Ny Times Article: Kate Kelly And John Dehlin Threatened With Excommunication

[The Nehor]

Women were also told that they could not pray with sisters while visiting teaching, we were to pray with our partner before we entered the home. People find this hard to believe...or don't remember it...but I have seen enough confirmations to know it wasn't just my area.  I would consider that the peak of the loss of respect for women. I still can't figure out what the heck they thought was going to happen if women prayed together.

To be fair without the Priesthood there you could have all been possessed and formed a coven of witches. Those are a pain to root out.

[Zakuska]

To be fair without the Priesthood there you could have all been possessed and formed a coven of witches. Those are a pain to root out.

We had one of those on my mission.  The RS in farming community were giving priesthood blessings to sheep with olive oil. True story.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Zakuska

[SeekingUnderstanding]

Hmm.

 

It wouldn't have been Joseph Fielding Smith. He was Church president in the early 1970s, when I was in high school, and up to then, for quite a while at least, such a thing was pretty much unheard of.

Read the Stapley / Wright article. In 1946 after decades of reform, quesitons about female healing and annointing kept coming up. The RS general board put the question to Joseph Fielding Smith who was viewed as the Church's authority on doctrine and policy.

 

He responded as follows:

 

While the authorities of the Church have ruled that it is permissible,

under certain conditions and with the approval of the priesthood,

for sisters to wash and anoint other sisters, yet they feel that it is far

better for us to follow the plan the Lord has given us and send for the

elders of the Church to come and administer to the sick and afflicted.

The service of washing and anointing is not a Relief Society function,

 

and therefore, is not under the direction of the Relief Society.

Women should not be set apart to perform this ordinance, but the presiding

priesthood authorities may determine if such an ordinance is to

be performed and designate the sisters to perform it. The washing and

anointing by our sisters in the past was greatly abused and improperly

done, and for this reason, as well as for the reason that the Lord has

given by revelation the order for the administration of those who are

sick or in need of a blessing, the washing and anointing by the sisters

has not been encouraged.247

 

Stapley further notes: "This letter became the definitive statement on female ritual administration for the next several decades. In the years after its reception, General President Belle Spafford read it to the Relief Society Board when discussing the topic and it was included in instructional letters to local leaders" and finally:

As the Relief Society Board had done in the years before receiving

the 1946 Joseph Fielding Smith letter, its publication in the Relief

Society’s handbook unequivocally situated female ritual administration

firmly under the direction of local priesthood leaders throughout

the entire Church. At the same time, local priesthood leaders re-

ceived training only on the codified formal liturgy of the Church.

Only those local leaders who had been recipients of folk instruction

and therefore had a personal history with female ritual administration

could direct such activities. And with time such leaders became

increasingly rare.

Edited June 18, 2014 by SeekingUnderstanding

[Calm]

Hmm.

It wouldn't have been Joseph Fielding Smith. He was Church president in the early 1970s, when I was in high school, and up to then, for quite a while at least, such a thing was pretty much unheard of.

It was 1946, see wheat and tares blog which leads here:

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/029-16-25.pdf

Blast it, got interrupted by daughter and seeking understanding beat me to it....urg....

Edited June 18, 2014 by calmoriah

[juliann]

To be fair without the Priesthood there you could have all been possessed and formed a coven of witches. Those are a pain to root out.

 

 Obviously, witches would have to have a priesthood holder to oversee any coven, so that couldn't possibly have been a concern!

[Zakuska]

 

Read the Stapley / Wright article. In 1946 after decades of reform, quesitons about female healing and annointing kept coming up. The RS general board put the question to Joseph Fielding Smith who was viewed as the Church's authority on doctrine and policy.

 

He responded as follows:

 

 

Stapley further notes: "This letter became the definitive statement on female ritual administration for the next several decades. In the years after its reception, General President Belle Spafford read it to the Relief Society Board when discussing the topic and it was included in instructional letters to local leaders" and finally:

 

Ok so its not a function of Releif Society. But it is an "ordinance" and ordinances MUST be performed by one having the proper authority. So we are back at the question of why are women performing ordinances without having auithority. And if such is the case then all sisters who have been anointed by other sisters.  Their anointings are null and void not being performed by proper authority.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Zakuska

[The Nehor]

Obviously, witches would have to have a priesthood holder to oversee any coven, so that couldn't possibly have been a concern!

No, you are thinking of homemaking meeting which is not witchcraft. At least not always. Just usually. That is why they changed it to Personal Enrichment. Lowered witchiness by 15%.

You only need the Priesthood leader present to officiate the witch-burning ordinance. Used to be something the Seventies took care of but we moved it to the Priests so they could combine it with the scout "burning things for no good reason" merit badge.

[Zakuska]

No, you are thinking of homemaking meeting which is not witchcraft. At least not always. Just usually. That is why they changed it to Personal Enrichment. Lowered witchiness by 15%.

