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In all the excitement about the policy change about women being allowed to serve as witnesses – not much has been said about the comments of Elder Oaks: Quote:President Dallin H. Oaks
In a continuation of the teaching given two weeks ago by President Nelson at Brigham Young University, President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, offered remarks about the eternal nature of God’s children, His plan for them and the commandments to love God and to love our neighbors.
“While God’s commandments forbid all unchaste behavior and reaffirm the importance of marriage between a man and a woman, the Church and its faithful members should reach out with understanding and respect to individuals who are attracted to those of the same sex or whose sexual orientation or gender identity is inconsistent with their sex at birth,” President Oaks taught. “We do not know why same-sex attraction and confusion about sexual identity occur,” he continued. “They are among the challenges that persons can experience in mortality, which is only a tiny fraction of our eternal existence.”
President Oaks spoke of three fundamental doctrinal truths that God has revealed:
“First, … that God created ‘male and female,’” and that this “binary creation is essential to the plan of salvation.”
“Second, modern revelation teaches that eternal life, the greatest gift of God to His children, is only possible through the creative powers inherent in the combination of male and female joined in an eternal marriage (see Doctrine and Covenants 132:19). That is why the law of chastity is so important.”
“Finally, the long-standing doctrinal statements reaffirmed in [The Family: A Proclamation to the World] 23 years ago will not change. They may be clarified as directed by inspiration.” For example, “the intended meaning of gender in the family proclamation and as used in Church statements and publications since that time is biological sex at birth.”
“When counseling with any members experiencing challenges related to their sexual orientation, Church leaders should affirm that God loves all His children, including those dealing with confusion about their sexual identity or other LGBT feelings,” President Oaks said. “Such members and their families have unique challenges. They should be offered hope and be ministered to as directed by the Spirit according to their true needs, remembering the admonition of Alma to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort (see Mosiah 18:9).”
“Because we love God and understand His great plan of salvation and the significance of His commandments, we manifest our love for our neighbors by helping them come unto Christ, repent, and keep His commandments. This is part of bearing one another’s burdens that they may be light.”
This seems to reiterate that male/female identity is eternal while “confusion about their sexual identity or other LGBT feelings.” only exists in mortality. I believe that the Family Proclimation is the most authoratative place to say that gender exists in the premortal spirit realm. Elder Oaks seems to be saying that “confusion” in these matters is a mortal abberation that will be straightened out (back to one’s biological sex at birth) by the time the afterlife rolls around. I assume that some individuals have read the eternal nature of gender as possibly indicating that a mistake could have been made in the birth process and that a male spirit could have been accidentally placed in a female body or that a female spirit could have accidentally been placed into a male body. Those individuals might feel that after mortality they would be restored to bodies that matched the gender identities of their spirits. Elder Oaks here refutes that interpretation.
IMO the Church is venturing into very dangerous territory by taking positions that are so easily refuted by science and life experience. What about people who are born intersex? From what I understand a small percentage of the population is born with both sets of equipment and the parents usually decide which to go with. If the parents get it wrong and this baby could have been a boy or girl and they chose girl and the eternal gender was boy, what happens? It just seems so easy to poke holes in Oaks’ logic. I understand the desire to set boundaries and establish (create?) doctrine that preserves established conservative norms, but there is a huge risk that these stances make the leaders seem out of touch with science and reality and continue to lose legitimacy.
I love this quote by Richard Rohr: “If change and growth are not programmed into your spirituality, if there are not serious warnings about the blinding nature of fear and fanaticism, your religion will always end up worshiping the status quo and protecting your present ego position and personal advantage as if it were God.”
Those are harsh truths, but I think there is a huge temptation to attribute to God all kinds of things that are really our own desires and biases (even if they are well-meaning).
Yes, I agree Felix. Perhaps one of the easiest conundrums to deal with theologically is that of the transgender. If a gendered spirit is placed into the body of the opposite gender then that is something that could be easily corrected in the resurrection while honoring the gender identity that the individual is claiming. It is easier in my mind for God to fix your reproductive plumbing in the afterlife than it is to expect transgendered individuals to swallow that their minds and spirits will be so fundamentally changed as to feel completely at home in the body and biological sex of their mortal birth. I have taken pause at the suggestion sometimes used to avoid labeling oneself. That we are first and foremost children of our heavenly father sent here on a mission to ultimately become like him and share all that he has. That is a worthwhile exercise in my opinion.
