If you, as a Mormon woman, want to be ordained to the priesthood, why don’t you leave the LDS Church and join the Reorganized LDS Church/Community of Christ, where they ordain women?
Partially as a response to the late Mormon prophet Gordon B. Hinckley’s statement in an interview that there has been no “agitation” in the Church for women to be ordained to the priesthood, a number of Mormon women have begun to step up and publicly advocate for ordination. Groups have been formed like Ordain Women. Protests have been planned. Women have told their stories and explained why having the priesthood is important.
But it all seems entirely unnecessary to me. The Community of Christ (formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) already ordains women. If you think women should be ordained, why not vote with your feet? I don’t think that there is a good, coherent reason to stay LDS, and I’ll tell you why I think that (and I invite you to tell me if and why you think I am wrong).
Normally, the biggest reason to stay Mormon despite any difficulty you have with the Church is that, at the end of the day, you believe that the Church is the sole holder of the priesthood keys necessary for saving ordinances. But it seems to me that if you believe that the nature of the priesthood is such that the Church is this far in error and can be corrected by “agitation,” you are effectively undermining the notion of exclusive priesthood authority anyway. The point of the priesthood in Mormonism is the authority to act in God’s name. It’s a principal-agent relationship with God. And it’s not just the authority to do saving ordinances, but also the authority to organize and preside over God’s church. But by rejecting the priesthood’s exercise of this authority (e.g., the policy of not ordaining women), you are rejecting the authority itself, aren’t you? If the priesthood held by the LDS Church is God’s exclusive authority, then when God’s agents act within the constraints of their calling, it is as if God has acted, isn’t it? That’s what authority is. If you don’t believe that, then you don’t really believe that the LDS Church’s priesthood is the exclusive authority to act in God’s name after all. And if that is the case, couldn’t you theoretically get the priesthood somewhere else? My understanding is that the Community of Christ will happily give it to you.
You might reply that, even though you may reject the Church’s claims to exclusive priesthood authority, your culture is Mormon and you identify as a Mormon and your Mormon heritage means everything to you and you do not feel like you should have to give it up to get equality. But you don’t! The Community of Christ is just as “Mormon” as the LDS Church is! It’s a close branch of the same family! Joining the Community of Christ is not a rejection of your Mormon identity at all. It’s just a different organization.
You could also say that unity is important, and you don’t believe that leaving the Church for the priesthood is the right decision, but as a Mormon–a member of a schismatic Restoration sect drawn out of schismatic Protestantism from schismatic Roman catholicism–you are hardly in a place to say that. If unity of faith is the most important thing, even to the extent that you are willing to stay in a patriarchal church and work for change that may never happen, the Eastern Orthodox church is happy to welcome you back with open arms. And their patriarchs have better hats.
I know that many Mormons who reject the Church’s truth claims choose to remain members of the Church for fear of family backlash, but I honestly suspect that you would not get nearly the same negative reaction to leaving for the Community of Christ. It’s still appreciably Mormon after all. I strongly suspect that your friends and family would not feel anywhere near the rejection that they would feel if you just became an atheist or an Evangelical. You would retain a cultural common ground without having to be a part of the Patriarchy. You might even get less flak for switching to the CoC than you would for staying LDS as a dissenter.
I’ve also heard the arguments about inequality anywhere hurting all of us, and whether or not I agree with that (it’s a zinger of a statement that can stand to have come unpacking and close examination done to it, but that is outside the scope of this post), I’m not sure it applies. There’s no guarantee that “agitating” inside the Church will change anything anyway, and voting with your feet will have an immediate individual and potentially powerfully aggregate impact (you make a statement, the patriarchal Church doesn’t get your tithing money anymore, membership in the patriarchal Church shrinks, etc.).
So why not convert to the Community of Christ?
(I want to be clear–this is an honest question and I’m interested in hearing the answers. I’m not a member of the Community of Christ, so I have no vested interest there; it just seems like it would be a better option.)
Sailing to Byzantium 
I’m not a mormon woman, but I’ll say a few things:
” If you think women should be ordained, why not vote with your feet? I don’t think that there is a good, coherent reason to stay LDS.”
