The very first thing I want to clarify is that I would never wish any form of dementia or disease on anyone. I have seen the horrendous effects of dementia on both those afflicted and those affected through association with the individual.

That being said, something another poster mentioned sparked a "what-if" situation in my head. The church relies heavily on authority derived from a patriarchal leadership. We have one prophet, seer, and revelator in charge with two supporting members as essential vice-prophets included in the twelve total men seen as authority figures from God himself.

The members of the church have been taught that God would never, under any circumstances, allow the prophet to lead the church astray. Of course, as apostates we realizes the major conflict this creates seeing as how many past teachings have been converted from gospel to the prophets' words while speaking as men. However, the church does an excellent PR job of quietly phasing the more bizarre teachings of older prophets to the words of prophets to the words of old men. In fact, it is done so well that the vast majority of members don't even consciously notice the change.

My what-if situation involves an elderly prophet with dementia, a fairly plausible if not inevitable situation. What would the church do? The words of a current prophet are hard to change into simply the ramblings of an old man.

Would they stand by everything the prophet said?

Would they remove him as the prophet? If so, how?

Would he become a background figure? If so, how would conferences be held? What would members think?

What do you guys hypothesize?

I think they would just keep him out of the public eye. They would secrete him in his home and office, ghost write a bunch of talks and articles for him, and sign his name to it (the same way they signed GBH's signature on my mission call, incidentally). All the while they would pretend that the profit was leading the church. It's happened before.

Hasn't this situation already occurred?

I do not know the full story but I think President Benson became very ill and incapacitated during the latter years of his tenure.
The solution appeared to be for his two councillors to quietly take over without and assume control (against Church policy I might add). They even used a signature machine to 'forge' President Bensons signature on official Church documents. It all soundy very shady and underhanded to me.

Who were his councillors? (I believe it was two chaps called Hinckly and Monson...)

I may not have all the facts right here but I think the gist of the tale is right.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2010 04:44AM by steve benson.

{{{Imagines Abe Simpson as profit...... all TBM's required to wear an onion on their belt :-) }}}

I think Steve Benson has written a lot about this happening to his grandfather Ezra Taft Benson. The machinery is in place to do this again and create a "shadow government" if needs be, and prop up and sedate a sick old man as a figurehead.

It is a beautiful thing to know that the Lard will never lead his church astray. It is not in the plan. The signature machine has already been prepared. The Profit's counselors are waiting in the wings to pretend the Profit is functioning.

And if it looks like the two counselors might be teetering, they just call a third and younger counselor before things get too out of hand. Yea, even Gordon B. Hinckley has already set the holy pattern.