. . . because this may be the longest post you’ll read this year. (I want a Niblet!!) Randy wanted me (and Nate) to explore the issue of presiding a little more on the temple thread, but some yahoo cut off comments, so Randy emailed me. Here is our discussion, with Randy’s words in italics:<\/p>\n
I like your (and Nibley’s) view of the hearkening covenant. I heard OK, this is me interrupting Randy’s train of thought to reproduce the infamous Nibley quote that I couldn’t find when this discussion began:<\/p>\n “There is no patriarchy or matriarchy in the Garden; the two supervise each other. Adam is given no arbitrary power; Eve is to heed him only insofar as he obeys their Father\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand who decides that? She must keep check on him as much as he does on her. It is, if you will, a system of checks and balances in which each party is as distinct and independent in its sphere as are the departments of government under the Constitution\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand just as dependent on each other.” Hugh Nibley, “Patriarchy and Matriarchy,” Old Testament and Related Studies<\/em>, page 92f.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n OK, back to Randy’s question:<\/p>\n on the bloggernacle a couple years ago now, and it strikes Yes to all of the above:<\/p>\n (1) The story that unfolds in the Temple involves the husband being given the role of presiding in the family.<\/p>\n (2) Most of us think ‘presiding’ means things that no Church leader has ever said that it means. I’ve repeatedly made the challenge to the Bloggernacle for someone to find me a statement from a Church leader stating that husbands have the last word. No one has ever produced one. (Maybe there’s one out there . . .)<\/p>\n (3) While the fact that husbands preside appears to create an assymetrical relationship (since wives don’t preside), wives take on a different role that provides symmetry. See the Nibley quote above. Also:<\/p>\n “No woman has ever been asked by the Church authorities to follow her husband into an evil pit. She is to follow him as he follows and obeys the Savior of the world, but in deciding this, she should always be sure she is fair.” Spencer W. Kimball, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Blessings and Responsibilities of Womanhood,\u00e2\u20ac? Ensign<\/em>, Mar. 1976, 70f.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Or, if you like things put a little more baldly:<\/p>\n “But I never counseled a women to follow her husband to the Devil.” Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young<\/em>, pages 200-201.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Or:<\/p>\n “When we speak of marriage as a partnership, let us speak of marriage as a full partnership. We do not want our LDS women to be silent partners or limited partners in that eternal assignment! Please be a contributing and full partner.” Spencer W. Kimball, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Privileges and Responsibilities of Sisters,\u00e2\u20ac? New Era<\/em>, Jan.-Feb. 1979, 42f.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (4) This is a bit of a digression, but I think that one problem we (including me!) have in interpreting the temple ceremony as it relates to men’s and women’s roles is that Adam and Eve are each filling two roles: husband-wife and priesthood leader-member. How do we tell which is which? I know of no objective rubric. It does seem to me that the moments where people find the most sexism are moments where I do not think that Adam is doing husband things but rather prophet things.<\/p>\n This has been long. To sum: yes, men preside. This might appear uneuqal or asymmetrical until you remember that you are only looking at half of the equation. Then it appears equal in terms of responsibility, privilege, and ‘rights’, but not identical.<\/p>\n The reason I ask is that the way Nibley tells it (if I am remembering Yes, I think that is it. It is possible for one person to preside but for both people to be equal. This has been a constant theme in the addresses of members of the Q12 and FP over the past decade, but I’ve sensed that the reaction is usually (1) ‘they are talking out of both sides of their mouths! hypocrites!’ or (2) ‘this reflects a shifting paradigm; we are abandoning the preside rhetoric for the equal partnership rhetoric’. I think we at least need to try to assume that they are offering reconcilable statements. I think they reconcile because (1) preside doesn’t mean what a lot of people seem to think it means and (2) the counterpart to presiding is Eve’s responsibility to judge Adam’s counsel for herself and act according to her assessment of whether he is following the Lord.<\/p>\n Here’s the second part of my question: My experience personally, and I think there are two ways to look at this, I suppose which model you choose depends on the couple:<\/p>\n (1) The counsel of the Church has been pretty consistent that Adam does not get to have ‘the last word’ here but that they need to keep talking and praying together until they come to an agreement. They don’t proceed until there is unity. So I would dispute your statement that ‘at the end of the day’ it is Adam’s decision.