{"id":41075,"date":"2020-11-10T23:05:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T04:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=41075"},"modified":"2020-11-10T23:08:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-11T04:08:30","slug":"president-nelsons-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2020\/11\/president-nelsons-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"President Nelson’s Sources"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is it about our Church leaders that lends their speeches authority?\u00a0 While ultimately the belief that the men we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators are in communication with God is what lends them the greatest amount of authority, I believe that there are other factors that shape how they are perceived and how much weight of authority the words of various Church leaders are given.\u00a0 A number of years ago, David John Buerger noted that Elder Bruce R. McConkie stood out as one of the most influential general authorities of mid-20th<\/sup> century in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\u00a0 He suggested that it wasn\u2019t because of \u201cthe particular topics Elder McConkie has chosen to address in his conference speeches, nor the breadth of subject matter, nor the originality of interpretation which has earned him his reputation.\u201d\u00a0 Rather, Buerger suggested \u201cthe Apostle\u2019s impressive influence stems \u2026 from (1) his sources of doctrinal influence, (2) his position as an Apostle, and (3) his authoritative tone.\u201d[1]<\/a> \u00a0There are similarities here to President Russell M. Nelson, though his position as president of the Church is probably foremost among the reasons for his influence.\u00a0 In this discussion today, however, I want to zoom in on President Nelson\u2019s sources of doctrinal influence, at least among his general conference talks.<\/p>\n

In the grand scheme of this series as previously shown, this puts us here:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Introductory Thoughts<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. President Nelson\u2019s Favorite Topics and Phrases\n
      \n
    1. God and Power<\/a><\/li>\n
    2. The<\/a>\u00a0Church,<\/a>\u00a0Priesthood,<\/a>\u00a0and<\/a>\u00a0Gathering<\/a>\u00a0I<\/a>srael<\/a><\/li>\n
    3. Family<\/a><\/li>\n
    4. Plan of Salvation<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n
    5. Examining the Sources in President Nelson\u2019s Talks<\/strong><\/li>\n
    6. Potential Long-Term Impact of President Nelson\u2019s Addresses<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      As indicated by crossing out the title of Part 4, this post will likely be the last part of the series.\u00a0 I had planned on analyzing how President Nelson\u2019s talks are being cited in general conference talks and Church manuals, then offering commentary on potential things that future leaders might be interested in quoting from his talks, but I think I\u2019d rather move on to other topics and series for now.<\/p>\n

      Scriptural Citations<\/strong><\/p>\n

      Our scriptural canon is the primary source of doctrinal influence and authority to which President Nelson has turned in his general conference addresses. In particular, the scriptures given to us during the modern dispensation (the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price) are his primary sources.\u00a0 In general, his frequent citation of the Book of Mormon follows the trend that has been observed by more in-depth analyses of general conference addresses.\u00a0 For example, a recent analysis by data analyst Quentin Spencer found that from 1942 to the late 1980s, New Testament passages were the most cited scriptures, but since the time of Ezra Taft Benson\u2019s presidency, the Book of Mormon has predominated scripture citations.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 This observation (and other similar analyses) led me to expect that the Book of Mormon would rank highly among President Nelson\u2019s scriptural citations.\u00a0 What I was surprised to find, however, was that President Nelson was just as likely to quote the Doctrine and Covenants as he was the Book of Mormon (and almost as likely to quote either as the rest of the scriptures combined).<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      Figure 1<\/strong>.\u00a0 Pie chart representing the proportion of general conference talk citations drawn from each section of the scriptures by President Russell M. Nelson.\u00a0 Total number of citations is 3548.\u00a0 Data drawn from the Scripture Citation Index.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      This can be compared with other current members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, based on data compiled in BYU\u2019s Scripture Citation Index.\u00a0 Henry B. Eyring and Quentin L. Cook were the most similar in the breakdown of percentages of scriptures cited (compare Table 1 and Table 2). \u00a0Most members of these quorums favored the Book of Mormon, putting it in first or second place for all 15 men (see tables 1, 2, and 3).\u00a0 Ulisses Soares, Dale G. Renlund, and David A. Bednar were the apostles who were most likely to quote from the Book of Mormon.\u00a0 Dieter F. Uchtdorf and Jeffrey R. Holland were outliers for displaying a strong tendency to quote the New Testament most frequently, though several apostles were as likely to quote the New Testament as they were the Book of Mormon.\u00a0 President Nelson quoted from the New Testament less frequently than the Doctrine and Covenants or Book of Mormon, though still more than the other sections of scriptures.\u00a0 This matches the general pattern among the top Church leaders of largely neglecting the Old Testament (especially when judged by the amount of content available), while the Pearl of Great Price also ranked low in percentages (though this is perhaps understandable, given the size of the collection).<\/p>\n

