How Content Is Presented

Kinds of content

The church’s website brings together different kinds of material. To help you understand what you’re reading, documents are labelled by type:

• Statement of belief — the church’s religious convictions, in summary.
• Faith interpretation — the church’s interpretation of science, history, or scripture. These are presented as interpretations, not as established findings.
• Position document — the church’s statements on legal or organizational questions. These are the church’s positions, not government determinations or legal advice.
• Reference index — lists of the scriptures, laws and books the church cites, with links to the original texts.

The church’s words and study notes

The church’s own words are presented exactly as the church wrote them, including its spelling, capitalisation, emphasis and struck-through text (shown with a line through it). That wording appears inside framed sections headed In the church’s words.

Summaries, abstracts, study notes and practical guidance appear in separate, clearly styled sections alongside the church’s words. Summaries aim to represent the church’s views in plain language; where a summary and the church’s words differ, the church’s words are its own text.

Statements in the church’s words about legal, tax or government standing are the church’s own.

Dates

Where a document carries a date, it is shown at the top of the page. Dates are never estimated.

Changes

When the substance of a document changes, a revision note is added to the bottom of the page explaining what changed and when.

What this website won’t do

This website does not offer legal, tax, medical or mental-health advice; does not describe how to obtain or use any controlled substance; and does not present relationships with other organizations as endorsements unless those organizations have confirmed them.