch mob broke into the jail in Carthage, Illinois, where Joseph and Hyrum Smith were being held, and murdered them both. The prophet was only 38 years old.

The death of Joseph Smith caused a crisis of leadership succession. Several schismatic groups broke off, while many individual Mormons simply drifted away. Finally, in 1846, under the leadership of Brigham Young, the main body of Mormons abandoned Nauvoo and began a long, slow and dangerous migration West. Sending farmers ahead to plant crops along the route to be harvested later by the great wagon trains as they went, the Mormons broke trail across the unsettled Great Plains and scaled the Rockies. Many died, but finally, the Mormons reached the isolated Great Salt Lake Valley. There, in July 1847, Brigham Young and the advance party selected the site for the main settlement and immediately began to lay out survey lines for the streets and for the foundation of the Salt Lake Temple.

What seems astounding is that, despite these terrible trials, the Mormons actually doubled in number during that second decade: by 1850 there were 60,000 Mor- mons. How could this have been accomplished during a period of such internal strife and schism? It was due to the huge success of Mormon missionaries in Europe, especially in Great Britain.

From the beginning the Mormons have excelled at missionary effort-during their first decade of existence they managed to send forth 597 missionaries, some of them overseas. As a result, by 1837 they had 600 members in Britain. The early success of Mormon foreign missions has long been overlooked outside the Mormon community because until well into the 20th century Mormon converts gained abroad were aided in coming to the United States. That prevented the buildup of local congregations and also came to hamper recruitment as converts departed for America before their network ties in the old country could be fully exploited (Stark and Bainbridge, 1980a). Thus, Mormon congregations abroad today, especially in Europe, are of relatively recent origins and do not adequately reflect the 19th century response to the Mormon message.

An examination of Mormon membership statistics for England, Scotland, and Wales from 1837 through 1980 demonstrates the extent of early missionary success and the way in which emigration drained their foreign congregations (see Table 1). In only 13 years (1837-1850) Mormon membership exploded from 600 to more than 30,000 according to official church statistics which are confirmed by the British religious census of 1851 (Currie, Gilbert, and Horsley, 1977). These data give new meaning to growth of Mormonism during the decade of the 1840s-for in 1850 more than half of the Mormons on earth were in Britain, not Utah. But, notice that by 1860, Mormon membership in Britain had plunged to less than 14,000. Few had quit the church. Instead, they had gone to America.

As early as 1846 it is estimated that 5,000 converts had come from Britain and by 1854 another 15,000 are estimated to have come (O'Dea, 1957). By 1890 there were fewer than 3,000 Mormons left in the British Isles. To local observers the Mormons must have seemed a brief-lived fad, and, during the first half of this century, Mormonism remained an insignificant religious group in Britain. But then a new burst of growth set in. In the 30 years from 1950 to 1980, the faith grew from about 6,000 members to more than 90,000.

21

Table 1

MORMON MEMBERSHIP IN BRITAIN: 1837 - 1980*

1837 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1941 1950 1960 1970 1980

600 3,626

30,747 13,853

8,804 5,112 2,770 4,183 6,864 6,797 6,491 6,364 6,357

17,332 68,217 90,982

*Official church statistics

TODAY

Mormon missionaries are not paid professionals. Rather, each is a young volun- teer who pays his (and, more frequently today, her) own expenses. The church pays only the cost of transportation to a mission assignment and back. All other costs needed to serve as a full-time missionary for two years (recently reduced to 18 months) are supplied by the missionary's family, by money saved before going on a mission, or by a bank loan. All young Mormon men of good moral standing are encouraged to go on their mission, and today about 40 percent actually do. This has several consequences. First, it provides a steady supply of young, talented, eager missionaries-the best of each generation. Second, converts also tend to be young and talented, since people are most effective in sharing their faith with people like themselves. Third, the missionary experience has immense socialization benefits for the young missionaries and enables the Mormons to rely on a volunteer, unpaid, yet trained, priesthood to staff the church. Finally, it results in a worldwide missionary effort on a scale that would otherwise be inconceivable. The Mormons have nearly as many missionaries in the field as do all of the Protestant bodies of North America combined (Stark and Bainbridge, 1984).

By 1979 more than 260,000 Mormons had served a tour of mission duty since the founding of the church. In 1980 there were 30,000 Mormons on full-time missions. This incredible missionary effort is matched by equally incredible rates of Mormon growth.

