Ordain Women

[vorpal blade]

Yellow, it is an interesting thought, and one I've had myself. However, if that narrative has truth to it, I think there is an obligation for church leaders to reveal that the dialogue has taken place, and that that is the instruction that has been received. Genuine harm is happening because of their silence, and they ought to speak on the subject, instead of just relegating it to the church PR team.

That is, assuming they have asked. It seems more likely to me (as president Hinckley once said) that there is an assumption that this is some hostile minority, and that the leaders don't ask because "there isn't agitation for it."

I agree with Yellow. You see what looks like harm to someone because of silence, what you don't see is the harm that might come from publically speaking what they know.

If you think about it Jesus was often asked questions which he didn't answer, or side-stepped. Sometimes people were offended because he wasn't giving them direct answers. What you don't know is what would have happened if he had opened up and given them complete answers.

I'm not saying the prophet and apostles necessarily known all the answers. Sometimes they are not given answers to their questions, for a good reason of the Lord. And sometimes they are given answers but are instructed not to give them to the church.

What concerns me most is the attitude that we see things more clearly than others and therefore have a right to lecture the General Authorities on what they have an obligation to speak about and to reveal.

[thatonemom]

What concerns me most is the attitude that we see things more clearly than others and therefore have a right to lecture the General Authorities on what they have an obligation to speak about and to reveal.

I'm not sure what exactly this is in reference to (and honestly don't care to know) but I think what one person see as "lectur[ing] the General Authorities" another sees as sincerely asking God's leaders to speak on issues that are meaningful to them. Back in Joseph Smith's day regular church members asked Joseph Smith to pray for revelation on specific things. They were never chastised for asking their leaders to seek answers from God on their behalf. I'm super reluctant to doubt the honesty or sincerity of people who want God to reveal answers for their personal needs.

[Amity]

I'm just going to leave this here.

In response, I'll just leave this here.

Plus this quote from (I assume) one of the founders of Ordain Women: "It's striking they would direct us to the free-speech zones," Kelly said. "We feel as faithful, active Mormon women we have nothing in common with people who oppose the church and want to protest against it. The church is its members. We aren't against the church, we are the church."

I think what one person see as "lectur[ing] the General Authorities" another sees as sincerely asking God's leaders to speak on issues that are meaningful to them. Back in Joseph Smith's day regular church members asked Joseph Smith to pray for revelation on specific things. They were never chastised for asking their leaders to seek answers from God on their behalf. I'm super reluctant to doubt the honesty or sincerity of people who want God to reveal answers for their personal needs.

Yup.

[Portia]

This type of speculation reminds me of mid-century speculation about banning black people from the Priesthood & temple. It reeks of ex post facto reasoning and starting from one's conclusions. "I don't know" is less insulting, in my opinion.

[vorpal blade]

What concerns me most is the attitude that we see things more clearly than others and therefore have a right to lecture the General Authorities on what they have an obligation to speak about and to reveal.

I'm not sure what exactly this is in reference to (and honestly don't care to know) but I think what one person see as "lectur[ing] the General Authorities" another sees as sincerely asking God's leaders to speak on issues that are meaningful to them. Back in Joseph Smith's day regular church members asked Joseph Smith to pray for revelation on specific things. They were never chastised for asking their leaders to seek answers from God on their behalf. I'm super reluctant to doubt the honesty or sincerity of people who want God to reveal answers for their personal needs.

Well, that's the problem. You honestly don't care to know.

[thatonemom]

Ah, vorpal. You and me, I just don't think we'll ever agree on anything.

ETA: Sorry, I don't mean to hijack the thread. It's neither news nor relevant that I am on the opposite end of the spectrum from vorpal on most issues.

[SmurfBlueSnuggie]

I don't know where I stand on this issue myself. But I do know where I stand in my opinion of the movement. I believe that the women who are involved in Ordain Women for a genuine desire to receive answers from the prophet are completely justified and have full right to ask for this. Reading Tally's original post, I noted that she said "I just don't think the question has to be asked." Great. I think Tally shouldn't join the movement then, even if, for some other reason, she thought she should. Because she doesn't need this question asked. But for some women, they need to ask this question. And they have the full right to do so. I'm not sure I agree with all of the methods, but then again, these are the methods of inciting change anywhere in our culture these days.

Now, women who are part of the group because they want to create change and wouldn't accept an answer they disagreed with are a bit different, in my opinion. At that point, they are not seeking revelation, they are seeking influence. I cannot judge the motives of each woman and will therefore support the group as a whole with the expectation that the majority involved have righteous and obedient desires. They want to follow God and the prophets. In fact, they are working harder to receive answers to questions than many of us who simply pray and hope that a talk in conference covers our topic of choice.

