Mormons oust Ordain Women's Kate Kelly over women priests

BBC ^ | June 23 2014 | BBC

[PoloSec]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has excommunicated a prominent backer of ordination of women priests, her advocacy group has said.

Kate Kelly, founder of Ordain Women, was notified of the ruling on Monday, a day after a trial by judges in the Mormon Church, Ordain Women said.

The group said the Mormon Church hierarchy deemed her an apostate for her contravention of Church doctrine.

The Utah-based Mormon religion boasts more than 15 million members worldwide.

According to a letter informing her of her excommunication obtained by the Deseret News, a leading Utah newspaper, Ms Kelly will be barred from some acts of church worship for at least a year.

"You are entitled to your views, but you are not entitled to promote them and proselyte others to them while remaining in full fellowship in the Church," wrote Bishop Mark Harrison of Virginia.

She can be readmitted to the fold if she shows "true repentance", including ceasing "teachings and actions that undermine the Church, its leaders, and the doctrine of the priesthood", he wrote. 'Tragic day'

Ms Kelly said the church's decision, taken by an all-male panel of judges, was "exceptionally painful".

[Elsie]

Boyd K. Packer in his address to Church Educators "The Mantle is Far Far Greater than the Intellect".

 

 Published in Brigham Young University Studies 21 (Summer 1981): 259-278.

 

 

In an amazing declaration Michael Quinn reports that Elder Packer told him when he was being interviewed for his position

at Brigham Young University that he has a hard time with historians "because they idolize the truth. The truth is not uplifting:

it destroys. I could tell most of the secretaries in the church office building that they are ugly and fat. That would be the truth,

but it would hurt and destroy them. Historians should tell only that part of the truth that is inspiring and uplifting."

 

 (This is a telling statement of Elder Packers repressed shadow material!)

 

In D. Michael Quinn On Being a Mormon Historian (And Its Aftermath),

ed. George D. Smith, Faithful History: Essays On Writing Mormon History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), 103.

 

 

“The new traditionalists contend that objectivity is, in fact, impossible and that history should therefore be written with certain pre-understandings, including that God exists and that Joseph Smith was his prophet.”

[reaganaut]

However, his answers are not party line and brings up many things the LDS church would rather not. I agree that he has helped many stay but he still is airing dirty laundry.

[greyfoxx39]

Too bad that no one thought to ask Mitt if he would cry tears of joy when women were able to be ordained.

Now THAT is an excellent point! Thanks Pappy!

[greyfoxx39]

I would think that you would rejoice and try to convince her to join your faith instead of expending your time responding to my posts.

Oh, I don't see pointing out your omission of the most important effect of mormon excommunication...the threat to a believing member that eternal salvation will be lost when a temple recommend is withheld. It gives me an opportunity to bring to light the FALSE mormon doctrine that MEN are the judges of who may be saved, not God.

[Scoutmaster]

I’m curious. Do you believe the COJCOLDS Church Handbook of Instructions was followed with respect to the discipline of Kate Kelly?

[Scoutmaster]

Okay.

Remember that I'm here because of an interest in the history of the Latter-Day Saints movement, and not because of theology.

Does Dehlin really deal much in theology?

Or, in your opinion, is the issue that he provides podcast time to historians who, as Boyd K. Packer objected, "write history as they were taught in graduate school, rather than as Mormons."

[Elsie]

Do NOT continue reading if satirical strawmen get your panties in a wad!

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1004258

 

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BEFORE THE BEGINNING...

God wasn't God. He was Steve. He has a wife, a few kids, a decent job at a firm that manufactured and sold dental equipment, and a house in the suburbs. Steve was a good man who went to church every week, fostered and trained seeing-eye dogs in his spare time, and saw to all his family's financial needs.

Eventually Steve died, and Steve's God decided he'd been a good enough person to deserve Godhood himself. Steve signed up for evening courses at the God School near the mansion he and his wife shared in Heaven. During the day Steve went to the auction house with the other men, where they would bid on all the freshly dead single ladies who arrived in Heaven in dire need of a husband. On a good day Steve would get two or three new brides and take them home to his mansion, and his original wife would take them under her wing and teach them all the things Steve liked, and how to be good little helpers for him.

When Steve finally graduated from God School, Steve's God took him aside and shook his hand. "Well done, son. I'm proud of you."

"Thanks, God."

"Have you decided where you and your wives will put up shop?"

"Yeah, we have a nice Universe picked out."

"Good, good. Well, best of luck to you." Steve's God turned to walk away, but Steve called after him.

"Hey God? Can I ask you something?" Steve's God looked back at him. "There's still one thing I don't understand," said Steve, "one thing they didn't teach us at God School. If I'm now a god, and you're MY God, and YOU had your own God... how did this whole thing get started?"

