Ordain Women Group Publishes "six Discussions" To Proselytize For Its Agenda

[Scott Lloyd]

Ahem!  Well ... Just trying to lighten the mood a bit.

Yeah, I know.

 

My response was in a spirit of levity as well.

[Calm]

Give me a break, Juliann. You know full well I wasn't comparing LDS women to Tawana Brawley and calling them criminals and liars, yet you still make this kind of asinine accusation. When you talk about engaging in a meaningful way, you need to take a look in the mirror at your own slash and burn methodology as has been demonstrated on this thread.

 

Your post here is more over the top than anything that has been posted here and isn't worth responding to further.

Are you comparing Juliann and me (and perhaps a few others) to Al Sharpton defending Tawana?  Because that is how it appeared.

[Scott Lloyd]

Seeking Understanding and Ben were not females last I checked.

Is Seeking Understanding male? I've been careful not to make that assumption, though I admit my mental vision of him/her is male.

[USU78]

I am advocating for the scriptural status quo, which seems to be women's ordination. I haven't aligned myself with OW specifically, although I do support women's ordination. 

 

And yet the best you can come up with is ambiguities in the Greek to support the assertion of Former-Day-Saint ordination of women.  And this in the face of an utter lack of assertions of female priesthood ordinations in historical documents, with serious calls for ordinations coming only in the last century.  It is not particularly honest that this assertion gets made, though it is consistent with other redefinitions you have asserted in recent months and weeks.

 

We don't get to impose our political sensibilities upon peoples and institutions in different times and places.  That is presentism.

[Calm]

 

AND THEY SHOULD NOT BE!!!!!!

 

{whew!}

 

This, jw, is the best point made in this very full and very lengthy thread:  There is only one person I can think of that would be pleased with this linedrawing.

 

Cui bono analysis almost invariably tells us why something becomes a line-generating issue, in my experience.

Who gets to tell Ben's wife?

[juliann]

Hmm. Whether the role of women in the Church and Kingdom of God is to be approached from a sacred vs. a profane mindset, may very well be at the heart of this whole controversy.

 

Clarification: I am using the word profane here in the sense of this dictionary definition:

That gets a little too uncomfortably close to this  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MadonnaWhoreComplex

 

Women should always be seen as complete human beings and not types. We are not "sacred" nor are we "profane". We are just doing the best we can like all other humans.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

Is Seeking Understanding male? I've been careful not to make that assumption, though I admit my mental vision of him/her is male.

Yes.

[Scott Lloyd]

No, I'm afraid I am not getting the message. Are you claiming that Kate Kelly and her compatriots are "the Lord's anointed?" Have they made this claim for themselves? Or are you coming up with it on your own?

 

Yeah, that struck me as bizarre as well.

[Scott Lloyd]

That gets a little too uncomfortably close to this  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MadonnaWhoreComplex

 

Women should always be seen as complete human beings and not types. We are not "sacred" nor are we "profane". We are just doing the best we can like all other humans.

I was talking about the role of women in the Church and Kingdom of God.

 

And if it mitigates your discomfort, I will say that I see the role of men the Church and Kingdom as being sacred as well.

 

Saying that women (and men) have sacred roles in the divine scheme is not to deny that they are "complete human beings" or to view them as "types." That is a non sequitur.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[bluebell]

I can see whether there may be a mixture of both.

 

But I'm not understanding what other choices there are. Something is either sacred or it isn't (the definition of profane, as I am applying it here, being not sacred).

 

I'll try to explain where i was coming from.

 

From my understanding, the word profane has two basic definitions-one is disrespectful/irreverent (especially towards something religious) and the other is secular.

 

I don't think that women's issues within the church are secular, but neither do think they are disrespectful or irreverent so in my understanding the word 'profane' doesn't work as a description for them.

 

Moving on to the word sacred-

 

Smac said that he felt the topic was too sacred for this forum, but the general definition of sacred is something that is religious, or dedicated to religion and God.  That led me to assume (since he's fine with all the other discussions we have on here, which are religious) that he wasn't using the general definition of the word.  He was instead using a very specific definition that went beyond something just being religious in nature to something that was holy and therefore unfit for discussion in unholy places.

 

So (and i'm trying to keep this short, i promise), I could not agree with Smac's use of the term 'sacred' in this context (and it was my response to Smac's use of the word that you called into question), nor could i agree with your use of the word profane. 

 

Therefore, I posted that women's roles in the church did not have to be one or the other.

