In reference to an adjacent and well-responded to topic I want to ask when the Bishops Court became a Court of Love. Myself I was only asked to attend a Bishops Court as they evaluated whether to to excommunicate me in the 1970s.
I politely declined to attend and in reference to another adjacent and well curated topic on introverted personalities this made sense.
Until then I had not heard of a Court of Love and was well aware of the Bishops Court and the convention of dismissing Aaronic priesthood prior to making announcements of the results.
Can anyone pin down the timeframe for the transition from the Bishops Court and if they still exist, what's the difference? After decades in a career in corporate structure there are numerous similarly misnamed functions to Court of Love, such as Center of Excellence.
I somehow reached an awareness that essentially the Bishop’s Court and a Court of Love had the same purpose, with the distinction being that the former only had jurisdiction over women and Aaronic Priesthood holders. The latter was a Stake level undertaking.
I cannot speak for others, only to what I experienced. Two grumpy-faced brothren from my ward, came to my door with a written summons to meet with the bishop & counselors. I refused even though I was attending regularly. Some time later, I was invited to a stake level church court, which I also did not attend. Now, I had been interviewed several times during the years, & not once did I know the purpose of these meetings but only once.
bishop's court = ward level church court = stake level
Not sure about the above, but that is my understanding. Hope it helps.