It becomes hard to say that with a straight face while simultaneously preaching that male heterosexuality is an eternal part of our nature and even critical to become like God because, you know … God is a male heterosexual.
🙄 Yep. It is out-of-date and factually incorrect. The 14 Fundamentals are wrong. Prophets and apostles should stick to spiritual matters. That is their calling.
I hate to say it, but this is more of Oaks being Oaks. He has a real stick in his craw when it comes to this subject and too often uses the platform people have given him to stump his pet issue. It’s a tough issue to get around given the church’s theology. So much of the Mormon purpose of life centers around heterosexual reproduction.
I agree that with other news the Oaks comments got lost in the shuffle. And, I only saw it in the Tribune, thus it wasn’t hitting a mainstream audience (not that the mainstream would actually care). I do not have the full text of course, but one thing I did notice was that he referred to “biological sex at birth.” This is a slight departure from his usual definition of gender as eternal, although I don’t know if he made that reference elsewhere (and the reference is made in the Proclamation).
Oaks and BKP occupy a strange place in my own mind and heart. I liked BKP, and he bore some marvelous testimonies about the Savior. But if asked most people would probably focus not on that but on other things he said, principally in talking about sex and sexual sin. I liked and hated BKP at the same time. Such is also the case with DHO. I really do appreciate much of what he says, and I appreciate that most of what he says is well researched and backed up by scripture. The exception is when he talks about these issues on which he is not an expert and which are not backed up by scripture.
I was typing at the same time as Nibbler, and I agree – he does have this stuck in his craw. He needs to let go and focus on his commission to be a special witness of Christ.
This is very unfortunate. We are losing young people in record numbers, and teens (at least outside of Utah) all know kids who are non-binary. I feel like Oaks (and probably some others) are, like Trump, getting their information from Fox & Friends, catered to their own specific brand of prejudices, and they will do whatever they have to do to simplify the complicated world in which we live. All women are feminine, nurturing and fertile, all men are masculine, provide & preside, and there’s no further discussion. If this doesn’t match your lived experience, please go away so we can continue to pretend this is all there is, just as God ordained. That’s not compassionate, realistic, wise, or helpful. And it really has very little to do with the actual gospel. It’s very off message from what Christ actually talked about. Are we so perfect that we have to take this on next? We’ve eradicated interpersonal conflict, pride, selfishness, and dishonesty, and now we have to erase trans and intersex people and force all men and women into a mold? We’ve got a real issue with hobby-horse leadership, and I suppose we always have, but it undermines rather than bolsters their authority.
The other thing is that this makes us “matter over minds” people. I don’t think he’s thought this through on that level, but rather than teaching people to rely on their inner spiritual guide (including who they perceive they are), what other people think of their genitals is the only deciding factor. The Lord looketh on the heart, but when a doctor sees an infant’s androgynous genitalia and makes a decision, apparently that overrides one’s internal guide. That’s consistent(ly off-track) with the message to override your own feelings if they contradict what Church leaders say, but it’s not healthy mentally or spiritually. This is very unwise.
Amen Hawkgrrrl Quote:Oaks’s statements Wednesday made it “a dark day for transgender Latter-day Saints,” Laurie Lee Hall, senior vice president of Affirmation, told The Salt Lake Tribune. Affirmation is a support group for LGBTQ people who are or have been members of the church, plus their families and friends. “It will send shock waves through our transgender community,” she continued. “They are going to be traumatized and damaged by this statement.”
Hall, a transgender woman who was excommunicated from the LDS Church for refusing to renounce her female identity, “believes that gender is eternal but that she was born in the wrong body,” the Tribune reports. “That is a view shared by many transgender Latter-day Saints who continue in their faith and practice with the church.”
