Strong describes the 40% figure as a “reasonable midpoint.” He bases that estimate on multiple independent data sources. These include his survey of more than 20,000 current and former members, the Harvard Cooperative Election Study (CCES), and the Pew Religious Landscape Study.

Religion News Service covered the study and confirmed the finding. However, it also noted an important limitation. Strong recruited participants through social media, email lists, and personal networks. Those channels may over-represent disaffiliated members. Readers should treat the 40% figure as directionally meaningful. It confirms significant and widespread disaffiliation, rather than as a precise national census figure.

Independent CCES data confirms the US self-identification trend: only 0.9% of US adults now identify as LDS, down from approximately 2% two decades ago. Religion News Service analyzed Pew’s 2023–24 Religious Landscape Study. It found that LDS retention among people born since 1980 is about 49%. In other words, roughly half of those raised in the faith have already left.

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Strong found that 75% of active members attribute disaffiliation to sin, worldliness, or spiritual failure. They are less likely to point to doctrinal concerns or institutional issues. This is one of the book’s most important findings. Independent reporting also supports it. Religion News Service quoted Strong directly: “Devout members also tended to attribute disaffiliation to personal inadequacies or religious failings. They chose answers like ‘They sinned and lost the Spirit’ or ‘They were led away by the things of the world.'”

Former members most commonly cite three reasons for leaving: (1) 42% cite problematic church history — encountering information about Joseph Smith’s polygamy, the Book of Abraham, or the seer stone that contradicted what they were taught. (2) Social issues including LGBTQ treatment, child abuse coverups, gender inequality, and racism. (3) Not feeling a sense of belonging or experiencing the promised happiness. Strong’s research found that most people wrestle with their concerns for nearly a decade before leaving. This pattern does not support the idea of impulsive departures driven by offense.

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The episode accurately covers the case of 76-year-old Michael Delar Morris. Prosecutors charged him with 18 felony counts involving four boys between 1991 and 2000. KTVU Fox 2 reported the details. Morris led the young men’s group and was a Boy Scout leader at the time. He was subsequently excommunicated and later rebaptized, which the episode correctly frames as a systemic concern.

Floodlit.org documents many cases that resemble the pattern Dehlin and Megan describe. The site chronicles situations where Church leaders handled abuse allegations through ecclesiastical channels. Critics argue that these approaches sometimes protected institutional interests more than victims. Prior reporting also documents the connection to the Wade Christofferson (brother D. Todd Christofferson) case. The concern about the Church’s elimination of Young Men’s presidencies creating more one-on-one bishop/youth access is contextually relevant and fair to raise.

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What is accurate:

US LDS self-identification has declined sharply. The CCES shows 0.9% of US adults identify as LDS, down from approximately 2% two decades ago. Religion News Service confirmed the LDS Church saw its US adult identification drop below 1% for the first time in 2025. Among the major Christian traditions tracked, LDS shows the sharpest percentage-point decline.

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What the episode critically omits:

The LDS Church’s 2025 Annual Statistical Report recorded 385,490 convert baptisms in 2025. That figure represents the highest annual total in Church history. It surpassed the previous record of 330,877 set in 1990 by nearly 17%.Independent researcher Matt Martinich spoke with the Salt Lake Tribune. He said the growth appears widespread rather than concentrated in a few regions. Elder Cook reported that new convert sacrament meeting attendance increased even faster than baptism totals. Supporters point to that trend as a sign of stronger convert retention. Converts per missionary reached 4.9, the highest since 2011 but still well below the 6–8 of the 1970s–90s era when the documented baseball baptism scandals occurred.

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On the “fraudulent baptisms” allegation:

Dehlin’s claim that Cook is intentionally replicating baseball baptism fraud is a serious allegation presented without current evidence. The historical problems in Chile, the Philippines, and Latin America that Dehlin describes are real and documented. Jeffrey Holland and Dallin Oaks were indeed called to address them. But applying that same characterisation to the 2024-2025 growth surge requires evidence of comparable practices, which Dehlin does not provide.Church leaders set the 1990 record under less-strict baptismal standards than those used today. The current record comes after years of stricter standards. Calling the current growth “fraudulent” without documented evidence of the specific practices Dehlin describes is an assertion, not a finding.

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Credit to Dehlin for reading this correction aloud — it is an unusual and creditable moment of transparency. But it means this analysis has Strong’s own authority for saying these specific multipliers should not be treated as precise findings. The broad direction — that disaffiliation accelerated significantly between the pre-2010 period and the 2015-2019 period and again through 2023 — is likely real, given the documented events: the November 2015 exclusion policy, the CES Letter’s spread, the Gospel Topics Essays, and COVID.

Measuring acceleration presents a major challenge. If researchers recruited participants through ex-Mormon social media networks, they may have under-sampled earlier periods. They may also have over-sampled later periods. This creates the appearance of acceleration even if the underlying rate was more stable. The Religion News Service analysis of the LDS statistical picture confirms the US trend is real but notes the complexity of measuring it precisely.

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The Salt Lake Tribune accurately reported the Utah County arrangement. For more than a decade, some prosecutors informed Kirton McConkie when Church leaders submitted character letters for criminal defendants. The firm then reminded those leaders that the General Handbook discourages such involvement. In addition, the county’s top prosecutor said he didn’t know about it and may move to stop it.

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Where the framing is incomplete

The episode presents the arrangement almost entirely as reputation protection. But the episode itself also accurately notes that the General Handbook does discourage bishops from getting involved in members’ criminal cases — meaning the Church has a stated policy against exactly what these bishops were doing. Alerting Kirton McConkie so they can remind bishops of existing policy is, at minimum, a mixed-motive action: it protects reputation, but it also potentially prevents Church leaders from providing the kind of institutional backing that makes judges look more leniently at serious offenders.

Megan’s more nuanced observation deserves to stand: “I don’t think it’s ethical because I think everyone deserves a character witness even if we don’t like the way that character witness presented their argument.” That is a fair civil liberties point. The more substantive concern the episode raises — and does so effectively — is that in a predominantly LDS judicial community, letters from BYU deans and bishops carry institutional weight that effectively provides religious community backing for serious offenders, and that this is qualitatively different from any private citizen writing a character letter.

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