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shoshin wrote:
This has been discussed at length in another thread, but: in my opinion, the Ordain Women group is trying to tell Lord how to run his church.
Well, that’s the thing… Is Ordain Women trying to tell the Lord how to run His Church or is it trying to tell the Church Leadership how to run the Church? Certainly, if it really is the Lord’s will that women not hold the priesthood, anyone who tries to pressure the Church leadership into making an unauthorized change is out of line. On the other hand, Church policies can and do change all the time, and they do not always change according to the Lord’s will. In my opinion, anyone who says otherwise, is essentially saying that the General Authorities are really just a bunch of puppets, incapable of making either good or bad decisions.
Quote:To be honest, it’s prideful to tell the Lord how to run his church, and shows a real lack of faith that Christ is in charge. Do they think Christ isn’t aware of this question about the priesthood?
Again, while
I have absolutely no desire to hold the priesthood(for a variety of reasons), all I’m really asking is whose decision is it that women are not currently allowed to do so? Is it the Lord’s or is it the Church leadership’s? Christ may be in charge, but that definitely doesn’t mean that those directly responsible for making policy changes within the Church are infallible. Quote:If it’s going to happen, it will happen when Christ wants it to.
And you know this how? I guess your next paragraph pretty much answers that.
Quote:By analogy: the blacks getting the priesthood. It happened when it was the right time for it to happen. My own opinion is that before that time, American culture was too racist, and the church would not have been able to grow as fast as it did if blacks had been full members. People in the South especially weren’t ready for it. My grandmother was a great person but was raised in the Deep South and unfortunately was a racist well into the 21st century when she died.
Just because your grandmother was a racist, that doesn’t mean that Christ was okay with thousands of Black men being deemed unworthy to hold the priesthood for a hundred and fifty years or so. I mean, who cares whether people in the South were ready for a change or not? Are their feelings somehow more important than the feelings of the Black men who wanted to marry their wives in the temple or baptize their children? I think that Marvin Perkins summed up the reason why Blacks weren’t able to hold the priesthood better than anyone else I’ve ever heard comment on the subject. He pointed out that in the 1978 Declaration itself, the statement is made that the fact that the Church was growing so rapidly “
has inspired us with a desireto extend to every worthy member of the Church all of the privileges and blessings which the gospel affords.” The Lord almost never gives a revelation unless He is specifically asked guidance. He seldom just speaks out of the blue. Instead He waits until the Brethren go to Him in prayer, sincerely asking a question they are willing to accept the answer to. I’m not saying these aren’t all good men, but they are human beings and have their own prejudices and opinions. I don’t think they received a revelation prior to 1978 for the simple reason that, until then, it really wasn’t an important enough matter to them to warrant taking it to the Lord. I just wonder whether they’ve actually even sincerely asked the Lord about whether women should hold the priesthood. Could it be that they don’t want to know the answer? If they’re not ready to act on what they hear Him say, it’s just safer not to even approach Him. (And if I’m wrong in having this thought cross my mind, I’m sure hoping God’s forgiving.) [ Admin note]: Including myself, let’s keep the discussion focused on the post topic. The race-based ban is fine to discuss, but ONLY as it relates to women and the priesthood. Specific justifications for the former ban are not appropriate for this thread – except for the general purpose of highlighting how reasoning often is terribly flawed and subject to time and culture.
This is just a kind of FYI. There are other threads that deal directly with the former ban.
From what I remember of reading OW’s website they were making a case for ordination and asking the brethren/prophet to consider and pray about it. Seems a pretty reasonable request to me given, as has been pointed out, that male ordination is the way it is because that’s the way it’s always been. Tradition is a reason for doing something a certain way but it doesn’t trump scripture, reason, and if you’re LDS, revelation. Of course there’s always the old dictum, “If you don’t want to know, don’t ask”. I think OW sent that message — that they wanted the brethren to pray about it. But they were also more aggressive than that. Each person who posted a profile on OW ends their profile description with “I believe women should be ordained”. This is stronger than “I believe the brethren should consider praying about to to see if it’s the Lord’s will at this time”. Plus, their requests to actually be admitted to the priesthood meeting were very activist and defiant – kind of how Ghandi marched to the Indian Ocean and made salt when he knew there was a British law against it. As Ghandi said, the role of an activitist is to provoke, and if there is no response, you keep provoking until you get a response. I see OW as taking this approach. I think if the message was simply they wanted the brethren to pray about it, and consider it, but that they would accept the ultimate answer, they wouldn’t have irritated the hierarchy nearly as much. But at the same time, their quest would have ended in defeat.
