About 30 years ago I gave a HP Group (RIP) lesson on Policy Vs Doctrine. This was not in the lesson manual, but one that I made up. It was so successful that I only got through half the lesson, and they gave me the next week to finish it.
First I handed out a definition sheet
>Doctrine (D): Eternal gospel truths that never change, backed by Scripture
>Conventional Wisdom (CW) This category is for those “doctrines” or teachings which can’t be solidly backed up by Scripture, but on which the brethren have appeared to be in agreement.
> Unanswered question (Q) Doctrines on which there is not a consensus among the brethren.
>General Policy (GP): Rules/regulations that are set by Salt lake to help us with doctrine.
>Local Policy (LP): Rules/regulations set by local authorities, sometimes based on doctrine, sometime on tradition. Changes from time to time, place to place.
>Tradition (T): Things we do “because we have always done it that way” Based on culture/tradition etc. Often confused with D, GP, LP.
Then I gave a list of subjects, and each of the class members were to select am item from the above definitions and place it by each subject. Below are the subjects, with my take on what they are. Remember this is 30 years old.
Baptism (D)
Clean shaven men. (LP)
We call each other “Brother” and “Sister”, and use last names. (T)
Polygamy (polygyny) is practiced in the celestial kingdom (CW)
We meet in a 3 hr block on Sunday (GP)
We observe the Sabbath on Sunday (CW)
Using right hand to take the sacrament (T)
We don’t use the cross in our worship. (T)
Word of Wisdom (D)
Implementation of Word of Wisdom (CW, GP, LP)
Using right hand to sustain (T)
Bishop partaking the Sacrament first (T)
Principle of tithing, home teaching, temple attendance, fast offerings. (D)
Implementation of tithing, home teaching, temple attendance, fast offerings. (GP, T, CW)
Deacons wear white shirts (LP)
Men wear dress shirts and ties, women dresses, to church (T)
In the hereafter there is (no) movement between kingdoms (Q)
God is living in (or out of) time (Q)
Women wear only one earring, and men none (T)
What has happened since then? We got this interesting article from Gregory Prince in Dialogue.
Within weeks of his return from South Africa, McKay met privately with Sterling McMurrin. In the course of their conversation, and to McMurrin’s surprise, McKay told him that the church position on ordination of blacks was “policy,” not “doctrine,” and that the practice would someday be changed.8 The distinction between “policy” and “doctrine” in McKay’s mind was crucial, yet was misunderstood at the time by McMurrin, and much later by Hugh B. Brown, Harold B. Lee, and others in McKay’s inner circle, resulting in a crisis shortly before McKay’s death.
[…]
McKay chose his words carefully, and it is clear in retrospect that his use of the word “policy” did not mean the practice of priesthood denial could be reversed merely by administrative decision. Indeed, he always affirmed, both in public and in private, that it would take a revelation for such to occur. However, he also affirmed that such a revelation could occur, and therein lay the distinction in his own mind. To him, a policy could be changed, albeit in this case only upon receipt of a revelation, whereas a doctrine could not be changed. The subtlety of that difference was not appreciated by his colleagues.
McKay clearly did not receive such a revelation. What is less clear, however, is that he sought such divine intervention unsuccessfully. One general authority recalled his saying privately that he had prayed and pleaded with the Lord, but “I haven’t had an answer.
Prince, G. A. (2002). David O. McKay and Blacks: Building the Foundation for the 1978 Revelation. Dialogue, Pages 147–148
So what do you think of McKay’s distinction between “policy” and “doctrine”? He seems he is saying that even some policies require a revelation from God to change. Do you think this is the same distinction that the Q15 makes today? If this is the case, then for the Q15 doctrine are the foundational truth claims of the Gospel, and everything else is policy, even if it has been around since the beginning. Since so little has been revealed, that makes almost everything we have in the handbook policy.
This then sheds some light on the Nov 2015 “Policy of Exclusion” (POX). It is well documented that Pres Oaks first announced and then rescinded the policy while claiming revelation. Using Mckay’s definition, that fact that Oaks claimed revelation implementing or rescinding a policy does not automatically make something “doctrine.” So the November policy was literally “policy,” and was never “doctrine.” Does this change your view of the POX and its implementation?