      Table 1. <\/strong>Percentages of general conference talk citations drawn from each section of the scriptures by members of the current First Presidency.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      Table 2. <\/strong>Percentages of general conference talk citations drawn from each section of the scriptures by senior members of the current Quorum of the Twelve.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      Table 3. <\/strong>Percentages of general conference talk citations drawn from each section of the scriptures by junior members of the current Quorum of the Twelve.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      In addition to citing the scriptures themselves, President Nelson frequently turned to scriptural helps and appendices included in the English edition of the scriptures that the Church publishes, particularly the Joseph Smith-Translation excerpts (around 50 citations) and the Bible Dictionary (around 20 citations).\u00a0 In general, President Nelson tended to leave his talks well-cited and deeply rooted in the scriptures.<\/p>\n

      Non-scriptural Citations<\/strong><\/p>\n

      President Nelson turned to a number of different sources outside of the scriptures that shaped his doctrinal understanding or were used to add emphasis to a particular idea.\u00a0 A glance at the top 10 sources or authors cited indicates a strong respect for presidents of the Church as well as a proclivity to quote hymns (see Table 4).\u00a0 As might be guessed from his interest in the early Restoration (as indicated by his heavy use of the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants discussed above), the single individual President Nelson has most frequently quoted is Joseph Smith the Prophet, with 37 different citations drawn primarily from Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith<\/em> before 2008 and Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith<\/em> thereafter.\u00a0 The next source he turned to most frequently was the hymnbook, sitting at 30 citations (these were used more frequently as supporting quotes for his talks or familiar phrases to use as focal points to reinforce his main points).\u00a0 He frequently relied on prior presidents of the Church (he has quoted every president of the Church except President John Taylor), and many of these presidents form the majority of his most-cited individuals in his talks.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Table 4.<\/strong>\u00a0 Top ten authors and sources outside of the Standard Works quoted by President Russell M. Nelson in his general conference talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
      Source<\/strong><\/td>\nCitations<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Joseph Smith<\/td>\n37<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Hymnbook<\/td>\n30<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Russell M. Nelson<\/td>\n29<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Gordon B. Hinckley<\/td>\n25<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Joseph Fielding Smith<\/td>\n13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Spencer W. Kimball<\/td>\n12<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Thomas S. Monson<\/td>\n11<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      The Family: A Proclamation to the World<\/td>\n11<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Bruce R. McConkie<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
      Brigham Young<\/td>\n8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

       <\/p>\n

      President Nelson has displayed a tendency to quote the current president of the Church, resulting in high counts for Presidents Spencer W. Kimball, Gordon B. Hinckley, and Thomas S. Monson. \u00a0Howard W. Hunter was also cited relatively frequently around the time of his presidency, but the short time that it lasted resulting in a lower count overall.\u00a0 Ezra Taft Benson seems to have been an outlier to this general rule, with Elder Nelson offering relatively few citations of President Benson during his presidency. \u00a0The general approach of quoting the sitting Church president even applies to President Nelson\u2019s own presidency, where he has most frequently cited his own talks (17 citations, or 30.4% of non-scriptural citations during his presidency), though he began self-citations around the year 2000 as a way of bridging talks and building on previous ideas shared.\u00a0 He has continued to quote Presidents Kimball and Hinckley after their presidencies, though he has done the same less frequently with other presidents (for example, all 11 times he cites President Monson occurred during Thomas S. Monson\u2019s time as president of the Church).\u00a0 This choice in which presidents he has continued to quote follows a larger pattern among leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that has made both Thomas S. Monson and Howard W. Hunter two of the three least-cited presidents of the Church after their deaths and Spencer W. Kimball and Gordon B. Hinckley two of the most-frequently cited presidents of the Church after their deaths.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

      Other sources President Nelson turns to frequently are also closely tied to the Church.\u00a0 He turned to President Joseph Fielding Smith and Elder Bruce R. McConkie with some regularity, reflecting the strong influence the two men had on Latter-day Saint thought during the mid-to-late-20th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Even when not citing these two directly, the influence of their ideas can be seen in President Nelson\u2019s talks (such as the Three Pillars of Salvation that I discussed previously<\/a>).\u00a0 He also draws frequently on official statements and publications of the Church, such as letters of the First Presidency, The Family: A Proclamation to the World, and Church manuals.\u00a0 Along those lines, he showed that (at least for a while) he kept up on reading the Ensign<\/em> by citing various articles from the Church\u2019s magazine in his talks over the years.\u00a0 He also showed some tendencies to quote other apostles, particularly Boyd K. Packer and James E. Talmage.\u00a0 He was far less likely to quote women leaders in the Church than men\u2014the only woman to get more than one citation was Eliza R. Snow, and she has only been quoted three times in his talks.\u00a0 Overall, the vast majority of his citations were drawn from within the Church.<\/p>\n

