Story thread · 9 reports / 8 sources

Opinion: What will keep women in the pews? Conversion to Jesus Christ

deseret.com · 2dShare

Over the past several weeks, Latter-day Saints have been having a renewed conversation about retention: who is leaving, why they are leaving, and whether young women in particular are becoming harder to keep in the church. Within Christendom more broadly, women have historically been more likely to retain their faith, but that gap appears to be narrowing and perhaps reversing in younger generations. Last week, Meagan Kohler and Stephen Cranney called into question the common claim that ordaining women and adopting other gender egalitarian policies within churches would improve retention among young women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Contrary to common claims, the decrease in retention among Latter-day Saints is comparable to other Christian denominations, and retention among young women, in particular, is slightly higher than most Christian denominations. Denominations that ordain women don’t necessarily have more women in their congregations However, retention a

First report: For Latter-day Saints, the retention decline is more than a people problem — stltoday.com, 5d