Tag Archives: General Conference

Trends in General Conference talks: 1851 – 2010

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LDS General Conference weekend is upon us. I will likely write a review of this, the 181st session of conference, as I have the past several sessions. But I’m frankly less interested in what will be said this weekend, and more interested in what has been said over the entire span of general conference’s history.

BYU has engineered a phenomenal tool with which to study trends in general conference. It’s called the Corpus, and it gives you access to a database of all the conference talks from 1851 to 2010—that’s 10,000 talks, 24 million words!

I searched dozens of keywords to measure their relative frequency in conference talks over time. Below are some of my results.

“Abortion” – Pew Research Center finds that Mormons are the second most pro-life demographic in America, so it’s curious that abortion has received so little attention in recent decades.

“Atheism” – Atheism has been off Mormonism’s radar for several decades, but it is again becoming a concern/target for church leaders.

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1975 General Conference advice for women: ‘Lose weight or be lonely’

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Next month is the semi-annual LDS General Conference, and I was reminded by this fact that I haven’t done a conference-related post for some time. Well, I found another great moment in conference history.

I want to a briefly discuss a talk given in the April 1975 General Conference by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone. In it, he condemned so-called “self-inflicted” sins like masturbation, homosexuality, drinking soda and studying controversial teachings like “Adam-God.” His talk was a pretty typical laundry list of LDS concerns circa 1975, but one comment got my attention:
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The difficulty defining Mormon doctrine

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Among the most vocal critics of President Boyd K. Packer’s conference talk about homosexuality were Mormons themselves. Many of my liberal Mormon friends were quick to clarify that Packer did not speak for them. I even had one friend tell me he was so upset by Packer’s comments that he turned off his television and didn’t watch conference the rest of that Sunday.

Other Mormons, and I’m afraid the majority, agree with Packer’s talk. In fact, there is a Facebook campaign by the group “LDS YOUNG MEN & WOMEN” to write Packer 100,000 letters of support. As of today, nearly 18,000 people are ‘attending’ this event.

So this kind of raises the question: Can you be a faithful Mormon and disagree with what an apostle said in general conference? A conservative Mormon friend of mine insists that you cannot.

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LDS.org edits Packer’s conference talk

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The official transcripts of last weekend’s general conference were published today at LDS.org. The Mormon blog Nine Moons was astute enough to notice that there were a few significant changes made to President Boyd K. Packer’s controversial remarks about homosexuality.

Here is what Packer said in conference:

We teach the standard of moral conduct that will protect us from Satan’s many substitutes and counterfeits for marriage. We must understand that any persuasion to enter into any relationship that is not in harmony with the principles of the gospel must be wrong. From The Book of Mormon we learn that “wickedness never was happiness.”

Some suppose that they were preset, and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural. Not so. Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember, he is our Father.

Paul promised, “God will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able, but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” (paraphrased I Cor 10:13)

You can if you will, break the habits, and conquer the addiction, and come away from that which is not worthy of any member of the Church. As Alma cautioned, we must watch and pray continually. Isaiah warned of them that call evil good and good evil. That put darkness for light and light for darkness. That put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

And here is the text version on LDS.org today:

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October 2010 General Conference review

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You can read my review of April’s conference here.

Last weekend was LDS General Conference. And being the masochist I am, I not only watched conference, but attended a session also. (If you’ve never gone to general conference as a nonbeliever, you ought to—it’s quite the spectacle.)

I watch general conference because it is an important cultural phenomenon; it helps me keep a pulse on what the Mormon community is thinking and feeling. I can’t blame you for not watching it, though, so I’m going to share with you my brief summary of conference.

This general conference was the usual blend of banality, tedium, pablum, emotionalism, anti-intellectualism, and moralization.

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Glenn Beck, the LDS Church, and the League of Nations

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Readers will know that among my intellectual interests are politics and Mormon history. I especially love when these two subjects intersect, as they do with the League of Nations.

You’re probably asking how the long-since defunct League of Nations, the forerunner to the United Nations, is relevant in 2010. The answer: Glenn Beck.

In the past year, Beck and his disciples in the Tea Party movement have ratcheted up the rhetoric against America’s most progressive president. And they’re not talking about Barack Obama, but—oddly enough—Woodrow Wilson.

Here’s what Beck said about President Wilson back in February: “I hate that S.O.B.! He was an evil, evil dude.” Why such invective? Beck’s litany of complaints against Wilson include, among other things: the federal income tax, the re-segregation of government offices, the imprisonment of anti-war dissidents during WWI, and the League of Nations.

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Ezra Taft Benson: The peace sign is “the adversary’s signal”

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In mining old conference talks for interesting quotes, it quickly became apparent that Ezra Taft Benson was among the most colorful and controversial conference speakers. The Glenn Beck of apostles, he would often rail against perceived communist threats and conspiracies from the conference pulpit. He taught that the civil rights movement was a front for communism and that public schools were established by Marxists for the propagation of atheism. But I recently found my favorite Benson quote:

Have we, as Moroni warned, “polluted the holy church of God?” (Morm. 8:38.) The auxiliaries of the Church are to be a help, not a hindrance, to parents and the priesthood as they strive to lead their families back to God. Do any of us wear or display the broken cross, anti-Christ sign, that is the adversary’s symbol of the so-called “peace movement”? – Ezra Taft Benson, October 1970 General Conference

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LDS teachings on sex are contradictory and untenable

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This post is loosely a part of my general conference series, but it also makes the case that LDS teachings on sex are contradictory and untenable.

First, consider what Mormon leaders historically taught regarding birth control:

The world teaches birth control. Tragically, many of our sisters subscribe to its pills and practices when they could easily provide earthly tabernacles for more of our Father’s children. … The first commandment given to man was to multiply and replenish the earth with children. That commandment has never been altered, modified, or canceled. The Lord did not say to multiply and replenish the earth if it is convenient, or if you are wealthy, or after you have gotten your schooling, or when there is peace on earth, or until you have four children. – Ezra Taft Benson, April 1969 General Conference

God made sex, but not for entertainment. It was provided for a divinely appointed act of creation in which we, to this extent, become co-creators with him. – Mark E. Peterson, April 1969 General Conference

[I]f anything were done to postpone [the responsibility of motherhood], the Church would become a party to birth control, and the Church will have nothing to do with that evil. – David O. McKay, April 1949 General Conference

Sexual laxity among young people, birth control, and intemperance are its insidious and vicious enemies. – David O. McKay, October 1947 General Conference

Another erosion of the family is unwarranted and selfish birth control. – Spencer W. Kimball, October 1979 General Conference

We hear so much about emancipation, independence, sexual liberation, birth control, abortion, and other insidious propaganda belittling the role of motherhood, all of which is Satan’s way of destroying woman, the home, and the family—the basic unit of society. – N. Eldon Tanner, October 1973 General Conference

The above is just a small sampling of the church’s statements on birth control. You can read many others at these links.

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