Bond...James Bond wrote:
Totally agree with this.....one of my major LDS criticisms is of untrained people (In other words....not trained as therapists, doctors, social workers) are in the position of asking very intimate questions to people (including children!) without any real training. The power of discernment abbreviated PoD.....not PhD. Tell the bishop to get his medical license or therapist license and then you'll let him question your kids about their private lives.
(I know you're kids are young WK....but time flies and the law of chastity questions may come someday soon)
FYI, Bond, bishops are told
not to enter areas in which they have no expertise, though some undoubtedly do. The Church has professional resources of trained psychologists with Ph.Ds, and my former stake president was one of them. They are not as partisan to LDS beliefs as one may assume, either. I agree that bishops could have more training, and looking back at my own experience of being a bishop at 25, I think I could have been better trained, if in nothing else, at least in knowing where my boundaries lie. The Church Welfare Handbook outlines these services. A bishop is not a professional counselor, and his main role is as a "steward in Zion". His main duty is the
temporal affairs of the Church, and he is the president of the Aaronic PH which oversees this.
D&C 42:
31 And inasmuch as ye impart of your substance unto the poor, ye will do it unto me; and they shall be laid before the bishop of my church and his counselors, two of the elders, or high priests, such as he shall appoint or has appointed and set apart for that purpose.
32 And it shall come to pass, that after they are laid before the bishop of my church, and after that he has received these testimonies concerning the consecration of the properties of my church, that they cannot be taken from the church, agreeable to my commandments, every man shall be made accountable unto me, a steward over his own property, or that which he has received by consecration, as much as is sufficient for himself and family.
33 And again, if there shall be properties in the hands of the church, or any individuals of it, more than is necessary for their support after this first consecration, which is a residue to be consecrated unto the bishop, it shall be kept to administer to those who have not, from time to time, that every man who has need may be amply supplied and receive according to his wants.
34 Therefore, the residue shall be kept in my storehouse, to administer to the poor and the needy, as shall be appointed by the high council of the church, and the bishop and his council;
D&C 107:
17 But as a high priest of the Melchizedek Priesthood has authority to officiate in all the lesser offices, he may officiate in the office of bishop when no literal descendant of Aaron can be found, provided he is called and set apart and ordained unto this power by the hands of the Presidency of the Melchizedek Priesthood. 68 Wherefore, the office of a bishop is not equal unto it; for the office of a bishop is in administering all temporal things;