Common consent is a democratic principle established by the Latter Day Saint movement's founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., who taught in 1830 that "all things must be done in order, and by common consent in the church, by the prayer of faith." As it is most frequently used by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, common consent, more commonly known as a sustaining, is the act of publicly showing one's support for a specific leader in a particular church calling or position by the uplifted right hand; an outward indication of an inward commitment. The principle requires consent from all members of an organization before the action of setting apart may take place. Local leaders must be sustained by a local congregation before they may officially begin their role. If one person objects, the sustaining is put on hold until the objection is heard. General leaders must be approved by the church at large. Decisions made by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the Quorums of the Seventy must be done unanimously.(D&C 107:27)
Any new doctrine must be presented to the church before being accepted as a part of the Standard Works.
Famous quotes containing the words common and/or consent:
“If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains,—if only that the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Imagine that it is you yourself who are erecting the edifice of human destiny with the aim of making men happy in the end, of giving them peace and contentment at last, but that to do that it is absolutely necessary, and indeed quite inevitable, to torture to death only one tiny creature, the little girl who beat her breast with her little fist, and to found the edifice on her unavenged tears—would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?”
—Feodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881)