Pew Research Center offers a smorgasbord of interesting statistics and factoids about pretty much everything under the sun, including religion. Every so often, they publish a Religion Landscape Study full of general information about religious groups across the country. Their most recent landscape study was published in 2014. You can check it out right here. After perusing its data, I’ve selected five data sets having to do with members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint that you might find informative. Check ’em out:
1. More Latter-day Saints believe in Heaven than any other religious group
These results are super interesting. 95-percent of Latter-day Saints who participated in this survey say they believe in Heaven. I mean, I’m not sure why that number isn’t one hundred percent, but whatever. As it turns out, we’re leading the way in this category, with a stronger belief in Heaven than any other faith/denomination.
2. Latter-day Saints are in the scriptures more often than almost any other religion
Second only to our Jehovah’s Witness friends, 77-percent of Latter-day Saints report reading scripture at least once a week. I think that’s worthy of a sturdy pat on the back. But, again, the quality of our scripture study is a crucial factor as well.
3. Latter-day Saints feel a greater sense of spiritual peace and well-being than almost any other religion
81-percent of surveyed Latter-day Saints report feeling spiritual peace or well-being at least once a week. Once again, Latter-day Saints take a close second place with 81-percent, just one-percent less than the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Interestingly, the ranking order of religions is almost identical in the graph below as it is in the chart above dealing with the frequency of scripture study.
4. Latter-day Saints pray more often than almost any other religion
Once again, Latter-day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses are leading the pack. Of course, the quality of our prayers says more than the frequency of our prayers, but the data is intriguing nonetheless. It’s food for thought.
5. Latter-day Saints attend worship services more often than almost any other religion
Worship services are useful for a variety of reasons. There’s the worship aspect of things (obviously the most important purpose), but gathering together also helps facilitate the correlation of beliefs. For example, when a Latter-day Saint (or a person of any faith) attends church services every week over a long period of time, he or she gains a decent understanding of the core beliefs of that group. If a large portion of a faith’s membership only attends worship services a few times a year, where do those people learn the key tenets of their faith? I feel like this is one trend that produces articles like this: “Christian, What Do You Believe? Probably a Heresy About Jesus, Says Survey.”
Check out the rest of PRC’s findings at pewforum.org.