I think there have been posts already to address “exit” as a nonviable opinion w/r/t the church. But I don’t think that’s the main issue…the main issue is that just because you *don’t think* there is a good, coherent reason to stay LDS doesn’t mean that other folks can’t think there is. (Both are different than whether there actually is or not…I’m just separating subjective claims from objective ones here.)
I don’t think that most LDS Church members would believe that the CofChrist is sufficiently Mormon at all. So, this is basically you mansplaining to them that their feelings on this is wrong. (OK, not quite mansplaining….restorationsplaining or something like that). And I think this follows through to here:
the assumption in both of these places is a matter of the perception of the CofChrist w/r/t CoJCoL-dS…where you think that LDS church Mormons would perceive the CofChrist as being “appreciably Mormon.” But I simply don’t think this would be the case, either with the person in question, or with their family/friends.
Anyway, I do think it’s interesting about some efforts to create “Latter day Seekers” (e.g.., a movement/organization/group/I dunno within the CofChrist to try to appeal to disaffected LDS people)…but I don’t know how successful that is. My GUESS would be that a lot of the lack of success is because people don’t perceive the cultures are similar.
(i have been playing around with a genetic analogy but I don’t think it’s all that pretty… But take the closest living genetic relative to homo sapiens…would it suffice to say, “They share 98.7% of our DNA!”?)
Well, that’s why I posted this in the form of an open question. I think I was clear about it, but in case I wasn’t: it seems to me like leaving the LDS Church for the CoC clearly would be the best option, and I have thought through some of the potential objections and don’t think they hold up. Tell me if and why I’m wrong.
(Which, you then did, so I’m not sure why this is a problem you felt like you needed to address in your comment.)
Wow, I really hate the “with us” or “against us” mindset of this post. I have an honest question for you. Where is the middle ground? Why do you have this “with us” or “against us” mentality? I’m LDS. I’m a woman, but to be told I should leave because I may not agree with you about LDS ordination? I’m sorry, but why do you feel that way? Why does a group of women who believe strongly in the “Brighamite” religion need to leave over this issue?
I really had high hopes for this post when someone posted it as a “honest question.” But I only had to read the first paragraph for those hopes to be dashed.
Why don’t women who want the priesthood leave the LDS church and join the Community of Christ church? Because they’re DIFFERENT. They have different doctrinal beliefs. LDS members stay with the LDS church because they share the same doctrinal beliefs as the LDS church.
Also, if one believes that the LDS church is the only church on the earth that currently has the authority of the priesthood, and the only church with a modern-day prophet that receives revelation straight from God, why would they join another church that they don’t believe possesses those attributes?
Disappointed.
Dear Joy, just so we’re clear, I am an orthodox Christian and I believe that Mormonism is an insidious and dangerous heresy. I think you (and every other Mormon) should abandon Mormonism entirely, because I it is bad for you and possibly leads you away from salvation through the grace of Jesus Christ and certainly leads you away from one faith and one baptism. I’m happy to be open about that, but I don’t think I should have to preface every post on my own blog with a disclaimer to that effect, because my blog is not written for an exclusively Mormon audience.
As to the substance of my post and your comment, I will reiterate: my post is in the form of a question for a reason. I think that, given the points I articulated, it makes more sense for women seeking ordination to convert to the Community of Christ than to stay and advocate for change from within. But I recognize that my premises are not unassailable or self-evident, and I am interested in hearing specific answers (like the one that Andrew S gave on the sufficient “Mormonness” of the CoC, above).
AllyGriggles,
Are they that different? How much do you know about the CoC? I’m not trying to be condescending; your reaction makes me think you might not realize what the CoC is.
Do you really think that the only reason LDS members stay with the LDS church is because of doctrine? What about LDS doctrines about gender, sex, and eternal roles and identities of men and women?
