Women are given priesthood power and authority

[Tacenda]

10 minutes ago, JAHS said:

I believe the experiences of the General authority women leaders.

Now comes the inequality a bit. How many General Authorities are women and how many are men? 

I've never heard a woman in the church addressed as a General Authority, is that new?

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

Well you could take it to mean that these other churches don't have any priesthood authority in the first place to give to women.

I think that's what Sis. Dennis meant, but even then her statement isn't relevant to the issues that a lot of women are having right now.  

[JAHS]

17 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Ok.  Not sure why you’d only believe their anecdotes.  The church is global.  

Did I say that? No. I was mainly responding to the charge that the women church leaders have no say in the upper councils of the church, when they obviously do.

[JAHS]

1 minute ago, bluebell said:

I think that's what Sis. Dennis meant, but even then her statement isn't relevant to the issues that a lot of women are having right now.  

Progress can be slow. but things are certainly much better now than they were 100 years ago or even 50 years ago.

[MustardSeed]

6 minutes ago, JAHS said:

Progress can be slow. but things are certainly much better now than they were 100 years ago or even 50 years ago.

Agreed.  Progress is a good thing.  

[Calm]

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

But then of course there will be those who say they may sit on the councils but their opinions are not heard or accepted because they are women. 🙄

Their opinions may indeed be heard, but there are 133 men and 9 women…plus the 303 area seventies who are all male.

General Conference is a good representation of how if the women are given equal voice to the men, which I assume they are, how much voice that amounts to…2 talks out of 33 in total or about 6%.

9/142 (total number general authorities and officers) is about equal to 2 out of 33.  There is a sense for me of ensuring women leaders have a letter of the law equal representation in General Conference….as opposed to women having equal representation.

Nine individuals would find it very difficult to cover as much territory as 133, it isn’t physically or mentally possible and is made harder imo by the fact the women only hold their callings for a few years (more like area seventies if wiki gets it right) where the men hold them once called, until age 70 or death.

Can’t show a wiki article for years of service by female general officers as apparently they do not merit a wiki page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_general_authorities_of_the_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_area_seventies_of_the_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints

A visual comparison of the numbers…they got smart and shifted the General Officers to the right of the General Authorities rather than at the bottom like they used to be placed.

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/view-the-april-2023-chart-of-church-leaders

 Now if the size of the picture indicates the weight given that opinion, calculations need to be adjusted downward from 6%.  😛 

Edited March 21, 2024 by Calm

[Calm]

39 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Now comes the inequality a bit. How many General Authorities are women and how many are men? 

I've never heard a woman in the church addressed as a General Authority, is that new?

Women are not General Authorities.  The women leaders are General Officers and have been for as long as I remember, similar to the Sunday School and Young Men Presidencies.

[JAHS]

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

Women are not General Authorities.  The women leaders are General Officers and have been for as long as I remember, similar to the Sunday School and Young Men Presidencies.

I consider them Genral authorities. But I guess technically the word "authority" implies holding priesthood authority. 

[Buckeye]

3 hours ago, juliann said:

The bigger problem was the reference to our church giving women more authority than almost all other churches. That is demonstrably false. They need to stop making claims like this and simply own the limitations they place on women or change it. The blow back on this was fierce. I understand the church took down comments from their Instragram blurb. https://www.instagram.com/p/C4oZ-otMOVL/?igsh=bHlpc2xhdnV5b3Nt&fbclid=IwAR0LsR6g08gPKV6JRMJWOH5lDVz7DGY3OF5iMudAnVIjhkx5mfTA0AfE0dQ&img_index=1

Bingo. The way I understood this argument is that a woman pastor of a non-LDS church who leads a flock of, say 500 people, has less (or no?) priesthood power and authority than a woman who only oversees the building cleaning assignments in her LDS congregation. The reason is that our priesthood and power is real, while other churches is not. That’s a very troubling argument to me. 

[Buckeye]

2 hours ago, JAHS said:

The church was still learning the proper way to do things in those days and making proper changes.

Umm, we’re still very much learning the proper way today. Look at the constant changes to temple ordinances. 

[Calm]

On 3/20/2024 at 8:59 PM, JAHS said:

I consider them Genral authorities. 

The Church leadership doesn’t, which carries a bit more weight…

Edited March 26, 2024 by Calm

[MustardSeed]

8 minutes ago, JAHS said:

I consider them Genral authorities. But I guess technically the word "authority" implies holding priesthood authority. 

I wonder why the church resists referring to the women as “authorities”.  Hm . 

[Calm]

33 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

Bingo. The way I understood this argument is that a woman pastor of a non-LDS church who leads a flock of, say 500 people, has less (or no?) priesthood power and authority than a woman who only oversees the building cleaning assignments in her LDS congregation. The reason is that our priesthood and power is real, while other churches is not. That’s a very troubling argument to me. 

It comes close imo to the infamous “playing church” comment by Brother Wilcox in commenting on other faiths (for which he may have apologized, he didn’t single it out and the focus of the apology was on race).  Cringeworthy.

