Patriarchal Blessings

[MustardSeed]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

Does the two leader rule apply to stake patriarchs?

I would assume that since 2 deep is not a requirement for bishop and SP it’s not a requirement for Patriarch either.  just optional.  
 

[Duncan]

1 hour ago, Diamondhands69 said:

Yep I agree church leaders don’t follow the book… just like the seventy you quoted. He apparently doesn’t know what it even says. 
 

doesn’t change the fact the content of each blessing is the stake president’s business… well at least according to the prophet. if the SP is  doing his job, he will review each blessing whether you like it or not. He can also choose to not review it, just like the seventy said who was running his mouth spreading bad info. One thing  that guy needs to learn is as a senior leader to never make public statements contrary to church doctrine or policy. Annnnnd needs to realize anytime he speaks in a church setting he represents church policy. If it his opinion SPs are not to read the blessings than prob a good idea to state it is personal opinion. If you don’t know the policy don’t make one up. 

 

odds are that seventy used to be a stake pres and probably didn’t review the blessings as a matter of how he did or didn’t do his job. Why he told someone  blessings are not reviewed is beyond me, but he is clearly wrong. It is church policy to do so regardless if some do it or not. 
 

 

in other words, they don't follow the book but do follow the book because you grew up in Stake Pres. house, got it.

[Diamondhands69]

3 minutes ago, Duncan said:

in other words, they don't follow the book but do follow the book because you grew up in Stake Pres. house, got it.

You don’t do well when empirical evidence proves you to be wrong.
 

take care

[Diamondhands69]

On 12/19/2023 at 6:51 PM, Duncan said:

… is going on in the "temple admin. dept", which it isn't even called that by the way. …

My bad …. Correction. “Temple Department.”

TEMPLE DEPARTMENT
50 E NORTH TEMPLE RM 400
SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84150-6400
Phone: +1 801-240-3801

thanks for making sure I know the exact name of the temple department. Throwing “admin” in there clearly makes it look like a completely different organization. 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Diamondhands69
Wrong snip

[Duncan]

26 minutes ago, Diamondhands69 said:

You don’t do well when empirical evidence proves you to be wrong.
 

take care

you don't do well to realize it isn't 1955 anymore and your anecdotal evidence fallacy doesn't serve you well

[Diamondhands69]

16 minutes ago, Duncan said:

you don't do well to realize it isn't 1955 anymore and your anecdotal evidence fallacy doesn't serve you well

Where did I mention anything about 1955? 

[Diamondhands69]

17 minutes ago, Duncan said:

you don't do well to realize it isn't 1955 anymore and your anecdotal evidence fallacy doesn't serve you well

It served me better than the anecdotal evidence you provided. Mine was backed up by church policy and yours was disproved by the same policy. 

[Duncan]

3 minutes ago, Diamondhands69 said:

It served me better than the anecdotal evidence you provided. Mine was backed up by church policy and yours was disproved by the same policy. 

you obviously missed it but your "opinion" is completely worthless to me so whatever

take care or take off

[DispensatorMysteriorum]

On 12/12/2023 at 1:54 PM, Malc said:

Do you mean the extract from my blessing, or the patriarch's instruction to me, or the stake pres. contradicting the patriarch - 

or all of the above?

All of the above, my friend. 

[Stargazer]

On 12/20/2023 at 12:19 AM, Diamondhands69 said:

The stake pres was my father lol. The interview is approved. It wasn’t a worthiness interview. It was exploration as described above. 

Silly me! Obviously coming at this from ignorance. My apologies!

Since my wife's father was a patriarch, just now I went to ask her what she knew about his procedure in giving blessings. She said that he typically would talk with the person for about a half hour to get to know them before giving them their blessing. My adult stepson was in the room so I asked him about how it was when he received his blessing (in this case, I'm acquainted with his patriarch because I'm one of his ministering brothers). He said that there was a conversation lasting maybe a half-hour beforehand. 

So my own experience, which was four of us sitting together in the patriarch's "office" (actually, the living room of his house, I think) while he conversed with us all simultaneously, during which I'd say he interacted exclusively with each of us about ten minutes altogether, to be somewhat atypical.

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Stargazer

[Stargazer]

On 12/21/2023 at 1:01 AM, BlueDreams said:

To a degree. I do know they do have a portion of their blessings reviewed based on an interview I saw with another patriarch. So there's at least some guidance or expectations as to what to do, but there does seem to be a good amount of leeway to whatever guidance they're given on it.  

