Updates to the Update (or, Say What You Mean)

It turns out (see the linked article, and the First Presidency Letter it refers to) that the new LDS policy doesn't exactly mean what it says. The bit about children only applies to minor children whose primary residence is with a same-sex couple, and if the children are already baptized and actively participating at church, further restrictions aren't required.

This is good. Well, not good, but less bad. (I'm still not a fan of any policy that's going to brand married same-sex couples as apostates and keep the children they are raising out of the church.) (EDIT: on further reflection, I regret even saying this is good.  I feel a sense of relief for the people who are relieved from the policy's effects, but I have to mourn with the people who were told, doubly so today, "We're sorry, we still want all those other people; it's you we really don't want.")

First, it's a little weird that the first thing was a change to the handbook, but this is in a letter. If you give tens of thousands of untrained lay leaders a handbook, they're going to look at the handbook. All those leaders now are getting this letter, but will a new bishop five years from now know it exists? I assume the letter is supposed to be filed away somewhere near the handbook, but it's statistically unlikely that everyone who should do that, will. Since the letter says things like "primary residence" that aren't in the handbook policy at all, I hope the clarification will be added to the actual policy in the book.

Also, I appreciate that the harmful effects of the policy are narrowed, but if it's narrowed on the basis of "primary residence" that's going to make acrimonious custody battles even worse.

Here's something that was weird before, and it's weird now. The formal naming and blessing ceremony is withheld from children of same-sex couples on the basis that it triggers the creation of a formal membership record, with accompanying expectations about the involvement of the church in the child's life. The thing is, a clerk can just create a new membership record without a blessing taking place, and the new policy doesn't say one word about changing that. Either way, the church requires the consent of both parents.

So, if you have a same-sex couple who both want their child to be formally named and blessed, isn't it likely that that's because they want to bring up the child in the LDS church? (And why can't we trust that desire? Why not just have informed consent, instead of an absolute bar?) Isn't it likely that they know about that membership record, know about the tug-of-war of expectations it will produce, and will want the record to be created anyways? Isn't it likely that they will ask the clerk to do exactly that? The thing that is being withheld (unless the policy is changed again) isn't the membership record, it's the formal ceremony where the whole congregation can see that the child is in the fold, now. Was this an oversight, or are church leaders more concerned about the public appearance that the same-sex couple is welcome than about the membership record?

Also, I object to being scolded about the "dangers of drawing conclusions based on incomplete news reports, tweets and Facebook posts without necessary context and accurate information." I was drawing conclusions on the text of the policy itself, that was released to church leaders for immediate effect. Baptisms and ordinations have already been cancelled. If a policy can't be properly understood without "necessary context and accurate information," than that context needs to be in the policy itself, or at least released before the policy takes effect.

In other words, SAY WHAT YOU MEAN THE FIRST TIME. I do appreciate the limits of language, and that words don't convey a meaning with 100% precision. However, if you're creating a policy that marks people as apostates and keeps their children out of the church with immediate effect, it's crucial that the words of that policy are really close to what you mean, the first time. Besides the leaders of congregations to whom the policy is released, missionaries, parents, and leaders of children and youth are going to need to figure out what it means and how to apply it, immediately.  If you don't want to scatter and destroy the Lord's flock, you can't just say something broad, tuck it away in a limited-distribution handbook in case it ever comes up, and trust that anyone discouraged by how bad the words are will call you to see if you really meant something else.  You have to be clear from the start.

In the end, I'm left with two options. First, either church leaders meant what they said the first time, when the literal wording of the policy was much broader than its current interpretation, were shocked by the reaction, and are now backpedaling under the guise of a clarification, to save face. Second, the policy always meant what it means now, and was thoughtlessly released, half-baked, by people who really should have known better, but couldn't or wouldn't take the time to think it through. Neither option makes me feel much better about this whole thing.

About Legal Reasons for the New LDS Policy

I keep seeing speculation about various legal reasons why the LDS church needed to implement its new exclusionary policy. Here's this lawyer's opinion (although I don't practice family law, and this isn't legal advice): THOSE REASONS MAKE NO SENSE.

The rationalization always goes something like this: (1) LGBT people are using (or will soon use) the legal system to attack the church; (2) the church wants to avoid potential legal liability for turning a child against his or her parents; (3) the church can't admit that this is the real reason, because it'd be a PR disaster; (4) but I'm smart enough to have sussed it out; and optionally (5) cut church leaders some slack because you're not a bigot if you're doing what your lawyer said you had to.

Taking these points in order: First, same-sex marriage has been legal in many states and countries for years now -- if the church was worried about attacks based on legal same-sex marriage, it acted very late. Also, the church has a bit of a persecution complex from that time when Joseph Smith was assassinated and we were forced to flee to Utah, but it now enjoys a firm, established, respected, and legally protected position in society. There aren't that many credible threats, and frankly, it demonizes LGBT people more than a little to believe that there are.

Second, the idea is usually that the church would be in some way legally liable if a child is raised as a member of a church that turns the child against at least one of his or her parents by preaching that same-sex cohabitation is wrong, grievously sinful, etc. But anyone who wants to be baptized, confirmed, ordained, or recommended for missionary service is most likely going to church and hearing the same things. How is it any better to tell them, additionally, "oh, you can't even be an official member of the church, and also your mom and her wife are apostates"? How does that turn the child against the parents any less?

(There are other theories about how we have to clarify what we believe for some legal reason, but they similarly fail to explain how the change improves the legal situation. The Family Proclamation might have been drafted 20 years ago for legal reasons, but the church's actions since then have already made its teachings abundantly clear.)

Third, it's hard to imagine a worse PR disaster than now. If the church admitted some sort of legal necessity, it'd probably be more sympathetic, not less.

Fourth, isn't the most straightforward explanation for church leaders calling something "apostasy," rather than just "sin," that they believe it is leading church members away from the truth? I'm not interested in an extraordinary conspiracy theory about the church's secret legal reasons that it can't publicly admit, without extraordinary evidence.

Lastly, I really don't care that much about trying to prove that church leaders had good intentions. I assume that they did; I have every reason to believe they are people of good will. But people of good will can still do things with hateful effects, and it's the effects of this policy that worry me far more than the motives. Also, "we had to do this hurtful, exclusionary thing to protect our right to do this other hurtful, exclusionary thing" isn't really an argument that is going to change my mind about whether your motives are good.

