Answer

Is the Family Proclamation Scripture?

You may have noticed that the Proclamation is quoted like scripture but is not printed in the standard works, and wondered what that means for how much weight it carries. It is a fair thing to notice, and people answer it in opposite directions with a lot of confidence.

Yes, on the definition scripture itself gives. It is simply not canonised, which is a separate and narrower question about what the Church has formally voted into the standard works. Nothing about its authority is waiting on that vote.

Eternal Truths

Scripture is defined by how something is given, not by which book it lands in. The Lord said that when His servants speak as moved by the Holy Ghost, it shall be scripture, the will of the Lord, and the voice of the Lord (Doctrine and Covenants 68:2-4). By that measure the Proclamation qualifies.

It was issued the way prophets issue doctrine, not the way administrators issue policy. President Gordon B. Hinckley read The Family: A Proclamation to the World aloud at a general Relief Society meeting (“Stand Strong against the Wiles of the World”). It went out over fifteen names and every President since has reaffirmed it. Policies are changed in letters and handbooks without ceremony. This was not that.

Its own leaders describe it as revealed. President Dallin H. Oaks, who was in the room while it was prepared, has called it a statement of eternal truth and the will of the Lord (“The Plan and the Proclamation”), and later described it as founded on irrevocable doctrine (“Divine Love in the Father’s Plan”).

What Can Make This Confusing?

Canonisation is a specific procedure requiring a sustaining vote of the membership, and it has happened rarely. Because it is the visible ceremony, its absence gets read as a hedge. It is easy to hear “not canonised” as “not settled”, and then to read the whole document as policy waiting for a revision.

Questions to Think About

• Am I asking whether it is scripture, or whether I have to accept what it says?
• What would change for me if it were printed in the Doctrine and Covenants tomorrow?
• Which part of it is actually hard for me, and have I said that part out loud?

What You Can Do

Read the Proclamation straight through this week, slowly, in one sitting. Most people have only ever met it in fragments quoted at them. Mark the sentence you find hardest and the sentence you find most hopeful, and take both to the Lord. The essay behind this answer works through the canonisation question in detail.

Jesus Christ leads this Church through living prophets, and the same voice that gave the Proclamation is available to confirm it to you personally.