Introduction

It is common to encounter in Utah residents⊕For the general reader, this article provides background details concerning commonplace beliefs regarding relative adherence in Utah to the Later Day Saint faith relative to other denominations. Known sociological data concerning the relative frequency of denominations and the new spiritual-but-not-religious is tabulated. who believe that ninety percent or more of Utah’s residents are LDS members (personal obs.). Mathematically, they partially correct. One of the longest, most respected time-series of religious adherence surveys in the United States is the decennial survey of congregations prepared by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB). In ASARB’s last decennial survey in 2010 and if religious adherence is defined as only those people who are affiliated with a traditional congregation, then that perception is correct (Association of Religious Data Archives (⊕2020aAssociation of Religious Data Archives. 2020a. “County Membership Report for Salt Lake County, Utah - 2010.” University Park, Pennsylvania: Dept. of Sociology, Pennsylvania State University. http://thearda.com/rcms2010/rcms2010A.asp?U=49035{&}T=county{&}Y=2010{&}S=family.)).⊕Table 3, below, 87 percent = 1,910,504 LDS population divided by 2,186,403 persons claimed by congregations out of a 2010 population of 2,763,885. If the 21 percent of the religiously unclaimed are included, then the LDS portion of the statewide population is a lower 69 percent. Other anecdotal reviews suggest that the statewide ratio may be as low as 60 percent statewide (Canham (⊕2020Canham, Matt. 2020. “Utah sees Latter-day Saint slowdown and membership numbers drop in Salt Lake County.” Salt Lake City, Utah. https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/01/05/utah-sees-latter-day/.)) and less than 50 percent in Salt Lake County (Canham (⊕2018Canham, Matt. 2018. “Salt Lake County is now minority Mormon, and the impacts are far reaching.” Salt Lake City, Utah. https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2018/12/09/salt-lake-county-is-now/.)), if reporting bias is considered. Consistent with national trends towards declining religious adherence, in 2005, some predicted that less than 50 percent of Utahans will be LDS adherents by 2030 (Canham (⊕2005Canham, Matt. 2005. “Mormon portion of Utah population steadily shrinking.” Salt Lake City, Utah. https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2886596{&}itype=NGPSID.)).

In February 2020, the ASARB began contacting United States’ congregations to collect congregation membership data for its 2020 national decennial census. When released in 2022, the ASARB’s new survey results will provide an update on whether or not Utah is still on track towards the 2005 prediction that in 2030, Utah will no longer be a state with a majority of residents that follow the LDS faith.

The group of the religiously unclaimed is denoted by several names in different survey and articles: unclaimed persons, the religiously unaffiliated, or simply None, meaning no religious affiliation.

Nationally, from 1991 to 2018, the percentage of persons reporting that they are not affiliated with a traditional organized religion grew from 7 percent to 21 percent (Addendum Table A3; Figure 3, below; National Opinion Research Center and Chicago (⊕2020National Opinion Research Center, and University of Chicago. 2020. “General Social Survey Data Explorer.” https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/.)). During the same period, membership in traditional mainstream Protestant denominations has declined from 65 percent to 49 percent of the United States population (id). An unknown but significant portion of this new religious unaffiliated category are young persons who consider themselves spiritual, but not religious (SBNR) (Oppenheimer (⊕2015Oppenheimer, Mark. 2015. “Examining the Growth of the ’Spiritual but Not Religious’.” The New York Times 14 (L): 2014–6. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/us/examining-the-growth-of-the-spiritual-but-not-religious.html.)).

This descriptive report examines the distribution of membership in traditional, organized religious congregations within Utah at the county level and estimates the extent of the national SBNR trend within Utah. The rate per 1,000 persons that had membership in a Utah traditional religious congregation in 2010 is illustrated in Figure 1, but Figure 1 excludes persons not claimed by any congregation or who may privately practice their spiritual beliefs outside of organized religion.

Figure 11 - Representative Churches of Salt Lake City, March 1914. Note: In this collage, the LDS Temple is reduced to a small image in the upper right-hand corner. The City’s Catholic Cathedral de Madeleine is given central emphasis. Source: Salt Lake City Municipal Record, March 1914, copy in author’s possession.

Utah’s culture has not been immune from the national trend away from Protestant religions and towards religious non-affiliation. A central unintuitive finding of this analysis is that in Utah, persons who are not claimed on membership rolls of any traditional religious congregation have evolved into the second largest “religious” Utah subgroup (21 percent).

The order of the relative number⊕Parenthicals describe percents in Table 3, below. of members in Utah congregations in 2010 are: LDS (69), unclaimed by any congregation (21), Catholic (6), Evangelical (2), Protestant (0.8), all other denominations including Greek Orthodox, Judaism, Muslims and Buddhists (less than 0.1 each). In Utah’s highest-populated county, Salt Lake County, the order of the relative number of members in congregations are: LDS (59), unclaimed by any congregation (27), Catholic (8), Evangelical (3), Protestant (1), Greek Orthodox (0.5), Buddhist (0.4), and all other denominations, including Jewish and Muslim (0.4) (Table 2, below). Indirect evidence suggests that the ratio of LDS faith members within Salt Lake City may have a lower bound of 30 percent - much lower than the LDS statewide adherence rate (69 percent) and Salt Lake County (59 percent) (see Religious Adherence in Salt Lake City, below).

Figure 2. Cartogram-Choropleths of Unclaimed Persons, Crude Rates per 1,000 persons, for 29 Utah Counties in 2010

Note: Crude rates of persons unclaimed by any congregation per 1,000 persons. (a) Crude Rate by Land Area; (b) Crude Rate by County Total Population. (a) light orange = low; dark orange=high. Source: Tables 2 and 3; Grammich et al 2018; Utah Open GIS.

The increase of persons who are not affiliated with traditional religions and a subset of that population, SBNR individuals, should not assumed to represent a decline in United States’ religiosity. An alternative explanation is that the rise of SBNRs represents the early evolution of United States’ religiosity into a new expressive form. Another finding of this report based on religious diversity and adherence rates among the 50 States is that as religious diversity increases, so does religious participation. Increasing diversity among Utah’s faiths can lead to sustained or increased state-wide religiosity.

The relative frequency of adherence to traditional religions is also a topic of interest to many northern Utah residents, including Salt Lake City residents, due to commonplace beliefs about the interrelationship between the Church of Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and political power in the Utah State Legislature.

For the purposes of this report, Latter-day Saint reported counts of Utah membership by congregation are assumed to not be an artifact. In 2005, a Brigham Young University demographer familiar with LDS membership rolls reported that between one-third and one-half of United States enrollees are not active (see The Accuracy of All Congregational Reports, below).

Methodology

The Limitations of Measuring Congregational Religious Adherence

The Accuracy of All Congregational Reports, including LDS rolls, is Qualified by Over Reporting Error

This author was unable to extract standard deviations for county level religious adherence counts from Grammich (2018). Grammich (2018) reports⊕The 50 States’ total adherence rate are not normally distributed. Figure 7(a), below. for ASARB 2010 survey the total rates of adherence per 1,000 population for all denominations and groups on the level of the 50 states: range 276.31 to 791.06; mean 474.74, and a standard deviation of 102.76. The spread for a single deviation is large.

