Church Pr: Open Letter On Women Issues

[Scott Lloyd]

If you are offended, I apologize. Your attitude hurt me. What am I to do with that?

Consider that nothing I have said here had any application to you personally, that there was no ill intent in any case, and that you therefore have no cause to feel injured.

[EllenMaksoud]

Doing this does not require the acceptance of immoral public policy.

 

In judging my attitude as "unkind," you have just passed unrighteous judgment yourself.

And while we see homosexual and other activity as immoral, I do too, I believe we are on the verge of at least understanding the drives, if not finding a cure for these issues. We just need to put as much effort into that as we put into making spent nuclear rounds, and Predator drones. So, I will not devote one second of my time condemning others.

[EllenMaksoud]

Consider that nothing I have said here had any application to you personally, that there was no ill intent in any case, and that you therefore have no cause to feel injured.

Some of my family openly tell me that I am homosexual though there has never been any of that activity in my life. Some of us are neither male nor female.

[CV75]

There is something grand about this no doubt, but every woman has that. Any woman can bear a child, unless otherwise constituted, and every woman can raise a child, unless exceptionally incapable.

Standing as a witness is not power and authority. Anyone can witness and stand, for that matter.

Not sure what you mean by this.

Not sure what you mean by this either.

really not sure what you mean by this.

I think we have different ideas of what is meant by authority officially given of God. This is granted to every woman.

 

hm.

The broadness or the narrowness of the expression of the power and authority of God has nothing to do with its grandness. As you can see, the power and authority of God granted to men and women overlap in many ways, both in and out of the Church.

 

Moral authority is more thoroughly explained in the article I linked. I think inasmuch as personal power is aligned with the light of Christ, people have moral authority. When focused on revealed religion, and in keeping the covenants, even more so.

 

Temple covenants and sealings give women the power and authority of God. Up until being sealed, the covenants give them personal power (faith in it, influence for the office holders) in the priesthood. Once sealed, the couple has power in the priesthood together, irrespective of the priesthood office one of them holds, and more than either can possess alone. Service of course is found in work for the dead and some women are also ordinance workers.

 

A couple functions as a priesthood council when the sealed spouses counsel together over their decisions, marriage, family, callings, etc.

 

There are many manifestations of priesthood power and authority. I’ll refer to Elder Oaks’ talk on that. Only one of them pertains to conferral of the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods and subsequent ordination to priesthood office. Some levels of power and authority of God come with simply being a child of God, additional power comes through the ordinances of the Gospel  and then the temple, some comes with conferral of keys, and so forth. Not everyone has everything but everybody has something.

[juliann]

The broadness or the narrowness of the expression of the power and authority of God has nothing to do with its grandness. As you can see, the power and authority of God granted to men and women overlap in many ways, both in and out of the Church.

 

Moral authority is more thoroughly explained in the article I linked. I think inasmuch as personal power is aligned with the light of Christ, people have moral authority. When focused on revealed religion, and in keeping the covenants, even more so.

 

 

In other words, none of these things (other than being physically able to produce children) is unique to one sex over another.  Not that I don't believe men and women are "wired" differently in some respects...but that isn't "moral authority."  That phrase is so unhelpful the obvious must be admitted....

 

"In these exhortations to women, let no one willfully misunderstand. By praising and encouraging the moral force in women, I am not saying that men and boys are somehow excused from their own duty to stand for truth and righteousness, that their responsibility to serve, sacrifice, and minister is somehow less than that of women or can be left to women. Brethren, let us stand with women, share their burdens, and cultivate our own companion moral authority."

 

In other words, these are behaviors and behaviors are, to a large extent, learned.  Anyone can compare children raised in a home where desirable traits are taught, modeled and learned...and those who did not have that advantage.  It is acknowledged that "moral authority" must be "cultivated" when it comes to men. For some reason, women are being told it just comes natural and coming natural is supposed to mean it's more praiseworthy...or something. We pretty much all know it really doesn't come natural without the prerequisite "cultivating."  So to a lot of women who do not take to these attributes anymore naturally than a man, it sounds like dismissive head patting.

 

The examples given of this moral authority are merely women from all walks of life going about their business for the most part. A set of behaviors that even men should be striving for are set up as feminine while the masculine values are apparently stuff like violence and women shouldn't be polluting themselves with that. Although the speaker certainly gets that the empty rhetoric has been way overdone....he still traffics in it.

 

Former Young Women general president Margaret D. Nadauld taught: “The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity.”¹⁰ In blurring feminine and masculine differences, we lose the distinct, complementary gifts of women and men that together produce a greater whole.

 

A woman in this world who isn't "tough" is likely going to be a victim.  You can be coarse and kind. Fame and fortune aren't the opposite of faith. We are teaching vanity through the ridiculous modesty obsession.  One can be popular and pure. And the last line is contradicted by Elder Christofferson's admission that the defining behavior of feminine women....moral authority...is shared by those masculine men.

 

There are some good moments in this talk and I think that is how we will see the conversation advance, one step forward, two back. But at present, the messages given to women are muddled and self-contradictory at best.

[Calm]

 

May you not be judged for your unkind attitude.

there are those who would say anticipating a cure, suggesting this is a good thing labels their state (homosexual, transgendered, deafness, blindness, whatever biological variation one wants to choose) as something wrong and less worthy than others and is thus an unkind attitude.

A lot of "attitude" has to do with the attitude of the reader/listener.

