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I think you’ll find our women are very happy now. We have a dissident now and again, somebody who speaks out very sharply, very strongly. But that’s very unusual. Statistically it’s such a very small item that you’d hardly reckon with it…. They’re outspoken. They speak up. They feel strongly about it. That’s their prerogative. They talk about it a good deal, and we’ve heard what they’ve had to say. We’ve heard it again and again. We feel they’re not right. We let them go forward with what they’re doing. If they speak out against the church in a strong, vigorous way, then possibly some action will be taken.
Gordon B. Hinckley, – Mormon America
This is why.
Quote:So if you want to continue to associate with the Church and its faithful members your best bet is to keep any disagreements or doubts about the party line to yourself because they will typically not be well received.
No, this is WAY too extreme.
Silence is not the solution.Organized opposition, carried out through the media, isn’t the answer – but neither is silence. I talk and write all the time about my own opinions, even when they differ from current practice, and it is making a difference within my spheres of influence. It might take some time and patience to find the right “voice” for each person, but silence is not the answer. Roy wrote:I respect your opinion Shawn. At the same time I don’t know that there were ever any real channels of open dialogue available. As I understand it the church refused to come to the table with OW (even though it did meet with another woman’s group). A disciplinary council does not seem to be a good place for dialogue.
It appears you and I are talking about different things. Dialogue between Kate Kelly and church headquarters or a general authority is not what I was thinking of. I was talking about her talking with the guys on the disciplinary council about her membership status and what compromises might be made so she could retain it. It’s very possible that the disciplinary council would not have compromised even if she were willing to, though.I guess I’m a TBM. But here’s my take: If the church is led by Christ, then he doesn’t need us to tell us how to run it or point out problems. He is already aware of them.
Is that too simplistic? Maybe. I ran across the following yesterday, about how Blacks got the priesthood. I highly recommend it:
Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood
https://byustudies.byu.edu/showTitle.aspx?title=7885 It shows how President Kimball agonized and studied over the question. And how he sought input and advice, and consensus from the top leaders. He prayed and worked very hard and in the end got his revelation.
Is something like this possible for women and the priesthood? I would say anything is possible. God’s ways are not our ways, his thoughts are not our thoughts. Personally, I don’t see why women couldn’t get the priesthood.
Do I think it’s likely. No.
About Kate. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. But the more I learned about her, the more I started to think she was not just innocently asking questions. First of all, she named her organization Ordain Women. That’s a command not a question. She was trying to force change by using activist techniques – guaranteed to harden the Brethren in their positions, I would think.
My wife has been to the OW website. Apparently there are 6 “missionary discussions” you can give to other Mormons. There is a game where she is mocking the church patriarchy.
She was leading a group in direct, very public opposition to the prophet. She is an apostate. That’s why she was excommunicated.
The definition of spiritual pride is “my way, not the Lord’s way.” That’s what she was doing, it seems to me.
Does excommunication mean you are banned from heaven? I personally don’t think so. There is always room to repent of our prideful actions in this life. Christ will judge and I personally imagine it will be a very merciful and generous judgement. But he also can’t overlook even the least bit of sin – that’s why repentance is also crucial.
Getting into heaven – or, really, we’re talking about the Celestial Kingdom, right? – requires that you become a Celestial person. You go there because that’s where you fit naturally. So this life is all about learning to live by Celestial law in order to learn to become Celestial. D&C 76 tells what that is.
shoshin wrote:I guess I’m a TBM. But here’s my take:
If the church is led by Christ, then he doesn’t need us to tell us how to run it or point out problems. He is already aware of them.
Shoshin — most of us here have heard that line of reasoning for many decades. Most of us landed here after such explanations failed to satisfy.
I personally believe that only a percentage of the decisions made by church leaders are truly inspired; much of it is based on reason, intuition and tradition. And by the way, as Elder Uchdorft said, they have made mistakes. Nor do I believe that the prophet “will never lead the church astray”. We have the article on the Priesthood Band Disavowal as evidence of that.