--

Number of Rate of Year Members Increase

1830 62 1840 30,000 1850 60,000 100o 1860 80,000 33% 1870 110,000 3 1880 160,000 45% 1890 205,000 28% 1900 268,331 31% 1910 393,437 47% 1920 526.032 34% 1930 672,488 28% 1940 862,664 28% 1950 1,111,314 29% 1960 1,693,180 52% 1970 2,930,810 73% 1980 4,638,000 58%

PROJECTIONS: estimate estimated rate

2080 63,415,000 30%o per decade 2080 265,259,000 50%o per decade

22

Table 2 is based on official church membership statistics. It is worth noting that Mormon statistics are extremely reliable (is there another denomination that ac- tually sends out auditors to check local figures?). The pattern of growth revealed in the table not only is rapid, but since World War II the rate has been accelerating. For each of the past three decades growth has exceeded 50 percent.

One reason for Mormon growth is that their fertility is sufficiently high to offset both mortality and defection. But a more important reason is a rapid rate of conversion. Indeed, the nmajority of Mormons today were not born in the faith, but were converted to it.

The rapid growth of the Mormons has gone amazingly unremarked by outsiders. There are probably many reasons for this, including the persistence of considerable prejudice against Mormons (Stark and Bainbridge, 1984) and the seeming inability of the mass media to cover adequately much of anything that happens West of Chicago. A more basic reason may be the inability of people to think in terms of rates rather than in terms of absolute numbers. Thus we tend to dismiss small groups as insignificant no matter how astounding their rate of growth, and, until very

Table 2

THE GROWTH RECORD OF THE MORMON CHURCH*

*Official church statistics

23

recently, the absolute number of Mormons was small. Moreover, even today the Mormons appear to be but a small religious group, even in the United States, if we compare them to Roman Catholics and "Protestants." Indeed, we are accustomed to regarding Protestants as far the largest American religious group. But, there is no such group. Protestant is a purely arbitrary and highly misleading statistical category embracing hundreds of very different, competing faiths (Stark and Glock, 1968).

If we disassemble Protestants into their constituent groups, a most remarkable fact comes to light. The Mormons, with 3.1 million American members in 1980 are thefifth largest religious body in the nation. They are exceeded in size only by the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, the United Methodist Church, and the National Baptist Convention, which is the oldest and largest of the black denominations. That the Mormons have overtaken such prominent and "respectable" faiths as the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and even the Lutherans, must be one of the most unremarked cultural watersheds in American history. Indeed, only a few Protestant sects have kept pace with Mormon growth in America (among them the Nazarenes and the Seventh-Day Adventists), although they remain much smaller.

Keep in mind that the Mormons are not a Protestant sect. To many Christian theologians, the Mormons are not even a Christian denomination. Albeit they have retained cultural continuities with Christianity (just as Christianity retained conti- nuities with Judaism and classical paganism), but the Mormons are a new religion. Their rapid growth has occurred in the face of much greater hostility than has been directed towards any Protestant sect and is thereby all the more remarkable.

Mormon growth is not, however, a purely American phenomenon. Indeed, the church is growing even more rapidly in many other nations. Table 3 shows international Mormon growth rates for the two-year period 1978-80. In those two years the Mormons grew by 10 percent in the United States. But their foreign congregations grew by 32 percent! Moreover, growth rates in Latin America and parts of Asia often were double this worldwide rate. Average growth for South America was an incredible 72 percent in only two years, while in Asia growth surpassed 60 percent. In Chile the Mormons grew by 121 percent in two years. In Argentina by 68 percent. In Korea the increase was 83 percent, and in Japan 79 percent. Granted that the absolute numbers of Mormons in these nations is small but with rates of growth like this they will not remain small very long.

TOMORROW

Today there are more than 5 million Mormons on earth. How many will there be in the near future? Projections require assumptions. If growth during the next century is like that of the past, the Mormons will become a major world faith. If, for example, we assume they will grow by 30 percent per decade, then in 2080 there will be more than 60 million Mormons. But, since World War II, the Mormon growth rate has been far higher than 30 percent per decade. If we set the rate at 50 percent, then in 2080 there will be 265 million Mormons.