About Elder Christofferson's Explanation of the New LDS Policy

On Thursday (Nov. 5), the LDS Church brought a new policy into effect, defining people in same-sex marriage as apostates (for whom Church discipline is mandatory), and barring children from Church membership if a parent is living or has lived in a same-sex relationship. I've posted enough about this elsewhere; I'll just sum up by saying that this new policy draws a big red line that redefines what it means to be Mormon, and I'm not very happy to see how many people will be painfully excluded.

On Friday, Elder Christofferson of the LDS Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained the context of the new policy. Here are my thoughts on that explanation.

Mainly, I noticed that the explanation for the policy regarding children is based on avoiding conflict between the parents and the Church, for children living in a home and family setting where the parents are a same sex couple. The policy, however, is not so limited by its own text: children are affected if a parent (whether the child lives in the home of that parent or not), is living or has lived in a same sex relationship. Why the disconnect between the written policy and the explanation? Elder Christofferson is one of the brightest lawyers in the church and one of the fifteen people whose unanimous assent was required for this new policy; why would he assent to something that he is surely capable of seeing the breadth of, and then explain it so narrowly?

I noticed the gentleness of the language, in sharp contrast to the harshness of the decision. The new policy is called a "clarification" that church discipline is mandatory for same-sex marriage. When talking about designating people as apostate, and mandating that disciplinary councils be held to determine who will be excommunicated, "clarification" significantly understates the case. When I was dating, and someone told me "I can't see myself with you anymore," it was indeed clarifying, but I called it "getting dumped."

The justification for the timing of the policy seems strange, too. Christofferson explains: "With the Supreme Court's decision in the United States, there was a need for a distinction to be made between what may be legal and what may be law of the Church..." Is this church only for the United States? If we didn't need this distinction to be made in Canada ten years ago, or in Brazil two years ago, why do we need it once the U.S. Supreme Court does something?

Most significantly, Jesus is invoked. Christofferson says "[Jesus] never excused or winked at sin. He never redefined it. He never changed His mind."

That doesn't sound like we are reading the same Gospels.  The Jesus I believe in is the one who refused to condemn the woman taken in adultery. The one who ate with the people he shouldn't eat with, and healed the people he shouldn't even be near. The one who forgave a woman's many sins, because she loved much. The one who had more regard for healing a soul than for Sabbath restrictions, and who didn't care about eating with unwashed hands, because people are defiled by what goes out of the mouth, not what goes in. And, yes, the one who had strong things to say about sin. It seems to me, though, that His greatest condemnation was reserved for those who sit in Moses' seat, and bind heavy burdens, grievous to be borne -- those who lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. I remember He told them that if they had understood the meaning of "I desire mercy and not sacrifice," they would not have condemned the innocent. But I do not recognize this iron Jesus, who never excused or winked or redefined or changed.

About the Latest Gospel Topics Essays

Nearly two years ago, the LDS Church began publishing what has become a series of thirteen essays, prepared by scholars and approved by the highest church leaders, to officially address some of the more difficult issues of LDS history, doctrine, and practice. The last two (for now, at any rate, with no immediate plans for more) were released this weekend, and apparently took the most work, since it’s been over a year since the eleventh essay was released. My reaction was too long for Facebook, so here it all is on my blog.

Mother in Heaven

It’s now definitively okay to talk about God the Mother in Church. I guess we don’t actually know enough to say very much, but there’s no taboo on the subject either, and there is now a definitive (if short) statement endorsed by the First Presidency and the Twelve, not just a bit of poetry that made it into the hymnal, or occasional mention of “heavenly parents.” I’m hopeful that the doctrine can develop further since it is now actually getting some attention.

One thing I appreciate is that although unsavory speculation about God the Father being polygamously connected to multiple Mother-gods is not specifically refuted, it is also not raised, and is generally inconsistent with the way the idea is presented – note language like “our Mother” or “we have a Mother.” If it said “each of us has a Mother,” it would allow room for multiple Mothers, but “we have a Mother” does not. Similarly, “Just as we have a Father” implies a one-to-one correspondence, not many-to-one.

The insistence that we don’t worship or pray to the Mother is unsurprising, but it’s still odd to me. What eternal God, worthy to be a full partner of God the Father, does not deserve our thanks and praise? The Son was worshiped in the Book of Mormon, when He appeared to the Nephites. (3 Nephi 11:17). For that matter, we conflate the Father and the Son so regularly, we hardly know which is which. If we identify Jehovah as the premortal Jesus, is David worshiping the Father or the Son when he prays “Blessed be thou, LORD God of Israel our father”? (1 Chronicles 29:10). Yes, we pray to the Father because that’s what Jesus said to do. But considering that Jesus is never recorded as even mentioning a divine Mother, we’re already pretty far afield – would it be too blasphemous for our worship of the One God, that includes the Father and the Son, to extend to the Mother too?

Joseph Smith’s Teachings about Priesthood, Temple, and Women

This essay begins with an LDS understanding of priesthood inherited from other Christians in the 1830s, when only men could be priests in most Christian denominations. Our understanding grew from there, and the essay emphasizes what women can currently do, but makes it clear that “[a]s in the earliest days of the Church, [only] men are ordained to priesthood offices.” These statements remind me of the “Race and the Priesthood” essay: neither one explicitly says that church policy was caused by nineteenth century sexism or racism, but both are careful to situate the discussion in that context. Also, in the race and priesthood essay, several justifications that had been advanced for withholding priesthood ordination and temple blessings from black people were explicitly disavowed, so that there really could be no other explanation than the context of racist American culture for the former ban. Similarly in this essay (but without an explicit disavowal), no justification other than “as in the earliest days” is given for withholding formal priesthood ordination from women.

(A few clarifications: First, being a black Mormon still isn’t easy, even if you’re ordained. I want to be clear that I don’t view LDS racism as solved, or the racial priesthood/temple ban as too closely parallel to the current situation of LDS women. I’m just noticing that the Church’s approach to explaining both situations is similar in some ways. Second, when it comes to the lack of justification in this essay, there is at least a footnote to Elder Oaks saying that the Lord has directed that only men will be ordained to priesthood offices, and that LDS presiding authorities are not free to alter divine decrees. Oaks may well believe that if the Church is directed by God, then “that’s how we’ve always done it” is equivalent to “the Lord has directed” – I don’t if that’s how Oaks thinks, but I can’t help noticing that he omitted any footnote of his own that might point to some recorded revelation to show what “the Lord has directed.” Failing to support a key proposition really doesn’t seem like Oaks’ careful, lawyerly style. Anyways, even when we treat “the Lord has directed” as distinct from “as in the earliest days of the church,” the second is the reason that’s emphasized, and the first is buried in a footnote. Also, neither is really a justification in the sense of explaining why the distinction is just, or why God may want it that way.)

