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The offending sentence is in section 4.4 "Secret Non-monogamies". A few pages earlier in section 4.1, it gives some context about the "equally valid" claim. It says "As with gender and sexuality, the implications for therapy are to hold all consensual relationship styles and structures as equally valid, rather than perpetuating a sense of the ‘right’ or ‘ideal’ way of doing relationships. Intersectionality is also key here as the relationship norm described above is a white western norm. Working in a multicultural context, many of our clients will come from cultural and faith backgrounds where, for example, arranged marriages and/or polygamy are the standard way of doing relationships (see 1.3; Rambukkana, 2015)." (emphasis added) If somebody comes from a faith background where polygamy is the standard way of doing relationships, do you think it is the therapist's job to lecture their clients that polygamy is less valid than monogamy? I would think your freedom of religion instincts would say it isn't the role of therapists to tell their clients their religious beliefs are wrong. In its actual context, the document isn't in any way "ratifying hedonism." It is saying that the role of the therapist isn't to lecture people about their gender, sexuality, or religious beliefs are wrong.

Quite honestly, I have no basis to evaluate this, because while the sentence you quoted sounds quite scandalous, I believe it needs to be interpreted in the context of the profession for which it was written, and I simply don't have that background. In order to get a little bit of background on this, I posed the following question to the Claude model "Fable 5: High." (Fable is its latest-greatest model, has only been out a couple of weeks, and they charge you "usage credit" based on how much work it does. Generating the answer below cost about $3.00. With the prompt, I uploaded the manual and content of this thread) Prompt: The poster "smac97" is a real estate attorney in Provo, Utah. He started a thread expressing concerns about the manual "Gender, Sexual, and Relationship Diversity (GSRD)" published by the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy. As far as I know, smc97 doesn't have any background in counseling and psychotherapy and is only aware of this issue because he read about it in an editorial. His concern with this appears to be that this document is a substantial step towards "ratifying hedonism" by "supposedly credentialed 'experts.'" I've never been in a professional psychotherapy session, much less have had any training in psychology. Could you put this document into the proper context? Is it the role of psychotherapists to condemn "secret non-monogamy" and such things? Is the content of this manual consistent with best practices in therapy? Is it in harmony with how psychotherapy is taught at BYU? Please keep your answer to under 1,000 words, and base it on recognized professional standards including, presumably, the professional psychology standards taught at BYU and written about by BYU professors.

I think it’s obvious. If you do this you’ll be part of a powerful dynasty. You’ll be a king. You’ll be a god!

I don’t know what “the historical or religious question” is. The topic of this thread is secret non-monogamy, the way people rationalize their secret non-monogamy, and whether British Psychotherapists specifically and society in general should facilitate people rationalizing and normalizing this behavior. Joseph Smith made a sacred vow to cleave unto his wife Emma and unto none else. He broke that vow. You think this is categorically different than other people who broke the same vow, because Joseph’s motivation was sincere religious belief and not lust. If we want to categorize Joseph’s secret non-monogamous relationships, the category they best fit in is sexual abuse in cultic circumstances, as described by Hava Dayan in her paper “Sexual Abuse and Charismatic Cults,” Aggression and Violent Behavior 41 (2018): 25–31. DOI: 10.1016/j.avb.2018.04.004. Let me know if you’d like me to provide a sample list of religious leaders who convinced sincere believers that God wanted them to have secret non-monogamous relationships with them. The secret non-monogamy of the leaders of new religious movements fits into the broader category of secret non-monogamy in general. Some people rationalize this behavior as coming from God. Others rationalize it because, in the words of Atlantic Starr: Secret lovers, yeah That's what we are Trying so hard to hide the way we feel 'Cause we both belong to someone else But we can't let it go 'Cause what we feel Is also real Personally, if a British Psychoterapist is going to give a moral pass to somebody who breaks their marital vows because they are trying to obey God, I don’t know why she shouldn’t also give a moral pass to somebody who does it because the love they feel for their secret lover “is also real." If anything, having a secret non-monogamous relationship motivated by sincere religious conviction with the leader of your New Religious Movement is worse, because it is less consensual. The question isn’t whether the girls sincerely believed God wanted them to do what they did. The question is were they able to freely consent? “God commanded me to marry you. If you do, your family is guaranteed salvation. If you don’t, an angel will kill me with a flaming sword. It’s your free choice though.” That type of manipulation is sick, regardless of their sincerity and regardless of whether God really was sending angels with flaming swords.

