RFM and Bill Reel take a look at the December 2020 Changes to the General Handbook of Instruction within the LDS Church. There is a major bombshell in this episode dealing with the hierarchy of doctrine when comparing the handbook with the teachings of the living prophets and the holy scriptures. Which takes precedence? The answer may surprise you!
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/title-page?lang=eng
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Hey there RFM and Bill! Your comment on the section “Children Who Die before Birth” where you take Umbridge with “Parents may decide whether to hold memorial or graveside services” seems potentially one sided.
I agree that if this is a form of permission, then that is a gross overreach. However, if it is intended to be an explicit restriction on leaders, saying, “Leaders, you don’t get to tell a member whether or not they get to have a memorial or graveside service.” I read it as the latter, as I can imagine leaders having strong opinions about this, and the Church not wanting them to offend the family by speaking beyond their authority.
Anyway…I love you guys. Keep doing you. I agree with most of what you guys say. Just wanted to throw out a soft objection to one thing.
You referenced a female who was/is an energy healing practitioner who has issues with the new LDS Handbook changes. Who was the individual? What additional sources and help can you provide to help with this specific topic?
I am a massage therapist, and healing practitioner who is in the middle of a faith transition, and this new information is very conflicting.
Great work as always. I just wanted to share an in-law is a Wart Charmer (a term she and family uses). She is fully active and served in all the leadership roles on a ward level that she can, stake callings, temple worker, etc. When family or her friends from the ward have a wart they want removed she does a charm and the warts go away. She even removes some that come back after doctor attempts fail. From the sounds of things she has a pretty good success rate but not 100%. I always had some cognitive dissonance from her wart charming because no priesthood. But faithful members believe in it and her and I don’t think she’ll stop no matter what the handbook says. There is no real harm being done. It’s not like God would send her to the Terrestrial kingdom for removing warts would he?
I’ve known a number of primarily LDS female “energy” healers. I found some to be immature and not skillful but others to have a gift for healing. In the latter case these ladies have significantly blessed the lives of many LDS women. Some of them have reported to me that they had been called in by their Bishops and been counseled if not threatened to stop their “healing” practices because they were disrespecting or counterfeiting the priesthood. Yikes! This has the “feel” of women with spiritual or healing gifts being charged with witchcraft and burned at the stake in the 17th Century.
To be fair, the church may have been caught up in the fear of the times about HIV infected people in the 80s, but it was a “True Blue Mormon,” James O. Mason, then Director of the CDC, who bucked the popular head winds and asserted that Ryan White (HIV infected student), should be allowed to go to school. It was a big deal back then and helped turn the cultural tide.