The accuracy of self-congregation reporting is known to be subject to over reporting error (Brenner (⊕2016Brenner, Philip S. 2016. “Research synthesis: Cross-national trends in religious service attendance.” Public Opinion Quarterly 80 (2): 563–83. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfw016.)). Some researchers assert that over reporting of membership may be as high as fifty percent on the level of individual congregations (id). Discrepancies are rarely reported but raise concerns about accuracy. With respect to the LDS faith internationally in 2000, a Brazilian census reported 199,645 self-identified LDS faith members, but in that year, the LDS church reported 743,182 members on its rolls (Stack (⊕2005Stack, Peggy Fletcher. 2005. “Keeping members a challenge for LDS church.” Salt Lake City, Utah. https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=2890645{&}itype=NGPSID.)) and in Latin America in 2005, retention of members was difficult because many new members found that they could not meet the strict conduct requirements of their new faith (id).

In 2005, BYU demographer Professor Tim Heaton reported that within Utah about one-third and one-half of persons on LDS membership rolls are not active (Canham (2005)). That suggested that in 2005, about 42 percent of Utahans statewide are active church-attendees (id).

In 2019, the accuracy of Church of Later Day Saints’ reports within Utah is considered to be high due to anecdotal reports of their business practices (personal obs.). Modern LDS church members are assigned individual internet account identification numbers, and members access their church news and member records via internet applications.

Conversely, LDS rolls may overstate membership counts due to the difficulty of withdrawing from their faith (see LDS Member Resignations, below) and because rolls are not purged of members who are born into the faith, but never are baptized (Canham (2020)). Anecdotally, Salt Lake City LGBTQ persons who were enrolled in church membership without consent as children report that the process to remove themselves from church rolls as adults is time-consuming and difficult (personal communications, anonymous). LGBTQ persons report that to resign, that must fill out and file an application and a notarized letter-request to withdraw. Then a church officer conducts an in-home interview. Several letters may be received by the applicant and some report the entire process can take between six months to a year to complete, although some report that they can complete the process in a couple of months. The LDS church business practice concerning resignation may overstate active Utah membership because persons who are no longer active and no longer wish to be members may not want to go to the expense and the time to resign their church affiliation. They may also wish to avoid the adverse familial problems that arise from resignation.

Young Utah LDS adults in their twenties are under family and social pressure to not announce their withdrawal from LDS Church rolls. A 2013 First Presidency statement counsels members to treat ex-Mormons with respect because on Church doctrine regarding self-agency and compassion for those engaged in a personal religious search (Saints (⊕2013Saints, Latter-day. 2013. “Come, Join with Us.” Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints. https://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/general-conference/october-2013-general-conference/2013-10-1070-president-dieter-f-uchtdorf-eng.pdf?lang=eng.)). Harrison (⊕2017Harrison, Mette Ivie. 2017. “Do Mormons Shun?” New York City, New York. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/do-mormons-shun{_}b{_}5a007e70e4b076eaaae27173.) discusses more mild forms of exclusion by ex-members from their families. Anecdotally, young LDS adults report that if they announce to their parental families that they are no longer LDS, they are shunned and excluded from most contact with their parental and extended families (personal obs.; Walt-Joffe (⊕2005Walt-Joffe, Chana. 2005. “Shunned ex-Mormons form their own community.” Washington, D.C. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4968585.)). Young LDS adults anecdotally report that the path of least social resistance is to personally withdraw from participation from the LDS faith, but not to announce that withdraw to either their family or Church authorities (personal obs.). They form new personal relationships with other non-observing SBNR affiliates in their age group who are also former LDS members (e.g. Walt-Jaffe (2005)).

These social forces may result in over reporting the counts of LDS adherents within Utah, but the extent of that reporting bias is unquantified and unknown.

Measuring Religiosity by Church Attendance Inherently Includes Definitional Reporting Bias.

Religious service attendance is not inherently more important than other ways of operationalizing religiosity, like affiliation, other behaviors (e.g., scripture reading, praying, and meditating), or beliefs (Brenner 2016).

Restated, measuring religiosity by church attendance is a form of measuring bias created by the definitional criteria applied. The measuring error of the ASRB survey’s failure to detect the naturalistic religiosity practices of San Juan County Navajos and other Native Americans, discussed above, also illustrates the practical and unavoidable definitional limitations of measuring religion by counting congregations.

Nationally, religiosity measured by church congregation size has been declining within the United States approximately 0.25 percent per year for three decades going back to 1986 (Brenner 2016). This is part of a general cultural trend in northern Western European and North American countries (id).

Part of reason that there has been a twenty-three percent decline in the rate of religious adherence in the United States as measured in ASARB and other surveys is due to how religiosity is defined. If religiosity is measured by the criteria of mainstream church affiliation, then the United States and Utah has experienced a significant decline in religiosity. If religiosity is defined by other behaviors such as praying, meditating or thinking about spiritual beliefs that proposition is suspect. The decline in religious adherence may represent a transformation of American religiosity into new forms. This question is discussed in more depth in the next section.

The ASARB method identifies “unclaimed persons” by taking the difference between an area’s total population and subtracting the number of persons claimed by congregations. That method has its limitations, as discussed above, but it as a practical matter one of the few survey methods that can give a long time-series insight into the state of United States congregations and the state of the nation’s religions.

Another approach is to survey a sample of adults and to allow them to self-declare their religious affiliation, including “unaffiliated” or “non-religious”. This is the method used in PEW Life and Religion studies. Stewart (⊕2019Stewart, Evan. 2019. “No Church in the Wild: The Politics of American Non religion.” Edited by Penny Edgell, Joseph Gerteis, Joshua Page, and Christopher Federico. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.) discusses the difficulties associated with categorizing people by the self-identification survey method. People holding a wide-variety of religious beliefs describe themselves “non-religious”.

Analysis

Utah’s Religious Adherence and Diversity within the National Context

Utah has not been immune to this national trend, although the State remains in terms of religious adherence and diversity an anomalous outlier among the States (Grammich et al. (⊕2012bGrammich, Clifford, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E. 2012b. “2010 U.S. Religion Census: Religious Congregations and Membership Study.” http://thearda.com/Archive/Files/Descriptions/RCMSST10.asp.)). Among the 50 states, Utah is the number 1 rank for total religious adherence at 719 per 1,000 persons - a level far higher than the average rate for all of the States.

Figure 5 - Cartogram and Choropleths of Total Religious Adherence Rate per 1,000 Persons by U.S. State in 2010

Note: For the lower 48 States. Darker colors means higher religious adherence per 1,000 persons; lighter colors means a lower rate of adherence. In (b), the sizes of the states are distorted to reflect a State’s population relative to the 50 States. Grammich (2018a).

