Guest Post: Ignoring Logic And The Misrepresentation Of Ordain Women [Non-OW questions Lds leaders]

As I’ve thought about the issues of asking questions, faithful agitation, and looking for a much-needed change regarding gender inequality in the Church, I have come to the conclusion that we as a church don’t know all there is to know about God. None of that has to take away from the truthfulness of the Gospel, but the suggestion that the Church is perfect makes the declaration of having a living prophet seem a bit confusing. If there are not things that we are waiting to open our eyes to (which means God is waiting on us to ask him) then the foundation of the Church’s Restoration falls apart and the heavens are closed.

It offends me that we are given guidelines (albeit elusive) for just how much we can agitate, which questions we can ask, and just exactly to whom we can turn for support. The Church is not a country club that one can “just leave” if we “don’t like the rules.” Our good standing in the Church determines our salvation unto God—at least, so says the Church..

The faithful men and women who align themselves with Ordain Women have each individually asked God and felt for themselves that the answer to gaining gender equality is female ordination of some kind. But wanting to hold true to the order and structure of the Church, knowing that a revelation for all must come through the prophet, they are asking him to ask God.

Any suggestion that their intention is otherwise leads me to think people haven’t paid any attention to what they are actually advocating for. If you have not done so, I suggest that you read through some of the FAQs and profiles on the Ordain Women website. I suggest this not as a way of proselyting, but as a means to an honest understanding of their actual position. No agreement is required, but integrity is—I can guarantee you that you’d be pretty upset if someone asked Pastor Robert Jeffress what Mormons believed and only took his opinion to heart.

According to the Ordain Women home page, ordination will allow all members, men and women alike, “to share equally in the full blessings and burdens of Church service and spiritual authority.” The Church teaches that the Priesthood is necessary for the salvation of mankind, to govern the kingdom of God on the earth, to administer ordinances, and to bless others. The conditional logic inferred in this point is that ordination is the only way to fulfill the functions of the Priesthood; anything less is separate but equal.

As someone who does not even support Ordain Women’s clarion call, and speaking to those who do not support Ordain Women, I can see problems with the way Kate’s excommunication was handled.

First, a man who did not have current ecclesiastical stewardship conducted her court and excommunicated her. There is an order to the Church and it was violated. Her lack of presence at the court is irrelevant when the entire premise of its orchestration is not even valid, according the Church’s own handbook.

We can talk about the timeline and who said what when at this point, but that is really tangential to the issue of what she was actually doing and the legitimacy of her Church disciplinary court in the first place.

Second, she was not excommunicated for teaching something false. Since women are already utilizing priesthood authority, this is not an apostate teaching—Elder Oaks asked, “What other authority can it be?” in the last General Conference. The only thing that would really make women spiritually and authoritatively equal to men in the context of the LDS Church is for women to be ordained. That is the just the nature of having the Priesthood Keys, which women do not have.

The recent Church statement says, “Simply asking questions has never constituted apostasy.” Ordain Women’s objective was simply for the prophet to ask the question. If the answer is that “only men are ordained to serve in priesthood offices,” then at least we are admitting that there is no such thing as gender equality in the structure of the Church. Saying that the problem was the “use of grammatical imperative” and not “just asking questions” is saying that publicly stating the fact of unequal priesthood access and asking the prophet to pray about something are grounds for excommunication.

(To read about the gender inequality in Disciplinary Councils, read this series and this:

Priesthood as the authority of God does not have an equal in the home or the Church. Though men and women do have complementary contributions to make in the Church and in the home that pertain to their inherent gender qualities, these contributions are not related to Priesthood office or ordination, but to gender. This means that Priesthood, to which only males can be ordained, is not a gender role; Elder Oaks’ recent talk makes this obvious.

Though I am not a part of OW, I still think we need to be addressing gender inequality in the Church. There is a definite lack of female presence in our church hierarchy. Where women’s ordination or its discussion fits into the Church in the future I do not know, but I hold the opinion that more women could serve in many positions without ordination—thus mistakes and errors that marginalize women could be reduced by women merely being present. Note I said reduced, since perfection and infallibility are not possible in mortality. Ordination does not appear to be a requirement for many positions that are traditionally held by men.

On some level I agree that God’s law never changes. But to say things have never changed in the Church is simply not true; things HAVE changed. Repeatedly. God did not change, but the understanding of his prophets did and does, therefore so do the implementations and interpretations of that unchanging doctrine. The answer now is not ordaining women, but one day, perhaps, there will be a way to address the gender inequality in the Lord’s Church.

LoriAnn loves reading with her husband, chasing her toddler through puddles, cooking in her cast iron pan, community shared gardening, and serving in her community. She finds her center through daily ritual of family yoga, the Gospel, and is pursuing a minimalist lifestyle by biking and living without a car in sunny Portland.

If you have not done so, I suggest that you read through some of the FAQs and profiles on the Ordain Women website.

This is what the Mormon Religious Organization thinks/thought(?) about BLACKS; so you women may have a bit BETTER change at gaining the 'priesthood', since you are not QUITE as vilified in Scripture...

(Can any of you play FOOTBALL?)

"You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind.

The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of any one of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings.

This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race--that they should be the 'servant of servants', and they will be, until that curse is removed."

Brigham Young-President and second 'Prophet' of the Mormon Church, 1844-1877- Extract from Journal of Discourses.

Here are two examples from their 'other testament', the Book of Mormon.

2 Nephi 5: 21 'And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.'

Alma 3: 6 'And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.'

