General Konference Predictions

[2bizE]

With GC just around the corner, I thought I'd start a tread on what we predict may happen.

I'm pretty safe in my prediction that Dallin H. Oaks will give a controversial gay-bashing speach. I'm not sure he is capable of speaking on any other topic.
I think Rmn will make some changes to fix inefficiencies as the church continues to bleed members and tithing funds. I'm thinking a change to what women can do in the church, like being in Sunday School presidencies.

What do you predict?

[jfro18]

Here's Bill Reel's "insider" list of things being worked on/discussed fwiw...

1. Church trying to make room for members to partake of Coffee and Tea
2. Having the Garment worn inside the temple only
3. To revamp the Missionary system making Service Missions and/or Local Missions prominent
4. Decentralize the financial responsibilities of the Church geographically.
5. Women will be given significant increased roles (Women giving blessings to be formally seen as approved), recent change for Mothers of Young Children to serve as ordinance workers for example of a small change heading that direction.
6. Increase dramatically in visible charitable giving to outside charities and outside humanitarian efforts
7. Changes to the office/mode of operation of Patriarch being discussed
8. Heavenly Mother will be given a significantly increased role in the conversation and theology within correlated Mormonism.
9. Significant changes made to ensure Bishops and Stake Presidents receive significant training. (Anything from multiple weeks of in-depth training to even a full-time trained clergy in regards to Bishops and Stake Presidents)
10. RS General Presidency continually has its visibility increased and effort made to add value to their voices and the voice of women. (while maintaining the top 15’s own authority and nepotism to ultimately lead the Church)
11. Create a group of women that would act similarly to the quorums of Seventy (travel and be involved in committees and have a voice in decision making at levels lower than the top 15)
12. Age for women going on missions to be lowered to 18 as well or men moved back up to 19 to make them equal in this regard.
13. Separate Marriages from Sealing to allow a couple to be married publicly and sealed immediately afterward in a separate act.
14. Additional Policy adjustments to protect the Church’s public image in Sex abuse cases.
15. I was missing a #15 in the audio but will add it here – Your going to see further adjustments to the scriptures to remove sections of language from the D&C, heading etc. and or add in language to headings ect. to confront the growing evidence against the former claims of the Church and a growing discomfort with our overreaching.
16. The Ward Library and the calling of Librarian eliminated in areas that have quality access to technology.
17. Adjust callings that have room to not require Priesthood to allow for female leadership (Ex: Sunday School Presidency)
18. Do away with or control who speaks in Fast and Testimony Meeting
19. Allow equivalent aged Girls to pass the Sacrament where the congregation lacks adequate priesthood.
20. Remove multiple cultural boundaries imposed as Mormonism but which are acknowledged as American culture and unnecessary. (Ex: allowing a wider range of instruments used in Church meetings)
21. A New Handbook of instruction is coming
22. Temple Recommend bar-codes will be connected to a photo so the uses of recommends by someone other than who the recommend belongs to can be thwarted.
23. Young Adult/Older Teen service Projects away from home that give a young member a significant experience making the world better but also connected directly to the Church. A mini service mission per say
24. There are now concrete discussions occurring asking how we move towards more inclusivity towards LGBTQ members.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

If this list is true, we are 30 years or less to becoming CoC.

[Palerider]

If this list is true, we are 30 years or less to becoming CoC.

Not that it matters but I won't be here in 30 years. (At least highly doubtful.) So really the church should just give up the "Joseph Smith/one and only" gig now and then they could possibly get me back and the TBMs could spend the next 5-10 years licking their wounds before they come back. Everything levels out in 10 years and they do much better membership wise.

If they wait 30 years, they lose me and a lot of others forever. But unfortunately there's no one at the COB with a vision of the future so I feel confident their plans will continue to be reactive and short sighted.

[no1saint]

Here's Bill Reel's "insider" list of things being worked on/discussed fwiw...

1. Church trying to make room for members to partake of Coffee and Tea
24. There are now concrete discussions occurring asking how we move towards more inclusivity towards LGBTQ members.

My TBM mother would love 1 as she loves the taste tea and coffee.