Figure 6 - Cartogram and Choropleths of Religious Diversity Index by U.S. State in 2010

Note: For the lower 48 States. Darker colors means lower diversity; lighter colors means higher diversity. In (b), the sizes of the states are distorted to reflect a State’s population relative to the 50 States. Source: Grammich (2018a).

⊕About Simpson’s Index Compliment Simpson’s Index \[ = \frac{1}{\sum_{i=1}^{s} p_{i} }\] Simpson’s Index Compliment = 1 - Simpson’s Index, where \[p_{i}\] is the fraction of one ethnic group observed in a given area. Subgroups can be defined on any characteristics, such as age, ethnicity, or religious membership. Simpson`s Compliment is a measure of how diverse groups are within an area. The index can be interpreted as the probability that the next person you meet in a neighborhood will be of the same ethnicity or religious denomination as yourself. A low-value like 0.3 means that a neighborhood is ethnically or religiously diverse; a high-value like 0.8 means a neighborhood is ethnically or religiously homogenous. In such a neighborhood, you have a low probability of meeting someone of a different ethnic background or religious denomination. Using ASARB data for the 50 States, the diversity of religious denominations was estimated using Simpson’s Index Compliment (Addendum Table A2). In the diversity index shown in Table 1 and in Figure 6 above, persons unclaimed by any congregation are treated as their own artificially defined “denomination”. Simpson’s Index Compliment is a number between 0.00 and 1.00. Whereever presented in this report, this diversity index is multiplied by 100 for reading clarity.

Figure 6 summarizes the religious diversity and the total adherence rate per 1,000 persons for the 50 States. Table 1 lists the diversity index for the six top highest adherence rate States, and Table 1 is an excerpt from Addendum Table A2 for all 50 States. Again, Utah - along with Maine - is an outlier from the other States in terms of low-diversity with a Simpson’s Index Compliment of 54.

Figure 6 is similar to an ASARB’s graph titled Religious Diversity in the United States, 2010 in Grammich (2012), but the methodology used here differs from that earlier work (Ball (⊕2012Ball, Carolyn. 2012. “Religious Diversity in the Workplace The State of Religious Diversity Religious Diversity in the United States.” In 2010 U.s. Religion Census: Religious Congregations and Membership Study. Lenexa, KS: Lenexa, Kan.: Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4059-4.)). Grammich (2012) graphs diversity on a finer county level and not on the state level. Grammich (2012) used Simpson’s Index to measure diversity; here Simpson’s Index Compliment is used. To compute Simpson’s Index, Grammich et al used populations within each county of Latter-day Saint, Catholic, Protestant, Other Christian, Islam, Jewish, or Other religious persons claimed by congregations. Here, the ASARB 2010 data was categorized (Addendum Table A2) into Unclaimed Persons, Evangelical Protestant, Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Other including Latter-day Saint, Black Protestant, and Orthodox.

Again, the ASARB did not include Unclaimed Persons as a religious category; this report denotes unclaimed persons their own diversity category. The ASARB diversity graph and the diversity graph presented above in Figure 6 should be considered supplemental views that emphasize different aspects of the same underlying data. Visually, the two graphical presentations are similar.

Table 1 - Top 6 U.S. States for Religious Adherence Rate per 1,000 Persons with Diversity in 2010

State	Simpson’s Index Compliment	Unclaimed	Total Adherence	Evangelical Protestant	Catholic	Mainline Protestant	Other	Black Protestant	Orthodox
Utah	54	209	791	23	58	9	698	1	2
North Dakota	27	329	671	117	249	293	13	0	0
Alabama	33	371	629	420	42	81	12	72	1
Louisiana	29	394	606	235	265	45	13	48	1
Oklahoma	35	407	593	408	48	102	21	14	1
Mississippi	34	413	587	394	38	82	12	62	0

Note: A high Simpson’s Index Compliment indicates low diversity; a low value indicates high diversity. Source: Grammich (2018a).

Visually comparing Figure 5 (adherence) and Figure 6 (religious diversity), some inconsistencies are apparent. In Figure 5, Utah and North Dakota are the two top rank States with respect to religious adherence (see Table 1). In Figure 6, Utah and Maine are the two lowest States ranked on the criteria of religious diversity. Utah and North Dakota are unrelated for religious diversity. These inconsistent rankings for religious adherence and religious diversity are illustrated in Figure 7 - histograms from each characteristic.

Figure 7 - Histograms for Religious Adherence and Diversity for U.S. States in 2010

Note: In both subfigures, the colored vertical lines represent: red = Utah, blue = North Dakota, and green = Maine. Source: Grammich (2018).

This visual representations of religious adherence and religious diversity suggest that these factors are not correlated. But Figure 8 indicates that an association exists between adherence and diversity for the 50 States.

Figure 8 - Two-Way Plot of Religious Adherence and Diversity for U.S. States and Selected Utah Counties in 2010

Note: The figure also plots four red points. Those points are the diversity-adherence pairs for four counties in Utah discussed in the main text. The Religious Diversity Index used in this figure is Simpson’s Index Compliment. A high value indicates low diversity; a low value indicates high diversity. Source: Grammich (2018).

There are two possible, conflicting interpretations of the potential relationship shown in Figure 8.⊕The regression family that yields the highest coefficient of determination between Total Adherence Rate and Simpson’s Index Compliment is logarithmic (Diversity=-0.29ln(TDR)+2.15; R2=0.84). The first conflicting interpretation is that the visual association between adherence and diversity is a data artifact. The 50 States represent a non-random division of the geography of the lower 48 states that contain a declining sample size of the United States’ population. Those divisions are generating a broken-stick or niche apportionment model of the data.

The States in Figure 8 and Addendum Table A1, excluding Utah, can be roughly categorized into three groups. The first cohort is high diversity and high adherence (Table A1 - top rows; States North Dakota and Minnesota; total adherence rates between 560 and 671; diversity index ranges between 29 and 35). Excluding Utah, these states have populations that belong to nearly equal proportions of two or three traditional denominations and the unclaimed person population. In the second cohort, diversity and adherence are near the means shown in Figure 5, above (Table A2 - middle rows; States Rhode Island to California; total adherence rates between 450 and 550; diversity index ranges between 30 and 40). These states have an unclaimed population that is nearly equal to the sum or two three equally distributed traditional denominations. The third group is low diversity and low adherence (Table A1 - bottom rows; States Hawaii to Maine; total adherence rates between 275 and 415; diversity index ranges greater than 40). These states have a high populations of religiously unclaimed persons and two or three relatively smaller populations of traditional denominations.

