What or Who do we follow? Ran into a yellow brick wall.

[Anonymous]

First, if this has been discussed before in this forum please forward me a link. I don’t want to beat a dead horse.

(Please note that I have read the article on the homepage about mormon doctrine.)

What are the “rules” in the Church beyond the “four standard works”? Silly question? I came across this on the Church website,http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/approaching-mormon-doctrine, “Not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, constitutes doctrine”.

Seems like in every talk we hear, “in the [place year here] general conference [place apostle name here] we were taught that [place ? here].

I also recently discovered that personal revelation is correct only when it agrees with what we heard in conference, Ensign or other Church resource.

So what are we to believe? Do we follow the Prophet, follow the talk or follow the yellow brick road?

.

[Anonymous]

The only core eternal requirements of the gospel can be expressed in the following two quotes:

Jesus quoted in Mark 12:29-31 wrote:

The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. (matthew version says upon these two hang all the law and the prophets)

Hillel in the Talmud wrote:

What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Go and learn it

other than that, church policies as to what practices are acceptable have varied quite a bit over time.

the first christians were expected to keep the whole jewish law, until Paul presented serious logistical problems spreading the word to non-jewish greeks who had serious issues with circumcision and kosher law.  James, the Bishop of Jerusalem (likely the equivalent of the presiding bishop) pronounced a significant change in policy for the nonjews:

James the Just, in Acts 15:28-29 wrote:

For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well.

these were the only restrictions on members of the primitive church who weren’t already jews, the first three of which had do do with sacrificial meats resulting from pagan sacrifice, the fourth may have had to do with worship of athena/venus through sexual fertility rites.  the first three are obviously not applicable today.

the point is that the policies of specific obedience changed over time, and the church today follows that model to a point.

today, we have “Official Doctrine”, and it is important to know what that means here: http://www.staylds.com/docs/WhatIsOfficialMormonDoctrine.html

temple-going LDS are asked a set of questions that constitute the gold-standard for worthiness.  these are broad, vague, and subject to interpretation — as they should be, for many aspects of worthiness are personal.

[Anonymous]

1) I define “doctrine” as “whatever the leadership and most people in a group believe at any given time”. There is no such thing as “eternal doctrine”; there only is Eternal Truth; the first is the best collective approximation of the second – and sometimes that approximation is farther from ET than a previous one. (That is a concise description of apostasy, imo – when “doctrine” slides or falls further away from Truth. It happens all the time, everywhere.)

2) My answer to the title question of this post is, “God – according to the dictates of our own conscience”.

3) Of course, I “follow” leaders as a sign of respect for them and their burdens and responsibilities (and because I want that same consideration given to me whenever I am in a position of “leadership”) – but I don’t do so blindly or thoughtlessly or without exception. Within Mormon theology, that last description is Lucifer’s plan – and it’s important to remember that always and diligently. Blind obedience “just because” is wrong. Period. End of discussion. So . . .

4) I follow God, to the best of my understanding, first and foremost; I follow God by following my conscience – which means (if I have the Gift of the Holy Ghost (a member of the Godhead) and if “the kingdom of God is within you”) I follow my own “I am” in my attempt to follow the great “I AM” as a fundamental part of that first and foremost; I “follow” (at the side) my wife, as 1/2 of my own whole “I am”, as part of that first and foremost; I follow anyone else (and I mean anyone else) second.

[Anonymous]

Ball_of_Confusion wrote:

So what are we to believe? Do we follow the Prophet, follow the talk or follow the yellow brick road?

I don’t know about you… but as for me and my house… we will follow the yellow brick road. 😆

It looks more fun – & considering we get a heart, a brain & courage along the way – not a bad deal!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THbY7EL8k5w

Hey… I just realized maybe there’s some deeper significance in the golden brick road’s spiral shape – golden ratio…

Another possible meaning… The Wizard of Oz may be a cautionary tale about the lengths a woman will go to for the right shoes.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

2) My answer to the title question of this post is, “God – according to the dictates of our own conscience”.

