As a Bishop, I was told I was a “Common Judge in Israel” This phrase derives from D&C 107. (Not sure what the Israel part is about, I don’t think they would have given me any deference if I had visited Israel while bishop)
73 And also to be a judge in Israel, to do the business of the church, to sit in judgment upon transgressors upon testimony as it shall be laid before him according to the laws, by the assistance of his counselors, whom he has chosen or will choose among the elders of the church.
73 This is the duty of a bishop who is not a literal descendant of Aaron, but has been ordained to the High Priesthood after the order of Melchizedek.
74 Thus shall he be a judge, even a common judge among the inhabitants of Zion, or in a stake of Zion, or in any branch of the church where he shall be set apart unto this ministry, until the borders of Zion are enlarged and it becomes necessary to have other bishops or judges in Zion or elsewhere.
D&C 107: 73-75
I was never given specific training on what it meant to be a “common judge”, and how that was different from an “uncommon” judge. The only clue is in verse 73 above, where it says a bishop is “to sit in judgment upon transgressors” My assumption as a bishop was that when people came into my office to confess transgressions, I was to judge them. The results of that judgement could be anything from “go and sin no more”, to excommunication (I believe the new word is “withdrawal of membership”: sounds so much more tame!)
When I was sitting in that chair behind the big desk, my most common response was the “go and sin no more”. My thought was I would rather error on being too lenient than being to harsh. If there is a God that is going to judge me on how I meted out judgment in my ward, I will feel much more confident looking Him in the eye and taking any punishment for being too lenient than the converse. I only had one church court in my five years, and that was a rebaptism of somebody who had been excommunicated years ago. Everything else was handled by what is now called “Personal Counseling”
I often wonder what it would have been like being a bishop in the early church. Back when the church was new in Utah, the bishop did everything. He mediated disputes between neighbors over cows, water rights and fence lines. In a small town he was “judge, jury and executioner” figuratively, and sometime literally. I never had anything like that as a bishop here in California, but I’m sure in a heavily Mormon area like Utah County or Rexburg, bishops get drawn into neighborly disputes all the time.
What has been your experience with your bishop as a “common judge”. Did he stay in his swim lane, or did he venture out on non-religious judgments?
Wheat & Tares 
Bill has hit the nail on the epistemological head here. Bishops receive essentially no training, and that is the very root of the problem.
Bishops are put in place with no religious training ahead of time. The stake president may think it is unnecessary because the bishop was a counselor years ago, but mere osmosis is not training.
And bishops receive zero training in mediating property disputes or marital spats. None. A bishop who is employed repairing Soviet era farm tractors has absolutely no business telling a married couple how to move on from infidelities.
No reasonable person would go to a computer repairman for the treatment of liver cancer. Just because the repairman happens to be a bishop does not make him somehow an expert in every field. That is irrefutable fact.
Every bishop I have ever had was above average socioeconomically. Why is that? Is a higher economic status needed in order to make moral judgements? No, the reason I suspect is two fold. First, the prosperity gospel ideology more or less demands that the bishop be a walking example of relative success. Second, the number one qualification (in my opinion) for a bishop is solid organizational skills. And when you’re organized you often have your professional life in good order (not always).
I have not found bishops to be the most spiritual, knowledgeable, or caring relative to other members. But having said that, I never had a bad bishop. All of them were great men in my opinion. I feel lucky in that regard. I felt confident in their ability to judge back when I gave them that kind of power.
Bishops are just like everyone else. Some are good and some not so much. My childhood bishops were all kind men who genuinely cared about me and devoted a lot of time. That said one in particular instilled some very unhealthy ideas about sex and probably worsened my scrupulosity tendencies. I’d characterize that as unintentional but dangerous leaving their lane.
A few years ago one bishop preached the evils of Obamacare from the pulpit. Again nice guy but really out of his lane. Another was fantastic about almost everything but the poor guy was a financial wreck.
When it was my turn in the bishop chair I tried really hard to keep to my business but it depends on your point of view. I had three different teenagers come out to me. I told them I didn’t agree with church policy but that I can’t change it. I also told them at some point they’d probably have to choose between mental & emotional health or staying in the church. I didn’t tell them how to choose but that they’d have to face it eventually. All three left. One parent called me hysterically angry at me, and while I understand her point of view I did what I thought best.
