I’ve noticed that there are a number of different wordings used in the Church Handbook to say not to do something. Of course, these differences long predate the new Handbook released this week. It was just the release of the new Handbook that got me to thinking about it now.
Here are seven different wordings I’ve seen in the handbook for saying “don’t.” (I’m sure this list is not exhaustive. These are just the ones I found from a quick look at a few sections.)
- Members don’t do X.
- The Church/Church leaders does/do not encourage X.
- The Church/Church leaders counsel against doing X.
- The Church/Church leaders strongly discourage doing X.
- Members should not do X.
- Members must not do X.
- Doing X is prohibited/not authorized.
Some of these can clearly grouped and then ranked within the group by strength. Strongly discourage is stronger than counsel against, which is in turn stronger than not encouraged. And must not is stronger than should not. But how do they compare across groups? To me, counsel against sounds roughly equivalent to should not, and strongly discourage sounds roughly equivalent to must not. But that’s just my personal sense. I don’t know if most people read them that way.
The first and the last entries, though, are kind of wild cards that don’t exactly fit in with the others. I’ve blogged before about Church authorities’ use of descriptive statements to do prescriptive work. I’m not a fan of it, but I can see reasons why they might prefer to do it. Among other things, it lets them avoid even appearing to be doing any prescribing: they’re just describing the way things are. If people disagree, what’s wrong with them? On the last entry, it doesn’t fit with the rest because it’s not trying to engage any moral sense on people’s part (e.g., it would be wrong to do X; you shouldn’t do X). It’s just flatly saying that you can’t do it.
In any case, given the number of different ways they say “don’t,” I think it’s interesting to look at how each “don’t” statement in the Handbook is phrased, because presumably the GAs considered all of the other possible phrasings (even if only implicitly) before settling on the final one.
I thought a fun way of looking at this would be to take a bunch of “don’t” statements from the Handbook, and for each one, write six more statements about the same issue, but using each of the other six ways the Handbook says “don’t.” Then we can line them all up and see if the actual statement from the Handbook makes the most sense. In other words, we can see if the level or type of disapproval expressed in the actual Handbook statement is what we might expect, or if it seems out of line with how the issue is usually talked about in the Church.
In the tables below are 12 different “don’t” statements from the Handbook. Each statement appears in seven different versions, one for each of the different wordings I’ve found in the Handbook. Of course, for each issue, only one is an actual statement from the Handbook, and the other six I wrote to parallel the actual one. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to guess, for each issue (i.e., each column in a table) which is the actual Handbook statement.
Note that I’ve dropped clauses from some of the Handbook statements to make them more readable. Given that you’re looking at seven different versions of each statement, I wanted them to be as simple as possible. For example, the statement on firearms makes an exception for current law enforcement officers, and the statement on being alone in church buildings says that it applies especially to women and youth. I have not indicated the bits I’ve snipped out with ellipses here, again to make the statements more readable, but in the corresponding tables below where I show the answers, I have put the ellipses in the actual Handbook statements.