So then what is left to be counted as “doctrine”? Elder Andersen took a stab in a conference talk where he said:
There is an important principle that governs the doctrine of the Church. The doctrine is taught by all 15 members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. It is not hidden in an obscure paragraph of one talk. True principles are taught frequently and by many. Our doctrine is not difficult to find.
Oct 2012 GC
But Elder Oaks and Elder Maxwell didn’t seem to have a very good handle on what is doctrine and what is policy when it can to the the exclusion of blacks from he priesthood:
AP: Was the ban on ordaining blacks to the priesthood a matter of policy or doctrine?
MAXWELL: Well, I don’t know. It certainly was church policy and, obviously, with some considerable commentary from early church leaders about it. It’s difficult commentary from early church leaders about it. It’s difficult for me to go beyond that.
OAKS: I don’t know that it’s possible to distinguish between policy and doctrine in a church that believes in continuing revelation and sustains its leader as a prophet… I’m not sure I could justify the difference in doctrine and policy in the fact that before 1978 a person could not hold the priesthood and after 1978 they could hold the priesthood.
AP: Did you feel differently about the issue before the revelation was given?
OAKS: I decided a long time ago, 1961 or 2, that there’s no way to talk about it in terms of doctrine, or policy, practice, procedure. All of those words just fled you to reaffirm your prejudice, whichever it was. The only fair, just way to think about it is to reaffirm your faith in the prophet, and he says you don’t do it now, so you don’t do it now. And if he says tomorrow that you do do it, then you do it.
AP news story
Our own leaders seem not to know what is “changeable policy” and what “unchangeable doctrine”. Does it make a difference? Or is everything changeable policy if the Q15 unanimously vote to change it, and if what was thought to be doctrine requires modification, does it then change to become a policy?
Wheat & Tares 
If we’re to insist that “doctrine” in unchangeable in Mormon-speak, maybe we should limit it to what the BoM reports Christ stating is his doctrine and keep 3 Nephi 11:40 in mind. 🙂
The error here is that you are stating that doctrine = eternal truth. Elder Oaks gives a more accurate definition. If all 15 agree on something, or if a simple majority vote on it behind closed doors, that is the churches doctrine. It does not have to be true or kind. Doctrine and policy are the exact same thing in today’s church.
@Zach it seems that every GA has their own definition of doctrine and there is no unified teaching on this yet. Elder Bednar just stated last year that: “Doctrine refers to the eternal, unchanging, and simple truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ”. In his mind anything that changes that was thought of as a doctrine must have been an application of a higher doctrine and not the doctrine itself. That way he can justify all the changes that would otherwise be considered doctrinal changes. Others define doctrine as being what is the current consensus. It’s amazing that in a church where we claim to be as intellectual and right that we can’t even agree upon the most basic definitions, which on the one hand has its benefits to the church (harm to its members) because it allows for endless apologetic responses to criticisms and it makes it easy to gaslight the members by saying “that was never doctrine”, etc.
Doctrine =Eternal gospel opinions of the 15 current church leaders, that have not changed yet.
There, fixed that first definition for you.
Conventional wisdom=the strongly held opinions of a bunch of old men, that cannot be backed up by scripture, some of which isn’t very wise.
There the second one is better.
IMHO, for something to be an “eternal truth,” it has to come straight from the mouth of God unfiltered through any human being and the human beings limited understanding, limited vocabulary, and prejudices. In this church, I don’t believe we have that. Even our scripture was one man or a group of men’s experience and their opinion of God. We are even missing women’s experience and opinion of God, because our scripture was written by men because of sexist cultures in which it was written. About the only thing I can think of that includes women’s experience or opinion of God are a few hymns, that men have always had the power to choose which ones are valid from their view point.
But it sounds better to call what we have “eternal truth” than “some man’s opinion” because admitting it is just maybe an educated guess sounds a bit like we are all stumbling around in the dark. But we even have scripture that tells us that the best we can do is to see through a glass darkly.
