My initial impression is that the initial definition of apostasy is in direct conflict with the given examples of “patterns of apostasy” to the point that it doesn’t make sense at all to me.
The first sentence says:
“Apostasy refers to a person’s abandonment of the most fundamental, the most basic religious beliefs such as belief in God or the restoration of priesthood authority.”
So far, this seems to mostly make sense. I will note that there is a huge omission of exactly what religious beliefs are so fundamental that their abandonment constitutes apostasy. Two examples are given: belief in God and belief in the restoration of priesthood authority. However, the wording seems to make it clear that those are not the only beliefs whose rejection constitute apostasy. Leaving this undefined is fraught because it will lead to highly inconsistent application of apostasy by various local (and general) leaders around the world (“leadership roulette”). What if you get a bishop who thinks temple worship is super important? Would he find a member of his ward an apostate if that member wasn’t wearing garments 24/7?
The failure to define the fundamental beliefs whose rejection constitutes apostasy isn’t the only problem. 4 examples are given of the “patterns of apostasy”, yet I contend that none of the 4 examples are normally associated with the provided definition of apostasy. That is, most of the time when someone in the Church is involved in one of the 4 patterns of apostasy, they aren’t abandoning what I (and I think most Church members) would consider to be fundamental and basic Mormon beliefs. Let’s consider each of the 4 given patterns of apostasy:
1. Focus on past prophets’, instead of the current prophet’s, teachings. All prophets have been consistent on belief in God and the restoration of priesthood authority, so there can’t really an issue with relying on past prophets’ statements on the only 2 basic beliefs cited in the opening definition of apostasy. What are some examples of people relying on past prophets over current prophets? Well, polygamy is a big one. We still have some members arguing the Church should practice polygamy based on the teachings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, etc. Is monogamy/polygamy a “fundamental” or “basic” belief in our Church, though? I am personally disgusted by the Church’s history with polygamy, yet I wouldn’t classify the monogamy/polygamy question as a “fundamental” religious belief. In fact, most (all?) of the beliefs that come to mind where people would tend to quote past prophets over present prophets would not make it on my list of fundamental religious beliefs.
2. Claiming the positions of Church leaders are wrong because they don’t align with science or political correctness. Sure, if someone publicly states their strong belief that there can be no God because there’s no scientific proof for His existence, that would fit Oak’s definition of abandoning a fundamental religious belief, so yeah, that’s probably apostasy. However, I think most usages of this “pattern of apostasy” in practice won’t be something like this. It seems to me like advocates for LGBTQ and women’s equality in the Church would fit into this pattern. While I consider equality for LGBTQ people and women in the Church to be extremely important, this also doesn’t seem to me to fit under the definition of a “fundamental” religious belief.
3. Claiming one has special knowledge that the Church should adopt. A lot of fundamentalist Mormons (Snuffer, preppers, etc.) certainly have their own set of revelations that they hold up as authoritative. Again, though, while I consider most of these beliefs to be wacky, I don’t think that they normally represent an abandonment of “fundamental” Mormon beliefs.
4. Persisting to teach on subjects where Church leaders say they lack revelation. Examples of this could be Heavenly Mother on the left and the date of the Second Coming on the right. Neither of these (or most anything else I can think of normally happens in practice), constitutes an abandonment of fundamental Mormon beliefs.
In summary, I think the opening definition of apostasy is truly incompatible with the ways in which the 4 given patterns apostasy are typically applied to members of the Church. I don’t see how even Oaks can claim this makes sense in most apostasy cases in the Church. That is, unless “Current Church leaders are always infallible” is to be considered a “fundamental belief” of Mormonism. If that’s the case, it’s only fair to list this as a fundamental belief along with “belief in God” in the definition. However, Oaks knows very well that he can’t get away with that. In practice, I believe that most Church leaders are going to completely ignore the given definition (abandonment of fundamental beliefs) and go with the 4 patterns when determining if they have an apostate on their hands that they need to excommunicate (or whatever it is they’re calling excommunication nowadays). Note that I’m not saying that the Church shouldn’t deal with some of the behaviors described in the 4 patterns of apostasy. I’m simply saying that most real cases of violations of the 4 patterns don’t constitute what I believe to be fundamental Mormon beliefs. This definition of apostasy needs more work!
