The Deseret News reports a “profound change” coming to Church administration. Beyond the substance of the changes, I find it somewhat interesting that this article centers on statements from a non-PR Church employee speaking at the Sunstone Symposium. Is this more evidence that the early-90s chill is thawing?
This is not a new announcement. A letter was sent to Bishoprics regarding the change almost two months ago. Rest assured the Church is not using the Sunstone symposium a platform for policy announcements.
This is not a new announcement, as it was the subject of a letter sent to stake presidents and bishoprics almost two months ago. Rest assured the Church is not using the Sunstone Symposium as a platform for policy announcements.
Thanks Frank. I hadn’t heard. But given past Church statements about “symposia,” I still find it mildly curious (and encouraging, actually) that a story about a Church employee speaking at Sunstone was printed in the Deseret News.
Yes, very encouraging. At this rate, maybe there’s still hope the Deseret News will finally print the text of all those Church-wide “revelations” I’ve been receiving and emailing to them these past few years.
:)
Aaron B
Aaron,
Does the :) mean you are kidding, or is it the smile of a raving lunatic who thinks he receives church-wide revelations? Is there a different key combination for lunatic smiles? I’m afraid I’m not up on these things.
Hey, you heard it here first.
Sorry for not linking to your earlier post Kim — I had just seen the article in the Deseret News today.
No need to apologise. I know the real reason is because you never read my blog and so didn’t know the post existed. ;-)
Lunatic smile: >;-?
“This is a true decentralization of church authority” that represents a confidence in local church leaders to carry out the directives of its top leaders without an additional layer or administration, he said. “Both President (Gordon B.) Hinckley and President (James E.) Faust had good experiences as stake presidents back in the old days when they did have a lot of authority, and I think they wanted to provide that opportunity” for others.
Yikes! Given some of the leadership I’ve witnessed, I don’t know that giving more authority to stake presidents is a good thing. :^/
I’ve had quite a few people tell me that the church goes in cycles in this regard. It’ll decentralize things, give more power to Bishops, then you have a bunch of Bishops screwing things up and power gets re-centralized and more GAs get called to keep an eye on Stake Presidents and Bishops. Then church growth and other factors will let them decentralize again and the whole cycle repeats.
One thing that wasn’t mentioned or at least not reported was that I think this change will put more responsiblity (and authority) on the Area Authority Seventies in North America.
Does the fact that Area Presidency’s are only being suspended in North America mean that the leaders in this area are somehow supposed to be inherently more reliable, or is it simply easier for the First Presidency and the Twelve to communicate directly to Stake leaders in these areas.