This Blog and LDS Doctrine

You can see in the header to this blog the statement that I don't speak for the LDS Church and what I say isn't LDS doctrine. While I'm trying my best to be accurate, I'm just one of around 14,000,000 people who is a member of the Church--I don't have any role or position in the Church that allows me to speak on its behalf. I'm just trying to present the teachings as I understand them. I doubt any two members of the LDS Church think alike. The ideas are as varied as the members.

I'd like to think that my blog is an accurate reflection of Church teachings, but I don't pretend that it won't reflect some of my biases, ill-founded assumptions and peculiar ideas. It's not my goal to reflect any of that, but it's an inevitable reality.

Even individual Church leaders (which I'm not) don't speak for the Church as a whole. Here is the Church's own statement on the subject, of which the following is an excerpt:

"Not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine. A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole Church. With divine inspiration, the First Presidency (the prophet and his two counselors) and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (the second-highest governing body of the Church) counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publications. This doctrine resides in the four “standard works” of scripture (the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price), official declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith. Isolated statements are often taken out of context, leaving their original meaning distorted."

So while I hope that nothing I write here is at odds with LDS doctrine, it inevitably will be just my slanted view. I am open to comments correcting any misstatements or inaccuracies. Despite all this, I hope some readers find this blog helpful.