So at the end of the day, when I hear or read in a Church publication that “sexual is is next to murder”, is that God speaking (a rule) or is it someones opinion?

This issue came up recently with a nephew who has EXTREME guilt. He’s at an age where he is learning about his body and was depressesed because of his recent involvement in the “M word” (which is normal for his age.) He expressed this to his mother (my sister.) He believes what he has been taught by his Church leaders that what he did “is next to murder”. I am VERY troubled that he feels this way.

If it is an opinion (which I believe it is) how should it be explained to him that the Church is misinformed without ruining his testimony?

[Anonymous]

As is generally the case, I have written about that specific issue on my personal blog.

Here is the link, if you want to read it and perhaps pass it on:

“Sexual Sins are NOT Next to Murder” (http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2011/06/sexual-sins-are-not-next-to-murder.html)

As for how to approach it, I would do it directly. Tell him that scriptural interpretation is just that – interpretation, and that different people always have interpreted passages and statements differently (that even apostles and prophets haven’t agreed with each other about lots of them).

If you are interested, there are 33 posts on my blog about the scriptures, and multiple ones deal with scriptural interpretation. I don’t mean to sound arrogant in any way, but I’ve written a lot about this topic, so, if you want to read them and see if it will help, feel free. (Oh, and if calling dropping will help , feel free to tell him that the blog is written by a former High Councilor you know.)

[Anonymous]

Ball_of_Confusion wrote:

This issue came up recently with a nephew who has EXTREME guilt.

Are you familiar with the term “scrupulosity”? It’s a form of OCD characterized by extreme guilt, typically related to sexual thoughts/acts, imagined or otherwise. Obviously I can’t say that your nephew suffers from this, but it sounds like a possiiblity. There are a couple of good books on the topic that you or his parents may be interested in, one of which I can’t recall the title of at the moment. The other is The Doubting Disease by Joseph Ciarrocchi. There is also a good mormonstories podcast on the topic.

This is precisely the kind of thing that the church environment of guilt and confession tends to not do a very good job with for those few who are susceptible. If I recall correctly, Ciarrocchi is/was a Catholic priest, and his insight comes from expereiences counseling parishioners, so it’s certainly not exclusively an LDS phenomenon.

[Anonymous]

We discussed the “sin next to murder” concept in another thread here and I felt the majority felt that was a gross overstatement of sexual sins like adultery or fornication. And I believe that kind of overemphasis on the gravity of the sin has the potential to do severe mental harm to people.

Not to dismiss it, or somehow dilute the Law of Chastity — but I personally will never call fornication or adultery the “sin next to murder” to my children or in lessons. And I’ve been pretty open about the fact that my wife had a problem that prevented intercourse for a very long time due to a condition called vaginismus. We saw several therapists, and they were unanimous that the disorder is caused by a) rape or incest b) guilt associated with sexual promiscuity and c) strict religious upbringing.

In my wife’s case — it was the latter — the strict religious upbringing. Her parents were rabid about preventing her from losing her virginity before marriage, and they created a mental problem that took a decade to fix.

So, I think it’s time we continued emphasizing the blessings of chastity, and the hardship that comes from promiscuity, but also, that we stop elevating sexual sin to the position next to murder. I believe there are far worse things than sexual sin.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

So, I think it’s time we continued emphasizing the blessings of chastity, and the hardship that comes from promiscuity, but also, that we stop elevating sexual sin to the position next to murder. I believe there are far worse things than sexual sin.

SD, thanks for sharing this very important message and your personal experience thereto. It’s such an important point.

