New Handbook


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15 minutes ago, MarginOfError said:

I'll put this one on the list of policy statement against which I am in open rebellion.

Are you in open rebellion to raising your 'right' hand to the square to baptize someone?
How about placing your 'right' hand on a person's head for a blessing and 'left' arm on the shoulder of others in the circle?

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13 minutes ago, MarginOfError said:

Have it your way.  If I were to witness a left handed baptism were performed for a person wearing a tie dye tuxedo, I would have no problem ratifying it so long as the requirements in D&C 20:72 - 74 were satisfied. 

I was doing baptisms in the temple with my oldest daughters last Saturday, and an (unrelatedly) eleven-year-old girl serving as one of the witnesses took an especial pride in telling me I was doing it wrong.  She called me out several times.  I couldn’t help but admire her earnestness in spite of my impatience with what I took to be her pedantry. ;)  

Regarding the right-versus-left thing:  yes, a lot of it’s cultural; but I think it’s safe to presume that many of our ritual gestures/signs/tokens were restored to us  with an awareness of this cultural baggage and an expectation that said baggage might be used to approach/interpret those rituals.  The “right-hand-as-hand-of-covenant” thing, applied in the temple, had brought me to some very interesting insights and connections that I would not have otherwise made.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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13 minutes ago, e-eye said:

I wouldn't say progressive.  I would say more inclusive.  

Agree. Any of those words are appropriate. It's nice to see. 

Edited by MormonGator
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48 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I was doing baptisms in the temple with my oldest daughters last Saturday, and an (unrelatedly) eleven-year-old girl serving as one of the witnesses took an especial pride in telling me I was doing it wrong.  She called me out several times.  I couldn’t help but admire her earnestness in spite of my impatience with what I took to be her pedantry. ;)  

That likely would have been my response too.  I'm not keen on arguing with 11 year olds who are making a good faith effort. I'm an arrogant jerk, not a heartless jerk.

Quote

Regarding the right-versus-left thing:  yes, a lot of it’s cultural; but I think it’s safe to presume that many of our ritual gestures/signs/tokens were restored to us  with an awareness of this cultural baggage and an expectation that said baggage might be used to approach/interpret those rituals.  The “right-hand-as-hand-of-covenant” thing, applied in the temple, had brought me to some very interesting insights and connections that I would not have otherwise made.

Sure, things may have been restored with awareness of cultural baggage.  I just dispute that taking the sacrament with the right hand was ever "restored" in the same way that the ordinance itself was.

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8 minutes ago, MarginOfError said:

I just dispute that taking the sacrament with the right hand was ever "restored" in the same way that the ordinance itself was.

Quote

As Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles helped introduce the new handbook to General Authorities and General Officers on Thursday, he explained how it was part of the ongoing Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

“This Restoration has been and will continue to be a process of learning how to minister as Jesus would to a richly diverse world,”

 

Edited by NeedleinA
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10 minutes ago, MarginOfError said:

I just dispute that taking the sacrament with the right hand was ever "restored" in the same way that the ordinance itself was.

I agree with you. This appears to be 100% cultural. But to my mind, that's mostly irrelevant. Things are restored from ancient time, but guess what? Many of those things were culturally based, as well, and don't mean anything today. But we still do them. Examples? I have only speculative examples, because I don't know ancient cultural memes. But even such things as the physical laying on of hands and the verbal pronunciation of blessings might ultimately have a cultural or societal root that doesn't really have anything to do with the underlying ordinance.

I'm openly speculating with such examples, but I hope you understand the gist of what I'm trying to get across. If we believe in continuing revelation and we believe in living prophets and we believe that God speaks to us using language and symbols that we understand, then the mere fact that the First Presidency suggests using the right hand when possible for the sacrament is more than reason enough for me to comply.

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1 hour ago, NeedleinA said:

Are you in open rebellion to raising your 'right' hand to the square to baptize someone?
How about placing your 'right' hand on a person's head for a blessing and 'left' arm on the shoulder of others in the circle?

