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

Josh Coates studied computer science at UC Berkeley and is the executive director of the B.H. Roberts Foundation. Links The Unique Opportunity Local Leaders Have to Encourage Faith Among Latter-day Saint Millennials | An Interview with Jana Riess Josh Coates articles at Deseret News Stephen Cranney articles at Deseret News BH Roberts Foundation Mormonr.org LDSBot There is already a discussion started about this podcast. Share your thoughts here. Read the transcript of this podcast Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library 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.