Ordain Women, "Helpful Discussions," and Being a Mormon Amazon Princess

Hey Amanda,

I'm sure you've been following the annual build-up to Ordain Women's protests at LDS General Conference and this year's preemptive response by the LDS Church.  I've been thinking a lot lately about one of the key phrases from that press release:

"Declaring such an objective [female ordination] to be non-negotiable, as you have done, actually detracts from the helpful discussions that Church leaders have held as they seek to
listen to the thoughts, concerns, and hopes of women inside and outside of Church
leadership."

Now historically the inequality of ordination has been a big deal for me. I'll get to that in a second. But I really just wanted to highlight this "helpful discussions" bit because people, this is huge. Like crepuscular ray kind of awesome.

"Helpful discussions" as in the LDS Church has officially labelled conversations about how the church could change to meet the needs of female members helpful. Not "you can have babies. That's cool, what else do you need?" No, they labelled the discussion helpful.  Feminist Mormons, this is a cause to celebrate.Also, did you notice that the PR person was a woman. Two thumbs.

I know some of the more cynical out there are like "great, big whoop." But have you noticed how the temple ceremony has changed in the last year (um, whoa). Or how in the last two years, for the first time in my life, I've seen women give the final sermon in sacrament meetings, not just in my own congregation but all over the place. A woman was chosen to pray on behalf of all 14 million of us.

Last week I sat in a regional conference where a general authority used the phrase: "...approach the problem like a missionary. She faithfully prays with her companion and...etc." I almost shouted Hurrah for Israel. Not only did he not default to a male missionary. He used a woman as an example for everyone in the audience--male, female, child, adult-- to pattern their life around. Yay for inclusive language.

Yeehaw
 ( Clark Kelly Price)

Now, I'm not going to lie, my spine still gets all squirmy with the concept that "men should preside." It feels limiting and vaguely threatening. However I've made a sort of peace with it, realizing that the Church is structured to purposefully build interdependence. Our congregations collect and distribute money, so that as a group we are self-sufficient even if our individual families are not. We have a network in place to provide individual emotional and casserole support in times of trouble. The Priesthood is distributed within the membership in such a way that, in the vast majority of cases, your family needs another family to perform blessings and ordinances. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't call my Home Teachers at 11pm if my husband and I could Annoint and Bless between the two of us. I dunno. I'm not saying that the male Priesthood boils down some kind of divine teaching exercise, but it makes sense to me that that's one of the benefits. The interdependence of the Saints is what makes us strong, that we aren't one family alone in the wilderness. We aren't just coincidentally camped next to each other. We aren't designed to be spiritually self-sufficient, but mutually beneficial.

There is an inequality in the Administration of the LDS Church. That's something all Saints have to come to terms with, but at the end of the day that's where the disparity in genders (should) stop. There is not a gender discrepancy in the power to heal or minister or bless or any other spiritual gift laid out in scripture. This is a sticking point that we really need to move on from. A woman does not need the priesthood for the hypothetical circumstance of being isolated and alone with an injured child. Ordination isn't necessary to call down the powers of heaven--righteousness is all that's needed. This is not Stephanie's fringe-y doctrine.   While Jesus commands the sea to be calm in what we recognize as a priesthood blessing, it's a prayer that raises Lazarus from the dead. Like Elder Harris said thirty years ago:

"The rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven.” Now, brothers and sisters, what were the powers of Heaven? They caused the lame to walk, the blind to see, the dead to rise. And through these same powers the earth was organized. 

But here is the key—the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness. The key, then, to the future and to the use of these spiritual blessings is personal righteousness. As President Romney* once said, 'May we recognize that prayer is the instrument of miracles.”

What kind of God would ignore a prayer but listen to a priesthood blessing under the same circumstances? Just because we've become accustomed to living below our privileges doesn't mean that we're meant to live that way. Rise up ye women of God, be done with lesser things.

Huldah  being a prophet and wearing a tiara
 (Andrea Mantegna, 1495, Louvre)

And on that note, I am stoked for Saturday!

Towards greater love and unity,
Stephanie


*Elder Harris is referring here to Marion G. Romney, who was a member of the First Presidency of the LDS Church. He's Mitt Romney's cousin twice-removed--just in case you're wondering if they're related.