Well, it depends.

There are a whole bunch of people in the middle east without right hands.  If they repent it is good to know they will never be able to baptize or even partake of the sacrament properly.

Same goes for those who may be handicapped and unable to use their right hands.

Of course, it also goes that anyone who is handicapped is also now seen as lesser.

And then there goes the entire ideology that gave rise to the right hand where in those seen as left handed were demonized.  The right hand is preferred in the past because a majority of the population has been right handed.  Thus, one on the right is considered favored because, just as one favors their right hand as the dominant hand, the person on the right is considered favored. 

However, because of this way of thinking, many of those who were left handed were seen unfavorably or outcast of society at times. 

I think that's the point he's making out.

This has never been an issue previously...but then I expect next we'll say that one MUST wear white shirts and ties if they are male to attend sacrament meeting and women must only wear dresses.  If not, they are attending sacrament meeting incorrectly.

Left handedness runs in my family so I can see the point of the pedantry of it all.  However, we should remember that just because an organization runs into pedantry it does NOT mean that it's not the right way or that we should disobey it.  We should obey what the leaders guide us into doing.

The church under the Jews was the TRUE religion or the correct religion of the Lord when Jesus was in his mortal ministry.  They also created MANY various rules that people were expected to obey. 

The DIFFERENCE is that the Lord did not see them as infallible (or even perfect...and even if he was perfect he did not claim the glory he instead pointed people to his Father instead).  The problem I see today is that people do NOT see our General Authorities as men who are fallible, but infallible icons of worship which if one does NOT worship their every deed or word as infallible...it is considered heresy (which speaks more of those who do so rather than the General Authorities themselves).

I'd say we are good to remember that the Handbooks are matters of policy, but not scripture.  They are not doctrine, nor are they the same as scripture.  The handbook is to establish the order of how to do things and the order of things in general of administering the church. 

This is NOT the hill to die on in my opinion. 

There IS symbolism of the right hand though which is directly connected to the ages of the dominant hand being in the majority of the population as being the right hand.  It could be that this has some connection to the divine.  That probably is a discussion for another thread.

I agree though that policies that enforce such pedantry among the membership is looking more from a privileged class arena rather than the eyes of your general membership that may not be so privileged.  IT IS a policy though....not doctrine as far as I know.  Policies come and go. 

I see a LOT of policies that have no scriptural basis (I am not referring to the LGBT policies which ARE based on scripture, I am referring to other policies which have no basis in scripture or history that the church has recently started and are doing the church no favors in relation to retaining any members or converting any new ones) currently that are driving MANY people away from the church, in relation to those...this is EXTREMELY minor. 

As a traditionalist, I would also say, I actually always have used my right hand taking the sacrament already.  It's not that I don't do this in practice as I already do this, it's seeing that this seems more of a policy made out of traditions of the Utah culture rather than having a scriptural basis...thus...like how the Jewish leaders created policies in the Lord's mortal ministry of being limited on how many steps to take on the Sabbath or certain actions that were restricted (and then trying to force the Lord and tell him he was a sinner when he didn't follow those restrictions) on the Sabbath which really were not going to determine whether one was going to heaven or to hell.

They were still the leaders (though they kind of lost that moral of being the Leaders of the Lord's religion when they crucified him, giving rise to the True Church of the Lord, or the Christians at that point) when the Lord did his ministry, and accordingly he did obeisance to them and obeyed Judaic law AND...for the most part...Policies.  John the Baptist STILL was the one with the Authority (and why the Lord went to him for Baptism) and the keys during that time period.  If the Lord himself during his mortal life followed the rules of the Church, regardless of whatever policies may or may not have been based upon scripture...how much more should we who are far less than perfect follow the leaders of our church.

Nevertheless... the problem I see in the church today among membership is that we treat EVERY word...regardless of whether it is policy (and as far as I see it, the handbook is full of policies...not commandments) or less as revelations and commandments...and worship our  General Authorities as infallible and items worthy of worship (almost like a form of idolatry).  In truth we should see them instead as men that are vessels that receive revelation as all prophets have been meaning they are also fallible and imperfect in that they can make mistakes.