Oaks “has now warped the family proclamation to be of no use to me at all,” Hall added.
https://www.advocate.com/religion/2019/10/03/mormon-leader-gender-assigned-birth-eternal I won’t go into it, but there are people here who have challenges, sexual or otherwise, that may not be rooted in same sex attraction, or sex-change preferences etcetera. But they are somewhat related. They can put people in similar, but admittedly, probably not as dire situations as people with SSA and related challenges. But they are stressful and difficult to bear nonetheless. The way these have been explained to me is that they are just like any other problem a person gets hit with, that is beyond their control. The challenge these people face are just part of the mortal existence, even though these other problems are extremely rare.
I tend to disagree with this write-off. As soon as we minimize any challenge as simply being part of the overall challenges of this life, the empathy goes out the window. Particularly when organizations or policies or cultural biases amplify the pain of those challenges.
It also bothers me that the church, which claims to have more answers than other churches (you know, the only TRUE church),can’t answer this one. It seems the “we don’t know” card gets played a lot when underlying beliefs about the cause of SSA are just too politically incorrect to be shared, or we would rather not dip into our pool of divine knowledge. Remember how we explained away the priesthood ban in the Gospel Topic Essays? “We don’t know where the doctrine came from”. How convenient. It’s like Freud said in psychotherapy. He knew the answer to a person’s mental problems existed just beyond the point where the person could no longer free associate. Where the free association stops is where answers start.
And do we know that SSA will disappear in the next life? For sure? No one will be able to say that definitively over the pulpit. Is the “just world hypothesis” really a sound hypothesis? The BOM I think says that in the end, we will declare all of God’s judgments are just. Can I believe that?
I’m really looking forward to what happens after I pass this earth. I really want to know what new knowledge it gives us, if any. As no one seems to have a clue on this earth really. There are theories, doctrines, etcetera, but I feel that no one really knows. And if there is an after-life, God has REALLY strict rules about who gets to cross over the lines between the afterlife and life on earth.
President Oaks spoke recently in Women’s Session of GC. He reiterated his recent LGBT comments and directly referenced, and heavily quoted from, President Nelson’s recent BYU address. DD had invited a friend to attend with her as our ward was doing a dinner afterwards. DW said that she was horrified and embarrassed by the words of DHO. A broad overview is that the prime commandment is to love God. the second prime commandment is to love others. We show our love for God by obeying his commandments. We best show our love for others by clearly showing them how they too can obey the commandments and walk the covenant path. We can never allow our love for others to water down or modify the clear requirements of heaven. Exaltation is the reason the Gospel was restored and is what you want for everyone that you love.
DHO said that people that choose not to follow the commandments will still be saved in a lesser kingdom of glory.
DHO then spoke more in detail of what it means to love our LGBT brothers and sisters. He said that we should not treat them disrespectfully. We should not persecute them. We chould be “civil” towards them. “Regrettably, some persons facing these issues continue to feel marginalized and rejected by some members and leaders in our families, wards, and stakes. We must all strive to be kinder and more civil.”
We don’t know why we have different challenges in mortality – but we can all overcome those challenges if we sincerely ask for the Lord’s help. We are all destined for a kingdom of glory after suffering for and repenting from our sins.
Have patience with young people struggling with LGBT feelings and avoid premature labeling. Many times the “uncertainty” reduces over time (DW pointed out to me that this is likely true a gay person would be more and more convinced of their sexual identity over time. Thus in most cases, uncertainty reduces over time).
He then talked about a strangely ambigious “prophecy” of SWK about women being a major force in growing the church (numerically and spiritually) through their rightious examples. He then tied it back to the subject of his talk by saying “among those the women of this church may save will be their own dear friends and family who are currently influenced by worldy priorities and devilish distortions.”
More of the same really.
Roy wrote:
A broad overview is that the prime commandment is to love God. the second prime commandment is to love others. We show our love for God by obeying his commandments. We best show our love for others by clearly showing them how they too can obey the commandments and walk the covenant path. We can never allow our love for others to water down or modify the clear requirements of heaven. Exaltation is the reason the Gospel was restored and is what you want for everyone that you love.The sort of behavior Oaks describes falls more into the realm of judgmentalism than love. At least for me.
