all right um i wanted to talk a little bit about how your membership is changing um the latter day st church has said it's one of the fastest growing religions in america um but according to the latest reporting by the salt lake tribune the the church outside utah has only added 8 000 new members it's reporting in the u.s during the past two years and it says utah's growth of about 34 000 members represents the majority of the church's 42 000 member growth in america over the past two years and for those of us who
follow pew and gallup survey data it's been clear that the church's replacement rate in the u.s has been negative for over a decade back in 2008 pew ran a survey that said the replacement rate of the church has dropped to 80 and that means that for every five members who leave the church behind four new converts join the church can you talk about some of those findings and and how you uh can say that the church in america is growing when we're looking at statistics like this i'd be happy to and i'll try to be
an apostle and not an academic and a statistician which is what i used to do i would just highlight one feature and talk about the very complicated nature of what we're discussing if you take a look at the church in the aggregate it is growing which in the climate that we find today is rather newsworthy in and of itself secondly if you take for example the western area of the united states we have had a huge out migration of members from that part of the of the country we've also had a huge migration from mexico
and central america i have no idea what the real numbers are so we have numbers and i believe the numbers but there's some uncertainty in the numbers so i guess what i'm suggesting is at the aggregate i have confidence in the growth if you want to break it down state by state that is a rapidly moving target and i just am not in a position to comment because i'm not sure what's really happening okay good to know um where in the world is the church growing you had mentioned africa as one of the major places
where you're seeing growth what is the status of the growth growth in the united states kind of in comparison worldwide you basically said america is growing not as quickly but how can can you account for some of this in some ways and how can you account for what are some of the reasons that say africa is growing so much now africa has been influenced in many parts of the continent through early christian missionaries when you go to visit with a congregation there and you recite a verse from the bible everyone in the congregation without looking
at a text can recite it with you there's a very strong christian tradition so the message of the restoration of the primitive church strikes a resonant chord with these people they come they see our congregations they participate and they desire to join so there's very rapid growth in the united states the growth is not nearly as rapid as it is in africa and my observation is that over the history of the church in different parts of the world there are different seasons of growth in the early days in the 1830s 1840s mass migration of saints
coming from europe to the united states we don't have as many converts in europe today as we did then so there's an ebb and flow and seasons in the growth all over the world okay um just following up on that membership and affiliation with religious organizations in general has been on the decline in the united states why do you think that is i think we live in a tumultuous world and people are searching for answers and may not be satisfied with some of the answers that they found okay many church leaders including you have a
deep business administration backgrounds which is unusual for faith leaders who tend elsewhere to be selected for scholarly distinct distinction and they seek guidance behind the scenes from those who understand and how to run organizations and to ensure long-term financial viability what are some of the advantages of so much business acumen at the church's highest levels and at least as importantly how is it challenging in the ways that you give that give you and your colleagues pause okay i'm going to give an answer and i'm pretty positive you're going to want to have a follow-up question
i have tried really hard not to let my academic training influence what i do as an apostle of the lord jesus christ in the book of mormon there's a verse that says when they are learned they think they are wise and hearken not unto the counsel of god so i do not take my academic background and experience and impose that on the church i let the doctrine of christ influence how i see things so certainly there are practical advantages in knowing about how organizations run and budgeting and so forth but i view that really as
secondary i try to view what we do and the mission we fulfill through the lens of the gospel of jesus christ so basically you leave behind all of your uh previous experience and education to focus on you can't leave it behind but we do leave our nets all right the ancient apostles they were summoned and they left what they were doing and they then began the work of serving the savior that's what we do that's what the members of our church do but it would not be accurate to say well you just leave your experience
behind of course we're influenced by that but i try not to let it dominate okay i'm going to move on to a question from a member who said that they were reporting in salt lake city recently and that member's impression was that the church has handled public statements about the pandemic particularly masking rather differently from other faiths and that the divide between conservative and progressive members with respect to covet may be the inverse of many other traditions is there a story here or is it overstating i think it's overstated we have the president of the
church who was a world renowned heart surgeon he's doing the same thing he puts his ministry first but he brings some very relevant experience and expertise to this and he gave guidelines the best answer i can give to your question joseph smith in the early days of the church was asked by a legislator in illinois in the city of nauvoo and said this is a very orderly city and things seem to run very well how do you do that because we have a very difficult time and joseph smith said we teach them correct principles and