| Which statement in each column is a quote from the Handbook? | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Statement type | Sacrament | Firearms | Surgical sterilization |
| Descriptive | Members partake with their right hand when possible. | Members do not carry lethal weapons on Church property. | Members do not use surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control. |
| Not encouraged | Members are not encouraged to partake with their left hand. | The Church does not encourage carrying lethal weapons on Church property. | The Church does not encourage the use of surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control. |
| Counseled against | Members are counseled against partaking with their left hand. | The Church counsels against carrying lethal weapons on Church property. | The Church counsels against surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control. |
| Strongly discouraged | Members are strongly discouraged from partaking with their left hand. | The Church strongly discourages carrying lethal weapons on Church property. | The Church strongly discourages surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control. |
| Should not | Members should not partake with their left hand. | Members should not carry lethal weapons on Church property. | Members should not use surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control. |
| Must not | Members must not partake with their left hand. | Members must not carry lethal weapons on Church property. | Members must not use surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control. |
| Prohibited | Partaking with the left hand is prohibited. | Carrying lethal weapons on Church property is prohibited. | The use of surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control is prohibited. |
| Which statement in each column is a quote from the Handbook? | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Statement type | Travel | Abortion | Church buildings |
| Descriptive | A man and a woman do not travel alone together for Church activities. | Members do not submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, consent to, or encourage an abortion. | Leaders instruct members not to be alone in Church buildings. |
| Not encouraged | It is not encouraged for a man and a woman to travel alone together to Church activities. | It is not encouraged for members to submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, consent to, or encourage an abortion. | Members are not encouraged to be alone in Church buildings |
| Counseled against | The Church counsels against a man and a woman traveling alone together to Church activities. | The Church counsels against members submitting to, performing, arranging for, paying for, consenting to, or encouraging an abortion. | Members are counseled against being alone in Church buildings. |
| Strongly discouraged | The Church strongly discourages a man and a woman traveling alone together to Church activities. | The Church strongly discourages members submitting to, performing, arranging for, paying for, consenting to, or encouraging an abortion. | Members are strongly discouraged from being alone in Church buildings. |
| Should not | A man and a woman should not travel alone together for Church activities. | Members should not submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, consent to, or encourage an abortion. | Members should not be alone in Church buildings. |
| Must not | A man and a woman must not travel alone together for Church activities. | Members must not submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, consent to, or encourage an abortion. | Members must not be alone in Church buildings. |
| Prohibited | It is prohibited for a man and a woman to travel alone together for Church activities. | It is prohibited for members to submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, consent to, or encourage an abortion. | Members are prohibited from being alone in Church buildings. |
| Which statement in each column is a quote from the Handbook? | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Statement type | Music | Transgender surgery | Illegal drugs |
| Descriptive | Secular music does not replace sacred music in Sunday meetings. | Members do not undergo elective surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex. | Members do not use any substance that contains illegal drugs. |
| Not encouraged | The substitution of secular music for sacred music in Sunday meetings is not encouraged. | The Church does not encourage members to undergo elective surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex. | Members are not encouraged to use any substance that contains illegal drugs. |
| Counseled against | Church leaders counsel against replacing sacred music with secular music in Sunday meetings. | Church leaders counsel against elective surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex. | Church leaders counsel members against using any substance that contains illegal drugs. |
| Strongly discouraged | Church leaders strongly discourage replacing sacred music with secular music in Sunday meetings. | Church leaders strongly discourage elective surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex. | Church leaders strongly discourage members from using any substance that contains illegal drugs. |
| Should not | Secular music should not replace sacred music in Sunday meetings. | Members should not undergo elective surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of their birth sex. | Members should not use any substance that contains illegal drugs. |
| Must not | Secular music must not replace sacred music in Sunday meetings. | Members must not undergo elective surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of their birth sex. | Members must not use any substance that contains illegal drugs. |
| Prohibited | Replacing sacred music with secular music in Sunday meetings is prohibited. | Undergoing surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex is prohibited. | The use of any substance that contains illegal drugs is prohibited. |
| Which statement in each column is a quote from the Handbook? | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Statement type | Cremation | Art in buildings | Garments |
| Descriptive | Members do not have their bodies cremated after their death. | Statues, murals, and mosaics are not used in Church buildings. | Members do not remove the garment for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment. |
| Not encouraged | The Church does not normally encourage cremation. | The use of statues, murals, and mosaics is not normally encouraged. | The Church does not normally encourage the removal of the garment for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment. |
| Counseled against | The Church counsels against cremation. | The Church counsels against the use of statues, murals, and mosaics. | The Church counsels against the removal of the garment for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment. |
| Strongly discouraged | The Church strongly discourages cremation. | The Church strongly discourages the use of statues, murals, and mosaics. | The Church strongly discourages the removal of the garment for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment. |
| Should not | Members should not have their bodies cremated after their death. | Church buildings should not have statues, murals, or mosaics. | The garment should not be removed for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment. |
| Must not | Members must not have their bodies cremated after their death | Church buildings must not have statues, murals, or mosaics. | The garment must not be removed for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment. |
| Prohibited | Cremation is not authorized. | Statues, murals, and mosaics are not authorized. | The removal of the garment for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment is not authorized. |
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NOTE: The tables below include the answers, so don’t keep scrolling until you’re done making your guesses.
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Here are the answers. The actual Handbook statement in each column is a link to the section of the Handbook where it appears. And, like I mentioned above, here I’ve put in ellipses where I snipped any parts out to simplify the statements.
| The linked statement in each column is a quote from the Handbook. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Statement type | Sacrament | Firearms | Surgical sterilization |
| Descriptive | Members partake with their right hand when possible. | Members do not carry lethal weapons on Church property. | Members do not use surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control. |
| Not encouraged | Members are not encouraged to partake with their left hand. | The Church does not encourage carrying lethal weapons on Church property. | The Church does not encourage the use of surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control. |
| Counseled against | Members are counseled against partaking with their left hand. | The Church counsels against carrying lethal weapons on Church property. | The Church counsels against surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control. |
| Strongly discouraged | Members are strongly discouraged from partaking with their left hand. | The Church strongly discourages carrying lethal weapons on Church property. | The Church strongly discourages surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control. |
| Should not | Members should not partake with their left hand. | Members should not carry lethal weapons on Church property. | Members should not use surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control. |
| Must not | Members must not partake with their left hand. | Members must not carry lethal weapons on Church property. | Members must not use surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control. |
| Prohibited | Partaking with the left hand is prohibited. | Carrying lethal weapons on Church property . . . is prohibited. | The use of surgical sterilization as an elective form of birth control is prohibited. |
| The linked statement in each column is a quote from the Handbook. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Statement type | Travel | Abortion | Church buildings |
| Descriptive | A man and a woman do not travel alone together for Church activities. | Members do not submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, consent to, or encourage an abortion. | Leaders instruct members . . . not to be alone in Church buildings. |
| Not encouraged | It is not encouraged for a man and a woman to travel alone together to Church activities. | It is not encouraged for members to submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, consent to, or encourage an abortion. | Members are not encouraged to be alone in Church buildings |
| Counseled against | The Church counsels against a man and a woman traveling alone together to Church activities. | The Church counsels against members submitting to, performing, arranging for, paying for, consenting to, or encouraging an abortion. | Members are counseled against being alone in Church buildings. |
| Strongly discouraged | The Church strongly discourages a man and a woman traveling alone together to Church activities. | The Church strongly discourages members submitting to, performing, arranging for, paying for, consenting to, or encouraging an abortion. | Members are strongly discouraged from being alone in Church buildings. |
| Should not | A man and a woman should not travel alone together for Church activities. | Members should not submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, consent to, or encourage an abortion. | Members should not be alone in Church buildings. |
| Must not | A man and a woman must not travel alone together for Church activities. | Members must not submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, consent to, or encourage an abortion. | Members must not be alone in Church buildings. |
| Prohibited | It is prohibited for a man and a woman to travel alone together for Church activities. | It is prohibited for members to submit to, perform, arrange for, pay for, consent to, or encourage an abortion. | Members are prohibited from being alone in Church buildings. |
| The linked statement in each column is a quote from the Handbook. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Statement type | Music | Transgender surgery | Illegal drugs |
| Descriptive | Secular music does not replace sacred music in Sunday meetings. | Members do not undergo elective surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex. | Members do not use any substance that contains illegal drugs. |
| Not encouraged | The substitution of secular music for sacred music in Sunday meetings is not encouraged. | The Church does not encourage members to undergo elective surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex. | Members are not encouraged to use any substance that contains illegal drugs. |
| Counseled against | Church leaders counsel against replacing sacred music with secular music in Sunday meetings. | Church leaders counsel against elective . . . surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex. | Church leaders counsel members against using any substance that contains illegal drugs. |
| Strongly discouraged | Church leaders strongly discourage replacing sacred music with secular music in Sunday meetings. | Church leaders strongly discourage elective surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex. | Church leaders strongly discourage members from using any substance that contains illegal drugs. |
| Should not | Secular music should not replace sacred music in Sunday meetings. | Members should not undergo elective surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of their birth sex. | Members should not use any substance that contains illegal drugs. |
| Must not | Secular music must not replace sacred music in Sunday meetings. | Members must not undergo elective surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of their birth sex. | Members must not use any substance that contains illegal drugs. |