I agree, SD. If all they wanted was for the prophet to pray about it I think they may have been fine – I do believe that’s not all they want and I believe they just went too far down the “civil disobedience” road. I recall in a local school once after learning about Gandhi some students lodged a sit-in protest and were suspended. They were outraged that they were suspended and used the idea that it was their right to do so and pointed to Gandhi. They were then reminded that Gandhi was imprisoned for his civil disobedience – it wasn’t free. I see the same thing playing out with OW – there are costs to what they have done, Kate Kelly’s membership being one of them, the loss of her parents’ temple recommends being another. SilentDawning wrote:I think OW sent that message — that they wanted the brethren to pray about it. But they were also more aggressive than that. Each person who posted a profile on OW ends their profile description with “I believe women should be ordained”. This is stronger than “I believe the brethren should consider praying about to to see if it’s the Lord’s will at this time”. Plus, their requests to actually be admitted to the priesthood meeting were very activist and defiant – kind of how Ghandi marched to the Indian Ocean and made salt when he knew there was a British law against it. As Ghandi said, the role of an activitist is to provoke, and if there is no response, you keep provoking until you get a response. I see OW as taking this approach.
I think if the message was simply they wanted the brethren to pray about it, and consider it, but that they would accept the ultimate answer, they wouldn’t have irritated the hierarchy nearly as much. But at the same time, their quest would have ended in defeat.
DarkJedi wrote:I agree, SD. If all they wanted was for the prophet to pray about it I think they may have been fine – I do believe that’s not all they want and I believe they just went too far down the “civil disobedience” road.
The PR rep mentioned in her interview that the tone of the question was something that had to be taken into account but does that mean you totally discount the question? I hope not though in this case that seems to be the result.
Honestly, I don’t think the leadership is discounting the question. I think they have considered and are considering the overall question of how the priesthood works with regard to women. I think they have made important strides and paradigm shifts recently – as evidenced by both Elder Ballard and Elder Oaks saying explicitly that both men and women are endowed with priesthood power when they go through the temple. I think they truly believe it will take explicit revelation to make a change to ordination (with the attendant change to key holders), and I think they don’t believe it is as “easy” as praying and getting an answer. I think they view prayer as one part of the genesis of revelation, but I think they fundamentally object to the idea that “just” praying about it would be enough to get the type of revelation they feel would be necessary to make such a change.
Quote:shows a real lack of faith that Christ is in charge. Do they think Christ isn’t aware of this question about the priesthood?
If it’s going to happen, it will happen when Christ wants it to.
I actually think that this is an interesting way for one to rationalize all the stuff that happens in the church. My uncle uses the same concept. Stuff that happens in the church is the will of God (either by direction or acquiescence) – otherwise God would not permit them to happen in His church. Under this concept God could put forward one command for a certain time period and then suddenly completely reverse the command for a subsequent time period. One (including church leaders) can speculate as to God’s reasons on a particular matter but in the end God’s ways are not our ways and any speculation would be inspired guesswork at best. Thus there seems little that man can do to either thwart or push forward God’s plan – it will move forward at its own pace with or without us.
Shoshin, if your belief is different than this description I would like to learn how it differs.
As someone that has thought deeply about different perspectives and ways to stayLDS in the face of challenges, I believe this to be a pretty structurally sound and internally consistent position. Though it does not “resonate” with me personally.