The lack of justification for not ordaining women is a good thing, in a way. I was very worried that I would see something about motherhood being equivalent to priesthood, or about men needing priesthood to be more spiritual, like women, or some such thing. I’m very glad that Church leaders have chosen not to endorse such problematic, sexist justifications. There are still plenty of teachings in the LDS Church about complementary gender roles that seem to squeeze me and others into a box that doesn’t quite fit (that’s a post for another day), but if Church leaders aren’t using any particular gender roles as justification for not ordaining women, maybe Church members can stop doing that, too.

I’m glad to see an emphasis on how women exercise priesthood authority to carry out the Relief Society’s charge to relieve the poor and save souls. With the Relief Society established in preparation for the temple, I’m also glad to see the “endowment of power” conferred on women and men in the temple, and the “order of the priesthood” connected with marriage in the temple, described as bestowals of priesthood power.

Additionally, the history of women blessing the sick is also now definitively okay to talk about at church. However, the current insistence that “only Melchizedek Priesthood holders may administer to the sick or afflicted” provides a stark contrast between the idea of expansively conferred or delegated priesthood authority and the hard limits that still exist on formal priesthood ordination.

Currently, as the essay clarifies, women in the LDS Church can preach and pray in Church meetings, be full-time proselytizing missionaries, officiate in the temple, participate in priesthood councils, teach in Church universities and educational programs, lead organizations of women, girls, and children, and minister to families and the Church in many important and significant ways. However, women cannot baptize, bless the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, bless the sick (anymore), or perform any other function that requires formal priesthood ordination. It’s greatly to the credit of Joseph Smith as a visionary that in the 1830s and 1840s, he established a “kingdom of priests” that grew to include women in so many ways.

By contrast, the modern LDS Church looks pretty non-visionary for continuing to insist on a hard line separating women from particular priestly functions. The lack of justification for the distinction is good in that it doesn’t perpetuate particularly sexist teachings, but continuing an old, sexist practice without a good reason isn’t great either. Maybe the absence of a good reason could prompt us to reconsider some things, but the Church seems particularly unwilling to even consider some things, recently.

The authors of the article might accuse me of being distracted by formal offices. Apparently, I risk misunderstanding or overlooking the priesthood authority that LDS women do exercise, or mistakenly equating priesthood with religious office and the people who hold it. Well, I do appreciate the expansive notion of priesthood – not quite as broad, theoretically, as a “priesthood of all believers,” but close in practice, since any practicing Mormon will have many opportunities to minister in ways that we now understand as involving priesthood authority. However, the word “priesthood” is also still used throughout the English-speaking world to refer to the condition or state of being a priest, or to a body of priests, and it’s silly to pretend that the word doesn’t mean those things too – it’s what the “-hood” suffix means, after all. So, if I’m concerned that women are barred from “priesthood,” in the narrower sense, it’s not a very good answer to explain all the ways that women exercise priesthood power in the broader sense and then insist that I misunderstand the word.

Are the Heavens Gendered?

Both essays seem to double down on a gendered eternity. The LDS church teaches that it is God’s plan for men and women to be exalted together as partners, to become more like the divine Mother and Father in whose image they are created. Single people don’t fit into that mold very well, since vague assurances that God will sort it all out when you’re dead aren’t actually much of a theology (or even very comforting). Not to mention that if the highest heaven only admits people who fit into matched up “man” and “woman” cubbyholes, that means that if you prefer a partner of the same sex, or don’t identify as either a man or a woman, then you either don’t belong there, or you do belong there, but with a big chunk of your personality erased. Neither of those options sound like heaven to me.

Honestly, I’m not sure to what extent I believe in the divine Father and Mother as distinct beings, or in a gendered heaven. I certainly believe that heaven does not have an exclusively masculine King without a Queen. However, if, as Joseph Smith taught, some spirits are more intelligent than others, and God is the most intelligent of all (Abraham 3:19), then there should be nothing about masculinity or femininity that the most intelligent spirit does not comprehend. If there is a distinct divine Mother, I don’t want to erase her, but it seems just about as likely to me that there’s a God the Parent that we have failed to understand the feminine aspects of.

A Final Note on Reinterpretation

As I was reading and checking the footnotes, I noticed one more interesting thing: the footnotes seem to take some liberties in re-interpreting scripture. Scripture about an endowment of power associated with the first LDS temple in Kirtland, Ohio, is read to apply to the second LDS temple, in Nauvoo, Illinois, which had significantly different rites. Scripture that describes the temple covenant of marriage as an “order of priesthood” entered into by a man (and described in another footnote as a “patriarchal” order) is read as describing both spouses entering together into an order of the priesthood. Of course, I do understand that what began in Ohio might continue or improve in Illinois, and that we often read scripture to refer to both genders when only one is mentioned. I’m also aware that reinterpreting scripture to mean something new goes back at least as far as the New Testament. It’s just interesting to see, so clearly, that we’re still doing it.

About "doctrine":

It's time to talk about just what counts as doctrine in the LDS church. Specifically, it's time for LDS General Conference again. Salt Lake City fills up with Mormons from all over the world (and I do my best to avoid downtown at certain hours). I've heard that there are various private training meetings all week long, but the biggest thing that most of us call "General Conference" are the more public, two hour long sessions. The first session, for women, was this weekend; next weekend includes a session for men and four sessions for a more general audience.

If you're keeping track, that's about 12 hours of church, and 10 in one weekend. Each session typically includes opening and closing prayers, opening and closing choir numbers, and a hymn halfway through to wake you up. Waking you up is important, as the rest of the session is mostly "talks" from general church leaders, and the talks are often the dryest sermons you could imagine, delivered from a teleprompter in a dim room. There's also a small amount of church business to conduct, which might be more interesting than usual this time, if new apostles are announced, but it's mostly talks. The talks are translated into a surprising number of languages, broadcast all over the world, and published online and on church magazines, and they largely set the direction of the LDS church for at least the next six months. Regular Sunday talks and lessons will often cite, or even be based on, these conference talks.

This talk was a beautiful sermon on grace, and not at all dry. Every rule has exceptions.

