Author: ronaldllawson

Retired professor of history and sociology who has spent 30 years studying especially the changes in the Seventh-day Adventist Church as a result of it becoming global, with a clear majority of its members from the Developing world. I visited 60 countries for interviews in the process. I here make available to non-sociologists the papers I have published and presented at academic meetings on Adventism and also comparing Adventism's growth and spread with that of two other groups born in the US in the same century--Mormons (Latter-day Saints) and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Mormons, Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses: Three “American Originals” and How They’ve Grown

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Mormons, Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses have all felt called to take their teachings to the world and have all experienced significant growth. But they have varied considerably in their geographic spread and where they have been most numerically successful. The result is sharply differing profiles: Adventists are concentrated in the developing world. while Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons are stronger in the developed world, but in different parts of it. Within countries. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons are more urban; Adventists are more rural. Adventists also tend to be poorer than Jehovah’s Witnesses and especially practicing Mormons. Exploring why these differing patterns developed …