A Review of Recent Trends Re: Ordination of Women in LDS Church

[smac97]

In the last several years there has been substantial discussion about the ordination of women to the priesthood in the LDS Church.  In 2011 Pew Research conducted polling which indicated that "most U.S. Mormons oppose the idea of female membership in the priesthood" and that "[when asked] whether women who are dedicated members of the LDS Church should be ordained to the priesthood, 87% of U.S. Mormons said no, while 11% said yes."

Since that time we've had the OW folks making waves, conducting protests, etc., with the idea of getting up support amongst the LDS rank and file for their views regarding ordination of women.  In addition, numerous bloggers and websites have also written in favor female ordination, again with the idea of drumming up support for it.

Have these efforts been successful?  Well, according to Jana Reiss, not really:

As CNN just reported, the results are in from the Mormon Gender Issues Survey, in which a team of researchers used two different questions to ask two different samples of Latter-day Saints about their views on Mormon women’s ordination.

CNN has to take an unbiased journalistic view of the results, but I am a columnist, and a Mormon feminist, so I get to state my opinion outright. And it is this:

I feel like somebody canceled Christmas.

Here's the link to the survey referenced above: http://mormongendersurvey.org/

The basic news from the survey is that there’s no news. Despite all the visibility given to the question of female LDS leadership in the last two years, there’s been virtually no improvement in the very low number of Mormons who support women’s ordination. Here are five findings from the study.

"Improvement" is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

1. The majority of active Mormons still don’t want women to have the priesthood.

Not only that, but the percentage of Mormons answering "Yes" to the question of whether women should be ordained has decreased from 11% in the 2011 poll to about 9.15% in the more recent poll (9.9% in one sample, 8.4% in another).

The difference here is probably within the margins of error for polls of this type.  But if there is a discernible trend, it is not going the way the OW folks want.

2. However, most of those opposed would change their mind if the prophet announced that women should be ordained.

The new question was worded: “If the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were to receive a revelation allowing women to hold the priesthood, I would be…”

And eureka! Whereas we were looking at single-digit numbers for the first question, the second question had more than 67% of Mormons in Group 1 saying they were either “supportive” or “strongly supportive,” a whopping 77% in Group 2.

I'm not sure I understand the point Jana Reiss is making here.  My sense is that active, observant Latter-day Saints "don't want women to have the priesthood" because the leaders they sustain have stated that this is not presently the way of things.  If in the future a revelation were to be given by God which extended priesthood ordination to women, then most of us would support that.  This is a fairly consistent position for faithful Latter-day Saints to take.  But I wonder if people like Jana Reiss can conceptualize this.  Apparently not:

This about-face is most apparent with the people who were strongly opposed to the first question—confirming the idea that the most devout will just follow church policy, whatever that happens to be.

Jana Reiss apparently cannot fathom faithful Latter-day Saints being willing to accept new revelations from ordained prophets and apostles.  Nope.  In her view, to sustain the Brethren based on the currently revealed doctrines, and then to also sustain the Brethren when a new revelation is given, is an "about-face" about a "policy".  I think she demeans her fellow Saints by characterizing them in this way.

3. Women are more likely than men to oppose women’s ordination.

4. Younger Mormons are slightly more likely to support it, but not by a significant margin.

Interesting.

5. The biggest factor predicting support or opposition was a respondent’s level of church activity.

The more active you are, the more likely you are to oppose women’s ordination in the absence of an imprimatur from the Twelve.

Note the snideness here.  For observant Latter-day Saints, "revelation" is a real, actual thing.  But apparently Jana Reiss only sees it as a pretext for "the Twelve" to issue a "policy".

And that leads to a major problem with the study: active Mormons are noticeably overrepresented here, which may be skewing all the results to a more conservative direction. “If we’re talking about 15-plus million members of the church, then we have way oversampled on the active side,” says Beal.

I'm not sure about that.  In political polling, sampling "likely voters" will get you a considerably more accurate assessment of who is going to win an election than sampling, say, the average joe on the street.  Average Joe may or may not vote.  Or he may or may not be paying much attention to political issues.  So it makes sense to sample "likely voters", and in fact it would be kinda weird to criticize such a poll as "oversampling" likely voters over Average Joes.