      For sources President Nelson turned to outside of the Church’s publications, poetry and medical publications were used most frequently. \u00a0Similar to his use of hymns in his talks, President Nelson quoted poetry and songs not in our hymn books (whether written by Shakespeare, Harry Kemp, or Donny Osmond) to sum up or emphasize a point.\u00a0 He also has cited several medical publications and studies, primarily to support his statements about how obedience to the Word of Wisdom has health benefits for Latter-day Saints.\u00a0 A third type of source that he turned to was dictionaries, reflecting his ongoing interest in words.\u00a0 Taken together, dictionaries, medical studies, and poetry make up the bulk of his citations drawn from outside of the Church.<\/p>\n

      Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

      President Nelson\u2019s talks have generally been filled with citations.\u00a0 Most frequently, he has drawn on the scriptures (particularly the Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon), presidents of the Church, and hymns or other songs.\u00a0 Tying this to original question about authority, quoting the scriptures, past presidents of the Church, and other Church leaders and Church publications are a part of what have lent Russell M. Nelson’s talks authority, though his own positions of authority significantly bolster the importance of his talks in the Church as well.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Footnotes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

      [1]<\/a> David John Buerger, \u201cSpeaking with Authority: The Theological Influence of Elder Bruce R. McConkie,\u201d Sunstone <\/em>March 1985, https:\/\/www.sunstonemagazine.com\/pdf\/047-08-13.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

      [2]<\/a> See Peggy Fletcher Stack, \u201cLDS General Conference data reveals who talks the most and what they talk about \u2013 grace, works, porn, drugs and more,\u201d Salt Lake Tribune<\/em>, 6 August 2020, https:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/religion\/2020\/08\/03\/lds-general-conference\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

      [3]<\/a> Scripture Citation Index, numbers collected on 10 November 2020, https:\/\/scriptures.byu.edu\/#::f04a47267e413<\/a>.<\/p>\n

      [4]<\/a> Scripture Citation Index, numbers collected on 10 November 2020, https:\/\/scriptures.byu.edu\/#::f04a47267e413<\/a>.<\/p>\n

      [5]<\/a> Scripture Citation Index, numbers collected on 10 November 2020, https:\/\/scriptures.byu.edu\/#::f04a47267e413<\/a>.<\/p>\n

      [6]<\/a> Scripture Citation Index, numbers collected on 10 November 2020, https:\/\/scriptures.byu.edu\/#::f04a47267e413<\/a>.<\/p>\n

      [7]<\/a> See Peggy Fletcher Stack, \u201cLDS General Conference data reveals who talks the most and what they talk about \u2013 grace, works, porn, drugs and more,\u201d Salt Lake Tribune<\/em>, 6 August 2020, https:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/religion\/2020\/08\/03\/lds-general-conference\/<\/a>.\u00a0 This cites Quentin Spencer\u2019s analysis shared at a Sunstone symposium, who noted that this is a striking indication of \u201chow quickly Thomas Monson is fading from memory.\u201d\u00a0 The other of the three least-cited presidents after their deaths is Lorenzo Snow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      What is it about our Church leaders that lends their speeches authority?\u00a0 While ultimately the belief that the men we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators are in communication with God is what lends them the greatest amount of authority, I believe that there are other factors that shape how they are perceived and how much weight of authority the words of various Church leaders are given.\u00a0 A number of years ago, David John Buerger noted that Elder Bruce R. McConkie stood out as one of the most influential general authorities of mid-20th century in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\u00a0 He suggested that it wasn\u2019t because of \u201cthe particular topics Elder McConkie has chosen to address in his conference speeches, nor the breadth of subject matter, nor the originality of interpretation which has earned him his reputation.\u201d\u00a0 Rather, Buerger suggested \u201cthe Apostle\u2019s impressive influence stems \u2026 from (1) his sources of doctrinal influence, (2) his position as an Apostle, and (3) his authoritative tone.\u201d[1] \u00a0There are similarities here to President Russell M. Nelson, though his position as president of the Church is probably foremost among the reasons for his influence.\u00a0 In this discussion today, however, I want […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":41085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1284],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-conference-features"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/LDS_Conference_Center-up.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41075"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41084,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41075\/revisions\/41084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}