Obedience is a personal choice and IMO the question of obedience ends at that personal boundary (it’s entirely introspective). I’d feel more loved at church if I didn’t feel everyone was out to police my behaviors. Especially in areas where I feel god has communicated something entirely different than the standard someone else is trying to enforce on me.
I think he’s of the mindset that he doesn’t want to run the risk of condoning something so he feels it’s necessary to condemn 24/7.
Roy wrote:
DHO then spoke more in detail of what it means to love our LGBT brothers and sisters. He said that we should not treat them disrespectfully. We should not persecute them. We chould be “civil” towards them. “Regrettably, some persons facing these issues continue to feel marginalized and rejected by some members and leaders in our families, wards, and stakes. We must all strive to be kinder and more civil.”And fails to see the part he himself plays.
Roy wrote:
We don’t know why we have different challenges in mortality – but we can all overcome those challenges if we sincerely ask for the Lord’s help. We are all destined for a kingdom of glory after suffering for and repenting from our sins.
There’s a comic out there somewhere on the interweb where a preacher tells a gay person to ask for the Lord’s help to overcome their challenges. The gay person prays and the preacher disappears.
More of the same. Yep. I have heard that he is probably motivated by legal fears and is trying to make it so that the church has a legal leg to stand on if someone in the future wants to sue the church in some of these areas.
Oaks is going to Oak.
Perhaps this is a side discussion. I was curious about this “prophecy” of SWK. The original is below. The part quoted by DHO is in bold. Quote:How special it is for Latter-day Saint women to be given the lofty assignments they have been given by our Father in Heaven, especially those of you who have been privileged to be born in this part of this last dispensation. Let other women pursue heedlessly what they perceive as their selfish interests. You can be a much needed force for love and truth and righteousness on this planet. Let others selfishly pursue false values, but God has given to you the tremendous tasks of nurturing families, friends, and neighbors, just as men are to provide. But both husband and wife are to be parents!
Finally, my dear sisters, may I suggest to you something that has not been said before or at least in quite this way.
Much of the major growth that is coming to the Church in the last days will come because many of the good women of the world(in whom there is often such an inner sense of spirituality) will be drawn to the Church in large numbers. This will happen to the degree that the women of the Church reflect righteousness and articulateness in their lives and to the degree that the women of the Church are seen as distinct and different—in happy ways— from the women of the world.Among the real heroines in the world who will come into the Church are women who are more concerned with being righteous than with being selfish. These real heroines have true humility, which places a higher value on integrity than on visibility. Remember, it is as wrong to do things just to be seen of women as it is to do things to be seen of men. Great women and men are always more anxious to serve than to have dominion.
Thus it will be that female exemplars of the Church will be a significant force in both the numerical and the spiritual growth of the Church in the last days.No wonder the adversary strives, even now, to prevent this from happening! Regardless of who is getting the adversary’s special attention at any given time, he seeks to make all people “miserable like unto himself” (2 Ne. 2:27). Indeed, he seeks “the misery of all mankind” (2 Ne. 2:18). He is undeviating in his purposes and is clever and relentless in his pursuit of them.
As we approach the general conference with its priesthood session, we will be no less loving or direct with the brethren, for our counsel will be similar.
We love you sisters. We have confidence in you. We rejoice in your devotion. We are greatly heartened by your presence not only tonight but in this portion of this dispensation wherein your talents and spiritual strength are so desperately needed.
From what I can tell, this passage was appreciated by Sister Julie Beck. She referred to it in her talk in 2010 – Sister Julie B. Beck: “And upon the Handmaids in Those Days Will I Pour Out My Spirit” She quoted the prophecy of Joel that her talk was named after. Sister Beck then said that SWK “echoed this prophecy” (the prophecy from Joel) then she gave the SWK quote largely as the same as quoted by DHO above.
It appears that the first time this quote was given the rank of Prophecy was by then Elder RMN is 2015:
Quote:“Thirty-six years ago, in 1979, President Spencer W. Kimball made a profound prophecy about the impact that covenant-keeping women would have on the future of the Lord’s Church. He prophesied: ‘Much of the major growth that is coming to the Church in the last days will come because many of the good women of the world… will be drawn to the Church in large numbers. This will happen to the degree that the women of the Church reflect righteousness and articulateness in their lives and to the degree that the women of the Church are seen as distinct and different–in happy ways–from the women of the world.’ (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball (2006), 222–23.)
