Scripture Testifies, It Does Not Settle History

On March 30, 2007, the Community of Christ's World Conference accepted a document presented by prophet president Stephen M. Veazey as Section 163 of the church's Doctrine and Covenants, its living book of continuing revelation alongside the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Among its instructions, the section states plainly that scripture is not to be worshiped or idolized, since only God, the one scripture testifies to, is worthy of worship, and it teaches that scripture itself has been written and shaped by human authors through their own experiences of revelation, language that treats the human hand in scripture's composition as an ordinary and acknowledged fact rather than a difficulty to be explained away. That framework is what allows Community of Christ to keep publishing and reading the Book of Mormon in worship while declining to make belief in its ancient historical origin a requirement of membership or a qualification for ordination. The book remains scripture in the fullest sense the church uses that word, testimony to Jesus Christ formative for the community that reads it, while the separate question of whether its narrative describes real ancient events is treated as a matter on which individual members may hold genuinely different views without either view placing their standing in the church at risk.