So it is, I think, with LDS attitudes toward female ordination.  A person who is not active in the LDS Church is likely not incorporating the Church's tenets into his/her life, including the ones pertaining to sustaining church leaders and relying on revelation.  Such a person, then, does not really reflect "LDS attitudes" on what is an explicitly doctrinal issue.

The problem is that it’s really hard to get to those 4 or 5 million members who are technically still on the rolls who aren’t really connected with the church at all anymore. Many of them live overseas, and the survey was in English; it’s really tough to reach them for a survey.

“Meanwhile, everybody in Utah that’s on the Internet wanted to answer,” Beal explains: whereas active Mormons who live in Utah represent 7 to 8% of overall church membership, they represent more than 28% of the people in this study.

Hmm.  Okay, I can see the point here.  Oversampling Utah may be a problem.  Or  maybe not.  I wonder what percentage of "active" Latter-day Saints live in Utah.  Utah has 2.94 million people, 62.2% of which are LDS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah#Religion), or about 1.82 million.  The activity rate in the U.S. for Latter-day Saints is apparently about 75% (though this seems high - see here: http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/65673-lds-activity-rates-in-the-us-75/).  Nevertheless, 75% of 1.82 million would be about 1.37 million "active" Latter-day Saints, which would probably be fairly represented as 28% of the respondents in the above study.

Thoughts?

-Smac

[Russell C McGregor]

22 minutes ago, smac97 said:

1. The majority of active Mormons still don’t want women to have the priesthood.

Not only that, but the percentage of Mormons answering "No" to the question of whether women should be ordained has increased from 11% in the 2011 poll to about 9.15% in the more recent poll (9.9% in one sample, 8.4% in another).

 

Don't you mean that the percentage answering yes has decreased?

[bluebell]

It seems that most Mormons are unsupportive of women's ordination because they don't believe God condones it. 

Thats why they would be supportive if the leadership claimed a revelation on the matter. 

Such isn't a change in ideology at all, but a manifestation of the same beliefs under different circumstances. 

Maybe Reiss is under the impression that most people don't want women to be ordained because they are just sexist, and that's why she's confused about the number who would support it if the prophet said to. 

[BlueDreams]

19 hours ago, smac97 said:

I'm not sure I understand the point Jana Reiss is making here.  My sense is that active, observant Latter-day Saints "don't want women to have the priesthood" because the leaders they sustain have stated that this is not presently the way of things.  If in the future a revelation were to be given by God which extended priesthood ordination to women, then most of us would support that.  This is a fairly consistent position for faithful Latter-day Saints to take.  But I wonder if people like Jana Reiss can conceptualize this.  Apparently not:

Yeah, I got something different from this than she did...it seemed more indicative of participants in the Q15 giving revelation for the church than it did about whether they actually support women's ordination. I don't think there is a worded question that could really divorce support for the principle of ongoing revelation, calls of prophets/apostles, and whether one would personally want female ordination. They're just way too intermingled, particularly for active saints.

 

What I found most interesting (and personal exciting for one who isn't expecting (nor really wanting) ordination like men's) is the growth of the other and don't know categories. The most adamant categories both shrunk, which indicates that what the growing dialogue did do in recent years is to allow more uncertainty and nuance in believers about the priesthood. It may also indicate though the openness to the ordination movement isn't really working, other potential areas for gender development and utility in priesthood//basic female roles possibly are.

Of to a view that's ordaining parity or bust this isn't great news...it's still not necessarily moving the direction they want the church to move.

 

with luv,

BD   

Edited December 16, 2015 by BlueDreams

[Avatar4321]

so most faithful lds will sustain the prophet on this. I think that's a good sign for the church

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

Maybe Reiss is under the impression that most people don't want women to be ordained because they are just sexist, and that's why she's confused about the number who would support it if the prophet said to. 

"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

Or, the version I prefer:

"I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding."

[Teancum]

It seems pretty clear.  Active Mormons beleive the LDS leaders speak for God and rarely challaneg what they say and teach,

 No real suprise here.