 

With luv,

BD

There is a patriarch manual: "Information and Suggestions for Patriarchs." I tried to order a copy once, out of curiosity, but I didn't have enough authority it seems.

On 12/21/2023 at 3:13 AM, Diamondhands69 said:

Yep- stake pres reviews every single one of them. Someone else above ?? Mebbe

You say reviewed, which is the word the Handbook uses, but did your dad read them all? That would seem a little time-consuming -- or not, depending upon how busy your patriarch is/was.

On 12/21/2023 at 5:17 AM, Duncan said:

that isn't true at all. Someone asked this at Priesthood leadership meeting sometime ago and the Seventy said nope they don't. The Patriarch gets interviewed or met with by the Stake President but they don't review the blessings given. Your info is outdated

Ah, Duncan, I am afraid you are wrong. The Handbook directs the stake president to periodically review the blessings the patriarch has given. 

In Section 6.6.4 it says:

The stake president supervises the patriarch’s work as outlined in Information and Suggestions for Patriarchs. He does not delegate this responsibility to one of his counselors. A patriarch benefits from a close relationship with his stake president.

The stake president meets with the patriarch at least twice a year. They discuss the patriarch’s feelings about the work, the health and welfare of his family, and any other matters on which he needs counsel.

At least twice a year, the stake president reviews the blessings the patriarch has given. As needed, he may make general suggestions about the content of the patriarch’s blessings.

You should cut DiamondMittens some slack. He is cynical about the Church, but I feel his cynicism is honest. We can all do with some love and respect out here in the cold. Especially the cynic.

[Diamondhands69]

7 hours ago, Stargazer said:

On 12/20/2023 at 8:13 PM, Diamondhands69 said:

 

You say reviewed, which is the word the Handbook uses, but did your dad read them all? That would seem a little time-consuming -- or not, depending upon how busy your patriarch is/was.

I assume he did. He don’t know how one would be able to make sure the content jived with their marching orders unless the whole blessing is read. Needs to have proper lineage, no outrageous claims, no predicting second coming etc. my understanding from our convo was he read the entire blessing. My brother( one of the other patriarchs) mentioned all his are reviewed prior to the SP authorizing it to be released to the recipient. I imagine the SP does whatever he wants. They are nearly free to do whatever they want. As the AA is their supervisor and  an area authority is difficult for them to get a hold of unless it is an emergency or the AA is a retired person whose hobby is church. Ours currently is impossible to communicate with. 

Edited December 28, 2023 by Diamondhands69

[Stargazer]

On 12/28/2023 at 3:43 AM, Diamondhands69 said:

I assume he did. He don’t know how one would be able to make sure the content jived with their marching orders unless the whole blessing is read. Needs to have proper lineage, no outrageous claims, no predicting second coming etc. my understanding from our convo was he read the entire blessing. My brother( one of the other patriarchs) mentioned all his are reviewed prior to the SP authorizing it to be released to the recipient. I imagine the SP does whatever he wants. They are nearly free to do whatever they want. As the AA is their supervisor and  an area authority is difficult for them to get a hold of unless it is an emergency or the AA is a retired person whose hobby is church. Ours currently is impossible to communicate with. 

Wow, that's keeping the patriarch on a tight leash, to require direct intervention before releasing a blessing to the recipient! My wife's father was our stake patriarch years ago and she said that the stake president did regularly meet with him, and read at least some of the blessings he had given. But nothing like what your brother is subjected to! That sounds like that SP is really going beyond the mark, as it were. Well, far be it from me to criticize another when I'm not the one in the saddle, but it still seems a bit extreme. I'm one of our stake patriarch's ministering brothers, and I know they meet occasionally, but the SP lives about 20 miles away and I'm pretty sure our SP does not do what your brother's does.

It is the case that stake presidents are left to preside over their stakes according to the handbook at their discretion. In our particular case here in England, there are regular meetings between stake presidents and the area presidency (called Coordinating Council meetings) and they all seem to stay in close communication with each other. It is also the case that bishops are left to preside over their wards. 

I served in the military for 8 years, and there was a tendency among some leaders in that organization to micromanage those they supervised, and this may be an occasional failing in other human organizations as well. Including the Church.

But I suppose it's possible that micromanagement can sometimes be appropriate.

