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Ray – I wrote that. How did I write that as if I were you?? Oh, boy. I see what I did – OK, Ray, I accidentally EDITED your comment instead of QUOTING it. I’m so sorry – I mistakenly lost your original comment. That sucks. I’m sorry! Well, I can’t re-construct the comment, since it was long and complicated and I spent a LONG time writing it – and the quoted parts don’t do the overall comment justice at all and radically change the impression of what I wrote. ( 
:thumbdown: Suffice it to say that we see this differently and I don’t want to argue about it past this – especially if you are going to delete and edit my comments about it.
đ Oh, and you officially are dead to me.
Is that enough emoticons? Just in case anyone thinks I’m seriously upset . . .
đŻ 
:wtf: :wave: 
:clap: đ :shh: 
Thanks for the family of emoticons at the end. I really feel stupid for doing that, and your comment was good so I wish people could see it in its original glory. We have room for reasonable disagreement on this one. I acknowledge that I have a low tolerance for invoking Jesus to win arguments. I certainly question the humility of anyone who would do so. On a more serious note, I want to make it crystal clear that I was the one who first mentioned not liking Bro. Otterson’s passive-aggressive approach in how he asked how Jesus might have reacted to public demands that he change the way he acted and taught. I do think it is a valid, non-blasphemous question (and I think there is a reasonable view of the Gospels that makes the question legitimate and important to ask), but I agree that the passive-aggressive way he asked it generally is used as a way to shut down discussion – and I don’t like that sort of approach.
My comment was NOT defending the letter in its entirety, nor was it applauding the part that Hawkgrrrl sees as blasphemous / sacrilege. It simply (but comprehensively) explained why I don’t see it as sacrilege / blasphemy to ask the question, even if I don’t like the way he did so.
I had one of those paradigm altering experiences tonight in a discussion at BCC about this issue. I was trying hard to see if OW would accept a âNoâ or a âNot yetâ answer to prayer from the leadership, and a commenter told me that even asking that was calling them faithless. I simply didnât get it â not at all. It was a really frustrating conversation for me â and, Iâm sure, even more frustrating for them. I was trying, sincerely, to understand, but I just couldnât get it.
Finally, Tracy M entered the conversation and said something that finally made it click in my mind. She said:
Quote:âThose who believe would accept an actual answer- regardless of what that answer is. It floors me that people canât see that OW is functioning within the very framework their founder and most members sustain and support.
A ânot nowâ would be the answer to prayers. It would be an answer.â
I am much more sympathetic to OW right now than I have been in the past, and I need to state that in this thread, since Iâve expressed my previous concerns about OW here in this forum. I think I finally understand both the PA Departmentâs dilemma and the issue that OW and others have with that dilemma â and I now can say I respect the difficulty each faces with regard to the situation.
Any prayerful answer from those who are authorized to receive an answer would be an answer.That also is what I want. Old-Timer wrote:I am much more sympathetic to OW right now than I have been in the past, and I need to state that in this thread, since Iâve expressed my previous concerns about OW here in this forum. I think I finally understand both the PA Departmentâs dilemma and the issue that OW and others have with that dilemma â and I now can say I respect the difficulty each faces with regard to the situation.
Thank you for this.
I have to agree Ray. If all they are really asking is that they Q15 pray about it, and they will accept any answer, then I have no problem with OW. I had previously seen them as simply demanding what they want – the priesthood. If that’s not the case, my view of them is quite different. I still am not ready to say they simply want any answer, given statements they have made and how their website verbiage is worded, but I am much more sympathetic to the dilemma they AND the PA Department face. In regards to the WWJD comment in the letter… 1) I imagine that Jesus’s mortal life was culturally bound just like the prophets. If he lived today, I imagine that he would be much more open to equal participation by both genders.
2) Jesus seems to have been somewhat of an anti-establishment reformer. Maybe, if He were alive today, He would be among the ranks of OW.
Not sure if this has already been said but my .02 is this: If church leaders were interested enough in taking the matter before the Lord, they could simply announce that they are petitioning the Lord on the matter but have yet to receive revelation directing a change in the current practice and policy.
