He already does. You know why prophets speak in parables, right? Start with his Sep 2014 Ensign First Presidency message.

or do they speak in private handbooks?

Yesterday, weren't you the one who referenced the gifts of the Spirit? Conversion doesn't come press conferences or secret handbooks. The prophets have spoken on this issue plenty during general conference sessions and authorized lessons. Regardless, those are merely springboards for the listener to seek, ponder, study, pray, gain a personal witness, and answers to his questions. Don't be like the children of Israel, who were told they were wicked because they had to be commanded in all things.

First, this is the CHOI, which in its forward states it is book of policies, not doctrines. How the provisions are written is unknown to us, because the Church chooses not disclose how or even why it is written.

So you can get off your high horse as if this is a revelation delivered from Moses to the Children of Israel. It is an administrative document, not scripture.

Second, unless we are bishops or stake presidents, we do not have to follow anything in regard to this change in policy. So your lecturing in heavy handed fashion, is either extreme sarcasm, to which I would say, well done, or completely tone deaf.

It is a new policy that doesn't make sense to many, many members. If you can only assign unfaithfulness to those who have problems with the policy, then you don't get it.

See post 78. If don't like the new policy and want to better understand the reasoning, there's a better way to go about it than murmuring and throwing the brethren under the bus.

You forget D&C Chapters 8 and 9.

We have been given brains for a reason.

And the Church has made mistakes on policies. Remember the little policy on who could hold the priesthood that so many members tried desperately to defend which ultimately the Church (a) rescinded (most thankfully) and (b) later declared to be mysterious in its origin and in fact rejected all forms of racism.

I can also remember an infamous "policy" on oral sex that was quickly rescinded. So, yes, the Church makes terrible mistakes on policies. If the Church is not strong enough to withstand questions from its rank and file members, then it is not strong enough at all. And calling anybody with doubts or questions a traitor or unfaithful is abominable.

This policy is a huge mistake with no upside. There is no benefit to the Church and a lots of downside.

I don't recall the previous lessons and talks where it was discussed why certain infants can't be blessed. Or certain children can't be baptized or ordained.

This was written for Ute4ever:

http://bycommonconsent.com/2015/11/1...ence-and-hope/

exactly. No one here is arguing about what's in the law of chastity. We're talking about a new policy that deals with those who haven't sinned against that law.

And ute4ever's response in a nutshell basically is, "it's all good. Those children are in that situation because of something they did in the pre-earth life." That's not doctrine. It's just plain nutty, and frankly dangerous thinking in my view because it would seem to make it very easy to be flattered by the devil into thinking because you don't have that problem and were born into a favorable situation and your life has been pretty good that you must be just a little better than those poor saps. Maybe they actually brought that situation unto themselves, to quote King Benjamin.

Honestly, you use D&C 8-9 as justification for evil speaking of The Lord's anointed? The two sections are about receiving personal revelation and unlocking the mysteries of the kingdom, as well as being worthy to assist the prophet in his work. In faith.

Go back and re-read the start of this thread. It has been an attack on the poor judgment of the brethren from post #1.

It is apparent that you do not believe there is a time and a season for policies to come and go. I suppose on April 6, 1830, the church should have been founded with eight quorums of the seventy, a perpetual education fund, the saints gathered in Adam-Ondi-Ahman, and the plates unsealed.

While the initial focus was on these poor, woe begotten, innocent children, I shared many explanations that came from sources who I still will not cite, while you continued to howl as though these children were doomed to burn in purgatory.

As you continued to only fester on every possible bad scenario that this move could cause, not once seeking any possible good purpose or reason, instead ignoring anything positive and continuing to express your disgust with the brethren, I shifted from sharing explanations to calling you out for demonstrating the very behaviors that prophets for over a century have warned were precursors to apostasy.

If now you want to shift this back to those poor innocent children who won't be able to make eternal covenants while living in homes that are rooted in apostasy, as your last few posts have indicated, then fine, go back to page one. It has already been covered, including scriptures that support it.

Brethren, adieu.

Post Script.