Well, that’s part of my question, isn’t it? If the LDS Church “is the only church on the earth that currently has the authority of the priesthood, and the only church with a modern-day prophet that receives revelation straight from God,” then why not defer to that authority, including in matters of ecclesiology and gender/sex doctrine? As I articulated above, I think that your willingness to oppose the authority of the LDS priesthood regarding gender/sex undermines your belief in the sole, exclusive authority of the LDS priesthood in the first place. If you think I am wrong, tell me how you split that grape.
Kullervo,
I think that it would be interesting to do something with your claims about priesthood authority vs what that authority entails (because I think there is something off about your claims here, but I can’t quite spell it out as i could with the others), so I’m hoping someone will come along to address that point…
P. S. (totally off topic, don’t want to derail discussion, and I probably should read through your archives, but for some reason I thought you were pagan. Am I confusing you with another long time participant at LDS & evangelical conversations?)
Kullervo, thanks for your clarification.
For the record, I also suspect there is something off about my argument about authority.
You are correct; I was pagan. But I’m not anymore. I am cooking up a long blog post about it, in theory, but don’t expect it soon.
my initial thoughts on that point are that you basically have this false dichotomy:
EITHER
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has exclusive priesthood authority which means any exercise of that authority must be taken to be legitimate and valid by believing members
OR
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not have exclusive priesthood authority at all, and sticking with it is unjustified.
My thoughts are that this is false in a number of areas…1) exclusivity of priesthood authority is irrelevant, because the real issue is simply the appropriateness of the exercise (and what options members have to consistently and faithfully address exercise of priesthood — my earlier comment alluded to this, but I don’t think “exit” is a valid option). But even if we keep exclusivity on the table, 2) exclusivity of priesthood authority doesn’t necessarily legitimize all exercises of priesthood authority. One can make a claim of ecclesiastical abuse (for example) without saying a) priesthood authority in general is undermined or b) EXCLUSIVE priesthood authority in specific is undermined.
I also think you are begging some questions about what priesthood authority (or its appropriate exercise, or the revelatory process, etc.,) looks like (or MUST look like) from a Mormon POV. For example, you have written:
What if “agitation” is part of the revelatory process? And that agitation is consistent with priesthood authority and its exercise?
Or, let’s take your statement about the point of the priesthood in Mormonism. Couldn’t an Ordain Women proponent turn this around and say:
“The point of the priesthood in Mormonism is the authority to act in God’s name. It’s a principal-agent relationship with God. And it’s not just the authority to do saving ordinances, but also the authority to organize and preside over God’s church. But categorically depriving priesthood ordination from women, the church fails to live up to its priesthood, fails to live up to its potential organizationally, and fails to act more fully in God’s name. Thus, to support the priesthood authority necessitates agitate for living more fully to its ideal. To leave the church or to shun agitation would be a bad faith approach/to reject the authority itself.”
I think someone in the OW movement (or maybe multiple people) would have to flesh that out more fully, but I can think provisionally of several ideas that could go along with it.
My quick response:
I’m not a member of the Community of Christ. I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’m a Mormon. And I want my church to provide me and my daughters an equal opportunity to participate in the administration of and the official rituals and saving ordinances of my church. Not the Community of Christ church. My church.
Okay, but that’s not an answer at all, really. Given that women in the LDS Church may actually never get the priesthood, what is it about the LDS Church that makes it “yours” that is more important to you than equality? Because by staying in, even by staying in and “agitating,” you are saying that staying is more important than the thing you are agitating for. And I’m asking why.
Also, for the record, the Community of Christ are Mormons too. That’s my whole point:
It’s the branch led by Joseph Smith, III (and Emma Smith), that stayed in Illinois when the Brighamite group went west. They have the Restoration, the Book of Mormon, they have the Doctrine and Covenants, they have prophets and modern revelation (and their D&C has more sections, because their prophets actually prophesy regularly!).
In short, I’m not sure how you could claim that they are one whit less Mormon than the SLC church. And they ordain women.