LDS doctrine is a growing, shifting thing, and conference is most often where new directions in church doctrine are seen. For example, for the last few months have seen increasing emphasis on Sabbath-day observance, beginning with one of the talks from last April's General Conference. On a larger time scale, the last two decades of LDS focus on "the family," including teachings about gender as an essential characteristic and complementary gender roles (often used as justification for controversial church policies such as opposition to same-sex marriage or an exclusively male priesthood) were heavily influenced by "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," a document which announced at conference time twenty years ago.

Conference is also wonderfully "uncorrelated." Every LDS publication is vetted by a correlation committee to ensure consistency with existing church doctrine. Conference talks, though, are not assigned or vetted ahead of time. Speakers seek inspiration to know what to say, but no mortal hand is on the tiller -- you may hear something entirely new.

What if you don't agree with what was said, though? Colloquially, "that's not doctrine" is used to mean something like "I don't believe that" or "you can't prove that from the canonical works of LDS scripture" or "that could change," or "that has changed." It's used by heterodox and orthodox alike. If you have some disagreements with current LDS teachings and you don't like what the Family Proclamation says about gender roles, just say, "well, it isn't doctrine." If you fully agree with current LDS teachings, but safely disagree with what was said about black people so many conferences ago, you can also say "that was a policy, not a doctrine."

A lot of questions are raised by this usage: what does "doctrine" consist of in the LDS Church anyways? What is the dividing line between doctrine and policy? Is something said by one of the "prophets, seers, and revelators" in the LDS Church necessarily doctrine?

Paradoxes

A lot of the dialogue about doctrine is a bit paradoxical. On the one hand, in rejecting the creeds of traditional Christianity, the LDS church has long emphasized the individual ability to learn the truth from the Holy Spirit, and to believe accordingly, and has consistently resisted attempts to systematize its theology. There are a few foundational principles that a Mormon must believe in order to fully participate in the LDS church as a temple-goer, but that list is very short, and practices matter much more than beliefs in a lot of ways -- you can be a good Mormon and still believe some unorthodox things, as long as you do what you're supposed to. We refute accusations of following our leaders like unquestioning sheep by referring to teachings about asking God, for yourself, what is true.

On the other hand, the body of generally-held beliefs not well defined, but it is fairly large, and pressure to belief it all is intense. "I know" is preferred to "I believe." Children are taught to sing "Follow the Prophet" ad infinitum, and if you don't think you should follow the Prophet, well, you need to pray harder, to get the rightanswer from God. It is commonly asserted that the Prophet will never lead the church astray, and that the revealed word of God states "whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same." The old joke is that Catholics teach that the Pope is infallible, but don't believe it, and Mormons teach that the Prophet is fallible, but don't believe it.

Another paradox arises in the Book of Mormon where Jesus announces "this is my doctrine," in the context of telling disciples how to baptize, and commanding that "disputations" about that and other points of doctrine should end. (3 Nephi 11:22-40). The doctrine is that those who believe, repent, and are baptized will be visited with fire and the Holy Ghost, and will inherit the kingdom of God; those who do not are damned. This doctrine is the rock to build on, and anyone who declares more or less than this as Christ's doctrine is built on a sandy foundation. Of course, this seems very limiting -- didn't Jesus himself teach all manner of other doctrine, like "love your neighbor" and "turn the other cheek"? (Well, if you insist on literal internal consistency in scripture, Mormonism may not be a good fit for you, and traditional Christianity may not be either).

So, is doctrine a short list of foundational principles, or is it a long list of beliefs? Is it as simple as "repent, believe, and be baptized," or is it as complicated as the entire history of God's interaction with humans? One paradox that is less often noticed is that sometimes we are talking past each other, and using the word "doctrine" to mean very different things.

Church Doctrine

In general usage (LDS or not) "doctrine" just means "teachings." It comes from the Latin "docere," meaning "to teach." It might refer to church teachings, or to principles held and taught by a political party or other group, or to a principle of government policy, like the Monroe Doctrine. In the religious context, it particularly refers to teachings that are tied in some way to religious belief. So, "Joseph Smith was born in 1805" is just history, but "Joseph Smith saw the Father and the Son" involves both history and doctrine. Even though both are taught by the LDS church, only one of those teachings is really pertinent to belief. Similarly, LDS teachings about what local leaders constitute a ward council are pretty much just policy, but LDS teachings about black people and priesthood ordination involve both policy and doctrine. The pre-1978 priesthood/temple ban wasn't just a rule, but a rule with reasons that were deeply rooted in religious belief (that the "curse of Cain" attached to black people), and when the rule changed, religious belief changed along with it (the LDS church now disavows that black people are cursed, or in any way inferior to anyone else).

For clarity, it's probably best to refer to doctrine in this sense as "church doctrine." There ought to be no question as to whether the Family Proclamation is church doctrine; it clearly is. Similarly there ought to be no question as to whether the pre-1978 priesthood/temple ban was church doctrine: it clearly was. It's still useful to ask "is that church doctrine?" to distinguish official church teaching from individual opinions (which may sometimes be taught as if they were church doctrine). However, asking whether something is church doctrine isn't ultimately a question about whether it is true; it's just about whether it is an official teaching of the church.

It ought to be easy to tell what is church doctrine. Neil. L. Anderson tells us that church leaders are honest but imperfect, but that church doctrine won't be difficult to find, or hidden in an obscure paragraph of one talk; it will be taught by all 15 members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. Or course, there will still be ambiguity at the margins, where church leaders disagree on issues that are not as central to belief (such as whether there was death before the Fall). In some such cases, it may even be difficult to tell whether church leaders are generally in agreement or whether they just don't want to contradict each other too publicly. However, core doctrines about God's plan, our fallen nature, the Atonement, and so on, ought to be fairly easy to determine.

Additionally, though, church doctrine may not always be true. It's clearest that a doctrine isn't true when it is deliberately refuted. For example, the former doctrine about the "curse of Cain" applying to black people is clearly not true, and it has been officially renounced. It's less clear, but a strong suggestion, that doctrine isn't true, when it simply fades away. For example, early church leaders justified polygamy by teaching that God himself had multiple wives in heaven, who in some way gave birth to premortal human spirits. This still has some currency as Mormon folk doctrine, and a retraction might be useful, but for the most part, it's simply not taught by top church leaders. It's not church doctrine anymore, and it may very well not be true, no matter who taught it. (I won't assert with certainty that it's false -- what do I know about God and heaven? -- but I do not believe it, and I don't imagine I'll be accused of heresy for that.) The reasonable inference from all this is that there may yet be church doctrines that are not true, that may in the future be refuted or fade away. If there is yet more to be revealed, then we might be wrong about some things now.