A second hypothesis that explains the religious association visually seen in Figure 8 is that the association is related to how people join denominations. Compare the low diversity and low adherence states at the left side of Figure 8 to the high-diversity and high-adherence states at the right side of Figure 8, excluding Utah. The data in Figure 8 suggests that as the availability of socially diverse religious congregation increases, potential members have more opportunities to join a congregations that satisfies their individual needs for a religious community experience.⊕Economists and persons with basic microeconomic coursework may notice that the slope of these supply and demand driven curves are inverted. Because this report uses Simpson’s Index Compliment to plot diversity instead of Simpson’s Index, the usual slopes of supply and demand curves are reversed. An editorial choice was made to keep the use of Simpson’s Index Compliment uniform throughout this report for reading clarity. The national trend of higher religious diversity among congregations, i.e. a lower Simpson’s Index Compliment, is that as more people join congregations, statewide religious adherence increases. The regression family that yields the highest coefficient of determination between Total Adherence Rate and Simpson’s Index Compliment is logarithmic (Diversity=-0.29ln(TDR)+2.15; R2=0.84)). National religious adherence is a demand curve driven by the need for the diverse quality of religious experiences.

Religious Adherence within Utah’s Counties

Classification of States by religious diversity and religious adherence also illustrates just how unique Utah is among the 50 states. Figure 8 also plots four points of heterogeneous data for Utah counties, including three of four of Utah’s most populous counties (Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties). Within Utah, its counties demonstrate the opposite trend from national state data. In Utah as religious diversity decreases, i.e. an increasing Simpson’s Index Compliment, religious adherence to congregations increases.

Table 2 shows the rates of religious adherence per 1,000 persons for each of Utah’s 29 counties. Table 3 shows the counts of religious adherence for each of Utah’s 29 counties.

Table 2 - Adherents by Religious Denomination and Utah Counties - Rate per 1,000 Persons

County Name	Population in 2010	Population Rank	Unclaimed Persons	Total	Adherent Rank	LDS	Catholic	Evangelical	Mainline Protestant	Orthodox (Greek)	Buddhist	Black-Protestant	Other Denomination
Salt Lake	1029655	1	268	732	21	593	82	27	12	5	4	1	3
Utah	516564	2	91	909	1	887	13	5	1	0	0	0	3
Davis	306479	3	176	824	10	747	42	26	4	0	5	1	0
Weber	231236	4	247	753	19	600	82	47	12	2	5	4	2
Washington	138115	5	243	757	18	682	42	17	9	0	0	5	1
Cache	112656	6	123	877	6	823	29	14	7	0	0	0	1
Tooele	58218	7	122	878	5	668	184	21	5	0	0	0	0
Box Elder	49975	8	97	903	2	814	40	16	8	0	25	0	0
Iron	46163	9	225	775	17	691	49	30	5	0	0	0	0
Summit	36324	10	424	576	27	350	145	21	39	0	0	0	20
Uintah	32588	11	284	716	22	624	37	40	14	0	0	0	0
Sanpete	27822	12	199	801	12	789	3	8	1	0	0	0	0
Wasatch	23530	13	333	667	23	645	16	6	0	0	0	0	0
Carbon	21403	14	201	799	13	531	191	47	17	13	0	0	0
Sevier	20802	15	123	877	7	836	13	26	2	0	0	0	0
Duchesne	18607	16	219	781	15	735	14	30	1	0	0	0	0
San Juan	14746	17	497	503	29	440	12	36	12	0	0	0	3
Millard	12503	18	170	830	9	793	6	29	2	0	0	0	0
Emery	10976	19	181	819	11	773	10	37	0	0	0	0	0
Juab	10246	20	165	835	8	817	14	0	3	0	0	0	0
Morgan	9469	21	104	896	3	889	0	0	7	0	0	0	0
Grand	9225	22	462	538	28	311	69	89	60	0	0	0	9
Kane	7125	23	333	667	24	578	34	30	25	0	0	0	0
Beaver	6629	24	224	776	16	749	23	4	0	0	0	0	0
Garfield	5172	25	254	746	20	731	10	5	0	0	0	0	0
Wayne	2778	26	214	786	14	777	5	4	0	0	0	0	0
Rich	2264	27	120	880	4	880	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Piute	1556	28	334	666	25	666	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Daggett	1059	29	344	656	26	656	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Mean All			234	766		692	40	21	8	1	1	0	1

Note: Crude Rate per 1,000 Persons in 2010. Source: Grammich 2018.

Table 3 - Adherents by Religious Denomination for Utah Counties - by Count

County Name	Population in 2010	Population Rank	Unclaimed Persons	Total	LDS	Catholic	Evangelical	Mainline Protestant	Orthodox (Greek)	Buddhist	Black-Protestant	Other Denomination
Salt Lake	1029655	1	275566	754089	610846	84342	27497	12789	5352	4532	1302	2889
Utah	516564	2	46751	469813	457999	6792	2540	423	0	103	211	1745
Davis	306479	3	54029	252450	228813	12782	7928	1135	0	1467	200	75
Weber	231236	4	57117	174119	138648	18933	10761	2761	350	1250	887	429
Washington	138115	5	33610	104505	94191	5845	2345	1291	0	0	658	175
Cache	112656	6	13805	98851	92665	3308	1596	843	0	0	0	131
Tooele	58218	7	7074	51144	38888	10706	1250	293	0	0	0	7
Box Elder	49975	8	4850	45125	40668	2008	807	389	0	1250	0	3
Iron	46163	9	10393	35770	31883	2248	1384	252	0	0	0	3
Uintah	32588	11	9260	23328	20349	1209	1311	450	0	0	0	9
Sanpete	27822	12	5550	22272	21957	76	213	25	0	0	0	1
Summit	36324	10	15417	20907	12704	5279	751	1429	0	0	0	744
Sevier	20802	15	2552	18250	17392	273	539	44	0	0	0	2
Carbon	21403	14	4293	17110	11367	4091	1002	367	280	0	0	3
Wasatch	23530	13	7838	15692	15172	368	150	0	0	0	0	2
Duchesne	18607	16	4079	14528	13676	268	565	18	0	0	0	1
Millard	12503	18	2124	10379	9909	76	364	28	0	0	0	2
Emery	10976	19	1985	8991	8483	105	403	0	0	0	0	0
Juab	10246	20	1695	8551	8373	145	0	32	0	0	0	1
Morgan	9469	21	982	8487	8418	0	0	69	0	0	0	0
San Juan	14746	17	7324	7422	6490	177	535	177	0	0	0	43
Beaver	6629	24	1483	5146	4965	152	28	0	0	0	0	1
Grand	9225	22	4264	4961	2869	635	823	555	0	0	0	79
Kane	7125	23	2375	4750	4117	242	213	176	0	0	0	2
Garfield	5172	25	1316	3856	3781	50	25	0	0	0	0	0
Wayne	2778	26	594	2184	2158	15	10	0	0	0	0	1
Rich	2264	27	272	1992	1992	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Piute	1556	28	520	1036	1036	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Daggett	1059	29	364	695	695	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	2763885		577482	2186403	1910504	160125	63040	23546	5982	8602	3258	6348
Percent	100		21	79	69	6	2	1	0	0	0	0

Note: Adherents Claimed by Congregations in 2010. In percent summary line, 0 percent means less than 1 percent. Source: Grammich 2018.

