I think that women should receive the priesthood. \u00a0I don’t find the\u00a0reasons that have been given as to why the priesthood is limited to\u00a0males very compelling. \u00a0I don’t think that motherhood is a good analog\u00a0to priesthood, or rather I think that motherhood is a kind of\u00a0priesthood (an exercise of godly power by human beings) but its analog\u00a0is fatherhood, not the Melchizedek priesthood. \u00a0I think that the\u00a0feminization of religion is an important issue, one that feminist\u00a0critics dismiss rather too breezily. \u00a0I suspect that the all-male\u00a0priesthood probably mitigates this problem somewhat in Mormonism, but\u00a0I suspect that we could come up with other ways of dealing with it. \u00a0At the end of the day, I simply don’t have any objection to women\u00a0performing ordinances or holding positions of ecclesiastical\u00a0leadership. \u00a0Indeed, I think that there are a lot administrative and\u00a0pastoral issues that could be handled more effectively were women\u00a0ordained.<\/p>\n
I do, however, think that giving women the priesthood would create\u00a0enormous problems for Mormonism. \u00a0This is because male identity within the church is structured around the idea of priesthood. \u00a0If the\u00a0priesthood were extended to women, it would no longer be a nexus of\u00a0male identity. \u00a0This would force on us a choice. \u00a0We could either look\u00a0elsewhere for some basis of male identity, perhaps in ideas of\u00a0fatherhood or non-priesthood brotherhood on the model of the Relief\u00a0Society. \u00a0It’s not clear exactly what this male identity would look\u00a0like. \u00a0To take a banal issue but one that would have huge cultural\u00a0implications, if women received the priesthood, would they now attend\u00a0priesthood quorum meetings? \u00a0Would the Relief Society continue to\u00a0function? \u00a0Notice, that if we admitted women to quorum meetings, we\u00a0could continue to hold Relief Society meetings as a nexus for female\u00a0identity and community. \u00a0We would need, however, something new,\u00a0something other than priesthood meetings to create a similar nexus for\u00a0men. \u00a0This is hardly an insurmountable issue. \u00a0Numerous Protestant\u00a0denominations, for example, have men’s groups without linking those\u00a0groups to anything that looks like the Mormon priesthood. \u00a0My point is\u00a0simply that extending the priesthood to women would leave male Mormon\u00a0identity unmoored from its traditional sources, namely the Aaronic and\u00a0Melchizedek priesthoods. \u00a0(This is one of the reasons why analogies to other\u00a0denominations\u00a0aren’t always helpful in the Mormon context. \u00a0Being a vicar simply isn’t central to male Anglican identity in the same way that being a priesthood holder is central to being a male Mormon. \u00a0Likewise, male Catholics don’t really mediate what it means to be a good Catholic man through the idea of priesthood. \u00a0Mormon men do.)<\/p>\n
The other alternative would be to simply jettison the idea of gendered\u00a0Mormon identities. \u00a0We could eliminate the distinction between Young\u00a0Men’s programs and Young Women’s programs. \u00a0We could eliminate the\u00a0Relief Society. \u00a0We would be left with distinctions between youth and\u00a0adults, a distinction that would presumably be marked by ordination to\u00a0the Melchizedek Priesthood. \u00a0There is a real tension here in most of\u00a0the feminist Mormonism that I have seen. \u00a0On one hand, feminists\u00a0employ powerful analogies from the Civil Rights Movement about the\u00a0impossibility of equality in a world of segregation. \u00a0At the same\u00a0time, many of those same feminists rightly treasure the tradition and\u00a0experience of Mormon sisterhood. \u00a0The tension lies in the fact that\u00a0the sisterhood — which is in a sense simply one half of the gendered\u00a0life of Mormonism — depends upon difference. \u00a0The rhetoric of\u00a0equality insists that gender does not matter, while the rhetoric of\u00a0sisterhood (and brotherhood) insists that it does. \u00a0It is not as\u00a0though, of course, this tension exists only for Mormon feminists or\u00a0only in an imagined world in which women are ordained. \u00a0It exists in a\u00a0different form in Mormonism as it is now constituted. \u00a0My point is\u00a0simply that ordaining women will not eliminate this tension. \u00a0We will\u00a0still need mechanisms for negotiating gendered identities within\u00a0Mormonism.<\/p>\n
Within a liberal democracy — which is the institutional model of\u00a0justice on which most of the calls for female ordination rest — this\u00a0tension is negotiated by bifurcating our selves between our civic\u00a0identity and our private identity. \u00a0In our civic identity we are,\u00a0ideally, without gender: free and equal citizens in the eyes of the\u00a0law and the public with no distinctions. \u00a0To be sure, this ideal of\u00a0civic genderlessness frequently bumps up against the realities of\u00a0social roles and biology, but it navigates these treacherous shoals\u00a0with care, always trying to insure that in the end the goods of civic\u00a0society are allocated justly to all citizens. \u00a0Justice in allocation\u00a0includes, crucially, the principle that the allocation not rest on\u00a0suspect criteria based on identity like gender. \u00a0In our private lives,\u00a0however, we dispense with the civic conceit of genderlessness. \u00a0We are\u00a0wives and husbands, boyfriends and girlfriends, bros and “just\u00a0friends.” \u00a0We luxuriate (or stew) in the very difference that we deny\u00a0in our civic identities, engaging in a constant, running argument with\u00a0ourselves about what gender should mean, always assuming, however,\u00a0that whatever it is, it is not irrelevant. \u00a0And of course, we grapple\u00a0with liminal spaces — the workplace being the prime example — where\u00a0we can’t quite decide if we are supposed to be using our civic or\u00a0private identities.<\/p>\n
