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Old-Timer wrote:
We now are saying endowed women have Priesthood power, just not administrative Priesthood authority, so I can see more evolution in the future framed sincerely within continuing revelation.
(from “The Last Airbender (Netflix)” chain)I have been talking to people about the difference between “priesthood power” and “administrative authority” for years.
One of my “stuck points” is that “administrative authority” and “gender” are so tightly bound together. My biggest problems with binding those 2 concepts together is that it marginalizes non-administrative authority figures and populations, reduces the administrative authority pool (excludes good authority figures), and that it puts an undue burden of administrative authority on individuals who don’t want/can’t support that level of executive functioning and decision-making.
“Priesthood Power”– I can see this in terms of some responsibilities being de-coupled from gender (witnessing, some stake callings).
– I still hear this as “power” different then “what women have to nurture”.
“Administrative Authority”– Public facing events (blessings, ordinances)
– “Calling” people to do things as the default.
NOTE: Our culture does not explicitly allow individuals to “feel called to” specific areas of influence/administration. There is a fair amount of potential soft latitude – for example, I am passionate about teaching women and my husband was able to recommend that I be called as a R.S teacher back in the day. Aside from grass-roots individual solicitation efforts, people are “called” – they don’t “call themselves” to callings.
NOTE 2: I got a lot of weird looks when I “called myself” to nursery but didn’t accept a calling in nursery. The Primary presidencies got replaced every few months during that time, so this irregularity of behavior that I was completing didn’t seem to merit the branch president saying anything. I had that trainings done that were required, and there were only 3-5 toddlers in the nursery at the time (including mine). It was funny, people got offended at me when I stopped showing up for a calling that I didn’t have (because they assumed that I had that calling).
Essentially, the narrative shift has been – if you are “righteous enough”, you will be able to activate the authority to act in the name of God inside you and maybe potentially be authorized to do things like be a woman priesthood holder and bless the sacrament at home for your family. Or, now that you have the understanding that you have always had the ability to bless others, we may let you give mother’s blessings or hold your baby during a baby blessing on that specific Sunday.
QUESTIONS:
1. Why the shift to “priesthood power” being available to women instead of “administrative authority”?
NOTE: Yes, “administrative authority” is being handed off to women as they are invited into counsel meetings. And whatever innate priesthood power women have was declared “inactive” and women were not authorized to bless the sacrament for their families during COVID when it would have made sense to do so from a “power to act in the name of God” perspective.
2. With the increase in “former priesthood-only duties” such as witnessing, parts of the “male only” identity as “priesthood holder” are potentially being taken away too. Why the tradeoff in “identity” vs “administration authority”?
NOTE: I see the secular variation going the other way – as women are given more administration authority without necessarily touching “unique male identity” (It seems to look like, “you do you and practice your identity as long as isn’t illegal or sexual-harassment worthy”).
3. There is a trend that as soon as a field or experience is opened to women, it’s value decreases considerably in general. Example: for a very long time, a male secretary was the standard and was a respectable field to work in. Around WW1, the need for secretaries and organization was so large that women were encouraged to become secretaries and the field hasn’t been the same since. Same with teaching, and coding (to a degree).
Are the powers that be gambling that there is enough “priesthood power fueled” obligations to include everyone without diversifying the organizational structure by splitting it from how a person performs their assigned gender?There appears to be a little bit of confusion because we use the word priesthood power and priesthood authority interchangeably in many respects. In the April 2014 General Conference, Dallin H. Oaks said,
Quote:“We are not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the Priesthood in their Church callings, but what other authority can it be? When a woman…is set apart to preach the gospel…she is given priesthood authority to perform a Priesthood function. The same is true when a woman is set apart to function as an officer or teacher in a Church organization…”
Here he says authority and seems to mean a limited delegated authority to perform an assigned task. I assume that any power associated with that authority has also been delegated (it would be a cruel joke to give someone “authority” without and “power” to accomplish the mission). I think when we say “Administrative Authority,” we are referring to priesthood keys. I think that we reserve that term for male leadership bishoprics and presidencies.As Elder M. Russell Ballard has explained,
Quote:“Those who have priesthood keys … literally make it possible for all who serve faithfully under their direction to exercise priesthood authority and have access to priesthood power.”
