Henri Gooren

HENRI GOOREN {[email protected]}is associate professor of cultural anthropology at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, and was the 2011–13 president of the Mormon Social Science Association (see www.mormonsocialscience.org). He specializes in religion in Latin America and is the author of three previous articles in Dialogue on Mormons in Latin America. His current research is sponsored by the Pentecostal-Charismatic Research Initiative of the John Templeton Foundation and focuses on the Pentecostalization of religion and society in Paraguay and Chile. His faculty webpage can be found at www.oakland.edu/ socan/faculty/gooren.

Articles

Leadership, Retention, and US Culture in the LDS Church in Latin America and Europe

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a global church based in the United States. The cultural context of the Church as a top-down, global entity with centralized leadership necessarily interacts with local…

Analyzing LDS Growth in Guatemala: Report from a Barrio

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (usually called Mormon or LDS church) is having enormous success in most parts of the world. Growth is particularly impressive in Latin America. In 1971 there were only 217,500 LDS members on this continent, accounting for no more than seven percent of the church’s total membership.

The Dynamics of LDS Growth in Guatemala, 1948-1998

The U.S.-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is rapidly becoming a worldwide church, particularly since the 1950s. One major reason for this is the church’s ambitious evangelization program: In 2000 it had 60,000…

Latter-day Saints under Siege: The Unique Experience of Nicaraguan Mormons

The LDS Church is currently gaining many new members in Asia, Africa, and especially Latin America. Nowadays more than 35 percent of the worldwide membership is concentrated in Latin America, compared to about 45 percent in the United States and Canada. By 2020, the majority of Mormons in the world will be Latin Americans, if the current growth rates continue. Judging from current LDS growth rates, the future Mormon heartland will be the Andes and Central America, instead of the Wasatch Front. Rodney Stark is exaggerating, however, when he labels Mormonism the next world religion, since he ignores a drop-out rate for converts that generally exceeds 50 percent.