I was Mormon for nearly 25 years and I’ve lived in Utah for about 25 years now – most of those as a former Mormon. I resigned in order to maintain my intellectual integrity. I would still consider Mormonism a pretty small sect. They claim 13 million members, but they include in that number people who are no longer practicing and even members who have joined other faiths. 2-3 years ago, after the Salt Lake Tribune did a series of articles about membership number discrepancies, the Mormon church issued a statement saying they acknowledged that at most only 50% of their claimed members are actually practicing adherents. There’s a BYU sociology professor who’s been doing membership research and he claims that only 25-33% of the total claimed Mormon membership are actual adherents.

But let’s give them the 50% for argument’s sake. 50% of 13 million is 6.5 million. If at most 50% of the 6.5 million reside in the US that makes 3.2 million active US Mormons or about 1% of the US population. And remember this number includes a goodly number of minor children and that the majority of active US Mormons live in Utah. The latest research I saw (done by Mormons) said 66% of all active US Mormons live in Utah.

Then let’s look at Mormonism worldwide. A maximum of 6.5 million practicing members amongst 6 billion plus people. I think that’s about 1/10th of 1%. I would consider these percentages indicative of a very small group both in US terms and worldwide terms.

A lot of Christian sects don’t consider Mormonism a Christian sect. They consider it a completely separate religion outside of Christianity & at times don’t include it in reports of total numbers of Christian sects and Christian adherents.

From where I stand as an atheist, any sect that believes that Jesus was a real person and was in at least some way divine qualifies as Christian in my book. But the Christian sects apparently have “rules” about what beliefs qualify a sect as Christian and Mormonism doesn’t line up with the majority of those “rules.” So who should get to decide what Christianity is and isn’t?

A bit off on a tangent, but I find it interesting & a bit amusing that Mormons complain about Christian sects saying Mormons aren’t Christian even though they believe in a divine Jesus but then the Mormons turn around and complain about the FLDS being called fundamentalist Mormons when the FLDS believe in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and other Mormon scriptures just as much as the mainstream Mormons do. Does this amuse anyone else?

“I thought parents love their children? I saw a parent restricting a child’s access to a toy for 5 minutes as a punishment.

Which is it, do you love your child, or do you deprive your child of joy?”

Please either add some nuanced thinking to the issue or stop grinding your ax.

I personally can’t believe all the reaction this phone call issue has elicited. I think some people are looking for something to criticize. If this is really a noteworthy issue, man, the religion must be in good shape.

I was in much better contact with my parents through letters as a missionary than I ever was in college. I doubt they got more than 3 phone calls a year and that was usually because I needed money for books or something.

The section on letter-writing and phone calls simply says to limit those activities.

It’s pretty-much mission president’s discretion. He has recommended guidelines, but missionary practice isn’t half as centralized as you’d think. Especially when you’re talking about foreign missions. My own mission practices in early 1990s Japan would probably be almost unrecognizable to a lot of current missionaries.