This Far But No Further
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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The Family: A Proclamation to the World
12 min read
The entire article centers on this 1995 LDS Church document and its interpretation. Understanding its origins, content, and controversial reception provides essential context for the theological and social debates discussed.
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Dallin H. Oaks
15 min read
President Oaks is the central figure whose personal story and October 2025 address forms the pivot of the article's argument. His biography, legal career, and role in church leadership illuminates why his reframing of the Proclamation carries such weight.
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Book of Job
15 min read
The article's title and closing argument directly quote Job 38:11 ('this far, but no further') as the theological anchor for understanding suffering and divine boundaries. The Book of Job's exploration of undeserved suffering and God's response provides rich context for the article's theme of tragedy within faith.
I begin by acknowledging that many church members have a really hard time with the Proclamation on the Family. I have seen evidence of this in at least two respects in my own life:
First: I have spent hundreds of hours during more than a decade working with and counseling young church members in the Bay Area. For many of them, the Proclamation lands as exclusionary, myopic, and hurtful. They see gay marriage, especially, as a great blessing for many of those they love, and wonder why God would inspire prophets to fight so ardently against it. These concerns are not abstract or theoretical; they feel the weight of the Proclamation’s words as having done real harm to themselves and those they love.
Second: It is difficult to know anymore what vital parts of the Proclamation mean in my own life. A number of years ago, my own young family underwent a series of wrenching changes. In ways I did not foresee and still do not entirely understand, the stable foundation we had built for our family crumbled, and I suddenly found myself a single father, parenting alone. Left to grapple with these new realities, the overall message of the proclamation felt confusing, distant, and unreal.
With all of this, perhaps you can understand why, when President Oaks—arguably the Proclamation’s foremost defender and explicator—rose to his feet for his first speech while leading the church (albeit as the president of the Quorum of the Twelve, not yet as the prophet) and began immediately referencing the Proclamation, my insides clenched and my brow furrowed.
I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear what he had to say.
Surprisingly, however, as I listened I eventually felt my muscles relax, and I experienced my mind softening into a dramatically different understanding of what the Proclamation is and what it is meant to do. I don’t know what Elder Oaks intended with the talk, but as I listened to him tell the story of his own youth, something shifted inside me.
In unadorned and moving prose, Oaks described growing up on his grandfather’s farm, and the horrible day when, as a little boy, he received the news that his father had died. I can’t remember seeing him show obvious emotion from any pulpit in any conference before; but on October 12th, 2025, he openly wept as he told his listeners about his memory of
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