It’s been reported on social media that this year’s Doctrinal Mastery seminary teacher’s materials have been modified. In the chapter concerning Prophets and Revelation, a previous section about distinctions between eternal law and matters of church administration (including the priesthood ban) was deleted. Another section about the revelatory process for the November 5th policy was also removed.
The Prophets and Revelation section was previously called out by some in the blogging community (see here and here) for encouraging seminary students to consider the priesthood ban divinely inspired, albeit a matter of temporary church administration rather than eternal law. The 2013 Race and the Priesthood essay refrained from stating whether or not the ban was based on revelation. Many saw the new Doctrinal Mastery materials as a concerning departure from the careful neutrality of the 2013 essay.
Deleted portions include both Segments 5 and 6, previously on pages 33-36, as well as Exercise 3, previously on pages 38-39.
Segment 5 covered the difference between “Eternal laws” (which do not change), and “Laws of priesthood administration and Church management” (which may change). In describing eternal laws, the manual said,
Explain that some laws the Lord reveals are eternal, such as those associated with the plan of salvation. These laws do not change. However, the Lord may at times emphasize certain laws because of social changes and the needs of His Church or the world.
Concerning the second category,
Point out that there are also laws in the Church that may change as directed by the Lord through His prophets. These include laws that direct the priesthood administration of the gospel and ordinances and relate to the organization and management of the Lord’s Church and His people. Some of these laws may also be referred to as Church policies or practices. As prophets and apostles seek the Lord’s inspiration and counsel together, they may make adjustments to these laws according to the Lord’s will.
At the end of the segment was a worksheet where students were instructed to classify seven items as either “Eternal Law” or “Laws of priesthood administration and Church management.” The priesthood ban was included as one of these items, and was supposed to be placed in the second category as a temporary administrative policy directed by the Lord.
Segment 6 was based on a quote from the January 2016 Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults, President Russell M. Nelson’s “Becoming True Millennials.” The discussion centered around the revelatory process President Nelson described concerning the November 5th policy.
Exercise 3 asked the students to consider how they might respond to a scenario involving a family member expressing his opinion that, “given enough social pressure, the Church’s current position regarding a social issue will change in the future to be more in line with society’s position.” The family member gives as evidence the church’s history with plural marriage and the priesthood ban. The manual listed several resources to help students develop a response, including Gospel Topics essays and a Mormon Newsroom piece about Elder Dallin H. Oaks.
Thoughts?
Wheat & Tares 
Partial victory. I’m glad they deleted these sections, but I wish they would have replaced them with sections that allow students to grapple with these difficult issues, without providing any clean answers to the questions in the end.
Leaving students uncomfortable and allowing them to think through the difficult events of our church’s history could help them to start to see that we really do believe in fallible leaders. It could get them to start evaluating ethical decisions and questioning what it means to be faithful to a leader who is also flawed and may be wrong about an issue. In essence it could help guide the students to making more mature decisions in life.
I’m the uncle who referenced the priesthood/temple ban and polygamy. So far I haven’t heard any good rebuttals to that argument. I wonder how they expect seminary students to respond?
(“Hmmm, I guess you’re right uncle!”) I’m thinking that’s not the answer they were looking for. But if adults don’t have a better response, are they just brainstorming for ideas hoping the kids will come up with something better?
I do remember a similar exercise in the MTC when we were role-playing with an atheist investigator. All we really did was bear testimony because that’s about all we could think to do. I remember feeling my answer was pretty weak, but figured that’s all I could say since I had no other idea how to respond.
I guess it works sometimes, and it’s probably what they expect the kids to do, but it’s not a very strong way to refute the argument.
Hope_for_things, one of the things I appreciate about the new DM program is that it is intended to better equip students to deal with the difficult subjects. I didn’t like how they dealt with all the difficult subjects, but I was really happy they made an effort at inoculation. Kids really do deal with this stuff every day. I’m hoping that they’ll find some way to help kids deal with thorny issues. The big question, though, is *why* they took away these sections. I think some people are assuming they did it because the deleted text does not appropriately reflect church positions. I’m wondering if that’s a safe assumption. It could be they’ve just received so much negative feedback that they are trying to play it safe.
