Hey everyone,

I’m sharing a **pre-print** of a new paper of mine that was just accepted for publication in the *Journal of the Mormon Social Sciences Association* (JMSSA).

Most of my research is on topics in state & local public finance and policy analysis on social safety net programs, but some of my more recent research has crossed over into religious governance and finance. I think there are really useful and interesting parallels/interactions between religions and local governments in particular that I want to explore more. Obviously, there are a lot of important and interesting threads to poke into in this area related to the Mormon church.

This project started when I published a[ study](https://j-etr.org/2024/04/03/the-elusive-economic-blessings-of-tithing-mormon-temples-and-county-poverty/) that tested the Church's prosperity gospel claims. The identification problem is real in that paper due to the lack of Church financial data, but it triggered a lot of questions that I can answer with different data. Since finishing that paper I've been trying to understand:

1. If the economic benefits aren't showing up in the data, why do people keep paying a flat 10% tax that has been frozen in place for 125 years?
2. How have the motivations/framings/rhetoric about tithing given by Church leaders changed over time?

To find out, I used machine learning (LLMs and BERT models) techniques used in Political Science for analyzing political speeches to analyze **4,000 tithing passages** from General Conference spanning 1850 to 2024. I wanted to see how the *story* of tithing changed even when the *policy* didn't.

**A few key findings from the data:**

* **The "Vibe" Cycles:** The Church hasn't just become more "modern" over time. Instead, it cycles between *retrenchment* (harsh, authoritative "pay or burn" rhetoric) and *assimilation* (soft, "it’s a privilege" rhetoric) to keep the tension with the outside world at an "optimal" level.
* **The Spiritual Pivot:** Compared to the 1800s, there has been a massive shift toward "spiritualizing" the reward in more recent decades. The rhetoric has shifted to "inner peace" and "purity of heart" and away from divine command and fear-based messaging.
* **Narrative as a Pressure Valve:** The Church may use these rhetorical shifts to manage crises (like the 1899 debt crisis or the 2008 recession). The 10% rule stays fixed, but the *reasoning* behind it adapts to the times.

**Read the full paper here:** [**Preserving Policy Through Narrative Transformation (Accepted Pre-print)**](https://dloverstreet.github.io/papers/Overstreet_2025_Mormon_Tithing.pdf)

*(Since this is a pre-print of the accepted manuscript, it hasn't gone through the final journal typesetting yet. I will share the official version when it is officially published!)*

I’d love to hear your thoughts or answer any questions about the data trends! If you find the paper interesting, make sure to ***scroll all the way through to the Appendix***. I have links to interactive charts that let you see the changes in rhetoric more clearly.

New Research Paper: What 4,000 General Conference passages show about how tithing has been sold differently over time to members