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By Kent Larsen
Cox News Sees LDS Church Growth Continuing
WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA -- Cox News Service writer Elizabeth Clarke looked
at 10 trends in religion, and discovered one that LDS Church members will
find familiar: LDS Church growth will continue. Clarke's trends included
growth in only two denominations, but she notes that growth among Muslims,
the other denomination mentioned, is due to migration from overseas.
"Over the last 10 to 15 years, the Mormon Church has really moved toward
seeing itself as part of the religious mainstream and has increasingly
gotten involved in cooperative, interfaith things and become more visible in
public policy," David A. Roozen, director of the Hartford Institute for
Religion Research, told Clarke. "They're a dynamo." The article also credits
"Surveying the Religious Landscape" by D. Michael Lindsay and George Gallup
Jr. with projections that LDS Church membership will be 2 percent to 3
percent of the US population in five to seven years.
The other trends that Clarke see are sometimes contradictory, and often
don't reflect the LDS experience. In addition to the growth of the LDS
Church and Muslims, the trends are: more contemporary styles of worship,
growth of the interdenominational and evangelical movements, a greater
desire for community, increasing spirituality, greater freedom to switch
religions, more diversity, fueled by the Internet, a search for more emotion
and mystery in religion, and increasing numbers of women in religious
leadership.
Source:
10 trends in religion Americans increasingly mix and match their religious beliefs
Ft Worth TX Star-Telegram (Cox) 23Feb01 N1
By Elizabeth Clarke: Cox News Service
See:
More about George Gallup Jr.'s "Surveying the Religious Landscape: Trends in US Beliefs" at Amazon.com
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