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I like it. I would add another; Activity Parity (not just activity budget parity). Why can’t girls have high adventure? My daughter was complaining this summer about the great high adventure activity that our priests had this summer while she had to do to ‘camp’. (Quotes intended – it was a tame event at a cabin, no river running, mountain climbing, hiking, biking, fishing, etc….)
I think that while OW may have failed, for now, it probably did succeed in raising awareness, especially among younger women. “Inequity, once noticed, cannot be unnoticed.”
Yeah Ray, I understand that Jesus did the wheat and chaff thing. I’m just thinking it’s not our job. Let God figure that out. We would do better to be inclusive. We don’t allow any worthiness interviews for our kids except in our own home with an open door. In addition to protecting our children from being alone with a priesthood leader behind a closed door, it also serves to rid the interview of some of the trappings of authority that exist in the bishop’s office (big desk, photo of the prophet, picture of Christ). There are plenty of examples of people who have had priesthood leaders commit sexual abuse. I am astounded that the church still continues the practice of one-on-one interviews behind closed doors. It is not worth the collateral damage in my opinion.
I personally think that no man should ever be asking a young woman sexual questions. I think it would be an easy change to make to have female leadership perform these interviews.
At a deeper level, I completely disagree with the guilt/fear model as a productive means of achieving improved human behavior. I think the idea of excising human beings from their sexuality to be completely unrealistic and unhealthy.
I think ‘worthiness’ is a funny game we play in the church. It is totally possible to answer the ‘worthiness’ questions correctly and honestly and still be a rotten human being.
I also think that separating the ‘worthy’ from the ‘unworthy’ to just be another system of ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the church; one of many. It is exclusive in nature and un-Christian in my opinion.
The statement was fine, but predictable. In my mind, the core issue is one of women’s roles in the church and in Mormon culture. Giving the priesthood to women is just one facet of the much larger issue. This announcement completely skirts even that one facet, because it focuses on ‘blessings of the priesthood’, rather than holding authority and the ability to make decisions and have oversight without a man looking over a woman’s should.
The question I have is why don’t they do something stronger? “We as priesthood body have made ordaining women to the priesthood a matter of fasting and prayer, and the Lord has revealed to us that it is not His will at the present time.” It seems the church has bypassed its revelatory roots.
I don’t go. I go to Sacrament Meeting to be with my daughter, but I had to quite attending Priesthood and Sunday School a couple of years ago for the same reason you mention. I think the LDS marriage culture is divisive and destructive in a lot of ways, at least for many. If you conform to the pressure to marry, then suddenly you are pressed into the ‘have many children’ culture, so you really just trade one thing for another. I think there not only needs to be room at the table for everyone; there also needs to be a mind shift that it’s okay marry late, or to not marry at all. Some people (and I’m not implying this for you), are simply not cut out for it, others are not ready by the ages you mention and others have other important things that they should be doing. There are many unhappy spouses married to people who should not be married.
My spouse is emerging from a serious struggle with depression that lasted most of her adult life that in no small measure was due to marrying early, giving up her educational goals and living most of an adult life that she didn’t want to lead, one which imprisoned her extremely bright mind in a 30 year drudge march. Much of this was due to the pressure that you talk about and because of overt and implicit gender expectations. Breaking free of all of that, though extraordinarily difficult, has been the single more important cure for her depression.
I say to thine own self be true!!
Why can’t we just accept all at the table? As they are. Today. Like Christ would have done. We talk about it, but we don’t do it.
I vastly prefer first names. Inside the church, it just feels archaic to me, like we’re Mennonites or something.
Outside the church, I really hate the use of brother/sister, because it inadvertently or not so inadvertently becomes a means of identifying you as ‘in the club’ and automatically placing others ‘outside.’
The idea that you can do something for an extended period, and then when you cease for a period, that all of that prior effort is for naught is guilt-inducing and counter-productive. I have often pondered the idea that you are only a tithe payer if you are a current tithe payer. You could pay for 70 years and then stop and the 70 year don’t seem to count for anything. This is similar to missing a day reading the Book of Mormon.
The whole concept is counter-productive in my opinion.
I believe that the upcoming generation has greater access to information, better critical thinking skills and more courage in stating their convictions than any in the past. It is a great comfort to me.
IMO, the church’s greatest current challenge and their KEY needs are to be able to address the historical, doctrinal challenges and incongruities in a rational fashion, introduce more transparency at every level, create greater inclusiveness, allow for non-conformity of thought and shades of gray and to find a way to remain relevant. If they do not, the LDS is on path to the religious dustbin.
The old models of squelching information that challenges the status quo, ignoring differing opinions and top-down thinking are a recipe for an organizational disaster, again, IMO.
There is a new testament allusion to baptisms for the dead, though I believe different versions of the NT interpret that passage differently. I you look hard in the Old Testament, there are some similarities between the clothing used in OT rites and LDS Temple Rites.
There are some commonalities in ritual washings.
Overall however, the doctrine that all of those ordinances existed through all of human history is strictly LDS. If you base your study solely on the Bible, you will see evolutionary development with baptism instituted by Christ.
The temple ordinances themselves as you say derive from Masonry, which isn’t that old. They were instituted long after the Book of Mormon became part of the LDS Lexicon, and are not mentioned there. They were modified, and continue to be modified by the LDS church to mesh with LDS Doctrine.
I have a bishop who plans and preps and manipulates the tears. He hands out tissues in advance of his talks and inevitably chooses tearjerker videos to supplement his lessons. It’s all very contrived and the topics generally do not have anything to do with serious doctrinal issues or learning. I think there are tons of reasons that people cry in church, the least of which has to do with the ‘Spirit’. More often, I think it has to do with people just generally being miserable in their lives, for various reasons.
In my opinion, the church sets up the framework of unhappiness and then people spend their lives flailing themselves against impossible standards and making themselves miserable when they or their loved ones fall short. They are unable to stand back from the framework and realize that the misery is created in their own minds, and that decoupling can increase their happiness.