On a related note, I saw a post on facebook from a friend today that I completely disagree with. She linked to the official letter from the church and posted it with this comment. "I love it. We as women in the church would speak up if we felt something was out of place. This letter was kindly written."

We as women in the church... THEY ARE WOMEN IN THE CHURCH!!!!! The people who are against Ordain Women and use the argument that no women in the church want an answer really bother me. Just because someone isn't exactly like you doesn't mean they aren't just as strong a believer.

[Violet]

This resonated with me.

[bobtheenchantedone]

We go to Feminist Home Evening on Mondays (hosted by one of the spokeswomen for Ordain Women), and today instead of discussing the planned topic we unanimously voted to talk about Ordain Women, the planned April 5th demonstration, and that letter instead. It helped me condense my feelings a lot.

That letter just made me shake my head. I can't say much without repeating the excellent response that both Violet and Amity linked to (it's worth linking twice!), but this I will say: women not having the priesthood is not doctrine, any more than blacks not having the priesthood was doctrine. It's frankly rather upsetting that the PR department was allowed to say that it is, and to imply that faithful members respectfully asking questions is harmful. I can't see that letter as anything more than an attempt to silence the women in the movement before the Church gets more bad press - they're apparently even planning to enforce a usually-ignored rule about news cameras on Temple Square (I have seen news segments filmed right after conference on Temple Square).

(eta: one fun response I saw to the letter was "by mine own voice or the voice of my PR department, it is the same.")

[vorpal blade]

Ah, vorpal. You and me, I just don't think we'll ever agree on anything.

ETA: Sorry, I don't mean to hijack the thread. It's neither news nor relevant that I am on the opposite end of the spectrum from vorpal on most issues.

Ha! You realize don’t you, that if I were to agree with you that we’ll never agree on anything then I would be contradicting myself. The only logical thing I can do is disagree with you.

As a matter of fact I do often agree with you, thatonemom. I apologize for not making that clear. For example, while I don’t know exactly how often Joseph Smith was asked by others to pray for a revelation on specific things, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it happened. We read in the Book of Mormon how Jared often asked his brother to pray to the Lord for them. We don’t read that the brother of Jared ever reproved Jared for asking him. I quite agree with you that it is appropriate to ask our priesthood leaders for answers to doctrinal questions. Nowadays we ask our bishop or stake president rather than asking the prophet directly. If our priesthood leader doesn’t know the answer he can ask further up the chain.

I totally agree with you that we ought to be super reluctant to doubt the honesty and sincerity of people who want God to reveal answers for their personal needs. See, we agree.

However, there is a big difference between those who want to ask God to reveal answers and those who say things like, “I think there is an obligation for church leaders to reveal that the dialogue has taken place…” as Marduk said. Here he is not humbly entreating church leaders to pray to God, he is criticizing and fault finding church leaders for what Marduk thinks is the obligation of church leaders which they are supposedly failing at. When he says “genuine harm is happening because of their silence, and they ought to speak on the subject” Marduk has put himself in the position of telling the prophet that the prophet is wrong, and he ought to do what Marduk wants him to do, because the prophet is messing up and causing real harm to the church. For his own spirituality that’s a very dangerous and damaging position to take. And it is a far cry from the humble and sincere request for the prophet to enquire of the Lord.

So, thatonemom, I recognize that it is my fault that you don’t really care what I think. Why should you? You think we seldom agree, but we do. You don’t really know me, and I haven’t spent any time letting you know that I do care about what you think. I do value your opinion, and I think you often come up with good points and ideas. I can’t help but think that if you cared to know, you wouldn’t find it so hard to figure out what I am talking about.

[Marduk]

See, thatonemom? It was me Vorpal was calling to repentance, not you!

So Vorpal, when church members agitated and fasted and prayed for revelation about those of African descent to receive the priesthood, was that humble enough for you? How about Emma's complaints about the tobacco spittle staining the floor that she was forced to clean? Was that humble? How about church members insisting on wearing temple garments outside the temple, despite being told they are for the temple? Humble enough? How about Harold B. Lee insisting on not extending the priesthood, despite it being the recommendation of the rest of the quorum? Was he being humble? I ask for your opinion, because clearly you act as judge in Israel and can tell me these things, as you've so clearly demonstrated for me.

By the way, next time you wish to call me to repentance, please do so directly to me. Doing it in snide comments to someone else is passive aggressive and counterproductive. (Not to mention insulting)

[Portia]

There seems to be an odd conflation of two different things here. The power of God, and having a Y chromosome.

