If the fullness of the Adam-God “theory” were known and understood, it might not sound so strange. When one understands that Brigham Young taught that the first man on each earth is an Adam and, according to Joseph Smith, work out their exaltation with “fear and trembling.”

But I digress a bit, since neither the Adam-God teachings nor the King Follett sermon were ever canonized.

But my original statement still stands. All doctrine must come by revelation. How else could we get it???

The priesthood ban always was a policy based upon that understanding.

Except when the First Presidency declared it to members and know-it-all academics that the ban was doctrinal. But those foolish members in 1949 believing something to be doctrine just because the FP issues an official statement saying as much. Sheesh, what were they thinking? Couldn’t they see that the ban was just a policy?

The only real question left is whether it came from God originally, as Brigham Young declared. That question is unanswered to this day, and is actually moot.

That’s right. When a church leader says a particular idea came from God, don’t trust them, but sure as heck don’t question them. Besides those types of questions about the priesthood ban coming from God or not aren’t at all important for salvation, and the idea that we’ll be saved from damnation because of ordinances that the LDS church is authorized to make is just something we know came from God, because the LDS leaders said that it did.

Doctrine must, in my opinion, always come via revelation.

Again, right on. That is why we must accept the idea that Adam is God is unchanging doctrine, because Brigham Young said that God revealed this to him. I mean, not to crib Brigham Young’s quote or anything, but how much unbelief exists in the minds of Latter-day Saints in regards to one particular doctrine that Brigham Young revealed to them which God revealed to him, namely, that Adam is our Father and God? Spot on (double)thinking there Thigpen.

You say that like it’s a bad thing. :)

Doctrine must, in my opinion, always come via revelation. Policy can come via revelation or it can come via the experience and ponderings of wise men when focused on a particular problem or situation. In the case in point, Elder Nelson said that it came via the revelatory process after much discussion, fasting, and prayer. One can believe or disbelieve at their pleasure.

I treat the JST much as I do the Apocrypha—there are same valuable kernels in there, but also a fair amount of chaff.

“1. You should trust the leaders a lot, but not without limit You should be willing to obey beyond what you can understand, but not without limit.
2. The reason for that trust is faith in Jesus, not faith in the leaders themselves”

Obey the leaders beyond what we can understand? If so, then isn’t that essentially having faith in the leaders? Then right in principle number 2 you contradict yourself by saying that we shouldn’t have faith in the leaders themselves.

What you say in principle 3 appears to explain your doublethinking tendencies.

“3. When there are conflicts between the way you see things and the way leaders see things, you should do your best to reconcile before you discard either what they say or what you feel.”

This suggests that you essentially live in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance in which you are unwilling to discard what the leaders say and things that you feel that may conflict with what they say, hence the doublethink.

Lastly, let’s call a spade a spade. LDS doctrine has changed quite a bit in the last 185 years, the reversal on the ban on the priesthood being among biggest instances. It doesn’t matter that no leader ever claimed revelation or said, “thus saith the Lord,” when saying that the blacks couldn’t hold the priesthood was doctrine. They taught it as doctrine, they pointed to evidence of doctrinality in the scriptures, they was near consensus agreement among the leaders for decades that it was doctrine, and they didn’t overturn it except by claiming revelation from God (after all kinds of pressure from outside and within to change it). There are all sorts of other claims taught as doctrine that are accepted as doctrinal by the leadership without the leaders specifically claiming revelation or them saying, “thus sayest the Lord.” To say that doctrine is unchanging is flat out intellectually dishonest.

Well said, ABM.

If I haven’t derailed the thread enough…

I mostly agree with you. I don’t intend on raising my children with the mindset that perfect obedience, prophetic infallibility and hanging on every single word of a leader are the core of the gospel. They aren’t. But the very difficult part is teaching questioning and skepticism…. “properly” and in its rightful place. It’s a balance and I would rather err a little on the obedience side for my part.

All that I can tell is that your charitable reading of Brother Holland’s remarks is not shared by everyone. My take on his talk has been echoed by several other members of the church who, like me, believe he could have expressed his concern for children without portraying those who sit further from the campfire than he deems proper (i.e., those that question certain church policies) as being on a slippery slope to hell.

While inactivity and failure to observe things such as the Word Wisdom can obviously influence the thinking of our children in a negative way, properly questioning and expressing skepticism about certain ideas espoused by our church leaders can, I believe, be quite beneficial, countering the false notion of infallibility that still permeates our culture and preparing them for the messy truths about our history and the evolution of our doctrines that they will inevitably discover as they grow older.

It is incredible that we can read the same words so differently. I do not see the threat of conformity in his words. I see genuine worry that stepping outside of the “camp” a little too much can have unforeseen consequences for children. The talk is called “A Prayer for the Children” after all.

We have all seen examples of what he is talking about right? Don’t we all know parents that just don’t take church seriously and/or are lax in many of our practices, who ignore leadership consistently. Is it any surprise when their children choose not to attend as adults?

We have a great example in the Bible of King Solomon and policies. Unlike his father who used the battlefield to build a strong and prosperous kingdom, Solomon used his diplomacy and economic skills. However not everyone liked Solomon’s policies because he poured money into strengthening his military power in the south to safeguard it from attack from Egypt but neglected to do the same for the northern kingdom from Syrian threat. He gave away land in the north to pay for materials and thus built capital at their expense. He also instituted an added tax, not of money but of physical labor (and you can imagine how the descendants of those that came out of Egypt felt about that policy. The policy reminded them of slavery). He also cut into the tribal system by instituting twelve districts to supply food for the court the boundaries of which did not correspond to that of the tribes. Needless to say for all Solomon’s diplomacy, we certainly get a different picture of his wisdom.

Of course, while a king and his policies are not exactly the church, for them there was no separation between religion and state, and so for me this is what the church’s policies make me think of–domestic and foreign policies. Sorry, but they just do. They are so much more than what is in handbook of instructions book or what we are made to think they are as a set of guidelines on how to do your job.