Hold on. Let’s get our terms straight here. “Marriage” is a socially recognized union between two people that establishes a set of mutual rights, obligations, and expectations. This social recognition can come from law, customs, or even religion. But two people can’t call their secret affair a “marriage”--there has to be a recognized status that creates some durable social, legal, religious, or communal rights and obligations. Even if the marriage isn’t disclosed to the general public, some sort of Church or legal authority needs to recognize it and the spouses need to undertake genuine marital duties and obligations. When a secret marriage violates the laws of church and its main covenant is lying to everybody about its very existence, the marriage isn’t a real marriage in any real sense. If one of the marital obligations is “the single promise at the heart of every wedding, to forsake all others,” and one of spouses breaks that single promise, it is called adultery. Now, somebody could try to renegotiate the terms of their marriage so that it becomes some sort of open marriage or whatever. That’s between them. But when somebody secretly breaks those vows, it is adultery. Full stop. With this understanding of these terms, it is abusing the language to call Joseph Smith’s actions the “practice of plural marriage.” His actions weren’t a type of marriage. They were a type of adultery. Calling it a type of marriage is a misnomer. Semantic inversion. Orwillian doublespeak. Newspeak. According to D&C 132, it is about lust, or at least about “desire." "if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another...” (D&C 132:61) The full verse says: "And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else." How many of Joseph Smith’s plural “marriages” satisfied all of these conditions? How many were virgins, had vowed to no other man, and were entered into with the full consent of Emma? His behavior wasn’t nearly as tightly controlled as you are trying to imagine. Jospeh Smith’s secret non-monogamy is a case study in secret non-monogamy, and people who are saying it is categorically different than other examples of secret non-monogamy are being very selective in their judgmentalism.

Rationalizing infidelity is exactly what you are doing, isn't it? You believe that if God commands you to break your wedding vows, which according to your beliefs He does from time to time, you should obey God, right? The only question you are unsure about is whether you should tell your spouse about how you sincerely believe God commanded you to do this.

Every situation is unique. I presume the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy's position is more nuanced than you give it credit for. My assessment of Joseph Smith is that he was guilty of "Secret non-monogamy"--of repeatedly breaking "the single promise at the heart of every wedding: to forsake all others." I think Hale's effort to rationalize Joseph Smith's behavior is a lot like using an "affirming lens" to rationalize behavior that lacked integrity. There are many reasons for "secret nonmonogamy." Maybe you feel you deeply love the other woman. Maybe you are bored. Maybe you just feel you really need sex with somebody different. Maybe for money? Self esteem? Fantasy? Clinging to youth? Or maybe you think an angel with a flaming sword is coercing you to do it. Jospeh Smith's rationalizations, as imagined by you and Hales, is certainly a creative excuse to engage in behavior that lacks integrity in any other context. But ultimately it is just selectively applying a self-serving "affirming lens" to rationalize behavior that lacks integrity. Yes, secret nonmongamy tends to do that. The question is whether we are going to rationalize the behavior of the person causing the pain and look at their destructive behavior through an "affirming lens." Do you think Joseph Smith keeping his promise to Emma to forsake all others would have been as "equally valid" as the choice he made to engage in secret nonmonagamy?

Someone who reveres him as a prophet and believes Section 132 is from God. Right. We should look at Joseph Smith's infidelity through an "affirming lens" because he was just doing what God told him to do. But beyond Joseph Smith and people being unfaithful to their spouses under Joseph's guidance, nobody else should be granted an affirming lens.

I might as well say it: it is extraordinarily ironic to hear a disciple of Joseph Smith categorically condemn “secret non-monogamy.” Mormonism’s founding prophet practiced what any ordinary English speaker would call exactly that—secretly, behind his real wife's back, repeatedly, and sometimes with other men’s wives.

