The post about gender will be published in the near future.

Well, I still think you aren’t see the ‘big picture’ here. There’s an oceans difference between talking about new doctrine, aka heavenly mother, and actually writing it down in a public declaration like the PTF, which is just as much scripture to me as the D&C -although I do question why they didn’t simply put it in there since no other scripture talks much about ‘eternal gender’ or ‘heavenly parents’ and the rest as PTF does. Also we knew about the spirit world long before sec 138 and several apostles spoke about what happens there long before 1918. But that ‘written’ text is wonderful although not too new only details explained (which is plenty new doctrine to me). Note that there was no ‘thus sayeth the Lord’ in that sec. Today, I say, they won’t start: ‘I saw a vision’, but just sign a ‘declaration’.

26 Holden: I’m also an engineer, maybe that’s the problem here since no one else seems to see this. Maybe all here should study some ‘hard science’ to see the ‘light’ -j/k

27 Ray, please do. I’m interested to know what its about.

28 Arthur; maybe the church is at the great-great-grandparents stage -with many children falling away.

I think the Church had a good, maybe 30-year, getting-to-know-you phase. It was awesome, and there was so much new and exciting information to be learned at first. And then… the daily grind. The routine.

It’s a flawed analogy, I know, but I’m not sure it needs to be all passion and fire, because the later stability is nice. Thought I’m not married yet, so well see.

I attended a conference of Evergreen, where a fellow parent of a gay child was telling me that the proclamation is “proof” that homosexuality is not inborn. This person, a college educated engineer, was saying that the “gender is eternal” proves that no one is born gay.

So far as this earthlife is concerned, to me “gender is eternal” only means a male and a female will be born with the proper genitalia. There is even a problem there when hermaphrodites are considered.

There are those who would say that I am spiritually blind, deaf and dumb. If the above statement is true, then I am. I’ve been listening to conference for 37 years. I rarely hear anything beyond gospel basics. Given the wide audience, that’s all I would expect.

CarlosJC–I admire your attitude. In my mind, you see so much in so little. I see so little in so much.

re: PTF I have read, studied it, including the oversized BYU family relations (?) department book that dissects it more than it should be dissected. I agree with Steve as to its content. I marvel at the reverence the proclamation gets. I understand the forthrightness of its declaration, but I just don’t see anything new. I don’t imagine that was the intent, however. I would think the SSM debate that was beginning back then was in large measure the reason for the existence of the PTF.

I define doctrine a little more loosely as deeply held beliefs that are central to one’s identification as a (fill in the blank) – in this case, Mormon. With that definition, “doctrine” can be True, true, False, false or a mixture of true and false. Revelation, therefore, is anything that makes significant changes to the overall institutional understanding of doctrine.

OD2 fits this definition, as do the most recent pronouncements about homosexual tendency, activity and orientation. The Church’s obvious change in “doctrine” concerning sexual orientation constitutes revelation, imo, since I believe it is the product of both sincere thought and prayer. I believe the Proclamation fundamentally changed the meaning of the word “preside” in terms of the home and marriage, and it also officially gave united voice to a very distinct loosening of President Benson’s “women stay home” council (the Church’s previous marriage doctrine, if you will).

Frankly, I think many members miss out on the importance of this type of revelation when they limit the meaning of the term itself to “burning bush”, “thus saith the Lord”, press conference statements. I believe revelations used to be recorded explicitly as “canonized scripture” – and we miss the boat a bit when we dismiss anything that isn’t classified as such as not “really” revelation.

Ray: Thanks for your comment. I’m aware that religious movements go through stages, and that the initial stages of establishment and expansion have the greatest amount of innovation, whereas the maintenance phase becomes one of holding the line according to the dictates of the founding document and leader’s wishes. To a great extent, that’s how our own Church’s history has played out. But there’s that other claim, the one about continuing revelation, that should change the scenario for us, potentially. We claim that “God will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to [His] Kingdom”, but based on my observations, we are hard-pressed to find evidence of what could pass for new doctrine since the 19th century. I’m not saying inspired choices for management of the Church haven’t been made; I’m not saying that the Lord isn’t directing the leaders of the Church to do what He would have this Church and its members do. I’m simply saying that its a bit strange that the rate of the reception of further light and knowledge has waned considerably, dramatically even.

Which situation produces more large-scale, massive, intense, passionate, perspective-altering, fiery-oratory-laced communications – the first few years of establishing a start-up company that challenges directly the status quo or the maintenance of an established corporation?

I am not surprised at all that “the good old days” produced an over-abundance of striking revelation. It also produced an over-abundance of wild speculation. That doesn’t bother me at all. To me, it’s like complaining that renovations to an existing, (generally) structurally sound house don’t produce the same amount of paperwork as the original building of the house created. That, to me, is a given.

“did the purpose of the endowment change?”

Yes; doctrinally, without going into too much, we now don’t need to cut throats anyone, kind of. Promised covenants changed. But the full recording is available online if you chase it up and then you can see for yourself. I don’t think we can discuss it too much here. And the PTF could be a new section in d&c; maybe the question should be why they haven’t added it to D&C?, and why they took so long to add in sec 138?

