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Speakers:<\/strong>\nRam Cnaan, Professor and Associate Dean for Research, University of Pennsylvania\nDavid Campbell, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame\nGreg Smith<\/a>, Senior Researcher, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life<\/p>\n\n Moderator:<\/strong>\nLuis Lugo, Director, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life<\/p>\n\n Navigate This Transcript:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n LUIS LUGO, PEW FORUM ON RELIGION & PUBLIC LIFE:<\/strong> Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you all for coming. I\u2019m Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life<\/a>. We are a project of the Pew Research Center<\/a>, which is a nonpartisan organization that does not take positions on issues or policy debates. This event is part of an occasional luncheon series in which we bring together journalists, scholars and policy professionals for timely discussions on topics at the intersection of religion and public affairs.<\/p>\n\n With a member of the LDS leading the field for the GOP nomination, media and public interest in all things Mormon is very much alive these days. I kidded with my staff recently that if we had an event on the snacking habits of Mormons, we\u2019d probably get a pretty good turnout. There has been a lot of discussion in the last few months about the religious beliefs and political attitudes of Mormons. But there has been relatively little discussion about Mormons\u2019 civic engagement, including their levels of giving and volunteering. So we\u2019ll forgo snacking habits for now and focus on this very important aspect of the Mormon experience in America.<\/p>\n\n To discuss this topic, we have a terrific lineup of speakers. You have your bios in front of you, so I\u2019ll follow the Michael Cromartie rule and not repeat it all. Michael, you taught me well. Ram Cnaan, who is just back from Israel, will speak first. He is the director of the Program for Religion and Social Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania, among his many titles. He will present the findings of a new survey on volunteering and charitable giving among Mormons, a project he conducted with his colleagues Daniel Curtis, also of Penn, and Van Evans of Indiana University-Purdue University of Indianapolis. Gentlemen, it\u2019s great to have you with us. Correct him on anything that he says that\u2019s wrong, OK? I\u2019ll call on you first.<\/p>\n\n I\u2019d also like to thank my old buddy, John DiIulio, who is right next to them there, Ram\u2019s colleague at Penn, and the one who suggested to me in the Philly kind of way that I needed to hold this meeting. And so I\u2019ve delivered on that, John. It\u2019s good to have you back in the neighborhood, John.<\/p>\n\n After Ram presents his findings, we will hear from Greg Smith, who is a senior researcher here at the Pew Forum, and not with Goldman Sachs. He was the lead author of our recent survey<\/a> on Mormons in America. Greg will discuss the Penn findings in the context of Mormons\u2019 religious beliefs and social attitudes.<\/p>\n\n Many of you know, of course, David Campbell from the University of Notre Dame, who in fact served as an adviser on that Mormon survey that we conducted. He will compare Mormons with other religious groups based on his extensive research on religion and social capital, a lot of which he has done with that other guy \u2014 what\u2019s \u2014 oh, Robert Putnam, yes.<\/p>\n\n After we put this panel together, I looked it over and it seemed to me that we ended up with something rather odd in terms of the lineup. We\u2019ve got old Zion commenting on new Zion. We have a Catholic commenting on Mormons. And we have a Mormon commenting on every other religious group. (Laughter.) Is this a great country or what? I just absolutely love it. I had not a Mormon moment, but a Yogi Berra moment when I realized that. Do you remember Yogi when he heard that a Jew had been elected mayor of Dublin? Only in America, said Yogi.<\/p>\n\n All right, our format for this event is very simple. Ram will speak for 12 to 15 minutes, followed by Greg and Dave, who will present about eight to 10 minutes each. Then we\u2019ll invite the rest of you to join in the conversation. I should point out that this event is on the record, and it is being taped. Again, it\u2019s great to have all of you here.<\/p>\n\n So Ram, over to you.<\/p>\n\n RAM CNAAN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA:<\/strong> Thank you all for coming. When I started this study two years ago, I couldn\u2019t believe that anyone would be interested in hearing the results, let alone having this forum here, so I\u2019m humbled. As Lugo told you, I\u2019m not a member of the church. When I started the project, I knew nothing about the church, literally nothing. I feel I\u2019m now in an in-between zone. I know nothing compared to members of the church, and I know a lot compared to regular people in society. And people \u2014 when I tell them I did this study, the first question is, as you expect, how many wives? And the like.<\/p>\n\n But our study\u2019s focus and my research through many years is about who gives and who volunteers in our society. We know from many studies that about 30% to 50% of Americans volunteer \u2014 depends on how you measure it \u2014 and we know that they do it for about three to four hours a month. And when I say do it for three or four hours a month, we mean only the volunteers. That\u2019s not the national average that includes the non-volunteers. It\u2019s only including the volunteers. I\u2019ll repeat those numbers a little later.<\/p>\n\n The reason we started this study is that we found that the statistics from the Corporation for National and Community Service show that Utah has the highest rate of volunteering. They have more people volunteering than any other state and have more hours per volunteer than any other state. So Van Evans, who is sitting there, came to me and asked me, do you know why? I said, of course \u2014 the church. He said, what do you know about it? I said, nothing. And he said, are you interested in studying it? This is how we started. I\u2019ll get to it in a minute.<\/p>\n\n We also know from their book, thanks to those gentlemen \u2014 or, he\u2019s only one of two here \u2014 that people who are more active in their religion are volunteering much more and donating money much more. So keep this in mind.<\/p>\n\n What do we know about donation in America? We know again from a variety of studies that about 70% of households in America donate. There is lots of variation in the studies about how much they donate, and I\u2019ll get to it a little later. But we also know that when we talk about full tithing \u2014 10% of people\u2019s income to the church \u2014 nationally it used to be between 5% to 7%. In the last year, because of the economic situation, it went down to 4%. So about 4% of Americans are full tithers. Again, I\u2019ll ask you to keep it in mind, but it\u2019s kind of the background by which we started the study.<\/p>\n\n The idea started in 2009. We asked permission from the church to allow us to conduct the study. It took six months, but we got permission. And being totally ignorant about the church, I conducted 30 interviews \u2014 in-depth interviews \u2014 with members of the church in the Philadelphia area. I met with people who just converted recently, people who were born into the church, people who were leaders, people who were members. Through it, I learned a lot about the culture of the church and about many activities. This is why I know more than the average person.