Revealed Doctrine

However, being wrong about anything is inconsistent with the other usage of "doctrine," which I'll call "revealed doctrine" for clarity. It's also called "the doctrine of Christ," but that risks confusion with the more limited set of principles defined in LDS scripture as Christ's doctrine. The implication in calling something "doctrine" in this sense is that it is God's own truth, as revealed to us. Asking whether something is revealed doctrine isn't a question about whether it is an official church teaching; it's a question about whether we have a good basis for believing it.

It's also much harder to tell if something is revealed doctrine. LDS scripture states that "whatsoever they [who are ordained and appointed to 'go forth' to proclaim the gospel] shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation." (D&C 68:4). However, this leaves the burden on us to discern when they are speaking as moved upon by the Holy Ghost.

Sometimes what is revealed doctrine is complicated. A simplistic test like "it's the word of God if it's in a general conference talk" is unsatisfactory. In one meeting, Brigham Young is reported to have preached in the afternoon against what he preached in the morning, explaining that the morning's remarks were from him, but the afternoon's remarks were from God. How much more often might that happen where the speaker speaks for himself, but does not come back in the afternoon with a correction?

Of course, modern conference speakers are not as extemporaneous and fiery-tempered as Brigham Young, I honestly believe they seek inspiration as they prepare, and speak as the Holy Ghost inspires them to do. However, that still doesn't mean that every word is scripture -- they may be generally inspired in some areas, but filling in their own words in others. For example, I personally believe that Elaine S. Dalton, former president of the general church organization for young women, was inspired to emphasize the importance of sexual morality. However, I also believe that, in following that inspired course, the emphasis on a verse suggesting that virtue is something you don't control, that someone else can take away by force, was incredibly damaging, and could not have been inspired.

Additionally, we may not be able to immediately discern what is the word of God. D. Todd Christofferson recently affirmed the words of J. Reuben Clark: "...The Church will know by the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the body of the members, whether the brethren in voicing their views are 'moved upon by the Holy Ghost'; and in due time that knowledge will be made manifest." We Mormons study scriptures and modern prophets to learn the word of God, but we should not assume that all of that is the word of God, until that knowledge is made manifest, in due time, by the Holy Ghost, to us, the members. And if there is anything I've learned from the long path to renouncing the racist doctrines of the past, it is that "in due time" may involve quite a long time.

Scripture out of Context

There are a few bits of LDS scripture that are often taken out of context and used to end debate about what is revealed doctrine or not, by clobbering doubters into submission. They are so often repeated that they deserve to be specifically addressed.

The 1890 "Manifesto" issued by Wilford Woodruff, the Prophet at the time, which led to the end of plural marriage in the LDS Church, is published in LDS scriptures accompanied by a statement of Wilford Woodruff's that "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray." (Official Declaration 1). Of course, it's circular reasoning to rely on an assertion of the Church President to prove that the Church President won't lead you astray -- what if the Church President was wrong about that? In context, it should be clear that Woodruff is asserting divine authority for a dramatic change. He isn't, on his own initiative, abandoning a cherished principle that so many Mormons had made sacrifices to practice, but is following the course God revealed to him. He is asserting that the Prophet will never lead the Church "astray" (i.e., in a direction opposite to the will of God), and that big changes in direction for the Church are a result of revelation, not that the Prophet can never be wrong or that all the details of church doctrine are directly from God.

Another verse, which includes "whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same," is often taken badly out of context to assert that everything God's servants (but curiously only God's servants in the LDS church) say may as well have come directly from God. The full context of this quote is in a revelation recorded by Joseph Smith as the Lord's preface to the Book of Commandments -- the predecessor to the modern Doctrine and Covenants:

Search these commandments, for they are true and faithful, and the prophecies and promises which are in them shall all be fulfilled. What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same. (D&C 1:37-38).

These verses have specific application to the Book of Commandments, but the more general message is not that the voice of God's servants is no different from the voice of God; it is that when God's servants speak the word of God, it will be fulfilled the same as if God had spoken it. However, it still remains incumbent on us to discern when they are speaking the word of God, and when they are speaking for themselves.

In the end, church doctrine and revealed doctrine are often conflated, due to LDS insistence on one true church -- if this is God's church, how could what the church teaches be any different from what God has revealed? I believe we'd be better off, though, if we could more clearly say what we meant when we talk about "doctrine," and if we could avoid trying to clobber people into unquestioning belief.

About that corporation:

There's a myth I keep hearing that lives at the exciting intersection of Mormonism and corporate law. It goes something like this:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn't exist.  It has been replaced by a corporation, and it is governed not by its own doctrines but by a corporate charter.

It's false, and I want to explain why.  But first, here's why it matters.

Succession in the Presidency of the Church

One possible area of conflict between LDS Church doctrine and a corporate charter is this: who will be the next President of the LDS Church?  The answer, according to church doctrine, relies on a complicated process involving the presiding councils of the church.  Here are the councils that matter:

Screenshot from the LDS Church website August 16, 2015

The President of the Church is recognized by the LDS Church as the successor to Joseph Smith, and colloquially referred to as "the Prophet."  He and his counselors form the "First Presidency," which is the governing council of the church.  The counselors are traditionally (but not always) selected from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (Q12).  "Quorum," incidentally, is used as a synonym of "council"; a quorum to do business, in the ordinary sense, requires only a majority if circumstances prevent the full council from meeting.  Thus, if the Prophet is disabled, the Quorum of the First Presidency can still take care of the business of the church.

The Twelve Apostles are currently short by two due to recent deaths. Normally, the Q12 has twelve members who are not serving in the First Presidency.  By tradition, the senior member of the Quorum (by length of service in the Quorum, not by age), is the President of the Quorum of the Twelve.  The Q12 is "equal in authority" to the First Presidency, and major questions are considered by the two councils together (sometimes referred to as the Q15).

Upon the death of the President of the Church, the First Presidency is dissolved, and the counselors re-take their places in the Quorum of the Twelve (assuming that they were members of the Q12 in the first place).  The Quorum of the Twelve is then the presiding council of the LDS Church until it reorganizes the First Presidency.  While the Q12 is in charge, the President of the Quorum of the Twelve, as President of the Quorum, is sort of a de facto President of the Church.  In all 15 cases since the death of Joseph Smith, the President of the Quorum has become the new President of the Church when the First Presidency was reorganized.

