Banned Members


clbent04
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19 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

This place has a special place forever in my heart for two reasons:
- I once banned some of the Lord's anointed - official real live full-time missionaries.  They were here on a test program from the church, but just couldn't for the life of them obey the site rules.  If I remember correctly, the decision went all the way up to a General Authority, who said something like "If they can't obey the rules, they should experience the same consequences as any regular member."  Pam gave the go-ahead, I clicked the button.

Just wow.

19 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:


- I once received moderator action.  Like over 10 years ago - before I was a mod.  I get to live the folksy wisdom "I'd never be a member of a forum that would have the likes of me as a member", and tested the patience of a moderator at the time. 

I have often marveled over the years that I am still a member of this site. I'm certainly not looking to change that status. Why the admins have been so patient with me, I don't know, nor do I particularly want to start a conversation about it. But it does make me more sympathetic to those who occasionally exhibit general jerkitude or who seem to be missing some elements of appropriate social intercourse—as opposed to those who personally and viciously or contemptuously attack someone else, or who insist on posting anti material, or who clearly have no respect for the Restored Church or it members on this site. I don't really have any patience for such.

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16 hours ago, Fether said:

Another Elder, a district leader, had the sacrament performed in a district meeting. He didn’t have enough elders so he just had the sisters pass the sacrament.

I admit I may be completely off the reservation, but unless there's something specific in the Handbook about this, I'm not sure I see the problem.

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1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

@NeuroTypical & @Just_A_Guy-does the church still have online missionaries?

I think missionaries generally are given more latitude to maintain individual social media presences to keep in touch with both family and friends back home, and converts/investigators they have met in the field.  I don’t know if there are missionaries who are specifically assigned to be online and *only* online.  I do know that I’ve seen LDS missionaries within the last year or so commenting in various discussion fora (the Facebook group for fans of “The Chosen”, for example).

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4 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I think missionaries generally are given more latitude to maintain individual social media presences to keep in touch with both family and friends back home, and converts/investigators they have met in the field.  I don’t know if there are missionaries who are specifically assigned to be online and *only* online.  I do know that I’ve seen LDS missionaries within the last year or so commenting in various discussion fora (the Facebook group for fans of “The Chosen”, for example).

Thanks bud. 

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1 hour ago, Vort said:

I admit I may be completely off the reservation, but unless there's something specific in the Handbook about this, I'm not sure I see the problem.

Just to clarify, a district meeting is a weekly meeting for missionaries where they get together and get trained by the one assigned over them. It was a Wednesday morning and the district leader (a 19 year old elder) organized the blessing and passing of the sacrament. He had sister do the passing.

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1 hour ago, Vort said:

I admit I may be completely off the reservation, but unless there's something specific in the Handbook about this, I'm not sure I see the problem.

Handbook section 18.9.2 doesn’t seem to contemplate non-priesthood-holders passing the sacrament.  The lawyer in me likes to ask questions like “well, when we are in the center pew and the tray has gone down through all eight members of my family and there’s an eight-foot gap between my 10-year-old-son and Brother Johnson sitting all alone on the far end of the pew, does that mean my son can’t walk the tray down to Brother Johnson?  He has to pass it back through all of our family to the deacon who gave us the tray, and then that deacon has to walk to the other end of the pew where Brother Johnson is?  What’s the difference between passing the sacrament tray, and Passing the Sacrament?  And where in scripture is it written that deacons are responsible for Passing the Sacrament in the first place?”

I think that as a church, we could hypothetically get to a point where Passing the Sacrament is seen as something that can be done by non-priesthood-holders.  But for the time being, it seems like the intent of the current (and historical) Church leadership has been that it be considered an exclusive duty of the priesthood.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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Just now, Fether said:

Just to clarify, a district meeting is a weekly meeting for missionaries where they get together and get trained by the one assigned over them. It was a Wednesday morning and the district leader (a 19 year old elder) organized the blessing and passing of the sacrament. He had sister do the passing.

Here's my thinking:

Priests bless the sacrament, because one must hold the Priesthood authority of a priest to do so. Deacons and other Aaronic-Priesthood-holding young men distribute the sacrament, not because they require Priesthood authority to do so, but because they require Priesthood authorization to do so, and they are so authorized. In other words, they pass the sacrament because they have been assigned to do so. As far as I know, there is nothing about distributing the sacrament that requires one to hold the Priesthood—else why do women, children, and other non-Priesthood-holding members (and even non-members!) pass the sacrament tray along the row?

But as long as that assignment is given to Priesthood holders, deacons or otherwise, that is where it should remain. I would be scandalized to attend a ward or branch meeting of the Restored Church and find sisters of any age distributing the sacrament. I would be scandalized, not because the sisters would be somehow unworthy, but because that is very clearly not how the kingdom of God has been organized in our day.

But at a district meeting of missionaries where there were only two elders and the rest sisters, though it would be easy enough for the elders simply to bless and then pass the sacrament, I don't think I would be scandalized to see the sister missionaries help out by passing around the trays/plates/whatever.

In fact, given your description, I would be much more concerned about a district leader organizing a sacrament service for a Wednesday district meeting. I find it highly unlikely that the mission president would sanction such a thing, which would make the district leader's actions totally out of bounds, basically a mockery of a holy ordinance.

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1 hour ago, Vort said:

In fact, given your description, I would be much more concerned about a district leader organizing a sacrament service for a Wednesday district meeting. I find it highly unlikely that the mission president would sanction such a thing, which would make the district leader's actions totally out of bounds, basically a mockery of a holy ordinance.

