I think the Church is still cautious, because of the study groups from a decade ago that were teaching things about the temple.

And they are extremely cautious here. Our new Institute director has a different view on such things, and perhaps his attitudes will slowly change things here.

I do think there are ways to have study groups that still fall within priesthood guidelines.

Then again, not many years ago, the Brethren were discouraging members from having LDS websites, etc. In fact, they asked everyone to shut those extraneous websites down and allow the Church to run everything. Only in the past year has this begun to be turned around, as they’ve realized that the Church cannot put out enough pro-LDS information to handle all of the negative press out there.

Perhaps when we finally realize we’re losing members because they are not getting a well-rounded scriptural education in Sunday School, we’ll be allowed to expand out to new study groups.

Until then, there’s always BCC and other blogs.

TStevens: “you get a participant who believes they have the perfect knowledge and are not so much interested in personal growth but rather have a desire to make everyone else also believe they have that perfect knowledge too”

Yes, I can believe this. It happens almost anytime you get any group of people together to discuss anything… work, school, anywhere. There’s always someone who doesn’t think there’s anything he can learn from others, so he participates for the purpose of sharing his great gift of knowledge with everyone else. This is a problem that might be avoided with a skilled study leader.

“I have heard of people not approving of someone’s taste in books and decide to go to the Bishop, because obviously that person is on the high road to apostasy because they enjoyed all the bed post chewing in Twilight.”

Funny. I am pretty selective about what I read, but less so about what I watch on TV or in movies. I have a taste for raunchy comedies that I should probably just keep to myself!

Seth, ha, that saying occurred to me after reading Kevin’s #102. Thanks for giving me the go ahead to adopt that approach.

“It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission.”

Laminate it.

The moral of the story for me is that a) there are more solutions than Yes/No and b) often times the solution depends simply on calling something different–”Institute class” is much more palatable to certain nervous leaders than “discussion group.”

Mike: “There is also the occasion where a local priesthood leader takes a heavy hand in his administrative style”

Honestly, this is how I usually explain to myself some of the crazy things people claim about their wards or stakes on the Bloggernacle. But when I imagine myself potentially being in a ward or stake with such a leader, I start to fume prematurely, and my heart rate goes up.

Kevin: “I think if one wants to have a study group, whatever you call it, you should just do it. Some people are incapacitated from making decisions like this without running every little thing by the bishop.”

This helps a lot. I can imagine that many people may actually invite disapproval by asking permission for things they don’t really need permission for.

“Most study groups I’ve experienced are like book groups, only with a focus on the church, and are harmless and usually edifying.”

This is the kind of group I had in mind.

bbell: “I would imagine that local leadership would get concerned if there was a charasmatic study leader that was teaching lots of classes about polygamy and inviting single women to attend. Now this does occur from time to time.”

That’s actually kind of funny. Bad, if he is actually able to lure women into polygamous unions, but funny, in a sick way, that he would make such obvious attempts.

Ardis: “We might also think that the commenter hasn’t told us the full story”

Yeah, I know. I keep that in mind when reading pretty much anything.

And thank you for your answer, gst. I can certainly understand Margaret (and church leadership) being concerned about a study group that focused on one topic, especially topics as controversial (and for some, personal and emotional) as the ones she mentioned. I would not have guessed that the concern would be over the potential charisma of the discussion leader, though (I’m not saying it shouldn’t be; I’m just saying I didn’t think of it). In non-religious settings, the biggest problem with controversial discussion topics is that the person leading the discussion is not skilled enough to keep things on track. The result is often that emotions run high, while reason runs low, and people walk away upset rather than enlightened. But the idea that the problem could be the opposite, that the person leading the discussion may be too skilled, too charismatic, too influential, is intriguing, and makes me wonder how often a charismatic, but otherwise typical ward member successfully leads others out of the church.

But back to the main topic, what about study groups that are simple Bible/scripture study groups? I mean groups that examine the scriptures in significantly more depth than Gospel Doctrine class, but that don’t make it their mission to explain/understand (or justify/reinstate) things like polygamy and the priesthood ban… I mean groups that might be described as Gospel Doctrine for English majors. Is the concern over apostasy the same as if it were, say, a polygamy study group? And if so, why?

Thank you again for responding.

When someone asserts that his local unit has a certain policy, or that such-and-such event occurred within his own ward, the question of truth or error is more complex. There’s always the possibility that some renegade bishop behaves irrationally, and we hope his superiors soon correct him. We might also think that the commenter hasn’t told us the full story — sometimes we call “baloney” when a claim is so outrageous on its face that bias is obvious, but it wasn’t obvious to me that Jones was distorting the story to suit his point. The personality of the commenter and his history of prior reasonableness (or otherwise) also shapes the response.

So sometimes there is more of an incentive than other times to respond to one comment while overlooking another that is, on the surface, very similar.