Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Lowell L. Bennion on the Difference between a "doctrine" and a "practice"

 

You purportedly called our refusal to give the negro the priesthood a doctrine. It occurs to me that we should call it a practise.

 

To me a doctrine is a fundamental idea, a basic tenant of theology, whereas a practise is simply a rule of action which must be justified by theology and morality as principles in any other field pertaining to the discussion at hand.

 

Source: Lowell L. Bennion, Letter to Sterling M. McMurrin, March 14, 1960, p. 1, Box 220, Folder 2 Memo and Correspondence: "The Mormon Doctrine and the Negro" 1960, Sterling M. McMurrin Papers, 1830-2006, Special Collections, University of Utah