Steve's God looked at Steve with his wise, ancient eyes - eyes that Steve had loved and worshipped for his entire existence - and shrugged. "Hell if I know."

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IN THE BEGINNING...

God was exhausted. He kept telling himself that he was exhausted in a GOOD way, but he wasn't so sure he believed that anymore. Back when he had been a mere man, when he was Steve, God thought there couldn’t be any better way to spend Heaven then constantly having sex with his endless slew of wives. But after a few thousand years of this, God started looking for more and more excuses to slip off to the bathroom, lock the door, and play Angry Birds in solitude. Before long, though, every time, one of his wives would start knocking gently on the bathroom door.

“God?” she would say, timidly.

Sigh. “Just a minute.”

“God, you’ve been in there for a while.”

“Just a minute.”

A few seconds later she would knock again. “God, sorry to bug you, but are you almost done in there?”

God would pinch the bridge of his nose with his fingers and count to five. “I’m gonna be just a few more minutes, okay, hon?”

“Okay, sorry, it’s just… God, I’m not pregnant.”

“Okay.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. Just go read a book or something. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“But I’m supposed to be pregnant. Like, all the time, right? Isn’t that what they taught you at God School? And, like, practically all your other wives are pregnant, and I just feel like…”

“Look,” God would say, “Which one are you?”

“Matilda.”

“Redhead Matilda or Asian Matilda?”

“Matilda with the blue eyes.”

“Okay. Matilda. Honey. Please, just give me five minutes by myself, and then I PROMISE I’ll come out there and impregnate you, okay?”

“Five minutes? You promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.”

“Okay. But Eleven-Toes Betty and Veronica With the Pointy Nose are out here, too, and they aren’t pregnant, either.”

Sigh. “Five minutes, and then I will impregnate all three of you, okay?”

“What, at the same time?”

“If you want.”

“God, that’s disgusting. How can you even say such a thing?”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. It was a joke. Just… five minutes?”

God would take a deep breath, drinking in the silence from the other side of the door. Then,

“Did you mean five minutes from now or five minutes from when you first said five minutes?”

---

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THE PLAN…

God sat on his throne at the front of the room and stared at the endless sea of faces beaming back at him. His progeny. His children. He had no idea how many of them there were - billions, trillions even - but each and every one of them knew and loved him with all their transparent little hearts.

God tapped the microphone with his fingertips and heard the low thud-thud-thud emanating from the speakers around the room. “Is this thing on? Can everybody hear me? You guys in the back, can you hear me okay?”

“YES, GOD,” said billions of small, breathy voices in unison. All of God’s children leaned forward a bit, eager to hear why he had called all of them together.

“Okay, great. So. Thanks for coming, everyone.” God cleared his throat. “Excuse me. Alright, so, I bet you’re all wondering why I asked all of you here today. Here’s the thing. I’m sure you’ve all noticed how you guys are different from your mothers and me. We have physical bodies, and you’re just made of some other kind of substance, right?”

“RIGHT, GOD!” a billion voices agreed.

“Alright, so, the thing is, the whole idea is that you guys get to become like me and your moms someday, but in order to do that you have to have a physical body.”

“Are you going to make some for us?” asked a voice in the crowd.

“No, I can’t. I mean, obviously yes, I COULD, but no, that’s not how it works. You all have to go through something called ‘mortality’. That’s where you get your bodies.”

“Where is mortality?”

“It’s not a where, it’s a what. It’s, like, something you have to do.” God paused, trying to figure out how to phrase the next part so they would understand. “It’s like a trip. You have to go away for a little while -”

The whole crowd gasped. God’s head swam with the sudden loss of oxygen in the room. “GO AWAY? WE HAVE TO GO AWAY?” they cried.

“Guys! Guys! It’s okay. You get to come back!”

A rush of relief washed over God’s children. They began chattering excitedly among themselves, asking each other what they thought mortality was like and whether they should pack their rain coats, just in case. God held his head in his hands. He knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but he had no idea how to make them understand what was going to happen to them. Eyes closed, God lifted the microphone to his lips and mumbled, “Can you guys please be quiet for a minute?”

The crowd instantly stopped talking and turned their attention back to God. He rubbed the back of his neck before speaking again.

“Okay, so, I’m glad you guys are all on board for this, but there’s something you need to understand. You can’t just go and come back, because the whole point is that you have to LEARN something. You have to prove that you’re capable of being like me - of being gods. It’s a test. You have to be good.”

A small hand shot up in the third row. “Excuse me, God?”

“Yeah, um…”

“Lucifer.”

“Lucifer, that’s right. You have a question?”

“Yeah. What’s ‘good’?”

God considered for a moment. “Good is like God, but with an extra O. So it’s being like God, plus some more.”