they govern themselves they don't prescribe every jot and tittle of what you should do here's the principle now you go act the way you think is most appropriate that's what the leadership of the church has been doing here are the guidelines and the principles you make your choice sounds like that you're well tuned to handle a pandemic in 2003 the church denounced the book under the banner of heaven by john krakauer calling krakauer a storyteller who cuts corners to make the story sound good now krakauer's book has been adapted for tv and is streaming on
hulu what does the church think of the hulu adaptation and more generally how do you feel about the depictions of the faith in media and culture for example the musical the book of mormon the tv series big love and the reality show sister wives how is this affecting the church okay i'll i'll pose a rhetorical question first given all the stuff that i just described who has time to watch programs on tv fair enough [Applause] so the most honest answer is i you know i've read about this stuff the salt lake tribune that you've already
mentioned said they had as one of their headlines banner what's it called banner under heaven yes yeah banner under the banner of heaven fact or fiction there's some discussion about how accurate is how fictional is it so this is not new uh christ was mischaracterized we have been mischaracterized since 1830 when the church was re-established that's always been the case i don't think it will ever go away we don't like it but we don't spend all of our time trying to respond to it we have a mission to fulfill and we're moving forward to accomplish
that mission okay we are getting really tight on time so i'm going to try to run through some questions kind of in a rapid fire uh with over 100 billion in funds and assets the lds church has more capability than any other church in the country to help eliminate poverty what more could the church do in terms of humanitarian efforts here okay i hope i address some of that and what i just said you wanted to move quick and number two if you take a look at the stock market i don't think it's 100 million
anymore and i want to make one other comment about this people want to bang on the church and say well you've got all that money in reserve yeah and it's a good idea for other people to follow that example we believe that there are you can read in the old testament about seven years of famine and seven years of plenty it's a good idea to prepare these undertakings that i've described are resource consuming not resource generating and a lot of people depend on the resource that we provide and if things are different in the future
than they are now we think it's provident and wise to prepare to maintain that kind of support in an uncertain economic environment okay i sounded like a business professor you did um i wanted you had mentioned that you're working on the federal level um with lgbtq members can you talk a little bit about what you're doing there um and then to follow up can you envision a day when lgbtq church members can marry and be sealed within the church okay on the first point uh we talked about how what we did in utah in 2015
was a model that that's been extended in arizona that's also been taking place in georgia so that learning the things that we've experienced in those and things that we've learned are setting the stage to try to take that forward to the federal level okay um and also can you uh follow up on the question that i had regarding whether you will uh ever envision lgbtq church members uh mary being able to marry and be sealed within the church we believe that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of god and that the family
is central to the father's plan for the eternal destiny and happiness of his children okay you mentioned that women lead within the church in many ways will there ever be a female president of the church of latter-day saints can a woman be a prophet in the lineage of joseph smith great question we follow the pattern of the ancient church we believe that a man must be called of god by prophecy and by the laying on of hands by those who are an authority to preach the gospel and administering the ordinances thereof the pattern anciently was
that the apostles were men that that's the pattern okay uh the as the church has done with with gay marriage in the past with proposition 8 in california does the organization plan on intervening on a social and political issue by publicly advocating its position that abortion is a woman's choice in consultation with god and local male leaders in cases of rape or when the mother's health is at risk our existing policy you can read it in online in our church handbook of instructions is that we believe life we affirm the sanctity of life and also
the means whereby mortal life is created it already highlights the fact that there should be consideration given in cases of rape incest the health of the mother the viability of the fetus all right how would a trans person be treated if they had already completed their transition before exploring membership in the church we welcome all and strive to love them now i use the word strive because we don't do that perfectly and so people have stereotypes they have misconceptions they have biases and they have prejudices we strive to love everybody okay um given the fine
significant financial strain that tithing is for those in war and abject poverty is there any discussion within the church about not requiring that for people in those situations or at least at least tithing only what is left after paying for housing food and other necessities president hinckley stood at this pulpit in 2000 made reference to law of tithing i remember watching him teach in impoverished areas of the country and promising the people the pathway out of poverty is keeping the commandments of god including tithing the church doesn't need their money but those people need the
blessings that come from obeying god's commandments okay given the recent controversies about the church using tithing money for secular purposes can you explain how money is managed at the local regional and church-wide levels sure um boy you want me to be quick this isn't quick i think we're okay you think we're okay give me two minutes so there's central oversight from salt lake city there's a global financial system for the church and there's money allocated using particular criteria for all of our congregations in units around the world and they have local discretion to use that
to meet the needs of the members and to run the programs of the church