<\/p>\n\n Based on the outcome and the information I got from this, we composed a questionnaire. It\u2019s a 14-page questionnaire, and it\u2019s very detailed about all activity that members of the church may do as volunteers. I think it\u2019s the most detailed type of questionnaire ever created. For those of you who are methodologically astute, there\u2019ll be a copy of the questionnaire when we finish here. But it\u2019s really very detailed and asks people for every possible activity that they can do in volunteering.<\/p>\n\n So that was our instrument. We conducted the study in four regions. We did it in the Philadelphia area, in Michigan, in California and in Utah. Every time zone was represented. We wanted to see if there were geographical variations with people in Utah, where Mormons are the majority.<\/p>\n\n The survey was anonymous. We told people if they don\u2019t want to participate they don\u2019t have to participate and not to write their names because we don\u2019t want to know who answered what. We got permission to come to worship services. In the last hours, men and women 18 and older came together, and we explained the study, passed out questionnaires, collected them back, entered them.<\/p>\n\n Only 18 years and older were admitted into the survey. We have about an equal number of men and women. If you want to know more about the makeup of the sample, it\u2019ll be in the report, and I hope that when you leave somebody will hand you the report because we brought it with us.<\/p>\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n So what did we find? First, there is a term or a principle called \u201ccalling\u201d in the church. Calling is a specific responsibility that a member of the church is asked to fulfill. A bishop or somebody of authority comes to a person, a member of the church, and says: You have a calling. This is a task that we want you to fulfill. It may go on for a few years. And usually, once you end a certain calling, you\u2019re being asked for another calling.<\/p>\n\n So almost all members of the church are expected to fulfill a calling. This is a culture that is very unique. I didn\u2019t know about it before. At the time of the study, about 86% reported that they were fulfilling a calling. So almost every member who is for a while in a congregation, a ward, would be expected to fulfill a calling.<\/p>\n\n When I interview bishops \u2014 bishops are equivalent, for those of you who don\u2019t know, to clergy in other denominations \u2014 I ask them, do people refuse the callings? And usually they say to me \u2014 one of them said, I\u2019ve been a bishop for eight years. I had five refusals. Another one 11 months on the job said, refusals? So we asked people if they ever refused in the last five years, and we got 4% \u2014 4.4% \u2014 that said in the last five years they had refused, which is less than 1% annually.<\/p>\n\n So this is a culture that when people are asked to fulfill any task, 99% of the time they say yes. We categorize the many volunteer activities into four groups. Group one was a volunteer activity that is not affiliated with the church. It\u2019s what you can call secular volunteering, helping an organization, community event \u2014 nothing to do with the church. Then we have three activities that can be done within the church. One is helping people who are not members of the church. One is still social and helping people within the church. And the last one is volunteering that is purely religious, that is, helping the church fulfill its religious activities.<\/p>\n\n What did we find? For religious activities, people give on average 242 hours. For church-affiliated volunteering to help meet social needs of people in the church, 96 hours. For church-affiliated activities helping people outside the church, 56 hours. And for activities outside of the church totally, 34 hours.<\/p>\n\n [annually for Mormons]<\/p>\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n I know my time is getting short so I\u2019ll move quickly. We divided donations into three things: secular giving \u2014 that\u2019s money that is given outside the church \u2014 then welfare giving within the church, and extra religious giving. And when we say extra, it\u2019s on top of tithing. I\u2019ll talk about tithing in a minute. What did we get? For secular giving, meaning giving money to worthy causes outside of the church, an average person in the church gives $1,171.Nearly three-quarters of Mormons say that working Giving to welfare through the church \u2014 $650. And on top of tithing \u2014 $203 per person for religious activities.<\/p>\n\n The first thing that I said about tithing \u2014 88.8% of members of the church that we interviewed reported that they provide full tithing. Remember, we went to the church; people that we interviewed were active members of the church. They went to a Sunday service, and this is where we found them. Another about 6% said that they do partial tithing. The total social donation \u2014 I\u2019m excluding now the religious donation outside \u2014 if we only take what they gave for social causes within the church and outside the church, we have $1,821.<\/p>\n\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n For those of you who don\u2019t know \u2014 and I didn\u2019t know \u2014 giving money through the church often happens through something called fast offering. A member of the church \u2014 and I\u2019m treading on a thin line, and you can correct me if I\u2019m wrong \u2014 is expected to fast two consecutive meals one Sunday a month. The money that\u2019s being saved that was not used for consuming food is supposed to be donated for welfare purposes by the church. So this is the number \u2014 the $650 that you see there is the sum that comes mostly from fast offering.<\/p>\n\n To conclude, we found a group of people that are most generous in our society. Through their theology of obedience and sacrifice and strong commitment to tithing and service, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints are the most pro-social members in American society. We couldn\u2019t believe the findings. But that\u2019s what we have. Thank you. This is our university for you. We are going back home. (Laughter.)<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> Very good. Thank you, Ram. All right, Greg. How does this square with our findings of the general population of Mormon?<\/p>\n\n GREG SMITH, PEW FORUM ON RELIGION & PUBLIC LIFE:<\/strong> I think that these findings square pretty well. Let me just start by saying that it\u2019s a real pleasure to be here and to participate in this discussion at a very important time for a very important religious group within the American religious landscape.<\/p>\n\n I had the opportunity to read a draft of Dr. Cnaan\u2019s report, and in my remarks I\u2019d like to focus on a couple of important points of connection between the new University of Pennsylvania survey of Mormons and our own national survey<\/a> of self-identified Mormons from around the country. I think the first point of connection that struck me is that Dr. Cnaan\u2019s finding that Mormons constitute a highly pro-social group that is motivated and active in volunteering and charitable giving \u2014 that finding lines up really quite closely with our data, which show that Mormons believe that providing aid to the poor and to the needy is a critical part of what it means to be a good Mormon.