Discussions about why women in the LDS church are not ordained to the priesthood have been going on for a long time, certainly longer than I've been alive. The interesting thing is that these discussions in church classes and meetings don't seem to be generated by any feeling among the sisters of actually wanting to be ordained, but rather have the feeling of trying to reassure women that they are valued just as much as men and hold the same esteem in God's eyes and heart.
Men seem uneasy about the topic of men's and women's responsibilities as well, and often seem to go overboard with flowery praise of the sisters, which results in them putting themselves or men in general down and elevating the women as to as what their basic natures and capabilities are in an effort to verbally close that gap. It's not just the brothers either. The sisters, off in our own meetings, will indulge in some half humorous, half serious talk about the frailties of men and the capabilities of women.
In church settings when the topic of men/priesthood, women/? comes up, among other thoughts and explanations, a main rational involves women being mothers. The basic idea put forward is that the ability to bear and be the primary nurturers of children is so important to God that He wants our time and energy to be available for that. It is usually pointed out that partnering with God in creation by bearing a child is something no man can ever do, and that the rearing of healthy faithful children is His most important work, reserved for women with some help from men.
This can go to the point of making it sound like Priesthood is the consolation prize for men because they can never experience pregnancy and don't have the main task of raising children. To me, as sacred and important as motherhood is, and I totally believe that and have lived my life by that belief, it still feels like this line of reasoning is both incomplete and has the effect of minimizing or marginalizing both men and women in the process.
I also worry that we use this as a quick, shallow explanation because it is hard to delve into important and true principles that go deeper than most of these discussions can go, mostly because the majority of us only partially understand them, and because they are hard to articulate in a sentence or two or even a 40 minute lesson time.
When those who are pushing for more 'equality' by sharing priesthood ordination with women point out that this is not a valid comparison (IE. men get the priesthood, women get to be mothers) they are making a valid point. It is what I have always thought in these discussions. As much as I value my role as mother, and dedicated the years when my children were still at home to mothering, this line of reasoning doesn't add up. The next logical thought is, 'What about when we are not in our mothering stage? What if we never get to raise children? There are a lot of women in the church who are not currently mothering children, so if that were the Reason, that leaves a lot of women with nothing, while men are active priesthood holders from 12 on, whatever their other circumstances, married, single, father, or childless.
However, rather than say the solution is to give the priesthood to women, I think we need to look deeper, and to re-evaluate the explanation. It is human nature to want to know why, so if we have something that hasn't been fully explained to our satisfaction, we will use our experience and ability to reason to come up with explanations. If our reasoning seems sound to ourselves, or others reasoning seems sound to us, we may go on to take that as truth. In the church we have some good examples of that. The most striking lately being; 'Why was priesthood ordination withheld from men of African negro descent?' I won't go into this topic, but it turns out reasons were given that attempted to explain the policy that in hindsight were speculation and not true. Recently the LDS.org site published a good history of the issue of ordaining black men to the priesthood that refutes for good the faulty explanations that had been given in the past. This is a good example of how when our understanding increases, myths and untruths are laid to rest.
The issues of understanding or only partially understanding Priesthood/Women may be resolved the same way. When we discuss this issue we are making some points that are part of the truth and maybe some that are a type of myth reasoned out from things we do understand. As time goes on we may come to understand it more completely than we do now. One thing I have noticed is that this reason is not being used in the recent talks and articles about Priesthood and women that are coming from our general leadership. I'm referring to Elder Oak's talk in the Priesthood session, the-keys-and-authority-of-the-priesthood and Sister Burton's article in the June Ensign priesthood-power-available-to-all
I think the mind of God is deep, complex, and beyond our understanding. He doesn't reveal all to us, but gives us enough to make decisions on, based on faith and trust. The decisions we make are part of our mortal test. When we don't have complete or satisfying explanations, then our response comes under the heading of faith and obedience.
This can be what we might call an 'Abrahamic Trial' to some of us. God asked something inexplicable of Abraham, something that would break his heart and went against what he knew about the way God looked at the sacrifice of humans. But he knew he had received a command from the only true God, and he understood enough to know that obedience was the only right choice he could make, whether he understood why or not. So he did it, and though an angel stopped him from the final act, he left us his example to use in our own Abrahamic trials. When God tries us this way, he makes sure we have principles to guide us to do the right thing, even when we don't understand why.
My main point is that if we are looking for an explanation for this issue, can we agree that saying 'Men get the priesthood, and women get motherhood' may be a faulty comparison, or it may be an incomplete explanation, part of a larger truth that we only partially understand? That doesn't say that the next logical step is to give women the priesthood. To me it says, let's look deeper, let's look at what is currently being said at the general leadership (Priesthood and women leaders) level, and let's take all we can understand in an intellectual way, and a spiritual way, and add faith to that in realizing we probably don't know all of God's reasons. Then if we still feel the explanations we get are not adequate, and our reasoning doesn't cover all our concerns, and we aren't getting full explanations from answers to prayer, then we continue to question, think, study and pray, and we continue to live the gospel, serve, and trust that we will someday understand. In my mind, I leave issues like this 'open' and continue to add and discard ideas as my understanding increases.
No comments:
Post a Comment