 

[Diamondhands69]

17 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Wow, that's keeping the patriarch on a tight leash, to require direct intervention before releasing a blessing to the recipient! My wife's father was our stake patriarch years ago and she said that the stake president did regularly meet with him, and read at least some of the blessings he had given. But nothing like what your brother is subjected to! That sounds like that SP is really going beyond the mark, as it were. Well, far be it from me to criticize another when I'm not the one in the saddle, but it still seems a bit extreme. I'm one of our stake patriarch's ministering brothers, and I know they meet occasionally, but the SP lives about 20 miles away and I'm pretty sure our SP does not do what your brother's does.

all kinds of leaders here are in their own program. My bro’s SP seems to be, but they are about 40 miles from me so I don’t even know who he is or how he runs the stake in general. 
 

distance here in stake or ward is very short. My bishop lives 1/3 mile from me. My SP maybe 2miles. My entire ward is within less than ten min walk from my home. We have approx 300 on the books in my ward alone. Only about 100 show up ever. Access to senior leaders here is prob similar to yours though despite the short distance. 
 

for a SP to review every blessing that is not a heavy lift. Most patriarchs only give a few per month. My father gave maybe 150 or so (we had to inventory and destroy his tape recordings after he died. He saved all of them) and that was over about a decade ish . He was emeritus last year of his life. 

17 hours ago, Stargazer said:

It is the case that stake presidents are left to preside over their stakes according to the handbook at their discretion. In our particular case here in England, there are regular meetings between stake presidents and the area presidency (called Coordinating Council meetings) and they all seem to stay in close communication with each other. It is also the case that bishops are left to preside over their wards. 

I served in the military for 8 years, and there was a tendency among some leaders in that organization to micromanage those they supervised, and this may be an occasional failing in other human organizations as well. Including the Church.

But I suppose it's possible that micromanagement can sometimes be appropriate.

lots of micromanagement and yes at times it can be appropriate. Sometimes a leader turns into a micromanager because his own leadership will not accept any shortfalls, problems etc. so he ends up on everyone’s business because it will all be his fault anyway.
 

as for reading every blessing. What if they don’t? Imagine one escaping with a promise to see the second coming or declaring improper lineage. There are politics surrounding lineage depending upon one’s race. 

Edited January 3, 2024 by Diamondhands69

[Stargazer]

9 hours ago, Diamondhands69 said:

as for reading every blessing. What if they don’t? Imagine one escaping with a promise to see the second coming or declaring improper lineage. There are politics surrounding lineage depending upon one’s race. 

One of the reasons that, for me, Utah may be Zion, but I wouldn't want to live there.

I imagine that not all patriarchs are always "in tune." But my patriarch was. Or so it seems he was at the time, because my blessing has been a profitable blessing to me in many respects. 

 

Edited January 3, 2024 by Stargazer
edit out the extraneous verbiage

[Diamondhands69]

53 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

One of the reasons that, for me, Utah may be Zion, but I wouldn't want to live there.

I imagine that not all patriarchs are always "in tune." But my patriarch was. Or so it seems he was at the time, because my blessing has been a profitable blessing to me in many respects. 

 

Utah has nothing to do with the lineage issue. Some races cannot be from certain tribes. That is how it used to be and at one point blacks were not told their lineage. Manasseh is another tribal lineage that needs to be racially correct. People may dispute this but find me one white person from the tribe of Manasseh. It can be a problem anywhere in the church. 

[webbles]

2 hours ago, Diamondhands69 said:

Utah has nothing to do with the lineage issue. Some races cannot be from certain tribes. That is how it used to be and at one point blacks were not told their lineage. Manasseh is another tribal lineage that needs to be racially correct. People may dispute this but find me one white person from the tribe of Manasseh. It can be a problem anywhere in the church. 

Has anyone done a study on patriarchal blessing lineages?  I've read papers on patriarchal blessings for Black members (who sometimes were told their lineage but it wasn't through Abraham) but really nothing on non-Black members.  I did find a list of patriarchal blessings that Hyrum gave ( https://user.xmission.com/~research/mormonpdf/blessingsbyhs.pdf ) and it has 8 people in Manasseh - James Newberry, John M. King, William Ford, Levi Ward Hancock, James Pace, Ann Elisa DeLong, Aaron Johnson, and James Madison Flake.  I'm pretty sure all of them are white.

[Diamondhands69]

11 hours ago, webbles said:

Has anyone done a study on patriarchal blessing lineages?  I've read papers on patriarchal blessings for Black members (who sometimes were told their lineage but it wasn't through Abraham) but really nothing on non-Black members.  I did find a list of patriarchal blessings that Hyrum gave ( https://user.xmission.com/~research/mormonpdf/blessingsbyhs.pdf ) and it has 8 people in Manasseh - James Newberry, John M. King, William Ford, Levi Ward Hancock, James Pace, Ann Elisa DeLong, Aaron Johnson, and James Madison Flake.  I'm pretty sure all of them are white.