<\/p>\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n Our survey included a question<\/a> that asked respondents, in your own view, how important is each of the following for being a good Mormon? We asked about five different beliefs and behaviors:<\/p>\n\n Respondents were asked to rate each of these items as either essential for being a good Mormon, important but not essential, not too important or not at all important for being a good Mormon.<\/p>\n\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n Our survey finds that nearly three-quarters of Mormons say that working to help the poor and needy is an essential part of what it means to be a good Mormon. It\u2019s not just an important part. It\u2019s not just a nice thing to do. Helping the poor is essential to what it means to being a good Mormon.<\/p>\n\n I was struck by the number of Mormons who say working to help the poor and needy is essential to their religion. The number who say that is almost as high as the number who say it\u2019s essential to believe that Joseph Smith actually saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. And the survey also shows that avoiding coffee and tea, that not watching R-rated movies and that having regular family home evenings are seen as less central to Mormonism than is helping the poor and needy.<\/p>\n\n We can also get a sense of the centrality of reaching out to the poor and needy in Mormonism by taking a look at which Mormons are most likely to see aid to the poor as a crucial part of their religion. It is precisely those Mormons who are the most committed to the practice of their faith \u2014 those people who say they attend church regularly, who say they pray every day, who say that religion is very important in their lives. It\u2019s precisely that group of Mormons who are most likely to say that providing assistance to the needy is an essential part of what it means to practice their faith. Similarly, Mormons who have served a mission are significantly more likely to say it\u2019s essential to provide aid and assistance to the needy.<\/p>\n\n Now I should point out that it\u2019s also true that the most religiously committed Mormons tend, in general, to see all kinds of things as essential components of their faith. These are the sticklers for the details, you might say. Nevertheless, I do think that both the overall responses to the question, that three-quarters of people say it\u2019s essential to Mormonism to provide aid to the poor, combined with the fact that this is especially true among the most religiously active Mormons \u2014 I think these things really speak to the centrality of providing aid to the poor to Mormonism and in Mormonism.<\/p>\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n The second point of connection I saw between Dr. Cnaan\u2019s survey and our own work relates to Mormons\u2019 views of the best way to go about providing assistance to those in need. Now our survey did not ask detailed questions, as some of our other surveys have, about what kinds of institutions, be they governmental, religious or secular charities \u2014 we didn\u2019t ask what kind of institutions might be best positioned to provide aid to the poor and needy. But we do have some basic indicators of Mormons\u2019 political predispositions and their views on the proper size and scope of government.<\/p>\n\n I think it\u2019s interesting to point out that Mormons\u2019 deep concern for the poor and their willingness to contribute their own resources to social and charitable causes \u2014 this does not necessarily translate into support for government intervention in these areas. The reason I say that has to do with Mormons\u2019 responses to this question<\/a> from our survey: If you had to choose, would you rather have a smaller government providing fewer services or a bigger government providing more services? In response to this question, fully three-quarters of Mormons say they prefer a smaller government providing fewer services. And only one-in-five say they favor a bigger government that provides more services.<\/p>\n\n Their views on this question place Mormons among the most politically conservative religious groups in the country along with evangelical Protestants. By comparison, mainline Protestants, Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated all express considerably more support for a large and active government, as compared with Mormons. Now to be sure, when we see that most Mormons favor a smaller government that provides fewer services, part of what\u2019s being reflected there is the high level of Republicanism and the generally politically conservative views of this population. Mormons are among the most reliably Republican and ideologically conservative groups in the population.<\/p>\n\n But I think it\u2019s also worth pointing out that among Mormons there is, again, a connection between religious commitment and support for smaller government. Mormons with the highest levels of religious commitment are more inclined than those with less religious commitment to say they prefer a smaller to a larger government. Similarly, former missionaries are more likely than those who have not served a mission to say they would prefer a smaller government providing fewer services.<\/p>\n\n To put this another way, compared with their less religiously committed counterparts, the most highly religious Mormons are both more likely to say it\u2019s essential to provide assistance to the poor and needy and less likely to support an activist government that provides more services. I point this out because I think many might find that an interesting dichotomy. Those are the main points of connection between our survey and the new University of Pennsylvania survey that jumped out at me.<\/p>\n\n I\u2019ll just conclude my remarks with a brief methodological aside. The methodology employed in the new University of Pennsylvania survey, which was to survey Mormons in Latter-day Saint congregations during Sunday services, was pretty different than the approach that we employed, which in a nutshell involved calling up a national sample of folks, asking them about their religious affiliation and then interviewing those who described their religion as Mormonism.<\/p>\n\n But despite these very different methodological approaches, I was struck by the similarity of some of our findings. including and in particular the findings with respect to the rates of tithing. As Dr. Cnaan pointed out, the University of Pennsylvania survey found that almost 90% of Mormons say they pay full tithing. And that struck me as really pretty similar to our own survey in which we found about eight-in-ten Mormons saying that they pay full tithing. This helps to clarify, for me, the nature of our sample, the Pew sample.<\/p>\n\n We\u2019ve had people ask us since our survey was released a couple months ago, how representative is your sample? Is it really representative of all Mormons, by which is sometimes meant all people who are currently on the rolls of the LDS Church, including even some of those who may no longer be particularly active in the church?<\/p>\n\n In response to these questions, we\u2019ve stipulated that ours is a survey of self-identified Mormons, which is to say, people who describe their current religion as Mormonism. Our survey does not include former Mormons. It does not include people from Mormon families who have since changed religions. It doesn\u2019t include folks who might have once been active in the church but who have since left, even if they haven\u2019t formally resigned and removed their names from church rolls.