More directly to the question in the OP. I believe that there are scriptures that can be used to justify and have been used to justify withholding the priesthood from certain bloodlines. I believe that the scriptures that could be used to support a male only priesthood outnumber scriptures that would support female ordination by at least 10 to 1. The bigger question is if the practice of a male only priesthood started and has been largely continued up until our present day by the sexism found historically in male dominated societies and thus this sexism has bled over into our scriptures.
I would put forward that male only priesthood was a policy that made perfect sense at the time. Over the centuries it has calcified by tradition into a doctrine.
Katzpur wrote:Again, while I have absolutely no desire to hold the priesthood (for a variety of reasons),
Somewhat of a tangent… Katzpur, is there no part of you that would want to baptize your children? No part of you that would wish to call down the powers of heaven to bless your sick baby? No part of you that would be interesting in anointing your daughter in childbirth? No part of you that would like to be listed in your posterity’s priesthood line of authority?
I ask because these are things that I find compelling about “holding the priesthood” and I am interested to learn why they would not hold as much value for you personally (or other LDS women). This is something that I have been wondering about for some time.
Old-Timer wrote:I think they truly believe it will take explicit revelation to make a change to ordination (with the attendant change to key holders), and I think they don’t believe it is as “easy” as praying and getting an answer. I think they view prayer as one part of the genesis of revelation, but I think they fundamentally object to the idea that “just” praying about it would be enough to get the type of revelation they feel would be necessary to make such a change.
I do understand that which such a major change they want more than “feeling good about it” Ray, but in reality that’s all the priesthood revelation was – from any accounts I have read, there was nothing more than the same type of revelation (ie good feeling, or perhaps very good feeling) we all generally have when we ask about something that is right. Since I see little evidence there has been any real interaction between man (prophets) and God the Father or God the Son since Joseph Smith, I don’t think we can expect that kind of interaction. Is that what you’re saying needs to happen?
Roy wrote:Somewhat of a tangent… Katzpur, is there no part of you that would want to baptize your children? No part of you that would wish to call down the powers of heaven to bless your sick baby? No part of you that would be interesting in anointing your daughter in childbirth? No part of you that would like to be listed in your posterity’s priesthood line of authority?
I ask because these are things that I find compelling about “holding the priesthood” and I am interested to learn why they would not hold as much value for you personally (or other LDS women). This is something that I have been wondering about for some time.
Actually, Roy, I guess it’s that I just don’t aspire to anything that’s going to take up any more of my time or burden me with any more responsibility.🙂 Along the same lines (I guess), is the fact that I don’t aspire to “goddess-hood.” It was stressful enough being a mother of two; I really just don’t think I’m up to being a mother of 10 billion. When I was working (I’m retured now), I always wanted to have a job that I felt was important to the overall success of the company I worked for, but I really had no yearning whatsoever to ever be anybody’s boss. To me, while the priesthood can definitely be seen as a blessing, I’m not so sure that the opportunities it would provide would outweigh the responsiblities.Even though I’ve never really thought about it all that much, I’m sure that a big part of the reason I feel like I do is that I have a priesthood holder in my home. I never have to feel as if I don’t have easy access to the blessings of the priesthood. If I had to call my bishop or home teachers whenever I felt I needed the power of priesthood in my home, I’m open to the very real possibility that I might feel differently. I do remember a couple of occasions when I was taking care of a sick child and my husband was away from home. I did wish I could give that child a priesthood blessing. Instead, I just ended up praying. Somehow, I can’t imagine God not responding to my prayers as a mother any less than he’d respond to my husband’s prayers and a father and priesthood holder.
cwald wrote:Follow the Prophet and the 14 F’s of the Prophet are the single most
dangerous religious teaching on the planet, and is the core doctrine of
all cult organizations including Warren Jeffs FLDS church.
In my opinion, of course.
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Agree totally with that. Thankfully Thomas S. Monson is no Warren Jeffs, David Koresh or Jim Jones, but yes, it is a dangerous doctrine.
It always sounded to me like the “I was only obeying orders” line at the Nuremburg Trials.
Those who follow, can get lost.
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