Of

Doctrine and Covenants

For those people not familiar with the Doctrine and Covenants, this is a book of revelations of God which are given to the current generation. This is not all the revelations of God, since anyone (even you) could have such a revelation, but rather this is a set of covenants between the church and God. That is, these are revelations which apply to the church as a whole.

Since these are also covenants between God and the church, it is necessary for them to be voted on my the World Conference, as the church must decide to accept the covenants. That is, it is a revelation from God whether the church accepts it or not. In reality, the church has not rejected very many (one at least that I'm aware of). (For the most part that is because God and the Prophet is good at judging what the church is ready for.)

This makes the Doctrine and Covenants a difficult book to publish. That is, every time its published it gets thicker. The Herald House (the church publishing house) prints up the last few revelations in separate sets so the they can be purchased separately and inserted into an existing copy.

This revelation is the current revelation. I think it may be the most significant revelation since section 156, accepted in 1982. As I said, the most significant statement is, "Let the Spirit Breath." It is primarily a call to not be so caught up with scriptural interpretations and traditions given in the past that we forget to love people.

Taken to its limit, this means the church should not condemn people needlessly. There are many scriptures which lead up to this point, starting with Acts 15:1-22 which declares that people can become members of the church without circumcision, which was required by the Jewish law. There is a section 26:1b of the Doctrine and Covenants which says, "it mattereth not what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, when ye partake of the sacrament, if it so be that ye do it with an eye single to my glory." (Hey, this was written more 170 years ago.) There is a later section which mentions that it doesn't matter when and where, or how often the sacraments are administered. In each of these cases, it was said that the "law" of the day could be circumvented if God is at the center of it.

This revelations expands on this, saying the traditions and scriptural interpretations are not that important if one is sensitive to the leadings of God. This latter point is important. One must be truly in touch with God, it is not sufficient for me to suddenly decide I want to do things differently, just to be different. God needs to have a hand in it.

Before this is considered by the World Conference it is discussed and passed by all the various caucuses and meetings of the delegates, and statements are made expressing (in this case) the acceptance of this by all the revelation by each of the meetings. These are read by a secretary for the various meetings. When the youth causus read their message to the conference it got a real laugh (nothing says World Conference must always be serious) It states, in part, "As disciples who will be challenged to live in, with, and through this inspired counsel the longest ..." a true statement, but one usually not brought to the attention of adults.

I thought this was humorous, and something to remember as well.

During the deliberations it is traditional for the Prophet to leave the conference chamber. After the conference accepts the section, the Prophet comes back in. When Grant came back he made an impromptu statement which some of the members asked to have published.