- dlc on The Ordain Women Movement in Retrospect: “sam brunson over at bcc had a great article on how allowing the yw to pass the sacrament is not a particularly heavy lift. his main points are that no where in the list of deacon/teacher responsibilities is passing the sacrament listed; in fact, it specifically says priests must administer the sacrament, so by definition, deacons/teacher do not administer it. he also pointed out that women pass sacrament every single sunday as they hand the tray to the person on their left or right. i think one other point is the leadership saying “well, to do this (ordain women) we would need a revelation” and i think most reasonable church members would say “fine. go get a revelation. if it says yes, like overturning the priesthood ban, then do it. if it says no, then let us know and we’ll (most of us) be fine.” the issue is, as far as we know, because they wont tell us, THEY’VE NEVER ASKED!!!!!” Apr 15, 12:58
- on The Ordain Women Movement in Retrospect: “Much has changed for women in the Church since the Ordain Women movement. Theologically, a lot of language suggesting women were subordinate to men was removed from the endowment. There’s also President Oaks’ assertion that women regularly exercise priesthood authority, they just don’t hold priesthood offices. (I will not be surprised if he returns to this topic as president of the Church.) These are huge. Practically, there have been a lot of small changes, with the most recent being women as Sunday School Presidents. I can understand feeling underwhelmed by them, but it shows that leadership are thinking about the topic on an ongoing basis and willing to make changes. Some of the most important changes haven’t been explicitly about women. For example, the emphasis on ward and stake councils rather than bishops and stake presidents just running things has given women much more influence. Shifting some responsibilities from bishops to Elder’s Quorum and Relief Society Presidents has done the same. Church culture is behind the Handbook on this in a lot of ways. As a concrete example, when my stake’s Relief Society President felt impressed that she and her counsellors should have speaking assignments like the high councilors, the stake president’s response was “I like it, but let’s check the Handbook.” Turns out that’s what it already said. Usually it’s more subtle, like women feeling that if they need spiritual counsel they should go to their bishop rather than their Relief Society President. I completely disagree that we’re out of runway on this. According to the Handbook, both missionary work and temple and family history work in a ward are led by a man and a woman working as partners, with the bishop just “coordinating.” In my experience we’ve got a ways to go just to make that vision reality, and I can easily imagine more of the work of a ward being put under similar arrangements. I wonder if we’re in the early stages of dividing the role of bishop (temporal affairs + youth) from the role of presiding high priest (spiritual affairs), but precedent so far would make the Relief Society President a partner with the hypothetical presiding high priest rather than subordinate to him. (“Presiding” doesn’t really count.) Ordain Women’s theory of the case was that the men running the Church thought women were happy with how things were, so they weren’t getting revelation on the topic because they weren’t asking. I never found this at all plausible–the Church’s practices on gender are so out of line with the modern world that leadership has to be constantly aware of that fact. But if you do buy it, then you can spin a story where Ordain Women burst that bubble and caused all the changes I described. I’m dubious. Personally, I think it’s more about generational shifts. Just think about how different the workforce was that President Hinkley joined in the 1930s, vs. the one President Oaks joined in the late 1950s, vs. the one Elder Gilbert (who is the same age I am) joined in about 2001. Completely different worlds for women. I don’t know how things will change going forward (though I doubt ordaining women to priesthood offices is in the cards) but I am sure they will continue to change.” Apr 15, 11:53
- on The Ordain Women Movement in Retrospect: “I assumed from the beginning that Kate Kelly understood that her best case outcome was to become a martyr and that ordination, if it ever happened, would never benefit her personally. So I was surprised when she seemed genuinely upset about her excommunication. Later, she revealed herself in a guest post on one of the blogs (not this one, but I don’t remember which) in which she grudgingly admitted that celebrating the first woman of color to give a prayer in conference was OK. She started the post with a description of election night 2008 on which she observed millions of people celebrating while she herself wept. And they were not tears of joy because Obama had won–they were tears of bitterness because Ralph Nader had lost and she had seriously believed that he would win. So now it seems to me that Kate Kelly simply was not operating in the real world and it is a shame that so many women looked to her as their leader. Having made that point, here’s how the rest of her post went, just to connect the dots. After she finished crying over Ralph Nader, Kelly realized that it was important to acknowledge that a barrier had been broken and to allow those who had helped break it have their moment of joy. She then applied the same logic to the prayer in general conference.” Apr 15, 08:42
- on The Ordain Women Movement in Retrospect: “A counter-example: the Randy Bott affair. For decades after the 1978 policy change, there were periodic calls for LDS leadership to renounce not just the prior exclusionary practices but also to renounce the racist folklore that continued to circulate in the Church. There was nothing unreasonable about that request, but LDS leaders ignored it. Then when BYU religion prof Randy Bott endorsed all of that racist folklore in a conversation with a Washington Post reporter, which then got published in the Washington Post, the uproar was immediate. Within a day or two, LDS leadership posted unmistakably clear renunciations of all of that racist folklore. Sure, it was at the LDS Newsroom, not in a General Conference talk, but it was nevertheless a hugely positive step. It should have happened years earlier. The lesson? Bad PR is almost the *only* thing that now gets LDS leadership to change bad policy. I think you are reading the Ordain Women movement wrong. The Church did institute some changes in response to the bad publicity around OW. Note the recent decision to allow women to serve as local Sunday School Presidents and counselors. In current LDS leadership practice, sometimes the squeaky wheel gets some grease. Wheels that don’t squeak get nothing.” Apr 15, 08:41