<\/p>\n\n And ours is a sample of Mormons who are quite active in the practice of their faith. In our survey, big majorities told us that they attend church regularly, that they pray every day and that religion is a very important part of their lives. This suggests to me that people who describe their religion as Mormonism \u2014 people who describe themselves as Mormons in telephone surveys like ours \u2014 tend to be active Mormons.<\/p>\n\n And conversely it suggests to me that people who might have once been active in the LDS Church \u2014 people who might even still be on the rolls of the LDS Church but who have since drifted away \u2014 those folks may not tend to describe themselves as Mormons anymore in surveys like ours. In short, I\u2019m struck that, despite the different methodologies and despite the different aims of the two research projects, I think in many ways we\u2019ve arrived at a similar endpoint, which is to say with samples of active, practicing Latter-Day Saints.<\/p>\n\n I will end it there, turn it back over to Luis, and look forward to our discussion.<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> Thank you, Greg. David.<\/p>\n\n DAVID CAMPBELL, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME:<\/strong> Well, I too would like to echo the comments of those who\u2019ve gone before in thanking the Pew Center for sponsoring this event and thanking all of you for being here. I think it\u2019s fair to say that the time has come, I think, for us to have a focus on the Mormon population in America. Of course our current attention is being driven by political events and maybe a certain Broadway play.<\/p>\n\n But even aside from all of that, it comes as a surprise to many audiences to learn that there are as many Mormons in America as there are Jews. And I think it\u2019s fair to say that we know a lot more about the Jewish population than we do about the Mormon population. This study is an excellent example of the sorts of things we can learn \u2014 not only about the Mormon population, but by studying Mormons, it actually can inform our understanding of religion and religion\u2019s role in civic and social life in America more broadly.<\/p>\n\n I commend the leadership of the LDS Church, which made this study possible. The LDS Church is actually quite a centralized and hierarchical organization. I teach at Notre Dame. Everyone thinks that the Catholic Church is this highly centralized, hierarchical organization. I can tell you from the inside, not so much. In other aspects of my life I deal with the LDS Church, and they really are centralized and hierarchical. (Laughter.)<\/p>\n\n So I commend those in Salt Lake City who made this study possible. And I hope that this\u2019ll be the beginning of other similar research projects. There\u2019s a lot to learn about this population, and this happens to be a particularly effective methodology to really get inside what\u2019s happening inside Mormon wards, which is the Mormon jargon for a congregation.<\/p>\n\n I\u2019m going to talk a little bit about how Mormons compare to everyone else. But just before I get into that, I wanted to make an important but subtle point about the population that\u2019s being studied here. Greg has noted, as did Ram, that this is of course a study of churchgoing Mormons. But it\u2019s actually not even just churchgoing Mormons; it\u2019s, I would argue, the most devout Mormons. And the reason for that is, if you were listening carefully in Ram\u2019s presentation, he noted that the survey was administered in the third hour of meetings. You heard that right, that Mormons go to church for three hours every Sunday.<\/p>\n\n Now that\u2019s not one long three-hour meeting; it\u2019s actually three one-hour meetings, roughly speaking. And it used to be, many years ago, that those were held at different times. About a generation ago, the church put them all together into one. So what does that mean? It means that the people who were filling out this survey had stayed at their services for the third hour. That\u2019s a pretty dedicated group. And that\u2019s something to keep in mind.<\/p>\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n Now when you compare these churchgoing Mormons, the very devout wing of Mormonism, to those of other faiths \u2014 even those who are on the high end of devotion within other traditions \u2014 there is no doubt that Mormons are the highest when it comes to religious volunteering and other types of volunteering, as was noted in Ram\u2019s presentation. And that comes from multiple data sources.<\/p>\n\n So here we have it: When we look at Mormons surveyed inside their own churches, we see the same thing when we compare Mormons to other religious traditions in large national surveys that aren\u2019t focused on any one particular religion. That\u2019s reassuring for those of us who are in the social science business and are trying to get at these questions from different angles. We\u2019re seeing a similar picture \u2014 really almost an identical picture \u2014 regardless of how we collect the data or regardless of how we make our comparisons.<\/p>\n\n But it is important to keep in mind \u2014 and this was noted, but I want to reinforce this \u2014 that the vast majority of the volunteering that we find among the Mormon population is actually for the maintenance of the church itself. Now that\u2019s obviously good for the LDS Church. It\u2019s how the LDS Church is able to do all the various things that it does. It\u2019s how it runs the youth programs; it\u2019s how it runs its welfare program; it\u2019s how the administration of the church on the local level is run.<\/p>\n\n And undoubtedly it is good for the individuals who are engaged in that volunteer service, even if it\u2019s directed exclusively within the walls of the church. There\u2019s a good reason to think that people who engage in any kind of charitable-type service are developing virtues within themselves that most people would recognize as being salutary for a democratic and a civil society.<\/p>\n\n It\u2019s important also to note that that volunteering and service done within the church can benefit the wider community, even if that connection and that benefit is done indirectly. What I mean by that is, as Mormons are volunteering within their own congregations, they are fostering what is often referred to as social capital \u2014 social networks within their congregations that foster a sense of trust and norms of reciprocity and such that, others have argued, really enable a democratic society to function.<\/p>\n\n I actually want to focus for just a few moments on the social networks that are formed within Mormon congregations because here\u2019s where we find a parallel between what goes on within Mormonism and within other religious traditions. So Bob Putnam and I, in a book that we published a while back, which is now out in paperback, I should mention \u2014 \u201cAmerican Grace\u201d \u2014 we find that volunteering among religious folks is quite common. We concur with the results that have been reported here, that Mormons rank at the top when it comes to volunteering both within their church and beyond the church.<\/p>\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n But it\u2019s the mechanism that we identify that drives that volunteering which is important to note. The mechanism, our data suggests, is not actually the religious beliefs that people hold. It\u2019s not the specific things they\u2019re taught over the pulpit or in Sunday school lessons or through church literature. Rather, it\u2019s the very fact that social networks are formed within the congregation.