The LDS Church meets feminism: the quest of Mormon women to be ordained

April 14, 2014 2:47 PM

An interesting look inside the Ordain Women movement seeking the priesthood in the LDS Church. This group of women are seeking the priesthood... not the priesthood that a Catholic bishop holds but a lay priesthood that would allow them to be on the same footing as their 12-year-old sons.
posted by timpanogos (16 comments total)

Seems relevant: recent "wear pants to church" activism.
posted by prefpara at 3:45 PM on April 14, 2014

Women can be hopeful? My initial reaction to entrenched patriarchy is fury. I have to pause, get my emotions in check and remember that change comes very slowly. The power imbalance between men and women in religion and in politics is grave. I often fear women are halfway through their lives before they recognize the truth of this and realize they've spent most of their efforts and their youthful capital supporting their own disenfranchisement.
posted by Anitanola at 3:48 PM on April 14, 2014 [13 favorites]

Gosh ladies, welcome to the real world. I attended a meeting at a Catholic church several years ago. There were over 100 women there; all were wearing pants/slacks except one woman who was wearing a skirt. She was Hispanic, and had come from work.
posted by Cranberry at 3:54 PM on April 14, 2014

The LDS church is nothing if not adaptable, and I expect that within a few years they will do a serious redirection on this issue. There's simply becoming too much pressure internally to keep the status quo unchanged.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:04 PM on April 14, 2014

Echoing TWF above. The Mormon* priesthood is all-encompassing and, shall we say, existentially intense within the cosmology. It is not merely the authority to speak for the church or for God, it is also held by many members to be a sort of Divine Theory of Everything in Mormonism**. Looking at it from that perspective you can see how big of a deal this is.

Also, this section of the Wiki article on LDS priesthood is pretty relevant to the issues at hand.

*Referring of course only to the largest branch of Mormonism, the one based in Salt Lake City. The second-largest branch, The Community of Christ (formerly the Re-Organized LDS church) gave women the priesthood back in the 1980s)
**Not that many would phrase it in quite this way; that was just the best short-hand comparison I could think up
posted by Doleful Creature at 4:16 PM on April 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

Polygamy used to be the sine qua non of Mormonism. Now it is anathema to the LDS church based in Salt Lake City. (It is practiced by offshoots of course.)
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 7:25 PM on April 14, 2014

I believe that in 1978 god changed his mind about black people.
posted by pianissimo at 7:27 PM on April 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yes, Mormons have revelations at convenient times. If you ask a Mormon about it, they'll say that God gave them the revelation exactly when they needed it.
posted by Hatashran at 7:30 PM on April 14, 2014 [3 favorites]

Huh, like Barb wanted to do on Big Love? Cool.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:30 PM on April 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hi. This is the opposite of what I have always thought. Would you mind giving some examples to illustrate this to me? Thanks!

As mentioned, polygamy and race are the two obvious examples. There have been one or two really good threads about the LDS church and women here in the recent past and I think if you can find them you'll find it interesting.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:53 PM on April 14, 2014

I always thought it a bit ridiculous when some acne-face teenager wore a name tag that said "Elder", but I was shocked (and incensed) when I found out that all men - but no women - were priests. The Mormons haven't come by in a very long time (maybe the rainbow flag in the window discourages them), but I always planned that when they did, I would just tell them that I would never even consider joining a church with that kind of gender bias.

But since then, I've found a nice synagogue with a female rabbi - but she doesn't disapprove of male rabbis, so that's fine.
posted by jb at 8:56 PM on April 14, 2014

If you ask a Mormon about it, they'll say that God gave them the revelation exactly when they needed it.

Some would say that it comes when you ask.
posted by weston at 9:28 PM on April 14, 2014

i think that what needs to be said, is that women in lds contexts know, and weild adroitly soft power, and that is legitatmate power.
posted by PinkMoose at 10:23 PM on April 14, 2014

soft "power" (I would say that it is no power, only an easily ignored influence) is no replacement for simple equality.

if soft power is so great, why don't the men of LDS switch places? Women will be priests, make all decisions, let men do lots of work but make sure that they always have to report to a woman, but the men will wield the "real power".
posted by jb at 10:35 AM on April 15, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm not a Mormon, but I don't have the impression that Mormon women are after "power" (leaving aside the idea of separate-but-equal "soft power"). They want to be able to be full members of their church and do all the things they think God wants them to do, and not be excluded from tasks because of their gender.

I have a female relative who wanted to be a priest (Episcopalian, not Mormon), because she was devout and wanted to serve. She wasn't able to back then, and that eventually drove her from her church.
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:39 AM on April 15, 2014

LDS women should be ordained, and if you believe the Toscano's they were in the 19th century. LDS's view of ordinaiton makes the rites they enact more complicated than Anglican or Catholic ordinaiton, for example mothers blessings, the ability to speak in church, the relief society and the primary presidency, temple rituals, garments, being missionaries, and even the propehtic quality of work like Eliza Snow or Lucy Mack Smith. Acknowedging complexity and refusing over simplifying does not mean that I do not think that deacons should be girls and boys.
posted by PinkMoose at 7:08 PM on April 15, 2014 [1 favorite]