You only need the Priesthood leader present to officiate the witch-burning ordinance. Used to be something the Seventies took care of but we moved it to the Priests so they could combine it with the scout "burning things for no good reason" merit badge.

No wonders Saul went to the Witch of Endor to get an answer.

[Scott Lloyd]

 

Read the Stapley / Wright article. In 1946 after decades of reform, quesitons about female healing and annointing kept coming up. The RS general board put the question to Joseph Fielding Smith who was viewed as the Church's authority on doctrine and policy.

 

He responded as follows:

 

 

Stapley further notes: "This letter became the definitive statement on female ritual administration for the next several decades. In the years after its reception, General President Belle Spafford read it to the Relief Society Board when discussing the topic and it was included in instructional letters to local leaders" and finally:

 

The 1946 date makes sense to me, as it was nearly a decade before I was born.

 

When Joseph Fielding Smith's name came up, I assumed it was while he was Church president. One might expect this sort of pronouncement to come from the guy in the top position, though I do recognize he was regarded as a scriptural and doctrinal authority in his day, long before he ascended to the presidency of the Church.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[Damien the Leper]

I think Dehlin had this coming and the inevitable has caught up to him. If he's ex'd then he's ex'd. He knew what he was doing all along. No amount of crying "injustice" or any other offense can fix this.

 

I don't know anything about Kelly except I do kinda like the glasses she wears. They remind me of a friend of mine.

[busybee]

No I was saying that we were taught that it was a mandiatory  thing for 2 or more.  It seems that the church has come out in the recent manuals and soften and corrected that stance. 

I must have been in a different church then. My husband often gave our children blessings on his own. Yes, right through the 80's.

[Tacenda]

Why did he just not give the blessing himself? I know it is preferred to have more but it is not mandatory. I have given four blessings in he last month and was the only administrator in three of them.

Wow, I will ask and we'll revisit the past.  Maybe he was told there needed to be two or more? 

[Scott Lloyd]

I must have been in a different church then. My husband often gave our children blessings on his own. Yes, right through the 80's.

I think there has been a widespread mistaken assumption on this that persists even today because very few people think to check authoritative sources.

 

I clearly recall being a child at home, very sick with the flu, and receiving a blessing from my dad in which he did both the anointing and the sealing on his own because there was not another Melchizedek Priesthood holder in the house and it would have taken too long to call one in.

 

This would have been in the 1960s or, at the latest, the very early 1970s.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[Kenngo1969]

 Obviously, witches would have to have a priesthood holder to oversee any coven, so that couldn't possibly have been a concern!

I think being a Warlock would be waaaay kewel!

[mfbukowski]

Women do not officiate; just as men do not officiate for the men in this temple ordinance.  Both genders of temple workers serve. In the temple the only individual that we refer to as officiating is the Brother that stands behind the alter.

 

You may want to spend some time at the temple asking questions of a member of the temple presidency so that he may clarify what is actually happening and who officiates and who does not.

I think it's a question of titles/terminology really.  Both men and women "do/give" the ordinances - but usually only the brother behind the altar in the endowment is called the "officiator".

[Damien the Leper]

Yes, it's the latter.

Mister Dehlin's self-appointed mission in life is to sucker the weak, drag on the hands that hang down, and weaken the feeble knees.

Regards,

Pahoran

 

Where the heck have you been?!? I've missed ya...even though we hardly agree on anything. But still!

[mfbukowski]

i'll ignore all the personal attacks and insinuations as to my motives im getting right now and ill quote.

"We must have priesthood authority to act in the name of God when performing the sacred ordinances of the gospel."

- Content removed -

So i ask again these sisters standing in these boths "officating" in the place of God for these other sisters either have the Priesthood or they dont. Its as simple as that.

1) if they dont, then the gospel principles manual needs a revision and some exception handling put inplace.

2) but if they do, then all the flak im getting right now for simply daring to ask a question and try and make other posters be consistant in their argumentation is uncalled for.

 

No Temple talk. If you'd like, you can read the rules again.

~ Mods

Sisters have delegated priesthood authority to perform ordinances.  Men have delegated priesthood authority to perform ordinances.  Our temple president has spoken on this exact issue.  He is the one with the keys- the President- and he sets apart both brothers and sisters to perform the ordinances.

[mfbukowski]

Oaks' Talk, among other things, have made this pretty clear that there are multiple working uses for the priesthood in which we still do not carry adequate distinction in terms for. The dichotomy you give is a false one.

 

Women do not hold priesthood office. 