MH, I was also really curious what they expected the students to come up with. A seminary teacher in my ward has recently expressed admiration for students who respond to controversy by bearing testimony, so I suspect it is still the desired go-to response. Based on that training session awhile back, it sounds like teacher’s are still supposed to step in and make sure the apologetic arguments the kids come up are still in keeping with church teachings and intent.
Thanks for the update on this Mary Ann. To me this is reflective of the broader confusion the church has about itself and its respective positions on social and religious issues.
The post labelling of the November policy by RMN was, in my view, despicable and a horribly orchestrated attempt to sure up any failing support of the policy. Unfortunately, for those of us that have written policy for large organisations, such descriptions of process bear little resemblance to what actually happens.
Example – how can anyone who is filled with compassion for children and examining countless permutations and combination of social scenarios end up with a hastily leaked, exclusionary policy that was almost immediately and fundamentally altered. (Altered in practice but the language in the handbook has not changed). Then, have a prophet later state that the whole process was relevatory. Sorry, someone is not being fully forthcoming.
But now the church can’t make up its mind as to what constitutes revelation. Creating a logical relationship between the priesthood ban and the November policy, will in my view, allow history to show 1. The inherent wrongness of both policies, 2. Their inability to have any positive outcome for the church, 3. The embarrassment in the leaders who try to justify them and 4. The pointlessness of the mental gymnastics used to integrate the “new” or “revised” position into the wider church policy.
This type of “flip/flop” usually happens in political parties that are philosophically fractured and/or have leadership issues or challenges. God help the poor Seminary students to understand all this. Cause I certainly don’t.
I was really impressed by the sensitivity in these changes. This question students are invited to answer: “Why does the Church sometimes seem to give in to social pressure in making changes in policy?” is a great question, and very difficult to answer.
The fact that the Church is actually trusting teachers and students to seriously grapple with it, is proof that we may be entering a radically new age in LDS correlation.
To direct students to the answer to this difficult question, the material points to the doctrinal essays on lds.org. These essays have “answers” but they are extremely complicated and unsatisfying answers from most perspectives, and from the old correlated perspective, trusting seminary students to try and grapple with the material in those essays would be totally unheard of.
This shows a great deal of trust and faith in these seminary students, not to mention their teachers. And it’s a sign of the growing maturity of the church and it’s ability to stand still in the midst of storms and paradoxes, letting the questions rage without having to dismiss them with doctrinaire, judgemental answers.
Maybe someday soon we’ll get closer to the Jewish culture of “living the questions.” At the seder meal, children are encouraged to ask questions about the Exodus during Passover. In midrash tradition, there are three sons, one who asks a “good” question, an honest question. Then there is the son who asks an “evil” question, one meant to stir up controversy. And then there is the son who asks no questions, who just follows whatever has been said. In the hierarchy, this third son is the worst, for there is nothing worse than having no questions at all.
It’s hard to believe God is having such a hard time sorting this out!
Nate, it was indeed a useful exercise, though with sections 5 and 6 the students had been guided towards a specific interpretation – prophets and apostles evaluate social concerns in light of eternal gospel principles, attempt to determine God’s will, and then the prophet receives revelation if necessary. Ironically, this belief actually corroborates the view that prophets respond to social pressures and make adjustments. Like hope_for_things mentioned earlier, it’s really easy to interpret the changes as fallibility as opposed to simply a matter of God’s timing.
Attempting to create an easy differentiation between eternal law and temporary policy is problematic. For one, it elevates one type of directive as more significant than the other, giving people more room to feel okay with disagreement with the lesser type. Section 6 sought to reinforce the importance of temporary policies because they derive from the same revelatory process. Students are asked to trust their testimony of prophets and prepare to receive confirming revelation even of the temporary policies. Asking students to receive confirming revelation on the priesthood ban and polygamy? Talk about a can of worms. Also, it’s really easy to find past quotes saying the priesthood ban and plural marriage were matters of eternal law versus temporary policy, indicating the trouble in differentiating between the two in real time. Not to mention that classifying plural marriage as a matter of policy undermines insistence throughout many portions of the manual that marriage between a man and *a* woman is a matter of eternal law that cannot change.