The first key characteristic of Utah’s 2010 religious adherence is that a substantial statewide subpopulation is not claimed by any church congregation (23 percent). In Salt Lake County that subpopulation is 27 percent. These rates of unclaimed persons are consistent with national trends. The distribution, age demographics and other spiritual practices of the statewide 23 percent unclaimed persons is not known. Whether these Utah unclaimed persons are inactive members of traditional mainline religions is not known.

Figure 9 - Cartogram-Choropleths of Catholic Adherence for 29 Utah Counties in 2010

Note: N=160,125 claimed by Utah Catholic congregations in 2010. Crude Rates per 1,000 persons. (a) Crude Rate by Land Area; (b) Crude Rate by County Total Population. (a) light purple = low; dark purple = high. Source: Tables 2 and 3; Grammich (2018); Utah Open GIS.

The three largest Utah religious affiliations are LDS (Table 3, 69 percent of the population), unclaimed persons (Table 2, above, 23 percent of the population), and Catholics (Table 3, four percent of the population). Figure 9 shows the distribution of statewide Catholic religious adherence rates. The highest rates of Catholic adherence are in Tooele, Summit, and Carbon counties, although by count, the largest concentration of Catholic adherents is in Salt Lake County (Table 2).

Religious Diversity within Utah’s Counties

Table 5 estimates using Simpson’s Index Compliment the diversity for Utah statewide, for Salt Lake County, and for the Utah State Legislature.

Table 4 - Distribution of Religious Affiliation and Diversity per 1,000 Persons of the Utah State Legislature, Utah Statewide and Salt Lake County in 2010

Group	Unclaimed	LDS	Catholic	Other	Simpson’s Index Compliment
Utah Legislature	29	894	19	58	0.80
Statewide	230	690	40	40	0.53
Salt Lake County	270	590	80	60	0.43

Source: Grammich (2018a) for Utah statewide and Grammich (2018) Salt Lake County; Davidson (2019) for the Utah State legislature.

As noted above,⊕A linear regression is a reasonable fit for the association between Total Adherence Rate and Simpson’s Index Compliment for Utah’s counties (Diversity=0.09(TDR)-14.17; R2=0.58). the second key characteristic of Utah’s 2010 religious adherence is that as religious diversity decreases, i.e. when Simpson’s Index Compliment increases, the rate of religious adherence of counties within Utah increases. As shown below in Figure 10, this is opposite the national trend.

Figure 10 - Two-Way Plot of Religious Adherence and Diversity for 29 Utah Counties in 2010

Note: The Religious Diversity Index used in this figure is Simpson’s Index Compliment. A high value indicates low diversity; a low value indicates high diversity. Source: Grammich (2018); Tables 2 and 3.

This association indicates that religious adherence is directly proportional to the population of LDS faith membership within a county. While nationally, the availability of a supply of diverse congregations may affect religious participation, with respect to Utah’s 31 percent non-LDS population, that association is overwhelmed in the ASARB data by LDS membership. LDS houses of worship are a homogenous religious commodity that are ubiquitously available throughout the State. The LDS adherence rate is a supply curve of a uniform product that is directly proportional to a county’s LDS population.

Religious Adherence within Salt Lake City

Because the ASARB methodology collects data estimating membership by church congregations and not the location of individual congregation members, disaggregated data for religious membership within Salt Lake City’s municipal limits is not available.

Other indirect evidence suggests that the ratio of LDS faith members within Salt Lake City may be lower than the LDS adherence rate within Utah (69 percent) and within Salt Lake County (59 percent). During the recent November 2019 mayoral election that had a eighty-seven percent turnout rate among 91488 registered voters (Salt Lake County Clerk (⊕2019Salt Lake County Clerk. 2019. “Election Results for 2019 Municipal Election (Web, Database, Excel).” https://slco.org/clerk/elections/election-results/.)), only thirty percent of likely voters in a pre-election poll self-identified as LDS (Bernick (⊕2019Bernick, Robert. 2019. “Mendenhall mailer makes religion a last-minute issue in race for SLC mayor. Half of voters say they’re aware of the candidate’s religion.” Salt Lake City, Utah. https://utahpolicy.com/index.php/features/today-at-utah-policy/22051-mendenhall-mailer-makes-religion-a-last-minute-issue-in-race-for-slc-mayor-half-of-voters-say-they-re-aware-of-the-candidate-s-religion.)).

Discussion

What do the Religiously Unaffiliated Believe?

Nationally, Pew Research Center (2012) surveyed U.S. adults who self-identify as religiously unaffiliated. Demographically, they are widely dispersed by income and education and political ideology, but they significantly lean towards the Democratic as opposed to the Republican parties (63 percent versus 26 percent). The religiously unaffiliated attached less importance to religion than the general public: 14 versus 67 percent feel that religion is important in their daily lives. The religiously unaffiliated are not antagonistic to traditional religion, and there is little difference between the religiously unaffiliated and the general public concerning the important traditional role that religions play in helping the poor (77 percent versus 90 percent) (id).

Consistent with Hout and Fischer (2001)’s theory, the Pew Center found that the religiously unaffiliated more strongly felt that traditional religions were too involved in politics (67 percent versus 47 percent) (id.) The affiliated and unaffiliated also had strong differing opinions on the trigger issues of abortion and gay rights. The unaffiliated strongly opposed restricting abortion in almost all and no cases; the affiliated strongly supported those restrictions (72 versus 49 percent). Similarly, with respect to gay rights, those ratios were 73 and 41 percent, respectively.

Summers-Effler (⊕2012Summers-Effler, Erika. 2012. The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination. Vol. 41. 2. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094306112438190d.) provides an ethnographic survey of non-traditional religious practices in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Robertson (⊕2016Robertson, Reed. 2016. “Religion after Religion: Millennials in a Post-Religious Age.” TedX CSC, Reed College; YouTube. https://youtu.be/qmLbD3m6Z3w.) provides a popular lecture that reviews key characteristics of SBNRs.

Utah has Become More Religiously Diverse since 1990.

As noted above, a key characteristic of Utah’s 2010 religious adherence is that a substantial statewide subpopulation does not adhere to any church congregation (21 percent). Although 69 percent of Utahans adhere to the LDS faith, unclaimed and adherence to other faiths occurs in 31 percent of Utah’s population (Table 3).

Utah is more religiously more diverse than many may conclude based on commonplace reports or as had been the case twenty-years ago. The proportion of Utah’s religiously unclaimed persons is consistent with the national trend among the young that began in 1991 away from organized religion and towards being spiritual, but not associated with any formal religion, i.e. SBNRs.

Migration Does Not Explain the Rise of Utah’s Religiously Unaffiliated.

Utah is a state with by moderate rates of out-of-state residents migrating into Utah. Between 2010 and 2018, 113,136 persons moved to the state (Davidson (⊕2018Davidson, Lee. 2018. “Utah ranks No. 1 for population growth this decade — adds nearly 400K new residents - The Salt Lake Tribune.” Salt Lake City, Utah. https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/12/19/utah-ranks-no-population/.)), while its 2010 religiously unaffiliated population was 577,482 persons out of a total population of 2,763,885 (Table 3). Between 2000 and 2010, Utah’s in-migration ground to halt due to the 2008 Great Recession (Harris and Perlich (⊕2019Harris, Emily R., and Pamela S Perlich. 2019. “Utahns on the Move: State and County Migration Age Patterns.” Informed Decisions. Salt Lake City, Utah: Kem C. Gardner Institute. https://gardner.utah.edu/wp-content/uploads/MigrationReport-Aug2019.pdf.)).

