My Personal Response to a Blog Post Complaining About How the Church Today Handles Dissenting Votes

Hello again, everyone! As longtime readers of this blog are no doubt aware, I have had little to no patience in recent General Conferences for those who have turned what should rightly be an opportunity to silently offer a sustaining vote into an occasion where they loudly shouted their disinclination to do so. The last few times that happened during President Monson's administration marked the first time that has happened since that of President Kimball.

In this 2015 blog post by someone styling themselves as a faithfully active member of the Church, the point the author was trying to make was that, in that individual's opinion, President Uchtdorf's handling of that occurrence was not nearly as graciously done as President Tanner's handling of similar issues when he, at President Kimball's request, led out in the sustaining process and opposing votes were verbalized.

As the blog post shares, during President Kimball's administration, the process of handling such contrary votes was to have those so voting meet personally with a member of the Twelve (that member, at that time, was generally then-Elder Hinckley). The author of the blog post lamented the fact that President Uchtdorerf instructed those voting negatively to meet with their stake presidents, and voiced the opinion that, if President Uchtdorf had followed President Tanner's example in graciously instructing those so voting to meet with a member of the Twelve to explain their reasons for so voting, the negative votes would likely have been nipped in the bud and may not have recurred.

While I respect the right of this blogger to feel that way, this is another classic example similar to those I have previously referenced where those who perpetuate such opinions have failed to put in the work and do the research for themselves. Had the author of this post opted to do so before posting his thoughts, he would no doubt have discovered that the Church has not only had a huge increase in its membership between the days of President Kimball and those of President Monson, but more than that, that the Church has gradually moved to delegating more responsibility once handled by apostles to stake presidents, in an effort to free up general Church leaders and give their local counterparts more responsibility for the members within their stewardship.

So rather than being a failure on President Uchtdorf's part to treat such dissenting votes with the graciousness and gravity that situation deserved, President Uchtdorf instead invited those so voting to go through the proper channels. Quite honestly, with the Church being more global in its outreach during President Monson's time than it ever might have been in President Kimball's time, if general Church leaders (including and especially the apostles) were to handle any and all similar issues themselves, the sheer volume of the matters they would be personally handling would leave them precious little time for much else, especially extensive travel that a worldwide ministry now mandates. The clear solution to the issue is to delegate that to local leaders, who would more easily be able to deal with the issue, and who, if unable to do so to the satisfaction of the members involved, could then refer such matters to those higher up in the Church's hierarchy.

When seen in that light, the dissenting votes (and the reaction of the blogger in question to the way it was handled) were both highly inappropriate. But above and beyond that, there was absolutely no difference whatsoever in terms of the level of graciousness and seriousness with which President Uchtdorf handled such votes and the way in which President Tanner did so in previous years.

Just wanted to get these thoughts down. That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time, and for wading through these additional thoughts on this subject, which I could not help but "sound off" about. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the lord will bless you all in everything you do.