<\/p>\n\n The significance of that is that those social networks operate in essentially the same way whether you\u2019re talking about a Mormon ward, a Catholic parish, an evangelical church or a synagogue. It just so happens that in the case of Mormons, they form tighter networks and therefore build what you might think of as thicker social capital than you find on average in most other religious traditions. So while the level among Mormons is higher, the way you get to that level \u2014 the mechanism that drives it \u2014 is, we would suggest, actually not unique to Mormonism, but just sort of an example of these religious social networks on speed maybe.<\/p>\n\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n But I also wanted to note that this sort of social capital that gets built within a religious community is in some respects a double-edged sword because the social networks that are formed among Mormons means that they are bonding with members of their own faith, but arguably at the expense of not bridging to those of other faiths.<\/p>\n\n I don\u2019t know whether this was asked on the 14-page questionnaire \u2014 it would have been interesting to know how much of the volunteering that the Mormons in this study are reporting actually consisted of them working with people of other faiths. And I\u2019m willing to bet that actually that percentage is relatively low. It wouldn\u2019t be zero, so it\u2019s a myth that Mormons don\u2019t ever engage in interfaith efforts. They do, but perhaps not to the extent that other traditions might.<\/p>\n\n So my bottom line is that Mormons definitely represent a distinctive group in American society. And they\u2019re perhaps unique in their levels of volunteerism. But they\u2019re not unique in the mechanism that leads to that level. If I could just close on this note, the fact that these social networks are being formed to make tight connections among Mormons means that Mormons are not as well-integrated into their own communities \u2014 that is, among people of other faiths \u2014 as perhaps they could be. That is reflected in the relatively poor perception that Mormons have in broader American society. If you have any doubt about that perception, I would just encourage you to ask Mitt Romney, and he\u2019ll tell you all about it. I\u2019ll close with that. Thank you.<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> Thank you, David. Before I turn it to the public, Ram, did you have any questions that got at the question of bridging capital?<\/p>\n\n CNAAN:<\/strong> I totally agree with David that what happens in congregation is much more important for volunteering and giving than the faith itself. Lots of my studies show the same that David just mentioned, that attending congregation is what sparks people from just believing to doing good in the world. I totally agree with it. I also agree with him that many congregations are much stronger in bonding than bridging capital. Just want you to know that people who are not engaged in congregation are low both on bridging and on bonding capital.<\/p>\n\n So while I share the same criticism, I also look at it positively because you have a foundation in congregation that builds into bonding, and the bonding is the culture that creates the tendency to volunteer and donate, which is wonderful. Ideally, it will reach a higher level of bridging and caring and integration with other groups, but it\u2019s rare. It happens, but it\u2019s rare in all faith traditions. So I totally concur with what you say.<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> Thank you. All right, open it up to your questions.<\/p>\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n JEROME SOKOLOVSKY, VOICE OF AMERICA:<\/strong> David, you said that it\u2019s not about beliefs or about faith, and I\u2019m wondering if you\u2019re talking about theological beliefs. I wonder if there is a role here that is played by faith in the institution of the Mormon Church, that Mormons trust their church to do the right thing with the money, the same way that perhaps Scandinavians paying taxes into their welfare state would trust their government to do the right thing with it, the way many Americans do not trust our government to do that.<\/p>\n\n CAMPBELL:<\/strong> That\u2019s a nice parallel. Let me begin by just clarifying what I mean when I say that it\u2019s not beliefs that are driving the volunteering. That\u2019s not to say that religious beliefs are irrelevant to creating these religious communities in the first place. It\u2019s just that when you look at empirically what drives the volunteering, what explains it \u2014 when we run these big, fancy statistical models \u2014 it\u2019s not what people say they believe; it\u2019s rather the connections that they make with others.<\/p>\n\n Now it\u2019s those connections that they make \u2014 remember, this is a lay-run organization. So the person who is spending the money that you are contributing into the fast offering fund is your local bishop. He\u2019s the guy who might be your dentist, and he\u2019s your bishop now, but he\u2019s probably only going to do that for five years. And after that he might be the Boy Scout master, or he might teach your child in a children\u2019s organization. It\u2019s that sort of organization.<\/p>\n\n I will admit I love that parallel between Scandinavians paying their taxes and Mormons paying their tithing because it actually feeds into, I think, a very interesting point about Mormonism, which is, as Greg was noting, Mormons politically are this very conservative group who don\u2019t want government intervention in anything. But when it comes to their church, they\u2019re very comfortable with very dramatic redistribution of wealth.<\/p>\n\n So the contributions \u2014 all the financial contributions that Ram was mentioning \u2014 those are all paid into a central fund in Salt Lake City. When I say paid in, I mean the bank deposits are made on Monday morning after the checks are collected on Sunday, and they are automatically transferred to Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City then distributes that around the world so that Mormons in Guatemala can get a share of the money that came out of North America.<\/p>\n\n That\u2019s a stunning redistribution, but it\u2019s done through church channels, and Mormons are very comfortable with that and probably wouldn\u2019t think there\u2019s anything strange about it. Those of other traditions might think that is a little strange. You\u2019re just giving your money to the headquarters and they\u2019re deciding where it \u2014 you\u2019re not deciding? And that\u2019s just the way it goes. Like I said, I love that parallel to the Scandinavian welfare state.<\/p>\n\n CNAAN:<\/strong> Two comments, quickly. First about the belief issue, over 20 years ago I did my first study on volunteering, and I wanted to know who volunteers. I found out that people who said that they believe in God and they\u2019re very religious but don\u2019t attend congregation hardly ever volunteer. People with the same level of religiosity but who attend congregation are the highest \u2014 people who volunteer.<\/p>\n\n So faith is important. It teaches you the importance of things and bring you to congregation. But in and of itself, faith alone does not move people into being a volunteer. So that\u2019s to clarify what both David and I found in different studies.