<\/p>\n or:<\/p>\n (2) Most of what I consider to be presiding (calling the family to prayer, being sure family scripture study happens, etc.) are not exactly things where people have huge differences of opinion. Your situation above is interesting, but do you really think many divorces are caused by people who cannot decide which book of scripture to study that year? Most husbands and wives I know would be pretty shrugful about that one and agree to alternate days or something. Issues such as whether to move, take a different job, select from medical treatment options, have another child, etc., do not fall under the rubric of ‘presiding;’ the husband has no more decision-making authority there than the wife (see Pres. Kimball above). My point is that wives do not have their faces ground into the dust and their personal autonomy denied because their husbands are choosing who says the prayer. <\/p>\n Thanks, Julie. I’m going to think about this some. I think you are Yep. I think that is it: presiding in the Church and presiding in the home are entirely different animals. I think this is the gist of Elder Oaks’ last talk on the subject. It is also behind President Packer’s famous “don’t treat your wife like you treat the stake” quip.<\/p>\n How would you affirmatively define what it means to preside (other than I think you had it exactly right when you said, “an assignment to see that certain issues are raised and addressed.” The ultimate responsibility for holding FHE rests on my husband, not me. I don’t feel violated by this (and I’d go into the reasons for that, but this is already way too long). But that doesn’t mean he gets to decide what all the lessons will be about, or that we’ll hold it on the roof, or whatever. As far as making the decisions where there might be a reasonable difference of opinion, neither of us has ‘the last word’ but rather needs to work together until we reach an agreement. And if he wants all of our FHEs held under the auspices of the NFL, well, then I’m under no obligation to follow him to the devil on that one.<\/p>\n I really should be getting some work done, but a few more thoughts On my second original question, on your two models, some ideas:<\/p>\n Take the second model first. You say “most of what I consider to be I don’t think that hearkening is more than presiding, but I do think that presiding is more than calling on people to say the prayer. Maybe we need to emphasis areas where presiding can be done unilaterally (selecting people for prayers) and where it cannot (selecting topics for FHE lessons, for example). I do not see the hearkening covenant as a tool for conflict resolution, because I don’t think it implies (not have church leaders taught that it implies) any ‘last word’ authority. I will also say that I have been blessed with a decade of marriage to someone with whom I have disagreed maybe twice (about ‘real’ issues–discussing politics is another matter!), and I don’t have a backlog of personal experiences with marital conflict resolution upon which to draw. When we’ve come to the table with different views, we’ve kept talking until we were both genuinely in agreement.<\/p>\n Your answer to that interpretation, it seems to me, is found in your I don’t disagree with you about what the nineteenth century Brethren taught on the matter, but I also don’t see any point in losing sleep over it. It is interesting as a historical matter, but I think one would be hard-pressed to make the case that we should follow what Pres. Woodruff said about marriage relationships instead of what Pres. Kimball did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" . . . because this may be the longest post you’ll read this year. (I want a Niblet!!) Randy wanted me (and Nate) to explore the issue of presiding a little more on the temple thread, but some yahoo cut off comments, so Randy emailed me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3239","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\/3239","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthe Nibley quote<\/em><\/p>\n
\nme as an entirely reasonable, even the most probable, interpretation.
\nYet it still seems somewhat problematic in some ways, which is where
\nNate’s comment on option #1 comes in. This interpretation, as I
\nunderstand it, takes the hearkening covenant as a type of how our homes
\nare to be run. As Nate sees it, the symbolism suggests that the
\nhusband “presides” (whatever that means) in the home. In other words, the
\nasymmetry is intentional; woman do not preside, men do. My first
\nquestion here is do you agree? By that I don’t mean, do you agree that
\nmen preside in the home (you’ve already answered that question).
\nRather, do you agree that this covenant compels\/supports this view? <\/em><\/p>\n
\ncorrectly), the roles of men and women in the hearkening covenant are
\ndifferent but equal (indeed, that is his whole point, that there is no
\nneed for women to be concerned about the relative inequalities, because
\nthere are none). If so, then I don’t see how Nate’s option #1
\nnecessarily follows. But perhaps this is just a debate over what it
\nmeans to preside.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nwhat I perceive taking place elsewhere, including in church leadership,
\nis that God does not direct our every move. We do our best to study
\nthings out before hand, come to a tentative conclusion of what we
\nshould do, and then go to the Lord asking for guidance and direction.
\nSometimes we are given the go ahead, even if God perhaps would do
\nthings a bit differently. If this view is correct, then it seems to me that
\neven Nibley’s view of the hearkening covenant creates unequal status in
\nthe family. A hypothetical: Adam and Eve are facing a decision of
\nwhether to read the BOM, the D&C, the NT, or the OT during family
\nscripture study this year. Adam and Eve ponder the issue, ultimately
\ncoming to different conclusions, both for equally compelling reasons.