Was I in my lane? I don’t really know. The parent didn’t think so but I shared a perspective I thought they needed to hear.
With respect, my experience has been different.
Years ago, I served as a branch president in a small college-community in New York state.
I believe one of the reasons I was called was because I had the training: I had served as a counselor in two previous bishoprics and as an executive secretary in a third. (We moved around a lot.)
I also had access to guidance: Our stake president was a brilliant, caring, and engaging man. He was always available to guide and counsel. He became a good friend.
Very early in that experience, I was called upon to exercise the “judge in Israel” role. A boy in the branch reported how he had been sexually assaulted by an older man (at the branch Christmas party). The older man had fondled the boy. The older man had previously been excommunicated for sexual offenses but was “trying to put his life in order for rebaptism.”
I met with the older man. I did not tell him of the allegations because of possible retaliation. I asked him if he had any problems he wanted to talk about. “Nope! Everything’s fine!”
I talked—very privately—with the fathers in the ward. I asked them to talk—caringly and sensitively—with their children about interactions with this man. I learned—and the fathers learned—of multiple assaults.
I informed the man he was no longer welcome in the branch and explained the reasons why. (He offered no defense. He just shook his head.) I contacted the college authorities, and they banned him from campus. I reported the incidents to the authorities, and they arrested him. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to probation.
We never—I never—saw him again. I later learned he died in prison after convictions for subsequent offenses.
The system worked. For us.
With absolute respect, my experience has been different.
Years ago, I served as a branch president in a college community in New York state.
I believe one of the reasons I was called was because I had the training: I had served as a counselor in two previous bishoprics and as an executive secretary in a third. (We moved around a lot.)
I also had access to guidance: Our stake president was a brilliant, kind, and engaging man. He was always available to guide and counsel. He became a good friend.
Very early in that experience, I was called upon to exercise the “judge in Israel” role. A boy in the branch reported how he had been sexually assaulted by an older man (at the branch Christmas party). The older man had fondled the boy. The older man had previously been excommunicated for sexual offenses but was “trying to put his life in order for rebaptism.”
I met with the older man. I did not tell him of the allegations because of possible retaliation. I asked him if he had any problems he wanted to talk about. “Nope! Everything’s fine!”
I talked—very privately—with the fathers in the ward. I asked them to talk—caringly and sensitively—with their children about interactions with this man. I learned—and the fathers learned—of multiple assaults.
I informed the man he was no longer welcome in the branch and explained the reasons why. (He offered no defense. He just shook his head.) I contacted the college authorities, and they banned him from campus. I reported the incidents to the authorities, and they arrested him. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to probation.
We never—I never—saw him again. I later learned he died in prison after convictions for subsequent offenses.
The system worked. For us.
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JCS is correct. Bishop training is an oxymoron – especially when it comes to dealing with chastity and relationship issues. Bottom line is bishops end up inserting uninformed biases into their counseling ‘advice’.
Mormonism does a terrible disservice by expecting bishops to apply church discipline as part of the repentance process. Expecting an untrained lay person to resolve complex issues is absurd. And don’t get me started on the inadequacy of LDS Social Services.
Unfortunately, the inability of bishops to offer effective counseling often leads to tragic consequences. Bishops should not be allowed to sit in judgement of the most vulnerable.
My experiences with bishops over the years has been overwhelmingly positive. Most of them have been truly loving and wise men who I’ve had a lot of respect for. There have been a few negative experiences:
1. I was asked if I masturbated by several otherwise great bishops in personal interview as a youth and young adult. This was completely inappropriate. Maybe they were trained to ask this, maybe they just asked this because their bishop’s asked them this question growing up, or maybe they asked this because Church leaders were making pretty strong statements about masturbation back then. I taught my children that they were allowed to refuse to answer this question if they were ever asked this by our bishop. I also told them that if they didn’t feel they could stand up to the bishop and refuse to answer the question, that it was OK to just outright lie to him about this. My children are now all out of the house, but the topic came up at Thanksgiving, and they claimed that they were never asked this question by our local bishop, but that they had a number of friends in other wards who were. It’s unfortunately still happening.