And of course, we have the phenomenon people are now calling Leadership Roulette — where many decisions occur at the local level, and the outcome is as much a function of the belief system of the local leader (and there is variance across leaders). So, to claim that it’s all God’s will and He doesn’t need people telling how to run his church is a very simplistic way of addressing issues like Kate’s disciplinary council. That simplicity works for some people, but I think you’ll find it’s not an approach that works for most people here.
SilentDawning wrote:So, to claim that it’s all God’s will and He doesn’t need people telling how to run his church is a very simplistic way of addressing issues like Kate’s disciplinary council. That simplicity works for some people, but I think you’ll find it’s not an approach that works for most people here.
Nor for most of Protestantism. The real root of the Protestant movement was opposition to Catholic dogma, infallibility of the pope included. I can see parallels to the early Christian church as it developed into Catholicism and the evolution of the LDS church, and likewise I can see similar parallels with Judaism at the time of Christ – those chief priests and Pharisees loved their dogma.
I have said this in other threads, but: I see the pruning described in Jacob 5 as the elimination of “incorrect traditions of our ancestors” (and us, since we also establish incorrect understanding) – and it’s worth pointing out three things about that pruning:
1) It happens “in the vineyard” and “on the chosen tree” – which is interpreted generally in our culture to mean the LDS Church;
1) It happens right up until the very end;
3) At the end, during the “final” pruning, it is accomplished by the Lord of the vineyard AND the servants who work with him – and
there is absolutely nothing in the allegory that says or implies that those servants are limited to the apostles. Thus, I see a primary responsibility of all who are in the vineyard, so to speak, as being pruners in the vineyard. The keys are to prune within our individual spheres of influence (our own part of the tree, so to speak) and to prune “according to the strength of the root” in order to preserve the good fruit. That takes patience and care, but I believe it is vital and necessary.
SilentDawning wrote:So, to claim that it’s all God’s will and He doesn’t need people telling how to run his church is a very simplistic way of addressing issues like Kate’s disciplinary council. That simplicity works for some people, but I think you’ll find it’s not an approach that works for most people here.
For something as important and core as a question about priesthood, I’m willing to believe that it is that simple. If God wanted it to be different it would be.If it really mattered. Which in my opinion, it doesn’t. In a way this question of priesthood is not very important, despite what I’ve just said. What matters is how we serve in whatever roles we find ourselves in, whether it’s prophet, dad, mom, hymnbook coordinator, whatever. The role doesn’t matter so much as how we serve in it. People are getting all worked up about nothing, with this Kate thing. It doesn’t matter either way, who has the priesthood, in my opinion. The gospel is about serving not about power.
Perhaps you will also agree too that I’m not quite that simplistic anyway. I encourage you to read the article I posted about President Kimball and the priesthood. It wasn’t at all simple for the prophet in that case. That’s a great case study in how to seek revelation, in my opinion.
shoshin wrote:If God wanted it to be different it would be.
That is why I find the concept of the Weeping God of Mormonism so fascinating – Why would a God that gets whatever he wants ever have cause to weep?
shoshin wrote:If it really mattered. Which in my opinion, it doesn’t. In a way this question of priesthood is not very important, despite what I’ve just said. What matters is how we serve in whatever roles we find ourselves in, whether it’s prophet, dad, mom, hymnbook coordinator, whatever. The role doesn’t matter so much as how we serve in it. People are getting all worked up about nothing, with this Kate thing. It doesn’t matter either way, who has the priesthood, in my opinion. The gospel is about serving not about power.
I agree with your premise in part. We should all “lift where we stand” or “grow where we are planted.”
OTOH if these principles were absolute we would still be subjects of Kings. The king would serve well in his role as king and we would serve well in our role as subjects – never to question the divine order of things. A big part of the war for American Independence was fought over the lack of representation.
