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https://www.lds.org/topics/joseph-smiths-teachings-about-priesthood-temple-and-women?lang=eng ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.lds.org/topics/joseph-smiths-teachings-about-priesthood-temple-and-women?lang=eng https://www.lds.org/topics/mother-in-heaven?lang=enghttps://www.lds.org/topics/mother-in-heaven?lang=eng” class=”bbcode_url”> Wow! 😮 There hasn’t been an essay in quite some time. Thanks for sharing. I visited the LDS.org page a couple times today and didn’t see anything about them on the landing page and still don’t. I have read them, though, and find them (especially the priesthood and women one) a bit apologetic. Nevertheless, it is progress and I think they are worth reading.For me these were both deeply dissatisfying. I have no goal of ordination, but the Joseph Smith and the Priesthood seems like a slight of hand. As if every laying on of hands by a woman was discounted. It felt dismissive. Why not embrace the history, it’s as if the door to healing was opened but we shut it again. And the Heavenly Mother piece – why write it? I know I’ve read a couple of efforts to put a good spin on it, but that’s just the point, spin. I want a Feminine Divine more than anything, but just because we can now say we have an essay that says she real doesn’t do much. We’ve had a hymn, that we rarely sing, that says the same thing. We really don’t have much more to go on. Is she a role model, what is her role?
I don’t know – If they didn’t have anything to add then don’t write anything.
The Woman and Priesthood to me said “women used to give blessings of healing the sick but don’t get to anymore” and “look at all the neat ways women do get to help.” I didn’t want to be the first to write a review but my first reaction was disappointment. I hoped for a little hint of change. My summary of the Heavenly Mother essay is “we don’t know anything about her, we want to be like her (and Heavenly Father) and don’t pray to her.” This one doesn’t surprise me as much because the authors couldn’t say much more without claiming prophet-level inspiration. I get mom3’s sentiment of what’s the point.
DarkJedi wrote:I visited the LDS.org page a couple times today and didn’t see anything about them on the landing page and still don’t.
That’s how you know hackers didn’t infiltrate lds.org. No mention on the homepage? It’s a genuine essay.
Joseph Smith’s Teachings about Priesthood, Temple, and WomenMore of the same, of course the point of the essay isn’t to communicate some new revelation. The essay directly addressed a few documented points in our history where it was said that women would be “ordained” and would be given “keys.” It was a similar apologetic approach as the “translation” doesn’t necessarily mean “translation” used in other essays. It’s the argument you’re left with when you want to drive people towards your specific conclusion despite what was said.
This article also had a few sections that were essentially saying, don’t focus on what women can’t do or don’t have, look at this list of stuff that they can do.
I’ll have to put the mother in heaven article on the back burner for when I have more time. I’m excited to read it.
mom3 wrote:For me these were both deeply dissatisfying. I have no goal of ordination, but the Joseph Smith and the Priesthood seems like a slight of hand. As if every laying on of hands by a woman was discounted. It felt dismissive. Why not embrace the history, it’s as if the door to healing was opened but we shut it again.
Yeah. If they did it then why not now? Because the handbook? I don’t remember voting on canonizing the handbook.
I just read them. The first priesthood one felt like an apologetic document. I didn’t see anything new in them, but did recognize a rather interesting hole: we want to be like our “Heavenly Parents”…but so little is known of Heavenly Mother, how can she be included as a role model to emulate?
That is something I have wondered about for a while.
I’ve just been hit by a wave of sympathy for Dallin H. Oaks. I think it’s going to fall to him to lead the church through this minefield. I want to stay with integrity intact, and I want the church to continue to mean something to my daughters. While I agree that LBGT issues are huge, I think that women’s issues are more straightforwardly messed up and out of step with modern sensibilities. And it’s not just priesthood probs, it’s temple probs, polygamy probs. The status quo isn’t going to work for my granddaughters. Can it be changed without without major damage? Nothing new about Heavenly Mother. Maybe they just released the (super short) essay to remind us all that we think she’s there.
Ann wrote Quote:While I agree that LBGT issues are huge, I think that women’s issues are more straightforwardly messed up and out of step with modern sensibilities. And it’s not just priesthood probs, it’s temple probs, polygamy probs. The status quo isn’t going to work for my granddaughters.
Yeah.
I know I drum LBGT a lot but only because they seem to be the most publicly ostracized since 2008. On the whole though women’s issues are big. I have an adorable, strong willed niece who I can see being a world changing kind of gal. I want her to fly in and out of the church. How do we make room for their wings?
All day 3 women of merit (none of them LDS) kept running through my mind. Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa, and Madame Currie. They changed the world forever.
I read this essay and really liked it. http://www.mormontransitions.org/psychologists-response-to-women-and-priesthood-essay/ For me, the essays raised a lot more questions than they answered. Especially the Heavenly Mother one. My husband is deeply offended that I didn’t love the essays, which just goes to show you he hasn’t listened to a word I’ve said over the past 3 years.
:eh: Mother in HeavenAgain nothing ground breaking but that’s not surprising. I think the essay was just meant to put everything we know in one place, not to communicate a new revelation.
They did include a section on why we don’t pray to heavenly mother but I thought they could have included a section about why the subject of heavenly mother seems to be taboo in the church. I realize this essay actually helps alleviate the issue but we’re still far from openly discussing the subject as a culture.
On the upside, this mainstreams discussions of Heavenly Mother and the use of the term “Heavenly Parents” rather than just “Heavenly Father.” I’m with Louis C.K. that maybe our Heavenly Parents are divorced and dad’s got custody. :ugeek: On the downside, the silence and lack of understanding of how inadequate the church’s views on women are is just deafening.
The essays did something important: They presented the history accurately and quite comprehensively, including things that could cause problems. That is not a small thing. I see these as steps in the right direction. I’m not jumping up and down with unabated enthusiasm, but I am happy about them – and I personally will not criticize attempts to move the needle in the right direction. Both of these essays do that.
You are right Ray. In general the essays don’t go as deep, nor state things the way I would want, but they are progress. For those going through a faith trial I doubt they help much at all. They might inoculate enough, or make a TBM to be able to ignore any of the hard issues just under the veneer of the essays.
But I am left at where are these going? For the long term. I can’t quite tell if they are more, “we have to get some of these out because we really look like we were covering up things” (more of the way it feels to me right now) or if we will see these slowly tweaked over the years. Kind of an ever-evolving pseudo cannon-ish teachings.
I recently listened to some of the very first John Dehlin podcasts. One think that he said was that he didn’t see how the church could really come clean on many of the issues without causing disaffections, even though NOT coming clean was causing disaffections (even among multi-generational Mormons). He stated that he thought that without a way to address the minority of folks with faith crisis, that they were just going to be the casualties of this situation and it was somewhat calculated that this would be the way to lose the least people. That seems to be resonating with me quite a bit, and I am kind of coming to terms with accepting that is the way it is going to be. The only way the leaders would change that tactic is if the defections really ramp and it truly does become “hemorrhaging”.
I know some people who work in the Church’s History Department, most of them writers and researchers. To a person, their goal and mandate are to figure out the history and publish it – from a faithful perspective but without hiding, overlooking or altering anything. They are serious scholars – and the majority of them would be considered liberal by stereotypical, mainstream Mormons. That alone (the fact that they have been hired with that mandate) is a HUGE part of my optimism.
The most recent passing of the guard, as an extension of what started with Pres. Hinckley, is extremely encouraging to me. What happens over the next 20 years is critical, given the current FP & Q12 and the impact of those who will be chosen as current apostles die, and I am highly optimistic about that time period.
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