By 2018, Utah had reached a net in-migration of young adults (id). In 2018, an estimated 100,824 persons migrated to Utah, and 91,741 persons moved out of the state, for a net in-migration of 9,083, or about 0.3 percent of the state’s total population (United States Census Bureau (⊕2020United States Census Bureau. 2020. “State-to-State Migration Flows, File: State-to-State Migration Flows: 2018.” https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/geographic-mobility/state-to-state-migration.html.)). This net migration is within the margin-or-error for Census Bureau estimates for Utah’s in- and out- migration.

In 2017-2018, fifty-five percent of domestic in-migrations came from the State’s surrounding western neighbors - California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado (Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute (⊕2020Kem C. 2020. “"Where Utah’s domestic migrants come from". In Utah Informed: Visual Intellection for 2020.” Informed Decisions. Salt Lake City, Utah: David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah. https://gardner.utah.edu/wp-content/uploads/Utah-Informed-2020.pdf.)). The remaining forty-five percent were spreadly uniformly across the remaining eastern states. Outside of Idaho, Nevada and Utah, the ratio of Latter-day Saint members to a state’s total population is less than 5 percent (Latter-day Saint Penetration - Map, in Grammich (2012)).

Unknown is the religious affiliations of these in- and out-migrants. It is possible that the out-of-state LDS members from other states preferentially migrate to Utah, but given that the ratio of non-LDS members and members in California is more the 20 to 1, it is reasonable to conclude that California in-migrants consist of a lower ratio of LDS members to non-members than exists within the State. Except for Idaho, that is also a reasonable assumption for in-migration from Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado.

Absent a higher rate of conversion within Utah, the relatively lower ratio of LDS members in-migrating to Utah will most probably dilute Utah’s existing LDS membership relative to Utah’s total population.

Because the LDS faith is the dominate religion and the percent of Utah’s migrant population is relatively low compared to the state’s total population, it is reasonable to suggest that a some portion of Utah’s religious unaffiliated persons are Utah’s young adults who have left the LDS faith and who have converted to unaffiliated status or to SBNRs. Migration alone does not explain Utah’s rise in religious unaffiliated persons through 2010.

Future Work

Future work will follow up on changes in Utah religious adherence and diversity after the initial release of ASARB 2020 decennial congregation census. More formalized cluster detection analysis in the States religious diversity association will be conducted. The Pew Research Center 2012 survey response data may be analyzed to determine if there are any significant differences in the responses of Utah and Idaho LDS active members and those United States LDS members that live outside of Utah and Idaho. Time series data sets to investigate an association between religious adherence and political party affiliation at county level during 2020 should become available in 2022. Associations between those factors will be investigated at that time. Speculative comments regarding the absence of survey data on the transition probabilities of young LDS adults to unaffiliated or SBNR status, and the lack of survey data disaggregating Utah’s religious unaffiliated into more defined subgroups suggests various research avenues for Utah sociologists, theologian researchers, and sociology students, to pursue. All are professionally qualified and better trained than myself to conduct such inquiries.

Conclusion

Persons who are not claimed on membership rolls of any traditional religious congregation are the second largest “religious” group in Utah (21 percent in 2010) and in the United States (21 percent in 2018). Statewide in 2010, thirty-one percent of Utah’s population are not members of the Latter Day Saint faith, and in 2010 within Utah’s most populous county, Salt Lake County, 41 percent of the population were not members of the LDS faith. Nine years later in 2019 in Salt Lake County, that ratio may be equal to 50 percent. Within Salt Lake City, an indirect indicator suggests that ratio may have a lower bound of approximately 30 percent. This makes Utah more religiously diverse than might be expected on based on commonplace beliefs regarding the portion of Utah’s residents who are religiously affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint members.

Nationally, from 1991 to 2018, the percentage of persons reporting that they are not affiliated with a traditional organized religion grew from 7 percent to 21 percent (Addendum Table A3, NORC (2020)). During the same period, membership in traditional mainstream Protestant denominations has declined from 65 percent to 49 percent of the United States population (id). An unknown but significant portion of the unaffiliated are young persons who consider themselves spiritual, but not religious (SBNR) (Oppenheimer (2015)).

This recent Utah trend of increasing religious diversity is consistent with the national increase in religiously unaffiliated persons and within that population, the rise of SBNRs. This increase of persons who are not affiliated with traditional religions should not be assumed to represent a decline in United States’ religiosity. The increase in SBNRs may represent an evolution of American religiosity into a different expression.

Theologian and researcher Linda Mercadante opines that SBNRs present an opportunity for traditional denominations (Mercadante (⊕2015Mercadante, Linda. 2015. “The Rev. Dr. Linda Mercadante - Spiritual but Not Religious.” Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto, YouTube. https://youtu.be/LMsb2sjB750.)). After interviewing hundreds of SBNRs, she notes they are motivated by a deep yearning for personal meaning and by higher rates of depression caused by not being a member of a non-self-directed community. How traditional denominations cope with approaching this new American religious evolution will determine their future. She recommends that one method of approaching SBNRs without alienating them is to participate in visible, public social improvement programs by which SBNRs can be exposed without being proselytized to people of faith who demonstrate religious grace and confidence (id).

The ASARB has begun conducting their next decennial census of United States congregations for 2020. Over next ten years from 2020 to the 2030 ASARB census, Utah will provide a unique natural experiment in which the changes in the social and political power between Utah’s fundamentalist protestant majority and a younger religiously unaffiliated minority, including SBNRs, resolve their cultural and religious differences. As Utah’s culture becomes more diverse through increases in the religiously unaffiliated, will Utah’s religious majority continue to reach further separate-but-equal accommodations like the 2015 LGBTQ compromise? Or will Utah’s fundamentalist majority - feeling that their culture is threatened - retreat into social and political defensiveness?

About and Conflicts of Interest

I do not have an undergraduate degree. I completed three years of undergraduate studies in mathematics with an emphasis in statistics and I have over thirty-five years of experience as a litigation paralegal in both the private sector and government.

I have no conflict disclosures with respect to the topics discussed in this paper. I am not a member of the LDS faith; I am religiously affiliated with Buddhism.

