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T. L. Peterson is an editor who lives in Utah. He is also known as Loursat.

Peterson would like to express his upfront gratitude to Sistas in Zion, whose insightful tweets on the day of President Nelson’s sermon suggested the key idea for this post.

Treating our leaders as though they are infallible is a problem for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. With his energy and bold language, President Nelson might be showing us a way through that problem. But his solution comes with some nervous questions and a new conundrum.

A popular saying among Latter-day Saints purports to tell the difference between Catholics and Mormons: Catholics say the pope is infallible, but they don’t really believe it*; Mormons say the prophet is fallible, but we don’t really believe it. This saying started as a joke, but I think it has become a truism.

Mormon prophetic “infallibility” has been a topic of many posts over the years at BCC. Here are two more from Times and Seasons. These blog posts just scratch the surface of what’s available on a subject that never stops simmering. I’m convinced that when we act as if we believe in prophetic infallibility, it really is a problem. It stagnates us. We are unwilling to do things that we fear might cast doubt on the callings of past prophets, so when we are faced with the need to change, our changes are incomplete.

We abolished polygamy, but we did not disturb its doctrinal foundations. We are left with lingering ideas that justify the subservience of women. We ended the racial restriction on priesthood and temple activity, but we have never acknowledged that it was wrong. We are left with lingering ideas that legitimize a legacy of racism in the Church. Our fear of criticizing prophets leaves creeping residue of error that distorts our present views. We try to change without fully changing. To put it more forcefully, we try to repent without really repenting.

How can we fix this? I think the way forward is to acknowledge that prophetic infallibility is a practical problem, not a doctrinal problem. It must have a practical solution. JKC’s post at BCC several months ago illustrates the difficulty. His argument, which is focused on doctrine and a careful reading of past statements by Latter-day Saint leaders, is thoughtful, faithful, enlightening—and dense. The issue of prophetic infallibility has become a Gordian knot—a problem that is so complicated by layers of tradition and speculation and folk practice that it can’t be solved with doctrinal explanations. Academic and theological analysis is necessary, but it’s not sufficient to untangle the knot in the minds of the laity. The knot can only be sliced through with practical action. In our Church, corrective action must come in the form of a pronouncement from the prophet.

President Nelson has now made such a pronouncement—if we choose to accept it—about the name of the Church. He proclaimed that a practice adopted by every previous president of the Church, including Joseph Smith, is offensive to God and a victory for Satan. I am not aware of any occasion on which a Latter-day Saint prophet has criticized his predecessors in such stark, absolute terms.

Why did President Nelson use this striking language? It could be that he disregarded practical concerns and uttered a visionary proposal based on his prophetic convictions. It might also be he was influenced by pragmatism: President Nelson knows he will need all the leverage he can muster to get traction for this change. He knows as well as anyone there will be resistance. Whatever his motives, though, President Nelson has set the precedent we need to get beyond our spurious belief in prophetic infallibility.

Embracing this opportunity is complicated. For one thing, it means following President Nelson’s rejection of our Mormon sobriquet. To judge by the reaction in the bloggernacle, this change has perplexed Latter-day Saints at all points on the Church’s cultural spectrum. It is not clear yet how President Nelson’s rejection of “Mormon” and emphasis on Christ will play out.

There are also deeper complications. By his willingness to speak in terms of revelatory authority, President Nelson is disrupting the status quo. Our reluctance to repudiate past mistakes creates problems, but it also creates a comforting steadiness; we might not be fully repenting when we need to, but at least we’re not tearing things down and starting over all the time. Genuinely confessing and forsaking our mistakes might diminish the authority of past prophets. It would also increase the power of living leaders to enact change. If we follow the path of new revelation, we will have to work our way toward a new status quo that embraces more expansive possibilities of change. We cannot know where that path will take us.

Some of us with progressive sensibilities might hesitate to be led along this path by President Nelson. He appears to be as committed as any current Church leader to policies that marginalize our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. And judging from their talks in the most recent women’s session of General Conference, President Nelson and his counselors largely favor keeping women on patriarchy-approved pedestals. On these issues, what might President Nelson do with increased prophetic authority? In the future, what might other prophets do with expanded authority? It turns out that a solution to our conundrum of prophetic infallibility leads to another conundrum involving changes in the basic patterns of Church governance.

I pray for and sustain our leaders, especially President Nelson. I love them. I also pray for those who suffer the burden of our sins as a church. I want us to be able to repent, and I want us to get it right. As we move into a complicated and somewhat murky future, I hope we persevere. I believe that eventually, with God’s help, we can get it right.

*The Catholic doctrine on infallibility is much more nuanced than the saying would have it—see this canon law discussion about ex cathedra pronouncements—but our saying is really meant to reflect Latter-day Saints attitudes, not what Catholics believe.

Photo by Erica Magugliani on Unsplash