By Eric Johnson
Mormonism Research Ministry — http://www.mrm.org

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We reported in the March 2021 Mormonism  Researched about how the LDS Church baptismal convert numbers have continued to decline during the past three decades. Whereas the church was growing by more than 4% in the late 1980s, the rate has gone down to less than 1.5% during each of the past five years.

Church leaders  announce the numbers every April at general conference, with the main emphasis given to the baptismal convert number. While the 2020 numbers won’t be announced until Saturday, April 4, 2021, we are speculating that the number of converts in 2020 will be fewer than 200,000, which would be the lowest number in many decades. Of course, the restrictions on missionaries being able to proselytize most of the year due to COVID-19 is the reason there will be a decline from the previous year.

In a website article titled “A Closer look at the Declining Growth of the LDS Church since 1990” (mrm.org/declining-growth), we explained the following:

Although the church does not provide the exact number, those children who are baptized at the age of 9 or older are counted as “convert baptisms” for that year. Most people wrongly assume that “converts” refer to those who came into the church as adults, mainly through missionary activity, yet these children are mostly belonging to parents who are church members. Does it make sense that a pre-teen or teen from an LDS family should be considered a “convert”? Just how many “converts” each year come from these baptisms ages 9-17? And is this a convenient way to pad the “convert” numbers?

A returned missionary friend read this article and provided me with  additional first-hand  information:

I was on my mission in Utah during 1991-93. The Salt Lake City mission baptized around 300 converts a month. However, about half were 9 to 17-year­ olds. Many of us missionaries would get a list from the ward clerk called the bishops’ action list. It provided the names of those in the ward boundaries who had been blessed but were not baptized. We wouldn’t touch them while they were eight but when they turned nine we knocked on their families’ doors. We were able to baptize many of these 9, 10, and 11 year olds. I’m sure to this day that missionaries in heavily populated LDS areas baptize children over eight, fluffing the convert baptisms for the church.

[Personal email to me, 2/17/2021].

According to this account, half of the converts in the Salt Lake City mission in the early 1990s were ages 9 to 17. To get preteens/teens into an LDS baptismal font would not be difficult. Multiplied by many different missions throughout highly LDS states such as Utah, Idaho, Arizona, and California, how many tens of thousands of Mormon con­verts must come from this age group? By increasing the numbers by 20, 30, or even 40 percent by employing such a practice (and having to use children to do so) dulls the luster of the church’s once impressive convert numbers.

We must ask why there was not a concerted effort to baptize the 8-year-olds in the church. Might there be an ulterior motive in letting these children go unbaptized until at least the age of 9? As my friend had speculated, it would not be surprising if the church leaders continue to follow this questionable practice today to boost the convert numbers, which is the church’s major PR landmark!

My friend also explained:

Though my mother was LDS and I was blessed in the church—I wasn’t baptized until I was 10. It wasn’t until my mission in the early 90s that I learned that I was identified as a convert. Unfortunately, there were times that my fellow missionaries or pioneer heritage members would make me feel that my family was less than theirs because they were baptized as children of record and I was a convert.

In essence, then, these church leaders were willing to allow those children to remain unbaptized until at least the age of 9 while opening them up to ridicule by their LDS peers once they were baptized as “converts.” And what  if the child had been hit by a car at, say, the age of eight-and-a-half? Where would this soul have been destined? Certainly not the celestial kingdom. In the words of Seventy Royden G. Derrick, “Baptism is the gateway to the celestial kingdom”  (Temples in the Last Days, x).

If this is the case, could we not conclude that if the age of eight is the “age of accountability” (as it is in the LDS Church), that the child’s eternal destiny is put at risk for the sake of upping the church’s convert numbers? Does this seem like a loving policy? Is this what Jesus would do?

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