I would love 24 to be true, but can’t see how. Beyond celibacy and single life (which isn’t an option for me) I can’t see how you can include LGBTQI without a thus saith the Lord revelation. If one was to be released providing a doctrinal shift to allow same sex relationships and marriage...civil, not even Temple, I would return next week.

[jfro18]

My prediction (granted we're still a month out) is that the church makes some quiet moves behind the scenes to give women more roles in church meetings/committees/etc while not actually addressing the underlying fact that Mormon God views them as secondary to men.

I think there will be a new announcement of a bunch of temples (goes without saying), and I believe there will be tweaks to policies such as missionary guidelines and perhaps even slight changes to the WoW in temple recommend interviews.

That said I don't think they'll drop garments outside of the temple - that just seems like the kind of control they are not going to give up this quickly, but I hope I'm wrong. Even if they do subtly drop that requirement, I think most TBMs will keep wearing them because that what obedience does... you just don't want to be a 'lesser Mormon' even if it's technically OK.

[2bizE]

Here's Bill Reel's "insider" list of things being worked on/discussed fwiw...

1. Church trying to make room for members to partake of Coffee and Tea
24. There are now concrete discussions occurring asking how we move towards more inclusivity towards LGBTQ members.

My TBM mother would love 1 as she loves the taste tea and coffee.

I would love 24 to be true, but can’t see how. Beyond celibacy and single life (which isn’t an option for me) I can’t see how you can include LGBTQI without a thus saith the Lord revelation. If one was to be released providing a doctrinal shift to allow same sex relationships and marriage...civil, not even Temple, I would return next week.

Can you imagine RMN making changes in #24?
“We owe an apology to our LGBT friends. The church officially was wrong. Every word that Dallin Hoax has said is false...”

[AllieOop]

Here's Bill Reel's "insider" list of things being worked on/discussed fwiw...

1. Church trying to make room for members to partake of Coffee and Tea
24. There are now concrete discussions occurring asking how we move towards more inclusivity towards LGBTQ members.

My TBM mother would love 1 as she loves the taste tea and coffee.

I would love 24 to be true, but can’t see how. Beyond celibacy and single life (which isn’t an option for me) I can’t see how you can include LGBTQI without a thus saith the Lord revelation. If one was to be released providing a doctrinal shift to allow same sex relationships and marriage...civil, not even Temple, I would return next week.

Can you imagine RMN making changes in #24?
“We owe an apology to our LGBT friends. The church officially was wrong. Every word that Dallin Hoax has said is false...”

I think both Nelson and Oaks have to be gone before this will happen. Remember Oaks was the president at BYU during the years of the awful aversion therapy and the threatening of gay students (approved by him, Kimball and Mark E. Peterson....and Monson was involved too).

From 1971 to 1980 BYU's president Dallin Oaks had Gerald J. Dye over the University Standards Office (renamed the Honor Code Office in 1991). Dye stated that during that decade part of the "set process" for homosexual BYU students referred to his office for "less serious" offenses was to require that they undergo some form of therapy to remain at BYU, and that in special cases this included "electroshock and vomiting aversion therapies."

In an independent BYU newspaper article two men describe their experience with the BYU Aversion therapy program during the early 1970s. After confessing to homosexual feelings they were referred to the BYU Counseling Center where the electroshock aversion therapy took place using pornographic pictures of males and females. Jon, one of the individuals, implied that the treatment was completely ineffective. The experiences match most reports which state that shock therapy was ineffective in changing sexual orientation.

From 1975 to 1976 Max Ford McBride, a student at BYU, conducted electroshock aversion therapy on 17 men (with 14 completing the treatment) using a male arousal measuring device placed around the penis and electrodes on the bicep. He published a dissertation on the use of electrical aversive techniques to treat ego-dystonic homosexuality. The thesis documents the use of "Electrical Aversion Therapy" on 14 homosexual men using a "phallometric" apparatus, "barely tolerable" shocks, and "nude male visual-cue stimuli." Although it is not publicly published whether all top LDS Church leaders were aware of the electroshock aversion therapy program, it is known that apostles Spencer Kimball, Mark Peterson, and now apostle Dallin Oaks were

I fear things will get worse under Oak's presidency, but I'm hopeful for a change and a revoking of the recent policy eventually.

[Kishkumen]

Just remember, don't get your hopes up.

