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Effective next year: 1) Priests will be able to perform and be witnesses to vicarious baptisms. Vicarious gift of the HG is still MP only.
2) Young women (12 – 18) will be able to hand out the towels.
3) They are ditching priesthood preview and replacing it with temple and PH preparation, to which both 11 year old girls and boys are invited.
Quote:Young women (12 – 18) will be able to hand out the towels.
Right where we should be. Brigham Young would be pleased.
I’m not understanding this… does this mean teenage boys (under 18) will be able to baptise and witness? They’re actually doing a lot of temple reform. Getting rid of the gown in initiatory too.
Yes, priests (16-18) and presumably any MP holder that hasn’t yet received the endowment, can perform the temple baptism ordinance itself or be a witness to said ordinance. Just curious, but any idea why the change? Were they not finding enough adult volunteers to go with the youth? I don’t fully understand why those rules were put in place, so that could be why I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around the change. I can only guess. 1) To cover the needs. How often has this happened in your quorum:
We need nine (or whatever it’s up to now) priesthood brethren that are endowed to help with our youth baptism night. Are there any volunteers? Ok, that’s seven. Are there any more? Bueller… Bueller.
2) I think leaders also view it as something that will help with youth retention. This will give the youth experiences of serving in the temple and maybe the thought is that will make them more likely to serve missions and stay active once they turn 18.
3) It gets the priests going back to the temple. Nearly every time I help with baptisms it’s always the kids that are 12-15, there are hardly ever priests or laurels. That’s due in part because the ward baptism night is billed as something for deacons, teachers, beehives, and mia maids while the priests and laurels do their own separate activity. It may be a way to signal to local leaders that the 16-18 year olds should be prioritizing baptism night.
It’s getting fantastic mileage on BCC – https://bycommonconsent.com/2017/12/14/baptism-resurrection-and-women-witnesses/ Everyone is just loving it.
Trying but tone deaf. The part that bothers me is 16 year old boys baptizing 14 year old girls. Also girls attending priesthood prep – really?
In a way, it would be cool for the 16-18 year old boys to be able to perform the baptisms (I would imagine they would feel like they were even more involved in the movement of the church and bringing souls to God), but I can’t help but remember my days as a youth. I’m a girl and I remember feeling a bit vulnerable going into the water with a man while I was in a jumpsuit. If the leader who was baptising me was attractive, I was distracted by it. I can’t imagine having boys my age being in there with me. I had a lot of crushes in high school and I can totally imagine being super giddy (I guess is the word) if the guy I had a crush on was holding me and dunking me under the water. I would have been so distracted. I would imagine the boy would be distracted too if he was holding a girl he had a crush on. Who knows though, maybe it’ll get more youth to participate [emoji6] You only require the Aaronic Priesthood to baptize in churches – I did this myself once. It just brings the temple into line. All in all this is a good thing I think. Young men baptising young women? Well, you think our official missionaries never get crushes? I’m sure they do.
SamBee wrote:
All in all this is a good thing I think. Young men baptising young women? Well, you think our official missionaries never get crushes? I’m sure they do.
Of course they get crushes. Here’s the thing – my 17 year old daughter is sexually harassed literally every day by a 17 year old boy and member be of our ward. He hugs her every time he sees her, he talks about porn in a joking way, and he all around is a creep for her. The other adults in the ward adore this guy because he puts on a good show of righteousness but my daughter hates him.
I guarantee his happens in virtually every ward in the church. I’ve personally heard a Deacon say “I want to f### her brains out” while sitting on a temple bench waiting for his turn in the font while observing an girl being baptized.
“This happens everywhere” is not a good way to make policy. 16 year old boys are not emotionally mature enough to be spiritually intimate with girls. My daughter would have no recourse but to let herself be baptized by his creep. And yes it probably happens all the time with adults but it doesn’t make it right.
Interesting history mentioned here http://religionnews.com/2017/12/15/new-mormon-policy-gives-teen-boys-power-to-baptize-in-the-temple-and-teen-girls-get-to-do-what-exactly/ ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://religionnews.com/2017/12/15/new-mormon-policy-gives-teen-boys-power-to-baptize-in-the-temple-and-teen-girls-get-to-do-what-exactly/ nibbler wrote:
1) To cover the needs. How often has this happened in your quorum:We need nine (or whatever it’s up to now) priesthood brethren that are endowed to help with our youth baptism night. Are there any volunteers? Ok, that’s seven. Are there any more? Bueller… Bueller.
2) I think leaders also view it as something that will help with youth retention. This will give the youth experiences of serving in the temple and maybe the thought is that will make them more likely to serve missions and stay active once they turn 18.
I agree with Nibbler. It will help with logistics and it may help give these young men a task and helping them feel important and needed in the church community. It may also give them spiritual temple experiences that tie them into becoming more temple Mormons.
I find it somewhat ironic that the down side is that this move is yet again not fair or equal to the YW. It has been my experience that men are valued more than the women. Partly because men are potential leaders – women are parishioners or congregants that must be led. It takes men to staff and run the church. There has always seemed to be a surplus of women in the church. Third is that I anecdotally understand the faith crisis wave to be hitting men much more often than women.
It almost seems like reverse ladies night at the club. The guys receive a carrot to come or to stay. The women have to pay their own way.
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