There is such a profound impact strict religious upbringing, or any absolutes, lay on children. For me, it was my father’s statement, “If you lie to me, i’ll never trust you again”. Guess what? I was a young teenager. Teenagers lie. His statement didn’t prevent me from lying, it caused me to not be able to tell the truth — i was such a creative story teller/compulsive liar that I couldn’t figure out which end was up. This probably made me a good TBM for a while, because I could relate to a convoluded story as being ‘truth’.

My wife also was in this very strict mindset sexually. These things have permanent repurcussions.

[Anonymous]

What are the “rules” in the Church beyond the “four standard works”?

I don’t believe anything is a rule unless it’s recorded in writing. (I don’t believe at all, in this case, in an “unwritten order of things”.) I also don’t believe a rule should be enforced if it’s not available to be read and understood. Therefore, I would say the technical answer, for this moment, would be:

Quote:

what is recorded in the Church Handbook of Instructions – and, more particularly for average members, Volume 1

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

What are the “rules” in the Church beyond the “four standard works”?

I don’t believe anything is a rule unless it’s recorded in writing. (I don’t believe at all, in this case, in an “unwritten order of things”.) I also don’t believe a rule should be enforced if it’s not available to be read and understood. Therefore, I would say the technical answer, for this moment, would be:

Quote:

what is recorded in the Church Handbook of Instructions – and, more particularly for average members, Volume 1

[ Admin note — I deleted a response to that question for one reason and only one reason: It was an attempt to link to a site that lists a hodgepodge of “rules” in an attempt to get to the classic number of rules mentioned in the Bible that formed the foundation of the Jewish rule book. That list includes all kinds of counsel, advice, command, etc. from the entire scriptural canon – and things said by LDS leaders since the earliest days of the Church, even ones that have been discontinued since they were said – and just about anything that would inflate artificially the actual number of “rules” now. It did nothing whatsoever to answer the actual question asked. The link and list are not appropriate for this particular post and discussion.

If the person (not a frequent commenter) who posted it wants to discuss this further, please send a PM to me or any other admin here. I’d be happy to discuss it privately, but it won’t happen in this thread.) ]

Yeah. I don’t think the list was fair. But isn’t the CHI kind of what the list was about? There were some ridiculous ones that came out of Leviticus, but at least half of those 640 some odd rules were written in LDS manuscripts. I think?

But, if we are just using the CHI as a reference of what is and what isn’t a commandment

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then I would say we have 400+ pages of rules.

I think one of the problems the LDS church has, is we have become so big and corporate, that it take 400+ pages of rules and policies just to keep the business functioning efficiently.

It is sad and frustrating to me – as a person who is seeking after the gods, to be so tethered by corporate policies and rules.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, cwald – but I also believe that many of the things in the CHI are there because members keep asking questions that don’t need to be asked, wanting someone else to tell them what to do in the mistaken idea that it somehow absolves them of the responsibility to figure it out themselves. That’s not a Mormon thing; it’s a human thing. (both the need to ask and the need to answer) I’ve seen it everywhere I’ve lived among all kinds of people.

It does, however, frustrate me more among my own tribe.

[Anonymous]

The only sin next to murder is second degree murder (murder without malice of forethought).

After that? I would have to say it’s either cutting me off in traffic or getting my order wrong at the drive through and I don’t figure it out until I get home and the kids are crying. Those are second in severity after second degree murder because I really hate those “sins.”

Serious answer: Personal revelation always trumps any other level of revelation regarding what WE need to do and say. If we want to get along with our larger Mormon community, we should really spend more time searching and praying to stay in tune with our community. But if it comes down to an issue of following another (or supporting a leader) and harm vs. doing what we feel is right by the Spirit and preventing harm … we do what we feel is right, and let the consequences follow. Maybe God is trying to accomplish something through us, and we refuse to listen?

That’s my view.

[Anonymous]

Most of the minutia rules found in the CHI can also be found and referenced out of conference talks also. I tried to simplify my research by only using one source reference per rule found. I suppose it would be better if I had the time to add a column and source alternative references secondary and tertiary sources for each line item.

[Author]

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