<\/p>\n\n About the money, when I did my interviews with people \u2014 I interviewed about five people who converted to being Mormons, and all of them told me: When I give my money to this church, meaning LDS, I know that it doesn\u2019t go to the pastor. I know that it doesn\u2019t go to a pastor who will buy a better car. I know that it doesn\u2019t go to somebody to drink. It goes to the causes. My clergy is a volunteer. My president is a volunteer. All the money goes to good causes, and that makes me feel much better.<\/p>\n\n Each of them compared \u2014 they didn\u2019t meet each other because they were in different parts of the city \u2014 but each of them compared themselves to their relatives who donate money that somebody, an individual, can abuse, and they say, here it doesn\u2019t happen. And this is in part why they feel good about it, and they\u2019re not wondering about where the money is going.<\/p>\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n ANTHONY POGORELC, CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY:<\/strong> I\u2019m Father Tony Pogorelc from Catholic University. When I taught at Purdue, I had some Mormon students, and one of the things I was struck by was the parallel institutions that were maintained at the university to make sure that the students continued to socialize with each other. But not so long ago \u2014 we can go back to the \u201960s \u2014 Catholics, too, had strong parallel institutions and a very strong Catholic identity. Today, of course, there are greater variations in Catholic identity, to the lamentation of many bishops.<\/p>\n\n But I guess one of the things I\u2019d be curious about is, would any of you dare to predict \u2014 would you say that Mormons might also be on the way to the social mainstream, and that that might dilute their identity and even their level of affiliation with their own institutions and the practices that result from that?<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> Convergence towards the mean here.<\/p>\n\n CAMPBELL:<\/strong> Well, I will admit I have a dog in this fight because since the publication of \u201cAmerican Grace,\u201d I\u2019ve now spoken to a number of LDS audiences in which I have told them that if you want your public perception to rise, if you want to be taken seriously as a mainstream religion, you need to go out and build bridges with other people. You need to do that because a public relations campaign will only take the church so far. Billboards and television commercials probably don\u2019t hurt, but they do not substitute for deep, lasting friendships, social connections, maybe even members of your extended family.<\/p>\n\n The pushback that I\u2019ve gotten from that \u2014 just recently at a conference \u2014 and Shaun Casey\u2019s here from the Wesley Theological Seminary. I was a few weeks ago at a wonderful conference that Wesley hosted with a dialogue between Mormons and Methodists. This was the message I delivered there, and the pushback that I will often get from inside the LDS community is exactly what you\u2019re saying. Well, if we do that, won\u2019t we just be like the Catholics, and we\u2019ll lose what\u2019s distinctive about our faith?<\/p>\n\n I suppose that taken to an extreme that\u2019s true. I would counter, and I have countered and will continue to do so, that the LDS Church and the LDS folks today bond to such an extent and are distinctive to such an extent that we are three generations away from any concerns about that. Much of that is actually theological.<\/p>\n\n There\u2019s a great emphasis on marrying within the faith \u2014 within Mormonism \u2014 that I don\u2019t think is actually matched in other religions. Most religions want you to marry within the faith. But within Mormonism, marriage within the faith has a particular role within the theology that just is not found anywhere else, and that alone I think actually helps to maintain the distinctiveness.<\/p>\n\n So my message to a Mormon audience would be: Go ahead and bridge, and three generations from now, we\u2019ll worry about whether or not Mormons are losing their distinctiveness because the price that is paid for not building those bridges is quite high. It\u2019s not just a matter of popularity contests. I think it works against the church itself and its own members in trying to make a positive contribution in American society.<\/p>\n\n WILLIAM GALSTON, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION:<\/strong> It occurred to me that the remarks that I wanted to make and the questions that I wanted to ask, as I looked at them, I said, hey, these are all from a Jewish perspective. And I plead guilty. I can\u2019t run away from it. My first observation takes the form of what I hope will be received as a joke. This is a really risky thing I\u2019m about to do, but I\u2019m going to do it anyway.<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> But we will laugh now that you told us it\u2019s a joke. So we\u2019ll play with you.<\/p>\n\n GALSTON:<\/strong> Well, yeah. Greg, you made the methodological point that your pool of respondents didn\u2019t include former Mormons. I would submit that it didn\u2019t include prospective Mormons either because I confidently expect that I will be enrolled posthumously in the Mormon Church. So I am part of the future of the Mormon Church, and it seems to me that my views ought to be taken into account.<\/p>\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n But more seriously, I do see an interesting parallel between many features of Mormonism and Orthodox Judaism. Let me start at the end. The extraordinary emphasis placed on marrying within the faith \u2014 which I can assure you within Orthodox Judaism is every bit as powerful as it is within Mormonism. I also see a very similar pattern of intense inward bonds and very attenuated bridging activities.<\/p>\n\n And perhaps for historically similar reasons, although I don\u2019t want to press the analogy between modes of persecution too far, but I do think that that history \u2014 I\u2019ll defer to David on this one \u2014 probably has something to do with the parallel. More generally, it seems to me that Mormons and Orthodox Jews score high on all three of the dimensions of the familiar believing, belonging, behaving triad. So I think the parallel between Mormons and Catholics is interesting. The parallel between Mormons and Orthodox Jews is also interesting and worth some thinking through.<\/p>\n\n Now for a question, and that is that as I look at the statistics on Mormon giving and volunteering, I\u2019m moved to ask: Do you pay any annual dues to be a member of the Mormon Church? If the answer to that is no, that has an effect on the comparative statistics because I can assure you the annual dues to belong to a synagogue are very, very high, and you are expected to give \u201cvoluntarily,\u201d quote-unquote, to the annual appeal on top of that.<\/p>\n\n If you add those two things together, you get pretty close to tithing on a sort of lower-middle-class income and about halfway there at the median income. So it seems to me, especially to the extent to which Mormon giving is directed towards the church, then some correction for membership fees in other faiths, methodologically, might be a fair comparison. What do you think?<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> Ram, you want to start on that and then we\u2019ll have David. And I have a question for Greg based on your first comment.