Kullervo,
I think your line of argumentation responding to hkobeal is problematic. Those things you mention don’t necessarily establish establish shared identity/kinship/etc. in a subjective/phenomenological (for one thing…I think that many members of the 21st century, correlated church, *even if they dislike correlation*, would not identify with the pre-correlated church, or the church in its earliest days). I mean, basically, we’re talking about two churches that split off early — like, after the founder died early. It’s not something that just happened 10 or 15 years ago — there is more history for both churches that is differentiated (Brigham Young onward…vs Joseph Smith III onward) than there is shared history (e.g., Joseph Smith era)
So, while other say, “they aren’t the same or even sufficiently similar,” you keep saying, “But look at all of these points of similarity” (that subjectively, don’t speak to what people are going for).
I don’t think this is necessarily relevant, but what do you think from the fact that many CofChrist members don’t even self-claim the title “Mormon”? (In contrast, it seems to be more of a fundamentalist LDS thing to do.)
IN the 1950’s, African Americans who opposed segregation were often told: “Why don’t you just move back to Africa?” We want to serve the Lord more fully in our own church!
Right, but let’s say it doesn’t ever happen. What then?
“. But by rejecting the priesthood’s exercise of this authority (e.g., the policy of not ordaining women), you are rejecting the authority itself, aren’t you?
I think this is assumption is unsound.
A valid reason not to join the CoC is similar to the narrative of the faithful associated with why the blacks were kept from the priesthood.
You can legitimately believe that the Church organization still holds ecclesiastical authority, but has perpetuated errors in policy that it has yet to correct due to stubborn traditions.
The narrative that gives Brigham Young authority does not cancel out Joseph Smith’s teachings that were suppressed, nor does the validity of Mormonism depend on whether Brigham Young got doctrine or policy correct. After Brigham, there was extensive doctrinal discussion and development, and this does not, in principle, undermine the belief that he was chosen by God to lead the Church at the time he did. If you look at how Brigham did and did not influence church doctrine, its clear that Mormons do not hold their leaders to infallibility in doctrine or policy. They can still hold authority even when in error.
Historically, in the pre-Christ tradition, priesthood fulfilled a stronger ecclesiatical/ governmental that it did a doctrinal one. Mormons generally believe that until Christ, only certain Hebrews had exclusive right to the priesthood. in the Mormon narrative, this changed when God decided to shake up the priesthood organization and allow all people to have it. Thus, it’s in line with Joseph Smith’s vision to allow women to have the priesthood. It can be seen as a policy decision not to do it.
Mormons can draw upon this tradition to justify sticking with the church despite the fact their leaders are not acting perfectly in line with the member’s view of righteousness, reason, or justice.
[Disclaimer: I am a former Mormon, I do not believe ANY of the Church’s claims to authority or exclusivity. I do have have three Mormon daughters and think that it would be best if women were given the priesthood as well for a lot of cultural reasons.]
Ultimately, as long as women aren’t allowed to have the priesthood in Mormonism, Mormons who think they should are saying that being LDS, and staying in the LDS church, is more important to them than having the priesthood is.
I wonder if that changes if it is received as revelation and disclosed during General Conference or somewhere that women who don’t believe that it should be just for men are not going to be considered temple-worthy, as they could be considered to be spreading heresy. And if it then became a temple question, like unto whether you support organizations that are actively working against the church.
So, my question would be, would those women stay then?
When I was LDS, it never bothered me that I wasn’t allowed the priesthood. I didn’t want it. It bothered me that only priesthood holders were allowed to be Church auditors though. WTF… I was a damned good auditor.
There are a lot of things that could break in the church. This may be one of them. Cultural factors in the developed world also threaten to shake things up- like we see here. I think the Mormon Church will hold out on the women-and-the-priesthood question as long as the Catholic Church does on the priest-celibacy question. It will be interesting to see.
Porn is really rocking the church, culturally there is no strong way to deal with the problem. Indirectly it also makes it harder to hold on to the Patriarchal dominance. It makes it harder to maintain the appearance of worthiness when it is a big issue among leaders.
In short, I’m not sure how you could claim that they are one whit less Mormon than the SLC church. And they ordain women.
