Really? I guess it depends on what you mean by “publically.” If you are stating your personal views that are at odds with current church doctrine from the pulpit as a ward or stake leader, OK you would have a problem. Short of that, I have never heard of anyone being censored for trying to figure out doctrine through discussion and interaction. That is precisely what is happening on this site. Has anyone on this site been censored for all the speculative stuff that is thrown around? Have people like Cassler been censored when they publish on speculative ordinances and so on?

…is it doctrine to give instinctual deference to church leaders until they are proven wrong?

Your question caused me to remember D&C 84:36 and 112:20, and also Matthew 10:40-ff and so forth. And I thought of our God’s expectations that we will honor our parents. We honor, sustain, and forgive our parents, not requiring perfection from them. Why can’t we honor, sustain, and forgive church leaders, also not requiring perfection from them?

I also thought of the actual working of Moroni at the end of The Book of Mormon. He says we should ask God if his words are not true. So he, too, seems to suggest that natural incredulity is the proper way to come to even God with questions. Although I could very well be reading too much into a single word.

Interestingly, the Introduction to The Book of Mormon reverses the wording, removing the “not.” So the committee that put together the latest version of the scriptures apparently thought the “not” had enough significance to remove it. I’m not sure what, if anything, that says, other than that exact use of scriptural wording didn’t seem to be a priority when it was written.

God does tell people not to demand signs, some of the time. But other times, like with Hezekiah in Isaiah, he tells us we should ask for a sign. And asking to be convinced isn’t really the same as asking for a sign, anyway. There are a lot of ways to convince people without striking them dumb. Abraham wasn’t penalized when he initially criticized God for deciding to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, nor was He upset when Abraham made his series of alternate proposals. It seemed God was confident of His rightness, and had no problems with His decisions being held up to scrutiny, knowing the justness of His decision would eventually convince Abraham.

Nathaniel, this leads me to a question, echoing Alison’s: if we all accept that something called doctrine, even by the First Presidency, might not be doctrine at all, then is it doctrine to give instinctual deference to church leaders until they are proven wrong? What is the point of having church leaders? This is honestly something I have never thought of before. For me, the question has always been how much extra weight to give to church leaders, and which ones to give it to, instead of questioning whether there was a point in giving them preferential treatment at all.

I don’t have any sort of opinion formed yet, so my words, like your initial post, are just musings. My mind alights on Doctrine and Covenants 121:41, where the first attribute for priesthood power and influence is “persuasion.” Instead of trust, maybe incredulity is meant to be a person’s default position when her leader tells her something. Maybe thus saith the Lord being the end of discussion was never God’s intended plan, but just men’s convenience. Jesus, our great Exemplar, never seems to have taken it for granted that anyone, even his apostles, would accept his words unconditionally. To the contrary, they disagreed with him at every turn about the significance of his Messianic mission. Instead of looking at that as a sign of their sinfulness and weakness, as I have always been taught to, maybe that was the right way to go about things.

So I guess my question is, has any good ever come out of not questioning something before accepting it, and if so, does that outbalance all the bad that has come from the practice?

Now of course, if you want to say that it wasn’t actually doctrinal, I suppose you could, but then that would beg the question of how we are to inform ourselves about what is true doctrine.

Exactly, Brad L. (Although that’s not begging the question. Personal pet peeve. :) ) I run across this conundrum at least daily in interactions, particularly now with all the social upheaval. Thus my last post. I think we have no idea what doctrine is.

I don’t think the racial ban was a core doctrine either, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t presented as such

brain (129), yes the racial ban was presented as doctrine, there is no question about that. Now of course, if you want to say that it wasn’t actually doctrinal, I suppose you could, but then that would beg the question of how we are to inform ourselves about what is true doctrine. Through personal revelation, intuition, personal reasoning, etc. or based on what the LDS leaders say it is? Because if it is the former, then Kate Kelly was completely within her rights to question the LDS leaders’ position on women and the priesthood. Why? Because she didn’t feel like that was a doctrinal position.

Following the Lowry letters, the First Presidency sent out a letter to local leaders to clarify the doctrine of the priesthood ban (Lowry had questioned whether the ban was doctrine or just policy). The First Presidency stated in that signed letter that the ban was doctrine revealed by God, and supported this doctrine with the same justifications (curse of cain; premortal valiancy) that have now been renounced by the church through the Race and Priesthood essay.

http://bycommonconsent.com/2004/04/21/a-statement-from-the-first-presidency/

I feel that is very true.

Thanks for sharing.

In a similar vein, that you have basically stated elsewhere that you gave up your hopes and dreams of being a writer because of the church’s stance on gender roles also raises questions about your own impartial ability to access the situation.

None of the GAs are calling the racial ban a mistake, or even the possibility of one. So, no, that doesn’t give them more credibility. My whole point was that it would give them more if they had a disclaimer about race and marriage and gender in relation to past claims, but they don’t.

Just because you (and I) want a narrative of church discourse that says they acknowledge the possibility of an error in no way makes it true. Just because you seem to want a unified, unchanging discourse to exist in relation to marriage and gender to have existed in the church in no way makes it so.