Women and the Priesthood — Doctrine or Policy?

I like the fact that Elder Oaks, in his last General Conference talk, framed it as a “pattern” – NOT as “eternal doctrine”. I also like that he said the leadership does not feel free to alter what they see as divinely decreed doctrine, since it leaves open a change through revelation. The issue, for me, is that he provided no specific scriptural foundation for the idea that the pattern is “divinely decreed” – and the only justifications I can see for that idea is the use of the masculine in describing the structures that have existed in our scriptures.

Like so many other things, I would call it a policy but also a doctrine (“what is taught”). I simply am not confident enough about it to call it an eternal doctrine that is divinely decreed to never change.

doctrine is what is in the holy scriptures. there is an article on what is doctrine here in on the site front page resources somewhere. But we as a church are highly ambiguous about what is doctrine, and will accept anything that anyone says in authority as doctrine. So, to the membership it’s probably doctrine. I personally consider it policy, and don’t see why women can’t be membership clerks, Sunday school presidents, or other positions that don’t involve the had core leadership or administration of priesthood ordinances. And I make this latter sentence only because I know full ordination would not fly in front of the current highest leadership in the church. I don’t really see why women can’t hold the priesthood either.

In one of my Sunday School lessons this month, I pointed out that, based on Elder Oaks’ talk, “hold the Priesthood” shouldn’t mean anything other than “be ordained to an office in the Priesthood” – since he says over and over and over that men and women both have personal access to the authority and power of the priesthood in their church callings – and that the gift of the Holy Ghost confers priesthood authority and power – and that women are endowed in the temple with the exact same priesthood power and authority as men.

So, in a nutshell, if we accept Elder Oaks’ talk as “doctrine” (debatable, I know, but he and Elder Ballard now have made the same general points about men and women and the priesthood), women “having the priesthood and being able to exercise the priesthood” is doctrine – and women not being ordained to offices in the Priesthood or having priesthood keys can be called policy and/or doctrine.

Last fall at the NW Sunstone symposium there was a panel on ordination of woman. Afterwards I asked one of the participants who I think was from Sunstone if she would consider ordination of woman a policy change or restoration and her reply was “restoration”.

I feel like the “policy vs. doctrine” question is the wrong question to ask.

First of all, the definition of doctrine is problematic, to my mind.

The question that matters, in my opinion, is what does the current prophet say to do?

This has been discussed at length in another thread, but: in my opinion, the Ordain Women group is trying to tell Lord how to run his church. To be honest, it’s prideful to tell the Lord how to run his church, and shows a real lack of faith that Christ is in charge. Do they think Christ isn’t aware of this question about the priesthood?

If it’s going to happen, it will happen when Christ wants it to.

By analogy: the blacks getting the priesthood. It happened when it was the right time for it to happen. My own opinion is that before that time, American culture was too racist, and the church would not have been able to grow as fast as it did if blacks had been full members. People in the South especially weren’t ready for it. My grandmother was a great person but was raised in the Deep South and unfortunately was a racist well into the 21st century when she died.

So you equate asking the Q15 as telling god what to do?

Q15 = God?

Follow the Prophet and the 14 F’s of the Prophet are the single most dangerous religious teaching on the planet, and is the core doctrine of all cult organizations including Warren Jeffs FLDS church.

In my opinion, of course.

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Sounds like rationalization to me — the post above Dark Jedi’s (not Dark Jedi’s). The church has all but said it was a mistake, and SWK called the ban a “possible mistake”. Let’s call a spade a spade and move on — in greater peace now that we know that our leaders don’t have to be perfect. and that what is left of our testimonies don’t have to depend on leaders always being right — even the prophet.

It’s not from the scriptures. There’s no originating revelation. I would say it’s an unstated assumption based on the emerging doctrine of gender essentialism and that men & women are complementary, not similar. You could interpret that to mean that women are better than men or worse than men or just different creatures entirely (which smacks of being not human and sort of silly at heart), but I’m of the opinion that it’s irrelevant. You could ordain women or not and still have their roles be unique from men. Just because you ordain women it doesn’t mean the men are garbage and worthless to the family. I guess what I’m saying is that it’s a policy, but there are some of our leaders who think it’s a doctrine, and since they get to make that decision, it may actually be or become a doctrine. A doctrine is just a policy that is untouchable (until it’s downgraded to policy).