During The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' semi-annual General Conference in October, the faith's second-highest ranking leader, Dallin Oaks, introduced an intriguing new framework to members worldwide.
He differentiated between "permanent commandments," summarized as "the doctrine of Christ," and "temporary commandments," defined as "necessary for the needs of the Lord's church ... in temporary circumstances, but to be set aside when the need has passed." Oaks then provided examples of temporary commandments, including God's 19th-century directive for pioneer Saints to migrate westward.
While Oaks' description of temporary commandments is well-reasoned and historically supported, LDS authorities have typically been reluctant to label commandments with this qualifier and have more often framed them as immutable and eternal. For example, the late Apostle M. Russell Ballard declared in 1999: "One thing is certain: the commandments have not changed. Let there be no mistake about that. Right is still right. Wrong is still wrong, no matter how cleverly cloaked in respectability or political correctness."
His long-time colleague, Apostle L. Tom Perry, echoed this sentiment in a more recent 2013 sermon: "The world changes constantly and dramatically, but God, His commandments, and promised blessings do not change."
Statements like these will have a familiar ring to Latter-day Saints, especially the more orthodox who have generally been taught to see commandments as unchangeable.
Despite Oaks' departure from more traditional rhetoric on commandments, his assessment of their temporary nature throughout LDS history is correct. For instance, the church's health code—known as the Word of Wisdom—was for decades only a suggestion, until 1919 when then-church President Heber J. Grant made compliance with it mandatory for temple attendance. Similarly, birth control and oral sex were once condemned sexual practices, but are now considered perfectly acceptable within a marriage.
And perhaps the most prominent example of a temporary commandment is the church's 126-year priesthood and temple ban placed on members of African descent, which the 1949 First Presidency articulated as "not a matter of the declaration of policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the church from the days of its organization." Along with the ban, LDS leaders long prohibited interracial marriage, with justifications ranging from it being a perversion of marital purity and a pollution of blood lines to social/cultural incompatibility between spouses. However, under intense sociocultural, political and internal pressure, the church eventually lifted the ban in 1978 and gradually rolled back condemnations of interracial marriage (current Apostle Gerrit W. Gong is part of an interracial marriage today).
Considering that commandments and doctrines the LDS church once claimed to be eternal and unchanging have changed dramatically across time, why have most leaders devoted significant effort toward preserving a narrative that they do not change? One explanation is that LDS leaders may feel that they strengthen credibility and authority by insisting to members that commandments never change.
If they were completely candid about the fact that commandments can and do change (like Oaks was recently), nuanced or progressive members might more rigorously advocate for changes to current, controversial commandments pertaining to homosexuality, transgenderism and women's roles, for example. Thus, by constructing an illusion of unchangeability, perhaps LDS leaders feel that they can better regulate a narrative that increases faithfulness and decreases dissent among members.
Such a narrative, however, is simply unsupported by the ever-expanding accessibility of church history and is, therefore, increasingly untenable. Instead of clinging to unsustainable claims of immutability, more LDS leaders should follow Oaks' example of conceding the temporary nature of commandments. A notable example of another leader who leaned into continuing revelation as a way to explain a monumental change in church history was Apostle Bruce McConkie, well-known for his stern, authoritarian mantle and his ardent anti-Black positions.
To his credit, however, shortly after the priesthood and temple ban was lifted in 1978, he reflected: "Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world."
Although McConkie held to deep-seated racist theological positions (i.e., Black people being cursed and less valiant in a pre-mortal existence) until his death in 1985, this forthright admission underscores a powerful and liberating aspect of LDS theology—that its core teachings, especially those that are unjust, can and do change.
In line with McConkie's words, the modern LDS church acknowledges the temporary nature of commandments that placed restrictions on Black members, and now condemn the racism by which they were founded. In the same vein, they would be well within their theological bounds to label current commandments that prohibit same-sex relationships, gender transitions and women's ordinations as "temporary." Borrowing Oaks' recent language, the church's teachings around sexuality and gender were perhaps "necessary for the needs of the Lord's church or the faithful in temporary circumstances," but they can be "set aside when the need has passed."
That need has passed.
In today's world of expanding social justice and inspiring movements toward inclusion and equality, it is time for the church to let go of homophobic, transphobic and patriarchal temporary commandments. Far from undercutting fundamental doctrinal models, this shift would be perfectly backed by the principle of continuing revelation and would beautifully align with the highest of LDS and Christian teachings—love, joy and equity.
Private Eye is off this week. Email comments@cityweekly.net
