Equal Access to Blessings of Priesthood

My initial reaction is that the “blessings of priesthood” are the same things as priesthood ordinances. However we teach that ordination to the priesthood is a required and saving ordinance for men … so … equal access to all the blessing but one. :think:

I’m sure you’ve heard the idea that men are given the priesthood to bring them on equal grounds with women, but that is misandry and so I reject that notion. (I recognize it can be seen as, and often is seen as, misogyny, particularly if you take a “priesthood by default” point of view)

An alternative to the misandry interpretation…

When I hear someone say that men need the priesthood to help them be as good as women already are it’s usually a man being self deprecating and it’s usually said tongue-in-cheek. In my mind it’s less a valid reason and more a lame apologetic to placate women that feel they aren’t on equal ground.

That is an odd one. I would think that Sunday School would be able to have co-ed leadership since the teaching roles are co-ed. Opening this up to women would really help out small branches who are already hurting for priesthood.

As for clerks, I think they might need to be priesthood holders since they handle tithing, membership, and finalize details on ordinances… Then again, one of the office senior sisters on my mission was in charge of recording baptisms, so you probably still don’t need priesthood there. Tithing is probably the bigger issue, so you’d probably have to keep the priesthood requirement for at least the financial clerk. Then again, you can pay it online to a genderless non-priesthood-holding server, so maybe it’s irrelevant there too.

I would also like to see the young women be greeters and maybe even bring bread for the sacrament. Nowhere is it required that the bread be baked, purchased, or brought in by a priesthood holder. They’d probably be more consistent about bringing it anyway. 😆 (When I was a teacher, we assigned a main bread bringer and a backup bread bringer. Sometimes both would forget to bring bread.)

Women already sometimes participate in home teaching, particularly when worthy priesthood holders are sparse. They go with their husbands, typically, though in one singles ward I served in as a missionary, the bishop was considering fudging the rules by pairing up “almost married” couples that were either engaged or de-facto engaged. That’s what you have to do when the ward is a membership record black hole from YSA’s going inactive.

Also, handling tithes has nothing to do with priesthood, as far as I can see.

I have interviewed some people from the Remnant Church and RLDS Church, and their office of bishop is to ONLY handle tithes/offerings. Having had these conversations, it has given me a new understanding of bishop and I do believe that it has to do with priesthood. In my interview with Jim Vun Cannon, he mentioned that their presiding Bishop is a Literal Descendant of Aaron. (I had never heard of that before!) At any rate, the office of Bishop can choose to serve without counselors if he wants and is the President of the Aaronic Priesthood. If you’re interested, the conversation is at https://gospeltangents.com/2017/07/27/found-literal-descendant-aaron/

Later this week we will talk specifically about Tithing and Consecration. In that interview, the bishop is tasked with making sure the financial needs of the ward(s) are met. The bishop and pastor are 2 completely separate roles, unlike in the LDS Church. I attended a Community of Christ service a few weeks ago, and the meeting was conducted by the male Pastor, but he turned over some time to the female Bishop. Apparently the bishop is in charge of finances, and she asked for a collection plate to be passed around where people could put in an envelope and choose whether their offerings went to local ministry or worldwide ministry. The Remnant Church has a similar sounding process, and I’ll post that link later this week when the interview is ready if you’re interested.

The idea to separate the Bishop from the Pastor makes it very clear that the Bishop is a priesthood role, and very tied to finances. I can see why in the LDS Church, with the bishop and pastor roles combined, we might lose sight of that distinction (as well as the fact that Aaronic Priesthood are adults in the RLDS Church, rather than youth), but that is also the reason that deacons collect fast offerings–it is specifically a role of the Aaronic Priesthood to provide for the temporal needs of ward members. It’s been really fun to see the differences between Remnant, RLDS, and LDS Churches over the last few weeks and it has given me a new understanding about a role of a bishop. Perhaps we should split the role as RLDS Church does.

GT, those are fascinating finds from the CoC and RLDS church. Separating a bishop from a pastor is an idea I hadn’t heard of before. It sounds like with the RLDS church having women bishops, though, that they view women and priesthood differently. To me it sounds like the pastor would be a priesthood holder, as a spiritual shepherd of the group. You mentioned the Aaronic priesthood as ensuring temporal needs being met for the ward, I had never heard that. Especially since in my city fast offerings are not collected at members’ homes (logistically not feasible). But, it’s also been my understanding that tithes are not to be given/collected by anyone other than a bishopric member, so I don’t see the clear delineation there.

Beefster, no need to not participate if you still want to. I have a very straightforward writing style and it probably made me come across as more hardline than I intended. Me apologies. Also, it’s worth noting that it’s easy to stay out of a situation when you have the regular opportunity to be included in the situation (the priesthood). I’m not saying that the priesthood is something that is able to be changed, whether by divine design or by people, but it’s frustrating to ask why half the ward isn’t able to contribute and participate in some ways and to have the answer be: we’re not sure but we know it’s supposed to be this way! It’s simply frustrating to me. I don’t have understanding, the places I turn to for understanding don’t have anything satisfactory. I don’t expect things to change much in this arena either, but it’s a difficult thing for me to interact with and it seems like other people are able to get a testimony of it.

Last note, one woman in RS did comment on how she grew up in a household that was 4 generation of women. I don’t know why no husbands, but no husbands. She said it discouraged her when she was younger that her home wasn’t able to have a priesthood holder. She said she came to realize that her house had priesthood power, despite whatever authority or keys were absent. That power is power and we all have access to use it, regardless of administrative authority. It was one of my favorite comments.

