From the article: For decades, Mormons have touted their Church's rapid growth as a sort of implicit evidence that it is the True Church.
The writer does not provide any support for that broad-brush statement. The Scriptures talk about many called, but few chosen, etc.
>> Gordon B. Hin[c]kley, the man at the top of the Mormon Church, echoes what many Mormons will tell you: that theirs is the "fastest-growing" Church in the world. Not so, says David Stewart, a Mormon researcher who has compiled the statistics and shows that, far from being the fastest-growing, Mormonism actually ranks 23rd among 149 Churches and Protestant denominations ranked in the U.S.
In this case, Stewart is simply telling us what the Glenmary study said, that the LDS Church is the fastest-growing among the large US faiths (those with more than 1 million members), and 23rd out of 149 overall, which says that the top 22 had less than 1 million members each. That was what I remember from news accounts at the time the Glenmary study came out, fastest-growing among the large US faiths.
From David Stewart's analysis:
For another example, a recent LDS Church News article entitled "Church Fastest Growing in Nation"101 claims that the Glenmary study "shows The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the fastest-growing faith in the nation during the 1990s." In reality, the Glenmary study found that the LDS Church ranks twenty-third among the 149 participating U.S. faiths in overall growth rate, but first among denominations with over one million adherents. In spite of the fact that the U.S. LDS growth rate is only two-tenths of a percent above the world population growth rate and that the study does not consider activity rates, the ranking of first among U.S. faiths of over a million is still an adequately impressive finding without the need for sensationalization. One cannot doubt that this was an honest misunderstanding on the part of the anonymous Church News reporter, as the same headline that the LDS Church is the "fastest growing" in the U.S. appeared in some secular newspapers also. Yet this points to the need for us to be more careful and accurate in reporting our own growth.You guys would be better off reading Stewart's comprehensive analysis than either the article of this thread or the Salt Lake Tribune article.
Regarding the word "cults" used by the usual suspects posting here, you guys have made it a meaningless attack word. In your frantic search for a cult under every rock, save yourselves some time and look in the mirror.
You guys don't see a cult there? Well, there isn't one in the LDS Church either.