"The Vote Has Been Noted"

The sustaining of church officers is part of General Conference that is generally not very noteworthy. 15 or more names are read, about 15 million hands are raised, and we proceed to the next item of the agenda, waiting for the next talk to start. This Conference, however, we were reminded by President Uchtdorf, and a few others, that this Conference, as with all previous Conferences of this church, "The vote has been noted."

I'd like to look more closely at exactly what President Uchtdorf said during the first few minutes of the sustaining vote, especially the parts where he said "please," "thank you," and "by the same sign," but I'm afraid that it wouldn't quite be fair to President Uchtdorf. I wouldn't want my response to be deeply analyzed, word by word, in a moment when I was likely to have been taken by surprise. So as much as I would like to look more closely at the calm, tact, and courtesy of President Uchtdorf, instead I'm going to briefly blog about why we hold a sustaining vote at all. And bear in mind, these are just my thoughts, as any of the thoughts on my blog ever are unless I cite them.

Something we ought to note is that we are not actually voting. We're not choosing who is or isn't a prophet by voting for or against them. God has already chosen who the Prophet and Apostles are, and our votes aren't going to change His choice.

Instead, the sustaining vote is a personal commitment. We raise our hands to sustain the Prophets because that's the sign of a pledge. Boy Scouts raise their right arms to the square when reciting the Scout Oath and Law. That action signifies the commitment to keep the oath they're reciting and to live according to the principles of the Scout Law. In a similar way, when we raise our hands to sustain the prophets, that's not when we're actually sustaining them. That's when we pledge to sustain them. We sustain them when they give us counsel and we obey it and when detractors criticize them and we defend them. Raising our hands isn't really doing anything; it's just promising to.

But then, why do we do it? God can judge our hearts as well as He can watch our hands, so why do we make a signal to show whether we support the Prophet or not? And why is there a moment when we ask if there are any who are opposed to sustaining the prophets? It seems that I should do a little research on this topic. For now, I think it's enough to know that we sustain the prophets not when we raise our hands but when we follow their counsel, and there are more people noting our vote than one man standing behind a podium.