CultNEWS101 Articles: 12/18/2025
Patrick Ryan
"Vice] sat down with Daniella Mestyanek Young. She is a Cult Expert, Cult Survivor, U.S. Army Veteran, Harvard grad in the study of organizational psychology and author of two books on cults. Her memoir Uncultured came out in 2022 covering her experience growing up in the Children of God cult & comparing it to her time in the U.S. Army as an intelligence officer. She now has a new book coming out in January called "The Culting of America" where she better defines what a cult is using a 10 part framework."
"The research question I get asked more than any other nowadays concerns young adults who grew up in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Are more of them leaving the church now than in the past?
I hear it from parents, bishops and other LDS members who are deeply concerned as they observe more young adults abandoning Mormonism — including their own kids. But high-ranking church leaders have countered that this is just a “narrative” and that if anything, young people are “flocking” to the church in record numbers.
As evidence, they point to rising numbers of students enrolled in the church’s seminary and institute programs, an expanding global missionary force and a rebounding spate of new converts worldwide.
So, in a two-part series, I’ll share data trends about young Mormons in the United States. Today’s column focuses on how many people have left the church, while the next will look at the religiosity of young adult members who stay.
My research is limited to the U.S., so I can’t speak to the way the church is or is not growing abroad. But we can confirm from nationally representative data sets that the LDS church is indeed losing more members in the U.S. and that this disaffiliation is primarily driven by younger adults.
Alex Bass, as part of his Mormon Metrics Substack, has analyzed data from several national surveys while helping me and Benjamin Knoll with the quantitative research for our forthcoming book on the Mormon faith crisis. As always, when we’re looking at data about a small minority, we need to be mindful that the margin of error can be high. With this in mind, each of our graphs includes the error bars to show the range of possible findings."" ... [O]ver the long term, there’s little question that more people are leaving the church now in the U.S. compared with in the past. The data from the General Social Survey, which asked about childhood religion as well as current religion, shows we’ve gone from retaining over three-quarters of childhood LDS members through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, to keeping around 40% in the 2020s — a statistically significant drop."
"Two members of an alleged cult-like religious organization in Southern California, including the group’s leader, were arrested on suspicion of murder.
The Hemet-based religious group called “His Way Spirit Led Assemblies” has been at the center of an ongoing investigation after a former member of the group, Emilio Ghanem, 40, was reported missing in May 2023.
On Dec. 11, Redlands police arrested two members of the group, Darryl Martin, 58, the leader, and Rudy Moreno, 43, a high-ranking member, for murder and gun charges at the group’s headquarters."
" ... According to his family, Ghanem had spent the last two decades of his life as a devout member of the religious group, whose members worked at a pest control company called Fullshield Inc., now known as “Maxguard,” according to the Redlands Police Department."
News, Education, Intervention, Recovery
Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.
CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.
CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources about: cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations, and related topics.
The selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not imply that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly endorse the content. We provide information from multiple perspectives to foster dialogue.
Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultinte...@gmail.com.
Thanks,
Ashlen Hilliard (ashlen.hilli...@gmail.com)
Joe Kelly (joeke...@gmail.com)
Patrick Ryan (pryan...@gmail.com)
If you do not wish to be subscribed to this list, or you think you are being maliciously subscribed to the list, or have any other questions, send them to: pryan...@gmail.com or send an email to: cultnews101...@googlegroups.com.