“Oh.” Lucifer furrowed his transparent little brow and then slowly raised his hand again. “What does that mean?”

Sigh. “Look, basically, when you go through mortality, you’re going to have to make choices. You’ll go, get your physical body, and then have to spend a while making decisions about all sorts of things. If you make good choices, then you get to come back here with me when you’re done. But if you make bad choices, you don’t get to come back.”

A low murmur rippled through the crowd. Lucifer shot his hand up in the air again. “How do we make good choices?”

“By doing what I want you to do. That’s what ‘good’ means - doing what God wants you to do.”

“But that’s silly. How could we NOT do what you want?” Lucifer asked. “You’re GOD. You say something and we do it! You’re in charge of everything!”

This was not going well. God beckoned to Lucifer to come up and join him at the throne. Lucifer bounced out of his seat, up the aisle, and hopped up on God’s lap. He beamed up at his father and stroked God’s beard in admiration as God spoke, reveling in the one-on-one attention. “Lucifer, maybe you can help me illustrate this point to everybody. You think you can help me?”

“Of course, God!”

“Okay. So you stand up here.” God set Lucifer down at the front of the stage and handed him the microphone. “Now you say, ‘everyone should just get to go get their body and then come back to Heaven to be with God.’”

“Everyone should just get to go get their body and then come back to Heaven to be with God!”

“Very good.” God took the microphone and said, “You guys will have to prove that you’re worthy to be with me. Some of you will get to come back, and some of you won’t. Now, everybody, raise your hand if you want it the way Lucifer said.”

Throughout the crowd, many of God’s children sniffed and shed quiet tears, but no one raised their hand. “Oh, come on guys,” God said in an exasperated tone. “Don’t you guys want to all come back here to be with me?”

“Of course we do!” said Lucifer. “But we have to do what you say, because you’re God!” The crowd nodded in agreement.

God pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and muttered. “Jesus Christ.”

“Yes, God?” Jesus sat in the front row, of course, and grinned up at God with a grin that was a bit too grinny. God had a flash of inspiration.

“Jesus, yeah. Come up here a second.” Jesus clambered up onto the stage and stood beside Lucifer. “Okay, now Lucifer, you say that same thing you said before. And Jesus, you say the thing that *I* said before. And then everybody else,” God looked out over the crowd of his children, “is going to have to choose which plan they think is better.”

A voice cried out from the middle of the room. “You want us to make the good choice, right? So which one is the plan you want us to choose?”

God shook his head. “I can’t tell you. That’s the whole point. You have to think about it and decide by yourselves which one you think is good, and which one you think is bad. That’s the test. That’s what mortality is all about.” God could practically hear their billions of little brains churning, wrapping themselves around this new information. “If you make the good choice you’ll get rewarded, and if you make the bad choice you’ll get punished. Okay, so is everybody ready? Lucifer, go ahead.”

Lucifer took the microphone. “Everyone should just get a physical body and then get to come back to Heaven to be with God again.”

He handed the microphone to Jesus. Jesus grinned wide-eyed at the crowd and said, “Everyone has to prove they’re worthy. Some will come back to Heaven, and some won’t. Just like God said.”

God took the microphone back and wiped Jesus’ hot, moist breath off of it with his robe before speaking. “Thanks, guys. Okay, so now everyone who thinks Lucifer’s plan is the right choice, raise your hands.” The crowd hesitated. “Go on,” God said. “Raise your hands.”

Slowly, a few hands started popping up throughout the crowd. Some of them figured that God would want all of his children to return to him, and so that plan was the good one. Others only raised their hands because God had just said to and they wanted to do what he asked. Eventually, about a third of the room had their hands in the air. “Good, thanks,” said God. “Go ahead and put your hands down. Now everyone who thinks Jesus had the right plan, raise your hands.” Again, the response was slow, but soon there were a few billion hands extended around the room.

“Okay, so,” God said, “everyone who raised their hand for Lucifer’s plan? You guys are now the baddies. You don’t get to go through mortality, and you don’t get to have physical bodies. Your job will be to try and trick everyone else into making bad choices, because only the ones who make really, really good choices and don’t fall for any of your tricks get to come back here and become gods themselves. Okay? So those of you who voted for Jesus’ plan, you’ll get to take the test and maybe come back to live with me again.” God sat back in his throne, relieved that the whole thing was finally finished and sorted.

The crowd stood in shocked silence. Was this real? Was this happening? Terrified, one tiny voice called out. “God?”

“Yeah?”

“I… I didn’t vote.”

“You didn’t vote? Why not?”

“I wasn’t sure which choice to make. They both seemed… bad.”
God looked out over his children. “Anybody else? Who didn’t vote for either plan?” Hands started popping up all over the room. God rubbed his temples and muttered. “Jesus Christ.”

