Jan eighth 2022
PROVO and SÃO PAULO
ONE IS A small metropolis of fewer than 120,000 individuals. The different is dwelling to extra residents than New York City and Chicago mixed. Yet one factor binds Provo, Utah, and São Paulo, Brazil: each boast white temples with a single spire that reaches in direction of the heavens. One is surrounded by mountains and the opposite by palm timber, however the easy structure of Mormon church buildings imply they resemble one another. This sameness is a trademark of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as Mormonism is formally identified. Cristiane Fernandes, who worships on the temple in São Paulo, says the church is “like McDonald’s”, in that “the whole world is having the same lesson today”.
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Mormonism is a distinctly American faith. Its early leaders travelled—and had been chased—from upstate New York to the church’s present non secular and cultural capital in Salt Lake City, Utah. Yet in current a long time the Christian sect has additionally unfold past America’s borders. The church estimates that there are 16.6m Mormons all over the world, a 50% improve since 2000. Matt Martinich, an unbiased demographer who runs a weblog dedicated to the church’s development, estimates that baptisms of American converts could now account for less than 20% of worldwide baptisms.
That appears like muscular, international development for a faith that claims lower than 2% of Americans as believers. But accounting quirks embellish the true image. “The dirty little secret that everybody who has gone on a mission knows is that a lot of this growth is on paper only,” says Rick Phillips, a sociologist on the University of North Florida. Anyone ever baptised or born into the religion is counted as a member, even when they’re now not energetic within the church. Mr Martinich reckons that solely about 40% of American Mormons are energetic.
Brazil has the third-largest Mormon inhabitants on this planet, after the United States and Mexico. Church rolls counsel there have been 1.1m Mormons in Brazil in 2010, however solely about 227,000 Brazilians recognized as Mormon within the census the identical 12 months. “Latin America has always been the problematic case,” says Patrick Mason of Utah State University. “On the one hand, it’s the poster-child for Mormon growth outside the United States. But it’s also the poster-child for low retention rates.”
The McDonald’s mannequin
Scholars who research Latter-day Saints level to a few essential the explanation why Mormonism could battle to retain converts overseas. The first is the centralised nature of the church. The church’s wealth, management and theological teachings nonetheless emanate from Salt Lake City. Ms Fernandes’s quip that, like McDonald’s, Mormon church buildings all over the world are comparable has lengthy been a degree of delight. “The corporate mentality in post-war America was that you would have one corporate culture for your company—whether that was GE or IBM—and then wherever you went around the world, that would be the culture of your business,” says Jana Riess, writer of “The Next Mormons: How Millennials are Changing the LDS Church”. “The church succeeded with that model for a long time.”
But can a one-size-fits-all faith thrive on a world scale? The sameness that makes a Mormon church in São Paulo really feel like a church in Provo could also be comforting to some, nevertheless it prevents the faith from adapting to completely different cultures. More decentralised Christian sects, equivalent to Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, have grown extra shortly in lots of nations.
Second, the congregation a Mormon joins relies on the place they stay. “If I’m a Pentecostal, and…I want a pastor who is a little more strict, or one who’s a little more liberal, I can find my theological niche,” says Mr Phillips. Not so for Mormons.
Third, some counsel that Mormons would possibly reform their missionary practices with a purpose to retain members higher. About 55,000 missionaries are serving worldwide; 20,000 or so had been prepped at a coaching centre that resembles a small faculty campus in Provo. When your correspondent visited simply earlier than Christmas, all of the missionaries certain for Brazil had been just lately dispatched. But Portuguese might nonetheless be heard within the halls. One group destined variously for Lisbon, Cape Verde and New York started their language class by singing “Noite Feliz” (“Silent Night”).
Much emphasis is positioned on baptising new members; missionaries knock on doorways and use social media to succeed in potential converts. But church leaders and lecturers agree that this alone is inadequate. Employing missionaries who grew up in locations the place the church is rising comparatively shortly, such because the Philippines and west Africa, to proselytise to their very own countrymen can also show simpler than sending Americans.
Some issues are beginning to change. Ms Riess factors out that the handbook of directions that church leaders use was just lately revised to permit for extra musical kinds and devices in worship. The church’s leaders and its missionaries are, slowly, changing into extra geographically numerous. In current a long time, missionaries have additionally been allowed far more contact with their households. Part of that’s the results of higher know-how. But it could even be a intelligent method to enhance retention charges: the extra Mormon dad and mom hear about their missionary’s expertise, the extra linked to the church they could really feel.
At the coaching centre in Provo, existential questions on the way forward for the church really feel very far-off. Soon-to-be missionaries parade round with identify tags asserting the place they’ll serve. Tearful dad and mom drop off their youngsters for coaching a lot as others drop their youngsters off for faculty. Here, at the least, fervour for the worldwide church is alive and nicely. ■
This article appeared within the United States part of the print version underneath the headline “Going forth and striving to multiply”