I've been listening to a fascinating Great Courses series, The Pagan World: Ancient Religions before Christianity, by Hans-Friedrich Mueller, and it's changed how I think about the Old Testament. My impression is that early Israelite religion wasn't originally categorically different from the surrounding Canaanite/Semitic religions. Instead, the Israelites seem to have gradually become a people defined by an exclusive covenant with Jehovah, and only later did that develop into the explicit monotheism we associate with Judaism. Through that lens, stories like Elijah's don't read to me as arguments over whether only one God existed. They read more like arguments over whether Israel would remain faithful to its covenant with Jehovah or seek the blessings of the other gods that everyone around them also believed in. Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but I find that way of looking at it makes the Old Testament feel much more like it's taking place in a real ancient Near Eastern world instead of in a religious vacuum.

I think it is an interesting case study. I apologize for the way I said that. I meant to imply that tithing is a commandment, and the Church doesn't meet generally accepted transparency standards. I appreciate your efforts with this and for telling us about it.

All the bolded statements are statements of belief, right? They are subjective and are largely informed by your personal feelings about the church and interpretations of the doctrines it teaches rather than being supported by evidence. They seem like examples of belief bias, which are hard to square with your earlier statements about how your personal biases are not impacting your conclusions on this topic. It is an objective fact that the Church doesn't provide members with financial statements that allow them to see how their donations are or would be put to use. It is an objective fact that the Church says paying tithing is a commandment. It is an objective fact that the Church says they should pay tithing even though they aren't given any real information on what the Church does with its donations. It's a value judgement that you should evaluate how organizations spend money before donating, but it is a widely held one. For example:

A couple of points. First, to the extent that any of the dollars in Ensign Peak are actual tithing dollars, I would think that per D&C 120, their disposition continues to fall under the purview of that Council. As it is, the actual mechanics of this emphasize my point that accumulating money is functionally the Church's highest priority. Think about how this works. The top leaders of the Church first decide that the full $15 billion of investment earnings will be reinvested to turn the $200 billion reserve fund in the beginning of the year into a $215 billion reserve fund by the end of the year. This is mathematically equivalent to saying "we never expend more than what we estimate will be coming in terms of tithes and offerings." That is the most sacred ground rule of the entire thing. And these top leaders might peel off a layer of tithing to be added to that, so it becomes a $216 billion reserve fund by the end of the year. After that, they go to the full Council on the Disposition of tithes and say the budget for the year is $8 billion of the $9 billion of tithing that is expected to come in. At that point, if Elder U wants to increase the missionary program's budget by $1 million, he can argue that the million can come from reducing the genealogy department's budget by a million, or the temple construction budget or the education budget or the humanitarian budget. In principle it can come from anywhere except from the $16 billion that the higher-ups have already decided must be invested in growing the reserve fund. Functionally, this process makes it clear that growing the reserve fund is the most sacred allocation. If it worked the way I'm suggesting, Elder U would be able to argue that the million dollars he wants for the missionary program could come from the increase of the reserves rather than another Church mission, and that the Church would be okay if its year-end reserve was only $215.999 billion rather than a full $216 billion. Ultimately I don't really care. I'm just trying to answer your questions and explain to you why accumulating money sure appears like it is the First Presidency's and Presiding Bishopric's everlasting goal. And this seems to illustrate a point made by the Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability, which requires under it standards that "Every organization shall provide a copy of its current financial statements upon written request [to anybody who asks to see them]." When explaining why, they say: Of course you aren't bound by this, but it does illustrate the general principles I'm talking about. More to the point, they seem downright prophetic in their claim that organizations without transparency are at risk of having reserves that are too large. Can you clarify? Are you asking me to provide references that tithing is a commandment, or are you asking me to provide references that the Church isn't transparent?

