All Enlisted is at it again! The latest movement is to petition church leadership to have females give prayers in General Conference. After the pantstastic success of the Wear Pants to Church Sunday, they are motivated to tackle this next. The church’s official response?
“Decisions on speakers and prayers at General Conference were made several weeks ago and assignments were given to the men and women involved last week,” church spokesman Scott Trotter wrote in an email. “Customarily, details of the conference programs are not announced until General Conference.”
What do you think the outcome will be?
[poll id=”203″]
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
I would like to see men give prayers in Refief Society. It’s about time that happened.
Relief.
The Church is a theocracy, not a democracy.
Actually, I would just like a time limit on prayers. Oh, wait, TiVO solved that one for me.
Actually, Iran is a theocracy. The church is an oligarchy for matters of policy.
Whoever prays, I hope all who participate will bow their heads in reverence and join in the prayer, with no hostility towards the Church or its leaders. Of course, based on what I’ve read in the internet in recent days, there is no likelihood of that happening. So sad.
What would prevent leaders from allowing women to pray in conference immediately except pride. Is this something to be proud of?
This is a request that would cost nothing? Why not have women pray in conference?
Many women see this as a small step that should be made, sadly the responders above seem to be attempting to belittle or divert away from that request. Why?
The response from the church is pretty pathetic. Have they really assigned prayers for April conference? Could thy not change them, are they set in concrete?
An assigned person could die, is it too late to change the assignment?
Sorry don’t believe we could not have women pray if the brethren wanted. Hopefully they will see the light.
Perhaps their wives could be persuaded to use the same logic with regard to their sex lives.
I clearly have no dog in this fight, since the CofChrist already has women in both the First Presidency and in the Apostolic quorum.
However, even before we had women priesthood, there was certainly an understanding that the most senior “rank” in attendance at a service could preside “passively”, delegating authority over the service to someone else, who could, in turn, further delegate on the spot “as led by the Spirit”.
I think the inflexibility comes with making services in both churches big productions where we expect the Spirit to meet a graphic arts, printer’s, and press release production schedule months in advance. The worship quality in both churches is probably poorer for it.
If I were an optimist, I’d hope they’re getting the ‘programme already set’ thing in now, precisely because there’s a woman assigned to pray, and they want us to be sure that it wasn’t because they were buckling under pressure, it was happening anyway.
But after Sis Dalton’s talk I’m not sure I can be optimistic. This is the response to taking up/requesting of rights that *already* exist in theory?
Au contraire, Hawk. It is a gerontocracy. And I make that observation as an individual who qualifies for a senior discount.
Roger, of course that’s correct. I was just being polite!
I will certainly be watching every single session of general conference live in April. Hope springs eternal…
FireTag,
I had forgotten that CofChrist has women in the priesthood. I just had a pretty lively discussion in my class this Sunday when I voiced my opinion that I feel women have just as much of a right to priesthood power as men.
Have you written about women in the priesthood before? If so, I’d be interested in reading. If not, I’d be interested in hearing more of how that works in your church.
As for the main purpose of this post, I think that sometime down the road women will pray, but not now. Geoff, it is sad if the brethren don’t immediately act on it, but I’m sure there are some people in the quorum who are against it and from what I understand it needs to be unanimous decision.
graceforgrace:
I have not written a post on this topic specifically, but I did recruit a “guest” to do so here:
http://www.wheatandtares.org/2010/12/11/woman-in-the-priesthood/
That post describes the experience of being a woman in the priesthood in the CofChrist and the philosophy behind it in detail. The post also cross-links to posts on Wheat and Tares by several of the other permas that deal with the topic of priesthood for women.
Grace, Why is it important that the 15 be unanimous. There was a recent post saying that if government or business leaders had to be unanimous nothing would get done.
The idea that the 15 have to be unanimous is recent. They could disagree publicly not too long age. Couldn’t those who disagree support a majority?
Where does prophecy come into this, where does right, where does the will of God herself?
I just can’t understand why it has not already been happening. Why resist?
Geoff: “Why is it important that the 15 be unanimous. There was a recent post saying that if government or business leaders had to be unanimous nothing would get done.” Did you just answer your own question?
The issuance of the Second Manifesto was probably the last non-unanimous signicant decision or policy initiative. It cost two apostles their places in the quorum and one was exe’d (the son of John Taylor). To the extent that we can rely in Ed Firmage’s account that is why the nondoctrinal ban on blacks and the priesthood/temple access took most of a generation to work its way to fruition. Almost analogous to why the Israelites had to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.
Much more relevant is the question of why the Invocation at President Obama’s inauguration did not address the prayer to God but to America and conspicuously omitted “Under God” from her citation of the Pledge of Alegiance “One Nation, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.”
Josh #18- What in the world would the inauguration have to do with prayers in General Conference?
Juliathepoet #19 Scott Trotter wrote “Decisions on speakers and prayers at General Conference were made several weeks ago and assignments were given to the men and women involved last week,” I would not be surprised if President Monson had not already asked a sister to pray in the April 2013 General Conference before the All Enlisted campaign started. I recall that when President Hinkley was sustained as President of the Church for the first time, President Monson gave the Relief Society and the Young Women an opportunity to stand independently to sustain President Hinckley for the first time and that started a new tradition. I also noticed that when President Monson updated the Church Handbook of Instructions in 2010, it gave significant emphasis to the importance of the roll of women in the leadership of the Church, especially in Ward Council. It is even more relevant that President Monson just reduced the minimum age for Young Women to serve missions from 21 to 19. I hope that we will soon see women offering prayers in the general sessions of general conference, but if it does not happen it will not be because of inequality, or unrighteous dominion or pride among the First Presidency or the Quorum of the Twelve. My point #18 above is that we should be more concerned with the erosion of morality in America than we are with who is or is not asked to say prayers in General Conference.
Josh- I agree that Presideny Momson has been a prophet who has done much in listening and responding to some issues that are important to Mormon Feminists, (and a lot of other women and men as well.)
I still fail to see how that has a relationship to a secular ceremony of pomp and circumstance. I feel that same way about state inaugurations that are heavily religious, or for that matter, about the law that says in Texas you can’t be their governor if you are an atheist.
All of those things are secular, a snapshot in time, subject to change depending on political climates of that time and era.
I see the two, secular and religious, as both important, but being aware of one does not mean I have the right to ignore problems in the other sphere of influence. I have the feeling that we would not agree on what those changes would be, which is fine. As long as we are praying and applying the inspiration we receive in both our political and religious lives.
Still, I don’t see how either of your cmemts has to do with the original post, which was about women praying in conference. (If you do want to post about that and don’t have your own blog, you can click on my name which takes you to mine.)