We follow the prophet, but I do not think that everything he says is necessarily revelation...and not necessarily everything in the Handbook is directly from revelation either...and sometimes it may not even be inspired.  It's policy...not commandments for salvation.  I think it's good to remember that.  Policies change.  The Everlasting gospel does not.  We should not ignore what the Prophet says, and we should follow his words, but this policy may change just as soon as another steps into his place.  That's a difference between policies and the gospel.  Policies tend to change from administrator to administrator...the gospel does not (or at least should not).

Ps: That said, I haven't actually read the new Handbook release.  It's not a high priority for me today.  I DID read from the Book of Mormon though. 

As such, I don't actually know what it says on taking the sacrament in relation to one's right hand or whatever else it says as of yet.  This is simply commentary on what has been said previously in the thread...and the idea that seems to be presented that the policies in the handbook somehow mean that they are more than just policies, but are actually commandments...which is sort of odd.  In the past Handbook 1 wasn't even published to the general public so many of the items there would not have even really been something the general membership would even really pay heed to.  As they were policies and not really commandments...that actually was not that big of a deal.

I'd think the idea that the Handbook is more of policies to keep the church in order and instruct on the administrative side of things would still hold true rather than it being seen as yet another book of scripture...or did something change?

Edited by JohnsonJones
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8 minutes ago, Vort said:

I agree with you. This appears to be 100% cultural. But to my mind, that's mostly irrelevant. Things are restored from ancient time, but guess what? Many of those things were culturally based, as well, and don't mean anything today. But we still do them. Examples? I have only speculative examples, because I don't know ancient cultural memes. But even such things as the physical laying on of hands and the verbal pronunciation of blessings might ultimately have a cultural or societal root that doesn't really have anything to do with the underlying ordinance.

I'm openly speculating with such examples, but I hope you understand the gist of what I'm trying to get across. If we believe in continuing revelation and we believe in living prophets and we believe that God speaks to us using language and symbols that we understand, then the mere fact that the First Presidency suggests using the right hand when possible for the sacrament is more than reason enough for me to comply.

Because you're you and I'm me, I have to argue with you about this.

Well, not really.  I just think it's silly.  I don't particularly care for things like this, and I have even less interest in enforcing them. 

I had a whole bunch more written here...but I deleted it...I'll boil it down to this:

I think you guys are nuts. But I still consider it a good thing that not everyone thinks like me. And it's a good thing not everyone things like you.  If we combined all our different forms of lunacy, it kind of averages out to, well, lunacy. So there's that.

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28 minutes ago, floridaman1 said:

pardon my ignorance, but what is the "handbook"?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a strong central authority. But the local congregations and groups (We call them Wards and Stakes) are totally run by a lay ministry.

The "handbook" is part of the training and guidance given to the local lay leadership.  This handbook just recently officially got put online in its entirety were everyone can view it.

 

 

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 Church says: Handbook

Quote

18.7.5    Clothing
A person who performs a baptism and a person who is being baptized wear white clothing

vs.

2 hours ago, MarginOfError said:

were performed for a person wearing a tie dye tuxedo, I would have no problem


 

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2 hours ago, MarginOfError said:

I'll put this one on the list of policy statement against which I am in open rebellion.

I will not be joining you in open rebellion, but I know how you feel.   I was sad to see this in the "Dancing and music" section:

Quote

The beat of the music, whether instrumental or vocal, should not overshadow the melody.

This may be the final straw for Dubstep aficionados like @mirkwood and @MormonGator

But I will remain faithful.  Even when I'm the only person in the building, warming up the audio system for the broadcast.  

 

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Church says: Handbook

Quote

18.7.7    Instructions
To perform the ordinance of baptism, a priest or Melchizedek Priesthood holder:
3. Raises his right arm to the square.

vs.

2 hours ago, MarginOfError said:

If I were to witness a left handed baptism...I would have no problem.

 

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