First, it should redefine as "what it takes in" to include investment income and not merely tithes and offerings. If it said it aimed to always deploy 90% of its total income--including investment income--I'd have no problem with it. Beyond that, there is a wide variety of things it could do, but it should be done strategically and not in compliance with a simplistic "fixed principle" that mathematically forces the majority of its income to go towards exponentially increasing the size of a bloated reserve fund, and is done in a way that allows its own fiduciaries the information necessary to fulfill their responsibilities in a responsible way. But what's the point of having such a tool if it comes with a rule that it may never be used? In any event, you can have faith in whatever you want to, and there are worse things you could do with your money than give it to an organization that by any objective measure is going to hoard it. If that's what you want to do, knock yourself out. But don't be surprised when a ton of members eventually realize that they needed the money more than the Church did, and resent being manipulated into donating, and become bitter critics as a result. The emphasis here should be on prudent reserves. Grossly excessive reserves don't do anything to support those things. I thought the Lord commanded that "We never expend more than what we estimate will be coming in terms of tithes and offerings." If the real mission somehow involves deploying the vast majority of its annual income on growing its reserves so that someday it can completely change course and do it on a scale order of magnitudes greater than what it's doing now, it should clarify that. This line of thought contradicts your bottleneck hypothesis in a huge way, but if this were the real goal, they should be transparent about it.

It's an important principle of good corporate governorship. There is a ton of academic research into what makes an organization effective, and this research makes it into the real world in MBA (and SOA) curriculum. Why is it important that the people who deploy resources know what the resources are? GPT articulated the issue well: No. [What the church does] would not be considered best-practice board governance. A board can delegate investment management to a committee, but it should not create a two-tier board where most fiduciaries are intentionally denied knowledge of the organization’s material assets. BoardSource describes nonprofit boards as ultimately responsible for oversight, accountability, stewardship of entrusted resources, and legal/ethical compliance; that requires access to full, material financial information. (BoardSource) The resource-allocation rule is also poor practice. “Spend less than donations every year and save the rest” is not a mission-based capital policy; it is a mechanical accumulation policy. Best practice is to set reserves based on risk, obligations, liquidity needs, strategic plans, and mission opportunities—not simply to grow the fund forever. (National Council of Nonprofits) The life-tenured, elderly, insider-informed structure adds another problem: weak renewal and weak challenge. Good boards need informed oversight, independence of judgment, succession planning, and enough transparency inside the boardroom for real debate. This structure would tend to suppress all of that. My best reference that really explains the feel of it is Elder Bednar's conference address from Fall 2013: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2013/10/the-windows-of-heaven?lang=eng Other references to piece it together are Hinckley's comments, David Nielsen's insights, that 2020 Deseret News article, etc. Bednar said, "In that first council meeting I was impressed by the simplicity of the principles that guided our deliberations and decisions..." and later in the article he called this process, "the Lord's own way." I suppose in principle a young apostle could sat that they need to revisit this and that as an apostle on Disposition of Tithes committee, he felt that he really needed to understand the full picture of the Church's resources in order to fulfill his fiduciary duties, and that they should be open to spending more than that year's tithes and offerings if they felt confident could put it to good use. But really? I just can't imagine somebody questioning "the Lord's way" in front of 14 senior apostles and the Presiding Bishopric. I'm not advocating for any of that. I'm merely pointing out the fact that the Church's reserves are way too big by any objective measure of such things, that the Church is objectively guilty of hoarding, and that functionally, asset accumulation is the Church's dominant financial priority. That's my entire point. What should they do about it? I'd suggest four things: Be completely transparent with the apostles with their finances and show them complete consolidated financial statements of the entire Church. Be completely transparent with the general membership and show them the financial statements, too. Hire a consultant (Clayton Christensen?) to come in and give them best practices for setting the size of the reserves. Then figure out how to best deploy their resources for their mission. They don't have to do any of that, of course, but if they keep waiting for a revelation to tell them what to do then functionally, asset accumulation will continue to be their dominant financial priority. Probably. But from my point of view, that is off topic. What I'm talking about is how the apostles aren't allowed to know how much money the church has, aren't allowed to know what its investment income is, and how they "never expend more than what [they] estimate will be coming in terms of tithes and offerings." Because they can't fulfill their fiduciary duties without that information. Not really. I think responsible individuals should weigh their own needs vs. the needs of the organization they are donating to before making donations. The Church refuses to give members the information they need in order to be good stewards of their resources that way, and instead claim that it is a commandment for them to donate blindly to them. Some people are okay with it. Some aren't. And others (e.g. Huntsman) will donate for a while, and will then figure out that their faith was misplaced. If the Church wants to avoid members feeling disillusioned and getting upset, they should be transparent with them in the first place.