Anyone a former bishop or stake pres?

[Thoughtful]

Mormon Happy Hour Podcast says SCMC sends info they collect to each bishop you ever have.

Can anyone confirm? Obviously they hoard data, but I'm not sure all bishops are keeping a masturbation tally?

At the same time, I've confessed basically nothing ever, but had a couple consecutive bishops act weird about giving me certain callings, and it makes me wonder.

[jfro18]

That's a really good question - I would assume they send over more generalized stuff like if you were disfellowshipped or if they found you being an apostate online.

I would love to know how detailed it gets though... I am sure we can find some people who have left since.

[Mormorrisey]

It's been over a decade since I had access to members' records as a bishop, and they had just computerized all the records into MIS near the end of my tenure, but the only annotations to records were church discipline actions, and if there was child abuse involved. That's pretty much it - although I was always taught to call the former bishop on EVERY MEMBER that moved in. Like I had the time to do that. But I would not be surprised in the 12/13 year interval that they have added much more information to the system on each member, particularly if one is publicly active in their dissent.

You'll need a more recent released leader to get information on this, methinks. Good luck!

[Culper Jr.]

I was always taught to call the former bishop on EVERY MEMBER that moved in.

Currently an executive secretary, and I have to send an email to the bishop of every move in to ask about any issues "that should be considered as the bishop counsels and makes callings". Last year we had a move in that was a registered sex offender that we discussed in bishopric meeting. I can't remember if the bishop said he had an annotation, or if the annotation was only seen by the stake president; I remember the stake president was somehow involved in passing information to the bishop. Don't know about any SCMC info being passed down, but the bishop is generally pretty clueless about who new members are. Interesting question, I'll have to see if I can find out anything.

[Not Buying It]

I was always taught to call the former bishop on EVERY MEMBER that moved in.

Currently an executive secretary, and I have to send an email to the bishop of every move in to ask about any issues "that should be considered as the bishop counsels and makes callings". Last year we had a move in that was a registered sex offender that we discussed in bishopric meeting. I can't remember if the bishop said he had an annotation, or if the annotation was only seen by the stake president; I remember the stake president was somehow involved in passing information to the bishop. Don't know about any SCMC info being passed down, but the bishop is generally pretty clueless about who new members are. Interesting question, I'll have to see if I can find out anything.

Well they don’t have a lot of confidence in the power of discernment if you are directed to ask former bishops about new move-ins.

[hmb]

So this is probably no problem for a single woman or woman married to a nonmo. Girl callings are so not important in the church.

[græy]

I'm currently a bishopric counselor. Our bishop has our exec secretary email prior bishops... sometimes, if he remembers. That seems to be his main source of background information on new members, besides the "New Move-In Form" we try to get people to fill out. The only flags or notes on membership records are for outstanding church discipline or abuse cases as far as I'm aware.

There is a means to flag an account so that it cannot be transferred out of the ward boundaries until the move is approved by the bishop. The would mean no new ward can request those records until the bishop has relayed some specific information, but from what I've seen that really only gets used in extreme situations (outstanding legal or disciplinary actions, etc.).

But I would not be surprised in the 12/13 year interval that they have added much more information to the system on each member, particularly if one is publicly active in their dissent.

Outside of streamlining the process a bit via LCR I don't think the details have changed too much.

There may be more sordid details I'm not aware of since I'm not actually a bishop, but I haven't seen any indication of that.

[MerrieMiss]

The only flags or notes on membership records are for outstanding church discipline or abuse cases as far as I'm aware.

I asked a family member who was still a bishop about five years ago, and this is exactly what he said.

[Corsair]

I was a ward clerk 10 years ago. I am not certain if my bishop asked about masturbation, but he did acknowledge having to deal with some young men who came to him about it. I also did not have any real communication with the SCMC. The bishop did have a private com channel with Salt Lake City and the SCMC might have been asking some of these questions.

Fast forward to today. I am the Young Men's secretary. I attend Priests quorum, not Elders quorum. Masturbation has never been mentioned in any class I have attended. More telling is that my stake held a youth standards night for only the young men a few months ago. I attended as a leader and also to find out how porn and masturbation might get mentioned.

I was quite surprised to not hear a single thing about either porn or masturbation. At most the YM were told to prepare to be missionaries, husbands, and fathers in the future. They were told to prepare to be responsible adults and plan for doing interesting things in their career and as future leaders of the church. It was a surprisingly wholesome evening and I would have had no problem with any of my sons or daughters attending. There was nothing presented that would have been embarassing if it was transcribed and relayed verbatim on reddit.com/r/exmormon.

I would not describe my stake as particularly "progressive". But this certainly emphasized how "practical" they are in terms of being a faith community. If LDS Church HQ is asking for lurid statistics, that message is not being practically implemented at the ward level among the youth.

[wtfluff]

Isn't there an flag/annotation* on the records for gay folks?

(At least one famous, gay, formerly practicing member has claimed this.)

[A New Name]

I think the only time the SCMC ever send anything to a Bishop if it is a current issue that has reached public knowledge, like a person in the newspaper teaching false doctrine. Any sins confessed to a bishop are NEVER written down unless they reach the level of needed disciplinary action, and then only on the forms filled out and sent to SLC (which is all on-line now). I've not been Bishop for 15 years, but from talking to our current bishop, nothing has changed. Only if the person is currently dis-fellowshipped, or has been flagged at a predator is the membership record marked.

[Red Ryder]

Isn't there an flag/annotation* on the records for gay folks?

(At least one famous, gay, formerly practicing member has claimed this.)

Benji Schwimmer right?

I couldn’t imagine that every new member move in has to get screened or checked. They don’t do any background checks with children related callings. They don’t do any background checks with new converts.

I believe the annotation on a record is to tag members currently in the disciplinary process to prevent them from moving or bishop shop.

Annotations may be used to warn new wards of potential problems in advance. Like gun loving preppers like Julie Rowe.

[slavereeno]

As the SEC I occasionally dealt with the annotation list for the stake. I was surprised by how many members had annotations.

In addition to what has been mentioned above, there is an annotation also for financial fraud, to warn against allowing those members any financial responsibility.

IIRC about 70% of the annotations were church discipline, Excommunications, dis-fellowshipments etc. Then about 20% were abuse annotations for members in full fellowship otherwise. The remaining 10% or so, were financial annotations. I assume there may have been some abuse/financial items in the ongoing discipline pile, where the annotations hadn't been transferred to their "member in good standing but watch out" status.