[Russell C McGregor]

45 minutes ago, Teancum said:

It seems pretty clear.  Active Mormons beleive the LDS leaders speak for God and rarely challaneg what they say and teach,

 No real suprise here.

It's not just active Mormons.

It seems to me that anyone who thinks the Priesthood means anything at all, believes that it represents delegated divine authority.

And that presuming to tell God how or to whom to delegate His authority may be a little presumptuous. Even by feminist standards.

 

[smac97]

Here's an article about this topic in the Tribune, with an interesting quote from Kathryn Skaggs:

Kathryn Skaggs, leader of Mormon Women Stand, was not pleased with the results.

The way the issue was posed was "an abuse of a closely held tenet of the Mormon faithful — a belief in modern prophets who receive revelation from God," Skaggs wrote in an email. "Those who crafted the question knew exactly the response they would get based on that premise, because a 'no' answer would initially be considered, by many participants, unfaithful and/or taking a position at odds with sustaining their leaders — very cunning."

Skaggs added: "I would imagine that if most of the women who unwittingly provided the desired response to this poll understood how the results would be abused, they would never have participated."

With respect, I'm going to somewhat disagree with Sister Skaggs on this point.  I do not think the question was "cunning".  I actually appreciated the form of it ("If the [governing] First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were to receive a revelation allowing women to hold the priesthood, I would be ...").  It takes into account the desire of faithful Latter-day Saints to be led by revelation, not by coercive manipulation wrought through social media activism, protests, etc. (here's lookin' at you, OW!).  If we as a Church really claim to "believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God", then I think we need to be open to the possibility that God will reveal things that we might not presently anticipate, such as female ordination.  So while I don't think it's going to happen, I am open to the possibility that it might.  

That said, the closing lines of the article perhaps illustrate why Sister Skaggs is skeptical/hostile to this survey (quoting Nancy Ross, a teacher of art history at Dixie State University in St. George, Utah, an executive board member of OW, and who organized the survey):

The St. George scholar's takeaway is that "there is much more room for change in the church than our leaders are willing to engage in."

The emerging picture was, she said, "not what I expected."

This is rather disappointing, as it seemingly taints the survey and makes it more agenda-driven and hostile-to-the-tenets-of-the-LDS-Church-regarding-sustaining-the-Brethren than I had originally thought.  Rather than taking the survey's results at face value (which, in my view, are indicative of a significant majority of Latter-day Saints being supportive of and aligned with the Brethren), Ross takes a position that there is tension between the members and the Brethren, that the members are forward-thinking, but that the leaders are not ("there is much more room for change in the church than our leaders are willing to engage in").  Moreover, Ross's comments about "more room for change" suggests that she views the Church as just some sort of social club, not led by revelation but by the preferences of the membership.  She simply does.  Not.  Get.  Us.

Those OW folks really don't seem to understand the basic thought processes of faithful Latter-day Saints vis-à-vis revelation, doctrine, sustaining the Brethren, and building a Zion community.  Where we see cohesion and unity between the members and the Brethren, Ross sees disunity and power struggles.  Strange.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited December 16, 2015 by smac97

[smac97]

5 hours ago, Russell C McGregor said:

Don't you mean that the percentage answering yes has decreased?

Ha!  Yes, that's what I meant.  I modified the OP accordingly (I think it's right now).

Thanks,

-Smac

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Where we see cohesion and unity between the members and the Brethren, Ross sees disunity and power struggles. Strange.

Not so 'strange' if one has read a bit of Marx .. or realises that the OW supporters seem to have adopted Marx as their favourite prophet.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Hamba Tuhan

[Cold Steel]

I'm amazed no one asked the question whether active members would leave the church if women were ordained.

I've been trying to follow the logic of the ordain women movement, but have yet to see any compelling reason why women should expect ordination or why they would want it. As far as I know, not one of our prophets going back all the way to Joseph Smith has ever promised, indicated or held out any expectation that women would ever get the priesthood. So why would the proponents risk being cut off by coming out in rebellion against those who are placed over us? (Makes me wonder if they've read Exodus, where the people, knowing the will of God, still came out against Him. When the ground opened up and swallowed the worst offenders, the remainder, many of them, actually blamed Moses!) So I wonder how this issue can even find a modicum of support among the saints. If we have the priesthood, then God determines who gets the priesthood -- not the brethren. 

