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Old Timer wrote:

The difficulty happens when the youth says, “No,” or, “I’m not sure,” or, “What does that mean?” In that situation, there isn’t enough guidance to help Bishops who don’t want to get into specifics know what to say or a rare Bishop who does want to get into specifics what not to say. It is at that point that leadership roulette kicks in.

My preference is for the Bishop to do one of two things when the answer is uncertainty: 1) If he trusts that the parents are willing and able to give solid detail for those who aren’t sure of the meaning, he would stop the interview and refer the youth to the parent(s) for clarification (which has multiple difficult issues for some kids); 2) If he is hearing uncertainty from multiple youth, he would hold a meeting with all of the youth to talk about what it means, so nobody is singled out individually and embarrassed. (The meeting option would work also if he is not certain the parent(s) would respond appropriately or if he is aware of something that would be potentially harmful.)

This is a potential landmine issue no matter the Bishop decides to do. The only way to avoid that potential is to stop asking the question – and, although I believe in the principle and concept of a Law of Chastity of some kind, I would like to see the question removed from youth interviews. The negative consequences in too many cases can’t be avoided, so I favor teaching the standard (in clear, modern terms) and saving the question until the full temple recommend Interview. I understand the door that opens for sexually promiscuous youth to attend the temple, but, for me, doing so is on them.

Curt, thanks, well thought-out and well said. I wonder if it would be helpful for bishops to be supplied with written materials specifically compiled for youth interviews (that are available to all church members) from which they’re able to read aloud during interviews, that go into detail about individual aspects of the Law of Chastity, and that bishops be instructed not to deviate from those written materials and to refer youth to a parent if the youth STILL has further questions.

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Thanks so much, everyone, for imparting of your wisdom, thoughts, experiences. This is helping me a lot in working through this.

I think it’s true that some youth might be less likely to bring up issues of concern if the parent is in the room during the interview. (Mine won’t, but some might.) Thing is, I’m not sure the youth should be bringing up sexual concerns with bishopric members unless they really feel comfortable doing so. But that’s just me. Our bishopric are brand-newly called, and they’re virtual strangers to me and my kids. If we still had our previous bishop, whom I know well, I don’t think I’d be bothered about this at all.

Most bishops’ stance on the Law of Chastity should be exactly what? Is there a concise definition somewhere? Searching the scriptures and the Church website, I can’t find one. I find different ones going into varying levels of detail, in varying shades of gray. I’d like to teach my kids exactly what the bishop means when he asks that question, but I don’t even know what he means, exactly! Does HE even know? I would LOVE to prepare my kids ahead of time for the questions the bishop will ask, but that requires that I KNOW what those questions are. Actually, last time I was in for an interview, I asked him what questions he asks the boys when they become deacons…if it was basically just the temple worthiness questions, or if different, in what ways. He just talked about how he likes to use that interview to talk about their responsibilities and what it means to hold the Priesthood. He didn’t answer my question.

I agree that most bishops are not asking kids detailed questions in order to arouse themselves or for any other evil purpose, but SOME inevitably will do, or will be. I just wish there was a rule about the level of detail they’re allowed to go into with these kids. I don’t want them mentioning, asking, or explaining sexual things to my kids that my kids haven’t heard of before. That’s MY job. People have such varying ideas about what is ok, sexually, within and without the Church, and I don’t want my kids going years or even decades believing that one guy’s interpretation of the Law of Chastity is the Lord’s interpretation, when that may not be the case.

I definitely don’t want to be a molly-coddling helicopter parent. That’s a good point. If I go in there with them, it sends them the message that I don’t believe they can handle that situation on their own.

Lying seems a less-than-ideal approach, to me, especially considering that another one of the temple worthiness questions asks if we’re honest in our dealings with our fellow man. *facepalm*

Yes, “necking and petting,” I had only a vague notion of what those might mean while growing up, and I was born in the Church. I still only have a vague idea! But I’m too embarrassed to ask anybody at church, at this point. “What, you’re 30-something and you still don’t know what necking and petting are?” I noticed that my daughter’s For the Strength of Youth book doesn’t use those terms, thankfully.

I guess I wouldn’t feel a need to encase my kids in bubble wrap, so to speak, if I knew what those guys were gonna ask them. It’s the rare person who would say it’s a great idea to send your kid into a room with a strange adult male who will ask them questions and dispense advice of a sexual nature, if you, the parent, don’t know the guy well, and don’t know what questions will be asked or what advice will be given. Right?

