A couple of weeks ago a leadership training presentation just for Bishops and Stake Presidents was leaked. The training was a slide presentation by President Oaks available on the Church website, but only if you logged in with the proper credentials. The presentation is easy to find if you just Google it.

The subject was Membership Councils. When I was Bishop they were called Disciplinary Councils, and before that they were called Bishop’s Courts. Membership Councils sound so much nicer and benevolent!

Pres Oaks starts off by given some statistics that to my knowledge have never been revealed outside the halls of the Church Office Building. He said

In recent years we have had a significant decline in membership councils worldwide. When membership councils are held, the proportion of membership restrictions-especially withdrawal of membership-has also declined significantly.

Some background: the “membership restrictions” can be 1. Remains in good standing, 2. Personal Counseling with Bishop, 3. Formal Restrictions (used to be called disfellowship) and 4. Withdrawal of Membership (excommunication)

President Oaks revealed two things in this quote. One is that there are less membership councils recently than there used to be. The second thing is that when there is a member council, there are less restrictions being placed on the members, especially excommunications, than there used to be. You can tell from the rest of the slides that he does not think this is a good thing.

I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. When is it ever a bad thing that less people are being kicked out of your organization? Especially an organization whose stated objective is to get more people to join said organization? So lets all put on our Pres Oaks hat and try to think like him. He comes into his office one day, and there on his desk is a report from the last few years (let’s say 10 years) that shows there are less people being kicked out of the Church. Being Pres Oaks, you figure out there is one of two reasons for this. One is that members of the Church are actually listening to all the talks in General Conference, and they are choosing the “Covenant Path”, and are sinning less. All those Elders quorum and Relief Society lessons where they rehash the talks is paying off! Or the second reason could be that the Bishops and Stake Presidents are going soft, woke if you will, and displaying way too much mercy to the offending members.

Being Pres Oaks, you see the world is more wicked than even, with all the LGBTQ+ nonsense, and people not wearing their garments, so you figure the second reason must be right, and you need to give all the Bishops and Stake Presidents a good talking to. Those ladies of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and whatever that new Hulu show is need to be shown the door!

Pres Oaks pretty much says on one slide that he believes the Bishops have gone soft when he says that “many priesthood leaders apparently apply the least membership restriction possible because they fear that a more serious restriction may prevent the member from returning to active Church membership” (I’m looking at you Bishop Bill!!!!) He also said that we should not forgo the council just because there person has already been punished enough through loss of job, wife, or community respect.

Pres Oaks also wants to make sure that a person coming back from years of inactivity gets punished for what he/she might have done during those years: “They [leaders] should not dismiss the potential need for a membership council to help a person experience the spiritual change that can only come through true repentance”

I guess Pres Oaks would have been pretty upset with me when I was Bishop. I only had one Disciplinary Council in the five years I was Bishop, and that was for re-baptism of a person that was excommunicated 30 years earlier for cohabitation. I approved the re-baptism, and it was sent to the First Presidency for approval, and they were baptised! I never had any other court during that time. Now this is not to say that the members of my ward were little angels. There was the normal teenage pregnancies and adults behaving badly. I even had one just like Oaks said, a member that had been inactive for 20 years, and wanted to come back. They confessed, and that was enough. No way I was going to have a court on a 20 year old sin that they had not repeated since. None of these cases ever reached the level where I thought a disciplinary council would help any better that just counseling with the bishop.

My going in rule was that if I ever had to stand before God and justify my actions as Bishop, I’d rather be guilty of being too lenient than of being too harsh. I figured God would go easier on me that way!

Pres Oaks then goes on with the presentation to justify why we need more membership councils. He said that membership councils “with rare exceptions” must be held for endowed persons who committed a serious sin. He said they “cannot repent by himself or herself”.

He then throws out another interesting statistic. He said that in the twelve years since 2010, members who had been held accountable (read formal restriction or excommunicated) had a far lower rate of repetition of the serious sin than those that did not. I’m not sure how they get the numbers for this statistic with the people that were ex’d. How would you know if they repeated the sin if they are no longer members? For those disfellowshipped, how would you know it was a repeated the sin if this is the first time you are talking with them?

What is your take on this? Do you think there is a genuine concern with the Q12 and FP that there is not enough excommunications, or is this just Pres Oaks going rogue since Pres Nelson is in no position to stop him?

What could be his reason for this? Does he see these people not being kicked out a danger to the members, or is he genuinely concerned for their eternal salvation? Does he really believe in a God that is going to punish somebody because their Bishop what not hard enough on them?