Refrain

On the word doctrine

Refrain shows what was said from the pulpit and how often. It cannot say whether a teaching is true or whether it binds Latter-day Saints today, and the word most people reach for at that point has itself meant different things in different decades. These are the places to take that question.

  1. Covenantal Non-Dogmatism Noah Airmet, Telos 1, no. 1 (2026) How the Church binds its members, mostly by covenant and only thinly by required belief, and why teachings move in and out of that binding over time.
  2. Approaching Latter-day Saint Doctrine Church Newsroom, 2007 The Church’s public note that a single statement by a single leader on a single occasion is not by itself binding.
  3. The Doctrine of Christ D. Todd Christofferson, General Conference, April 2012 An apostle’s account of how doctrine is established, and of which statements do not establish it.
  4. Trial of Your Faith Neil L. Andersen, General Conference, October 2012 The source of the test that doctrine is “taught frequently and by many”. Refrain counts frequency; it does not apply the test.
  5. Faith, Revelation, and Jewish Parallels Ben Spackman, Times and Seasons, 2014 Argues that apostles can settle a question without a new revelation, and names the opposite assumption sola revelatione.
  6. “Acting as a Man” and Other Less-than-Useful Frameworks for Talking About Prophets Ben Spackman, 2023 Why “he was speaking as a man” explains little, with the priesthood restriction as the test case.
  7. An Essay on the Nature of Prophetic Knowledge Ben Spackman, 2018 His fullest piece on what prophets can be expected to know, and on the assumptions members bring to that question.
  8. Thoughts on Tradition and “Doctrine Creep” Ben Spackman, 2016 How a reading of a verse gets repeated until it passes for doctrine.
  9. “Oh Say, What Is Truth?”: Approaches to Doctrine Michael A. Goodman, BYU Studies Quarterly 60, no. 3 (2021) A survey of the ways Latter-day Saint writers have defined doctrine, including how conference speakers themselves use the word.
  10. Doctrine: Models to Evaluate Types and Sources of Latter-day Saint Teachings Anthony Sweat, Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, Religious Educator 17, no. 3 (2016) The widely taught model that sorts teachings into core, supporting, policy and esoteric.
  11. What Is Our Doctrine? Robert L. Millet, Religious Educator 4, no. 3 (2003) A test built from three overlapping sources: the canon, what leaders teach together now, and current curriculum.
  12. Line upon Line James B. Allen, Ensign, July 1979 A historian, writing in the Church’s magazine, on how understanding of several teachings developed.

Ben Spackman keeps a sequenced guide to his own writing on scripture, history and prophetic knowledge. Guided reading, at benspackman.com.

Adam-God

  1. Covenantal Non-Dogmatism: Adam-God Noah Airmet, Telos 1, no. 1 (2026) “What the episode demonstrates is that even prominent, even liturgically enacted, prophetic teaching does not automatically consolidate into permanent dogma.”
  2. Our Own Liahona Spencer W. Kimball, General Conference, October 1976 The President of the Church names the Adam-God theory and denounces it.
  3. The Adam-God Doctrine David John Buerger, Dialogue 15, no. 1 (1982) The standard history, from the 1852 sermon to the twentieth-century denials.
  4. The Orson Pratt–Brigham Young Controversies Gary James Bergera, Dialogue 13, no. 2 (1980) An apostle disputing the teaching while Brigham Young was alive.
  5. The Seven Deadly Heresies Bruce R. McConkie, Brigham Young University, 1980 An apostle lists the teaching among seven heresies, alongside the idea that God progresses in knowledge.

Everything listed is free to read at the link given. Most of it is in copyright and is linked, not copied. Every link was opened when the list was made, in November 2026.