Help me understand what the Apostles were thinking!

I have felt the same thing.

Short answer, “No – I can’t help explain.”

I do hear many speculate there are real struggles going on within Q15. That would explain it, espcially given that they seem to have really strong “we speak uniformly” these days. It would really be interesting to see if they get into it when they meet – or if they have overly-cordial passive/aggressive stalemate conversations.

I also think the missionary age change was probably more about losing youth than baptisms. At least where I live at the leadership has been consistent on the missionary work, but really worried about how many kids never went on a mission. Where I am at if a kid didn’t go to BYU, they were >50% chance in 2 years they were inactive.

Along with what mom3 said very well, I think they are worried deeply about the upcoming challenge to anti-polygamy laws. I think they wrote and aligned the new policy with the polygamy policy partly to reinforce the polygamy policy if the anti-polygamy laws are overturned.

It’s easy to forget that the federal government actually did attack the Church, literally, over its marriage doctrine – so I don’t laugh off their probable concern over it happening again. I recognize the incredible irony of having been attacked as the liberal fringe group and possibly being attacked again as the conservative fringe group over the exact same foundational issue, and I also recognize that the current leaders have grandparents they knew and loved who were hunted and jailed for their marriage practice. A little concern is understandable.

I think we are seeing a perfect storm – and I also am old enough to remember how suddenly OD2 happened and overturned the Priesthood ban. The announcement was loved and celebrated widely in the Church, but almost nobody expected it to happen when it did – especially with the make-up of the Q12 at the time. That gives me hope.

Finally, they are strong-willed people who see some things differently. They always have argued / discussed passionately the issues and never agreed unanimously about everything. That goes back to the original Q12 in the Bible, as illustrated best by how the Gentiles were allowed to avoid circumcision. It can be read as one liberal apostle getting a personal revelation and convincing the President to accept it as God’s will – with the practical benefit of opening the work to a HUGE new population.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

My opinion? It just showed to me the depths of which the Brethren are not listening.

I imagine that when gay marriage became legal in the United States, the 12 and First Presidency got together in a meeting and said something along the lines of “Alright, how are we going to respond to this? This is legal now, and we need to deal with the reality of it, so what policies should the Church pursue to protect the integrity of our doctrine?” I think they honestly did think they were being fair and considerate but still protecting the Church and its the doctrine. I’m sure it wasn’t all decided in one meeting. I assume that someone proposed the idea that the church treat gay marriage the way it treats another form of marriage that the church won’t condone or recognize: polygamy.

To me the initial policy shows the extent of which the Brethren are not listening to gay members and family of gay members. Beyond all its horror of condemning gay members as apostates and preventing children living with two gay parents/guardians from getting baptized, the original policy, before they revised it, showed no awareness or empathy for children of one gay parent. With the original wording, hypothetically, if one of a child’s parents came out as gay, and acted on it, divorcing the spouse and living with their partner, and the child had been spending weekends with that parent for visitation, that child would be cut off from baptism and a mission—talk about traumatizing for a child. Then, not only does a child have to deal with the trauma of their parents divorcing, but also not being able to participate in their church because of it. Let’s not mention how horrible that choice would have to be for a gay parent who wants to pursue romantic interests but, in doing so, would essentially cut their children off from their religion. What’s so disturbing to me is that the Brethren clearly had not consulted Mormons with a gay parent(s) before they went through with this. If they had, they would have realized the unintended consequences and worded it differently, at least provided clarification…and this is beyond their failure to recognize its consequences for the mental and emotional well-being of its gay members. I really think they did believe they would just slip it in the handbook and it wouldn’t be the big PR disaster it turned into. Clearly, again, they aren’t listening. If they were, they would have foreseen this. I have to be honest, I was pleased when I saw the story appear on national news with the headline “Mormon Church bans gay members” and “Mormon Church bans children of gay parents.” The Church deserved it.

I know some people think the Brethren are divided on this—I don’t. I guess that’s just too optimistic of thinking for me. I see a united front with them. I do, however, think there is division in tone. I think some of the old-hardliners are much more Packer-esque in how they want to discuss these types of issues, but in regards to actual policy, I am sad to say I really don’t see division in the Brethren. I am, of course, younger and I didn’t live through the Priesthood Ban being overturned.

Nelson was clearly threatened by members rejecting the policy, who were falling back on the mantra of the black male priesthood ban “It was policy, not doctrine” and saying they still supported the Brethren but not the ban…or that they didn’t know whether or not it was right, but they were still believing members. He was probably a little surprised by the huge backlash by non-Mormons and post-Mormons, but that’s not what got him. What got to him was seeing TBM’s not jumping on board with the policy. Hence why he felt it necessary to proclaim it a “revelation” when none of the other brethren took that tone.