[EllenMaksoud]

there are those who would say anticipating a cure, suggesting this is a good thing labels their state (homosexual, transgendered, deafness, blindness, whatever biological variation one wants to choose) as something wrong and less worthy than others and is thus an unkind attitude.

A lot of "attitude" has to do with the attitude of the reader/listener.

I don't know the best approach.  I just know that in the end that God, Allah SWT, Heavenly Father will work it all out in the end. Life is really tough right now. I'm surrounded

[Calm]

It took over 40 years (maybe 50, can't remember the exact dates) for sealing in families to actually become sealing in actual families ( revelation received by WW).

One can look at that as a correction of an error (after all people who were sealing in families to people not their parents were later sealed to their parents) or that adoption sealing was acceptable to the Lord in and of itself but that God wanted eventually actual families to be sealed and he was just waiting for the Church to come to a place where they felt the need to progress further in their understanding and practices as manifested by Pres. Woodruff speaking as our voice at that time.

I think the lack of immediate or relatively immediate correction leads to the conclusion that it was not wrong for the Church to be practicing the Law of Adoption sealings and it was right to replace them with the family sealings we have now. If Priesthood or some additional form of God's Power and Authority (or perhaps God the Mother's Authority) is eventually given to women beyond what we have today, I don't think that makes the current restriction wrong just the later change will be another in the line upon line development. We need to be careful through not to assume all possible change to be part of the process. This is one case where I believe one has to wait for actual revelation and implementation to occur.

Edited June 3, 2014 by calmoriah

[Mystery Meat]

It took over 40 years (maybe 50, can't remember the exact dates) for sealing in families to actually become sealing in actual families ( revelation received by WW).

One can look at that as a correction of an error (after all people who were sealing in families to people not their parents were later sealed to their parents) or that adoption sealing was acceptable to the Lord in and of itself but that God wanted eventually actual families to be sealed and he was just waiting for the Church to come to a place where they felt the need to progress further in their understanding and practices as manifested by Pres. Woodruff speaking as our voice at that time.

I think the lack of immediate or relatively immediate correction leads to the conclusion that it was not wrong for the Church to be practicing the Law of Adoption sealings and it was right to replace them with the family sealings we have now. If Priesthood or some additional form of God's Power and Authority (or perhaps God the Mother's Authority) is eventually given to women beyond what we have today, I don't think that makes the current restriction wrong just the later change will be another in the line upon line development. We need to be careful through not to assume all possible change to be part of the process. This is one case where I believe one has to wait for actual revelation and implementation to occur.

 

This has been my view. Very well said.

[EllenMaksoud]

It took over 40 years (maybe 50, can't remember the exact dates) for sealing in families to actually become sealing in actual families ( revelation received by WW).

One can look at that as a correction of an error (after all people who were sealing in families to people not their parents were later sealed to their parents) or that adoption sealing was acceptable to the Lord in and of itself but that God wanted eventually actual families to be sealed and he was just waiting for the Church to come to a place where they felt the need to progress further in their understanding and practices as manifested by Pres. Woodruff speaking as our voice at that time.

I think the lack of immediate or relatively immediate correction leads to the conclusion that it was not wrong for the Church to be practicing the Law of Adoption sealings and it was right to replace them with the family sealings we have now. If Priesthood or some additional form of God's Power and Authority (or perhaps God the Mother's Authority) is eventually given to women beyond what we have today, I don't think that makes the current restriction wrong just the later change will be another in the line upon line development. We need to be careful through not to assume all possible change to be part of the process. This is one case where I believe one has to wait for actual revelation and implementation to occur.

I'd be most pleased if they would just obey their own doctrines.

[CV75]

In other words, none of these things (other than being physically able to produce children) is unique to one sex over another.

***

There are some good moments in this talk and I think that is how we will see the conversation advance, one step forward, two back. But at present, the messages given to women are muddled and self-contradictory at best.

I agree that both men and women have moral authority. I believe that men and women have far more in common in the eyes of God than not, which is why priesthood ordination is a relatively minor thing, where men and women enjoy the highest power only if they are sealed and act as one. This is exercised 99.99% of the time in the mundane, unrecognized activities of our day-to-day private lives. The power to do so has nothing to do with office but with godly behavior.

 

I think the talk comes from a perspective that men and women have complimentary and not conflicting or contradictory roles, so I take any reference to men in that spirit. Both men and women have the light of Christ and the companionship of the Holy Ghost, the foundations of moral authority. The light of Christ is innate in all of us, but we need to cultivate it; the Gift of the Holy Ghost is bestowed upon us and we need to cultivate that as well. I think the talk recognizes this by asking women to take care of these gifts:

 

- plea to women to cultivate the innate moral power within them.

- plea to women and girls today is to protect and cultivate the moral force that is within you.

- Jesus’s power came through His single-minded devotion to the will of the Father.

 

Men could be told the same thing, but I see the talk as honing in on those negative cultural forces that would impede women in developing their divinity through institutions of marriage, motherhood and homemaking; sexuality and morality; and matters of personality and conscience.

 

The masculine traits that are discouraged are those false masculine traits as defined by a corrupt culture—those of being unrighteously “aggressive, tough, and confrontational,” and an acceptance of being immoral, immodest, cruel, and so forth. I would include your observation on vanity or any abuse of fame, popularity, fortune, etc. They are discouraged in men as well (there are other talks about that). “It is soul-numbing to see men in such roles and certainly no less so when women are the ones perpetrating and suffering the violence.”

 

Naturally the two steps forward / one step back progress comes from our own takes on these messages as well as the clarity and consistency of the message.