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In 1984, the RLDS Church canonized a revelation to allow women to receive the priesthood. It what so divisive that it caused a schism in the RLDS Church, and the Remnant Church was borne out of that controversy. So while the RLDS Church/CoC is quite progressive in allowing women the priesthood, the functions of a bishop have not changed in that it is a very financial office, dealing with tithes and offerings.

On the other hand, the Remnant Church has taken the older, more conservative position that women should not be ordained. In my interview this week, I was a bit taken aback by Jim Vun Cannon’s comment that ordaining women would be as nonsensical as ordaining a dog to the priesthood. He said,

Jim: It’s like, if I use this analogy, I don’t want anybody on this podcast to think that I’m being demeaning in any way towards women. I’m not going to say anything derogatory. I’m just going to use an analogy. I feel that there’s kind of a logic error if you will. Because I believe that God’s word in it is inherently logical. I mean it makes complete sense and it has a balance to it and it is perfect. It’s just like in the past, I could use the logic that God used Balaam’s ass, did he not? He did.

GT: I believe Brigham Young said that was not literal. {both chuckle}

Jim: Well ok, that’s alright. We consider that it was, but ok. But considering that that was, He did that. I can stitch from that and I could also come over here and say I’ve got a dog and this dog is a lovely dog. He knows unconditional love. He’s never barked at anybody. He just loves anybody he meets. He doesn’t care who you are, and oh by the way he happens to be male so I should just ordain him to the priesthood. Does it really make sense? That’s the question I really want to ask. Does it really make sense?

You can listen to the full quote at https://gospeltangents.com/2017/08/11/women-will-never-get-priesthood/

He also gave the familiar quote that women are ordained to motherhood, men to priesthood. I was a bit surprised that he gave that familiar LDS-ism. I didn’t ask that until he said it.

Roy, it’s the attitude that others have of “If I just keep on keepin’ on, I know it’ll all be worked out in the end” that gets my goat. I understand the gospel to inspire and endow us with power and abilities we didn’t before know of or consider, so it’s disheartening to see those around me only want to participate as it’s instructed or assumed. I do appreciate you mentioning that there are always topics that are of more personal interest to others. I know that I have topics that don’t strike me as compelling enough to participate more in, but are important for family members and others. It’s important for us to realize that the body is complete when everyone’s functions are in sync.

GT, I have tried and tried to come up with a positive spin on Jim Vun Cannon’s comments regarding the “logic” of not ordaining women to priesthood offices. I just can’t. His analogy is dehumanizing and creates a wall so thick that nothing could penetrate it. It’s interesting to see how people use their agency.

Ray, thank you for posting the lessons you did. I’ve read them before, and having read them again am reminded of how much I can also miss when I talk about the priesthood. The distinction between priesthood power (power of God), priesthood keys (authority from God to ordain and set apart in service of God via the priesthood), and priesthood ordinations/offices (organizational functions and positions) is not one that’s parsed out so particularly very often. Thank you for the reminder. As said in your blog post, I think the leaders of the church see a historical/scriptural pattern of having only men ordained to most offices in the church, and that short of a revelation that pattern wouldn’t change. High time to be grateful for a church that believes in continuous revelation, eh? The pattern they see is similar to the pattern I think most people saw with the restrictions of priesthood offices from Africans/Blacks, but that all past doctrinal justifications have been disavowed as simply racism.

I see a revelation being necessary for a few reasons:

– I am coming to see the Bible, BoM, and D&C to be largely influenced by the writers, meaning they aren’t diction directly from deity (say that 5 times fast). Therefore, it’s easy for me to recognize blatant sexism in the writings and not believe it’s of God. However, it’s not so easy for the church to do that, especially when they ascertain much of their authority and legitimacy on ancient scriptural/”historical” precedent. Publicly disavowing large swaths of scripture would give the church a much different and larger problem than receiving a new revelation.

– Receiving a new revelation would bolster the continuous revelation concept of the church. Disavowing scripture and then implementing women’s ordination could be perceived as responding to the wiles of the world, and could lead many to leave the church over the legitimacy of the order of events and not necessarily the contents of them.

I’m not trying to imply that the First Presidency or Q12 go about the process in this methodical of an approach, but that this would seem to be the best way forward for the church and its members, despite my personal frustrations and impatience.

Parsing through all this, I think my main frustration is how early and often priesthood offices are ingrained into the identity of men in the church, and consequently how they aren’t for women. 12-year old boys begin to serve the ward through passing the sacrament and going around with their fathers or leaders to collect FO and participate in HT. It’s not that we simply talk about men being/holding the priesthood that’s inaccurate, it’s that it’s also practiced from a young age as well. I understand that women/girls have the authority when set apart in callings, but the transient nature of callings is not the same as being ordained to deacon/teacher/priest. Additionally, all callings in the YW have equal counterparts in the YM, but the offices of deacon/teacher/priest apply to all young men ordained, regardless of callings in the YM organization. Girls and women are asked to participate and given authority and power through callings and endowment, but boys and men are assumed to be on track to be ordained with authority and power and aren’t given it only if something goes wrong. The assumption that men receive it by their existence as men as members in the church, as opposed to women receiving it temporarily through callings and after either mission service, marriage, or personal temple endowment (which I think is happening more with women recently) is not something I understand nor agree with. Almost like “innocent until proven guilty” as opposed to “merit-based participation”. Those are big, generalized metaphors I’m using to try and convey my lengthy point above. I am not implying that I think men are guilty of something. I’m using the concepts behind those two practices to illustrate my point of how I see men and women approached differently with ordination and offices of the priesthood.

Also, perhaps I don’t fully understand the offices of deacon, teacher, and priest. I don’t know of the service they provide that other men in the ward don’t provide as well, so it confuses me to have those distinctions. Throw High Priest in the mix as well. :crazy: