Ordain Women Round 3: Success or Setback?

I have no idea if any women showed up for PH in our ward building. I listened at home as the good Lord intended when He made the broadcast available over the Internet. 😉

I note that Pres. Uchtdorf had referred to the Women’s Conference as the first session of General Conference, but that others used the standard wording on Saturday and Sunday – “this third session, fourth session,” etc., inclusive of the PH session but not of the WC. I’d like to think that wording was old habit, not intentional exclusion.

My daughter asked to come with me to Priesthood Session. I’d have brought her if she weren’t 6 years old. But being out until 10:00 (11:00 if you include our trip for ice cream) is a bit late for her age. I told her she can come when she’s 8, since that’s when she’s old enough to attend GWC.

But for what it’s worth, when someone in my ward asked about bringing non-member (male) friends to Priesthood Session, my rather conservative elders quorum president said, “Sure. Bring your friends, bring your wives. It’s open to anyone.”

I’d say we’re making progress.

Women can access it via broadcast or Internet the same as men anyway, and they’ve ALWAYS been able to read the transcripts in the subsequent Ensign. I don’t see what the big deal is, it’s not like they’ve been kept from any “Deep, Dark Secrets!”.

I was pausing the PH talk figuring that the Giants-Nationals game (started at 1430 hours PDT) would be over soon after PH session started. Little did I know that the game would go eightneen innings. I did view it the following morning. That’s the advantage of technology; it lessens time commitments. However, I DO miss taking my boys to PH session and going to get ice cream or burgers afterwards. They’ll do THAT with my grandSONS soon enough.

To clarify, the announcement “that Temple Square was off limits for this “protest.”” happened in response to the intention of staging a second protest, not in response to Kate Kelly’s excommunication.

I think much of the hype on this Conferences’ action was diffused by the direction given to local leaders to not make a big deal out of it. Women attended at local buildings without fanfare many times before; those who feel the need attending again remains no big deal.

I went for “other” on the first question as neither choice was adequate. It wasn’t a net success. No idea what the excommunication has to do with it, as it was months ago. They aren’t really opposites. The “current status of Ordain Women”, to me, is less than it was, with the Oct2014 action being a general “meh”.

I think it’s too early to tell where OW is going. Certainly they have been effective at broadening the LDS feminist audience and provoking an interesting but non-answer response from the church, although their tactics and language have often been so openly and blatantly secular that I wonder if there is ANY overarching strategy aside from the binary of ordain! (or not) Charge!

Saturday’s action was designed to be local and therefore called upon the courage of many in a soft but moderate confrontation laced with worries of repercussions and rejection and without broad support. I would have been surprised if they had a high participation rate but perhaps this is a way to begin to encourage local OW supporters to take these issues into the chapels.

What are viable alternatives for being heard? The so called “proper channels”? Hmm, would those be the same channels that as we were reminded in GC are are blocked by a 70 NOT representing the people to the prophet but the prophet to the people? Don’t call us, we’ll call you!

Or maybe you liked the recent “This is a woman’s church” apologist spin (because LDS men don’t beat their women)!?! Well, I guess all is well in Zion then!

So, which way do you face?

OW are bad. Shame on them.

As Howard says at 16 Some problems with the local action idea. It removes the collective strength part.

How many go to local buildings when you can watch at home, as my wife and I did?

No method to transmit to leaders for response.

Hopefully someone from the 15 will extend a hand of friendship and actually talk to them before next conference.

Otherwise if I were them I’d be going back to the main meeting as last year. That got attention.

The timing here is somewhat different. In Britain we get the priesthood session shown in our chapels on a Sunday morning from 10-12, and then the Saturday afternoon session from 1-3pm, which doesn’t give a lot of time between. We then get Sunday morning live from 5-7pm. Husband and son go to the priesthood session, which my daughter and I catch at home and get dinner made for shortly after 12 (we’re only a 10 minute drive away from the chapel so its doable), and then we all watch the Saturday afternoon at the chapel. Now the children are older we also try to fit in the 5-7pm Sunday morning via computer (we managed it this time) after an early meal.
Growing up however I think we only really got to see one session at the chapel.

OW wants to be heard by a two faced imperfect organization with a history of being flagrantly wrong that by design stops bottom up change suggestions by members from ever reaching the top, instead holding them at the local level and not infrequently re-indoctrinating, blaming or punishing the suggesting member. They claim to lead by God *not* man but anyone with eyes and ears can clearly see that they do change more frequently reactivity in response to agitation than proactively (as they did under Joseph) in response to God’s command.

So a two faced church invites (perhaps even demands) two faced action! Believers know We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. and that all things shall be done by common consent in the church Almost all men! Are we to believe that LDS leaders are immune to these verses? There needs be checks and balances for without them black men would still be denied the priesthood and black men and women would still be denied the temple. See Dr. Lowry Nelson’s 1947 prophetic warning to the First Presidency and the 1949 Statement from the First Presidency:

August 17, 1949

The attitude of the Church with reference to Negroes remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time. The prophets of the Lord have made several statements as to the operation of the principle. President Brigham Young said: “Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth cursed with a skin of blackness? It comes in consequence of their fathers rejecting the power of the holy priesthood, and the law of God. They will go down to death. And when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the holy priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to.”

President Wilford Woodruff made the following statement: “The day will come when all that race will be redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have.”

The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the Negroes.

The First Presidency”

So while they may not always be right it seems they are never in doubt.

Yes, Geoff. My ex-husband thought he was “very restrained” because he broke my things and tried to throw me out of the house instead of hitting me in the face according to his first inclination. The logic of “restrained compared to what COULD have been done” doesn’t really hold water, now, does it?

The concept of “group” organized to change the church is where the understanding fails to speak to the rest of the Church. That shows a lack of trust, perhaps warranted. What many people have a hard time understanding is: if you don’t trust the Church, why petition them? There is only one reason, and that is the spectacle. They’re hoping to embarrass the Church into compliance.

FWIW, I personally don’t think OW should have been turned away originally simply because they have rendered themselves not important enough to be worth the fight, but sadly the Church played right into their hands. The sheer demand for the leadership to communicate with them demonstrates hubris and an inability to be taught. Every change regarding women that has happened has been done in spite of OW, not because of them, by those who are humbly and earnestly petitioning in faith. They refused the lines of communication open to them, demanded and forced ones more to their liking, then failed to understand why they were rejected out of hand.

I believe it’s because many of those organizing OW fully intended the rejection of those who play into OW’s scheme. There are many earnest, believing, faithful people who have joined themselves to OW, never realizing that they are patsies being used to “prove” how hard-hearted and out of touch Church leadership are. Sadly, the only winners here are the ones pulling the strings. The casualties are those with good intentions who have been misled.

Howard, I am wondering how you know it is bullshit? Is there data to back this up, or merely your opinion?

When my kids were overseas in a country where the church does not have chapels, there was discussion of having Priesthood session streamed, they may have been a pilot. And that was well before OW.

There had been prayers by women in churchwide devotionals and concerts prior to the first female prayers at GC

And my local mission had already developed a system of “sister leadership” before the missionary age change was announced.

So I am not comfortable giving OW for credit for these things.

Naismith,
There have been many, many discussions regarding LDS feminist issues percolating and incubating for many, many years in the bloggernacle alone and I suspect long before the internet as well as and as helpful as they were to define and refine the issues there was little or no visible pro-female response or action or change by the church until OW became a known acronym, largely because of their direct confrontation covered by the press that could no longer be easily ignored or just brushed aside. Following this we see change (though minor) after change. OW didn’t invent the arguments, they didn’t distill and refine the arguments but they did something very effective that no one else had before, they confronted the church with some of the arguments and until that happened there had been little or no movement by the church. The threat of OW motivated the church to do something for a change! Their response was mostly defensive, the rest mostly cosmetic and those pro-female changes could have been implemented long ago but weren’t! I’m not pleased with OW’s approach but it WAS EFFECTIVE.

This is a familiar pattern seen with the civil rights movement and with the gay marriage movement. (unfortunately) Agitation works! It would be nice if agitation weren’t the only channel of communication commonly available with Q15. It is a concept implied and recognized by President Hinckley’s ABC interview with David Ransom where he indicated at present there is “no agitation” for women and the Priesthood. OW used that concept and it worked again!

Yes mam
Ow is ticked off because their cause has been proven not to be just

It is the next divisive issue for the church to deal with, as we see from the comments here now that they have lost the gay marriage debate.

Again I think they are fighting a loosing battle but on this one it’s hard to who will push them. Perhaps the Lord?

I’m not an insomniac, it’s 5.50 pm on Monday here.