My prediction - they'll update some things but not as much as us NOM / ExMo crowd would prefer.

I don't have any individual predictions, but my TBM colleague mentioned 2 possibilities

• Allowing coffee/tea
  Removal of all Stake level callings with the exception of Stake Presidency/secretary.

[AllieOop]

Just remember, don't get your hopes up.

My prediction - they'll update some things but not as much as us NOM / ExMo crowd would prefer.

I agree. The one I'd love to see happen (and it may) is number 13 (" Separate Marriages from Sealing to allow a couple to be married publicly and sealed immediately afterward in a separate act.") That one would not be that difficult to change as it's already being done in other countries.

I can also see some of the ones where more equality is given to the women in the church.

[Just This Guy]

My question is how much of this is stuff that they are actually seriously working on, and how much is stuff that has been floated by some low level person in the COB and it gets shot down as soon as a 70 hears it.

Based on the last round of rumored changes, I would guess that the most of these will never see the night of day or if they do, it tiwll take along time for it to happen.

My reactions for some of these:

6. Note the word "visible" here. Expect to try to see the church push to have more media at events. More member charitable giving, not so much the church actually setting up themselves.
8. What roll can heavenly mother take here? There is so little info on her that about the only thing they can do is just a lot of name dropping. Anything more than that, they will have to create some new doctrine that actually involves here.
9. This is likely more to cover themselves more than anything. My FIL is a bishop and he will flap out that he has gotten exactly zero training. I have supplied him a lot of info on the local laws regarding clergy. If a bishop gets into legal trouble, they can go back on the church for filur to properly train them. According to my FIL, this has happened a few times.
14. This will likely be like the old adjustments where they are basically substanceless.
22. I'm actually surprised they have taken this long to do this. NewNameNoah has long exploited this gap in their security for years and has been very public about it. Of course, as much as he is willing to go though, it will only be in inconvenience and will not stop people who really want to get in.
24. Not gonna happen until whoever pushed through the PoX and their supports in the Q15 kick the bucket.

[Red Ryder]

Pfffft....

Someone call me when the women can wear panties and a bra as their only underwear of choice. Until then I'll be out mowing my lawn during GC!

It's getting to be really stupid analyzing the church to death about changes society has made 50 years ago.

Women with children at home can now be temple workers? Holy Shit? Hallelujah! Praise be! Revelation! Blah, blah, blah.... Women with children at home have been in the workforce since, forever!

Octogenarians be damned. It's not 1955 anymore.

[Brent]

The problem with discussing heavenly mother is that there might be or are heavenly mothers. You're going to have the entire polygamy English Celestial Kingdom argument going on. Think about it, which heavenly mother did you come from? Yikes.

[alas]

Interesting list of things they might be considering.

They would only take most of them gradually, say grant marriage first followed by sealing in “special circumstances”. They have already done this quietly. (Mitt Romney was allowed to marry in a civil ceremony his nonmember in laws could attend because the church was getting negative publicity about not allowing the parents of the bride attend the wedding)

I think they may ease up on things like pressure to wear garments 24/7 because the church has been heading this way for 100 years now. My grandmother’s generation thought you can’t even take them off to bathe. She was proud that all her 12 children were conceived through the garments because she was taught this makes for a better sealing to the children these strict teachings have changed. Women were instructed 50 years ago that garments were to be next to your skin, no exception for that time of month by wearing gentile undies under your Gs. Now they are told it is fine to wear the bra under the tops or wear gentile undies under for that time of month. I was friends once with a social worker who worked at a rest home in about 1970. He had one client in trouble with his bishop for not wearing Gs properly because of his colonostomy bag. So, they are headed over the last 100 years toward not being quite so nuts over 24/7. Many members interpret the instruction to wear them “throughout your life” as once a week is good enough. So, the church could hint at “it is between you and the lord” and let people make more of their own decisions, but say “you don’t have to wear them except...” not going to happen.

Some other things like WoW will be more, “it is between you and the Lord” but they will not come out and say, “coffee is OK” But they will stop pushing the strictest interpretations. So, some might hint that green tea extract is OK, or the alcohol in your vanilla extract is OK. They will just slowly not be as strict. Maybe the temple recommend will change wording a bit to imply that it is not as draconian, (I don’t know how they might phrase is to imply that a little green tea or once a month iced McCafe isn’t worth keeping you out of the temple) but just soften the wording somewhat and let people own guilt determine worthiness.