Interesting. Well I suppose since most of not all of them (like my family) are descendants from Europe/uk so that would make sense. There has been race mixing going on there for hundreds of years prior so prob every single one of them possess African dna.
My own father had dna in him from Africa… at least one drop of African blood. Should have never received the priesthood till after 1978. Since we don’t have any prophets who can discern all that we had all kinds of white folks walking around with African blood and the priesthood at the same time when if the church was to be believed they shouldn’t have. 
 

I appreciate the link. I’ll have to read it in its entirety. 

[Calm]

37 minutes ago, Diamondhands69 said:

My own father had dna in him from Africa… at least one drop of African blood. Should have never received the priesthood till after 1978.

The one drop rule was not from a prophet, but an addition (we now have the actual shorthand of the talk).  If you are thinking that was the accepted revelation of Brigham, it was actually a tradition based on a misunderstanding of how dna works**, probably borrowed from principles of the day, actually made into law in some states, like Tennessee and Virginia.

No one in the world should have had the priesthood prior to 1978 based on that attempt at understanding genetic inheritance.  Even isolated groups have shared DNA (didn’t someone post a study here about the genetics of three isolated communities?  I came across it a bit ago, but can’t remember where; here is the most likely).

https://ldsperspectives.com/2017/02/15/in-brighams-words/

Quote

Then Paul Reeve asked me, “Do you have notes for February 5, 1852?” Yes. I transcribed all of the shorthand for the debate on slavery. This was Indian and African slavery. Paul Reeve and Christopher Rich are bringing a legal and historical background to this. Two items are of great importance here. The first is Watt’s longhand transcript, inaccurate though it may be is extant, but because the speech was incorrectly dated as January 5, historians hadn’t found it. The shorthand was unknown and untranscribed besides Watt’s longhand transcript of Brigham Young’s speech.

Wilford Woodruff recorded Brigham Young’s speech in his journal at the beginning of 1852, notes only, partial notes. They are undated and in my opinion copied from elsewhere. Wilford Woodruff recorded Brigham Young as saying that any man with one drop of African blood could not hold the priesthood. This document was known. It was the cited document. It was used in ecclesiastical judgments. This document was the one known source for what Brigham Young had actually said. Unfortunately, Wilford Woodruff took the social construct of one drop that was used to legally determine who was African in the Southern states. If you had one drop of African blood, as long as it came through the maternal line, you were considered an African. Somehow, his memory put this into Brigham Young’s sermon.

George D. Watt’s notes of Brigham Young’s speech do not contain the words “one drop.” I have searched my shorthand records and Van Wagoner’s compilation of all published manuscript accounts of Brigham Young’s speeches. This phrase is not there. Brigham Young did not say it, but the record we had included it. The clarification of Brigham Young’s words are of vast importance to us.

**”The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 confirmed humans are 99.9% identical at the DNA level and there is no genetic basis for race.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8604262/

***https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule

Edited January 4, 2024 by Calm

[Diamondhands69]

7 hours ago, Calm said:

The one drop rule was not from a prophet, but an addition (we now have the actual shorthand of the talk).  If you are thinking that was the accepted revelation of Brigham, it was actually a tradition based on a misunderstanding of how dna works**, probably borrowed from principles of the day, actually made into law in some states, like Tennessee and Virginia.

No one in the world should have had the priesthood prior to 1978 based on that attempt at understanding genetic inheritance.  Even isolated groups have shared DNA (didn’t someone post a study here about the genetics of three isolated communities?  I came across it a bit ago, but can’t remember where; here is the most likely).

https://ldsperspectives.com/2017/02/15/in-brighams-words/

**”The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 confirmed humans are 99.9% identical at the DNA level and there is no genetic basis for race.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8604262/

***https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule

Overall I completely agree with you. I also never mentioned who the one drop thing was from Brigham or revelation or anything else. Like the rest of this blacks and priesthood business it all boiled down to racism. For those leaders who were not racist? Well an epic failure of the power of discernment. 
 

also i agree no one prior to 1978 should have had the priesthood. I used my own family as an example of that. We are Lilly white yet have African DNA. 

Edited January 4, 2024 by Diamondhands69

[SkyRock]

I had a black mission companion in Brazil whose lineage said "adopted into the house of Abraham" and had no tribe listed. 