2. This wasn’t a bishop, but a member of the stake presidency, who also happened to be one of the top leaders at BYU (he reported directly to the university president) while I was a student at BYU. In the course of a temple recommend interview, he decided to insert his own question, “Do you watch R-rated movies?” I honestly answered that sometimes I did. He then gave me a fairly lengthy lecture on why I shouldn’t watch R-rated movies which mostly boiled down to the fact that there are depictions of immoral acts in R-rated movies, and a prophet had counseled members not to watch them. I countered with the the arguments that the committee that issues movie ratings has no authority from God and gave a few examples of great R-rated movies (Schindler’s list was one example I provided). The discussion was calm, but we went back and forth for 15-20 minutes, I think. To his credit, he then asked the remaining temple recommended questions, set the temple recommend paper aside, informed me that he was going to issue me my temple recommend no matter how the remainder of our discussion went, and then tried once more to convince me not to watch R-rated movies while I continued to resist. He finally gave up and asked me if I’d be willing to ask God if I should be watching R-rated movies, and I said I wouldn’t because I already had and felt good about it (this was true–I really had done this). He then asked me if I’d try asking God again because I’d apparently gotten the wrong answer earlier. I finally agreed that I’d pray about it more. I’d maintained a very calm demeanor through the whole discussion, but as I walked out of the meeting, I was very frustrated and my hands were visibly shaking. After reflecting on this a few days later, I still felt that I was in the right and was very proud of my 21-year-old self for having stood up to a stake presidency counselor and BYU vice president. I still feel that way today.
3. About 15 years ago, the “jokester” of the ward was called to be bishop. Most people thought it was a great choice because he was so chill and would joke and relate with everyone, especially the youth. Unfortunately, being called bishop completely changed this guy’s behavior at church. He immediately turned into a gestapo-like figure. I’ll just give a few examples. He chose to give a 5th Sunday lesson to all of the adults in the ward on modesty, in particular women’s modesty (there was zero mention of men’s modesty). He gave very specific examples of clothing that he had observed women (he didn’t name names) wearing in our ward to Church meetings, to exercise as they ran/walked through the streets in our neighborhood, and to swim in that he felt were immodest. The clothing he called out were all perfectly acceptable in today’s society. In a different 5th Sunday lesson to the youth and their parents (I was a youth leader, but my children were thankfully still in primary), this bishop said that he was asking youth if they masturbated and that there was either a 3 month or a 6 month (I can’t remember which it was) waiting period for any prospective missionary if they answered yes. He also said that any prospective missionary who had had sex exactly once could still qualify for a mission, but if they’d had sex twice, whether it was with the same person or not, they could not serve a mission. So much for the infinite atonement, I guess. This bishop was so despised by ward members that his wife begged him to move out of the ward the second he was released as bishop, which he did.
4. We had a bishop who released a couple whose son had recently come out as gay from their callings (executive secretary and relief society presidency) because someone in the ward had shown him that the wife had posted on Facebook that she supported allowing gay marriage as a matter of law. She did not express any opposition to the Church’s policies toward gay people. A few months later, an Area Seventy sent out an official letter stating that it was fine for members to support gay marriage as a matter of law at which point the bishop had to return the couple’s temple recommends, but he later complained to the ward council that none if this would ever happened if the couple had “humbled themselves and submitted to their priesthood leaders”. The couple did return to church for awhile, but it wasn’t too long before they chose to leave the Church for good. I heard a personal account of these events both from the couple themselves (because we’re friends and still are) and from the bishop because he chose to tell his side of the story to the entire ward council multiple times (I was in these ward council meetings). I deeply regret not speaking up in ward council to remind the bishop that he shouldn’t be sharing personal information about the couple with the ward council and that withholding a temple recommend based on someone’s political views was wrong. I could see from the looks on two other people’s faces in ward council, that they had similar thoughts to mine, but no one spoke up. I so wish I could go back to one of those ward council meetings and speak up to the bishop on behalf of this couple.
I agree with JCS’s and De Novo’s comments about bishops offering advice. I will share two examples that highlight why they (and stake presidents) should not counsel member.
Over 30 years ago my mom went to the stake president to discuss my father’s adultery. The stake president (an orthodontist) condescendingly responded: “Sister ____. do you even know what adultery is?” Needless to say my father never faced church discipline. In general, the leadership is biased to not believe women, so the advice they give will not be objective.