Is it important to have influence over decisions that will directly affect your life? That importance seems pretty ingrained in our concepts of democracy and self-determination.
Perhaps, sometimes, the best way an individual can “serve” is to become a change agent to make improvements to the system for the benefit of future generations.
I don’t know enough about Kate to speculate about her motives but I would assume that she is doing what she believes to be right.
Is it possible that Kate might be a tool in God’s hands to fulfill His purposes?
😯 :wtf: 😯 I think it’s important to worship God according to the dictates of our own consciences – which means I accept and respect every person’ right to see things like this in ways that make sense to every person individually. With this topic, I think there is plenty of room for differing opinions in the Church – and it is only at the extremes, where people try to force their view on others, that things get dicey. Here, in this forum, there absolutely is room for people to see this issue in different ways.
All I will say is that it is very easy for someone in a position of privilege to not understand how important an issue is to someone without privilege – and men absolutely have a position of privilege in the LDS Church relative to priesthood. The last thing I want to do is dismiss (or even appear to dismiss) legitimate concerns and pain expressed by those lacking the same level of privilege I have through the simple fact of my biological sex.
Old-Timer wrote:Here, in this forum, there absolutely is room for people to see this issue in different ways.
That is what I like about StayLDS compared to any other site I’ve ever been on. And as most of us are advocates of Big Tent Mormonism, any disagreement I have with Shoshin or anyone comes with a strong dose of what I call “healthy skepticism”. I was once moved by a quote I heard someone cite:
Quote:The mark of a free person is the ever-gnawing uncertainty about whether s/he is right
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And that means being open to the fact that my current set of beliefs could be wrong. But for now, it seems to be the best way to feel at peace in the church — after long reflection and decades of life experience in the church.
shoshin wrote:If God wanted it to be different it would be.
I am all for allowing people the room to believe what they may, and in that spirit I express my own thoughts on the topic.
Does the same thought apply to people: “If God wanted them to be different they would be”? I think we can all agree that thought is absurd.
The recent conference quote from Elder Holland comes to mind, how God must be frustrated that imperfect people is all he has to work with.
Unless we subscribe to some level of infallibility I just can’t make that first quote work in my mind.
shoshin wrote:For something as important and core as a question about priesthood, I’m willing to believe that it is that simple. If God wanted it to be different it would be.
Of course then the argument shifts to: if people got it wrong how would god go about making things different to bring our practices more in line with his will? Going back to Roy’s comment… perhaps god is working through OW to bring about change.
shoshin wrote:If it really mattered. Which in my opinion, it doesn’t. In a way this question of priesthood is not very important, despite what I’ve just said. What matters is how we serve in whatever roles we find ourselves in, whether it’s prophet, dad, mom, hymnbook coordinator, whatever. The role doesn’t matter so much as how we serve in it. People are getting all worked up about nothing, with this Kate thing.
I do like the concept of “you work with what you’ve got.” At the very least it helps us avoid covetousness. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the Kate thing isn’t important. It might not be important to you or me but it is very important to others. That’s just my attempt to treat others as I’d like to be treated. There’s lots of stuff that really isn’t important to anyone other than me… and I’m fine with that. Things that are inconsequential to others can still be important to me so I extend that same concession to others.
shoshin wrote:It doesn’t matter either way, who has the priesthood, in my opinion. The gospel is about serving not about power.
I agree. Priesthood is all about service, not power.
Hi Cadence, I agree, what could Kate have done differently? I have no idea. Her own husband was equally involved and supported her throughout the entire process, they didn’t ex-communicate him.
The local leadership made a mistake. BIG mistake.
So now we have a huge mess to clean-up with Pres. Monson having dementia and Boyd K Packer being one of the most hard-nosed general authorities ever.
Does it even help to send letters in Kate’s defense? Because I would willingly take the time to write one if I thought it would help.
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