This report is the third in a series of four reports. The first report concerns the distribution of registered voters by party affiliation within Salt Lake City municipal limits (Fisher (⊕2020aFisher, Kurt A. 2020a. “Salt Lake City Demographics: Where do Salt Lake City Registered Voters Reside by Political Party Affiliation?” Salt Lake City, Utah. http://fisherka.csolutionshosting.net/misc/Elections/SLCPoliticalPartyAffiliations.html.)). The second report concerns the distribution of registered voters by party affiliation within Utah and compares political affiliations between counties (Fisher (⊕2020bFisher, Kurt A. 2020b. “Utah Statewide Political Party Affiliations: Distribution and Unaffiliated Voters.” Salt Lake City, Utah. http://fisherka.csolutionshosting.net/misc/Elections/UtahStatewidePoliticalPartyAffiliations.htm.)). This third paper concerns the distribution of religious adherents in Utah by congregation. The fourth paper will concern demographic and other factors in the November 2019 Salt Lake City Mayoral Election.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following research groups for their many years of public service in collecting and maintaining the survey data on American religiosity. Without their tireless efforts, this report and similar discussions of religiosity in the United States would not be possible: the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB), the Association of Religious Data Archives (ARDA), a project of the Department of Sociology at the Pennsylvania State University, the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), a project of the University of Chicago, and the Pew Research Center.

Addendum

Religious Adherence and Diversity in the United States

Table A1 - Religious Adherence Rate per 1,000 Persons in the U.S. States in 2010

State	Simpson’s Index Compliment	Unclaimed	Total Adherence	Evangelical Protestant	Catholic	Mainline Protestant	Other	Black Protestant	Orthodox
Utah	54	209	791	23	58	9	698	1	2
North Dakota	27	329	671	117	249	293	13	0	0
Alabama	33	371	629	420	42	81	12	72	1
Louisiana	29	394	606	235	265	45	13	48	1
Oklahoma	35	407	593	408	48	102	21	14	1
Mississippi	34	413	587	394	38	82	12	62	0
South Dakota	28	414	586	145	183	241	16	1	0
Massachusetts	39	428	572	34	449	47	31	2	9
Minnesota	29	437	563	140	217	184	17	3	2
Nebraska	29	443	557	158	204	163	23	7	1
Texas	30	443	557	257	186	62	37	14	1
Tennessee	35	445	555	376	35	84	15	43	2
Arkansas	36	446	554	390	42	70	14	37	0
Illinois	30	447	553	129	284	73	44	17	6
District Of Columbia	26	448	552	125	126	137	57	84	23
Rhode Island	40	452	548	25	443	54	18	1	7
New Jersey	35	453	547	43	368	57	56	15	8
Iowa	31	461	539	132	165	219	16	6	1
Pennsylvania	32	462	538	85	276	140	24	9	5
Wisconsin	31	464	536	142	251	120	13	8	2
South Carolina	34	478	522	305	39	104	17	55	1
Kentucky	36	484	516	334	83	71	13	15	0
Connecticut	37	488	512	44	351	79	27	6	5
New York	35	488	512	45	324	53	72	10	7
Idaho	33	489	511	129	79	36	267	1	1
Georgia	34	492	508	295	62	88	23	39	2
Kansas	32	494	506	181	150	136	24	15	1
New Mexico	35	499	501	135	284	35	44	2	1
Missouri	34	507	493	254	121	77	24	16	1
North Carolina	36	525	475	271	45	119	17	26	2
California	39	550	450	94	275	24	47	7	4
Virginia	36	552	448	191	84	109	48	14	2
Indiana	37	557	443	191	115	106	12	15	4
Ohio	37	560	440	129	173	100	18	15	5
Michigan	39	579	421	129	174	66	26	22	5
Delaware	40	582	418	72	203	97	29	15	2
Maryland	38	582	418	120	145	87	35	27	4
Hawaii	40	587	413	96	184	30	104	0	0
Wyoming	41	604	396	105	109	65	115	0	1
Florida	42	609	391	162	134	46	28	18	3
Montana	42	619	381	122	129	78	51	0	1
Colorado	43	622	378	120	161	49	43	3	2
Arizona	44	628	372	119	146	27	76	2	3
West Virginia	46	645	355	135	52	148	13	6	2
New Hampshire	48	648	352	36	236	62	14	0	4
Washington	46	654	346	122	117	46	57	2	3
Nevada	47	656	344	79	167	15	75	4	3
Alaska	47	661	339	142	72	46	58	3	19
Vermont	49	664	336	36	205	77	18	0	0
Oregon	50	688	312	117	104	37	51	1	2
Maine	55	724	276	44	143	70	17	0	1

Source: Grammich (2018a).

Table A2 - Religious Adherence Count of Persons in the U.S. States in 2010

State	Simpson’s Index Compliment	Total Adherence Rate	Pop 2010	Unclaimed Pop	Total Adherents	Evangelical Protestant	Catholic	Mainline Protestant	Other	Black Protestant	Orthodox
Utah	54	791	2763885	577482	2186403	63040	160125	23546	1930452	3258	5982
North Dakota	27	671	672591	221135	451456	78607	167349	196839	8541	0	120
Alabama	33	629	4779736	1772183	3007553	2009448	200657	388252	59676	346519	3001
Louisiana	29	606	4533372	1786475	2746897	1064486	1200900	202751	59106	217176	2478
Oklahoma	35	593	3751351	1524972	2226379	1531381	178430	383786	78462	51621	2699
Mississippi	34	587	2967297	1224381	1742916	1168450	112488	244121	34326	182556	975
South Dakota	28	586	814180	337348	476832	118142	148883	196001	13051	435	320
Massachusetts	39	572	6547629	2799571	3748058	224726	2940199	308286	202103	11200	61544
Minnesota	29	563	5303925	2317475	2986450	744910	1150367	974156	92564	16396	8057
Nebraska	29	557	1826341	809812	1016529	288965	372838	297522	42605	13106	1493
Texas	30	557	25145561	11150997	13994564	6456168	4673500	1553959	932486	345998	32453
Tennessee	35	555	6346105	2823760	3522345	2384381	223045	533145	97463	273889	10422
Arkansas	36	554	2915918	1301561	1614357	1136611	122662	205332	41350	107202	1200
Illinois	30	553	12830632	5735800	7094832	1649402	3648907	933690	566260	220435	76138
District Of Columbia	26	552	601723	269381	332342	75306	75948	82388	34048	50602	14050
Rhode Island	40	548	1052567	475648	576919	26242	466598	57103	18522	829	7625
New Jersey	35	547	8791894	3982374	4809520	380347	3235290	502797	488720	129935	72431
Iowa	31	539	3046355	1404011	1642344	402376	503080	666637	50117	17902	2232
Pennsylvania	32	538	12702379	5863939	6838440	1078477	3503028	1773491	308065	114337	61042
Wisconsin	31	536	5686986	2639544	3047442	806028	1425523	684035	74430	44203	13223
South Carolina	34	522	4625364	2211921	2413443	1410988	181743	482103	76874	256178	5557
Kentucky	36	516	4339367	2101653	2237714	1448947	359783	305955	55938	64958	2133
Connecticut	37	512	3574097	1743235	1830862	157336	1254340	281174	95411	22969	19632
New York	35	512	19378102	9454590	9923512	871326	6287618	1027403	1394651	202217	140297
Idaho	33	511	1567582	765927	801655	201546	123400	57056	418013	822	818
Georgia	34	508	9687653	4763277	4924376	2853360	596384	855259	222576	381421	15376
Kansas	32	506	2853118	1408663	1444455	516818	426611	386980	68983	41666	3397
New Mexico	35	501	2059179	1027981	1031198	277326	584941	71118	91497	4321	1995
Missouri	34	493	5988927	3038033	2950894	1518847	724315	462246	144841	93900	6745
North Carolina	36	475	9535483	5005118	4530365	2585530	428860	1130241	157936	248257	15489
California	39	450	37253956	20488205	16765751	3502250	10234036	880981	1744962	249191	154331
Virginia	36	448	8001024	4414432	3586592	1531731	674555	870842	380183	111028	18253
Indiana	37	443	6483802	3609658	2874144	1238154	747706	689902	80794	94705	22883
Ohio	37	440	11536504	6464820	5071684	1491845	1992567	1154461	210207	170388	52216
Michigan	39	421	9883640	5718297	4165343	1277144	1717296	653898	255358	214114	47533
Maryland	38	418	5773552	3358176	2415376	693990	837338	500112	201283	157854	24799
Delaware	40	418	897934	523017	374917	64625	182532	86858	26045	13371	1486
Hawaii	40	413	1360301	798321	561980	130265	249619	40833	140923	0	340
Wyoming	41	396	563626	340552	223074	59247	61222	36539	65000	281	785
Florida	42	391	18801310	11443722	7357588	3049524	2515243	870959	528302	333390	60170
Montana	42	381	989415	612439	376976	121064	127612	76869	50535	331	565
Colorado	43	378	5029196	3126914	1902282	601009	811630	246706	218705	13019	11213
Arizona	44	372	6392017	4012089	2379928	762376	930702	171792	486352	12473	16233
West Virginia	46	355	1852994	1194681	658313	249756	95849	274766	23661	11505	2776
New Hampshire	48	352	1316470	853698	462772	47128	311028	81111	18579	0	4926
Washington	46	346	6724540	4396535	2328005	820643	784332	308292	383462	14289	16987
Nevada	47	344	2700551	1772596	927955	213188	451070	41558	203107	9751	9281
Alaska	47	339	710231	469398	240833	100960	50866	32550	41001	1976	13480
Vermont	49	336	625741	415350	210391	22630	128293	48029	11113	36	290
Oregon	50	312	3831074	2636281	1194793	447009	399440	140248	196309	4471	7316
Maine	55	276	1328361	961318	367043	59052	190106	93580	21971	586	1748