They all serve for life.  Barring occasional drama such as Apostles being excommunicated (very rare, but there were some difficulties about polygamy), vacancies typically arise only when someone in the Q15 dies.  It all seems a bit mechanical, this combination of scripture and tradition that results in a Prophet being selected entirely based on who has died since his call as an Apostle, forty or so years earlier, but the teaching is that the hand of God is still present in determining who receives that first call, and when to call them home.

The result is that the President of the Church, and the President of the Q12 (who is presumably next in line) are usually very old men.  The accumulated wisdom of age (and many, many years in church service) is respected, but there are also accompanying difficulties.  The Prophet of my youth was too unwell, for many years, to actually speak to the church.

Until recently, the health of both the Prophet and the President of the Twelve didn't look good. President Monson (the current Prophet) is clearly having increasing difficulties, and President Packer (the recently deceased President of the Twelve, and a childhood survivor of polio) appeared incredibly frail, and could barely talk.  It would not have been kind to make President Packer the new Prophet, had President Monson died first.  (Progressive Mormons would also not have welcomed adding all of President Packer's teachings, as an Apostle, to the Teachings of the Prophets curriculum, but that's another story.)

Some of us turn to speculation: how much of the above is dictated by LDS scripture, and how much is tradition only?  I can't find any commandment in the standard works of LDS scripture for members of the Q15 to serve for life, or even for the President of the Twelve to become the new President of the Church.  So, is it possible that we could have emeritus Apostles, or a retired Prophet, and get some young blood into the Q12 without waiting for someone to die? Is it possible for the Quorum of the Twelve, after the death of the Prophet, to reorganize the First Presidency with someone other than the President of the Twelve as the new President of the Church?  Cynics turn to the myth they believe in and say "No -- it doesn't matter what is or isn't in LDS scriptures; it has to be done the way it's always been done because a corporate charter says so."

Corporations Sole

Wait -- why is there a corporate charter involved?  Can't a church select a new president according to its own doctrines? (It can).  There is indeed a corporation involved, though.

In an era where corporations could only really be formed for business purposes, a lot of other associations didn't have a corporate form.  Labor unions, for example, are traditionally unincorporated.  For churches, clergy members traditionally held and managed the property of the church.  However, it's undesirable to have church property pass under a priest's will, when the priest dies.  One solution is the "corporation sole."  It's like a corporation, but with a single office, and no shareholders, directors, or bylaws.  There are still articles of incorporation (i.e., a charter), but they can be very brief. The incumbent, alone, simply is the corporation.  Upon the death of the incumbent, however, property held by the corporation (and not personally by the incumbent) is still held by the corporation, managed according to the articles of incorporation during the interim, and eventually held by the incumbent's successor in office.  It's a convenient way for church property to be held continuously, without regularly going through probate.  Naturally, the corporate charter will include rules for succession (or winding up, if there is no successor).

LDS Corporate Structure

The LDS Church is much bigger than one priest or parish, and has a complicated corporate structure. The church itself used to exist in a corporate form in the United States, but it was dissolved as a result of the Edmunds-Tucker Act, as a penalty for polygamy.  Since then, I don't think the church has had a corporate form in the US, although individual congregations or other organizations may be incorporated in foreign countries that require it.  There are, however, a couple corporations sole associated with the LDS Church: the "Corporation of the President" ("COP"), and the "Corporation of the Presiding Bishop" ("CPB").  I'm not exactly clear on the division, but if Wikipedia is correct, the COP holds money and donations, and the CPB holds real property.  Deseret Management Corporation is a regular corporation that holds the Church's for-profit businesses.  Any number of other corporations (Intellectual Reserve, Inc., for intellectual property; Property Reserve, Inc., for property management, Deseret Book, etc., fall under those three umbrellas)

However, all that property holding by corporations, for the Church, doesn't mean that the Church fails to exist.  The US Supreme Court has described LDS Church structure thus: "The CPB and the COP are religious entities associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Church), an unincorporated religious association."  Corporation of the Presiding Bishop v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327 (1987) (emphasis added).  Now, it's not like Supreme Court Justices are necessarily experts in LDS corporate structure, but it was relevant to the case -- you have to know who to sue if you are fired by Deseret Gym.  The Court was briefed by notable Mormon and former Solicitor General Rex Lee, who I don't imagine would risk his credibility by getting the details wrong.

Note that description: the LDS Church is an "unincorporated religious association."  Like a labor union, however, it still exists, and consists of its members, without necessarily having a separate legal existence.  Like any unincorporated association from your neighborhood book club on up, the LDS Church is governed by its own rules and officers, not by a corporate charter.  As Christians are the body of Christ, this makes sense: the body exists in its members, not as some noncorporeal fictional person created by state law.  Of course, all decisions might be made by the people in governing committees, and submitted to the members for a vote that's kind of pro forma, but there are a lot of associations (incorporated or not) that operate like that.

The Corporate Charter

So, the charter for COP has to say something about who the successor is, though, right?  Well, it turns out there's a copy of the charter online.  (I have no idea if that's really genuine, but no reason to believe it's not.  That's the document the believers in this particular myth all seem to point to, and if you were going to fake it to support their point, you could certainly make it support the point more clearly.  If you want a guaranteed genuine copy and don't mind figuring out which document to download from Utah's online repository (go here, and click on "View Filed Documents"), let me know what you find.)

Here's what that charter says about succession:

The title of the person making these articles of incorporation is "President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." He and his successor in office shall be deemed and are hereby created a body politic and corporation sole with perpetual succession, having all the powers and rights and authority in these articles specified or provided for by law. But in the event of the death or resignation from office of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or in the event of a vacancy in that office from any cause, the President or Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of said Church, or one of the members of said Quorum thereunto designated by that Quorum, shall, pending the installation of a successor President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, be the corporation sole under these articles....

In plainer English: The successor to the office of President of the Church is the successor for the COP.  In the interim, an Apostle manages (i.e., is) the COP.  There's nothing about serving for life; in fact, it anticipates that the President of the Church may resign.  There's also nothing about the President of the Twelve having to succeed to the office of President of the Church.  Even in the interim between church Presidents, it can be any member of the Q12 who has control of the corporation.

