Portrait of Russell M. Nelson

Principal drafter of the 1995 proclamation; Church President

Russell M. Nelson

b. 1924

1 topic · 3 dated events · 1 source

Their part in each topic

LGBTQ Latter-day Saints

Principal drafter of the 1995 proclamation; Church President

Nelson was the principal draftsman of 'The Family: A Proclamation to the World' over the 1994 Christmas holidays. On 10 January 2016 he told a worldwide young-adult audience that the November 2015 handbook change came when 'the Lord inspired His prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, to declare the mind of the Lord and the will of the Lord,' and that each apostle 'felt a spiritual confirmation.' Three years later, as Church President, he presided over the reversal of that same policy.

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In the timeline

3 events across 1 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.

Winter 1994–1995

The family proclamation is drafted

At the urging of Boyd K. Packer, then acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve, a committee of Elders Faust, Nelson and Oaks prepared a draft over the Christmas holidays, Nelson serving as principal draftsman. The draft went to the First Presidency on 9 January 1995. During the same months Church leaders grew concerned about the Hawaii litigation, and on 24 February 1995 the Associated Press reported that the Church had announced a petition to intervene in the case.

Disputed Packer said the impetus was United Nations family conferences in Cairo and Beijing; critics argue the Hawaii marriage litigation was the driving concern. FAIR concedes leaders knew of Hawaii before drafting began but denies outside lawyers wrote the document.
People: Russell M. Nelson · Boyd K. Packer · Dallin H. Oaks
10 January 2016

Nelson calls the policy revelationhinge

In a worldwide young-adult devotional, Russell M. Nelson, then president of the Quorum of the Twelve, said the same prophetic process used for the 2012 missionary-age change had been followed 'again with the recent additions to the Church's handbook.' He described the Twelve meeting 'repeatedly in the temple in fasting and prayer,' and then: 'when the Lord inspired His prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, to declare the mind of the Lord and the will of the Lord, each of us during that sacred moment felt a spiritual confirmation. It was our privilege as Apostles to sustain what had been revealed to President Monson.'

Why this is a hingeIt moved the policy out of the category of administrative judgment and into the category of revelation — which is exactly what made the 2019 reversal so hard to explain.
People: Russell M. Nelson
4 April 2019

The policy is reversedhinge

At the direction of the First Presidency, President Oaks announced that children of parents who identify as LGBT may be baptized without First Presidency approval where custodial parents consent, and that infants of nonmember LGBT parents may be blessed. On the apostasy designation the statement read: 'Previously, our Handbook characterized same-gender marriage by a member as apostasy. While we still consider such a marriage to be a serious transgression, it will not be treated as apostasy for purposes of Church discipline. Instead, the immoral conduct in heterosexual or homosexual relationships will be treated in the same way.' The policy had stood for forty-one months.

Why this is a hingeA change announced in 2016 as the will of the Lord was undone in 2019 by the same process, putting the mechanics of revelation itself in evidence.
Disputed FAIR frames the change as an ordinary revision of policy rather than doctrine, quoting Packer that procedures change while principles do not; LDS Discussions argues that a revelation reversed within three and a half years shows spiritual confirmation is not a reliable indicator of truth.
People: Dallin H. Oaks · Russell M. Nelson

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