But as I have gotten older, I have come to realize just how much all of us are stumbling around in the dark, with no compass except for love of each other. It is through our love for each other that we imagine what God is. And if we fail at loving each other, then we get God very wrong and each person gets God wrong in their own way. And because none of us love others perfectly, none of us has a very good image of who or what God actually is.
To my mind, splitting hairs over what is Doctrine and what is Policy amounts to little more than a moving escape hatch for any church teaching that doesn’t survive the court of public opinion. It’s Doctrine until it’s proven cruel, illegal, or until it jeopardizes accreditation or tax-exemption. Then it was just Policy.
What we’re really talking about here is true vs false and right vs wrong. Are the brethren capable of receiving revelation that is unimpeachably true and good? Is their communication with God so clear? Or do they see through a glass darkly like the rest of us?
I find it strangely refreshing to hear Elder Oaks frame his view of it so bluntly. In his mind, there is no functional difference between Doctrine and Policy. The prophet is always right, even when he’s wrong. Just go with it. That view works for a lot of members. But it would seem there is an increasing number of members, particularly millennials, for whom it doesn’t work, and so there’s this need for the afore-mentioned escape hatch.
If the institution could just admit that Revelation (capital R) can be wrong, that would solve a lot of problems. We wouldn’t need an escape hatch for problematic doctrines anymore, because we would be free to simply reject them according to our conscience.
This is a great discussion between doctrines and policies, which I would love to have in my EQ as I think it would help facilitate more nuanced beliefs amongst some of the more orthodox TBMs. I think instead of trying to claim that it was doctrine that the blacks could not have the priesthood it is more indefensible to explain that it was considered doctrine that “blacks were not valiant in the pre-mortal life”, and therefore, they were not able to have the priesthood, which may have been a doctrine or a policy but either way it was stated by revelation that they couldn’t until the millennium dating back to the days of BY. Now the argument that it was just policy that they couldn’t have the priesthood becomes a moot point. It is easy for TBMs to have a definition of doctrine that allows that to believe that at that time it was doctrine that they couldn’t have the priesthood just like only the levites could have it, etc. It was doctrine that you could not eat a certain type of food or you need to do animal sacrifices, but those doctrines changed when Christ fulfilled the law. So they get out of having to face the real issue. In this case, however, it isn’t possible. Blacks were either valiant or they were not, it is mutually exclusive and it cannot be both. Either BY et al received a revelation(s) from God that the blacks could not/would not be able to receive the priesthood until the millennium or they did not (which calls into question revelation and knowing). It happened or it didn’t (unless we want to use some serious mental gymnastics and discuss different time domains and quantum mechanics involving schrodinger’s cat in which both mutually exclusive doctrines can be true and false at the same time (cat is both dead and alive) and only God knows since his ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts than our thoughts. Great are the mysterious of God. We shouldn’t think about these things but just follow the current prophet, etc.–which apologetic response also doesn’t work, but it might pacify some). Point is I find it to be the most successful to help TBMs see a more nuanced view when discussing doctrinal changes to stick to mutually exclusive positions of it happened or it didn’t vs. they can or they can’t.
I gather that the general understanding of, or at least what is promoted as, doctrine by the leaders is what is thought to be God’s words. How do we find God’s words? Well the scriptures and Joseph Smith’s revelations. Ok then, in the scriptures there are clearly passages (say, many in the OT) that we ignore, right. Well, yes. There is much killing and horror in the OT that we either ignore or read as some sort of nebulous metaphor. We just stick largely to the NT right? Well, the NT contains a bunch of letters written by Paul and a few others not said to be revelation. The Gospels are reported speech of Jesus supposedly compiled and recorded by his disciples not put into full compiled written form until decades after his death. Ok well then the Book of Mormon is our main focal point. Except maybe Joseph Smith took a lot of license in its translation and it doesn’t fully reflect the words of its ancient American authors. And even the ancient American authors got some things wrong. The D&C is our main source of doctrine. Again we’re relying on Joseph Smith to have translated it correctly. Ok then, it’s the Q15. They’re the main source of doctrine. But they’ve changed their minds over time.
