Active Latter-day Saints are increasingly abandoning orthodox views
Ask Latter-day Saints—even regular churchgoers—if their true faith leads to eternal life, and there’s a good chance they’ll say no.
This is due to the growing number of active members in the US who hold less orthodox views.
That’s the (preliminary) conclusion reached by data scientist Alex Bass in a recently published Mormon Typology Report 2025 study.
Based on data he culled from three Pew Research Center studies of religious landscapes, the article examines the responses of nearly 2,000 self-identified Latter-day Saint and Mormon members of the Church of Jesus Christ (Bass used both the terms “Latter-day Saint” and “Mormon” in the surveys). This approach meant that people who were once members but no longer considered themselves part of a Utah-based faith were unlikely to show up in the results.
From their responses, collected over the past nearly 20 years, he concludes that “the people in the pews are not the same as they were a generation ago.”
Put simply, he explains to The Salt Lake Tribune: “What was once a faith defined by overwhelming uniformity — where most members could be described as devout, orthodox and politically conservative — may have fragmented into a more complex spectrum of identities.
Chart showing changes in four types of Mormons over time, 2007-2024. – Christopher Cherrington // The Salt Lake Tribune
Exactly how Orthodox there once were, and how diverse that spectrum has become, remains unclear. Boss would need more data to arrive at accurate head counts. For this reason, he writes in the report that his findings are “exploratory, not definitive.”
Nevertheless, he explains in the interview that he is “quite confident” in the general trend. A graduate of church-owned Brigham Young University, he even has a few theories about what drives it.
Mapping LDS/Mormon identities
Of all the statistical efforts to study faith in America, few are as rigorous and respected as Pew’s Religious Landscape Study. The nationally representative survey of US adults has been conducted in three waves so far: 2007, 2014, and 2023-2024. — and included a total of 1,810 self-identified Latter-day Saints.
After collecting their responses to a wide range of questions, Bass used a mathematical algorithm to sort individuals with similar patterns of responses. This approach yielded four “Mormon typologies”: devout traditionalists, adaptive believers, cultural Mormons, and mediators.
Four Types of Latter Day Saints/Mormons
Pious traditionalists. Once a majority, but no more, according to Mormon Metrics. “Passionate” religious practitioners who firmly believe in God. The trend is older, more masculine and politically conservative. Represents approximately 25% of self-identified Latter-day Saints/Mormons.
Adapting believers. The most common type today. Attend church regularly, but be less consistent with prayer and scripture study. About half believe that faith is the only true church. Fashionable woman and more educated. Represents approximately 42% of self-identified Latter-day Saints/Mormons.
Cultural Mormons. Lowest levels of religious participation across all measures. To believe in God and heaven. Still consider Mormonism part of their cultural identity. Like adaptive believers, they seem to experience significant proportional growth. Represents approximately 27% of self-identified Latter-day Saints/Mormons.
Intermediaries. Low belief in God and heaven, but more likely than cultural Mormons to attend church, read scriptures, etc. The smallest, youngest, least educated and most politically diverse group. Represents approximately 6% of self-identified Latter-day Saints/Mormons. (Researcher’s note: This group is particularly small in the data set, making it even more “exploratory” than the other three types.)
To be clear, Bass writes that these labels should not be considered “hard boundaries.” Creating strict categories would require a lot more data on Latter-day Saints (the Pew researchers did not, for example, ask about missionary service, seminary attendance, clothing, or any number of other ways members show their devotion to church).
Image showing the frequency of religious activity or involvement in four different groups of Mormons. – Christopher Cherington // Salt Lake Tribune
His goal, he writes, is to “start the conversation and provide a clearer picture of Mormon diversity, even if future research refines or changes the typology.”
Adapting to the “modern era”
The further you go on this list, from devout to intermediate, the younger (and more racially and politically diverse) the person is likely to be. But Bass was quick to point out that he doesn’t think the decline in traditionalists is just the work of population change.
He concludes that today’s conformists are in many cases yesterday’s devout traditionalists who have “easily adapted” their social beliefs to fit the “modern era”.
One possible factor he highlighted was the growing acceptance of homosexuality both inside and outside the church, which opposes same-sex marriage. During the 2023-2024 survey, Pew asked 565 Latter-day Saints whether society should accept homosexuality. Devout traditionalists crushed the competition by nearly 90 percent. Conformists were nearly split down the middle, with more than 60% of cultural Mormons and nearly 90% of moderates saying yes.