Is such a solution available to Mormonism? \u00a0Can we create a single\u00a0“civic” Mormon identity and simply privatize gender? \u00a0To be sure there\u00a0are many things that Mormonism privatizes and there are things that\u00a0have moved into that category in the past. \u00a0Birth control comes to\u00a0mind as an issue that once occupied a place in the “public” space of\u00a0the church and is now firmly in the “private” space of Mormonism. \u00a0Of\u00a0course, part of the attraction of ordaining women for many is\u00a0precisely that they imagine it as a privatization of gender within\u00a0Mormonism. \u00a0Given the occasionally cringe worthy things that are said\u00a0about gender within Mormonism, I can understand the attraction this\u00a0might have for some. \u00a0I can’t, however, bring myself to identify with\u00a0it. \u00a0I don’t WANT gender to be privatized. \u00a0I want to be preached at\u00a0as a man, to have my Mormonism inform my idea of gender. \u00a0This doesn’t\u00a0mean that I am comfortable with every thing that is said about gender\u00a0within the church. \u00a0Far from it. \u00a0I do, however, want gender to be an\u00a0object of religious concern, precisely because I think it is a\u00a0fundamental object of human concern and I think religion has the\u00a0obligation to speak to fundamental human concerns.. \u00a0We are fellow\u00a0citizens as saints, but we are also part of the household of God and\u00a0within that household I want the richer, fuller identity of “private”\u00a0space rather than the more anemic \u00a0identity of civic space. \u00a0I don’t\u00a0want membership in the kingdom reduced to the thin identity of\u00a0citizenship, with priesthood conceptualized as another liberal right.<\/p>\n
So where does this leave me? \u00a0I would like a world in which women\u00a0performed ordinances and participated fully in church government. \u00a0I\u00a0would also like a world in which there are thick and meaningful\u00a0religious identities organized around gender. \u00a0It’s not that I think\u00a0that gender should be one’s primary way of mediating religious\u00a0identity, but gender is such an important part of what it means for me\u00a0to be a human being and, more importantly, to be the particular human\u00a0being that I am, that it would seem a great loss if this was the sort\u00a0of thing that my religion placed in a “private” sphere to be passed\u00a0over in sensitive silence. \u00a0I am a better and happier person for\u00a0having sat through many Priesthood Sessions in General Conference in\u00a0which I have been harangued on what it means to be a righteous man of\u00a0God. \u00a0Finally, given the way in which male identity in particular\u00a0within Mormonism is tied up with priesthood, I am not convinced that\u00a0we really even know what it would mean to ordain women either in terms\u00a0of the lived experience of Mormonism or its doctrines.<\/p>\n
What are the implications of these convictions for me? \u00a0I suspect that\u00a0the answer is probably “Not much.” \u00a0I am happy to express my opinions\u00a0to any who might be interested in them, although I do not preach them,\u00a0particularly in church. \u00a0This is partly because I don’t think people\u00a0are that interested but mainly because for me there is something\u00a0precious about progressive preaching that I find annoying in others\u00a0and I figure that I already have sufficient self-loathing to deal\u00a0with. \u00a0More importantly, however, I don’t think that I have been\u00a0called either by the spirit or the laying on of hands to such\u00a0preaching, and to me that matters. \u00a0To preach is to claim a kind of\u00a0authority, and I do not have authority on this matter. \u00a0Finally, I\u00a0respect the authorities of the church and try to interpret their\u00a0actions with as much charity as possible. \u00a0I do not regard their\u00a0current stance as doctrinally mistaken, malicious, or even, in the\u00a0cosmic scheme of things, misguided. \u00a0I am happy to live and serve in\u00a0the church, and do not regard myself as morally compromised for doing\u00a0so. \u00a0There is so much goodness and truth in it that I want my son and\u00a0daughter raised as a faithful Latter-day Saint, regardless of what the\u00a0Lord and the Brethren do on this matter. \u00a0I am content to have my\u00a0beliefs, keep my covenants, and trust in God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think that women should receive the priesthood. \u00a0I don’t find the\u00a0reasons that have been given as to why the priesthood is limited to\u00a0males very compelling. \u00a0I don’t think that motherhood is a good analog\u00a0to priesthood, or rather I think that motherhood is a kind of\u00a0priesthood (an exercise of godly power by human beings) but its analog\u00a0is fatherhood, not the Melchizedek priesthood. \u00a0I think that the\u00a0feminization of religion is an important issue, one that feminist\u00a0critics dismiss rather too breezily. \u00a0I suspect that the all-male\u00a0priesthood probably mitigates this problem somewhat in Mormonism, but\u00a0I suspect that we could come up with other ways of dealing with it. \u00a0At the end of the day, I simply don’t have any objection to women\u00a0performing ordinances or holding positions of ecclesiastical\u00a0leadership. \u00a0Indeed, I think that there are a lot administrative and\u00a0pastoral issues that could be handled more effectively were women\u00a0ordained. I do, however, think that giving women the priesthood would create\u00a0enormous problems for Mormonism. \u00a0This is because male identity within the church is structured around the idea of priesthood. \u00a0If the\u00a0priesthood were extended to women, it would no longer be a nexus of\u00a0male identity. \u00a0This would force on us a choice. \u00a0We could either look\u00a0elsewhere for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22507"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22511,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22507\/revisions\/22511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}