If you read http://www.wheatandtares.org/21882/your-opinion-on-pox/” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.wheatandtares.org/21882/your-opinion-on-pox/ one of the options was suggesting that God actually allowed POX to go forward, to slap some people out of blind leadership worship. Kind of intentionally giving something that SHOULD make someone have to go and pray about it because it doesn’t feel right. I scratch my head a bit on that one wondering if that is the “why”. I think it has done this for many members. I know all of my kids have told me something along the lines of, “That is stupid / doesn’t make any sense.” I have found many in my ward that also feel that way and even had a sacrament meeting talk that very skillfully said, “I think POX is bunk” without ever directly saying POX specifically.

I’ll stop there. I don’t have the skill to continue.

Ditto here. I know I would not do well on a debate team. I am more of a slow and methodical thinker (with very limited memory skills).

So I just don’t engage very often.

First a disclaimer. This is my opinion FWIW. My current view of the LDS Church is a very secular one which might not be agreeable to some on this forum. Take with whatever size grain of salt you prefer.

I find myself thinking that I should someday write a book about just how much structure determines human behavior. It is something I have observed over my years on this earth. I think the Milgram experiment was the tip of a very large iceberg. My view is that in many ways the Brethren cannnot help themselves but act certain ways because of the structures of power and paradigm under which they operate.

I see three broad general structures in conflict with each other when I look at LDS church governance. The first is a corporate structure. Next is a religious structure. And lastly comes the revelatory/magical structure. When we see the church act one way at one time and another way at another it is because of the conflict between the structures which causes conflicting goals.

The corporate structure is concerned with one major goal. That being the survival of the organization first and foremost. Corporate structures either succeed or they go away. They tend to be grounded in measurable realities, with intuition being used sparingly when quantitative measures fail to provide clear direction. Corporations depend on their customers for survival and they must either be able to change quickly with the customer, or be able to change the customer.

The religious structure is grounded in principles that are thought to be unchanging and even eternal. It espouses moral values that are believed to have come from a higher power and were therefore correct from the beginning. It tends to be conservative and resistant to change because it sees only folly in changing what Almighty God has decreed. It can be legalistic to the point of being downright cruel, justifying the cruelty as God’s will. The Old Testament is full of that kind of stuff, and the LDS Church professes to believe in it. But as a Christian church it is also supposed to show benevolence and brotherly kindness to all of God’s children.

Mormonism adds a revelatory/magical piece of structure to the other two. Mormon leaders have the expectation that God is running the show through them. That their personal intuitions come from the HG. They also expect that what God requires does not have to seem sensible or reasonable by human standards. God is powerful, and so is capable of causing the outcomes He desires despite the revealed strategy/policy seeming foolhardy.

So why did they come up with a policy that was a both a PR nightmare and an affront to Christian values? For so many of the reasons that other posters have mentioned. But also because the revelatory/magical structure took precedence over the corporate structure, and tilted the religious structure toward an Old Testament type of godly cruelty justified as some kind of tough love. That is my take on why Elder Nelson needs the policy to be revelation. He is caught in the conflicting goals of the structures under which he operates. He and the others of the Q15 see the conflict this causes with the goals being pursued under the corporate structure. They need a way to resolve these and their own personal conflicts with the policy. Cloaking it as a godly mystery allows the Brethren, and those who think like them, to fall in line and trust in God’s greater wisdom and power to make a silk purse from this sow’s ear.

Yes, I imagine the policy would be very hard to roll back on the short term.

In our Stake, we had a SP who implemented a Primary baptisms policy where you could not have your own baptism for your child. You had to have a group baptism. This was hugely unpopular in our Stake. It took a new SP to reverse that decision. So, changes in leadership often lead to reversal of unjust policy.

This happened in our stake as well, a group baptism that occurred once a month that covered all child of record baptisms for the entire stake. It was equally unpopular. I wonder if that experiment was more general or area authority driven?

Will it slip away with the next iteration of the CHI?

What’s the long term plan for the CHI? I think they’re phasing out of the business of publishing a printed version every X years. I suspect the plan is to only have an online version that’s secure access for the people who need it. The benefit is that they can tweak the policies real-time, it’s more secure (there isn’t a book that people forget to return or gets borrowed), it saves on printing costs, and it’s probably easier to provide translations. You want a leadership calling? Get with the times and get online.