<\/p>\n\n CNAAN:<\/strong> Wow. That was interesting. But I\u2019ve been asked this question a few times before, so I\u2019ll give you a few lines. First, there are many studies about Jewish Orthodox dues, and dues because you can\u2019t pay on Saturday in the synagogue, so every Jewish synagogue is asking for membership dues, which is their equivalent of an offering. pledge. When you take this Jewish appeal and all others, it doesn\u2019t go more than 4% in most studies, on average income. So the discrepancy is serious.<\/p>\n\n The other thing that I mentioned in my presentation is the culture of callings. The fact that somebody can come in the church and tell you, you\u2019ve been chosen to do this activity \u2014 and this activity can be most demanding and you would say yes \u2014 is not parallel. Maybe the Hassidic movement, where there is a leader that is not with us anymore, could have done it then. But most Orthodox Jews \u2014 and I come from an Orthodox family, so I know it quite well \u2014 you don\u2019t have this power to tell people. You ask for volunteers, and luckily you\u2019ll find volunteers.<\/p>\n\n So this culture is really unparalleled in any Jewish (inaudible). The idea of belonging, feeling persecuted, marrying within, you\u2019re very correct. There are many similarities. The other thing is that when I interviewed members of the LDS Church who were not living in Utah and I asked them: Are you living next to people like you? They said, why? No, I live where it\u2019s convenient for me, where it\u2019s good, where the Jewish Orthodox try to live together for the purpose of walking together to synagogue. So there are many differences that if you want, I can elaborate on later.<\/p>\n\n GALSTON:<\/strong> Just briefly, I would come back by saying that I suspect that you grew up in an Orthodox but not Haredi family.<\/p>\n\n CNAAN:<\/strong> Well, my grandparents and my grandmother was Haredi.<\/p>\n\n GALSTON:<\/strong> I say that as the father of a son and a daughter-in-law who have gone in the Haredi direction, and I can assure you that the authority of rabbis within that sphere to reach out and give assignments to people is quite considerable.<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> David, could you also explain, we keep talking about tithing on income. Is it generally understood that that\u2019s either gross income, after-tax income? I mean, what\u2019s the leeway here?<\/p>\n\n CAMPBELL:<\/strong> Well, there\u2019s a story about that.<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> OK, all right.<\/p>\n\n CAMPBELL:<\/strong> I assure you that if we were to call Salt Lake City right now and ask whoever we could reach there: Should Mormons pay tithing on their gross or their net, the official answer would be: You decide. This is a matter of great debate among Mormons themselves. If you ever want to get a fight going among individual Mormons, ask that question. There are very strong differences of opinion on that.<\/p>\n\n Let me just quickly echo the sentiment that Bill was expressing about the parallels between Orthodox Judaism and Mormonism. I wholeheartedly agree that there actually are some very interesting parallels there that go even beyond, I think, what Bill was suggesting. It turns out that when you look at how people of different faiths in America perceive other religions \u2014 I mentioned that, in general, Mormons are perceived somewhat negatively, and not surprisingly it\u2019s evangelical Christians who drive much of that \u2014 there are actually groups that feel quite positively toward Mormons.<\/p>\n\n One of them is Jews, and that can\u2019t be because of the politics, right? You couldn\u2019t pick two groups that were more opposite politically. It undoubtedly has something to do with a sense of commonality, two religious minorities that have faced persecution, admittedly in different ways, but nonetheless persecution.<\/p>\n\n Let me just answer Bill\u2019s question about dues. Mormons do not pay dues to belong to a local congregation. In fact, you don\u2019t really belong to your local congregation. You belong to the church, and then you attend a congregation based on where you live. If you move from one place to another, the church actually moves your records for you so that you can then be assigned to the next ward. It\u2019s kind of like the parish system in the Catholic Church, although obviously there the geographic assignment has broken down somewhat in the last 20 or 30 years.<\/p>\n\n So you don\u2019t pay dues, but there is an internal enforcement mechanism for the payment of tithing, and that is, in order for you to be considered a member in good standing, and therefore able to enter a Mormon temple \u2014 you all live in the Washington, D.C., area, presumably, so you\u2019ve seen the big temple out in Maryland. These are all over the country. They\u2019re different than the regular meeting houses where Mormons go to worship on Sundays. Any one of you could go to one of those buildings at any time and participate in all the stuff that goes on there \u2014 the scout troops or the teenage dances and all that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n\n The temples, however, are different. They are reserved for members in good standing only, and in order to enter a temple, one of the requirements is that you be a full tithe payer. It\u2019s self-reported \u2014 no church official ever looks over your tax return \u2014 but Mormons themselves take that very seriously. So it\u2019s not dues, but it\u2019s close. I would say there\u2019s a parallel there between the payment of dues and the payment of tithing in order to participate fully in the faith.<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> Greg, if we were to broaden this \u2014 we\u2019re always looking for clues to do some interesting research here, and one just struck me: groups that are sort of high-demand groups and looking at how the bonding and bridging capital works. We\u2019ve got Mormons and Orthodox Jews on the table. Who else might we put there for a nice comparative study, Greg, from the broad American religious landscape?<\/p>\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n SMITH:<\/strong> Well, I was struck, in working on the new survey of Mormons, over and over again by the similarities between Mormons in the United States and evangelicals. This is true religiously speaking \u2014 both groups exhibit very high levels of religious involvement. They attend church regularly, say they pray at frequent intervals \u2014 much more so than other groups. It\u2019s also true politically. These are the two groups in American politics that are most consistently Republican, most consistently conservative.<\/p>\n\n Part of the reason I find that so interesting is because, as David pointed out, these are also two groups between whom there\u2019s a fair amount of tension. Mormons themselves tell us \u2014 in our survey, half of the Mormons we spoke with said that they think that evangelicals in the United States are unfriendly toward Mormons. That\u2019s way more, I should point out, than think that secular people are unfriendly toward Mormons. More Mormons perceive hostility from evangelicals than perceive it from secular people.