Church Discipline, part 1

A PEOPLE?  OR A CHURCH?

In the beginning, the Restoration was not an effort to establish another Christian Sunday religion.  It was meant to establish a people, a nation unto itself of sorts.  They were to be self-sufficient—NOT as individuals, but as a community—reliant only on God.  They were intended to be a contained civilization.  They were even to have their own government, evidenced by the original use of terms in revelations such as “government” and “laws” and “courts.”

As a people, they were given laws and an internal judicial system.  It was not only meant for “spiritual” matters, tied to religion and “church” membership; it was to be used for all matters concerning the law which the people lived under.  It handled business and property conflicts, breaking of laws both temporal and spiritual, almost any dispute that could arise between parties.  Bishops were the front line of this system, handling a far larger load of “temporal” responsibilities (the only ones they are authorized to handle) than they do now.

This judicial system was intended as a “Mormon” replacement for the court system of the land; the only offense which could not be handled internally being that of killing (D&C 42:79).  Killers were to be handed over to the state, as only the state had authority to enact justice against one who kills.  All other offenses were intended to be handled internally, as even then the American judicial system was considered laughably corrupt (sarcastically referred to as the “so called” judicial system on p. 30 of Minute Book 1).  Mormons could not hope for actual justice—or mercy—in the courts of the land, so the Lord provided a system for them to use among themselves.  This system promised both justice and mercy in greater measure, if it were followed properly.  What we were first offered was immensely valuable, and comparing what we were initially given with what we now operate under should help bring to light just how much we’ve lost in time.

THE EARLY CHURCH JUDICIAL SYSTEM SUMMARIZED

The purpose of any judicial system is punishment for breaking of laws (Alma 42:15-22).  While the system is intended to help protect the innocent and punish the guilty, it is understood that man is fallible.  We will not get things right every time.  So is it better to wrongly punish the innocent, as a precaution against failing to punish all the wicked?  Or is it better to fail to punish some of the wicked, as a precaution against wrongly punishing the innocent?  

I believe the system of checks and balances that were initially built into the church judicial system overwhelmingly reflect a Divine interest in protecting the wrongly accused innocent over punishing every last offender.  For no man can ultimately escape just punishment, else God would not be a “just” God (Psalms 89:14; Isaiah 45:21; Mosiah 16:1).  Any punishment we fail to render can be entrusted to God to handle.  But we cannot expect Him on the same note to grant us any leniency in destroying the innocent. We can only expect to call down the punitive justice of God on our own heads.

First and foremost, God’s judicial system hinges on a requirement set forth in D&C 20:80:  

"Any member of the church of Christ transgressing, or being overtaken in a fault, shall be dealt with as the scriptures direct."

There is no latitude for interpretation as to the primary source of direction we are to follow.  It is not the hidden Church Handbook of Instructions vol. 1 (CHI-1), it is the scriptures.  Furthermore, D&C 42 is a section comprised of instruction concerning laws we have been given and how we are to handle their infringement.  We are twice given the instruction that ALL disciplinary matters are to be handled the same way, as laid out for us in that section (D&C 42:83 & 93). Joseph Smith stated unequivocally that new revelation cannot trump scripture, as contradicting a former revelation is a sign of a false messenger (TPJS, p. 214).  The Lord expects us to be guided by the scriptures, and any effort to defy them or set them at naught is anti-Christ.

Within the scriptures, as will be shown later in comparison to current practice, we were given a series of checks and balances on judicial power, limiting unilateral action and creating protections for the innocent against false or wrongful punishment.  Such protections included:

• Requirements restricting the sources of information presenting evidence against the accused.
• Multiple levels of appeals, with more guaranteed re-hearings in case of biased or erroneous judgment on the part of some councils.
• Respect for the proper understanding and application of both punishments and repentance.
• Measures preventing an accuser from sitting in judgment against the accused.
• Measures preventing judges from rendering verdicts without majority agreement to its correctness.
• Built-in defenders of any and all innocence on the part of the accused, with no actual built-in prosecution.
• The accused and their defenders always being granted the last word, so that any true words of innocent defense will ring out over the words of accusation.
• Measures requiring multiple witnesses with integrity and sound evidence to convict.
• Required opportunities for forgiveness to swallow up the just punishment of the accused, as the offended are required to attempt to resolve issues personally before bringing in church involvement.