Women do have priesthood power

Women do have priesthood authority

 

In the temple women exercise the priesthood's power and authority in the call that they have been given based on priesthood keys held by another. We are not doing anything without the priesthood. But this does not mean we suddenly hold priesthood office. As for officiating. I had someone say that about me once as a room follow. But I think a more accurate description would be we take an active role in officiating. I say that because, in my mind, the endowment ordinance is incomplete with just men or just women.....that's including down to washing and annointings. To say we officiated in washings is a little too reductionist. The male and female parts are 2 parts to one whole. The office keys that all of us in the temple are directed by are through the Temple presidency. We are given authority to the parts we serve in performing the ordinance (which has 5 parts). The men are given authority to the part that they are called to officiate in for theirs. It is the only ordinance where there is a shared officiation, IMO. But a temple president would probably be a more solid source of info on this. This is based on my observations and understandings from my own work and active study of the temple (it's my favorite topic). Nothing more. 

 

I haven't studied it enough to understand possibilities to why women to not administer in baptisms/confirmations under the authority of someone holding keys. I would agree with Juliann that it could be a simple thing as, that's just the way it is.....but an uncertain part of me says that's too simple and I feel there's a underlying reason probably connected more directly to what having specific priesthood office as more linked with their expected duties in said offices. But again, that's more of a hunch than anything I've really worked to seek any answer about.

 

 

With luv,

BD

Listen carefully when rooms are changed and you will hear "officiators". Plural. Perhaps this is not clear where rooms are not changed.

Edited June 19, 2014 by mfbukowski

[juliann]

Apparently, Ms. Kelly has published her bishop's name and contact info on FB.    I'd like to say something like...beneath contempt....

 

I thought this blog had a unique viewpoint, although it can be taken as anti-intellectual I think that is missing the point  http://www.newcoolthang.com/index.php/2014/06/ordain-women-whose-movement-is-it-2/3595/

 

The notion of false consciousness, then, entails that these social movements which originate and rally around intellectualism are aimed not so much at freeing various groups of people from bondage to oppressors of a different race, class, sex, etc., as much as they are aimed at empowering intellectual in the place of those oppressing classes.  This is not to say that the leadership of these intellectual elites is never better, in some sense, than that of the delegitimized oppressors.  Rather, this only implies that the alienation which comes from a false consciousness has merely been transformed rather than overthrown, substituted rather than abolished.  The exact same holds true for the Ordain Women movement, for beneath the Mormon lingo with which the movement is garnished, the values and interests at its intellectual core are just as conducive toward an alienating false consciousness as an all-male leadership is.  More concretely, just as the Ordain Women movement construes the general church membership as being under a false consciousness produced by an all-male leadership, so too we can construe the general membership of the Ordain Women movement as being under a false consciousness produced by an intellectual leadership.

It can certainly be said of LDS females what Marx said of the proletariat: that even if intellectuals are in some sense the head of the movement, they – the general membership – are it’s true heart.  Even so, if LDS women are indeed the heart which an intellectual head inspires and influences, the hierarchical difference between the head and the heart should not go unnoticed.  Social critique is based in the idea that it is the leadership, the intellectual head of the movement that defines what is and is not fair, good or just, and it is the general membership, the movement’s heart which puts these ideas into practice by undermining and subverting any person, policy, institution or any other authority which the intellectuals re-construe as a constrictive shackle rather than a supportive structure.   Strangely enough, both of these metaphors are equally appropriate but from different perspectives.  On the one hand, the priesthood leadership has served as a supportive structure for LDS members, while on the other hand, this same priesthood has been a constructive shackle which chaffs at the intellectuals.  In this zero-sum battle of metaphors, one serves to legitimize priesthood leadership at the expense of the intellectuals while the other does the exact opposite.

Let me rephrase the point I am making here by drawing yet another parallel between what the Ordain Women movement claims about LDS members and what I am claiming about the members of that movement.  Ordain Women acknowledges that the majority of LDS women honestly and sincerely believe that their not having the priesthood is in their own and indeed everybody’s interest.  After acknowledging this, the movement then goes on to say that despite the honesty and sincerity of these women, they are wrong – not having access to the priesthood only furthers the interests of the all-male church leaders whose position and influence in the church are threatened by a female priesthood.  The claim I am making about activists within the Ordain Woman movement is exactly the same.  They honestly and sincerely believe that the success of their movement is somehow in their own and indeed everybody’s interest.  After acknowledging this, a consistent social critic must then go on to say that despite the honesty and sincerity of these activists, they are wrong – their movement only furthers the interests of non-LDS intellectuals whose position and influence in the world are threatened by any and all such traditional social differentiations.

 

Edited June 19, 2014 by juliann

[Stone holm]

Apparently, Ms. Kelly has published her bishop's name and contact info on FB.    I'd like to say something like...beneath contempt....

 

I thought this blog had a unique viewpoint, although it can be taken as anti-intellectual I think that is missing the point  http://www.newcoolthang.com/index.php/2014/06/ordain-women-whose-movement-is-it-2/3595/

Nice anti intellectual rant cited there. Am wondering at what point American women wanting to vote became a majority, rather than a few intellectuals campaigning and demonstrating for it. Those nasty intellectuals were trying to force the vote on a majority that didn't want it...at first.