<\/p>\n\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n Evangelicals express real doubts about Mormonism. Half of evangelicals tell us they do not think Mormonism is a Christian faith, even though almost 100% of Mormons \u2014 we asked them \u2014 told us that it is. And two-thirds of evangelicals say that Mormonism and their own faith are really pretty different from each other. So I was struck by those similarities. I\u2019m not sure how those groups would compare with respect to religious giving.<\/p>\n\n I think maybe the only other group in the population, at least that we have data for \u2014 and we have a very limited amount of data \u2014 but the other group that compares with Mormons in terms of their level of religious commitment is Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses. And we know less about their politics, although they tend to be less politically involved. That\u2019s the overarching pattern I remember about Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses\u2019 thinking about politics.<\/p>\n\n But those are the two groups that struck me. We have less data, at least in our surveys, about Orthodox Judaism. But those are the two groups that repeatedly and consistently jumped out in terms of their comparison to Mormons.<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> But if we were to compare evangelicals to these other three groups that we\u2019ve mentioned, we\u2019d need to cut the evangelical community further. For all of these groups, just about everybody has high commitment. We find a lot more variation within evangelicalism \u2014 not as much as we find within Catholicism in terms of level of religious commitment and political views, but still fairly significant. So you\u2019d be talking then about what percentage of American evangelicals that would have high levels of commitments that closely parallel, let\u2019s say, Orthodox Jews or Mormons.<\/p>\n\n SMITH:<\/strong> It\u2019s probably half or more of evangelicals. Something like two-thirds of Mormons, seven-in-ten Mormons, at least on the scale that we used, come out very high on religious commitment. About seven-in-ten Mormons say that they go to church every single week, that they pray every single day and that religion is very important in their lives. Seven-in-ten Mormons meet all three of those criteria.<\/p>\n\n Among evangelicals, if I remember correctly, the comparable figure is about 55% or so, so a little bit lower. But those two groups are each far higher than most of the other groups in the population, with the exception of black Protestants, who are a little lower still but towards that end of the spectrum.<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> Of course, even if you\u2019re talking about half of evangelicals, that\u2019s still about 13% of the U.S. population.<\/p>\n\n SMITH:<\/strong> Correct.<\/p>\n\n LUGO:<\/strong> So not an insignificant group.<\/p>\n\n MARK FARR, NATIONAL VISION & PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT:\u00a0<\/strong>Thanks for the very high-quality discussion. The point about which groups are they most like, just to cue directly off that, it seems to me the one that would be closest to it would be Islam \u2014 because it is first of all feeling embattled, and second, its giving is even higher than any of the ones you\u2019ve mentioned. I don\u2019t believe it\u2019s even possible to be a Muslim without giving 10% of your wealth. It\u2019s zakat, isn\u2019t it? It\u2019s something like that. I mean, there\u2019s some \u2014 2%? But I know that there\u2019s a lot of giving and it\u2019s carefully done.<\/p>\n\n But where I was going to go was somewhere slightly different. I think there are some sociological things that perhaps it\u2019s hard to study in a questionnaire that are kind of obvious or very clear to me but have to be taken into account when you study something as interesting as this. The first is that the LDS faith is an embattled group \u2014 from the U.S. government \u2014 or it has a history of having that, so it\u2019s not completely surprising that their giving might be very good, but it might not be to the U.S. government. I mean, their whole history \u2014 even the state of Utah and the rest of it \u2014 has to be factored into this.<\/p>\n\n So it\u2019s not just, it seems to me, about faith. It\u2019s about their sociological, historical traditions. And the sociological piece comes in as well because any embattled group tends to give to itself because it feels embattled and it wants to look after the group. I think that\u2019s a natural human instinct. So those are the two comments.<\/p>\n\n I have one observation which I\u2019d be interested to know whether you have a thought on. I mean, your very interesting study \u2014 the beginning asks the question, what would it take for them to become more acceptable? What do they think it would take? And I think it\u2019s volunteering. I used to run all the faith-based volunteering for Points of Light, and it was anecdotally completely true across the country that the LDS Church always shows up. They are absolutely there more than anyone else. So they really are good at it.<\/p>\n\n But I\u2019m not sure that gets you to acceptance, honestly. I think, when I look back again at the sweep of a few decades, it takes a sort of catalytic moment. It would be JFK for the Catholics. Before then, Catholicism was sort of weird; after that it became more mainstream. Maybe Ellen DeGeneres for lesbianism. I don\u2019t know. I bet you could find other ones. Those are the two that just happen to mind. I think you need a sort of catalytic moment and that will be \u2014 maybe if Mitt Romney becomes president. That probably would be it.<\/p>\n\n But more than just a sort of slide into mainstream, it would be my argument that you\u2019d need something. And I\u2019d be interested to know whether you agree with that or think it\u2019s ludicrous.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\n![\"civic-lugo-small\"](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/Luis-Lugo11.jpg\" "\\"civic-lugo-small\\"")
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<\/figure>\n\n“Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints are the most pro-social members in American society.”<\/h1>\n
![\"civic-greg\"](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/Greg-Smith.jpg\" "\\"civic-greg\\"")
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“Nearly three-quarters of Mormons say that working to help the poor and needy is an essential part of what it means to be a good Mormon.”<\/h1>\n
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<\/figure>\n\n“There is no doubt that Mormons are the highest when it comes to religious volunteering and other types of volunteering.”<\/h1>\n
“Mormons \u2026 are bonding with members of their own faith, but arguably at the expense of not bridging to those of other faiths.”<\/h1>\n
![\"civic-jeremy\"](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/Jerome-Socolovsky-VOA.jpg\" "\\"civic-jeremy\\"")
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<\/figure>\n\n“Half of evangelicals tell us they do not think Mormonism is a Christian faith, even though almost 100% of Mormons \u2026 told us that it is.”<\/h1>\n
![\"civic-mark\"](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/Mark-Farr-National-Vision.jpg\" "\\"civic-mark\\"")
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<\/figure>\n\n![\"civic-nevsin\"](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/Nevsin-Mengu-CNN-Turk.jpg\" "\\"civic-nevsin\\"")
<\/figure>\n\n![\"civic-shaun-small\"](\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2012\/07\/Shawn-Casey-Wesley-Theological-Sem.jpg\" "\\"civic-shaun-small\\"")
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