I also see them putting women in more positions, but not significantly changing anything. So, small token participation that can gradually over the next 50 years work toward saying women have had priesthood all along. See, the 12 y o girls are set apart to pass sacrament just like the boys. So, in 50 years, they can claim no difference except top leadership is traditionally male, then in another 50 years say there is no difference except we don’t use the word “ordain” for women.

So, in sum, I see them easing off some of the pressure in subtle ways, but not *changing* them.

[wtfluff]

I shall make the same prediction as usual: I will make every attempt possible to not watch or listen to any of LDS-Inc.'s bi-annual "rah-rah" convention. The old-guy sing-songy "conference voice" kicks my anger level up to 11, and my tooth enamel suffers. (The very few women who speak with their "primary voice" is even worse.)

I shall use the rest of you glutton's watching and reporting to find out about the tiny, irrelevant bandages that the old bigots trot out to try and cover the gaping wound that is: "The Church" is not what it claims to be, and is definitely not True™.

[AllieOop]

Pfffft....

Someone call me when the women can wear panties and a bra as their only underwear of choice. Until then I'll be out mowing my lawn during GC!

This one change would certainly improve many Mormon marriages. It's very difficult for a woman to feel very sexy wearing garments (during the day and to bed).

I vividly remember removing mine for the last time and heading to Victoria Secret. It was exciting and I felt so naughty....ha! How ridiculous is that??? But members are SO controlled by this one "rule". And, garments were not even supposed to be worn 24/7 if we go by how they wore them in the early days of the church.

I know that changing this would make a lot of women (and men) happy. Especially the younger girls/women.

[Yobispo]

Just remember, don't get your hopes up.

My prediction - they'll update some things but not as much as us NOM / ExMo crowd would prefer.

I don't have any individual predictions, but my TBM colleague mentioned 2 possibilities

• Allowing coffee/tea
  Removal of all Stake level callings with the exception of Stake Presidency/secretary.

Kish - removing Stake Callings for Ym/YW, SS, Primary would make a lot of sense. Probably can't get rid of the high council, but in reality they're unneeded. SP could still hold church courts and just fill it it with high priests like they do now when someone is recused. Or, you make all the Bishops and a handful of others the "high Council", but only for courts.

I like this idea a lot!

[Hagoth]

From 1971 to 1980 BYU's president Dallin Oaks had Gerald J. Dye over the University Standards Office (renamed the Honor Code Office in 1991). Dye stated that during that decade part of the "set process" for homosexual BYU students referred to his office for "less serious" offenses was to require that they undergo some form of therapy to remain at BYU, and that in special cases this included "electroshock and vomiting aversion therapies."

This is the same Dallin Oaks who recently said, “While we have no position about what the medical doctors do, we are conscious that there are abuses and we don’t accept responsibility for those abuses.”

[Hagoth]

I predict a lot of talk about how the Adversary wants us to think the world is ok and leads us off the narrow path and into researching things that are best left alone (reaction to Jana Reiss' research).

I would be surprised if we see any direct, correlatable response to the real issues.

Tea & Coffee: they will certainly not come out and say that the D&C revelation is wrong. They could fall back on my dad's answer, which was that it's not the content of the drink, but whether or not it's hot enough to cause tissue damage, but I highly doubt it. I think they'll treat it just like they did meat and non-wheat grains. They will talk less and less about tea and coffee as more and more members will start including it in their diet. It will be like caffeinated soda. It gradually went from forbidden to ambiguous to eventually a non-prophetic newsroom memo. Let's meet back here in a decade and see if I'm right.

[wtfluff]

They could fall back on my dad's answer, which was that it's not the content of the drink, but whether or not it's hot enough to cause tissue damage, but I highly doubt it.

Ha! My own mother used to preach about how "inspired" Sec. 89 was to help keep us from burning ourselves with them hot drinks.

Gee thanks all-powerful omnipotent Elohim for letting me know I shouldn't ingest stuff that's so hot it will burn my esophagus. There's no way I could have ever figured that out for myself! (And said burning would never happen with any other "hot" liquid besides coffee or tea...)