[smac97]

Apparently, Ms. Kelly has published her bishop's name and contact info on FB.    I'd like to say something like...beneath contempt....

Words fail me. Has Kate Kelly become an agent provocateur? I would hope that recent developments (including John Dehlin's stake president calling for a "de-escalation") would trigger some conciliatory efforts. Instead, we have her publicly accusing her bishop of being "cowardly and unchristlike," we have her writing inflammatory articles and giving inflammatory interviews, we have her organizing letter-writing campaigns on her behalf (while simultaneously claiming that she is not trying to create a following), we have have her telling the Salt Lake Tribune how much she admires Margaret Toscano and other excommunicated apostates, and now she is publishing her bishops name and contact information on Facebook?

What is going on with this person?

Thanks,

-Smac

[Stone holm]

Words fail me. Has Kate Kelly become an agent provocateur? I would hope that recent developments (including John Dehlin's stake president calling for a "de-escalation") would trigger some conciliatory efforts. Instead, we have her publicly accusing her bishop of being "cowardly and unchristlike," we have her writing inflammatory articles and giving inflammatory interviews, we have her organizing letter-writing campaigns on her behalf (while simultaneously claiming that she is not trying to create a following), we have have her telling the Salt Lake Tribune how much she admires Margaret Toscano and other excommunicated apostates, and now she is publishing her bishops name and contact information on Facebook?What is going on with this person?Thanks,-Smac

Well you know some people just don't "feel the love" when threatened with excommunication for apostasy, never understood that.

[Hamba Tuhan]

I thought this blog had a unique viewpoint ...

 

Thanks for sharing. I was actually just thinking this morning whilst shaving how much movements such as OW need to justify themselves by reference to false consciousness.

 

'But I don't feel oppressed'.

 

'Trust me, you will after we finish re-educating you. And then, coincidentally, you'll be really helpful in furthering our cause'.

 

The Book of Mormon suggests a similar process happened repeatedly with Nephite dissenters in Lamanite lands:

 

'But I don't feel oppressed by the Nephites, and I certainly don't want to go up to battle against them'.

 

'Trust me, once we've taught you to hate them, you'll change your mind. Now for the first discussion: "How Nephi Wronged Your Fathers in the Wilderness"'.

[MorningStar]

Words fail me. Has Kate Kelly become an agent provocateur? I would hope that recent developments (including John Dehlin's stake president calling for a "de-escalation") would trigger some conciliatory efforts. Instead, we have her publicly accusing her bishop of being "cowardly and unchristlike," we have her writing inflammatory articles and giving inflammatory interviews, we have her organizing letter-writing campaigns on her behalf (while simultaneously claiming that she is not trying to create a following), we have have her telling the Salt Lake Tribune how much she admires Margaret Toscano and other excommunicated apostates, and now she is publishing her bishops name and contact information on Facebook?

What is going on with this person?

Thanks,

-Smac

I think she's just showing her true colors. 

[Zakuska]

Sisters have delegated priesthood authority to perform ordinances. Men have delegated priesthood authority to perform ordinances. Our temple president has spoken on this exact issue. He is the one with the keys- the President- and he sets apart both brothers and sisters to perform the ordinances.

Few doctrines in the restored church are as core and fundamental to its existance as the restoration of the priesthood. That one doctrine alone sets us apart from all other churches on the planet and gives the church a reason to exist. Without it, we become just another run-of-the-mill church like any other church out there. But with it, we become the only church on the face of the planet with authorization from God to perform those saving ordinances in which God will recognize them.

There is a difference between a "non-priesthood holding" Sister being allowed to perform an anointing in the temple by a key holding temple president and a priesthood holding man being allowed to do the same thing.

Priesthood holding men have all been given the exact same authority. I have the exact same authority as President Monson has and i can perform any preisthood office in all the church even that of "prophet" with the caviat that i must seek out he who holds those keys and get his ok to do such as well as being called to do it of course.

The modern church is adiment that Sisters do not hold the priesthood,have never held it, and never will. And despite being "allowed" to perform anointings in the temple, this goes against the core fundamental and basic of basic teachings that you must hold the priesthood to perform ordinances that God will recognize period AND you must be authorized by the key master to do it.

The church is finding itself in this quandry:

1) If the church is correct and women dont hold the priesthood. Then all the ordinances that women have officiated over while performing anointings sans-priesthood on other women for the past 150 years only being given a nod by the temple presidents to do such are no better than the ordinances performed by a Catholic Priest or Baptist Street preacher. A temple president could just as easily give them a nod and allow them to officiate over A baptism for the dead but its not going to be recognized until they themselves are baptized and ordained at least a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Zakuska