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A someone asked me to pose this question… Although women do not hold the priesthood, why can’t women be Sunday School Presidents? They can be Sunday School Teachers, so the actual composition of the adults in Sunday School is composed of male and female. Could allowing women to be Sunday SChool Presidents be a positive step toward assimilation that could be healthy for the church? We allow women to be presidents of the primary, which also has teachers composed of different genders, why can’t this occur in Sunday School?
Do you think the brethren would ever consider this a baby step toward a more progressive church than we have now?
I have wondered about this too. I don’t know if SSP is male only because of tradition or if there’s some other reason. The general SS presidency are considered officers of the church and speak in GC (like the RSP, YMP, PP, and YWP). While I don’t see why the SSP is male and I do agree it would be a great step in equalization to include females, I don’t see that happening in the foreseeable future.
Women staff the entire primary presidency. If women were allowed to be SSP then that might set up a scenario where there’s a woman president “over” a male counselor, which I’m guessing is a no-no. I think there will continue to be progress in female equality issues. The first thing the church will do is to look at everything to determine if priesthood is necessary. This is probably one they can say, priesthood is not necessary, and open it up to women. However, the church has a tradition of not mixing men and women in callings, to prevent potential adulterous situations I guess. So, the church would first have to move to a model where men and women could be in a presidency together, before it could be opened up to women. That might be a bigger obstacle. But, this is the world we live in. Unmarried men and women need to learn to work together in variety of situations: business, politics, schools, etc. So there’s no reason the church can’t evolve in that direction. nibbler wrote:Women staff the entire primary presidency. If women were allowed to be SSP then that might set up a scenario where there’s a woman president “over” a male counselor, which I’m guessing is a no-no.
You posted this while I was making my reply. I was thinking the same thing.Tradition and culture. In orthodox terms, those who hold those keys have not chosen to turn that particular lock.
There is no other reasonable answer.
I am quite certain it will change in my lifetime.
The ward mission leader is another position that I do not believe would always and forever need to be male. There are both male and female ward missionaries but currently the WML must be male. The same could be said for district and zone leaders for missionaries. Sister missionaries serve as district leaders, zone leaders, and assistants to the president in the temple square mission but then we’re back to the problem where for most every other mission women could potentially be in a position of authority over men, which is a bridge that the church probably isn’t quite ready to cross. In other words it’s not the calling itself but the limiting factors that exist in the environment. I’m not saying that’s a good reason, I’m just offering up what I’m guessing goes through a leader’s mind as they weigh these questions.
IMO, the SS Presidency makeup is a vestige of days-gone-by. In the olden days, and I’m talking up into 1980, SS was a separate 1.5 hour meeting which consisted of “opening exercises” in the Chapel followed by separated instruction classes. Opening Exercises wasn’t the way we think of it now. In OE of SS up until 1980, we had an opening hymn, opening prayer, announcements, a sacrament hymn, a sacrament gem, the sacrament (yes… in Sunday School), and two-and-a-half-minute talks. Making it a bit more complicated, there were actually two separate OE meetings, one in the chapel and one in what we used to call the Junior Sunday School Room. The same format was followed there, including blessing and passing the sacrament to all the Junior Sunday School children (something that I actually always loved, and which I frequently miss). These meetings were organized and conducted by the Sunday School Presidency. It’s in keeping with 20th Century Mormonism for this to have been a priesthood responsibility. Now-days, the SS Presidency is a pretty invisible role and counselors in the presidency are often semi-active members. Its importance has greatly waned and the specific ‘need’ for priesthood seems like a stretch.
I’ve often thought of this as the first male-or-female calling that the Church could use to usher in a new approach to gender issues. It would be perfect for the Church to call an all-female SS Presidency in one ward and all-male in another. It would send a signal that women and men alike can both serve in the same type of leadership roles without regard to old notions.
I do agree that the Church has an odd culture of not matching men and women together where they need to work closely. That’s also a leftover from the past when it truly was considered inappropriate for men and women to be alone together if married, but not to each other. The ONE semi-legitimate entanglement I can half-way understand from the Church’s perspective is that presidency meetings are very often held in private locations, like in a home. I am in no way saying that a married woman and a married man, if put in a private situation together will commit the sin-next-to-murder, but I get the old-school mentality that makes that seem awkward. I suspect that the changing (or… well… already-changed) world will make this old taboo disappear before too much longer.
Where I think this is even more pressing is where the church is just starting up. I have heard of branches that have a large female group with few males. It means the males have to do a ton of callings while the capable females are limited in the callings they can have. Some women go inactive as they don’t feel they belong while some men get burned out from too much of a workload. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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