\nThey take the issue to the Lord. Assume we can know (always difficult)
\nthat the Lord leaves the decision to Adam and Eve. If so, doesn’t Adam
\nget what he wants? And moreover, wouldn’t Eve be in violation of her
\ncovenant to not follow Adam’s lead? He is, after all, hearkening to
\nGod and has suggested a righteous course of action; it’s just that God left
\nthe decision up to them (not an uncommon occurrence), and ultimately,
\nat the end of the day, Adam. <\/em><\/p>\n
\nright that at the end of the day, much of this comes down to what it
\nmeans to preside. Perhaps part of where things go wrong is failing to
\ndistinguish between presiding in the home and presiding in a calling. For
\nexample, in a Bishopric, the Bishop presides. The Bishop is counseled
\nto listen to his counselors, but at the end of the day, it is the
\nBishop’s call whether to hold the ward picnic on Saturday afternoon rather
\nthan Wednesday evening. While the Bishop may try and work toward
\nconsensus, but if that is not possible, it is up to him, ultimately, to make
\na decision. Perhaps presiding in the home is a different type of
\nanimal, and is not a tool of conflict resolution at all. In fact, perhaps
\npresiding in the home carries exactly zero independent weight in making
\ndecisions for the family (beyond, for example, picking out people to
\npray). Under this view, presiding would be nothing more than an
\nassignment to see that certain issues are raised and addressed. How those
\nissues are resolved is left to the husband and wife, as equal partners
\n(which is decidedly not the case in the Bishop\/Bishopric example, as there
\nis no suggestion that a counselor is the Bishop’s equal). So even in
\nmy example about which book of scripture to read, the question of who
\npresides would be irrelevant to how the question is resolved. Is that
\ngoing to far? Not far enough?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nto say what it is not)? Does it go beyond calling the family to prayer
\nand being sure family scripture study happens, or is that it?<\/em><\/p>\n
\n(before they leave me):<\/p>\n
\npresiding . . . are not exactly things where people have huge differences
\nof opinion.” I would agree, if we limit presiding to something very,
\nvery narrow. But let’s go back to the language of the covenant: Eve
\ncovenants to hearken to Adam as Adam hearkens to God. This strikes me as
\nmore than just a discussion of “presiding” (in the limited sense).
\nAfter all, when I pick someone out to say a prayer, I generally am not
\nacting on inspiration, but am trying to think of who has not said the
\nprayer recently. “Hearkening” in the context of the temple covenant
\nsurely requires more than simply deferring to the selection of who is going
\nto pray. It demands listening and following God’s counsel, whether
\ndirected to the church in general or to individuals in particular.
\nFurther, unlike presiding (narrowly defined), the hearkening covenant sounds
\nto me like one of several tools for resolving conflicts. Thus, in
\ndeciding upon a course of action, whatever it may be, Adam is to hearken to
\nGod, and Eve to Adam. This brings us back to Nibley, and the way the
\nhusbands and wives work together to make decisions. What I was trying
\nto get at with my original second question is what happens when this
\ntool for decision making and conflict resolution does not end the matter
\n\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac? e.g., God does not give a clear answer? One possible answer in that
\nsituation is that Adam and Eve must simply find a different way to
\nresolve the conflict. At that point, the hearkening covenant simply has no
\nmore applicability. Another possible answer (and one I personally
\nreject), is that Eve still must hearken to Adam (provided, of course, that
\nAdam is still hearkening to God). In other words, when God does not
\ngive specific direction, Eve still must follow Adam. I think this view
\nis incorrect, but I’m trying to better understand why. After all, it
\nstrikes me as an entirely plausible reading to say that as long as Adam
\nis hearkening to God, Eve must hearken to Adam, even if God is not
\nspeaking to Adam on the particular question at issue. (And judging by the
\nreaction of many, some have concluded that this is what the covenant
\nmeans, for better or worse.) <\/em><\/p>\n
\nfirst, not the second, model. There you say, “[t]he counsel of the
\nChurch has been pretty consistent that Adam does not get to have ‘the last
\nword’ here but that they need to keep talking and praying together until
\nthey come to an agreement. They don’t proceed until there is unity.
\nSo I would dispute your statement that ‘at the end of the day’ it is
\nAdam’s decision.” A couple things. As an initial matter, just to be
\nclear, it is not my view that Adam gets to call all the shots (provided
\nthey are not inconsistent with God’s counsel). That simply strikes me as
\nwrongheaded. (But I suspect you already knew that.) As to the
\nsubstance of your point, I think there is little question but that attitudes
\ntowards the proper role of women have changed both inside and outside
\nthe church over the last 150+ years. I agree that the current counsel of
\nthe Church about Adam not having the “last word” has been consistent,
\nbut I don’t know that I would go so far as to say that this counsel has
\nbeen consistent throughout church history. (I’ve been reading Wilford
\nWoodruff’s journals lately, and it’s often not pretty.) If we had to
\nrely on what the brethren taught about the role of women at the time the
\nhearkening covenant was first written, I suspect your (and my)
\ninterpretation of this covenant would not fare so well as it does when compared
\nto current counsel. True, Brigham stated that a wife is not to follow
\nher husband to hell, but that only guts us so far \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac? what about
\nmatters on which there is no right or wrong answer? I suspect on that point
\nBrigham might come out differently than you or I would. Does that
\nmatter? <\/em><\/p>\n