New doctrine? c’mon man!! its declaring forthrightly our eternal nature as sexes & “family is central to the Creator’s plan”. Although implied in scripture and spoken of in talks it still isn’t as directly spelled out as it is in the PTF. Another is “Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents” is nowhere in scriptures; here they are doctrinally declaring that we do have heavenly parents ie a Dad and a Mom! And we could go one for almost every sentence! “the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed” ie sex is good; plus what tells us that gay marriage isn’t right? well the PTF; if PTF was in D&C then all those people outside the Temples recently would’ve printed this ‘mormon scripture’ on their protest signs, and we would be quoting D&C 139 verse 1 as why we oppose gay marriage.

Look, I know you have doubts. All I say is that you try to look at things via the big picture, following what the spirit opens up to you, and not say “reveals what wills at the time He feels appropriate, and leave it at that”..there’s more to it than that. Every conference has an abundance of new revelations and doctrine, but you need to find them!

Concerning the Proclamation on the Family: what new doctrine or theological claims are being made in that document that weren’t already articulated by the Church? I don’t wish to downplay the document’s importance, regardless on which side of the Prop. 8 fence you sit, but I don’t consider the Proclamation (or the document “The Living Christ” for that matter) on the same level as Section 76, 89, 121, etc. Despite its merits, the Proclamation simply doesn’t reveal any further light and knowledge that we didn’t already have.

My point is that we claim an open canon, and we also claim that in general conference every six months, the Lord’s prophets and apostles declare His will to us. But if we examine the amount of new light and truth communicated over the past 90 years since the vision given to President Joseph F. Smith in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 3, 1918 (Section 138), none of it really could be considered comparable to the revelations produced by Joseph Smith in the short span of 15 years. I guess I’m drawing a distinction between doctrinal revelation and inspired messages here: while the Church seems to continue to deliver inspired messages (from general conference addresses all the way on down to sacrament talks and sunday school lessons) and make inspired decisions (shorten endowment, change initiatory, put church meetings in one 3-hour block, make smaller temples in great quantity, establish PEF, establish church welfare program, etc.), there has nevertheless been a significant drop-off of further doctrinal revelation (“thus saith the Lord”s, visions, etc.).

This begs the question: why? I don’t really buy the whole “we’re not ready for more” bit we’ve all heard time and again. It smacks of speculation, and assumes the worst in us, despite messages from the pulpit that we’re some of the most righteous people to have ever walked the earth (not “generals in the war in heaven”, but simply _good_ people living righteous lives). I don’t think there’s really an answer to the question “Why?” I guess we could say that the Lord is in charge and reveals what He wills at the time He feels appropriate, and leave it at that. Still it must be hard to be a prophet, seer and revelator without any prophecy, visions, or revelations to declare. I suppose in those instances, they fall back on their other office, apostle, whose repsonsibility it is to testify of Jesus Christ and his atonement to the world, ministering and directing the body of Christ according to the ministration of the Holy Spirit.

“but when was the last time you heard a prophet or apostle of this church reveal doctrinal change (not just a restatement of established doctrine, or the introduction of an inspired program to help people, or the announcement of increased temple building)?”

From memory: Benson change sealing doctrine to allow a women to be sealed to all the men she was married to in life. He also changed the Temple ceremony significantly, which when we consider what they were they were definitely a change of ‘doctrine’. Hunter drafted that proclamation on the family which Hinckley adopted (well in time for Prop8 and all the related conflict on homosexuality) then Hinckley changed the Temples allowing small temple operations, changed our view of polygamy doctrine and forced divorced men to seek a clearance before remarriage (which contradicts past doctrine on male marriage) plus every time they called a new GA they supposedly were handing out revelations.

But most of it is all hidden to the unbeliever, hidden from the person who isn’t looking for revelations. But if we ask them to write it all out, well they’ll probably ignore that request. That’s why revelations are all mostly “1) really vague or can be interpreted multiple ways,”

pd, BCC people are actually very nice, deep deep down!

I don’t know whom you (and others like you) talk to, but I consider myself to be extremely well-read in Church history (if so inclined, I could out-anti certain–though not all–antis). And the vast majority of my learning came from? *drum roll* BYU studies. Dialogue (which I consider to be only a liberal-ish magazine…I worked as a research assistant for its founder, and I’ll attest to his orthodoxy). I even gleaned a few bits from lds.org.

In other words, aside from unleashing a wave of fault-finding (which is un-Christlike in spite of the target–be they living or dead), what do you expect the Church to do? All I’m saying is that in our efforts to be honest and truthful (something I have found the overwhelming majority of LDS to be), let’s be careful not to take pleasure in waving around someone else’s dirty laundry. At the very least, let’s give Brother Joseph (or whoever) the luxury of contextualization, the very least we would hope for ourselves. I, for one, know that most of us could never withstand the railings of historians who seem more intent on naval-gazing than fairness.

1) I understand that there are many who make one of the statements and not the other. I really wasn’t talking about them. I participate in numerous blogs around the Bloggernacle, and I have been struck recently by how many people actually do make both statements – in one form or another. It doesn’t happen much here, but it does occasionally.

2) I think the biggest prophecy difference is the terminology. We rarely hear, “Thus saith the Lord” – but there is MUCH that I would classify as prophetic on a regular basis. I simply define “prophecy” in this type of a context as “reading the signs of the times and giving warning or council as a result”. I think that happens quite regularly, but it isn’t spectacular enough for many people to value.

3) I see that some things never change with regard to this blog. *grin*

4) SteveS, this post was written and scheduled last week to publish today. Your comment didn’t spark it, and I appreciate your very thoughtful comment on this thread.

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the input.

In the old days some people left because of the things that the prophet did. Today, people leave because the prophets aren’t doing anything.