[Calm]

As I, with considerable discomfort, watch the escalating ill will developing on this thread between parties who typically are in agreement on most things here, I see with stark clarity how divisive methods such as those being employed by the OW movement can be.

Only if they are taken up….

 

Scott, I have been involved in plenty of discussions that have disagreed on the level of just how wrong OW tactics and intents are and they have not involved divisiveness.

 

If there is divisiveness in this thread, it is solely the responsibility of those people who are here.

 

I have not been led by anything OW has done or said to be more lenient in my position towards women getting the Priesthood or anything else.  OW to me has not demonstrated any convincing arguments or otherwise.  The reason I am in here defending against the level the criticism has been taken to is because I am attempting to follow the instruction of our church leadership and especially Sister Todd who so well expressed both her disagreement with OW's purpose while accepting them as the daughters of God that they are.

 

I admit to allowing myself to be less than civil in one case (why me…I don't know why he just pushes my buttons and I should really just put him on ignore, there is a lot of stuff he says I agree with but when we disagree, it tends to be major disagreement), though I haven't said anything I wouldn't say to my own brothers and sisters today if I thought they were being inappropriately overcritical of someone.  I would not be surprised if jwhitlock thinks I have been uncivil to him, but considering how he thinks that what he has written at times has not been demeaning, it would seem we are both seeing each other in ways different than we see ourselves.

Edited June 3, 2014 by calmoriah

[SeekingUnderstanding]

And yet the best you can come up with is ambiguities in the Greek to support the assertion of Former-Day-Saint ordination of women.  And this in the face of an utter lack of assertions of female priesthood ordinations in historical documents, with serious calls for ordinations coming only in the last century.  It is not particularly honest that this assertion gets made, though it is consistent with other redefinitions you have asserted in recent months and weeks.

 

We don't get to impose our political sensibilities upon peoples and institutions in different times and places.  That is presentism.

We have a woman who is refered to as a deacon / servant / minister. We have Junia who was prominent among the apostles (or well know to the apostles depending on your reading). We have Anna present around the birth of Jesus who is called a prophet. We have several more female prophets in the old testament including one who was a judge in Isreal (Deborah). We have evidence in the form of retrenchment in the early church taking away authority from women (deutero-Pauline epistles in which introduce many of the sexist doctrines in the early Christian church). In summary what we have in the bible is a mess. What did it mean that Anna was a prophet? Imposing our modern "political sensibilities" to institutions in different times and places we say, well she wasn't really that kind of prophet, but the truth is the text makes no distinction.

Appealing to the authority of the Biblical text to show no female ordination is problematic because the text is not clear on the subject.

[Calm]

Still intent on misrepresenting me, juliann? That's too bad. Seems like you're all too willing to throw anyone under the bus when you think they get on your wrong side, even when you have to manufacture accusations against them that are clearly false.

 

This is the kind of stuff Margaret Toscano - associated with OW - spouts off. Congratulations.

Are you now comparing Juliann to an apostate?  Not being sarcastic in my question, just want to be clear on how you perceive what you are writing.

[Kenngo1969]

Yeah, I know.

 

My response was in a spirit of levity as well.

Fair enough.  Subtle nuances like that tend to get lost in a medium such as this.  (Which is part of the reason why I think we'd get along famously if we were afforded the opportunity to converse face-to-face ...)

[juliann]

Seeking Understanding and Ben were not females last I checked.

I'm only familiar with SU from the board but I have had a long association with Ben. He is a consistent defender of the church and one of the most brilliant minds in Mormonism. He always has unique perspectives....I still remember his talk at FAIR in which he found David and Goliath themes in the BOM.  He is being made an offender for a word for refusing to fall in line with an ideology that has lost the ability to explain itself without resorting to finger pointing and shaming.

[Calm]

Much has to do with not knowing certain facts. Many may see the the movement superficially....only seeing the surface and listening to certain catch words such as equality etc. However, what is important is to keep the conversation going even if one side may use connotative words such as demeaning, condemning etc.

Both sides are using "connotative" words.

[juliann]

Are you now comparing Juliann to an apostate?  Not being sarcastic in my question, just want to be clear on how you perceive what you are writing.

Well, I'd rather be Margaret than Al...assuming I have any say.

[USU78]

Appealing to the authority of the Biblical text to show no female ordination is problematic because the text is not clear on the subject.

 

Alas, this is and shall remain the case, prolly at least for our mortal lifetimes.

