Professor Daniel Peterson of BYU (and FARMS) relates:
Having, some time back, served on the Gospel Doctrine writing committee of the Church for nearly ten years, I would never, ever, take a Gospel Doctrine manual to be an official and binding declaration of Church doctrine. We tried to get things right, we prayed about our work, and what we did was reviewed in Salt Lake before publication, but it scarcely constituted scripture.
A story:
Once, the scriptural selection about which I was assigned to write a lesson included, among other things, Acts 20:7-12, in which the apostle Paul drones on for so long in the course of a sermon that a young man (ironically named Eutychus or "Fortunate") dozes off and falls from the rafters. Paul has to restore him to life. As a joke, I inserted a passage in my lesson manuscript that read somewhat along the following lines:
Have a class member read Acts 20:7-12. Have you ever killed anyone with a sacrament meeting speech? How did it make you feel? What steps can you take in the future to ensure that it does not happen again?
Members of the committee laughed, and the committee chairman sent my lesson on up, incorporating their suggested revisions but also still including my little joke, to Salt Lake City. Where it passed Correlation. (I can only assume that each member of the committee chuckled and then passed it on, expecting that somebody else would remove it.) When I received the galleys of the lesson back for final approval just before it went to press, the joke was still there. I faced one of the greatest moral crises of my life, but finally called Church headquarters and suggested that they probably didn't really want the lesson to go out to Church members entirely as it stood. So the joke was removed.
The point being that Gospel Doctrine manuals are not to be confused with authoritative divine revelations.
5 comments:
I totally agree with you on that Nick. (Sorry to relate the following mission experience but it is relevant and can be proven materially). My mission president was speaking on being a good leader and how one uses the spirit to direct the ways of the church and not to necessarily follow all the guidelines and regulations that are mentioned in the Handbook. In the "Church Handbook of Instructions" it states this:
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The Lord admonished, "Wherefore, now let every man learn his duty, and to act in the office in which he is appointed, in all diligence" (D&C 107:99; see also D&C 105:10).
Church leaders should seek personal revelation to help them learn and fulfill the duties of their callings.
Studying the scriptures and the teachings of latter-day prophets will also help leaders learn their duties. The Lord has admonished leaders to treasure up in their minds continually the words of God so they will be receptive to the influence of the Spirit (see D&C 84:85).
Leaders also learn their duties by studying the instructions in Church handbooks. These instructions can facilitate revelation if they are used to provide an understanding of principles, policies, and procedures to apply when seeking the guidance of the Spirit.
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The whole point of these policies are to help "facilitate revelation". I have an EQP that goes by the letter in teaching us concerning the use of the priesthood.
This is the web page where I found the manual.
http://www.provocation.net/chi/chi00.htm
Let me know if you believe there are any holes in this argument.
Church materials are resources to guide us!
To the members in Colesville: "For behold, it is not meet that I should commanded in all things, for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slotful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward." (D&C 58:26)
Also, I the catalyst for changing the way missionaries teach was to remove the mechanized flow of set discussion. In fact, there's a whole section devoted to it in the new book called Adjusting Your Teaching Needs, which reads in part, "Each person or family you teach is unique. You will be able to adjust your teaching as you listen to the promptings of the Spirit. You may alter the order of the lessons as you are inspired to adapt to the investigator's interests and needs. Pray for the gift of discernment, etc..."
Teaching by the spirit doesn't end when the tag comes off. In the case of missionary work, you adapt to your investigators. As a teacher in priesthood, you adapt to your young men.
The General Authorities do this all the time at General Conference!
I say that the lessons are a guide and should be used as such. I know that when I used to teach my 14 and 15 year olds strictly out of the manual, they did one of two things: 1. Ended up fighting over gum wrappers, or 2. ended up taking 3 or 4 bathroom breaks each during the whole 20 minute class. With a little tweaking, at least they now participate somewhat.
And by the way, I read Offenders for a Word by Daniel Peterson--decent book.
I wish I had something "relevant" to say, about how my calling relates, but it seems that *everything* "needed saying" has "already been said."
If only I "knew" how to use HTML tags like "bold," italics, or even quotation marks, then ¿maybe? I could "get a point across."
Well, if you hadn't dropped that HTML class...
wanna fight!
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