[Diamondhands69]

Deleted

Edited January 4, 2024 by Diamondhands69

[Stargazer]

On 1/3/2024 at 4:35 PM, Diamondhands69 said:

Utah has nothing to do with the lineage issue. Some races cannot be from certain tribes.

If true, I think I can see how that might be the case. But did you hear about this in some authoritative way, or is this one of those "faith-promoting" rumors?

On 1/3/2024 at 4:35 PM, Diamondhands69 said:

That is how it used to be and at one point blacks were not told their lineage. Manasseh is another tribal lineage that needs to be racially correct. People may dispute this but find me one white person from the tribe of Manasseh. It can be a problem anywhere in the church. 

Do we expect that all descendants of Lehi have to be Manassehites? I don't buy it, actually. Again, is this a rule from the manual for patriarchs? It was not the case that all the Manassehites went to the Americas with Lehi. In fact it was a very small number -- the rest went with the 10 tribes and would have intermarried with gentiles ever afterward for the next thousand years or so, just like the rest. There would be plenty of white descendants of Manasseh living in the current time.

If it's a question of adoption, practically every LDS in the world is an Ephraimite. If Lehite descendency required being declared of being of Manasseh, then that's what I should have been declared as. That's because I am 1/16th Native American. One of my Great great grandmothers was full-blooded American Indian. But I'm an Ephraimite. I've never met anyone who wasn't.

 

[Diamondhands69]

6 hours ago, Stargazer said:

If true, I think I can see how that might be the case. But did you hear about this in some authoritative way, or is this one of those "faith-promoting" rumors?

I don’t know what a faith promoting rumor is. My understanding is BIC and anglo or at least appearing to be Anglo will be tribe of Ephraim. Hispanic, Tongan etc I’m told are typically Manasseh. As previously discussed, most of but all Anglo’s have black /african blood yet are from Ephraim and Helen the priesthood prior to 1978. All that shows is discernment is fake. Since the church doesn’t talk about all this we are left to rumor, gossip, opinion of patriarchs etc. none of which are reliable in my book. I have two patriarchs in my family (well had). They sometimes talk patriarch stuff. The lanes say thing I have heard long before either of them were patriarchs. We had kids from Indian placement program in our home and that is when I learned about the manessah thing. 

6 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Do we expect that all descendants of Lehi have to be Manassehites? I don't buy it, actually. Again, is this a rule from the manual for patriarchs? 

 

This is one of the reasons a patriarch likes to meet with blessing recipients prior. So they can learn about you, your family and maybe pick out some clues… you know so they can be inspired to tell you what your lineage is among other things. 
 

go to the fuller consideration website and read some of the blessings posted there. Some real doozies. There’s reasons these things get reviewed. 

6 hours ago, Stargazer said:

If it's a question of adoption, practically every LDS in the world is an Ephraimite. If Lehite descendency required being declared of being of Manasseh, then that's what I should have been declared as. That's because I am 1/16th Native American. One of my Great great grandmothers was full-blooded American Indian. But I'm an Ephraimite. I've never met anyone who wasn't.

 

Do you look white or native? 

Edited January 7, 2024 by Diamondhands69

[webbles]

27 minutes ago, Diamondhands69 said:

I don’t know what a faith promoting rumor is. My understanding is BIC and anglo or at least appearing to be Anglo will be tribe of Ephraim. Hispanic, Tongan etc I’m told are typically Manasseh.

Do you know if this is actually in a teaching given to patriarchs?

I found a 1999 article by Armand Mauss in the Journal of Mormon History that goes over the history of assigning lineage - https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1032&context=mormonhistory.  Starts on page 135 in the pdf or 132 by the paper page number.

He talks about how the Smiths were identified as from Ephraim but other members were from other lineages.  Then most members were from Ephraim and since most members were from England and the Nordic countries, it was believed that those countries were of Ephraim.  The rest of Europe (Spain, France, Italy, etc) was not as receptive so they were either not from Ephraim or had no Abraham blood (pdf page 162).  A South American mission president in 1936 believed that Latin countries (Italy, Spain) only gained Israelite blood because of invasions from Germanic tribes (pdf page 171).

He also asked a few dozen patriarchs "to explain how they understand their citing of a person's lineage" (pdf page 172).  Their responses ranged from "pure inspiration" to "always Ephraim".  Some would mostly do Ephraim but be "inspired" to rare lineages at times (Mauss said "perhaps for manifest racial reasons") and others said that the lineage had nothing to do with actual ancestry.