This is the core of the issue. The sisters passing was just the cherry on top. 
 

from what I understand, it isn’t the mission President that would authorize the sacrament, but the bishop. I may be wrong in that.

regardless, it was all unsanctioned and was a very strange situation all together.

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1. My daughter passed the sacrament to me the other week.

2. You think sisters passing the sacrament is bad, I once was in a ward with a female Finance Clerk.  I was assistant clerk, and we'd drive over to her house to do all the bookkeeping (because nobody knew how to use the newfangled computer).  Her husband would sit in the living room drinking his beer and making sarcastic remarks.  Good times!

3. Joseph Fielding Smith warned us strongly against putting too much ritual into the Sacrament:

Quote

It is a very interesting study to discover how ordinances and doctrines became changed in the first centuries of the Christian era. These changes date back even to the days of the apostles. Paul frequently had to rebuke, warn and counsel with the members in the several branches which he was instrumental in organizing when on his missionary journeys. He severely rebuked the saints at Corinth for desecrating the holy ordinance of the Sacrament and turning it into a feast where the [page 104] Spirit of the Lord could not be present.

The first changes that came, evidently came innocently because some enterprising bishop or other officer endeavored to introduce into his meetings, or among his congregation something new—just a little different, in advancement of that which was practiced elsewhere. This tendency is very apparent in the wards and stakes of the Church today.

For example, let us consider the ordinance of the Sacrament. It became the custom in many wards throughout the church to have the young men who passed the Sacrament all dressed alike with dark coats, white shirts and uniform ties. This could in time lead to the established custom of dressing them in uniform, such as we see done in some sectarian and other churches. Then again as they passed the Sacrament they had to stand with their left hand plastered on their backs in a most awkward manner. The priests or elders who administered these holy emblems had to stand in a certain way as the one officiating in the prayer knelt at the table. In some instances the Bishop stood in the pulpit with raised hands in an attitude of benediction. Other customs among the quorums and in the services of the wards were introduced. Members of the Church were instructed that they must not touch the trays containing the bread and the water with their left hand, but must take it in their right hand after partaking as their neighbor held the tray in his or her right hand. In the Priesthood in the wards, we now have "supervisors" directing the activities of the deacons and the priests. How long will it take before these supervisors are considered as a regular part of the Priesthood and it will be necessary to set them apart or ordain them to this office? So we see that we, if we are not careful, will find ourselves traveling the road that brought the Church of Jesus Christ in the first centuries into disrepute and paved the way for the apostasy.
-Joseph Fielding Smith, Church History and Modern Revelation, Vol 1, p.103

 

Edited by NeuroTypical
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2 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

1. My daughter passed the sacrament to me the other week.

 

 

I have to disagree with this.  According to the handbook:

“He may authorize such a service only within his ward boundaries. The person whom the bishop authorizes to conduct the service must hold the Melchizedek Priesthood or be a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. He also must be worthy to bless and pass the sacrament. The priesthood holder who directs the service reports to the bishop when the service has been held.”

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Guest Godless

IIRC, there has been a mass purge or two over the years resulting from long-time users getting cocky, acting like the rules don't apply to them, and then waging open war on the mods for enforcing said rules. We lost some very active and well-established members that way. 

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In my many years here I have seen people get into many contentions and strivings about words.

Titus 3:9  "But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain."

Lately I am lurking more here as my other 2nd Amendment forum is I fear slowly dying away.  People are leaving there.  No way am I going frequent Twitter or Facebook.  Yuck.

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1 hour ago, Still_Small_Voice said:

Titus 3:9  "But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain."

Jude 1:3: "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."

I'm all about avoiding foolish contentions, and I'm all about earnestly contending for the faith.

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I remember reading some church history material from about the 1920's or 30's that indicated that it was at that time the responsibility of the Young Women to prepare the sacrament table. The same material did not include any references to the Young Women being involved in the blessing or passing of the sacrament. Unfortunately, I have no idea what or where those sources are. 

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38 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

I remember reading some church history material from about the 1920's or 30's that indicated that it was at that time the responsibility of the Young Women to prepare the sacrament table. The same material did not include any references to the Young Women being involved in the blessing or passing of the sacrament. Unfortunately, I have no idea what or where those sources are. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrament_(LDS_Church)

I found the section on Changes to the Sacrament very interesting!  It seems like before the 1898 it was only priests and Melchizedek priesthood holders preparing and passing the sacrament.  And when deacons and teachers first were included, there was some reluctance

Given that there isn't any scriptural references, I could see a time where the passing and/or preparing is opened up to others, similarly to how witnesses of baptisms was.

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3 hours ago, dprh said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrament_(LDS_Church)

I found the section on Changes to the Sacrament very interesting!  It seems like before the 1898 it was only priests and Melchizedek priesthood holders preparing and passing the sacrament.  And when deacons and teachers first were included, there was some reluctance

Given that there isn't any scriptural references, I could see a time where the passing and/or preparing is opened up to others, similarly to how witnesses of baptisms was.

I remember reading an account by a woman who was a little girl in the early 20th century when the sacramental water was drunk from a communal chalice.  Seems a lot of the mustachioed brethren didn’t always clean their facial hair very carefully, and if you were one of the last ones to take the sacrament—suffice it to say, there’d be a lot of debris in that chalice.

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3 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I remember reading an account by a woman who was a little girl in the early 20th century when the sacramental water was drunk from a communal chalice.  Seems a lot of the mustachioed brethren didn’t always clean their facial hair very carefully, and if you were one of the last ones to take the sacrament—suffice it to say, there’d be a lot of debris in that chalice.

That's nasty. I could have gone all week without knowing that.

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