This past week, I was driving my daughter somewhere, and I asked her how things were going with her therapist. (I didn’t want to pry, just to make sure my daughter was warming up to her.) My daughter’s response: “I like her now. She has lots of good advice. Actually, she tells me a lot of the same things you do. But she knows how I need to hear it.” Bishops, like well-meaning parents, can (sometimes) have the right answers, but they don’t actually know how to counsel
@benvandervoort: That is hero-level judging in Israel! I congratulate you on your ability to deftly navigate the issue and for aiding in getting that person convicted of a crime–so many people who commit these sorts of offenses are repeat offenders as was the case here as well.
@Bishop Bill: I totally agree that the correct approach to most confessions is to counsel the person to “sin no more” and that it is Christ and not the bishop whose job it is to forgive sins–although you’re willing to listen and give advice if it seems to help. Official Church discipline is so unnecessary and counter-productive in most cases. @benvandervoot’s situation is clearly an important exception to this.
@Toad: The situation with the gay kid and his mother is a tough one. I totally agree with your advice to the kid. That said, I can see why the mother was upset because unfortunately that doesn’t correspond with the terribly un-Christlike official position of the Church, which is basically now just that the kid should remain celibate, mental health be damned. It seems like you had to choose between giving more Christlike advice versus representing the Institutional Church in your role as bishop. You chose Christ. Unfortunately, this kind of conflict is inevitable until the Church finally decides to treat LGBTQ individuals as Christ wants them to.
So there’s a common notion here (and held by many of us) that a problem with how we do bishop-ing, is the fact that they don’t have/get any kind of (or very much) formal training, especially regards to counselling people who might be in some kind of distress.
One possible counter-point I’d like to raise, for the sake of discussion, is that, wouldn’t that be kind of a good thing? (in certain respects)? Having some kind of formal religious training to be a bishop would have cons too, that might mean more ideological rigidity across the board, it might be harder to find good bishops like Bishop Bill or Toad. Bishops a more likely to value ideology over the well being of their ward members.
Don’t get me wrong, some kind of training is need, especially wrt to how to counsel people undergoing distress, but, knowing the church, any such training program that might implemented would necessarily be imbued with an ideological angle. Like the Church’s addiction recovery program, which, like the AA 12 step program it’s based on, makes zero effort to help someone understand themselves and the addiction. Instead it’s mostly just ‘confess your sins and let God change you’., which IMO, has very limited utility when it comes to addiction.
Any kind of counselling training program would ultimately just double down to just telling struggling individuals to confess and go read scriptures/attend the temple more.
What they do now (on paper anyway) is to try to refer people to professional counselling/psychological services, and bishops do have the discretion to use fast offering funds to pay for that. I’ve seen that happen before in a ward I was in, as far as I could tell, it was working. In a situation in which someone is struggling with addiction, depression, and other such issues, you need a neutral party, and a bishop and never be a neutral party, precisely because they’re supposed to be in this role of judgment, of deciding who is worthy for X, Y, and Z, and who is not.
So I think there’s a possibility that some kind of standardized training program for all bishops would only really intensify the problems that already exist.
Second, I think there is a possible advantage, small it may be, of just having anyone (any man) be a bishop, as opposed to a trained qualified class of clergymen. You’d potentially get people in charge with different demographic perspectives, who might have more compassion and understanding for regular people, as opposed to the usual meritocratic class. The myth of meritocracy is something that is a problem in our governments/society at large. In the USA (well, most every country), our rulers are wealthy people who, by and large, are either career politicians, CEOs, bankers, or lawyers. All of whom are SO disconnected with regular people. When was the last time (if at all) that someone like Trump, Musk, Obama, Romney, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, or Bezos ever had to take a public bus somewhere and have unconformable encounters with homeless people or people experiencing substance abuse? Or just wait in line a grocery store? Probably never, which is why our political machine is designed to serve the people at the top, because it’s the people at the top that are running it.
Much of the pushback against AOC when she ran for congress was that she was just a bartender, and was said to be unqualified to be a congressperson, since she had never been in politics before or had been a ‘business owner’ or whatever. Personally, I think someone with a humble/ salt of the earth, type background would make for a better leader/representative, than someone born and raised in upper class circles. Becuase, you know, they’ve actually had to be around normal human beings, they haven’t really lived in a world that filters out all the unpleasantness in the world.
I’d like to think that is analogous to bishops as well. It’s gonna be roulette no matter what, but I think I’d rather take my changes with the tractor repairman over the credentialed guy who wears a suit to work everyday and actually likes golf.