My point is, if people want women to have the priesthood, don't demonstrate. Don't start organizations or talk to the media, go on your knees and talk to the One who makes the decisions. Ask for it, fast, reason and listen. I don't want to see them interviewed, setting up websites or publishing papers and articles. Now if they see priesthood as something the brethren could be pressured to have a "revelation" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) 😉, then they really have no business having the priesthood to begin with.  

 

Edited December 16, 2015 by Cold Steel

[sunstoned]

2 hours ago, Russell C McGregor said:

It's not just active Mormons.

It seems to me that anyone who thinks the Priesthood means anything at all, believes that it represents delegated divine authority.

And that presuming to tell God how or to whom to delegate His authority may be a little presumptuous. Even by feminist standards.

 

The track record of the brethren for figuring out how god wants his priesthood authority delegated has not been that good.

[JLHPROF]

1 minute ago, sunstoned said:

The track record of the brethren for figuring out how god wants his priesthood authority delegated has not been that good.

Well as soon as he issues a revelation like:

• Let my servants George Teasdale and Heber J. Grant be appointed to fill the vacancies in the Twelve, that you may be fully organized and prepared for the labors devolving upon you, for you have a great work to perform, and then proceed to fill up the presiding quorum of Seventies, and assist in organizing that body of my priesthood who are your co-laborers in the ministry.
• Let my servant John Taylor, and also my servant John E. Page, and also my servant Wilford Woodruff, and also my servant Willard Richards, be appointed to fill the places of those who have fallen, and be officially notified of their appointment.

When God calls a woman I might rethink my position (but it will never happen).  It's not the brethren doing the calling, and if the brethren called a woman without direct revelation I would question that calling.

[Cold Steel]

30 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

The track record of the brethren for figuring out how god wants his priesthood authority delegated has not been that good.

Upon what basis do you make that statement? Many of the brethren had prayed about it and, like President McKay, were told to back off. They can't institute that change without a decree.

What can the brethren do, pull a gun on the Almighty? 

 

 

[Cold Steel]

The RLDS prophet-president had an inspired revelation allowing the women to hold the priesthood and several are now apostles. If you want to see what a group of people without the spirit of prophecy and revelation look like, take a look at them. Two or three of their president-prophets lost interest in the movement and retired, leaving the church in the hands of people who are non-family of Joseph Smith. If you read their "revelations" (and I'm being charitable using that term), you can see they're really struggling to make them palatable. 

They're now called the Community of Christ, but the legal name remains unchanged. Many of the stalwarts have left the church and are circulating revelations of their own promising a cleansing of the church. 

 

[sunstoned]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

Well as soon as he issues a revelation like:

• Let my servants George Teasdale and Heber J. Grant be appointed to fill the vacancies in the Twelve, that you may be fully organized and prepared for the labors devolving upon you, for you have a great work to perform, and then proceed to fill up the presiding quorum of Seventies, and assist in organizing that body of my priesthood who are your co-laborers in the ministry.
• Let my servant John Taylor, and also my servant John E. Page, and also my servant Wilford Woodruff, and also my servant Willard Richards, be appointed to fill the places of those who have fallen, and be officially notified of their appointment.

When God calls a woman I might rethink my position (but it will never happen).  It's not the brethren doing the calling, and if the brethren called a woman without direct revelation I would question that calling.

I can understand where you are coming from  The brethren banned an entire race from the priesthood and the temple for over a hundred years without a direct revelation and I really question that.

[Avatar4321]

1 hour ago, sunstoned said:

The track record of the brethren for figuring out how god wants his priesthood authority delegated has not been that good.

Based on what exactly? The fact that you don't like the results?

[readstoomuch]

OW is an organization driving priesthood for women while also pushing lgbt recognition in the Church and other social issues.  Most of them that I know stopped wearing their garments or going to Church  after KK was exed.  I doubt they are coming back even if women were ordained.  

[smac97]

More information on the poll from the Deseret News:

SALT LAKE CITY — The meaning of the chief result of a new survey of nearly 50,000 Mormons who responded to a Facebook post is in dispute, but one finding seems clear — Latter-day Saints believe in continuing revelation.