- on The Ordain Women Movement in Retrospect: “Stephen – Thank you for continuing discussion of women’s ordination. FWIW, I support ordination and posted a profile on the OW site in its early days. I also think they pushed in some wrong directions. To Chad’s point, though, the OW push did open the door to more middle-of-the-road voices such as Neylan McBaine. It’s the old “$20 hamburger” trick from marketing. I’m interested in your thoughts regarding priesthood authority for the ordinances women do perform – specifically the temple initiatory and presenting other women at the veil during the endowment. Where does that authority come from? I get that women temple workers are delegated authority when they are set apart by the temple president (whose keys ultimately come from the President of the Church), but I have never found a scripture, revelation, or even church pronouncement as to where the President of Church obtained that authority to delegate. So my questions to you are (1) do you have insight into where the authority comes from and (2) assuming not, do you care? For context, I’ve slowly come to the conclusion that our church body has largely lost interest in the principle of priesthood authority. Each baby-step that opens a role to women which previously required ordination is met with muted “yeah” and we roll along. Consider women saying prayers in conference, serving as baptism witnesses, checking recommended at the temple front desk, serving as SS Presidents, and so forth. As a church body, we care very much that we’re in step with Salt Lake, but not so much whether our actions are actually authorized by God. Consider that whatever authority now allows women to administer initiatories and endowments, presumably would also permit temple presidents to delegate their keys for women to administer all ordinances in the temple, for mission presidents to delegate their keys for sister missionaries to baptize and confirm, and for bishops to delegate their keys for young women to administer the sacrament. So ordination is not needed for women to administer. Or for men for that matter. We’re effectively becoming a priesthood of all believers. One last thought on your comment re wordplay. That view cuts both ways. Your argument would render the church as disingenuous when it refers to gays and lesbians as merely “same-sex attracted” instead of acknowledging their identity (something, BTW, we strong insist for ourselves in rebranding away from “Mormons”).” Apr 15, 07:51
- on The Ordain Women Movement in Retrospect: “Jonathan: “That’s why I’m indifferent to the idea of ordaining women. I can imagine advantages and disadvantages. Valid priesthood authority organized by the prophet and presiding high priest is critically important; details of how that gets implemented shouldn’t distract us from that.” I agree. In principle there are some policy changes that would be hard for me, but I’m probably 70/30 on the female ordination issue, so it wouldn’t be a problem for me if the Church did change on that. Chad: “As far as Ordain Women, one thing that is worth noting is that sometimes when people push for a more extreme change, it opens the door to more moderate changes. I.e., they pushed hard for their namesake change and failed at that, but suddenly, those voices pushing for “a lot of reasonable changes that could be made before we reached that more controversial point” looked a lot more reasonable to Church leaders.” That’s a good point, perhaps women praying in General Conference wouldn’t have made it out of committee without the OW hubbub. It reminds me of the MLK Jr./Malcolm X “frenemy” dynamic, IIRC Malcolm X saw himself as making MLK Jr. look more middle-of-the-road, but the rabble-rousing strategy would make sense if ordaining women was purposefully sacrificed for the incremental gains, and not ever taken seriously as a likely outcome in itself.” Apr 15, 07:21
- on The Ordain Women Movement in Retrospect: ““The last time there was some kind of grassroots organization challenging the Church that elicited a public sit-down-and-debate response was the Godbeites.” Just for some fun history, I think the split with the Fundamentalist Mormons over the course of around 1910 through 1940 was another moment that caused some intense discussions, as was the Third Convention movement in the 1930s and 1940s in Mexico. As far as Ordain Women, one thing that is worth noting is that sometimes when people push for a more extreme change, it opens the door to more moderate changes. I.e., they pushed hard for their namesake change and failed at that, but suddenly, those voices pushing for “a lot of reasonable changes that could be made before we reached that more controversial point” looked a lot more reasonable to Church leaders. They weren’t moving fast on those types of things before, but I feel like we’ve seen a lot more of those ideas implemented since OW.” Apr 15, 06:37
- on The Ordain Women Movement in Retrospect: “Considering the swing in presidential approval ratings between the election and now, it seems like the Democrats understood the situation pretty well, and better than some of the people who are experiencing buyer’s remorse. A better comparison would be to the use of “Latinx,” promoted by academics and activists but (according to surveys) alienating to the people the would-be vanguard claims to represent. My impression at the time was that Mormon Women Stand was a real problem for OW – the difference in numbers was massive, if I recall correctly. I think you’re right about how the end of the movement harmed the cause it claimed to promote. How sincerely did you want ordination to the priesthood if you reject the counsel of its presiding high priest? That’s why I’m indifferent to the idea of ordaining women. I can imagine advantages and disadvantages. Valid priesthood authority organized by the prophet and presiding high priest is critically important; details of how that gets implemented shouldn’t distract us from that.” Apr 15, 05:52
- on What Was Revealed to You In Church (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 4/12)?: “I’ve been thinking about how we’re all in different chapters of the same book of life. When you’re talking to someone at the beginning of their story, you have to be careful not to rush them or spoil what they’re meant to discover for themselves. You have to let them have their adventure, to grow into understanding the way you once did. And yet, those early chapters carry something special, the excitement, the wonder of first discovery. It’s something people further along in the book often miss, even mourn a little, because you can’t go back and experience it the same way again. Being a saint among others in different chapters can feel isolating. Either you see things they don’t yet see, or feel things others can’t quite return to. It can be lonely, even in a highly connected community. I’ve usually clung to a deep testimony of brother and sisterhood and marveled at the beauty of our diversity,- all ages, backgrounds, stages, etc. united in the gospel. But here’s the paradox: are we a community or a lone traveler? Yesterday, I felt the other side of that truth, that oftentimes I walk alone.” Apr 14, 09:44
- on A Review: 40 Questions About Mormonism: “That is uncanny. I was looking at their series on creation and evolution yesterday.” Apr 14, 09:36