The exercise is useful in raising thoughtful, challenging questions, but the DM exercises are supposed to help students find viable solutions. By taking out these sections, they’ve removed all mention of the priesthood ban and plural marriage from the manual. Hopefully teachers can help kids deal with those issues in other ways.
Too many “revelations” seem fear-based or culturally-based rather than inspired. As we review the disturbing history of the Church regarding blacks, women, and now LBGTQ members and their children, it appears that Church leaders are afraid of people who appear outside their cultural white middle- to upper-class, male, heterosexual norm. The Church seems to be moving away from Christ’s teachings to love our neighbors as ourselves and instead teaching that we should love only those who meet our criteria of wealth, sexual orientation, and outward religiosity.
Dress standards in Church discourage the poor from attending. The exclusion of women from real decision-making and rule implementing procedures in the Church have created a culture of patriarchy which marginalizes women, who constitute over half of the Church’s membership. Rule-based teaching instead of Christ-based teaching is damaging and destroying the faith of many long-time believers.
Church leaders must move from a group think mentality that emphasizes the letter of the law and ignores the spirit of the law or we will continue to lose members in droves. As a life-long member who has served for decades in the Church, I am concerned that the tone and tenor of Church leader’s talks is breaking the hearts of many believers and urge the brethren to consider carefully the consequences that their written and spoken words have on faithful, suffering members.
It’s nice that the online material has changed. However teachers still have printed manuals with the original (and IMO offensive) version. The LDS app also still has the original version as well. Until they remedy this, reprinting manuals and instructing teachers not to use the awful material, I fear this is merely a public relations ploy.
Jana Reiss at Religion News Service analyzed the edits and the four versions of the teacher’s manual published at various points yesterday.
http://religionnews.com/2016/09/03/watch-the-mormon-seminary-curriculum-transform-before-your-very-eyes/
I was just going to post the info about Jana reiss post. It is well worth reading. Great timely post MaryAnn!
My wife is seminary teacher. Late last night we checked the printed material she received over a month ago. It aligns with the shorter version mentioned in Jana Riess’ article. The Seminary coordinator in the area reported that before they handed out the Doctrinal Mastery books, SLC called them and asked them to send back the first versions they had received. Apparently there was a reprint. I wonder if someone just forgot to correct the HTML version until yesterday.
MTodd, thanks for that info! So it doesn’t have anything listed in the OP (sections 5 & 6 or example 3)? Seems odd that they didn’t change the website, but I’ll take it.
MTodd, the most current PDF on the church website says version 3, 9/16. The one still on my Gospel Library app is version 2, 6/16. It still has segments 5 & 6, and example 3 (the screenshots in the OP were taken from version 1, 3/16).
The linked PDFs in Jana’s article are confusing to me.
-The first one (listed as 6.16) says version 2, 6/16, and looks just like the one currently on my Gospel Library app (still has segments 5 & 6 and exercise 5).
-The second (listed as 9.2.16-am) says version 1, 3/16, but has all the deletions found on the currently posted PDF on the website (version 3, 9/16).
-The third (listed as 9.2.16-pm) says version 3, 8/16, but still has segments 5 & 6 and exercise 3.
-As Jana stated, the fourth (listed as 9.3.16) is identical to the one she has listed as 9.2.16-am (says version 1, 3/16, but has all the deletions found on the currently posted PDF on the lds.org website (which says version 3, 9/16)).
I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.
-Richard Feynman
Inoculation seems to be the key whichever version is being used. I find it interesting that IF the Church were what it claims, they would need to inoculate anyone.
The images are not showing up any longer
Scottsama, thanks for letting us know. We recently updated our site and looks like the links got broken in the process. The screenshots of the previous Doctrinal Mastery material are back up.
I am interested in y’all’s thoughts about this lesson in the current Old Testament Curriculum: https://www.lds.org/manual/new-testament-seminary-teacher-manual/introduction-to-the-acts-of-the-apostles/lesson-89-acts-10-11?lang=eng
In Acts 10 & 11 we see two prophetic policy changes. Not to mention the inherent policy changes that Christ made to the Law of Moses.