Source: Grammich (2018a).

Table A3 - Trends in Religious Adherence by Percent per Year - 1972 to 2018

Year	Simpson Compliment Index	Protestant	Catholic	None	Other	Christian	All Other Demon	Do not Know-No Answer
1972	49	65	26	5	2	0	3	0
1973	48	64	26	7	2	0	3	0
1974	49	65	25	7	1	0	3	0
1975	50	66	25	8	1	0	2	0
1976	49	64	26	8	1	0	2	0
1977	51	66	25	6	1	0	2	0
1978	49	65	25	8	1	0	2	0
1980	49	65	25	7	2	0	2	0
1982	52	68	22	7	1	0	2	1
1983	46	62	28	7	2	0	3	0
1984	48	64	26	7	1	0	2	1
1985	48	63	27	7	2	0	2	0
1986	48	64	26	7	2	0	3	0
1987	55	70	21	7	2	0	1	0
1988	47	63	27	8	3	0	2	0
1989	49	65	26	8	2	0	2	0
1990	49	65	25	8	3	0	2	0
1991	49	65	26	7	2	0	2	0
1993	49	66	22	9	3	0	2	1
1994	46	62	26	10	4	0	2	0
1996	44	60	25	12	5	0	2	0
1998	38	54	25	14	1	1	4	1
2000	38	55	25	14	2	1	5	0
2002	37	53	25	14	1	2	5	1
2004	37	53	24	15	1	3	5	0
2006	36	52	25	17	1	2	4	1
2008	35	52	23	17	1	3	5	0
2010	33	48	24	18	1	4	5	1
2012	32	47	23	20	1	6	4	0
2014	31	45	24	21	1	5	4	1
2016	34	49	23	22	1	1	4	1
2018	34	49	21	23	1	1	4	1

Note: N=64,814 respondents over 45 years. There was a change in the survey design beginning 1998 to add the denomination of Christian. Source: NCOR-General Social Survey.

Religious Adherence and Diversity in Utah Counties

Table A4 - Religious Adherence for 29 Utah Counties in 2010 by Increasing Diversity

County Name	Simpson’s Index Compliment	Total Adherence Rate
Utah	80	909
Box Elder	67	903
Morgan	80	896
Rich	79	880
Tooele	50	878
Cache	70	877
Sevier	72	877
Juab	70	835
Millard	66	830
Davis	59	824
Emery	63	819
Sanpete	66	801
Carbon	36	799
Wayne	65	786
Duchesne	59	781
Beaver	61	776
Iron	53	775
Washington	53	757
Weber	43	753
Garfield	60	746
Salt Lake	44	732
Uintah	47	716
Kane	45	667
Wasatch	53	667
Piute	55	666
Daggett	55	656
Summit	34	576
Grand	33	538
San Juan	44	503

Note: Because Simpson’s Index Compliment is used, higher values represent less diversity and lower values indicate higher diversity. Source: Grammich (2018).

Supplemental Data Archive

All data files and supporting R program code is available from the author on request. This supplemental data archive focuses raw data files on which this paper is based. The supplemental data archive is at url: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kG62cplbtZrvaXkp75aijdVzMhRWCf_s. The data archive contains or references public files:

National Opinion Research Center, and University of Chicago. 2020. “General Social Survey Data Explorer.” https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/. Author’s Derived File: MasterNonReligiousGSS.xls.
Grammich, C., Hadaway, K., Houseal, R., Jones, D. E., Krindatch, A., Stanley, R., and Taylor, R. H. (2018). U. S. Religion Census: Religious Congregations and Membership Study, 2010 (County File). Retrieved January 7, 2020, from http://thearda.com/Archive/Files/Descriptions/RCMSCY10.asp . Author’s Derived File: MasterUtahCtyAdherentsRate.xls and MasterUtahCtyAdherentsCount.xls .
Grammich, C., Hadaway, K., Houseal, R., Jones, D. E., Krindatch, A., Stanley, R., and Taylor, R. H. (2018a). U. S. Religion Census: Religious Congregations and Membership Study, 2010 (State File). Retrieved February 20, 2020, from http://thearda.com/Archive/Files/Descriptions/RCMSST10.asp . Author’s Derived File: MasterExcelReligiousMembershipStateFile.xls
State of Utah. 2019. “Utah.gov GIS Portal, County Boundaries Database - County Boundaries Shape GIS Shape File (Web), url: https://gis.utah.gov/data/boundaries/

Religious Adherence and Diversity in Utah

Recent Changes from the Unaffiliated and the Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR)

Kurt A. Fisher

2020-03-07