You may be surprised to learn that seven years ago, while living in California, I voted no on Prop 8. At the time, I had many of the same feelings and emotions that you have been displaying here. At the time, I felt it was cruel and unChristlike for so many people who were apparently born with their attraction, to be denied the very basic human need of love. Additionally, having lived in SoCal for the previous 4+ years, I met, befriended, and loved dozens of LGBT individuals, some of whom were amongst the kindest people I knew. My no vote was a very emphatic NO!!! My heart broke at the thought of a bunch of bigot church members in Utah, living inside of their bubble, in a place where "you queer" was still a common insult, donating money and getting on their telephones to meddle in the fate of these people's happiness, people who they didn't know and seemingly had no desire to.

What caused me to ultimately change my view, and it was not an overnight process, was precisely what D&C 8-9 teaches: to ask in faith. My initial tone of "why do You hate gay people?" was never responded to. Instead, over time, as I humbled myself, remembered that loving God was higher than loving my neighbor, my tone became more of, "please just help me to understand why." It was my experience that my flashes of insight started to come, but they were still far and between, because my overall mindset was still, "I don't agree with this, I just want to know why." My overall purpose in learning why was still so once I knew why, I could continue to sulk about it.

Finally, as I continued to humble myself more, and strengthened my testimony in the scriptures and the words of the prophets, as my majority mindset shifted into wanting to know the will of the Father and agreeing to follow His wisdom, I finally began understanding why He will not yield on this issue.

I also want to testify that since then, as I've experienced the correct way to receive answers from His source, and continued to accept and follow them, the process of unlocking the mysteries of the kingdom and receiving further understanding on so many gospel issues, has become more clear.

I acknowledge that as I defend the brethren and attempt to correct others, I don't speak with the cozy marshmallows and butterflies that you receive from Elder Hales. Joseph Smith was bold and right to the point, and I suppose that's why his own "friends" tarred and feathered him. But he never failed to get his point across.

Ciao.

How do you feel about adultery? I assume you oppose it. Do you think it should be illegal?

I'm trying to imagine Jesus appearing and telling the Q12 not to bless the infant children because of the hassle it will cause with creating a child of record in the MLS databases and how they might be invited to attend primary as a result.

That's what I would like to ask the Brethren (and the Sistren if they were involved, presumably they were not). Do you want these children attending primary? Because you seemed to imply that you don't.

That would go a long ways to clarifying the situation.

Btw, I'm not surprised. Paul went from killing Christians to leading Christians. So you were one way on an issue, now you are another way.

Now he can go to stamp out children who have a gay parent.

His mode of expression is ineffective.

I remember Monson famously using the cake example. Asking a missionary who wants cake and then dumping cake in the lap of a willing missionary. Afterward asking again and presenting in with a nice slice on a china plate.

Ute is the dumping of the gospel on the laps of people.

Prop 8. How did that work out for the Church? Blew money and capital only to lose everything.

Now the Church is doubling down and will lose more and gain nothing.

In short, with Ute4ever as a defender of the Church, it will never need any detractors as he does their work for them.

http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/fait...ict-on-gays-is

It will be interesting to see how far this is going to be rolled back. My guess is that it will not be very far at all. Adding in discretion for the children of divorced parents is all. I do hope that they do not ban blessings.

It will be interesting what the "clarification" will be. Unless it's a wholesale roll back, I don't see it getting any better. "If your dad and mom are divorced and daddy lives with his boyfriend and you live with your mom, THEN you can still get baptized. But if you live with your dad every other weekend, and on Wednesdays, then you cannot get baptized." Etc. More line drawing will just appear more arbitrary and capricious.

And we'll know that whatever "clarification" there is will have the imprimatur of the First Presidency and full Quorum of the 12. This has been too big of a meteor strike not to get their full attention and agreement. So whatever comes down the pike will have the approval of Uchtdorf and Holland, our twin hopes for reason and judgment and wisdom and generosity in this matter.

I'm nervous.

The "clarification" that is coming also shows that it's still amateur hour at the COB. The incoherent and disastrous PR statement re the scouting change: "we're on vacation and this is contrary to our doctrine anyway." And then how this was exposed and it's put into a manual only for SP's and Bishops when it affects the whole Church to its core.

I love President Monson, but this has been my frustration with him as President: he doesn't seem to be talking to us TODAY. Any of his talks could have been from the 1880s, 1920s, 1960s, or 1990s. They teach wonderful principles, but they are at a level of generality that is not rooted in specific issues the membership and Church as a whole are facing. It is something I really appreciated about President Hinckley -- he would talk to us about issues we were facing. I remember his talk, "What are people asking about us?" and then he gave specific answers to the questions. Something like that from TSM would be appreciated.

