My Perspective – Women and Priesthood

Part One

Recently we have seen an onslaught of media attention surrounding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Ordain Women movement; but what we are not hearing is the affect this situation is having on women within the Mormon faith who are being lumped into a broad stroked painting that they did not sign up to be a part of.

I am a twenty six year old single woman who has been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints my entire life.  I was born into this faith and made a choice when I was eight years old to be baptized and have remained faithful to those promises I made on that day.   I have always grown up knowing that I was a special girl and grew into a special woman.  I never really felt like I was lacking in any way in the eyes of my church family, or in the eyes of the Lord.  I never thought I was a second rate person because I am a woman, or that I was lacking in equality because of my gender.  I was a daughter of a Heavenly Father who loved me unconditionally and cherished my worth as an individual.

Within the last year a whirlwind of protest have erupted within the Church and caused a lot of questions people asked in private, or silently in prayers to their Heavenly Father to come to light.  First it was women wanting to wear pants to church.  No one is going to stop you from coming into the chapel, or from taking the sacrament because you are a woman and wearing pants.  It is not a big deal what you wear to church, as long as you are worthy to partake of the sacrament, you could wear sweatpants and no one would think twice about it.   When this protest began, it reminded me of a story I heard in General Conference about Elder L. Tom Perry and his wife Virginia.  When he was the Stake President of the Boston Stake a woman came into the chapel wearing jeans and a t-shirt.  Sister Perry quietly left her family, got up and went to sit with the woman.   The following week, Sister Perry came to church wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

Following the Wear Pants to Church movement we saw the birth of a more vocal group, Ordain Women: their goals being; equality for women and women being ordained with the Priesthood.   I never looked at the Church as a divisive organization that valued women any less than men.  The Mormon Church has the world’s oldest women’s organization and is one of the only churches in the world that allows women to hold positions in leadership.  So they want to pray more in meetings, give more talks, travel to more parts of the world on behalf of the church, by all means.

Ordain Women’s first order of business was to demand entrance into the Priesthood Session of General Conference.  They were denied entrance to the meeting, which only fueled their cause.

I always looked at Priesthood Session as a girl’s night in, or out if that suited you better.  Husbands, fathers, grandfathers, friends, brothers, all away for a couple of hours and you home to watch a chick flick and eat ice cream out of the container and not have to wear pants; it doesn’t get much better than that now does it?  I would argue it does not.  But that life is not for everyone.  The Church publishes all the talks given in all the sessions of conference about a month after it is all over, so everyone can read and/or listen to all the talks given.  You don’t miss anything.  It is all at our finger tips.  Got to love that instant media age we live in.

The Ordain Women took their plight to a whole other level when they began going to the media for attention, airing their frustrations and grievances for the entire world to see.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints values each individual member and the differences we each have with policies and doctrines and encourage those with questions to ask and seek council.  That having been said, the Church takes issue with apostate like activities.   An apostate is someone who actively recruits and leads people away from church doctrine and practice.

Enter Kate Kelly, Founder and Leader or Ordain Women.  Ms. Kelly was a lifelong member of the Church; she went to Brigham Young University, served a mission and was married in the Temple.   She had questions, everyone does.  We are all human.  She had every right to ask her questions, seek guidance and accept the council she was given.  There is a very simple principle of this situation that Ms. Kelly is missing; The Lord gives revelation though his Prophets.  She claims that she sustains the leaders of the Church.  When you sustain them, it means you support them and the council they give.

In 1980 President Ezra Taft Benson gave a talk at Ms. Kelly’s Alma Mater entitled, “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet” and in is talk he talks about many great and wonderful things.  In light on recent events, the few that stick out in my mind are:

First: The prophet is the only man who speaks for the Lord in everything.

In section 132, verse 7, of the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord speaks of the Prophet—the President—and says: “There is never but one on the earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of this priesthood are conferred.”

Then in section 21, verses 4–6, the Lord states:

Wherefore, meaning the church, thou shalt give heed unto all his words and commandments which he shall give unto you as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me;

For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.

For by doing these things the gates of hell shall not prevail against you.

Did you hear what the Lord said about the words of the prophet? We are to “give heed unto all his words”—as if from the Lord’s “own mouth.”

Seventh: The prophet tells us what we need to know, not always what we want to know.

“Thou hast declared unto us hard things, more than we are able to bear,” complained Nephi’s brethren. But Nephi answered by saying, “the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center” (1 Nephi 16:1, 3). Or, to put it in another prophet’s words, “Hit pigeons flutter.”

Said President Harold B. Lee:

You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life. . . . Your safety and ours depends upon whether or not we follow. . . . Let’s keep our eye on the President of the Church. [In Conference Report, October 1970, p. 152-153]

But it is the living prophet who really upsets the world. “Even in the Church,” said President Kimball, “many are prone to garnish the sepulchers of yesterday’s prophets and mentally stone the living ones” (Instructor, 95:257).

Why? Because the living prophet gets at what we need to know now, and the world prefers that prophets either be dead or mind their own business. Some so-called experts of political science want the prophet to keep still on politics. Some would-be authorities on evolution want the prophet to keep still on evolution. And so the list goes on and on.

How we respond to the words of a living prophet when he tells us what we need to know, but would rather not hear, is a test of our faithfulness.

 

 

Jessica graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Political Science. She currently resides in California, and is currently working on her own Political-Thriller novel.