Well, for one, the CoC doesn’t think of themselves as a “Mormon” church and their history is one of distancing themselves from Mormonism. They’ve always tried to maintain and stress their distinction from the Brighamite branch. Thus, most Mormons don’t think of the CoC as Mormon any more than they think of themselves as such.
I echo Jared C’s comment about how it isn’t necessarily internally inconsistent to believe that the LDS church can have exclusive priesthood authority while being in error on this issue.
*and by “they think of themselves as such” I’m referring to the CoC.
I’m not a Mormon or an ex-Mormon, but I want to support the points above that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ are really quite different. While some ex-Mormons find a home in the Community of Christ, it’s not a slam dunk.
The Scriptures are different, for one thing: the Community of Christ recognizes the Book of Mormon, but has a different Doctrine and Covenants and does not use the Pearl of Great Price. It allows it’s members to use any translation of the Old and New Testaments; the LDS church uses its own King James-based version. The CoC puts no emphasis on the historicity of the Book of Mormon, unlike the LDS church, and it allows people who have no testimony of the truth or spiritual importance of the BoM to become members.
Also, the CoC is not a temple-oriented religion. (They have a couple of buildings called temples, but their role is more akin to that of a cathedral than that of an LDS temple.) There are no temple ordinances: no temple washings. anointings, endowments or sealings. Temple ordinances are extremely important to many members of the LDS faith; if you leave the LDS church for the CoC, you leave those temple ordinances, too.
Those are just a couple of examples of the main distinctions. People who have more experience with both churches can speak to the additional distinctions better than I can.
Well shoot, maybe you guys are right and CoC is not “Mormon enough” after all.
But I still want to ask, what do you do if the LDS Church never gives the priesthood to women? Because it’s certainly possible.
At some level, I guess the difference between hope and hopelessness is whether one has “never” in his/her vocabulary.
No, katyjane was right about the fundamental economics of the situation when she said:
The possibility of change (whatever likelihood you think it is) is an additional variable but doesn’t at all upset the fundamental equation.
Such economics would also be consistent with, say, believing in the LDS church as having exclusive priesthood authority, and thus not viewing the CofChrist as a valid alternative.
So, I’m not seeing the problem here…this wouldn’t change their longing for the priesthood, or even hoping and agitating for this. However, it does put a hard boundary on considering changing denominations. It simply slashes right through your comparison with the CofChrist.
Or, let me put it in another way.
You have stated that agitation effectively undermines the idea of exclusive priesthood authority, and that ultimately, if this idea is undermined, then it makes sense to go to a different denomination (e.g., Community of Christ).
But instead, we can point out that **even if people agitate**, they aren’t undermining exclusive priesthood authority precisely because they value being LDS and staying in the LDS church over having the priesthood.
Why is this? Because having the priesthood for these folks only makes sense in the context of *being* LDS and *staying* in the LDS church — which is consistent with believing that the LDS church has exclusive priesthood authority. The CofChrist priesthood is not sufficient. It’s either: don’t have the priesthood and stay LDS, or have the exclusive LDS priesthood authority and stay LDS.
Now, certainly, some people will leave the LDS church. But I think that their leaving is more indicative that they don’t believe the LDS church has exclusive priesthood authority than someone who stays (and even agitates), yet who ultimately believes being Mormon is more important than having the priesthood.
I don’t think you understand the sense in which I mean that agitating is inconsistent with Mormon beliefs about the priesthood. It has nothing to do with whether they value staying LDS.
1. Mormons believe that the authority to act in God’s name is necessary to perform valid saving ordinances and to administer God’s one true Church. (If not, then the Restoration was unnecessary and Mormonism has no reason to exist.)
2. Mormons believe that the priesthood held in the LDS Church is the authority to act in God’s name. (If not, then you could just go and start your own liberal Mormonism with your own priesthood.)
3. Delegation of authority is meaningless unless the principal is bound by the agent. (If I give you the authority to act on my behalf but I am not actually bound by what you do, then you do not actually have the authority to act on my behalf.)