Quote:How does this apply to women? In an address to the Relief Society, President Joseph Fielding Smith, then President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said this: “While the sisters have not been given the Priesthood, it has not been conferred upon them, that does not mean that the Lord has not given unto them authority. … A person may have authority given to him, or a sister to her, to do certain things in the Church that are binding and absolutely necessary for our salvation, such as the work that our sisters do in the House of the Lord. They have authority given unto them to do some great and wonderful things, sacred unto the Lord, and binding just as thoroughly as are the blessings that are given by the men who hold the Priesthood.”7
In that notable address, President Smith said again and again that women have been given authority. To the women he said, “You can speak with authority, because the Lord has placed authority upon you.” He also said that the Relief Society “[has] been given power and authority to do a great many things. The work which they do is done by divine authority.” And, of course, the Church work done by women or men, whether in the temple or in the wards or branches, is done under the direction of those who hold priesthood keys. Thus, speaking of the Relief Society, President Smith explained, “[The Lord] has given to them this great organization where they have authority to serve under the directions of the bishops of the wards … , looking after the interest of our people both spiritually and temporally.”
repeatedly using the word authority.
Quote:The greatest power God has given to His sons cannot be exercised without the companionship of one of His daughters, because only to His daughters has God given the power “to be a creator of bodies … so that God’s design and the Great Plan might meet fruition.”12 Those are the words of President J. Reuben Clark.
He continued: “This is the place of our wives and of our mothers in the Eternal Plan. They are not bearers of the Priesthood; they are not charged with carrying out the duties and functions of the Priesthood; nor are they laden with its responsibilities; they are builders and organizers under its power, and partakers of its blessings, possessing the complement of the Priesthood powers and possessing a function as divinely called, as eternally important in its place as the Priesthood itself.”
This seems like an odd place to talk about childbirth, mothering, and homemaking. Is his only point to draw the comparison between the power of childbirth (that only women have) and the power of priesthood (that only men have).
Quote:In his insightful talk at BYU Education Week last summer, Elder M. Russell Ballard gave these teachings:
“Our Church doctrine places women equal to and yet different from men. God does not regard either gender as better or more important than the other. …
“When men and women go to the temple, they are both endowed with the same power, which is priesthood power. … Access to the power and the blessings of the priesthood is available to all of God’s children.”
Here Elder Ballard says that women receive priesthood power.
There was an interview in 2013 with Sheri Dew that was interesting. 1) she said:
Quote:“One of the painful things about not marrying at a traditional age is not having children. I had an experience, related to being single and not a mother, with one of the senior Brethren that was hard to take. The encounter made me feel badly and it bothered me. I agonized over it.
But as I struggled over that experience, I started thinking about motherhood, and that is what led me to start studying the doctrine of motherhood differently than I ever had. When I did that, the Lord parted a curtain and taught me some things about what motherhood really means that I had never understood and that we don’t typically hear talked about in Church. It started with a painful experience that made me feel really badly, but it was in the wrestling with that experience that the Lord taught me, so I feel pretty grateful for that miserable experience. It led me to learn some things I don’t think I would have learned any other way.
I was led to think really deeply about the whole issue of motherhood. It became really clear to me that motherhood is more than bearing children. Of course, giving birth is the most dramatic evidence of it, but it’s more than that.
Understanding that the doctrine of motherhood is about more than the bearing of children has helped me crystallize for my own self that I can still, even without having borne children, mother others. They might be teenagers, they might be young adults, they might be sisters in the gospel. There are so many opportunities to shepherd others along the path.
I do think that we as women have been uniquely gifted with spiritual gifts that enable us to help shepherd others along the path. I’m very conscious of that. It drives, for me, a whole lot of what I do. It drives wanting to help a young adult who’s struggling with her testimony. It drives my going to teach institute where I can have a mothering influence on young adults who are finding their way. It’s a driving force in my life’s mission. I have just had to find different ways to mother because the normal way hasn’t come to me naturally.”
This quote is interesting to me because it seems that Sister dew is describing the tasks that she is doing with the authority and power of the priesthood under the description of “mothering.” (also note that she mothers children, teenagers, young adults, and adult sisters but she does not seem to include adult men or priesthood brethren in her mothering purview).
Later in the interview Sister Dew said the following:
Quote:“The saddest imaginable thing is if we don’t realize what God has given us. And if we don’t realize it, we are in no position to learn how to draw upon the power of God and how to draw that power into our lives to bless us. Imagine how sad to get to the end of your life and find out that you had it all along, but didn’t access that power.”
This quote is pretty perplexing to me. What is Sheri Dew talking about? What is this power of God that women have access to and how do they access it? For the sake of understanding, what might a life look like that fully accessed that power compared to a life that never accessed that power? If it would be really sad for women to cross the veil only to realize that they had the power of God all along but didn’t access or use it, How can we do a better job teaching them to access and use it? Could it be just a woman that prays and/or reeds the scriptures everyday vs. a woman that does not?
Thank you Roy:) Quote:This quote is interesting to me because it seems that Sister dew is describing the tasks that she is doing with the authority and power of the priesthood under the description of “mothering.” (also note that she mothers children, teenagers, young adults, and adult sisters but she does not seem to include adult men or priesthood brethren in her mothering purview).