See the predicament of doctrine. Simply put, some of what has been believed to be doctrine has remained rather consistent since Joseph Smith and other things haven’t. Doctrine to a large extent is an ever fleeting concept since it can never fully be nailed down what exactly God’s words are. But the leaders like it this way. They benefit from the lack of clarity over doctrine. That way they can hint that their teachings are doctrinal without saying that they’re doctrine and if the tides so turn that they have to go back on what they said, they maintain a plausible deniability and say that they never said what they said was doctrine. Kind of Orwellian in a sense.
It seems to me that doctrine and policy are supposed to have different scopes. Doctrine are principles that affects the daily lives of members (since we believe the spiritual and the mundain to be intricately intertwined) , policies regulates the way the Church functions.
I don’t know how right this view is, but if it is close to how the brethren view it, then whether one is inspired or not is mostly irrelevant in distinguishing them.
Amen @Anna and @Kirkstall.
Mostly I hear “doctrine” weaponized by members to put people in their place whenever they say something the weapon-wielder disagrees with. And “policy” used retrospectively to justify why changes don’t mean prophets were wrong.
I think they are completely useless concepts. Harmful, even.
Glad Oaks was honest and I agree with him that those concepts are meaningless. I disagree with his follow up that this means you just follow the whim of the prophet.
Jesus told us to love one another. Is the rest policy and/or tradition that takes our concentration from the issues that matter most deeply?
I feel like even if we accept that there is a distinction between doctrine and policy and that the former is eternal truths and the latter is temporary practices and beliefs of the Church, we are very bad as humans at determining what falls into the two categories at any given moment in time. Even the scriptures were written by humans that still had that same problem and what we’re terming policy here may be fossilized in those texts, so I would be reluctant to even make a blanket statement that everything that can be backed up in the scriptures can be accepted as eternal truths. So, in practice, I think that even if we want to make a technical distinction between doctrine and policy, Dallin H. Oaks’s statement that “I don’t know that it’s possible to distinguish between policy and doctrine in a church that believes in continuing revelation and sustains its leader as a prophet” is still pretty accurate.
Perhaps someone can answer for me a simple question: Given all that we think we know about policy vs. doctrine, is the Proclamation on the Family doctrine? And why has it not been canonized? Asking for a friend.
@Josh H setting aside that I don’t think policy/doctrine is a meaningful distinction, POF should not be treated as doctrine but is.
Oaks is trying to get around the lack of canonization / voting process that would be required for that by claiming that all that document does is collect and “reaffirm” pre-existing doctrinal teachings into one document. He’s very clever and lawyerly the way he has constructed that argument. But it’s false; many of the document’s teachings on gender identity are different from earlier church teachings on gender identity. It absolutely breaks new ground (hence the need for it in order for the church to fight legal battles, and hence that it’s the thing that’s always cited in support of the Church’s position on those issues rather than any “doctrinal” primary / source material).
Radio Free Mormon has a number of excellent podcasts on the issue.
Elisa: I appreciate your response. I wasn’t really asking a question as much as I was making a point with a question. I am familiar with the RFM podcasts you mentioned. You make an excellent point when you mention that the Church now cites the POF as if it simply consolidates previous teachings when in fact it CREATED new teachings. And then talks and lessons reference previous talks and lessons in a very circular process as if nothing was created.
Honestly, I would respect the Church/Prophet/Brethren if they declared that the Lord has “revealed” an eternal understanding of sexuality and gender. But they don’t really make that claim. They just imply that claim (plausible deniability) and the result seems to really be the philosophy of men mingled with scripture.
If they want to keep it, it’s doctrine. If they want to change it, it’s policy.
The real issue is how to define revelation and the extent to which it comes from God.
If Elders Maxwell and Oaks can’t tell the difference between policy and doctrine, then plainly there isn’t much difference. It’s more like “doctrine” is a word that leaders use when they support a given belief or practice that they don’t want to be changed, and “policy” is a word that leaders use when they have doubts about a belief or practice that maybe they do want to change. But members in the pews attribute much stronger meanings to the terms (and leaders are fine with that, since they can still change anything they want to, regardless of the labels).
