Women & Priesthood

[Anonymous]

Why do you think women don’t hold the priesthood?

This is my husband’s theory:

Satan’s initial attempt at presenting Adam with the fruit is analogous with Satan opposing the plan in the pre-earth life and just as Adam rejected the fruit the first time it was presented to him, we all rejected Satan as against God’s will in the pre-earth life. When Satan presented the fruit to Eve, this was analogous to him tempting us here in earth life, in which we all fall to the temptation the second time around. Adam often represents Christ, while Eve represents all of mankind, being a representation of the Bridegroom and the Bride. Adam then willingly and with the knowledge that he will live without Eve, chooses to partake of the fruit so that Eve will not be separated from him, just as Christ willingly sacrificed himself for us so that we would not be separated from Him. I believe it’s possibly an explanation why men hold the priesthood in this life and women don’t. It’s projecting that imagery down even to the family level. He says that if looked at in this context, men aren’t better for having the priesthood, because they are in the same situation as women…we are all depend upon each other as well as depend on Christ.

What do you think about his theory?

[Anonymous]

I think men have long tried to justify higher positions as women, and I think this is a perfect example. I believe women who have been through the temple do hold the priesthood, but don’t know it. (Women in the RLDS church have held the priesthood since the 1980’s I think.) I see no reason why women can’t hold the priesthood, and as I mentioned in my other post. Here’s another interesting quote from Brigham Young that comes from Quinn’s book, Origins of Power:

Quote:

Brigham Young, speaking in the Tabernacle on 14 November 1869, scolded both men and women for not improving themselves. The example he cited was of a sick child. Why do you not live so as to rebuke disease?” he demanded. “It is your privilege to do so without sending for the Elders.” He laid down some practical advice; if the child is ill of a fever or of an upset stomach, treat those symptoms by all means, beware of too much medicine, and remember that prevention is better than cure. He ended by addressing himself specifically to mothers: “It is the privilege of a mother to have faith and to administer to her child; this she can do herself, as well as sending for the Elders to have the benefit of their faith.”⁸ Having enough faith to heal was clearly, for Brother Brigham, “practical religion” like having enough food on hand.

[8. Journal of Discourses Delivered by President Brigham Young, his Two Counselors, The Twelve and others. Reported by G. D. Watt, J. V. Long and others, Liverpool and London, 1856, Vol. 13 (November 14, 1869), p. 155.]

[Anonymous]

@daisy:

Interesting metaphorical linkage, though I don’t grasp why that was an example of why women don’t have the priesthood.

I don’t have a faith-promoting response to your question. Why didn’t women get the right to vote until 1920? (Interestingly, inter-mountain west and “mormon” states were the first to grant women the right to vote)

[Anonymous]

As I said in the other thread, this one doesn’t get my blood boiling for three reasons:

1) I believe endowed women do hold the Priesthood and can exercise Priesthood power;

2) I understand that there are practical aspects that affect life in the fallen world that influence these things – and that’s a very hard thing for many people to understand and accept.

3) I am fine for now with a distinction between ordinances in the temple (which symbolizes the ideal sociality where all are equal before God) and ordinances outside the temple (where the Fall brought about a less than ideal sociality with which even the Church must struggle), since we preach and live the ideal in the temple. If the “outside world” were closer to the ideal, I would be more agitated about the difference between our practices inside and outside the temple – but, given what I see around me in this fallen world, I can wait patiently as the pendulum swings slowly toward the ideal outside the temple.

OK, there is a fourth reason:

4) Not much gets my blood boiling anymore. I really have found great peace in letting go of my personally defined expectations.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think men or women hold the priesthood, not as its defined by the church as an exclusive authority to act in God’s name that is conferred by the laying on of hands.

But that’s just me, in my stage 4 dark night of the soul, where all the symbols are dead.

[Author]

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