Origin from 1960
For its first century the church remained overwhelmingly American, but a sustained expansion of full-time missionary work after the Second World War, and especially from the 1960s onward, carried the church into Latin America, Africa and Asia at a pace its earlier nineteenth century European missions had never matched. Membership outside the United States grew fastest of all in Latin America, above all in Mexico, Brazil and Chile, and growth in Africa accelerated markedly after a 1978 policy change opened priesthood ordination and temple access to Black members for the first time. By late February 1996 the church's own count showed 4,720,000 members living outside the United States against 4,719,000 within it, the first time the international church outnumbered the domestic one, a milestone that by the early 2000s had grown into a majority of the church's membership speaking a language other than English.
Facts
Dates
Start Year1960 is a representative point for the sustained acceleration of the church's Latin American, African and Asian missionary expansion after the Second World War, not a single dated founding act the way this event's own 1996 end year is; the process built gradually across the postwar decades rather than beginning in one identifiable year. End YearLate February 1996 is when church membership outside the United States, 4,720,000, first exceeded membership within it, 4,719,000, the clearest single dated milestone in this ongoing shift; the trend continued growing after this date rather than concluding on it. Learn More
How the Latter-day Saints Grew across the Global South
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
For its first century the Latter-day Saints remained an overwhelmingly American church, but a sustained expansion of full time missionary work after the Second World War, and especially from the 1960s onward, carried it into Latin America, Africa and Asia at a pace its earlier nineteenth century European missions had never matched. Growth outside the United States ran fastest of all in Latin America, above all in Mexico, Brazil and Chile, while growth in Africa accelerated markedly after a 1978 policy change opened priesthood ordination and temple access to Black members for the first time.
By late February 1996 the church's own count showed 4,720,000 members living outside the United States against 4,719,000 within it, the first time the international church had outnumbered the domestic one. That crossing point kept widening afterward, and by the early 2000s a majority of the church's own membership spoke a language other than English.
What this changed for the Latter-day Saints' spread was the church's transformation from an American institution with foreign missions into a genuinely worldwide body whose center of gravity now sits outside the country where it began. The 1978 policy change and the missionary expansion that followed it together did more to internationalize the church's membership than anything in its first hundred years combined.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Africa directly: "carried the church into Latin America, Africa and Asia at a pace its earlier nineteenth century European missions had never matched."
This source names Americas directly: "For its first century the church remained overwhelmingly American, but a sustained expansion of full-time missionary work after the Second World War, and especially from the 1960s onward, carried..."
This source names Asia directly: "church into Latin America, Africa and Asia at a pace its earlier nineteenth century European missions had never matched."
This source names Chile directly: "above all in Mexico, Brazil and Chile, and growth in Africa accelerated markedly after a 1978 policy change opened priesthood ordination and temple access to Black members for the first time."
This source names Mexico directly: "of all in Latin America, above all in Mexico, Brazil and Chile, and growth in Africa accelerated markedly after a 1978 policy change opened priesthood ordination and temple access to Black members..."
Occurred In
This shift spans Latin America, Africa and Asia at once, unlike this movement's earlier, place-specific events, so it is not pinned to any one continent on the map; the specific regions and the 1996 milestone are named in the description above.
Spread Event Of
Sources
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