Jana Riess

Author of The Next Mormons and a sociologist of religion who built the Next Mormons Survey (NMS), the dataset behind the book’s portrait of generational change among Latter-day Saints. Kyle’s engagement with the book is selective: his main note reframes a member’s “openness-led-to-doubts” arc by asking “who taught her she needed to find fault with other people’s belief system?”, and contrasts it with John Taylor’s “bring all the good you have and let us see if we can add to it” posture as the lost alternative.

Context: Jana Riess is a journalist and scholar of religion (Ph.D., Columbia) known for her Flunking Sainthood column and her data-driven reporting on Mormonism. The Next Mormons (2019) drew on the original Next Mormons Survey to document how millennial and ex-Mormon Latter-day Saints differ from older generations.

Where this appears

• The Next Mormons — author; built the survey behind the book’s data on generational shifts in LDS faith and practice.