She “called herself” to the ministry of looking out for these individuals because she felt “called of God” aka “authorized” to do so.
From the many business courses I have taken, it seems like the there are themes between “good emotional intelligence employee/leader practices” and “nurturing” aka “mothering” that generally get re-branded as “mentoring”. Even D&C 121 is “emotional intelligence” skill description and applies to both men and women in terms of stewardship, mentorship, and leadership.
If “presiding = decision-making in the home” and “priesthood authority/keys” = the means by which men “preside” at the organizational level, then “mothering” and “nurturing” essentially functions as “good at being led/optimistic/trusting & leading into decisions made by others”.
While there is a biological rationale that the increased estrogen in women leads to “nurturing & caring for others” [with a narrative of couples divorcing in the mid-life because “she didn’t care anymore” having a biological root]. That same estrogen shift time frame also seems to allow women to step back and mentor others, take on other life roles, and “think through how to care give more effectively” rather then being the in-the-trenches-care-giver they were younger with the kids.
Priesthood Keys = Priesthood Authority = A gender-defined “performance” in church administration/organizational authority.
“Nurturing Keys” = ?
- Estrogen? [which is not the equivalent because estrogen is a cyclic thing both short term and long term]
- Undefined Emotional Intelligence Stat Boost? [not equivalent because some emotional intelligence is a skill set, some biology, some trauma protection/prevention, some “masking” as a self-defense mechanism]
NOTE: I have shifted to my preferred identity being “concerned parent” rather then “mother” because I cannot figure out what this “mothering tenderness” means (outside of the stubbornness of a mother bear with her cubs]. My mother, my husband, and counselor are both offended/affronted by this shift because there is something “motherly” they see in how I care for those I tend to [despite the fact that I “diagnose emotion”, “run forensic level dossiers on those who are important to me”, and “rationally problem-solve” and “preside” in my sleep]. They say that because I am a biological female who gives a care for my children that I am a “good mother” and a “good nurturer”.
I might also be slightly bitter because I picked up all those “emotional intelligence” skills as compensation/masking self-defense mechanisms that gave me the ability to survive in a world not built for me, so sometimes the “You’re A Good Mother” compliment comes across as “Cool Battle Scars – that one must have really hurt” conversational points (with related almost PTSD).
Quote:“There is no other religious organization in the world, that I know of, that has so broadly given power and authority to women. There are religions that ordain some women to positions such as priests and pastors, but very few relative to the number of women in their congregations receive that authority that their church gives them.
“By contrast, all women, 18 years and older, in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who choose a covenant relationship with God in the house of the Lord are endowed with priesthood power directly from God. And as we serve in whatever calling or assignment, including ministering assignments, we are given priesthood authority to carry out those responsibilities. My dear sisters, you belong to a Church which offers all its women priesthood power and authority from God!.” —Sister @j_anettedennis
This is a more recent quote that expresses the same idea. Here, this sister says that women are endowed with priesthood power in the temple and then later women who perform church assignments are given priesthood authority. In the final sentence she reiterates that in this church women receive both “priesthood power and authority.”
My hope is that this change in rhetoric will precede and lay the groundwork for a future where women can do stuff. There was a time where women ministered to other women during childbirth and that privilege was taken away. It sounds to me that this could be a calling that women could perform. I think that church leadership will want to be careful to not have women do things now reserved as priesthood tasks. What else could women do with the priesthood power and delegated authority that they have?
Roy wrote:
My hope is that this change in rhetoric will precede and lay the groundwork for a future where women can do stuff. There was a time where women ministered to other women during childbirth and that privilege was taken away. It sounds to me that this could be a calling that women could perform. I think that church leadership will want to be careful to not have women do things now reserved as priesthood tasks. What else could women do with the priesthood power and delegated authority that they have?
Part of the problem is that “women’s authority” is defined in part as “distinct from men’s authority” in a gender-based way. The real root of the problem is that women’s authority “is defined by men” with erratic feminine representation.
Part 2 of the problem is “what drives women to nurture, to fulfill their role”? The answers we know aren’t “innately divine” or “touchy-feely”:
– As early as 18 months, boys and girls are socialized differently. Leonard Sax in his book, “Why Gender Matters” provides a summary of findings from the child development field.
– Skin contact between women and babies and general physical contact seems to have a regulating factor that goes beyond just babies. However, the same groups that codified the importance of “skin to skin contact” are quick to point out that men’s bodies can also co-regulate with “skin-to-skin” contact. So the “nurturing super bonus” about knowing when to practice “Lovingkindess” and “hug it out” isn’t gender specific, and we really should update our understanding of that.