If the difference between doctrine and policy is not clear, a few thoughts come to mind:
1. This actually leaves individual members a lot of latitude in choosing exactly what to believe. Example: in accepting the Book of Mormon as the inspired word of God, does one accept it as a literal historical record, or as a revelation filtered through the imperfect and subjective mind of Joseph Smith? The temple recommend question does not ask us HOW the BOM is the word of God, just if we believe it to be so. I believe that it is the word of God. HOW it is so, is an interesting question, but not vital to me.
There are several other Church-related issues that can be dealt with in the same way: WOW, Sabbath observance, the First Vision, for example.
2. There are some things that IMO are clearly doctrine. A few examples immediately come to mind:
John 3:16 For God so loved the world.
End of Romans 8: nothing separates u from the love of God.
Book of Moses 1:39: This is my work and glory, to bring to pass the immortality band eternal life of man.
2Nephi2: Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy.
So, there is Doctrine with a capital “D,” and then there is doctrine on a lesser level (e.g. is Adam-Ondi-Ahman really in Missouri? I CAN believe that, but don’t really care, and do not think that is an essential issue).
I personally am grateful for the fuzzy gray areas where doctrine and policy merge; that vagueness helps me stay in the Church.
I long ago stopped needing the consent of my Church leaders about what I may and may not believe. I think that a lot of the people who comment on the W and T posts would be better off
If they could be this way. Easy for me to say, I know. My circumstances have been very different from theirs, and each of us bears our own different personal pain from being in the Church and having to put up with others who like to confess our sins for us.
But if I could bore with a personal story: I once had a Stake President who, while a good man, was strong-willed. He and I got into a rather nifty quarrel one time, and I told him off. We crossed paths a few months later, and he expressed mild surprise that I was still coming to my Church meetings. I told him that this Church was as much mine as it was his, and that he didn’t have what it would take to get me to stop coming to Church. He actually smiled and laughed.
Doctrine is informed by ordinance.
Where there is no ordinance, there is no doctrine.
Doctrine is the exposition of ordinance.
Everything else is beliefs and dogma, priestcraft and unrighteous dominion.
Good stuff, Bishop Bill. Two additional thoughts.
1. There is no such thing as “pure doctrine,” not in the human sense anyway. Even those things, the doctrinal status of which is not questioned, are always expressed in imprecise and imperfect terms by human beings. The deepest and most profound revelations are nevertheless channeled through the culture and belief systems of the recipient and then communicated in an imperfect human language.
2. Consider this quote from a talk given by Elder Packer in March 30, 1990: “Matters with deepest doctrinal significance must be left to married couples and to parents to decide for themselves. We have referred them to gospel principles and left them to exercise their moral agency.” That is a thought worthy of serious reflection. (You cannot find the full text of this talk anywhere on the church’s website, to my knowledge. But it was published by Sunstone, and a Google search will lead you to it.)
Good stuff, Bishop Bill. Two additional thoughts.
1. There is no such thing as “pure doctrine,” not in the human sense anyway. Even those things, the doctrinal status of which is not questioned, are always expressed in imprecise and imperfect terms by human beings. The deepest and most profound revelations are nevertheless channeled through the culture and belief systems of the recipient and then communicated in an imperfect human language.
2. Consider this quote from a talk given by Elder Packer in March 30, 1990: “Matters with deepest doctrinal significance must be left to married couples and to parents to decide for themselves. We have referred them to gospel principles and left them to exercise their moral agency.” That is a thought worthy of serious reflection. (You cannot find the full text of this talk anywhere on the church’s website, to my knowledge. But it was published by Sunstone, and a Google search will lead you to it.)
I was a church-nerd teenager who spent his paper route money at the 70’s bookstore. I was a believer – generally. I had a hard time with the concept of the Great Apostasy – that God left His children high and dry for centuries. And apparently, He also was focused on a very small part of the planet when He was on speaking terms.
I could never intellectually justify anything thing less than that God spoke to people universally throughout all of time and in all locales, inspiring them how to live their lives. Problems arose when some people (almost always men) claimed that God spoke to them about how *other* people should live their lives.
“Thus sayeth the Lord” is a big stick. Charitable intent quickly turns to oppression, manipulation, exploitation, and dominion. What are the scriptures but a collection of stuff that someone claims God told them? Same with modern-day revelation. We are left taking them for their word because they claim God gave them the authority to speak for Him. To have confidence in their proclamations, I need to ask God if He actually told them what they claim He did.
