woundedknee

Yes. Thanks for commenting further. I should have been clearer. If we have no choice but to sin, there's no use in trying to live a sinless life because that would be impossible. Yet, we do sin. I thank God that Christ has set us free from the slavery of sin.

I think that anything in the story could be viewed as symbolic. I once had a Stake President who told us, in a Bishop's training meeting, that the flaming swords guarding the tree of life were Bishops...relating that to temple recommends. This man, and he wasn't an idiot by any stretch, could see his way to grab some pieces of the story and use them in his own way to make a point. I think Paul had done the same, a few times, with other scriptures. My personal view is that the creation story is literal...but one can use it as it seems wise.

It sounds as if this kid could be a relative of J. Golden Kimball. Sin ought to disgust people. Not that we can stop ourselves from sinning. We will sin. We at least can repent of it. When we start to look on sin with tolerance the path is already chosen. There are many these days, even in the church, who quit looking on sin as something disgusting. They are starting to embrace it and look at themselves as enlightened. To me, that is scary. Still...it is so wonderful to have a Savior providing us the gift of grace. We cannot make it otherwise.

I very much like your response.

No worries. I just replied to your comments because it talked about child molestation. I just wanted to get the thread back on track. Most people's experience with rebaptism is going to be through excommunication. It seems easy for people to bring that up in a thread on rebaptism.

The original post of this thread was talking about rebaptism AFTER RESIGNING not after being exed. While some paperwork is the same it's not all the same. We can all agree that child molestation is not the same as stealing a candybar. In both instances these two perpetrators may fully repent. However, the temptation to steal another candybar could still be there...and the consequences would be the loss of a candybar from the store owner. On the other hand, if the child molester goes back to his way, then the loss is much more detrimental and long lasting. Innocence is lost. Psychological issues ensue. Resigning church membership, by loss of belief, then gaining belief again to be baptized, likely results in no personal harm to others in the Ward. Even if the person loses belief again, it is likely that no physical loss or harm will come to others. Quite different in the scheme of things. I'll enter into a bit of my personal story now. The Bishop told me I should resign my membership. We were friends and co-workers and he was able to shoot straight with me. I essentially became inactive from my gradual unbelief. I had been EQ President twice, counselor in a few EQ Presidencies, Branch President, Branch President Counselor, Gospel Doctrine teacher, returned missionary, Sunday School teacher, Priests Quorum Advisor, Young Men's President, etc. The Bishop felt that it was in my best interest to resign and gave me the general format for the letter. He felt that at one point I would be able to make a fresh start all over again. I sent the letter back to him and the end of the story is that I got a letter from SLC saying that my name had been removed from the Church records. What the Bishop and I did not know were the full consequences of resignation that would follow me if I ever did decide to come back into the fold. I just talked with him today(he is no longer a Bishop). He just said that he did not know about the records having annotations like that...as he never had seen one from a person who was resigned then came back. He had seen records from exed people. They contain annotations but he figured there was a difference at the time. That has been many years ago now. I can recall many of the conversations over lunch, dinner, and ballgames that we had. Seems like yesterday to me.

Thank you all for your kind comments and responses to my questions and comments. I think I have received many answers to the questions I had on this topic. There appear to be many good people on this forum with refreshing points of view and opinions. I hope I have not offended others and may have helped some others that were having similar questions.

I do not believe this is at all scriptural. Maybe my scriptural knowledge is not up to date or haven't seen this. If you could point this out that would be helpful.

I would likely want to know if I had a child molester or rapist in my church. That is due diligence. Other than that, would I care if someone fell out of belief and then believed again? But really, how many times is one to be forgiven anyway? 70 x 70.

The CHI says, "In all cases, annotation of membership records is removed only with First Presidency approval upon request from the Stake President." It does not state this for removal of restoration of blessings. That is automatic once the action is completed(once the unit sends the paperwork back to SLC). A new membership record is then sent to the Ward.

Michael, I am curious. Are you able to tell if your Ward membership record, and you should be able to look at it and at least verify correctness, has any annotations of restored blessings, note of resigning, any mention of rebaptism, or anything else on it that codes restorative ordinances? If you don't want to go there not to worry. Thanks! SLC has it in their database. This I do know. I'm not sure how much access the local clerks and Bishops have to that database, though.

Essentially, the do what they want as no one else higher up has a cow about it. Don't worry about it. If you can do the job do it and serve happily, as you appear to be.

I don't think so. The original dates are there. However, there is a message on the record, given to the Ward, that states: "Restoration of Blessings Required". THEN...another record is apparently sent out after that showing the original dates...and the CHI says "with no reference to excommunication". It is unclear to me, based on the CHI, whether the annotations are for the list of transgressions or for what is on the Report of Disciplinary Actions. Either way, it takes the 1st Presidency to get it off the record. That may take years or not happen at all from what I am hearing from others. The level of transgressions depend on the SP and the Bishop. To one, unbelief after being taught and talked to could be considered transgression.

Thanks for posting this. It helps others in this situation. Many always ask about this very thing but few have answers. The answer is that one is never FULLY restored in the church. God may wipe clean but the church doesn't. For me, this is disheartening.

Interesting. I've never seen it except in a branch I had been in one time that was fairly hard up for workers. They had a guy whose wife was a member but he was never LDS. He was asked to go along on home teaching visits. In that Branch, if you were willing to home teach you had a LOT of people to visit. In slamjet's case I can't help but think about as ..."Well, we will try you out for a while and see how it goes before we baptize you again." Good enough to serve in a calling but not to be rebaptized and restored.