August 27, 1954 in an address at Brigham Young University (BYU), Mormon Elder, Mark E Peterson, in speaking to a convention of teachers of religion at the college level, said:

"The discussion on civil rights, especially over the last 20 years, has drawn some very sharp lines. It has blinded the thinking of some of our own people, I believe. They have allowed their political affiliations to color their thinking to some extent.I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the Negro is after."
"He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a cafe where white people eat. He isn't just trying to ride on the same streetcar or the same Pullman car with white people. It isn't that he just desires to go to the same theater as the white people. From this, and other interviews I have read, it appears that the Negro seeks absorption with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage."
"That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for Negroes that we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have. Remember the little statement that we used to say about sin, 'First we pity, then endure, then embrace'...."

(Rosa Parks would have probably told Petersen under which wheel of the bus he should go sit.)

1967, (then) Mormon President Ezra Taft Benson said,

"The Communist program for revolution in America has been in progress for many years and is far advanced. First of all, we must not place the blame upon Negroes. They are merely the unfortunate group that has been selected by professional Communist agitators to be used as the primary source of cannon fodder."

We are told that on June 8, 1978, it was 'revealed' to the then president, Spencer Kimball, that people of color could now gain entry into the priesthood.

According to the church, Kimball spent many long hours petitioning God, begging him to give worthy black people the priesthood. God finally relented.

Sometime before the 'revelation' came to chief 'Prophet' Spencer Kimball in June 1978, General Authority, Bruce R McConkie had said:

"The Blacks are denied the Priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty.
The Negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain blessings are concerned, particularly the priesthood and the temple blessings that flow there from, but this inequality is not of man's origin, it is the Lord's doings."
(Mormon Doctrine, pp. 526-527).

When Mormon 'Apostle' Mark E Petersen spoke on 'Race Problems- As they affect the Church' at the BYU campus in 1954, the following was also said:

"...if the negro accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory."

When Mormon 'Prophet' and second President of the Church, Brigham Young, spoke in 1863 the following was also said:

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God is death on the spot. This will always be so."
(Journal of Discourses, Vo. 10, p. 110)

Yeah; Native Americans are althroughout the Book of MORMON; too.

“I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today ... they are fast becoming a white and delightsome people.... For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised.... The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation.

At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl-sixteen-sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents—on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather.... These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness.

One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated.

(Improvement Era, December 1960, pp.922-23). (p. 209)

...since you are not QUITE as vilified in Scripture...

Very interesting!!

In December 2010, the LDS Church made changes to the non-canonical chapter summaries and also to some of the footnotes in its online version of the Book of Mormon. In Second Nephi chapter 5, the original wording was: "Because of their unbelief, the Lamanites are cursed, receive a skin of blackness, and become a scourge unto the Nephites."
The phrase, "skin of blackness" was removed and became: "Because of their unbelief, the Lamanites are cut off from the presence of the Lord, are cursed, and become a scourge unto the Nephites."^[26]
The second change appears in summary of Mormon chapter 5. Formerly, it included the phrase that "the Lamanites shall be a dark, filthy, and loathsome people ..." The new version deleted the phrase "dark, loathsome, and filthy" and now reads, "... the Lamanites will be scattered, and the Spirit will cease to strive with them."^[26]^[27]
These changes are seen by some critics to be another step in the evolution of the text of the Book of Mormon to delete racist language from it.^[26] On the other hand, some believers in the Book of Mormon, such as Marvin Perkins, see these changes as better conforming the chapter headers and footnotes to the meaning of the text in light of the LDS Church's 1978 Revelation on Priesthood.^[28] In an interview, a former BYU graduate student suggested that the changes were made for "clarity, a change in emphasis and to stick closer to the scriptural language."^[26]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamanite

No changes to the PRINTED version? I guess 'research' into MORMON 'scripture' online is biting headquarters in the BUTT!

Our good standing in the Church determines our salvation unto God—at least, so says the Church..

I've heard a little bit about that...

In conclusion let us summarize this grand key, these “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet”, for our salvation depends on them.

1. The prophet is the only man who speaks for the Lord in everything.
2. The living prophet is more vital to us than the standard works.
3. The living prophet is more important to us than a dead prophet.
4. The prophet will never lead the church astray.
5. The prophet is not required to have any particular earthly training or credentials to speak on any subject or act on any matter at any time.
6. The prophet does not have to say “Thus Saith the Lord,” to give us scripture.
7. The prophet tells us what we need to know, not always what we want to know.
8. The prophet is not limited by men’s reasoning.
9. The prophet can receive revelation on any matter, temporal or spiritual.
10. The prophet may advise on civic matters.
11. The two groups who have the greatest difficulty in following the prophet are the proud who are learned and the proud who are rich.
12. The prophet will not necessarily be popular with the world or the worldly.
13. The prophet and his counselors make up the First Presidency—the highest quorum in the Church.
14. The prophet and the presidency—the living prophet and the First Presidency—follow them and be blessed—reject them and suffer.

I testify that these fourteen fundamentals in following the living prophet are true. If we want to know how well we stand with the Lord then let us ask ourselves how well we stand with His mortal captain—how close do our lives harmonize with the Lord’s anointed—the living Prophet—President of the Church, and with the Quorum of the First Presidency.

Ezra Taft Benson

(Address given Tuesday, February 26, 1980 at Brigham Young University) http://www.lds.org/liahona/1981/06/fourteen-fundamentals-in-following-the-prophet?lang=eng

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

THIS...