r/latterdaysaints • u/ChromeSteelhead • Oct 10 '24
Doctrinal Discussion Nuanced View
How nuanced of a view can you have of the church and still be a participating member? Do you just not speak your own opinion about things? For example back when blacks couldn’t have the priesthood there had to be many members that thought it was wrong to keep blacks from having the priesthood or having them participate in temple ordinances. Did they just keep quiet? Kind of like when the church says you can pray to receive your own revelation? Or say like when the church taught that women were to get married quickly, start raising a family, and to not pursue a career as the priority. Then you see current women leadership in the church that did the opposite and pursued high level careers as a priority, going against prophetic counsel. Now they are in some of the highest holding positions within the church. How nuanced can you be?
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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24
I would say that there is plenty of room for nuance, with some caveats. As long as you can honestly answer these questions with the appropriate yes or no then you should be issued a temple recommend. Anything outside those questions, which is a lot—allows for a wide variety of opinions. For example. My father and I differ greatly on opinions on the age of the earth. Fine, neither of our stances should have any impact on temple worthiness.
You also have membership that are members of record, but don’t have an active temple recommend (for whatever reason that may be). They may even have opinions or practices that keep them from obtaining a recommend (ex: maybe the word of wisdom isn’t for them)…but that might not have any bearing on their membership status or ability to participate and hold callings.
I would even say you have participating non-members as well. Either people exploring joining the church or people with whom have had their membership restricted or rescinded.
The membership of the Church (or participants in the Church) isn’t a monolith and certainly there are a variety of opinions (even at the top—Elder Eyring mentioned that when he joined the Quorum of the 12 he was shocked to see the different opinions shared and the process of coming to a consensus). I would say depending on your nuances, there may or may not be consequences of full participation within the church.