Elder Christofferson To Church News: Doctrine Is Not Changing

[california boy]

In His sermon on the mount, the Savior said the following:

29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. (Matthew 5 )

As far as I'm aware, there is not a single Christian denomination - including the LDS Church - that believes the Lord intended the above verses of scripture to be taken literally, Rather, it's almost unanimously understood that what the Savior is teaching is that if someone very near and dear to a believers heart becomes very destructive to his spiritual well-being, that it's better for the believer to end the relationship with that spiritually destructive person rather than be dragged down to hell along with him.

The same non-literal interpretation also holds true wihen the Lord says some men need to make themselves virtual eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. The expression doesn't mean that there are some men who should castrate themselves, but that there are situations in life when men should chose to be sexually celibate or abstinate for life, rather than violate the Lord's law of chastity that says sexual relations are only acceptable by God when engaged in by men and women who are legally and lawfully married.

And thank you for your clarification of your post.  Something that Mfbuk didn't think I was entitled to.  

 

Basically you are inturpeting this scripture to justify the churches position that it is better for someone who is gay to be celibate rather than marry.  Ok. I am fine with that.  I may not agree with your inturpetation, but I can see where you are going.  Your first post it was really unclear where you were headed.

[Bobbieaware]

And thank you for your clarification of your post.  Something that Mfbuk didn't think I was entitled to.  

 

Basically you are inturpeting this scripture to justify the churches position that it is better for someone who is gay to be celibate rather than marry.  Ok. I am fine with that.  I may not agree with your inturpetation, but I can see where you are going.  Your first post it was really unclear where you were headed.

And like people of goodwill, we can with civility agree to disagree, with the knowledge that both you and I are eternally beloved of God.

[Stone holm]

I have rational secular reasons aplenty; you just don't like/accept any of them.

I don't know haven't heard them, but I have been reading the briefs filed by those battling in the Courts and I haven't read any convincing ones there. So, unless we are to assume that the large number of Federal judges appointed by both GOP and Dems have suddenly lost their ability to see a convincing secular argument when confronted with one, then I suspect I am not alone. I can think of convincing religious arguments, but that is the problem...in a society such as ours which values religious freedom, a purely religious argument cannot be allowed to prevail when you are talking about forcing non-believers to conform.

[mfbukowski]

You are jumping the gun a bit aren't you?  I was asking how Bobbie was inturpeting that scripture.  Bobbie is the one that quoted the scripture of the Eunich.  I really was asking why Bobbie brought up this scripture.  It is a fair question and I wanted to be clear about what she was saying before I said anything.  I also wondered if she knew what an Eunich was.  It is NOT someone who is celibate.  It is someone who has been castrated.  I wanted to make sure she understood what she was suggesting.

 

You don't think that it was fair for me to ask her for CLARIFICATION of her post?  Really?  geeeze

Yeah, well you know how we homophobes are.

 

The post was very clear.  If you wanted to know why she was bringing up celibacy, you should have asked that question instead of concluding she wanted to castrate gays.

 

That is a very standard interpretation of what Paul was saying- not what Bobbie was dreaming up to be tough on gays

Edited February 14, 2015 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

And thank you for your clarification of your post.  Something that Mfbuk didn't think I was entitled to.  

See, there you go again, making things up.  I never said anything like that.

 

It's all in your mind. Everyone thinks you aren't entitled to something.

Edited February 14, 2015 by mfbukowski

[BCSpace]

Forget the LGBT issue for a moment.  Consider the ramifications of what was said.  Our Doctrine as we have heard, understood, and interpreted from the Lord is unchanging and will never change"   If we eliminate the LGBT part of his quote do we hold this statement to be true?

 

Is it true generally or just around this specific issue?

 

Has our Doctrine ever changed before?

 

What is Doctrine?  (no working definition will reconciles this contradiction inherently found between the word and how we use it and how our history has worked out) How we Mormons define DOCTRINE is a half dozen paradoxes all banging heads.

 

If the previous things we held to be Doctrine at any given time have indeed changed, than how can we be so sure that a present Doctrine won't change?

 

Has the Lord himself appeared to assure those who lead this is unchangeable?

 

If not then can we ever be sure there is not further light and knowledge on any given topic.

 

Just asking questions that seem to me to be too messy to have any level of certainty what is Doctrine and what is not and what can change and what can't.

 

I found this article to match my own views nearly 100%

 

 

The Church has clearly and unequivocally defined doctrine and has a systematic theology.  See my siggy for example. Doctrine has indeed changed, but there has not been any changes whatsoever to certain doctrines the enemies of the Church claim has, or hope to have, changed. Obviously, the law of chastity is one of them.