– The general trend from several fields of study indicate that women “care less” as a feature of peri-menopause and menopause. They “are mean” and “cold” and “don’t do what they used to do” – because the biology that drove them to care is moving on.
– We still include sections of D&C that warn Emma to accept what Joseph was saying “or else”.
– The “Good News” (nor voting rights for women actually) hasn’t “reformed men” enough to prevent domestic violence from being a solution. And with the statistics from NAMI saying 1 in 3 women will experience some form of violence against 1 in 7 men, women “do things” to prevent violence in their homes – and the Mormon culture isn’t any different. I was following a connected post on the Exponent 2 website. An individual named Lavender posted this, and I find it worth consideration here:
Quote:When I first read Sister Dennis’s quote, I assumed it was referring to the discrepancy between men’s power and women’s power in the LDS church (because of the deep wounds this discrepancy has caused me and people I love), but it isn’t. It seems to be more about God favoring LDS people – those born and adopted into the covenant and worthy enough – and she happened to be speaking to women so addressed only how God favors LDS women over other women. Her words suggest that God is an LDS God. She wasn’t commenting on women’s lack of power and authority compared to men in the church but
Mormon women’s power and authority compared to non-Mormon women’s power and authority.[bolding is mine].
https://exponentii.org/blog/call-for-submissions-the-deleted-comments-department/ ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://exponentii.org/blog/call-for-submissions-the-deleted-comments-department/ One the biggest changes in my self that came out of my faith transition was that “I authorized and empowered myself” instead of “wrestling for authority and validation of my personal empowering and submission attempts”.
I built a working moral compass for myself based on the accommodations I needed, the pieces I was able to salvage, and what was valuable for me and for my family. Pre-faith transition, my focus was on using what was handed to me, nudging parts of it around to awkwardly fit me, using the church framework as my personal framework.
Having been a “Mormon woman” and now a “heretical non-Christian non-practicing Mormon woman” – I see how I am more deliberate in what I authorize myself to do, how I transfer and share power with others. I reject the “I nurture because I am female” gender performance benchmark. If I do
anything– I preside with and provide for those individuals and causes I care about. I have “presided my entire life” as a decision-maker and accidental leader (people follow me because I make decisions and communicate) – my job is to “preside well” and “facilitate transfers of power” to others. If I “nurture at all” (and it’s a very pragmatic, down-to-earth caregiving) – it’s because I am a concerned human, and “spending the ounce of prevention to take care of something before it gets dumped in my lap and requires a pound of cure” is just “narcissism disguised as altruism”. NOTE: My husband got so mad at me when I told him that I “take care of things as a form of self-defense”.
AmyJ wrote:
She wasn’t commenting on women’s lack of power and authority compared to men in the church but Mormon women’s power and authority compared to non-Mormon women’s power and authority.
Yeah, I picked up on that too. When I was growing up in the 90’s I was told that deacons in the LDS church held more power in their pinkies then the Pope has in his whole church. I wondered if that is the same idea that Sister Dennis was getting at when she said things like “endowed with priesthood power directly from God” and “priesthood power and authority from God!” that priesthood power is so great that even those in our church with the least bit of it have more divine power and authority than the rest of the non-LDS world combined.LDS women being special because of their proximity to LDS men isn’t exactly a flex for women empowerment. If anything, it’s a display of the spiritual arrogance that comes with the hyper focus on the true church narrative. nibbler wrote:
LDS women being specialbecauseof their proximity to LDS men isn’t exactly a flex for women empowerment. If anything, it’s a display of the spiritual arrogance that comes with the hyper focus on the true church narrative.
My more cynical side would point out its in some cases “despite” their proximity to LDS men rather then “because of” their proximity.
Unfortunately for my husband, it seems that we do our best work when he isn’t going to church. The unintended consequence of church culture endorsed self-shaming combined with family trauma induced by cultural gender roles, community disconnect, and a variety of other factors in our personal narrative make it a less comfortable place for us. I do trust the mileage for other families to vary:)
I have been giving a lot of thought to the concept of “Be One” meaning “Be Co-Creators” instead of “Unity”. If we are truly creating something, we can figure out how to interrupt each other safely and we can figure out how to problem-solve competing creation situations. And we can sort out what the other needs to supply for our creation process rather then be force-fed a series of blueprints.
AmyJ wrote:
I have been giving a lot of thought to the concept of “Be One” meaning “Be Co-Creators” instead of “Unity”. If we are truly creating something, we can figure out how to interrupt each other safely and we can figure out how to problem-solve competing creation situations. And we can sort out what the other needs to supply for our creation process rather then be force-fed a series of blueprints.
I love that! I certainly feel that to be “Co-Creators” with my spouse better describes what we do. We certainly have never worried about presiding. At church though, things are very different with an organizational hierarchy that women are locked out of.
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