| Prohibited | Replacing sacred music with secular music in Sunday meetings is prohibited. | Undergoing surgical intervention for the purpose of attempting to transition to the opposite gender of a person’s birth sex is prohibited. | The use of any substance that contains illegal drugs is prohibited. |
| The linked statement in each column is a quote from the Handbook. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Statement type | Cremation | Art in buildings | Garments |
| Descriptive | Members do not have their bodies cremated after their death. | Statues, murals, and mosaics are not used in Church buildings. | Members do not remove the garment for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment. |
| Not encouraged | The Church does not normally encourage cremation. | The use of statues, murals, and mosaics is not normally encouraged. | The Church does not normally encourage the removal of the garment for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment. |
| Counseled against | The Church counsels against cremation. | The Church counsels against the use of statues, murals, and mosaics. | The Church counsels against the removal of the garment for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment. |
| Strongly discouraged | The Church strongly discourages cremation. | The Church strongly discourages the use of statues, murals, and mosaics. | The Church strongly discourages the removal of the garment for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment. |
| Should not | Members should not have their bodies cremated after their death. | Church buildings should not have statues, murals, or mosaics. | The garment should not be removed for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment. |
| Must not | Members must not have their bodies cremated after their death | Church buildings must not have statues, murals, or mosaics. | The garment must not be removed for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment. |
| Prohibited | Cremation is not authorized. | Statues, murals, and mosaics are not authorized. | The removal of the garment for activities that can reasonably be done while wearing the garment is not authorized. |
I feel like the examples clarify uses of the different wordings a little, but less than I would have guessed. The prohibited/not authorized wording is used for rules that the Church sets and that it has direct control over. You can’t bring your gun in the building, and you also can’t install a statue there. That seems straightforward enough. I assume the GAs don’t use this wording for all the things they want to discourage because they don’t have direct control over them. Like it’s clear they really don’t want members to have abortions, but it’s not like they have agents following all members around to make sure we don’t. So instead they just strongly discourage.
But some of the uses, even in just these twelve examples, seem pretty muddled to me. Men and women driving alone together to a church activity (when one of them is married to another person, the Handbook adds, although I didn’t include that part in the quote for simplicity) gets a should not, but so does using illegal drugs. I would guess GAs would see the latter as much more serious than the former. I mean, if you went to your bishop and confessed the former, what would he say? I would guess something like “Eh, we recommend against that. Don’t do it again.” But the latter? You’d lose your temple recommend if you have one.
I’m also puzzled by the strongly discourage given to surgical sterilization. Anecdotally, I think this is pretty widespread, even among faithful Church members. Once the GAs kind of threw up their hands on birth control and quit scolding members about how we would “reap disappointment by and by” if we didn’t have all the children we possibly could, it seems strange for them to push so hard on surgical sterilization versus pills or condoms or any other temporary method. Certainly surgical methods are more permanent (although not completely so), but it doesn’t seem to me that they’re so very different where they warrant such a high level of expressed disapproval.
On the issue of gender reassignment surgery, I’m actually pleasantly surprised that it warrants only a counsels against rather than a must not or strongly discouraged that I would have expected if, for example, President Oaks had been writing the Handbook alone. On this and other issues, I can imagine a series of editions of the Handbook where they move from strongly discouraged to counsels against to not encouraged over time. I hope that’s the trajectory, anyway.
Two other bits struck me that don’t have to do with the choice of “don’t” wording. First, I edited this out of the statement for clarity, but I find it ridiculously paternalistic that the statement on not being alone in the building lumps women and youth together as groups in particular need of this counsel. The beginning of the statement, which says “leaders instruct members” is also strange. Are the Handbook authors saying that they are the leaders, and here they are instructing us? If so, why doesn’t this precede every single statement in the Handbook? If not, what’s the point of invoking local leaders as middlemen? Isn’t the whole point of putting the Handbook on the Church’s website that everyone can now read it for themselves?
The illegal drugs statement is also strange to me in that it outsources the decision about what drugs are good or bad to governments. I know it isn’t a new idea for the Word of Wisdom to be interpreted as including banning illegal drugs. But it just seems strange to me, especially given that we’re so careful about defining that coffee and tea are also definitely banned. So in a country (or US state) where recreational marijuana is legal, is it then not against the Word of Wisdom because it’s not illegal?
What stands out to you in the actual Handbook statements? Did the correct answer surprise you for any of them?