4. If authority is necessary and the LDS Church priesthood has it, then when the LDS Church teaches that women cannot have the priesthood they are either (a) correct, in which case you are in open rebellion against God by agitating for women to have the priesthood in opposition to God’s truth, or (b) incorrect, but God is bound by it because his authorized delegates said it, in which case you are in open rebellion against God by agitating for women to have the priesthood in opposition to God’s authorized delegates.
To the extent that you believe that you can agitate for women to have the priesthood and not be in open rebellion against God, your position is inconsistent with either (1) or (2) above. You either (a) don’t really believe that the the priesthood held in the LDS Church is necessary to perform valid saving ordinances and to administer God’s one true Church (in which case you should consider other options than the LDS Church, one of which may very well be the Community of Christ) or (b) you believe contradictory things (in which case you should consider which contradictory thing is untrue and abandon it, and that may very well leave you in a position to consider other options than the LDS Church, one of which may be the Community of Christ).
Kullervo,
I guess a question is whether the LDS church teaches that women cannot have the priesthood. For example, from the GBH interview, the interviewer mentions that LDS women currently do not have the priesthood (correct), and throughout his answers, GBH notes that this could change, but that it would require a revelation. he then notes “But there’s no agitation for that”.
Once you remove “cannot”, your statement looks very different. LDS folks aren’t in “open rebellion” to agitate for women to have the priesthood, and nothing else in your statement follows.
Also, I’m quite frankly not seeing in your statement where any of these steps precludes persuasion and agitation as being part (or even being potential part) of the system. In other words, let’s assume (1), (2), and (3) are true, and assume even that (4)’s wording with “cannot” is true…how does this villify (e.g., “open rebellion”) the possibility of persuading/petititoning/agitating for the powers that be to change?
Open rebellion, IMO, would look like refusing to accept the ultimate authority of either principal or agent…which would include leaving for the Community of Christ. But if we have established that for the people in question that staying Mormon is more important than having the priesthood, then this is hardly the case. So, even though you tried to describe a way in which agitation was inconsistent with Mormon beliefs about the priesthood, I don’t think you have made that case. Further more, while you have also stated that this has “nothing to do with whether they value staying LDS,” I think, to the contrary, that there is a lot to do with this.
Please. A wishy washy statement in a television interview does not change the mountain of authoritative statements to the contrary, and Mormon feminists are hopelessly naive in thinking otherwise. GBH saying that it would require revelation to change is merely a general statement about Mormon belief regarding doctrine, policy and revelation.
No, because I am arguing that the positions are inconsistent, and whether belief in one position requires disbelief in the other, not whether Mormon feminists value the one or the other more. Although I guess that, to the extent that a person lets one inconsistent position give way to another, that shows that they didn’t really hold to the two inconsistent positions in the first place. Maybe that’s what you are getting at.
Kullervo,
I must admit that I’m too lazy to look up otherwise, but I don’t think I’ve seen any authoritative statements that have said women cannot have the priesthood.
Actually, you know what, I guess the second problem is that on other issues (e.g., Brigham Young on black people and the priesthood: “That curse will remain upon them, and they never can hold the Priesthood…”), it just turned out that things can *always* change.
This isn’t hopeless naivete. It’s the fact that determining incontrovertible, unchangeable Mormon doctrine is like pinning jello to a wall..
I guess the issue is you can’t really show the positions are inconsistent. Like, even if I accept (1), (2), (3) and the part of (4) that says women “cannot” have the priesthood, it doesn’t follow that agitating for the priesthood is an openly rebellious act. It does not follow that it’s inconsistent to hold these positions.
Like, maybe you have another assumption in here that I’m still not seeing…
I’m not doing a great job of getting all of my thoughts in one comment, but one thing I think is missing from your statements is that it does not take into consideration the LDS view about revelation/potential for doctrinal change.
And I think it’s an open question as to the mechanism or scope of this process. But if I put a placeholder idea for the LDS view about revelation, then your (4) statement becomes something like:
4. If authority is necessary and the LDS Church priesthood has it, then when the LDS Church teaches that women cannot have the priesthood they are either (a) correct, in which case there is an additional question as to whether or not revelation can change this, and whether or not agitation would have a role to play in further revelation on this matter, or (b) incorrect, but God is bound by it because his authorized delegates said it, but revelation is the mechanism by which this incorrect teaching/principle/practice is rectified.