 

Maybe we find out then what maleness and femaleness mean beyond our poor attempts to get our hands around it here.

[USU78]

Well, I'd rather be Margaret than Al...assuming I have any say.

 

Who wouldn't?

[Calm]

We can probably legitimately blame a lot of things on OW, but we certainly can't blame any contention that is developing in this thread on them.  It's very possible to disagree about issues and not become divisive.  If we can't manage to do that, then shame on us, not shame on OW.

 

Any negative feelings that come out of this thread belong completely and entirely to the posters involved and no one else.  

You got there first…I am still several pages behind.

Edited June 3, 2014 by calmoriah

[frank_jessop]

spencer, is there any reason to NOT CONSIDER an endowed member as the Lords annoited? Aren't we annoited with our endowment?

You are welcome to continue your smear campaign, i think you should just have the hutzpah to own up to it.

[Calm]

The problem with OW is the example that they set for other groups within the church that can start with their own demands for the GAs to pray over issues that concern them. 

If anyone here was supporting OW's methods in that way, using that as justification for what you are saying would be useful.  But the closest one has come to doing this that I can see is Ben (maybe Gray in another thread but I don't remember if he's done so here and he has been focusing on what Wade has been saying for the past day) and I am not sure if what he means by "ends justifying the means" means the same thing as what I mean…if it is, I vigorously disagree with him…I don't believe just because God and others or even the person who committed the wrong can take the results of those wrongs, mistakes and sins and still come up with beautiful and godly blessings that justifies the wrongs that occurred at the start of the process.

[Scott Lloyd]

I'll try to explain where i was coming from.

 

From my understanding, the word profane has two basic definitions-one is disrespectful/irreverent (especially towards something religious) and the other is secular.

 

I don't think that women's issues within the church are secular, but neither do think they are disrespectful or irreverent so in my understanding the word 'profane' doesn't work as a description for them.

 

Moving on to the word sacred-

 

Smac said that he felt the topic was too sacred for this forum, but the general definition of sacred is something that is religious, or dedicated to religion and God.  That led me to assume (since he's fine with all the other discussions we have on here, which are religious) that he wasn't using the general definition of the word.  He was instead using a very specific definition that went beyond something just being religious in nature to something that was holy and therefore unfit for discussion in unholy places.

 

So (and i'm trying to keep this short, i promise), I could not agree with Smac's use of the term 'sacred' in this context (and it was my response to Smac's use of the word that you called into question), nor could i agree with your use of the word profane. 

 

Therefore, I posted that women's roles in the church did not have to be one or the other.

And that's why I was careful to specify the dictionary definition I was meaning in my application of the word profane. I made the clarification in an edit, so perhaps you missed it, but I did so immediately after I posted the message initially.

 

To reiterate, I meant profane in the sense of not sacred, not in the sense of disrespectful or irreverent.

 

That is why I say that, in the sense I used the word, something is either sacred or profane (or perhaps a mixture of both). There cannot be any other choice.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[juliann]

We have a woman who is refered to as a deacon / servant / minister. We have Junia who was prominent among the apostles (or well know to the apostles depending on your reading). We have Anna present around the birth of Jesus who is called a prophet. We have several more female prophets in the old testament including one who was a judge in Isreal (Deborah). We have evidence in the form of retrenchment in the early church taking away authority from women (deutero-Pauline epistles in which introduce many of the sexist doctrines in the early Christian church). In summary what we have in the bible is a mess. What did it mean that Anna was a prophet? Imposing our modern "political sensibilities" to institutions in different times and places we say, well she wasn't really that kind of prophet, but the truth is the text makes no distinction.

Appealing to the authority of the Biblical text to show no female ordination is problematic because the text is not clear on the subject.

There is more to the Bible than the Bible.  Much of what we think of being "in the Bible" is outdated information from Protestant scholars. Few read the caution in the church edition of the standard scriptures when using the informational sections. Digging in and clinging to borrowed and old scholarship bolstered by reading tradition back into the scriptures does not align with Pres. Uchtdorf's beautiful and comforting description of continuing Restoration. When I see this done by critics of the BOM, I refer to it as "the discovering has been done" school of thought....back away, folks...nothing new to be discovered in MesoAmerica where the discoveries have barely begun.

[Scott Lloyd]

You got there first…I am still several pages behind.

Then I hope you will soon read my response. (And, of course, the follow-up exchange between bluebell and me.)