Admittedly, straight-line projections are risky; they assume the future will be like the past. There is no way to be sure that Mormon growth won't suddenly begin to decline. But it would be wise to keep in mind that back in 1880 scholars would have

24

Table 3

TWO YEARS OF MORMON GROWTH 1978-1980

Percentage Rate of Membership Growth Number of

1978-1980 Members in 1980

Western Europe 22% 99,994 Central America 15% 51,701 South America 72% 368,064 Asia 61% 139,523 South Pacific 17% 135.952

SELECTED NATIONS:

Chile 121% 82,625

Agentina 68% 65,936 Brazil 59% 81,504

Mexico 21% 241,521

Japan 79% 57,093 Korea 83% 21,802

Philippines 59% 41,802 Samoa 23% 27,020

Tonga 21% 18,484

Austral i a 17% 39,699

New Zealand 12% 40,652

Great Britain 11% 90,982

Canada 13% 81,244

*These regions do not include many nations were Mormons have successful missions. For example, Mexico is not included in the Central American data and Great Britain is not included in Western Europe.

ridiculed anyone who used a straightline projection to predict that the 160,000 Mormons of that year would number more than 5 million a century hence. But that is now history.

I recognize that most of my colleagues in the scientific study of religion will not be easily persuaded to anticipate 60 million, let alone 265 million Mormons in the late 21st century. Indeed, most still probably expect that the primary future trend in religion is secularization-that the spread of modernization and scientific rational- ism will erode the capacity for faith in the supernatural. Elsewhere, I have at- tempted theoretically and empirically to refute the secularization thesis (Stark and Bainbridge, 1980b; 1981; 1984). This is not the place to renew that debate. However, since the secularization thesis affects the plausibility of projections of

25

Mormon growth, it is worth noting several things about where the Mormons are growing fastest and to whom they are most able to appeal.

The secularization thesis would hold that religious movements such as Mor- monism will do best in places where modernization has had the least impact on the plausibility of supernaturalism, and among segments of the population least ex- posed to modernization. If so, then the spread of modernization would seem to present a serious future limit to continued Mormon growth.

These assumptions about secularization are refuted by research. Mormon growth rates are much the highest in those nations of Latin America where the Catholic Church displays the greatest weakness. Indeed, Mormon growth rates in Latin America are correlated + .46 with the rates of persons claiming to have no religion (Stark, in press). Similarly, Mormon growth rates are correlated -.69 with weekly church attendance rates for European nations (Stark and Bainbridge 1984). That is, Mormons thrive in the most, not the least, secularized nations. In similar fashion, Mormon growth is very positively associated with measures of modernization and industrialization.

Thus, modernization may play a role in weakening or secularizing the conven- tional faiths of societies. But the result is not a population "immune" to supernatu- ral beliefs. Instead, secularization creates a pool of people ready to embrace a new, less secularized, supernatural faith. Indeed, research shows that new religious movements most heavily over-recruit from those whose prior religious affiliation was "none" (Stark and Bainbridge, 1984). Thus it is not only the Mormons who are thriving in the more secularized nations of Europe and Latin America; it is there too that the Scientologists, Hare Krishnas, and a variety of novel Indian and Eastern faiths also are having much greater success. But, the Mormons are having much greater success than the others (Stark and Bainbridge 1984).

Neither does research support the thesis that the Mormons mainly find their converts among the poor and the dispossessed, those least affected by moderniza- tion and the onset of secularization. As with new religious movements generally, the Mormons appeal most effectively to the better educated and the more successful (Stark and Bainbridge, 1984).

In consequence, I can find no reason to expect the Mormons suddenly to lose their ability to gain converts. In historical terms, they must lose their conversion capacities very quickly if they are not to become a major world faith.

IMPLICATIONS

In a series of recent articles, many with William Sims Bainbridge, I have extolled the value of studying cult movements. Since all new religions begin in obscurity, if we would see them in their formative days we must seek them out while they are tiny, deviant, and insignificant. Now I would like to qualify that advice. When we study cult movements we must keep clearly in mind that the data we collect are based mainly on groups that have got something wrong. Most are attempting to spread the wrong message, in the wrong way, to the wrong people, in the wrong time and place. Most probably will never attract 500 members, and few will ever attract 20,000. Most will not exist 40 years from now.

When we base research on groups that have gotten something wrong, we risk enshrining their errors as intrinsic to religious movements. For example, most

26

recent cult movements heavily over-recruit women (Stark and Bainbridge, 1984). Undoubtedly it is important to explain why. But, it is equally important to ask whether that is simply how new movements get going, or whether it is a fatal flaw that ensures their failure. Only by comparisons between the more and less success- ful movements can we begin to answer such a question. Moreover, only by very careful study of a truly successful movement can we hope to glimpse how and why new religions succeed. Put another way, too much concentration on generalizing from many cases of cult movements may produce, unwittingly, a sociology of religious failure.