Why in the hell is Dehlin releasing news about the Church? Meaning, that's fully within Dehlin's right to do that. But why in the hell isn't the CHURCH speaking for itself? Why doesn't the Church get out in front of these things instead of always being caught behind the 8 ball. Instead, national newspapers have to quote people like Dehlin.

Amateur hour.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...mepage%2Fstory

Dehlin is an attention whore.

That's why the Church should get some professionals so that he doesn't get to lead on all these issues. It's ridiculous that he's the only source of information and the Church's PR is "no comment"

Amateur hour.

If this were a for-profit corporation, you would have shareholder-derivative suits for mismanagement. There would be a vote and the board of directors would be ousted. New levels of incompetency in terms of PR have been evinced ever since Prop 8.

I think the article you just posted was actually pretty fair. Credit the writer for getting some sources other than Dehlin to paint a more complete picture of the church regarding gay issues. But I agree it feels disturbing that ex-members get to be the ones breaking news. Something isn't working right. Also, someone with information has to be feeding it to him secretly, which is also a little disturbing.

He was buddy-buddy with Oaks before he left. Not surprised at all with his connections.

Plus there are a lot of active wolves like his former self.

President Monson seems to be struggling with age, as many in his position have before him. I love him too, but I see him as just trying to do the best he can. The extreme "mullahs" I think do the church a disservice by basically falsely preaching the idea that even minor human mistakes or misjudgments by church leaders are essentially impossible. My understanding of agency leads me to believe that the Lord is ultimately in control and but he allows his servants to also be human and learn from mistakes just like everyone else. They receive revelation, but as President Hinckley once said, it comes to him most of the time in the same way it comes to any other member who seeks it. And we all know that the Lord doesn't dictate every action in detail to us. If he did it would negate the whole purpose of this mortal existence.

So I try to be patient and give my leaders my support and the benefit of the doubt just like I would hope others would do for me. I've seen numerous policies come and go in my 4+ decades of life. Not all of them make sense. And often they change. Years ago I once had to be released as a temple worker because I hit my 30th birthday and still wasn't married. It was just the policy that no one really knows why is there. Yet as soon as the temple president told me I was released he told me he really wanted me to keep coming to serve as a "volunteer" instead which didn't have the same age restriction. So the net effect was almost nothing. I kept going but just couldn't officiate in a few things I could before. Policies on top of other policies.

My theory is that President Monson is probably not going to be with us all that much longer but President Nelson is getting some time right now to be ready. We'll see. President Nelson is actually older than President Monson but it seems his health is better right now.

I'm of the opinion that President Monson likely does not have the same faculties he did just a few years ago. And that's why he has seemed less engaged. And by my estimation feeling "off" from the Elder Monson of my childhood and younger days.

That's fine. It's often like that in the church. With SWK and ETB.

I sure do miss GBH. In retrospect, those were golden years.

Some of you guys may not remember the cycle of leaks related to the handbooks, and then the church successfully getting them off the net. Until finally wikileaks leaked the whole thing and the church was powerless to have them removed.

So it increasingly doesn't make sense for the handbook to be private because in this day and age it is almost impossible to keep a document like that private that is shared with, what, tens of thousands of people?

Even if the document was private, we'd have heard rumblings about canceled baptisms and the policy would have come to light in a similar way. Through innuendo, media reports, confirmation from church PR, etc.

How many of us were aware of the policy on polygamists, in their specific particulars? I wasn't. I knew that in general there were specific special rules. Like a polygamist in another country couldn't be baptized while still married to more than one woman.

I think the rule is about expunging polygamist sympathies in the church. Which means that the new gay rules are about expunging gay sympathies in the church. But why don't they say that then? "We don't want people with gay sympathies in this church." Of course, then bigotry charges would stick like hot tar. "Yes, we admit it, we are bigots. For the Lord. He commanded us." But instead they have to say it's all about loving gay families.

It's a mess. When you are in a mess, tell the truth.

The polygamy rules with kids and baptism I think have been around for a pretty long time and were probably more about giving the message that we don't do polygamy in this church and we're not the same as the FLDS or others who do. Polygamy seems to be less of a cultural taboo today though, but it was a big deal maybe 30 or so years ago when a lot of false info seemed to go around about how we still did it. The anti's of the time were less savvy and/or didn't care if they knowingly gave out false information as long as it made anyone less positively inclined toward the church. Pre-internet days it was much easier to put blatantly false stuff out there and not be called out on it.