“My dear sisters, you who are our vital associates during this winding-up scene, the day that President Kimball foresaw is today. You are the women he foresaw! Your virtue, light, love, knowledge, courage, character, faith, and righteous lives will draw good women of the world, along with their families, to the Church in unprecedented numbers!
“We, your brethren, need your strength, your conversion, your conviction, your ability to lead, your wisdom, and your voices. The kingdom of God is not and cannot be complete without women who make sacred covenants and then keep them, women who can speak with the power and authority of God!…
“Today, let me add that we need women who know how to make important things happen by their faith and who are courageous defenders of morality and families in a sin-sick world. We need women who are devoted to shepherding God’s children along the covenant path toward exaltation; women who know how to receive personal revelation, who understand the power and peace of the temple endowment; women who know how to call upon the powers of heaven to protect and strengthen children and families; women who teach fearlessly.”
– Russell M. Nelson, “A Plea to My Sisters,” General Conference, October 2015, Sunday morning session
In summary, SWK does not appear to have been making a prophecy back in 1979. SWK seems to have been principally addressing women wanting to “selfishly pursue” work and achieve outside the home. In 2010 Sister Beck said that SWK was “echoing this prophecy” from Joel in his remarks. In 2015 Elder RMN said repeatedly that this SWK quote was a prophecy and that SWK “foresaw” our day. RMN refers to the main part of the prophecy of “good women of the wold” joining the church “in unprecedented numbers” as still forthcoming. In 2019 DHO again called this quote a prophecy repeatedly. He repeated that RMN had said that SWK “foresaw” today. Then he subtlely changes the promise. DHO longer elaborates on the predicted “unprecedented numbers” of female conversions. DHO also does not include any context about women of the world selfishly pursuing work and achievement outside of the home. Instead, DHO now says that “among those the women of this church may save will be their own dear friends and family who are currently influenced by worldly priorities and devilish distortions.” DHO implies that female defense against LGBT values is part of this “prophecy”.
TLDR – This SWK quoted prophecy does not appear to have been intended as a prophecy. DHO appears to be doubling down on the prophetic nature of the quote before twisting it from the original. He shifts the female defense against women working outside the home in the last days to now primarily be female defense against the LGBT movement of the last days. I believe that this is a misrepresentation of SWK’s original words and intent.Roy wrote:
DHO said that people that choose not to follow the commandments will still be saved in a lesser kingdom of glory.
I remember as a believer looking forward to being pleasantly surprised by the wide variety of people in the Celestial Kingdom that I hadn’t thought to expect to be there. Nowadays, I’m surprised that this kind of judgment didn’t rub me the wrong way. How did I miss it entirely?
Anyway, here’s my response, with apologies to Joseph Smith for adulterating his frankly insightful and instructive original.
“Holy, holy God; we believe that thou art our Father, and we believe that thou art masculine, and that thou wast a male spirit, and that thou hast a male body, and that thou wilt be a glorified, straight, manly man forever.
“Holy God, we believe that thou hast separated us from the wicked world; and we do not believe in the tradition of our brethren, in the which they are deceived by those wicked intellectuals and feminists; but we believe that thou hast elected us to be thy holy children; and also thou hast made it known unto us that there are but two genders in the eternities, which are necessary for doing we know not what.
“For gender roles are the same yesterday, today, and forever; and thou hast elected us that we shall be saved if we act according to thine eternal gender norms and don’t muck it all up, whilst all around us are elected to be cast by thy obsessive legalism to a kingdom that must be below ours, unless they become like us; for the which holiness, O God, we thank thee; and we also thank thee that thou hast elected us, that we may not be led away after the foolish traditions of our brethren, which doth bind them down to a belief in compassion and equality, which doth lead their hearts to wander far from thee, our manly God.
“And again we thank thee, O God, that we are a chosen and a holy people. Amen.”
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