MORMON EVOLUTION AFFECTED THE LDS COURTS

The early Mormons were evidently more interested in garnering from the Lord what they desired of Him, rather than what He wanted for them.  They wanted a Sunday religion, as such religions were understood at the time.  They wanted a New Testament model Christian church, comparable to all the others, only hoping that theirs would be the most right before God.  Our refusal to accept what the Lord offered us resulted in the church being placed under a collective condemnation in 1832, only two years after our initial inception as a church (D&C 84:56-57).

In the time since 1832, we even began altering the revelations themselves.  Words like “government,” “laws” and “courts” have been changed to “presidencies,” “covenants and commandments” and “councils.”  This is the jargon of a Sunday religion, not a nation or people.  As time progressed, we began to primarily use the secular judicial system and abandon the use of the church judicial system in temporal matters.  (We’ve similarly done the same thing with the church welfare system, encouraging members to approach the state first and the church second, in diametric opposition to previous counsel and practice.) 

As part of the evolution, we altered the actual functioning of our judicial system, both in what cases it will try and the procedure for trying them.  Fear of the state has led the church to wash its hands of all cases determining things like property ownership or other civil disputes.  This stripped the bishops of much of their temporal responsibility.  

But in those religious cases the church would still hear, procedure evolved in the direction of making it increasingly easy for leadership to do as they please, checks and balances against their power being systematically removed.  In the church today, adhering fully to CHI-1, an authority (we'll use the stake president) can unilaterally walk a person from accusation to excommunication unchecked, as follows:

• First, they can discover for themselves that a member may be involved in some sort of sin or transgression, making them accuser and/or witness (which in and of itself is fine). 
• Then, rather than hand off the case to another authority to judge so they can properly act as accuser/witness, the stake president can instead personally open an investigation of the accused. 
• While certain tactics are forbidden (such as stalking and wire-tapping), other techniques such as data mining, false internet personas, and delegated spying have been used and considered appropriate in practice. 
• Then, having gathered information on the accused, that stake president can sort through the information and determine what is and is not “relevant” as evidence for a disciplinary council, before it is called.  
• Then they can call the accused before a disciplinary council, with themselves heading the council as judge.  
• The council will follow or disregard procedures as the stake president determines, regardless of even CHI-1 procedural instructions (which power CHI-1 actually grants them), and the accused need not be informed of what procedures will and will not be followed in their own trial.  
• The stake president chooses who will and will not speak (with the sole exception of the accused themselves, still being granted that token right).  
• The stake president determines what evidence will and will not be examined, what witnesses and testimonies will and will not be examined in the council. 
• This includes those evidences, witnesses and testimonies which the accused provides during the council.  
• When all allowed testimony, evidence and remarks have been submitted and examined, the stake president makes a unilateral decision concerning punishment, with a ceremonial but actually powerless “sustaining” vote on the part of the council.

In other words, a stake president may currently act as plaintiff, detective, prosecution, defense, witness, legislation, jury and judge, unilaterally and unchecked. CHI-1 grants them this, as will be shown.  Besides "the honor system," there is literally nothing preventing a biased church authority from unjustly and single-handedly walking someone to their guaranteed excommunication if they so wish. This is only the case because every check and balance on authoritarian power has been systematically removed over the last 150+ years, most especially via the Correlation program.  It is no wonder David O. McKay lamented in his journal that he feared Correlation would bring about apostasy in the church. (Prince, Gregory and Wright, Robert. David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, p. 150-152)