At the Women’s Conference session on October 6, 2019, President Oaks gave a talk that gives an unusual and chilling interpretation of Jesus’s teachings. Referring to Jesus’s discourse that the first and greatest commandment is to love God, and the second is to love your neighbor, Oaks equates loving God with obedience to God’s laws. He also states that the second commandment to love one another does not supercede the first commandment to love God, which Oaks presumably uses to justify judging, condemning, and hating others who he thinks are not obeying God’s law. This is his argument for justifying bigotry which is based in hating others and not loving your neighbor.
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As an active member of the Church, I believe in personal revelation and depend on it in my life. It was personal revelation, received while in the temple, that led me to the decision to marry my now husband. I also understand that when the Brethren teach the principle of personal revelation (as President Nelson did in his “Five Truths” speech at BYU on September 24, 2019, see Truth #5), they have a different context than which we might all be thinking.

When pertaining to LGBT members seeking to know whether they should date and find love compatible with how God made them, personal revelation becomes very problematic for the Brethren. In response to President Nelson’s Five Truths, below are Five Rules that I think are implicit in all of the Brethren’s teachings on personal revelation. In effect, what they are saying is:

Rule #1: We are prophets and apostles. We are better than you, and we are more spiritual than you. We know what is best for you, better than you do. Continue reading →