What Your Ward Thinks About Priesthood Authority, Temple Marriage, & Brigham Young | Josh Coates

Josh Coates studied computer science at UC Berkeley and is the executive director of the B.H. Roberts Foundation.
For links related to this video, visit leadingsaints.org/what-your-w...
Highlights
3:20 Introduction to Josh Coates, one of the founders of the B.H. Roberts Foundation and Mormoner. They write short articles on controversial topics.
5:45 Who is B.H. Roberts? Why is the foundation named after him?
9:20 Josh and his foundation began a research project surveying Latter Day Saints.
16:00 Creating the survey in order to have useful data. You have to be very careful when formulating questions.
18:15 What were they looking to find out in the survey?
21:30 It seems like people are leaving the Church in droves. Is that really true?
23:30 They have found that there are two types of Latter-day Saints according to their analysis.
* Cluster 1 - 80% are pretty orthodox. Follow closely to the commandments and are very active in the Church.
* Cluster 2 - 20% are scattered in their beliefs even if they identify as Latter-day Saints.
29:40 Millennials are dramatically represented in the 20% of members that have scattered beliefs. We worry about Gen-Z a lot but maybe we are overlooking the millennials.
33:30 The cultural evolution of the Church has improved over the last 20 to 30 years but there have also been things that have eroded the foundation of people’s faith.
34:00 The difference between the different generations in the Church. Why are millennials struggling so much compared to other generations?
35:15 How can leaders better approach or talk to millennials? Separating policy and doctrine.
39:30 The data that Josh found on marriage and divorce in the Church. They found that temple marriages are a big deal.
42:00 Research on moral foundation theory. The five foundational values that go into making a decision:
* Will it hurt someone?
* Is it fair?
* Loyalty
* Authority
* Purity
52:00 The survey data on LGBTQ members of The Church of those that have left The Church and their view on marriage
54:30 Resources and places to go to find out more about Josh’s work.
56:00 Josh’s encouragement to Church leaders

[@askinfaithpodcast]

Loved this - fascinating research and insight. Thanks for sharing!

[@boysrus61]

I loved Shannon Caldwell Montez's dissertation on The Secret Mormon Meetings of 1922. She does a great job of describing who he was and what a tough job he had in trying to get the leaders of the church- the top 15, to understand that things were not adding up with the history and how things were hidden. Fascinating for sure. You can find it on line and interviews she has done after it.

[@justinturman]

Came here to point this out. The church leaders in the 1950's when they were creating seminaries and institutes had a choice to make: whether to make rigorous scripture and church history scholars. Or to indoctrinate the youth with faith promoting stories. They went with the latter and now we are in this mess.

[@DesertPrimrose]

Something I remember from Jonathan Haidt's Righteous Mind (or maybe it was a talk or interview), people on the far right care less about fairness and harm, but emphasize other morals instead (I can't remember which ones). When they leave organized religion, people who identify as liberal move farther to the left and people who identify as conservative move farther right. Rings true in my immediate and extended family.

[@dalfar1161]

I'm curious to know how many sacrament talks LDSbot has written 😀