Graph depicting 4 Mormon groups’ beliefs about homosexuality and the general US population – Christopher Cherrington // The Salt Lake Tribune
Faith in one hand, questions in the other
Take, for example, Malinda Street, a 33-year-old mother of three who grew up in Enterprise, Utah, among what she called devout traditionalists.
“We had our own bench,” said the eldest of 12 children. “We prayed and read the scriptures quite often, not perfectly. Godliness is not perfect. We just did the best we could, and ours was the only real church.”
Nowadays?
“I’m definitely still committed to living the values and the gospel as I understand it,” explained Street, who attends a weekly church in Millcreek, Utah, where she serves as a volunteer secretary for the Relief Society. On the other hand, “a lot of my cultural and social beliefs are a little less conservative than people tend to think.”
Street said her goal growing up was always to be a stay-at-home mom, a role the church has historically encouraged women to play. She struggled, doing her best to meet the needs of her children, despite her own battle with depression, until her eldest was 6 years old.
“I felt inspired to get to work,” she said. So she got a job as a paralegal. These days, she is working on her law degree through an online program.
“It was a journey,” Street said, explaining, “How do I fit in the church, as a daughter of God, as a woman in the world? How do I balance these roles? I had to question a lot.”
This issue covers LGBTQ+ issues.
“I have people very close to me, friends and family who identify as LGBTQ+, and it’s a very difficult place for them,” she said, referring to the church environment. “I would like us to have clearer answers to where their place is and be more sensitive to their needs.”
Street still identified herself as a devout traditionalist, but agreed that some might think she was veering into conformist territory.
MAGA and Mormonism: A Possible Wedge
Looking at the data, Bass has a second suspicion of what might be driving scripture-reading, church-going Latter-day Saints to adopt more nuanced beliefs.
Latter-day Saints have historically been among the most reliable Republicans of any religious group in the country. The rise and return of Donald Trump and the strains of his Make America Great Again conservatism have strained, if not broken, that relationship and, Bass suspects, have led some to question their own GOP identity and religious identification with it. After all, pious traditionalists, based on the 2023-2024 according to the data, most likely identified with the Republican Party; there were the least number of intermediates.
Troy Hoyt is a lifelong Latter-day Saint and Republican (at least in name) who lives in Parowan, Utah.
Like Street, the 55-year-old said he wants the church to be a more welcoming place for LGBTQ+ members. In connection with this, according to him, the broad support of believers (the church as an institution is politically neutral) for the president and the MAGA movement is equally worrying.
“I see all of Christendom, including most LDS members,” lamented the retired lawyer, “supporting a political party and a policy that abandons what I believe is the most important thing to be a Christian, which is to love one another.”
Living in Trump country doesn’t do much to ease that tension or the loneliness that accompanies it, said the former missionary and father of five.
“I found like-minded people,” said Hoyt, who grew up in Snowflake, Arizona and spent most of his adult life in Chicago. “However, there are few of them and they remain very hidden.
Hoyt is still involved in family scripture study and regular church attendance and prayer. But the self-described adaptive believer no longer holds the view that the church is the true faith.
“I would think that the only true church,” he said, “would be better prepared to have its members truly follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.”
“Widespread Secular Influx”
Put all these stories and numbers together, Bass said, and this is the story that emerges: While in the past there was either an active, devoted Latter-day Saint or an inactive one, a growing number of people identify less religiously, but, like many Catholics and adherents of Judaism, because it’s part of their heritage.
“Cultural Mormons,” Bass writes, “are on the rise.”
What does this mean for this relatively young faith, which won’t even be 200 years old until 2030? – it is not clear.
“Could Mormonism become an ethnic or cultural identity independent of faith? – wonders the author of the study. “Will the church accept this looser association or insist that orthodoxy is necessary for true belonging?
Notre Dame political scientist David Campbell made a similar point. Campbell said more data are needed to confirm Bass’s trends, but the findings dovetail with other statistics showing a general decline in religious commitment in church alongside trends in other faiths.
“The results are further evidence that the United States is experiencing a widespread secular influx,” he said, “and that the LDS community is not immune.”
This story produced Druska Lake Tribune and reviewed and distributed Stacker.