I haven't seen the charter for the CPB, (notably, succession to the office of Presiding Bishop is a lot simpler), but I suspect it's similar -- when one Presiding Bishop leaves, the new Presiding Bishop takes over CPB, and there's someone for continuity's sake in the interim.  Why do I suspect this, sight unseen?  Because the LDS Church employs/retains some pretty good lawyers, who aren't complete idiots! OF COURSE they're going to leave the corporate charters as broad as possible!  They don't want to get in the way of the Church!

Even if the charter for the COP said something more about succession to the Presidency of the Church, it wouldn't really be a big deal.  Normally, amending a corporate charter is a big headache: the board of directors has to propose the amendment, and the shareholders have to vote to approve it. (Or something like that.  It's been a while since Business Associations class in law school.)  With a corporation sole, however, there's only the one person.  With no board and no shareholders, it's trivially easy to do anything, including amending your corporate charter.

Now, if you're concerned about corporatism in the LDS Church -- that the Church looks and acts like a faceless bureaucracy -- you'll likely find me sympathetic.  But can we stop repeating the myth that everything is really determined by some corporate charter?  The idea leaves no room for scripture, innovation, inspiration, or revelation.  It's about the most cynical thing a Latter-day Saint could believe about the Church and the work of God in it.

About that stone:

Every so often, something will get me thinking, and I'll have more to say than I want to put in a Facebook post. So, here I am blogging, several years after it's no longer trendy.

Here's something that apparently every Mormon on the internet is talking about: for the first time ever, you can see photographs of a "seer stone" used by Joseph Smith. (Surprisingly, lots of people at church today hadn't heard about it at all -- it turns out my internet bubble isn't a representative sample).



This week's news from the Joseph Smith Papers Project would be noteworthy without the pictures of the stone: in a historic collaboration between the LDS Church and the Community of Christ, one of the earliest manuscripts of the Book of Mormon is now available in print, soon to be online. However, the hundreds of pages of manuscript are (at least for now) totally overshadowed by these few photographs. It's nothing we've ever seen before. The Salt Lake Tribune has more background about the project (and the stone), and the LDS Church has a new article about the stone and its relevance to the Book of Mormon.

Reactions vary. I've heard everything from "The Church lied and hid this, and made me believe it was an anti-Mormon lie" to "I've always known about the stone, and aren't these pictures fantastic!" Joseph Smith's practice of obtaining revelation from God by looking into this stone leads Richard Bushman to compare it to an iPad; less LDS-friendly sources compare it to a Magic 8 Ball. In the same article, Bushman suggests that the stone troubles us because it "crosses a boundary ... between religion and superstition": it brings pre-Enlightenment folk magic into a religious tradition that more closely resembles post-Enlightenment Protestantism. In the end, Bushman rather likes the stone, and doesn't much care to insist that God acts in ways that are reputable by Enlightenment standards.

I share the sentiment: I love the connection to old traditions, even if we now regard them as odd, and I believe God can inspire Joseph Smith, or anyone else, in any way God pleases. However, I also think it's important to acknowledge that the stone can be troubling for a lot of other reasons, beyond mere discomfort with superstition. I'm immensely pleased that this historic and sacred artifact can be seen and better understood, but I'm also a bit uneasy about its new prominence. Here are some of the things I think we're going to have to deal with:

Vastly Different Historical Backgrounds

Put me in the "I've always known about this" camp. I mean, I wasn't born knowing it, and I grew up with the standard story Mormon kids and new converts learn. Short version: Joseph Smith saw an angel, who told him where to dig up an ancient, sacred record of an American people, engraved in an unknown language on gold plates. With the plates was the "Urim and Thummim": not the contents of Aaron the High Priest's breastplate from the Bible, but two stones, set in "silver bows," and fastened to a breastplate, prepared for the purposes of translating the record. (The less respectful term is "magic spectacles.") Joseph translated a portion of the plates by means of the Urim and Thummim (specifically, by looking in it or through it), and dictated his translation to a series of scribes (mainly Oliver Cowdery), resulting in the Book of Mormon. The plates and the interpreters were returned to the angel, and Joseph's later revelations did not require a similar physical intermediary. Honestly, it's not any weirder than a burning bush and stone tablets, when you grow up with it.

The more complicated version is that Joseph used at least one other seer stone in producing the Book of Mormon, often putting it into a hat to block off light. Joseph never said much about this other than that he translated "by the gift and power of God", but others close to him report that he saw words, characters, proper names, or whole sentences in the stone. I honestly can't remember the first time I saw this version, or in what context. I devoured a fair amount of literature about Mormonism (for and against) as a teenager, and I don't remember if I saw this in a hostile source and thought they got it wrong, or if I saw it in a church source, or what. I'm pretty sure that I had heard about it by the time I was a 19-year-old missionary myself, even if I wasn't quite sure what to think of it.  Eventually I concluded it didn't matter to me much: rock spectacles, rock in a hat, whatever.

However, not everyone read the same stuff I did (especially the anti-Mormon stuff, which Mormons, in general, are actively discouraged from reading), and a lot of people feel like something was covered up.  As I understand it, Joseph Fielding Smith (longtime church historian, great-nephew of Joseph, and 10th president of the LDS Church) didn't believe the rock had anything to do with the Book of Mormon, and viewed contrary accounts as attacks on faith.  Apparently, we got past that, but he left a big mark on the church.  Plus, the LDS Church I grew up had to deal with incredible growth, without "gathering" new converts to Utah like we used to do -- entire congregations might be led by people who were relatively new converts themselves.  The focus was on "correlation": creating a uniform curriculum (translated into more and more languages), a set of programs, and a structure of oversight, to teach basic principles and ensure that new congregations wouldn't wander.  By the 1970's, there were occasional articles discussing seer stones in church magazines, but if you weren't making sure you read every article, most of what you learned was from the correlated curriculum. Who has time to talk about seer stones in Sunday School, though, when you could talk about faith and repentance, instead?  It's a choice I respect, even though I feel like the correlated curriculum is far too shallow in a lot of ways.

I don't think the church has covered up the stone -- not for a long time, at any rate.  However, the "intro-only" approach to church history hasn't served us well, nor is it useful to pretend that, if you feel betrayed, it's your own fault for not finding out about the stone yourself.  Not everyone is going to look up church history sources on their own, especially when they're kept busy with Sunday and weekday meetings, endless programs, seminary and institute, youth night, missionary work, temple worship, family history work, and more and more and more.  Plus it's natural to feel betrayed if you've been in a church for several years, and you knew there was some pretty weird stuff, but now it turns out that there's some other weird stuff you never knew.  We can do a lot better at getting beyond intro-level in what gets discussed on Sunday, while still keeping our meetings focused on more important principles.