Edited March 21, 2024 by Calm

[Calm]

So apparently if you hit submit the second Nemesis does site maintenance, you get endless posts of the same comment…or at least three.

Edited March 21, 2024 by Calm

[Buckeye]

Just now, Calm said:

It comes close to the infamous “playing church” comment by Brother Wilcox in commenting on other faiths.  Cringeworthy.

Exactly. To an objective viewer, LDS is about the least sophisticated religious group, the one “playing church”. I find great value in our approach personally, but we’re clearly less professional than other  faiths.
 

This past Sunday I was in NYC with my wife and teen daughters. We visited church services at Trinity church (episcopal) and then an LDS ward at union square. The decorum and seriousness with which Trinity took their service vastly outweighed ours. 

[Calm]

dup

Edited March 21, 2024 by Calm

[JAHS]

21 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

Exactly. To an objective viewer, LDS is about the least sophisticated religious group, the one “playing church”. I find great value in our approach personally, but we’re clearly less professional than other  faiths.
 

This past Sunday I was in NYC with my wife and teen daughters. We visited church services at Trinity church (episcopal) and then an LDS ward at union square. The decorum and seriousness with which Trinity took their service vastly outweighed ours. 

I wouldn't like too much seriousness and decorum. That's seems more for outward appearance than true gospel substance and Christlike living. But to each his own.

[juliann]

4 minutes ago, JAHS said:

I wouldn't like too much seriousness and decorum. That's seems more for outward appearance than true gospel substance and Christlike living. But to each his own.

Interesting considering the seriousness and decorum in the temple….

[Smiley McGee]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Their opinions may indeed be heard, but there are 133 men and 9 women…plus the 303 area seventies who are all male.

General Conference is a good representation of how if the women are given equal voice to the men, which I assume they are, how much voice that amounts to…2 talks out of 33 in total or about 6%.

And even when women do speak in conference I’m not sure their talks are esteemed as highly as the boys. No one is running to Deseret Book to buy the collected works of Belle S. Spafford. Not likely that you’ll hear someone quote a woman’s talk to support a doctrinal argument. My wife and I talking were about this today; wondered if greater deference would be given to female leaders if the church had a more developed theology of the divine feminine or Mother in Heaven. In a religion with such an anthropomorphic deity, I think it’s easy to associate men with authority when we emphasize the fatherhood of God. Would be interesting to see the effect of a well developed theology of God the Mother. Or maybe I have the direction of causality backwards. Perhaps if the church tilts toward gender equity the doctrine will follow. 

Edited March 21, 2024 by Smiley McGee

[JAHS]

4 minutes ago, juliann said:

Interesting considering the seriousness and decorum in the temple….

But it's not for show or outward appearance. It has a spiritual purpose and meaning. 

[Calm]

6 minutes ago, JAHS said:

But it's not for show or outward appearance. It has a spiritual purpose and meaning. 

And where are you suggesting that it is only for show or outward appearance?

If we can manage such in the temples, surely we could do the same spiritual purpose and meaning in our Sunday worship if we made that choice since obviously other faiths have manage it.

Or perhaps you are thinking of other faiths?

Edited March 21, 2024 by Calm

[JAHS]

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

And where are you suggesting that it is only for show or outward appearance?

If we can manage such in the temples, surely we could do the same spiritual purpose and meaning in our Sunday worship if we made that choice since obviously other faiths have manage it.

Or perhaps you are thinking of other faiths?

Yes for some other faiths, although to them I am sure they believe it enhances the spiritual experience of the meeting. It doesn't do it for me, but that's my opinion.

[bluebell]

15 minutes ago, JAHS said:

It has a spiritual purpose and meaning. 

Isn’t that why other churches do it too though?

[JAHS]

15 minutes ago, Smiley McGee said:

And even when women do speak in conference I’m not sure their talks are esteemed as highly as the boys. No one is running to Deseret Book to buy the collected works of Belle S. Spafford. Not likely that you’ll hear someone quote a woman’s talk to support a doctrinal argument. My wife and I talking were about this today; wondered if greater deference would be given to female leaders if the church had a more developed theology of the divine feminine or Mother in Heaven. In a religion with such an anthropomorphic deity, I think it’s easy to associate men with authority when we emphasize the fatherhood of God. Would be interesting to see the effect of a well developed theology of God the Mother. Or maybe I have have the direction of causality backwards. Perhaps if the church tilts toward gender equity the doctrine will follow. 

You are talking as if the church leaders are the ones who create the doctrine instead of God. How do you suggest they "develop" the additional doctrine?
Do you think they don't inquire of God about this subject often? Women are voicing their opinions. If God decides to listen and do something about it He will let His prophets know.

[Smiley McGee]

5 minutes ago, JAHS said:

You are talking as if the church leaders are the ones who create the doctrine instead of God.

Of course I am. Who else is coming up with a language to attempt to describe the ineffable?