Good post. For me, it’s generally been hit and miss. I’ve had some good bishops, but even those (especially when I was living in Utah) were definitely members of the upper socioeconomic class (as josh h mentions, this is a problem) and did seem to enjoy being in the position. My rule about leaders is that you should only ever assign/call someone to a leadership position who is reluctant to do it.
Most of the time, bishop’s quirks don’t bug me. When my kids were young and still going to church, we had a couple of good bishops who had good rapport with the ward children and who clearly loved and cared for my kids and everyone else’s. I will say that I’m not a fan of our current bishop, not so much because I think he’s an objectively bad bishop, just because it’s obvious that his friendliness and humility are fake. That’s not a crime, and it doesn’t mean he’s “out of his lane” but he’s certainly not someone I’d ever talk to about anything personal or important (somewhat sad, considering he’s a therapist). Fortunately, I basically only attend church on Sundays and don’t do anything else that would be labelled “active”, so I’d never consider going to the bishop for anything anyway. I do think, to return to josh h’s idea, that the fact that most leadership is of a certain economic/professional class is a problem. I get the arguments about people who are successful in the worldly sense are assumed to be able to be successful in the church sense, but I think the scriptures are pretty clear that one really doesn’t have much to do with the other. In fact, we should be careful to not make that particular argument, because I think it’s often the kind of arrogance that worldly success breeds that leads bishops to stray out of their lane.
Maybe I’m just contrary but to all the objections that socioeconomic class does not correlate with spirituality or righteousness, no it doesn’t but where do we get the idea that the Bishop should necessarily be the most righteous or spiritual person in the ward? It really is an administrative job primarily. All the things that some Bishops try to do (such as personal counseling) but are unqualified to do are not a matter of righteousness. The most Christlike, loving person in the ward does not necessarily have those skills.
@ benvandervoort
Did you call the church’s abuse hotline?
Chadwick—
This was before the hotline was established. I counseled with my two counselors and the stake president. I explained my proposed course of action and they agreed. It was a dark time (in more ways than one).
In several decades in the church — both family wards (East Coast) and singles wards (mostly BYU, but other places also) — my experience with Bishops as a common judge has been relatively positive. Perhaps surprisingly, based on other comments, I never had a bishop in interviews ask me specifically about masturbation or specific sexual acts. Of the several times that I asked about and/or confessed such matters, they were generally kind and inclined to the “go and sin no more” path. These were nearly always positive experiences. I was fortunate.
As a bishop myself, I followed the examples of past bishops in my life and was inclined to “go easy” on people who came to me. Interestingly, I never had a YM confess anything to me, but had several YW confess pornography (very limited and often accidental more than anything) and other behavior with boys. I used to assume the YM were just lying to me but now I think that most of these YM at the time I was their bishop just weren’t into sexual activity as teenagers. None of them had girlfriends, so that makes a difference.
I think that a bishop shouldn’t be asking and probing about sexual matters with teenagers and so I’m glad I didn’t. If a teenager wants to bring something up, that’s fine. I had one YW without a father who wanted to sometimes talk about sexual matters (in a genuine, information seeking way) and I was fine to do so in a limited way. I also told her mother these conversations were happening and she was fine with that. In fact, I think she preferred another adult do this instead of her.
As far as being a common judge in disciplinary councils, one of my biggest regrets as bishop — and not something I could not change — was holding a council and judging the conduct of an adult single women who had engaged in sexual activity with another man, sometimes a member, sometimes not.
If it were generally known in the outside world that in the Mormon world it is routine for adult women who engaged in sexual activity to then sit in a small room and be judged by three men who she personally knows (the bishopric) and a ward clerk who then determine how and whether to restrict and have her relations with the church and, consequently, with God, restricted, I think it would become a minor scandal. Maybe there will be an AP article about this someday.
I find it incredibly unfair that so many single women, trying valiantly to stay faithful to LDS standards, are denied the physical intimacy that married members may enjoy. (I could say the same about single men, but there are far fewer of them. In my ward, we had probably two dozen active, TR holding single adult women but I can only think of one or two males.). And then when they falter and seek after the same thing that most humans want and need, the church subjects them to an embarrassing “trial” before several men. This happened more than once for some of these women. I don’t feel like this should be the way of God.