Also, I didn't listen to this podcast available on this site, but it sounds like there may have been a legal motivation for the policy that has something to do with divorce laws combined with anti-discrimination laws in some states (most notably California), or something like that. When stepping back to look at it with more perspective it seems very odd to handle it in this way and I'm assuming it will change in some way shortly.

http://athoughtfulfaith.org/church-p...xts-james-ord/

there's been a blog post on BCC talking about why the legal justifications don't make sense. Or maybe it was another blog.

If this is for legal reasons. It's an solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

Creating new problems by "solving" problems that don't really exist is unfortunately what lots of legislators, courts and lawyers often do.

It's also what a lot of companies do when writing new policies -- very often when taking advice of lawyers. No offense to Archaea, but I think it's the nature of the beast.

However, attorneys also advise against PR consequences. I believe Mike is more accurate. They had hope to dissuade members from accepting gay relations by separating them. And they did not foresee it would come public so quickly. Many miscalculations.

In reality, most legal preparation is repairing mistakes. It is extremely rare any organization seeks to be proactive and to anticipate the next barrage of events. I don't buy that logic here.

I see the leadership switching course a little bit. The focus is on religious freedom. It's been a huge effort. Speeches. The Utah legislative effort where they described it as a compromise where religious freedom was protected. I think they very much imagine a future where Mormons are discriminated against because of views on gays, and they are trying to mitigate the future potential damage. They don't want a massive repeat of Prop 8 fallout where many members suffered loss of their careers and jobs as a result of their support of the church's efforts. Critics would say that they merely don't want to suffer the consequences of disapproval. But others would say that opposition to gay marriage and all that it entails should not merit the kind of action that has previously been seen (whether legal or illegal).

I'm just not convinced that the general membership is willing to go to war, Westboro style, over this issue. And that's where guys like Ute4ever jump in and talk about the wheat and the tares, and a sifting, and a smaller church. They want the war. I've heard the same language in my local congregation "we need to prepare to be unpopular." We already were unpopular. Now we must prepare to be pariahs over an issue that many of us don't see as the moral issue of our times.

Excellent insight.

Mormons will viewed in the same terms as KKK and skinheads, over an issue that a majority disagrees with leadership.

Well in that case, a few minutes ago maybe they just offended the members who want to bring on the "war" with this update:

https://www.lds.org/pages/church-han...L1-A_&lang=eng

I still don't like that we're withholding blessings from kids living with gay couples b/c it still sends the same message: we don't want you here -- you or your kids.

Here's what I wish the Church would have said before any of this:

"We welcome all people to worship with us. To those who keep the commandments but feel same-sex attraction, know that you are not sinful because of it. We welcome you to partake in all the blessings and ordinances of the gospel. To those who feel same-sex attraction and who act on it, whether in committed relationships or not, we welcome you to join us -- your families, your children, and your friends -- in our worship services and Church family. As with any person who breaks the law of chastity, however, doing so could subject you to Church discipline. But as we are all sinners, we hope you join us as we strive to follow Christ's teachings. To gay couples who have children, we quote the Savior: 'Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'"

"As always, local leaders may request further guidance in particular instances when they have questions." Here's your loophole even for kids living primarily with same sex parents. Those who are friendly with the church and are attending or at least encouraging their child to actively participate are likely going to get permission once the local leaders make their case, IMO. I think they've essentially reduced it down now to where it effectively only applies to same gender parent households where the parents are completely unfamiliar with the church to begin with or are not friendly with it, in which case they wouldn't have been asking for their child to get blessed or baptized anyway.

Amen, brother.

Even if a reproving was necessary, they forgot the 2nd part.

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-te...21.43?lang=eng

I thought the same thing. I was hoping to read a welcoming and loving word to gay adults.

"Some people have interpreted this policy as meaning that we do not invite or want gay families to join us in our services. Quite the contrary. We invite you. We welcome you. Worship with us."

This is a glaring omission and it feeds the notion that the sentiment is exactly the opposite.

"Some people have interpreted this policy as meaning that we do not invite or want gay families to join us in our services. They are correct. Those in active apostasy are not welcome."

Which is it????