Accidentally courting controversy

or, just what IS doctrine anyway?

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To start with the subtitle, it’s hard to say. Here’s an hourlong detour, if you desire such:

Anyway, we’ll come back to the doctrine question. First, I need to talk about paranoia. Perhaps, in an almost-connection, by quoting the title of an article by LDSish author Walter Kirn: “If You’re Not Paranoid, You’re Crazy.”

Joking aside, I recognize there are alternate (slash more-reasonable explanations) for some of what I’m going to say, but let’s pretend I’m a great counterculture revolutionary with a target on my back, even if this pretending is absurd.

Anyway, one thing that is true is that my ward has been told explicitly that Salt Lake has their eyes on us. Not because we’ve done anything “bad” but because, how to put this, we are ahead of the revelatory curve?

We were doing this thing that was carefully designed to be Handbook-compliant and then, as happens these days, the Handbook was changed without notice and, without intention, we were now doing wrong. And things turned . . . unpleasant.

Anyway, choosing to be paranoid, some of the recent changes to the Handbook as regards transgender folks may thus be my fault?

But this gets to the question of doctrine and just what is and what is not and what that even means. Which I’m not going to get into, but I will comfortably argue that some things are more doctrine than other things. For instance, the canon. Even though we only believe the Gospel of Matthew as far as it’s been translated correctly, it’s still canon and thus trumps, say, a Conference talk from 1968. No knock on President McKay, that’s just a core understanding Latter-day Saints have re doctrine.

Which is part of the reason we regularly hear rumors of The Procamation on the Family—which gets lots of attention—being canonized. Because, you know, it’s so important. And so maybe it should stay top-of-mind? In a way proclamations don’t always?

But this Proclamation is also kind of controversial (which I suspect is a mark against canonizing it), and not in totally consistent ways. For instance, in countries like the U.S., it’s considered conservative, perhaps even a bit reactionary. Yet, as I learned from the late Melissa Inouye, in other parts of the world, say an LDS congregation in sub-Saharan Africa, the Proclamation is liberal, even radical. You mean men and women are equal? I have to treat my wife as a partner? And this has led to what those U.S.-based naysayers should consider good outcomes.

But it can also be controversial in other ways. It didn’t take long for people to realize that Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose can very easily be interpreted in favor of the transgender community’s claims for themselves. The general assumption is that this was not the intention, but—words are as words do.

And this is where I get to be paranoid again. See, just over a year ago, the second of the first two published Mormon Socrates dialogues (note that this pdf has a couple typos that do not appear in the final published version) showed through the persuasive power of f*i*c*t*i*o*n just how a faithful Latter-day Saint could interpret the Proclamation as being supportive of how transgender folk understand themselves.

And what happened next?

The Handbook decided to say this:

Gender is an essential characteristic in Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness (see Genesis 1:27). The intended meaning of gender in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” is biological sex at birth. (For those whose biological sex is not clear at birth, see 38.7.7.)

Of course, all scripture requires interpretation in order to be understood. But this seems . . . desperate? It’s not a particularly elegent exegesis.

I don’t want to come off cocky, but Mormon Socrates makes more sense (skip to 10:18).

I mean. That parenthetical seems like an honest admission that we can’t really know these things!

Being a Latter-day Saint well demands combining a belief in ongoing (and true) revelation with a constant grasping for humility (link to literally any Face in Hat episode here). It’s not easy. It’s not easy at the individual, ward, stake, area, or church levels. And we should give each other grace.

And we must also harvest what we sow.