“Yes, God?”

“Shut up. You guys seriously didn’t vote? Well, I can’t have you vote now, because now you know what the right choice was.”

“What’s going to happen to us?” asked one of the fencesitters.

“Well,” God considered, “you didn’t make the bad choice, and you didn’t make the good choice. So I guess I have to figure out a way to reward you, but also punish you.” He sat back and thought for a minute. The fencesitters waited eagerly for him to speak.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity and very well might have been, God snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! I know what I’ll do. Everyone who didn’t vote for either plan, listen up. I have good news and bad news. The good news is, you’re going to be really good at basketball.”

[reaganaut]

He doesn’t cover much theology but remember Mormon history and theology is very closely tied. Covering things like the timeline of the so called Priesthood restoration - which is technically history - has a lot of impact on theology and the church’s claims as a whole.

Also, he has people like Sandra Tanner on who does not write the ‘faith promoting’ history that Packer wants.

Great quote btw - on of my favorite Packer talks.

[Elsie]

Don’t know much about history...
Don’t know much biology...

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament?lang=eng

[Pecos]

Thank you for the question. I was not a party to the disciplinary council that was held in her case, so all I know about the event is what was published in the main stream media (same as you), and what the Church's public affairs office put online. If you would like more insight into the general way that such councils are held, and what I saw when I was a Ward Clerk (acting as scribe for two events), I would recommend the following blog site: http://middleagedmormonman.com/home/2014/06/why-love-church-disciplinary-councils.html The writer of the blog is a former bishop and former member of a stake high council. My personal experience with the bishops who were involved in those events was that they went far beyond mere neutrality in terms of trying to teach and express love toward the individual involved.

OTOH, to those who want to use this forum to argue religion, I have no time or interest in pursuing a yelling match. The truth can only be felt when the people who are involved humbly invoke the Holy Spirit, and then spend more time listening than they do talking. To quote the blog mentioned above, "I love the Church. I love Buffalo wings. One matters."

[Colofornian]

OTOH, to those who want to use this forum to argue religion, I have no time or interest in pursuing a yelling match.

(How about a whispering discussion, then? Or is it that in a world where we are barraged by peddlers of every known product in spammed e-mail & texts, radio, tv & internet commercials, theater "trailers" & other pre-movie ads, billboards & yardsigns, ONLY "religion" is seemingly accorded "yelling" status? Hmmm...Quite a strange and de-contextualized notion...And it seemingly unveils your inherent prejudice vs. all things "religious"...Well, hey, it keeps it nice & tidy so that you don't have to address "religious" things for you, anyway)

[Colofornian]

Just posted: Did Kate Kelly’s Local Leaders Follow the Handbook [Lds leaders circumvent established procedures]

[Pecos]

I believe you may have misunderstood my intent when I used the word “yelling”. I don’t like to be yelled at by anyone, including “spammed e-mail & texts, radio, tv & internet commercials, theater ‘trailers’ and other pre-movie ads, billboards, & yard signs”. I hit the mute button on my TV remote on a regular basis, and when loud commercials come on my car radio, I quickly change stations. My reference to religion in this context was that yelling seemed to be the mode at least one poster enjoys using when trying to argue me into denouncing my religion. As a regular attendee of Sunday services, I have absolutely no problem discussing the topic. It was the mode I was objecting to.

[Colofornian]

What I've found in frequent FR discussions of "priesthood" is that many operate on a Roman Catholic "model" of what that word means...also not understanding that even 12 year old boys hold a "priesthood" status in the Mormon church...see for example this Oct. 7, 2013 thread:
Ordain Women Group Turned Away At Conference [Mormon church turns women away from meeting]

To address a more Biblically justified understanding of "priesthood" and related terms, just posted this vanity: Time for new reformation re: understanding of Biblical priesthood, sainthood, & ordination [Vanity]

[Elsie]

The truth can only be felt when the people who are involved humbly invoke the Holy Spirit, and then spend more time listening than they do talking.

We love to Talk!!

[Elsie]

It was the mode I was objecting to.

Oh; I see...

[reaganaut]

// The truth can only be felt when the people who are involved humbly invoke the Holy Spirit, and then spend more time listening than they do talking.//

Wrong. The truth is something LEARNED through FACTS, not felt. The Bible never says to pray to know truth but to study - something Mormons do not really do. They rely on feelings not facts.

And the local leadership violated the CHoI on at least a dozen points regarding this matter.

[reaganaut]

Exactly. They don’t get that these women only want what is afforded to the laity in general in other churches. This isn’t about pastorates since they have a lay priesthood, not a trained (or paid) clergy.

[Scoutmaster]

Thanks. Please check FReemail.

[Colofornian]

Well today is Orrin Porter Rockwell’s bday...born 201 years ago