In the fall of 2014, 48,984 Mormons responded to requests through Facebook and the blog Mormon Women Stand, which supports the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the faith's doctrine that men are ordained to priesthood offices, to take a survey that was not random as part of the Mormon Gender Issues Survey.

Organized by a Dixie State art history professor, the survey sought insight about the issue of female priesthood ordination.

...

But the group of social scientists — some active LDS and some disaffected former church members — felt the old question was flawed because it "did not reflect how the ordination of women would occur in the LDS Church." So they also asked: "If the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were to receive a revelation allowing women to hold the priesthood, I would be..."

Possible responses ranged from "strongly supportive" to "strongly opposed."

More than 77 percent said that under that condition, they would support or strongly support female ordination.

"These findings," the authors said in a report released Dec. 9, "suggest that a substantial majority of members of the LDS Church would support the ordination of women if it was announced as a revelation from the leaders of the religion."

It's no surprise, Skaggs said. All it shows is that Mormons would follow the faith's prophet. In fact, the survey's authors wrote that it is notable that "more devout Mormons were more opposed to the first ordination question, but also reported that they would be more supportive of a revelation from the leaders allowing women to be ordained than less devout Mormons."

For Skaggs, that proves Mormons would support the prophet and apostles if they received a revelation, but it says little about members' feelings on ordination.

"The results are intentionally skewed to imply that a majority of active members hold a position contrary to the leaders of the church," Skaggs said. "That's absurd. The fact of the matter is, those who crafted this survey are exploiting a very sacred tenet of the Mormon faith — a devout belief in modern prophets and the revelatory process, which is what their findings actually do show. This is a distortion and a distraction that does nothing to contribute to the dialogue about women's roles in the church."

...

Some Mormons said taking the survey was uncomfortable. Katy White said the questions were leading.

"You'd have two bad choices and frequently have to pick the least worst one," she said.

...

The Mormon Gender Issues Survey Group includes John Dehlin, excommunicated by his local LDS Church leaders for apostasy earlier this year; Ryan Cragun, who left the church while a graduate student and is billed as an expert in breaking the cycle of religion; and Kristy Money, a member of the board of Ordain Women, an activist group seeking female priesthood ordination.

The survey group's members plainly stated that the survey was not a random sample. Instead, they used purposive sampling and openly acknowledged its limitations.

Purposive sampling is almost always subjective and is prone to researcher bias, according to Laerd Dissertation, a guide to research for dissertations.

Thanks,

-Smac

[sunstoned]

6 hours ago, Avatar4321 said:

Based on what exactly? The fact that you don't like the results?

Based on the latest essay on the subject.  You know, the one where they said it was all a mistake and all those prophets and apostles for all those years were just speaking their non-inspired opinions.

[Gray]

8 hours ago, Cold Steel said:

The RLDS prophet-president had an inspired revelation allowing the women to hold the priesthood and several are now apostles. If you want to see what a group of people without the spirit of prophecy and revelation look like, take a look at them. Two or three of their president-prophets lost interest in the movement and retired, leaving the church in the hands of people who are non-family of Joseph Smith. If you read their "revelations" (and I'm being charitable using that term), you can see they're really struggling to make them palatable. 

They're now called the Community of Christ, but the legal name remains unchanged. Many of the stalwarts have left the church and are circulating revelations of their own promising a cleansing of the church. 

 

What makes you think they don't have the spirit of revelation?

[Gray]

8 hours ago, sunstoned said:

I can understand where you are coming from  The brethren banned an entire race from the priesthood and the temple for over a hundred years without a direct revelation and I really question that.

Similarly, there has been no revelation banning women from the priesthood either. Like the ban on black people, it's an inherited attitude from the larger Christian community. 

[bluebell]

23 minutes ago, Gray said:

Similarly, there has been no revelation banning women from the priesthood either. Like the ban on black people, it's an inherited attitude from the larger Christian community. 

It's inherited from Christ too though, so it is essentially different than the racial ban.

[Antoni]

It's a shame that the thoughts of the majority of the church outside US have not been included in this survey, I reckon they'd upset the OW lot even more