Handbook (LDS Church)

Purpose

In general, the Handbook contains institutional church policies as opposed to church doctrine. However, brief statements of doctrine are commonly presented at the start of sections in the handbook in order to provide the doctrinal context in which the policies are being set and implemented. In this way, the Handbook unifies the church's scripture and creeds with its ecclesiology and polity.

Handbook acts as a "standard reference point" for bishops and other leaders to make decisions. These leaders are encouraged to follow the handbook "with the guidance of the Holy Ghost" and with "sensitivity to individual circumstances".

Structure and distribution

The Handbook is divided into two volumes. The church only distributes copies of the handbook to individuals who fill certain leadership callings within the church hierarchy. Handbook 1 is not available to the general public or the general church membership. The text of Handbook 2 can be accessed on the church's official website.

Handbook 1

Handbook 1 is subtitled Stake Presidents and Bishops. It contains information that is primarily relevant to the functions and duties of stake presidents, bishops, mission presidents, district presidents, branch presidents, and their counselors. Other individuals who receive a copy of Book 1 are temple presidents and their counselors, general authorities, general auxiliary presidencies, area seventies, and ward and branch clerks.

The topics in Handbook 1 include guidelines involving general, area, and regional administration; duties of the stake president; duties of the bishop; temples and marriage; missionary service; administering church welfare; church discipline and name removal; interviews and counseling; physical facilities; creating, changing, and naming new units; military relations; Church Educational System; Perpetual Education Fund; records and reports; finances; stake patriarch; ordinance and blessing policies; and general church policies on administrative, medical and health, and moral issues.

The church has stated that it did not place Handbook 1 online with Handbook 2 because church authorities were concerned that if it were widely read by the church membership, members "might decide they don’t need to go see their bishop ... It made much more sense to reserve that volume for leaders."

Handbook 2

Handbook 2 is subtitled Administering the Church. It contains information primarily relevant to the functions of the leaders of the church's priesthood quorums and auxiliary organizations. Every quorum president and auxiliary organization leader at stake, ward, district, and branch levels receives a copy of Handbook 2, as do most of the individuals who receive Handbook 1. Counselors to quorum or auxiliary presidencies and stake high councilors also receive copies of Handbook 2, as do other leaders in church congregations.

The topics in Handbook 2 include guidelines involving families and the church in God's plan; priesthood principles; leadership in the church; the ward council; the work of salvation in the ward and stake; welfare principles and leadership; Melchizedek priesthood; Aaronic priesthood; Relief Society; Young Women; Primary; Sunday School; activities; music; stake organization; single members; uniformity and adaptation; meetings in the church; callings in the church; and priesthood ordinances and blessings. Handbook 2 also contains some of the general church policies on administrative, health, and moral issues that are contained in Handbook 1.

Supplements

Occasionally updates, supplements, or changes material in the Handbook with written directives from the church's First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve, or Presiding Bishopric are released. Leaders are instructed to write the changes into their copies of the handbook and keep the handbook and the supplemental materials together. New editions of the handbook are published in order to incorporate these issued supplements into the text of the handbook.

Unauthorized distribution

Handbook 1 is not available to the general public or the general church membership. The text of Handbook 2 is available on the church's official website. In the past, unauthorized copies of the restricted handbook have been made available on the internet. The church asserts copyright over the contents of the Handbook and prohibits its duplication. The handbook emphasizes that it has been prepared solely for use by general and local church officers to administer the affairs of the church. The copyright to the Handbook is owned by Intellectual Reserve, Inc., a corporation owned by the LDS Church which owns the church's intellectual property rights.

After the 1998 version of the Church Handbook was published, Jerald and Sandra Tanner's Utah Lighthouse Ministry published portions of it on the internet without permission from the church and without including the book's copyright notice. The text was also disseminated to other websites which the ULM's website linked to. In the 1999 lawsuit Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry, a United States district court issued an injunction prohibiting the further duplication of the contents of the handbook and ordered ULM to remove the offending material from its website.

In May 2008, the LDS Church notified the Wikimedia Foundation that it believed the copyright to the Handbook of Instructions had been violated by a link posted in Wikinews. The link directed readers to the text of the handbook on the Wikileaks website (unaffiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation). Shortly after the complaint was made, Wikinews removed the link to the text from the article.

In 2010, the church placed the new Handbook 2 on its official website, which was seen as "part of a recent trend in the church to become more transparent."

Examples of content discussed in the media

Although the Handbook covers a wide variety of topics related to church organization and policy, media attention has focused largely on the church's policies on social issues that are outlined in the Handbook. As summarized by the Salt Lake Tribune, the Handbook states that the LDS Church:

opposes gambling (including government-run lotteries), guns in churches, euthanasia, Satan worship and hypnotism for entertainment. It “strongly discourages” surrogate motherhood, sperm donation, surgical sterilizations (including vasectomies) and artificial insemination — when “using semen from anyone but the husband.” But [the church] supports organ donation, paying income taxes, members running for political office and autopsies — “if the family of the deceased gives consent.”

Regarding birth control, the Tribune comments:

The handbook says it is a “privilege” for Mormon couples to nurture and rear children, but the decision of how many to have is “extremely intimate and private and should be left between the couple and the Lord.” Moreover, church members “should not judge one another in this matter.” The book also says sexual relations in marriage “are divinely approved not only for the purpose of procreation, but also as a way of expressing love and strengthening emotional and spiritual bonds between husband and wife.”

The Tribune has also noted that the LDS Church discourages the use of in vitro fertilization using semen and ova from people outside the couple and that the LDS Church has no official stance on drinking Coca-Cola.

The Tribune quoted one member of the church as applauding the public availability of the Handbook, because it will allow the members of the church to become more familiar with the church's stance on certain social issues:

“I’ve known church members who were shocked that the handbook strongly discourages vasectomies. They had no idea that there was any policy concerning it. ... If there are such policies, I think it is wise that everyone — not just those with leadership callings — knows about them.”

Some members have complained that the Handbook does not always explain the doctrinal justification for the church's stance on certain social issues, such as that related to artificial insemination of single women in the church: The Handbook states that artificial insemination of single women in the church "is not approved" and that "single sisters who deliberately refuse to follow the counsel of church leaders in this matter are subject to church discipline,” but it does not explain why similar treatment would not be meted out to single women in the church who adopt children.

History

The document that is identified as the first Church Handbook of Instructions was published in 1899 as a small fourteen-page booklet. It primarily contained instructions on how to manage in-kind payments of tithing by church members. The handbook was revised every year until 1910 and approximately every five years thereafter. The book has been variously called the Annual Instructions, the Circular of Instructions, the Handbook of Instructions, the General Handbook of Instructions, the Church Handbook of Instructions, and finally, the Handbook.

In 1998, the book was split into two volumes for the first time and was renamed the Church Handbook of Instructions. A new edition was published and released to church leaders in November 2010, with the new names Handbook 1 and Handbook 2. One of the major changes between the 2006 and 2010 versions of the handbook is that the 2010 version "has softened the language about gay Mormons", eliminating statements "that same-sex relationships 'distort loving relationships' and that gays should repent of their 'homosexual thoughts or feelings.'"

Chronology of the Handbook

The chronological listing below of the publication history was partially taken from an article by Edward L. Kimball (listing through 24(A) only) and supplemented with a list of editions since the Kimball article's publication.