The PA dept. comes off as sincere Church leaders come off as genuinely interested in the needs of struggling women. Ordain Women has the question of female ordination validated as a legitimate question/concern. It’s a win-win-win.
Then, if revelation comes, regardless of the answer, church leaders have shown that they care and no one is rebuffed as an apostate. The current posturing makes everyone look prideful. Church leaders look aloof. PA looks dismissive. OW looks shrill and demanding. All parties appear as though their necks are made of brass.
Quote:Top Mormon officials are listening to many members â including feminists â on womenâs issues but are not willing to engage with “more extreme groups,” which “make nonnegotiable demands for doctrinal changes that the church canât possibly accept,” LDS public affairs director Michael Otterson said Thursday in a five-page open letter sent to several Mormon blogs.
“No matter what the intent,” Otterson wrote, “such demands come across as divisive and suggestive of apostasy rather than encouraging conversation through love and inclusion.”
Otterson didnât name any group in particular, but many inferred he was talking about Ordain Women, an LDS movement pushing for women to be admitted into the churchâs all-male priesthood.
On Friday, Ordain Women responded to Ottersonâs letter, saying in a statement posted on its website, “we are encouraged that there is continued sincere interest in more deeply discussing womenâs opportunities and service in our church.”
It praised the Utah-based faithâs Public Affairs Department for “interacting with LDS blogs” and lauded “the women and male allies of Ordain Women who have courageously moved this conversation on gender equality in the church forward.”
The group also pointed out that most supporters of Ordain Women “are faithful, active members of the church, [who] look forward to the day when we can sit down with our leaders and discuss these issues with those we sustain to do Godâs work.”
This exchange comes after The Salt Lake Tribune recently reported that church P.R. representatives conducted a 90-minute video conference with leaders of Mormon Women Stand, an online group backing the churchâs priesthood stance, while LDS higher-ups have repeatedly rejected similar talks with Ordain Women.
Other commenters took issue with some of Ottersonâs theological pronouncements, particularly his presumptions about Jesus and priesthood ordination.
“I suppose we do not know all the reasons why Christ did not ordain women as apostles, either in the New Testament or the Book of Mormon, or when the church was restored in modern times,” Otterson wrote. “We only know that he did not, that his leaders today regard this as a doctrinal issue that cannot be compromised.”
Though she does not support Ordain Women, Julie Smith, writing for the Mormon blog Times & Seasons, said Ottersonâs statement is “not a good way for Mormons to argue against ordaining women.”For one thing, the modern LDS Church “does all sorts of things that we have no evidence for from Jesusâ day, such as sending out female missionaries or authorizing women to teach in church, lead organizations, participate in the [temple] endowment, and pray publicly,” Smith writes. “Jesus did not ordain anyone who wasnât an adult, but we ordain 12-year-old boys. Jesus didnât ordain anyone who was well-educated, but we do. Jesus didnât ordain anyone of Asian ancestry, but we do.”
It is unclear, she says, “whether Jesusâ (apparent) lack of female ordinations represent an eternal principle or cultural expediency or temporary policy.”
Besides, Mormons believes in “continuing revelation,” she says, and “a change to current practice is entirely possible â despite what did or did not happen in Jesusâ time â and would only happen based on revelation.”
I’m neutral to all this except for the supposed “example” of how to be a “well behaved Mormon women”. But the logics fallacy of the Jesus argument is inherent and it seems non ordain women people can see the logical fallacy too.
There are lots of cultural things that were done or not in his time culturally. Few things are recorded about his thoughts on a wife variety of things. Including stoning(I hear support for stoning a lot as an example of what we should get back to because Jesus didn’t say anything against it…so obviously he approves and we have sinned to repel such a action).
Women and men segregated in church and society, polygamy, and quite a few other cultural things that existed even before the bible was written, let alone when Christ walked the earth. Little to non is recorded about thoughts in a wife variety of things that existed for many 1000s of years in Jewish culture before he was born or the Old Testament was written.
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