The Barna Group conducted a survey comparing the religious and demographic backgrounds of JW's and Mormons vs. evangelical Christians. I found some of the statistics rather surprising. For example, 29% of those who said they are JW's also reported that they are registered to vote. Now I realize there is a "hang on" factor of people who are associated with the organization, but are not actually baptized and/or active, and that even some of the active ones may have been registered before they became JW's but I still found that number higher than I would have expected. There's other interesting stuff, too. Here's the article:
Interesting JW/Mormon Statistics from Barna
by NeonMadman 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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NeonMadman
OK, for some reason I can't get this to come up to the right article when I embed it. It keeps bringing up the main page, even though it shows the correct article in the edit mode. If you go to http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=Home and click on "Barna Updates" then on "All Barna Updates" on the drop down menu, you will see a list of recent updates. On that list, the article in question is listed under May 12, 2008.
Sorry for such complexity, but I can't get the blamed thing to embed properly...
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Deputy Dog
Wow! This is sad.
They (JW's) are more likely than born again adults to argue that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth (77%, compared to 63% among born agains). -
OnTheWayOut
29% of those who said they are JW's also reported that they are registered to vote.
NM, how are you doing? Good to hear from you.
I look for problems with statistics. I guarantee the sample is too small.
Rounded up, 2 out of 7 or 4 out of 14 would get you 29%. That's far too small
a sample for accurate statistics. Many such statistics are derived from small
samples. They don't tell you that because they need to fill pages and sound
like they know what they are doing. Even if the sample is larger (say 100), it is
JW's that fill out such surveys that answered while the majority would simply
avoid answering, so it really would not represent JWism as a whole. -
NeonMadman
Neon
Is this the one?
http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=298
Well, yes and no. When I hit that link I come up to the front page rather than the actual article. That's the same problem I was having trying to embed it.
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NeonMadman
Rounded up, 2 out of 7 or 4 out of 14 would get you 29%. That's far too small
a sample for accurate statistics. Many such statistics are derived from small
samples. They don't tell you that because they need to fill pages and sound
like they know what they are doing. Even if the sample is larger (say 100), it is
JW's that fill out such surveys that answered while the majority would simply
avoid answering, so it really would not represent JWism as a whole.The article says that they contacted 186 JW's, which implies that the 29% who said they were registered to vote would have been about 54 individuals. Granted that's still too small a sample to reach any definite conclusions, it still strikes me as a high number. I can't imagine interviewing 100 publishers in a given congregation and finding that 29 of them were registered to vote. You may be right, though, that the sample itself may be skewed. Probably the more gung-ho JW's would avoid answering such a survey, especially if they knew it was an evangelical survey firm conducting it.
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jgnat
I'd also discussed the results here. It is interesting to note that 28% of the respondents that identified themselves as Witnesses are "unchurched". That is, they believe but do not attend. I think this same 28% register to vote.
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sir82
Possibly the 28 / 29% are D-F'ed persons who still believe it's "the truth"?
Interesting if so, gives an idea of how many ex-JWs are out there.
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jgnat
EXACTLY Sir82. We are a growing number. The JW's have LOTS of nominal members.