Look, I (almost desperately) want to be married. I invest a lot of time, effort, and mental energy into this goal. But I think what I am struggling to understand is that I'm not looking to marry a role, a trope, a provider. I want a truly egalitarian relationship where we love each other, respect each other, and both contribute financially to our household. He's a six-figure high-skilled type who thinks it'd be great for me to shuttle our kid to overpriced activities while I write novels? Great! He wants to write novels himself and have me do the earning end of the bargain? Fine by me!

I don't need a man to preside over me. I don't need a breadwinner. I can't even imagine a universe in which I would promise to "obey" a man in my wedding vows.

So when you give an entire sex a supernatural power, and (assuming heteronormativity) prevent one group from having that power, then you drive the other group to form relationships with the one based on it. And I don't think even the most progressive, open-minded couple can get around this fundamental inequality.

I will grant that a sense of the erotic can come from difference in a strictly sexual sense (again, for heterosexuals).

However, how are my ovaries relevant to judging in Israel? Prophesy? Tithing settlement?

The Power of your God is not some byproduct of being male. Men didn't get an automatic "in" in Old Testament times (if the concept of Priesthood DNE male is difficult, think of the tribe of Levi), and obviously they didn't get an automatic "in" in the Mormon context until 1978, which I think is about the birth year of the older board writers on here, to give you perspective on just how recent that change was. It's not secreted by testosterone. That's the social fact of how it's treated on the ground. Twelve-year-old girls see twelve-year-old boys pass the sacrament, and it's not a big leap to equate maleness with action, femaleness with passivity. Nineteen-year-old women see nineteen-year-old men baptize people they've taught the LDS Gospel to, and equate maleness with authority. Thirty-something women outnumber thirty-something men in Mormon wards 3 to 1 or so, and equate maleness with choice. (How does that improving the less-gentle sex argument figure there?)

I, for one, am done with the play-nice, accomodationist tactics. (Although I love and respect those who believe they can change the system from within, &c.) Some women, when denied the franchise, did nothing. Some wrote strongly worded letters to the editor. Some hurled rocks through Parliament windows.

You'd better believe that one hundred years ago that was "just the way things are," the "God-given order," and best of all, "a moralizing influence on these poor, wayward, lost lil' men, however will they not be lazy and asocial without women running homes not for political office?"

Sisters, I think it's the rocks that finally got some attention.

[vorpal blade]

See, thatonemom? It was me Vorpal was calling to repentance, not you!

So Vorpal, when church members agitated and fasted and prayed for revelation about those of African descent to receive the priesthood, was that humble enough for you? How about Emma's complaints about the tobacco spittle staining the floor that she was forced to clean? Was that humble? How about church members insisting on wearing temple garments outside the temple, despite being told they are for the temple? Humble enough? How about Harold B. Lee insisting on not extending the priesthood, despite it being the recommendation of the rest of the quorum? Was he being humble? I ask for your opinion, because clearly you act as judge in Israel and can tell me these things, as you've so clearly demonstrated for me.

By the way, next time you wish to call me to repentance, please do so directly to me. Doing it in snide comments to someone else is passive aggressive and counterproductive. (Not to mention insulting)

If you will look back about three of my posts in this thread you will see that I quoted you, Marduk. I thought it was clear in that post that I was calling you to repentance. Thatonemom seemed to have trouble understanding what I was referencing though she didn't care enough to find out. I thought what I previously said would be perfectly clear to you, but since she was uncertain I was a little more detailed in my remarks when I was addressing her, without thinking that you would misunderstand this to mean that I was calling you to repentance in an indirect manner. Really, I don't know how I could be less snide or less passive aggressive. As for insulting, how can you complain about that? What I said is your words and your intent, was it not? If not, I apologize for my lack of understanding and eagerly await your explanation.

You ask for my opinion, but you don't act like you want it. Do you disagree that you are not humble?

[Marduk]

I disagree that someone who is not my priesthood leader should be calling me to repentance. That is where we disagree. I follow the admonition of the scriptures, you...not so much.

[No Dice]

Plus this quote from (I assume) one of the founders of Ordain Women: "It's striking they would direct us to the free-speech zones," Kelly said. "We feel as faithful, active Mormon women we have nothing in common with people who oppose the church and want to protest against it. The church is its members. We aren't against the church, we are the church."

This is a straw man. It's not a non-Mormon zone or an anti-Mormon zone. It's a free speech zone. The Church doesn't want OW's speech on Temple Square during Conference. If OW wants their speech there anyway, they can say it all they want in the free speech zone. The fact that there are also crazy people there whom they don't identify with is hardly the Church's fault.

The notion that the Church must oblige to OW's speech being anywhere on Temple Square during Conference just because many members of OW are faithful Latter-day Saints is completely absurd.

