Some fascinating General Conference statistics

Last updated on: April 16, 2015 at 2:38 pm by Dan Peterson

Some fascinating General Conference statistics 2015-04-16T14:38:53-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, performing during a recent session of LDS General Conference
(Click to enlarge)

I posted an entry the other day entitled “Ashamed of Joseph?” in which I noted that some critics had detected, and were celebrating, a sharp decline in mentions of the Prophet Joseph Smith during the just-concluded General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

They claim that leaders and members of the Church are backing away from Joseph, repulsed and embarrassed by his poor character and manifest fraudulence — or some such thing.

I don’t believe it, and I emphatically don’t grant the assumption that he was a fraud with poor character. Quite the contrary.

Still, was there a sharp reduction in allusions to Joseph Smith during the most recent Conference?

Possibly. I haven’t independently counted or verified the numbers.

But I’m not sure, even if it were true, that it would mean much. Perhaps, if there’s eventually seen to be a continuing trend, we’ll recognize this as the beginning of an evolution of the Utah church that will turn it into the Great Basin subdivision of the Community of Christ. But I’m not holding my breath before seeing that, and I would advise our critics and detractors, for their own good, not to do so, either.

What we had over Easter weekend — and, as I’ve observed previously, the fact that Conference occurred on Easter weekend probably isn’t wholly irrelevant to the seeming paucity of references to Joseph Smith — was probably an outlier. After all, a single talk focused on Joseph might have made an enormous difference, because it would likely include numerous mentions of him. Likewise a single talk less that’s devoted to a topic closely connected with Joseph would have a large impact, too. Such numbers, based on a fairly small sample — since only a tiny handful of talks in any Conference are ever devoted to the Prophet or anything directly connected with him, requiring mention of his name –and extrapolated from that small sample, will tend to be quite volatile.

In this connection, though, Doug Ealy has kindly shared a couple of graphs with me of his own devising, based on data gathered from April 1971 through April 2015, that I think you might find of interest. (You’ll need to click on the images to enlarge them to readable size.) The first concerns the issue of frequency of allusions to Joseph Smith:

Frequency of allusions to Joseph Smith
(Click to enlarge.)

You can easily see the volatility to which I referred, but no clear trend is apparent. (The biggest spike upwards comes in October of 2005, shortly before the bicentennial of the Prophet’s birth.) Critics hope that the most recent Conference represents the beginning of a long-term abandonment of Joseph, but, thus far, their hope is merely that. No evidence supports their explanation that it comes from a sudden urge on the part of Church leaders to distance themselves from the founder of the Restoration.

More interesting, to me, is the second graph, which, although it too indicates volatility, does seem to suggest a longterm trend toward more and more frequent references to the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I think this is likely to be true, and I think it reflects, among other things, President Ezra Taft Benson’s call for the Saints to rediscover the Book of Mormon, which features the Atonement of Christ as one of its principal themes.

Frequency of references to Christ’s Atonement
(Click to enlarge. Click again to enlarge still further.)

Of course, the search for the numbers underlying this graph was done, as I understand it, on the specific term atonement, so the trend may, in whole or in part, simply reflect a change in linguistic habit or terminological fashion. More work would need to be done in order to rule that out.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

April 16, 2015

"The Art of Thinking Clearly"

Next Post

April 16, 2015 Brigham Young, on gifts and givers

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How many verses are in the shortest chapter in the Bible?

Select your answer to see how you score.

10 2 7 5