In the nineteenth century, it was taught repeatedly that we were assigned in the premortal life to families that we were "spiritually attracted" to. Thus, those BIC Mormons in Utah were more spiritually advanced than those benighted souls born in times and places where the gospel was not. This is closely identified with the idea that Africans were "less valiant" in the premortal existence. I have the references to this stuff in my old missionary journal, but I'll have to look it up when I get home later this week.
Loran:
This would more properly fall under the rubric of LDS philosophy, not core doctrine, as it is not a fundamental concept taught by the Church. The idea that we choose our earthly families in the premortal life is something I
was taught from my childhood upwards, and its also something I believe (a very similar idea occurs in some ancient Jewish Midrash), so I guess you either accept this or that out of LDS theology or you don't. Its also common to hear teachings that say we made covenants with various people while in the premortal life relative to friendships, marraige etc., and to say thet these are doctrines that are "not taught anymore" is at best disingenuous and at worst indicates a severe detachment from LDS culture and the theological currents of long standing within that culture. I have no idea what BIC Mormons are, but there has never been a teaching in the Church that Utah Mormons were somehow superiour to people born in other times and places. Indeed, if you had any real substantive understanding of LDS doctrine, you would know that the time and place of birth is a matter of both the faith and preserverance in obtaing knowledge and experience in the spirit world combined with other factors, including the Lord's individual plan for our lives and the necessity of undergoing both some general and highly personalized experiences in mortality. As to those born in times and places where the Gospel was not known, if you had been thinking clearly when you wrote this boner you would have thought to yourself "wait a minute, that's where salvation for the dead comes in".
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The law of adoption
Doctrine or practice?
Both
Loran: The law of adoption is a core doctrine of the Church and spicefies that all who attain exaltation in the Kingdom of God must be brought into the family of Abraham by adopton, if not a part of it by lineage. Its still taught, and always has been, so this is another mysterious blunder on your part.
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Blood atonement
Theoritical or actual?
What's the difference?
Loran:
The difference is that the "actual" blood atonement you have in view is an anti-Mormon fairy tail that has been dead and buried for generations for all serious minds who wish to apprise themselves of the evidence. Such lascivious 19th century slanders, whose purpose was to incite hatred and bigotry against a small religious minority, do your credibility little service.
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The necessity of polygyny for exaltation, which is denied officially but is still in the canon.
Yes. Of course the change is based on claimed revelation. But the claimed revelation was supposed to be a change in practice, not in doctrine.
Loran:
Plural marraige is a doctrine of the Restored Gospel. It is not a requirment for exaltation
unless one is called to practice it. It then becomes a requirement. But this, of course, is true of the entire Godpel system. Anything you know to be true, and have recieved a witness that it is true, becomes a requirement for exaltation. Sin, in one very important sense, is not living to the level of one's Gospel knowledge. We are to live by every word that proceeds forth out of the mouth of God. That which he requires of us are, well, requirements.
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The curse of Cain and its effect on priesthood, which again is dismissed as folklore and opinion but resides in the canon.
Jason responded:
I agree that this tilted toward a doctrinal explanation but do not agree that it is in Canon though the Book of Abraham can be extrapolated, incorrectly in my opinion, to say what some said it said.
Vegas said:
The 1949 FP statement explicitly endorses this as doctrine from the scriptures. You and I might think it's extrapolated incorrectly, but the living oracles did not.
Loran:
Here's the entire statement. Let's see if Vegas is honestly presenting his evidence. I'll italicize the relavant points.
The attitude of the Church with reference to Negroes remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time. The prophets of the Lord have made several statements as to the operation of the principle. President Brigham Young said: "Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a skin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the holy priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the holy priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to."
President Wilford Woodruff made the following statement: "The day will come when all that race will be redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have."
The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the Negroes.
Please notice that the above statement says precisely nothing about the curse of Cain, unvaliant spirits, or a connection between black skin and Cain. Clearly, a number of Church leaders accepted some form of the argument that less valient spirits came to earth through the lineage of Cain, that black skin was the "mark" put upon Cain, and that the Priesthood ban reflects descent from that lineage. These however were never official doctrines of the church and they were never "canon', as Vegas disingenuously asserts. What was fundamental was that our Second Estate is Predicated upon the exersise of our faith and agency in the first, just as the the use of agency here determines our condition in the nest estate. Notice that the 1949 statement says that any number of spirits are willing to come to earth with variouis handicapps, if it means receiving a body and the possibility of exaltation, even if Priesthood is not available at the time or place of birth (and clearly, most human beings who have ever lived have lived in either a time or place where the Priesthood was not available, making the case of black people hardly anything other than typical) Notice too that the statement makes clear that "the details of this principle have not been made known" This is where various Church leaders expressed opinions as explanations for the ban over the years, and which we may properly critique as their own statements for which they only are responsible. The leaders of the Church were trying to fill in some of the details. Were all such attempts inspired. I don't think so. Were they sincere. I think they were. Were those leaders bound and delimited by the culture in which they had been raised and socialized. Yes. Were those explanations "canon". Hardly.
I remember that my old boss at the COB was of the opinion that the Lectures on Faith were dropped from the canon specifically because they conflicted with current doctrines about the nature of the Godhead.
Loran:
An object lession to may happen to one's mind when one reads too much Sunstone. Really, how silly. There's nothing in the Lectures incongruent with modern teachings on the Godhead. Nor are modern teachings any different than what Joseph Smith and Brigham Youing taught openly and publically and which has been taught since. This is excepting the few years in which Young taught what appears to be a very difficult and even incoherant understanding of the relationship of Adam to God the Father and the nature of the plan of salvation. This was taught to a few select indivuals, was never taught publically, was never official church doctrine, was never put to the membership of the church for a sustaining vote or for general acceptance, is not found in the scriptures, is not claimed to be found therin, is not part of Temple teaching, and I'm not going to defend Brigham Young on this issue because I have no idea what he was trying to say. The other problem is that Young himself consistently taught the orthodox understanding of the nature of the Godhead throughout his time as Prophet of the church, and nothing has changed about that teaching since.
Evolution was once condemned in the harshest of terms as heretical. Not so much now.
This is it. You clearly have not the faintest idea what you're talking about. The church does not now and never has had any official position on the theory of evolution. All of its past official statements reflect a strictly neutral attitude. Different church leaders have held divergent views of the subject, as is their right.
I actually don't have a problem with changing doctrine, as one would expect a church guided by prophets to evolve. My issue is with those who insist that only practices and policies change, not doctrines.
Who is claiming that only practices change? Both do and can change. Christ fulfilled and did away with the entire ritual life of Israel including its core ordinances and sacrificial rites. He also changed doctrine, both by substantially modifying Mosiac doctrine and by introducing an entirely new system.
Loran