Conference by the Numbers, April 2016

What topics were mentioned most frequently or especially emphasized during the April 2016 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Take a look at the infographic below and see which words occurred with higher frequency than the average general conference. You can also see some of the words that were used for the very first time in a general conference--including the very first Star Wars reference that I could find. (Note: "all" conferences means conferences going back to April 1971, the earliest for which transripts are provided online at lds.org)

Family Proclamation References

A while back, my brother asked if I had looked at references to "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" in general conference talks. I had not looked at this previously, so I decided to give it a whirl. Here's a graph of conference references to "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" by year. I counted any reference to the entire title, or shorter versions like "Family Proclamation" of "The Proclamation on the Family." References could be in the talks themselves, or in the footnotes.

A few interesting facts:

• 2015 saw a record high high with 25 references between October and April conferences.
• Boyd K. Packer referenced the proclamation the most (12 times)
• If you read President Howard W. Hunter's talks when he was ordained President of the Church in October, 1994 (see Being a Righteous Husband and Father and Exceeding Great and Precious Promises), you will find many ideas and phrases that will later be incorporated into "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" as given by Gordon B. Hinckley in September, 1995.

Conference by the Numbers, October 2015

Here's my take on the numbers for the 185th semi-annual conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, October 3-4, 2015. You can also check out my post from last conference.

Top Word Counters

In my last post, I showed how word counts in General Conference changed over time. I noticed that certain terms would have a spike in certain years, often attributable to a single talk. In honor of those talks that give extensive reference to a single word and topic, I've compiled a list of "Top Word Counters." There's no particular reason for the selected topics, except that I picked them. I've arranged them from highest to lowest word count per talk. Enjoy reading some of these classic talks!

Top Word Counters

Mission(ary)--62
Milton R Hunter, April 1972
The Miracle of Missionary Work

Temple--59
Thomas S Monson, April 2011
The Holy Temple—a Beacon to the World

Light--53
Robert D Hales, April 2002
Out of Darkness into His Marvelous Light

Family--50
James A. Cullimore, October 1975
Family Home Evening

Baptism/Baptize--48
James E Faust, April 2001
Born Again

Faith--47
Dallin H Oaks, April 1994
Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ

Mercy--47
Marion D Hanks, October 1981
My Specialty Is Mercy

Priesthood--46
Robert D Hales, October 1995
Blessings of the Priesthood

Sabbath--39
James E Faust, October 1991
The Lord's Day

Repent(ance)--31
Russell M Nelson, April 2007
Repentance and Conversion

Grace--29
Gene R. Cook, April 1993
Receiving Divine Assistance through the Grace of the Lord

Family History--23
Dennis B. Neuenschwander, April 1999
Bridges and Eternal Keepsakes

Obey/Obedience--21
James E. Faust, April 1999
Obedience: The Path to Freedom

Genealogy--16
Russell M. Nelson, April 1998
A New Harvest Time

General Conference Word Counts Over the Years

As a follow-up to my last post, and in honor of General Conference this weekend, I'm posting about various word counts in General Conference talks. One question I received from my last post was about how variations in the occurrence of Joseph Smith in conference talks compared to other gospel words and topics. The following graph shows some of the variation seen in the words (and related word forms) of temple, baptism, repentance, family, and Joseph Smith. One takeaway from these graphs is that there can be quite a bit of variation in word usage from year to year (though you do notice the increase of "temple" starting in the 1990s).

For many other gospel terms, you see a similar bouncing-around variation. However, I did find a few other interesting trends. In comparing the terms faith, works, and grace. There is a definite increase in the usage of faith over time, whereas works  is diminishing. Grace remains relatively constant--showing a slight increase.

Why the increase? Have Latter-day Saints focused too much on works and not enough on the requisite faith to go with it? Or do we need more faith in these days of increasing cynicism and skepticism? Or are our modern-day apostles asking the Lord, as the ancient apostles did, for the Lord to "increase our faith" (Luke 17:5). I won't pretend to have the answers to these questions, but it is something to ponder on. I do recommend reading President Gordon B. Hinckley's 1987 talk "Lord, Increase Our Faith."

A few other comparisons sparked my interest, although not on a doctrinal basis. For example, the change in usage from genealogy to family history is readily apparent here:

I also liked observing the change in references related to modern technology and media. There is an expected increase in terms related to modern media such as computer and internet. The dangers of pornography have received consistent attention, but more recent years have seen concentrated and emphatic attention. I'm a little sad, albeit not surprised, that references to books has declined with the concomitant increase in internet references. 2014 shows 27 uses of the word internet as opposed to 5 occurrences of the word books. But, hey--this blog is brought to you by the magic of the internet and is not published in a paper book, so I probably shouldn't complain too much.

Do you have any terms you'd like to see compared? Any thoughts from this weekend's General Conference? Let me know in the comments. You can also look at the next post on Top Word Counters. In the meantime, I'll be working on a summary from October 2015 General Conference once the talk texts are available.

References to Joseph Smith in General Conference

A couple of months ago, I had a discussion with a friend regarding Joseph Smith and Church Public Relations. He indicated that he thought there was a period of time when the Church downplayed references to Joseph Smith in some of its public presentations or visitor sites. Although I didn't have any information to support or refute this claim, we began talking about general conference talks. We wondered whether this was also true for references to Joseph Smith in general conference talks. Rather than just wondering, I decided to actually find out.

Below is a graph showing the references, by year, to the words "Joseph Smith" in general conference talks. The graph below shows references to Joseph Smith by year in general conference talks. The graph below that shows occurrences grouped by decade. The blue bar shows the average number of references per year, and the green bar shows the range of references in that decade (min to max).

Looking at the overall trends, it looks like there is a dip around the '90s as compared to other years. However, there is quite a bit of variability from year to year, and it would be hard to say there is much more than an average 20% de-emphasis on Joseph Smith at the low point (incidentally, references to the Book of Mormon were increasing in that time period).

My friend and I could probably have a lengthy discussion as to whether or not this is a significant trend. However, I'm sure we would agree that regardless of the decade, Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel are foundational doctrines for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Even at the "low point" in the '80s, Joseph Smith was at the center of several talks, such as this one in 1985 by Elder Rex C. Reeve.

I am grateful for the prophet Joseph Smith and his role as a modern-day prophet. His words, actions, and life testify of Jesus Christ and were instrumental in bringing the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ back to the earth in our day and time.

Conference by the Numbers: April 2015 General Conference

In honor of the talk transcripts being available online for the April 2015 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I put together a few facts and figures.