You might be right!
In the LDS faith, priesthood authority is ecclesiastical authority. It’s the authority to perform ordinances; it’s not the authority to control someone else’s thoughts, actions, or testimony or to remove their free will. In LDS cosmology all human beings, including people who do not hold the priesthood, have free will. Members of the church can exercise their free will by praying or petitioning for change. In some cases, this may get them disciplined or excommunicated, but those things do not necessarily follow; the church seems to have moved away from excommunication as an all-purpose solution for dealing with dissenters in recent years.
LDS members who seek the priesthood for women have plenty of historical examples of “agitation” bringing about change. A while back, bringing up Brigham Young’s culpability in the Mountain Meadows cover up was akin to heresy; now it’s widely recognized by LDS historians. That change likely wouldn’t have happened without “agitation” and challenges from within.
Thank you for explaining the beliefs of the LDS faith to me, k. As you can plainly see, I am not particularly familiar with them.
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As a former RLDS ,and LDS but not utaw LDS, if you want to see the most sorry bunch of females all you have to do is go and check them out at the community of Christ with there wining and crying,all the feel good books,but i am not picking on them the males are pathetic as well. None of them read there Scriptures they could not if they did they would not say the incredible stupid things that come out of there mouths, i am not giving the utaw church a pass neither you love living a lie,so with that said through the girls out they will take them over at the apostate church and be happy to get them there membership is dwindling because they teach nonsense.
What kind of LDS are you, if not “utaw LDS?”
Hi Well there are many lds people out there that have never been part of either the RLDS or the LDS church.I am part of the two hundred restoration branches that broke off the Rlds church around 1986 with the ordination of women among other things, The thing that one must come to grips with is we are all apostate,and some how god will move to set all things in order, it is good for us to try to understand what has happened to us,but lets not loose sight of our calling to witness, faith,repentance and baptism. Remember we have a risen christ,we have all ready won the battle now its time to live the faith.read and memorize the lectures on faith that all you need to get your self and others into the kingdom. dont get caught up with women in the priesthood,the man has the greater responsibility and will answer to god about how he has ran his house hold ,The woman has a lot on her plate and a good man understands that,and with all that, he gave her to be a helpmate unto him,that is her calling.
The point of the priesthood in Mormonism is the authority to act in God’s name.
Nope. The priesthood is not the authority to act in God’s name. The priesthood is the authority of God. That’s a pretty important distinction.
That means that it simply isn’t so that whatever is done by priesthood holders witin the constraints of their callings is done as if God had acted. Human beings make mistakes, and God clearly recognizes this. Once and only once in Scripture do we see an example of a man to whom he says, “I will ratify anything you do, because you’ve progressed to the point spiritually that you won’t do anything contrary to My will” (Helaman 10:5). (It’s possible that he also gave that privilege to others, like Peter (Matthew 16:19).) But it’s by no means certain, despite Mormon Urban Legend, that he’s done that for each modern prophet and apostle since the Restoration.
So, in short, I think your main premise is faulty. I think a number of the women, perhaps most of them (and certainly the ones I am acquainted with – not many, and not well, but a couple), remain in the Church because they have a deep and abiding testimony of the LDS Church as the vehicle of the Restoration of the Gospel. In fast meeting shorthand, they “know the church is true.” I happen to disagree with their views on priesthood being extended to women; I’m not even sure that it’s possible for priesthood to “stick” to women. I mean, I know that they could have hands laid upon their heads and words could be said, I just wonder if priesthood would actually be conferred, you know what I mean? I have no scriptural basis for that conjecture, it’s just a thought.
Incidentally, being a Reorganite (or a Communitarian or whatever they call themselves now) is probably more like being a Methodist than like being LDS. Culturally, those who leave us would be more at home in Terry’s Restoration Branch – except that the ordination of women was one of the straws that broke that camel’s back.
You’re going to have to explain the distinction then.