Scrying

Aside from the fact that it can be surprising, it turns out that the rock in the hat is different from the rock spectacles in one important way: it had other uses.  When Joseph Smith was younger, he used a seer stone -- possibly this stone -- to look for buried treasure.  It's not an anti-Mormon lie (anymore); you can read about it in the LDS Church's own account.  Like dowsing, it seems to have been a common enough practice, if lower class; I'd judge it to be about on par with going to a psychic today.  He never had much success, but accusations that he was a con man often come back to this: he was either a fraud, taking money under false pretenses, or he did find some gold (the plates) that rightfully belonged to someone else.

I don't personally think he was a fraud; he probably honestly believed he could do it, despite all evidence to the contrary.  Also, if you honestly believed God could show you things in a stone what wouldn't you try to see?!  Anyone who's prayed for a way out of a financial jam, or to find a set of lost car keys, should be able to understand.  However profane such an activity might be, it ought not to preclude the power of God to use a stone for sacred purposes.  Still, now that the rock in the hat is front and center, the treasure hunting has to be too -- we can't just sweep it under the rug anymore.

Book of Mormon Translation Issues

Other issues that the stone makes us confront have to do with how the Book of Mormon was translated.  A key teaching of the LDS Church about how to experience the Holy Ghost comes from an incident where Oliver Cowdery, Joseph's scribe, wanted to try doing some translating himself, but failed.   From Joseph Smith's (sometimes pointed) revelations, we learn that God apparently would have let him translate, but Oliver is rebuked for taking no thought except to ask God, believing that God would provide a translation.  What he should have done, we learn, is study it out until arriving at some conclusion, then ask if it's right: if it's right, "your bosom shall burn within you," and if it's wrong, "you shall have a stupor of thought."  Anyways, that's how it would have worked for him, if it had worked, but he didn't get a second chance.  Translating was Joseph's calling.

From this, I think we get the idea that Joseph largely interpreted by studying the plates, using the stone interpreters to pray for God to confirm or deny his attempts.  It's also what we learn about the Holy Ghost -- look for a "burning in the bosom" or a "stupor of thought."  The problem is that apparently, Joseph often translated without even looking at the plates.  This makes Oliver more sympathetic; he's no dummy; he's just doing what he's seen Joseph do.  But if that's the case, why did we need to have the plates at all?  And what's with setting up Oliver for failure anyways?  And should we really teach that about the Holy Ghost if it's not, to our knowledge, how any translation definitely happened?  (I don't reject a burning or a stupor as extreme possibilities, but I prefer the advice to Oliver prior to the attempt: you experience the Holy Ghost in your mind and your heart together.)

Also, if Joseph was reading words from a stone, there are literal translation issues.  The Book of Mormon quotes at length from Isaiah, Malachi, and other prophets, and when it does so, it mostly tracks the language of the King James Version of the Bible.  A few words are changed here and there, but I'm told that errors in the translation of the King James Version are also perpetuated in the Book of Mormon.  I prefer to deal with this (and many of Joseph Smith's later revelations) by believing that Joseph got ideas from God, but had to figure out himself how to convey those ideas in English.  If it's an idea from Isaiah, well, the problem of conveying the idea in English is already solved.  This approach is harder to take if Joseph is getting a word-for-word translation from a stone.  (Also, in that case, God may have some grammar problems).  So, I worry: now that the stone is front and center, is "Joseph got every word from God" going to be the only explanation that you can safely talk about at church?

As an Object, a Relic, or the Definition of a Seer

The existence of the stone itself, as a physical object in the church's possession is wonderful, but also a little embarrassing. There are, of course, the hints of superstition -- do we really believe folk magic is real? Also, I feel a bit as if we had announced that we had a splinter from the true cross, or the rod of Aaron.  The provenance of the stone is not really in doubt, but so many such relics are impossible that I haven't really made room in my head for a true one.  Plus, as a sacred relic, I worry about adoration or imitation.  Of course, there are many Mormon relics: if a disadvantage of being a young church is that everyone can dig up your dirt, one advantage is that lots of your historical records and artifacts are still around -- you can go see a lock of Joseph Smith's hair, or Willard Richards' cloak, or John Taylor's watch, or a first edition of the Book of Mormon.  This stone is in a league of it's own, though, if it's the instrument by which the Book of Mormon was translated.  Will there be framed pictures of it in Mormon living rooms?  Will Mormons start looking in stones as a legitimate mode of revelation again?

The church stepped away from that last option a long time ago.  Joseph outgrew it, and Brigham Young never seemed to see it as essential to his own role as a "seer".  Hiram Page claimed to be receiving revelations from a stone, but Joseph shut that down in a hurry.  The key to revelation wasn't having a stone, but being the person appointed by God to do it (which Joseph was, and Hiram Page wasn't).  However, the top leaders of the LDS Church are all believed to be "prophets, seers, and revelators."  "Seer" may mean something different now, but a literalist approach would take the Book of Mormon at it's word: a "seer" is one who is commanded to look into the "interpreters."  I've never understood that as a key part of being one of the Church's modern "seers," but I've also definitely run into people online this week talking about how they always understood that seers generally had seer stones(!).  Well, now that there is a stone, and we all know about it, are fundamentalist-leaning Mormons (not the polygamists, I mean going back to fundamentals before that) going to insist that seers ought to use it, while cynics say we've lost the gift to do so?

(There's a similar divide between fundamental types who insist that of course Jesus Christ has personally appeared to all of those top leaders -- it's part of being a "special witness" -- and cynics who insist that that's what they want us to think, and we've all been duped.  I'm pretty sure neither is the case. Some LDS Apostles have been pretty frank about the whole idea.  Anyways, I'd hate to see the same craziness again, over seer stones.)

In the end, I feel a bit like I might feel if if there was a second coming of Paul.  I mean, that would be pretty miraculous and all, but would he want to be in charge of things?  I'd really like to not revive the whole "women keep silent in church and cover your heads" thing -- we're past that, I hope. Similarly, Joseph's seer stone is a fascinating part of the Mormon past that I'm glad to know more about, but I hope it doesn't become a significant part of the Mormon future.