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Doctrine and Covenants
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===Portions removed from the Community of Christ edition=== The Community of Christ removed the "Lectures on Faith" in 1897. The 1970 [[World Conference (Community of Christ)|World Conference]] concluded that several sections that had been added between the 1835 and 1844 editions—mainly dealing with the subjects of [[Temple (Latter Day Saints)|temple worship]] and [[baptism for the dead]]—had been published without proper approval of a church conference. As a result, the World Conference removed sections 107, 109, 110, 113, and 123 to a historical appendix, which also includes documents that were never published as sections. Of these, only section 107 was a revelation. The World Conference of 1990 subsequently removed the entire appendix from the Doctrine and Covenants. Section 108A contained the minutes of a business meeting, which, because of its historical nature, was moved to the Introduction in the 1970s. After 1990, the Introduction was updated, and what was section 108A was removed entirely. ====Developments in 2023 and 2024==== A proposal to decanonize [[s:en:The Doctrine and Covenants (1922 RLDS)/Section 116|section 116]] and move it to historical records was debated at the 2023 World Conference, which voted to refer the issue to the First Presidency. Section 116 had been received by Joseph Smith III in 1865, shortly after the conclusion of the [[American Civil War]], and stipulates that men of all ethnic backgrounds should be ordained (contrast the [[Black people and the LDS priesthood|LDS Church policy at the time forbidding Black ordination]]), but hedges this with caution against taking a "hasty" or indiscriminate attitude in ordination of men of the "Negro race", noting that many of the existing priesthood holders had failed to adequately fulfill their responsibilities.<ref name="septemberoctobersection116">{{cite magazine |page=11–12 |title=Conversations about removing Section 116 from Doctrine and Covenants |volume=171 |issue=September/October 2024 |magazine=Community of Christ Herald |publisher=[[Herald House]]}}</ref> After consulting with Black priesthood members, the First Presidency decided to retain it, so as not to appear to be sanitising the church's history.<ref name="julyaugustsection116">{{cite magazine |page=7 |title=World Conference resolutions update |volume=171 |issue=July/August 2024 |magazine=Community of Christ Herald |publisher=[[Herald House]]}}</ref> The Diversity and Inclusion team and the Church History and Sacred Story team were opposed to removing the section, arguing that it represented an important historical step towards inclusivity. The Church History and Sacred Story team, moreover, opined that the removal of sections 107, 109, 110, 113, and 123 had been a "mistake" based on "naive misunderstandings" of scripture and revelation, arguing that many other scriptural texts contain sexist, racist and violent language as a result of the backgrounds and biases of the writers, and that responsible interpretation of scripture needs to take this into account when seeking to discern God's will.<ref name="septemberoctobersection116"/> The outcome of the process was a rewritten section preface, giving better historical context and stipulating the overarching interpretation "to ordain people of all ethnicities while emphasizing careful discernment of calling, commitment and timing (compare to 156:9d)", and a minor re-versification, making the closing sentence ("Be ye content, I the Lord have spoken it.") a separate verse (D&C 116:5) to more accurately reflect the paragraph breaks in the earliest manuscripts of the section, and clarify that it applies to the section as a whole, rather than specifically to the caution against "hasty" ordination.<ref name="septemberoctobersection116"/>
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