[No Dice]

Out of curiosity, can anyone point me to instances of protest analogous to what OW is proposing related to blacks and the priesthood from the 70s? The whole "This is like blacks and the priesthood, people agitated, and after a while the Brethren asked, and what do you know, we got the answer we wanted!" thing paints with really broad strokes and is a somewhat crude analogy. But I'm specifically asking about the similarities in protest styles. I know people were writing about the policy changing, and petitioning the Brethren. But large-ish-scale demonstrations at Conference? Was that sort of thing happening? Is there reason historically to think that it's a good method of bringing about change? Genuine questions.

[Whistler]

Yes, it really does have many similarities. BYU studies has this article about the revelation process Pres. Kimball went through. It's long but fascinating. https://byustudies.byu.edu/PDFViewer.as ... 84dcd9.pdf

There were some protests from non-members for the policy to be changed (see page 25 of that article). It gets into member "protests" too, like on pg. 28 it talks about how some people thought members could and should pray for change, while others saw this as trying to force the issue. In Salt Lake black members were part of a group called Genesis which had extra meetings to help them feel less isolated, I think. On pg. 40, a member of the church ordained a black man to the priesthood in defiance of the policy and was excommunicated. Members in the Genesis group signed a petition to ask the leaders to tell them when, specifically, blacks of African descent would be given the priesthood, which caused a significant schism within the group (top of pg 41). Anyway, it's pretty interesting, and there were a lot of other factors (like countries in Africa who were practically begging for the Gospel, but the church didn't want to send missionaries there because... who would lead them without the priesthood).

[Portia]

Yes, it really does have many similarities. BYU studies has this article about the revelation process Pres. Kimball went through. It's long but fascinating. https://byustudies.byu.edu/PDFViewer.as ... 84dcd9.pdf

There were some protests from non-members for the policy to be changed (see page 25 of that article). It gets into member "protests" too, like on pg. 28 it talks about how some people thought members could and should pray for change, while others saw this as trying to force the issue. In Salt Lake black members were part of a group called Genesis which had extra meetings to help them feel less isolated, I think. On pg. 40, a member of the church ordained a black man to the priesthood in defiance of the policy and was excommunicated. Members in the Genesis group signed a petition to ask the leaders to tell them when, specifically, blacks of African descent would be given the priesthood, which caused a significant schism within the group (top of pg 41). Anyway, it's pretty interesting, and there were a lot of other factors (like countries in Africa who were practically begging for the Gospel, but the church didn't want to send missionaries there because... who would lead them without the priesthood).

Thanks for this. I find the story of the ordination to be inspiring. I think that is one route for activists to consider. Having their husbands ordain them. If they believe that the Priesthood is real and that it's faulty policy, not God's will, preventing them, take the power that is there for you, I guess.

I wouldn't do this because I'm a Muggle, but I do think that every individual needs to draw a balance between social costs and conviction of conscience that works for them. But being back in Utah, I'm strongly considering going downtown as an ally of sorts. The PR statement annoys me that badly.

[No Dice]

Thanks, Whistler, that's helpful. I mean, there's quite a bit on extra-Church protesting, and there's the Genesis Group. The Genesis Group was Church-sponsored, it's important to note: its leaders were actually set apart (the idea for the Group, the article says, actually came from then-Elders Hinckley, Monson, and Packer). So I'm not sure that's as clean a similarity as it might appear at first glance to organizations like OW.

What I'm obviously driving at is this: there was plainly plenty of private agitation within the Church relative to blacks and the priesthood. The Brethren clearly felt pressure from members to explain and resolve the issue. I am not sure that OW is taking an analogous tack. There are lots of members of the Church who would really like to critically visit some of these issues—why no women Sunday School Presidents? Why is Ward Mission Leader strictly a priesthood calling? Could we have women high councilors? Could we please ask about some of the language of the temple ceremony? These are private concerns that lots of people share. There are lots of incremental steps that we could be taking. Even "Let women attend Priesthood Session" is one of those incremental goals. But OW is focusing too much on the end goal.

But calling your group "Ordain Women," presenting that goal as the be-all-end-all, and then protesting at Conference is a) not the way to win popular support from Church members, and b) not the way to get positive attention from the Brethren. They are playing their cards all wrong, and it's really a shame. They should take a page out of the NAACP's litigation strategy in the 50s and 60s: lots of small cases, building on one another, until they could get Brown v. Board. OW can't get Brown v. Board yet, and by insisting on that and then throwing their arms up and wailing when the Church (very predictably) says "No," they're not winning much support among the lay members of the Church.

[No Dice]

[I think that is one route for activists to consider. Having their husbands ordain them.

This would just get people excommunicated. It got people excommunicated TWO YEARS before the ban was lifted in 1978, when many of the Brethren were clearly already contemplating the ban being gone. How in the world would this actually help?