A second example might be helpful. John Lofland and I (1965) found from a field study of the first American cell of the Unification Church (now more commonly known as the "Moonies") that interpersonal bonds, not ideological appeals, were the primary basis of conversion. We also reported that the Moonies did best by concentrating on methods to locate social isolates (often persons new to a particular locale), since they could most rapidly build intense social attachments with such people. The Moonies are, in fact, a relatively more successful new religious movement so far and therefore do not necessarily present us with a sociology of failure. But, the fact remains that subsequent study of the Mormons has revealed the superiority of recruitment strategies based on gaining access to new social networks. For then, much more sustained and rapid growth is possible as conver- sion spreads through preexisting social bonds (Stark and Bainbridge, 1980a; Stark and Roberts, 1982). If any of this was news to sociologists, it wasn't to the Mormons. An article in a Mormon magazine, written by a mission president and intended to help individual Mormon families be more effective in converting others, showed practical awareness of virtually everything learned about conver- sion by sociologists over the past 20 years (Stark and Bainbridge, 1980a). We can learn much, not only from study of the Mormons, but from them directly.

CONCLUSION

The "miracle" of Mormon success makes them the single most important case on the agenda of the social scientific study of religion. From the Mormons we can see how a successful movement differs from the thousands of failures. Moreover, not only are we fortunate to have such a movement available for study, but we can also hope to profit immensely from the extraordinary efforts of Mormon social scientists to study their faith. Through the years, I have consulted with many denominational research departments and have read countless reports of their results. I have often been very favorably impressed. Yet, the research efforts of other denominations shrink to insignificance when compared with the quality, scope, and sophistication of the work of the Mormon social research department. One might as well be comparing missionary efforts.

Much of this work is not yet readily available outside the church and I have been unusually privileged to see it. Yet, there is every reason to be confident that the results of these truly important studies will find their way into the appropriate journals soon. And, even if we must wait awhile, what is really important is that the right data are being collected in the right way. Thus they constitute a prize for scholars, if not today, then at some future time. Suppose that the Apostle Paul had

27

not only sent out letters, but questionnaires? And, what if it were only today that the Vatican released them? Would we think them too old to be useful?

In closing, let me suggest that this special issue of the Review of Religious Research is intended not simply to present some significant research on the Mor- mons, but to encourage dialogue between Mormon and non-Mormon sociologists of religion. It is a potentially important exchange for both. For non-Mormons it increases the visibility of what I have attempted in this paper to establish as one of the great events in the history of religion. For Mormons it is a chance to dispel pernicious prejudice and to achieve unfettered participation in the social scientific study of religion.

I am quite aware how easy it is for one person's faith to be another's heresy. Indeed, that was the basis of my early work on religion and anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, one does not really expect to find hardline particularism among scholars of religion. Thus I continue to be astonished at the extent to which colleagues who would never utter anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, or even anti-Moslem remarks, unself-consciously and self-righteously condemn Mormons. It is time we did better.

REFERENCES

Arrington, Leonard J., and Davis Bitton 1979 The Mormon Experience. New York: Knopf.

Currie, Robert, Dan Gilbert, and Lee Horsley 1977 Churches and Churchgoers. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Lofland, John, and Rodney Stark 1965 "Becoming a World-Saver," American Journal of Sociology 30:862-875.

Meeks, Wayne A. 1982 The First Urban Christians. New Haven: Yale.

O'Dea, Thomas F. 1957 The Mormons. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Scroggs, Robin 1980 "The Sociological Interpretation of the New Testament: The Present State of

Research," New Testament Studies 26:164-79. Stark, Rodney in press "Secularization and Mormonism in Latin America," Journal for the Scientific

Study of Religion. forthcoming "How New Religious Succeed." Stark, Rodney and William Sims Bainbridge

1980a "Networks of Faith: Interpersonal Bonds and Recruitment of Cults and Sects," American Journal of Sociology, 85:1376-95.

1980b "Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation," Annual Review of the Social Sciences of Religion 4:85-119.

1981 "Secularization and Cult Formation in the Jazz Age," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 20:360-73.

1984 The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival and Cult Formation. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Stark, Rodney and Charles Y. Glock 1968 American Piety. Berkeley: University of California Press

Stark, Rodney and Lynne Roberts 1982 "The Arithmetic of Social Movements: Theoretical Implications," Sociological

Analysis 43:53-68. Theissen, Gerd

1982 The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity. Philadelphia: Fortress.