I have been much happier since I started cutting out the middleman and began relying on my own thoughts, feelings, and insights. And yeah, I think that sometimes they come from God. And just because I have a warm fuzzy feeling doesn’t confirm the divine “truthfulness” of something – otherwise, I would be worshiping lemon poppy seed muffins with that sugar crust on top.
@BeenThere I totally agree.
I used to do all sorts of contortions in my head to figure out what was “doctrine” to decide what I was and wasn’t “required” to believe. And then eventually (after a very very long time) I realized that it really doesn’t matter if someone labels something doctrine. If it’s not true or right it’s not true or right. I couldn’t care less about “doctrine”.
I’m convinced that our single biggest problem in the Church is that we value ideas based not on whether they are good and true but based on the identity of the speaker. The higher ranked the speaker, the more we value the idea. (Which side note means we will NEVER highly value women’s ideas because women are outranked in so many ways by men. Women in the church literally never get to pronounce “doctrine.”) And that’s why really bad ideas, like excluding blacks and women from the priesthood and enshrining 1950’s gender roles as God’s order and hating on LGBTQ folks, have had such an impact because the *people* who had those ideas were highly-ranked in the church and therefore their bad ideas had outsized (super super outsized) influence on millions of people who were taught to outsource their spiritual thinking and decision making to church leaders.
Doctrine is just an idea that gets an imprimatur of authority because the man who taught it is a church authority. I no longer think that’s valuable and that good and true teachings will have inherent authority because of their goodness and truth, regardless of the speaker.
+1 Elisa. Again.
@BlueRidgeMormon thanks! I do have to apologize for the broken record but seemed quite relevant on both topics and something on my mind a lot lately …
@Elisa – When you’ve got something good to say, share it as many times as you can. That discussion over at the Country Club turned nasty fast. Both sides Mormons, Both sides intellectuals and Both sides telling the other side what it REALLY means to be a Mormon. Ha ha. It was fun to watch til they shut the comments down.
Oh! And by “again” i didn’t mean to imply at all that you are a broken record. It was more me saying: Yep I’m on the same page with you yet again. It’s a good thing. Spot on.
And yes I found that whole thing bizarre over there. Truly. What’s fascinating is that I posted a couple of relatively lengthy comments that got no traction (I’m a nobody in the bloggernacle).. basically there were 11 people that wanted to argue with each other and I guess the manifestos and blogs etc are just their chosen forum for attack-and-defend? I seriously don’t get it.
I think Elisa nailed it by saying that all the pretending to talk about ideas is really just a disguised way of categorizing people/posters/authors into categories, based on things unrevealed in their ideas/posts themselves. “Who can we trust?” etc. Which again, is something I think I see all the time in congregational Mormons… a bold idea is suspicious until the “right” person articulates it, then it’s obvious! Well of course! The chorus of my fellow congregants who now say things like “well yeah the use of ‘Mormon’ always offended me” is (I think) total BS and induces facepalms from me… yet i think illustrates this point.
Hey, BlueRidge, I appreciated your comments “over there” and largely agree with them. Just didn’t see any point is saying “ditto.”
The concerns I had about the manifesto didn’t get much traction either, so I gave up before raising more questions/concerns about the supporting essays by the manifesto authors. At least one of those questions is relevant to the question of “doctrine” here and to the theory that Church doctrine is determined from the agreement of the Q15. That’s the question how many of the current Q15 (those who did not sign it) need to be silent on the Proclamation on the Family before the “LDS Radical Orthodoxy” authors would no longer assume Q15 agreement and consider it legitimate to question something in it. Maybe the idea that that Proc is one of the poles supporting their allegedly big tent doesn’t work.
Anyway, here’s another nobody hoping you’ll keep up the commenting here and over there.
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—Too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know!
How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one’s name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!
Emily Dickinson
Hello, Bishop Bill. Do you have a citation for the Dallin H. Oaks quote about there being no difference between policy and doctrine in a church run by God? I’d like to use the quote in something I’m writing, but I need a precise citation. Thanks, Laura