{"id":3875,"date":"2015-11-16T23:49:56","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T06:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/?p=3875"},"modified":"2020-01-09T04:09:43","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T11:09:43","slug":"when-will-the-millenials-take-over-the-quorum-of-the-12-and-first-presidency-of-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/when-will-the-millenials-take-over-the-quorum-of-the-12-and-first-presidency-of-the-church\/3875\/","title":{"rendered":"When will the Millennials take over the Quorum of the 12 and First Presidency of the church?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Youngest Apostle Currently Was Born in 1952, the Oldest in 1924. Today I was reading on Pew Forums about generational gaps in public opinion (here<\/a>) on social issues, and this got me thinking about the generational makeup of the Q12+FP (hereafter Q15) and what the implications would be when there are generational shifts in these Quorums. Basically, I asked the question: When will millennials take over the Q15?<\/p>\n

So I calculated it. My calculations are not nearly as robust as Ziff’s<\/a>, but I was merely aiming for directional correctness. To keep it simple I took the 75th percentile for age of death of the last 11 Apostles who died (I chose 11 arbitrarily because that got me back to President Hinckley and because I love that guy, that\u2019s why). The 75th percentile for age at death is 92 years. I chose to use the 75th percentile over the median (87 years) on the base assumption that medical advancements are happening, etc. I then took the median age an apostle is currently called (61 years*) and began calculating what generation the next apostles would be from. I used the generational matrix that pew uses, which is as follows:<\/p>\n

pre-silent generation<\/strong> before 1928
\nsilent generation<\/strong> 1928-1946
\nbaby boomers<\/strong> 1946-1965
\nGen X<\/strong> 1965-1981
\nMillennials<\/strong> 1981-1996
\npost-millennial<\/strong> 1997 on<\/p>\n

Anyway, taking a base snapshot of the generational drift of the apostles by decade, I get the following. <\/p>\n

\"generations\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can see, the Current Q15 is primarily the silent generation, with 1\/3 being baby boomers. In the next 10 years, we could expect to see baby boomers become much more prominent, become just over 2\/3s of the quorum. This baby boomer dominance would be maintained for ~20 years until 2045 when the mix of gen x and millennials will exceed 50% of the quorum make up. (Interestingly, gen x never exceed 4 members of the quorum in this model, possibly due to their generation only being 15 years in length.) However, the millennials take the strong majority by 2055 and we already start getting post millennials by 2065. By 2075, I will be 98 years old, and thus, according to this model, dead. This all assumes the second coming doesn’t happen by then, of course. (Always a good caveat to throw in…)<\/p>\n

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So, some questions:<\/p>\n

1. What are the implications of the Q15 becoming predominantly baby boomer run over the next 10 years? Do you expect the cultural and social differences between the silent generation and baby boomers to have an impact on the way the church is run?<\/p>\n

2. What are the implications of the Q15 becoming predominantly millennial run over the next 50 years? Do you expect the cultural and social differences between the silent generation and millennials to have an impact on the way the church is run?<\/p>\n

3. Do social and cultural changes have a place in divinely run institutions and in our theological understanding of revelation?<\/p>\n

*- I openly acknowledge that the median age of apostle called has drifted from 52 between 1960 and 1970 to 62 between 2005 and 2015. This implies the possibility of drift to age 70 by the year 2060. I did not include this in my calculations.The implication would be a few more gen x and a few less millennials, but otherwise the model holds up.