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Yeah, I keep telling the kids, whenever this comes up, that it’s just a matter of time; it will happen. If people aren’t ready for it and changing the policy would hurt more people than it helps (because people are not perfect and are in many ways products of the culture in which they’re raised, for better or worse), that maybe that’s good enough justification for slow change. But I really can only conclude at this point that it is just because of our patriarchal culture that women don’t currently hold the Priesthood, and that if we were all more spiritually-guided rather than culturally-guided, the policy would change right now. (Although, on a personal level, I don’t feel a need to wait for policy change as far as my own family goes. I could comfortably give a laying-on-of-hands blessing to a member of my family today and invoke God’s power and feel no guilt or blasphemy.)

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hawkgrrrl wrote:

I call this the Dorothy Defense for female ordination, like when Glenda the Good Witch tells Dorothy at the end of the Wizard of Oz that she had the ability to go home all along. If I’m Dorothy, after being attacked by Flying Monkeys, having my friends tortured, and the pee scared out of me by some fake wizard, I would punch that broad right in the mouth.

:clap:

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DarkJedi wrote:

Obviously there are some 12-year-olds who are far more advanced than others, but I seriously don;t believe we should be asking those questions of pre-pubescent or barely pubescent youngsters.

I agree. I had to explain the law of chastity. My son thought “chastity” was something bad, though he had no idea what.

I’m so glad the handbook says not to ask the question anymore. I remember a book I read when I was a teenager by Spencer W. Kimball, (I can’t remember the title but it’s one of the old well-known ones,) and it talked at some length about masturbation being sinful, as well as “necking and petting” which were far obsolete by the 90s when I was a youth, but still used in church settings. Maybe asking about it in interviews became commonplace during Kimball’s presidency, or after that book was published.

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Thank you for all these wonderful replies. I will prepare him by going over the temple recommend interview in the short term, and then when his birthday is nearer I’ll ask the bishop if he can tell us exactly what he will be asking. Thanks for that suggestion. I guess I was thinking that we couldn’t ask ahead of time. But why not? Ok. I didn’t even THINK about a masturbation question being part of it. I’m not sure my son knows what that is! I sure hope that isn’t one of the questions. I am really ok with leaving that one up to the individual to decide, with the Spirit, whether it is spiritually damaging for them or not.

Sent from my ONE E1005 using Tapatalk

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hawkgrrrl wrote:

At some point they quit doing jock checks.

hawkgrrrl for the WIN.

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Beefster wrote:

I’ve had this obsession with modesty/immodesty for as long as I can remember, honestly. Even today, I find it hard to avoid looking at immodesty for immodesty’s sake- not even for sexual stimulation. It’s a problem I struggle with daily.

Blame Sharing Time and FHE lessons from your childhood. Nothing makes me cringe so much as a lesson where we teach kids to judge people based on appearances, as if that isn’t already human nature. Kids need to grasp the idea that “God loves everyone” and “we are all brothers and sisters” LONG before we try to teach them to be “righteous judges in Zion”. Doing it backwards just makes it harder for them to be Christlike in the long run.

For me, as a female, when wearing garments, dressing modestly as defined by the church has gone one of two ways: 1) acceptably attractive yet uncomfortable and bunchy due to awkwardness of so many layers, or 2) comfortable and not bunchy, but dumpy-looking. I usually went with #2 (before I stopped wearing garments).

Old Timer wrote:

Modesty means moderation (and includes the proper behavior for individual situations) – and it applies to almost every aspect of life, not just how we dress.

We have lost that full understanding, generally speaking.

BINGO.

Modesty should refer to more than clothing, and dressing modestly should refer to more than hemlines. 🙄 Modesty is an internal state. It will naturally often manifest in external ways such as clothing, but that external manifestation will vary widely, dependent upon cultural variables. We really do ourselves a disservice by trying to make Law-of-Moses style rules about it, because when people focus on the black-and-white rules in order to LOOK modest, they forget to shift themselves internally and BE modest people.

I try hard to teach “modesty” to my kids in the broader, internal sense. I really want them to understand it correctly, and not in the narrow Pharisaical sense into which our church culture has regretfully corralled it. Modesty means not posting excessive selfies with the intention of getting as many “likes” as possible. It means not bragging or cutting others down. It means not using words, actions, or wearing clothes that might make your peers feel sad or jealous or inferior. It means not behaving (including dressing) to get attention or praise. (And how all of this manifests will depend very heavily on CONTEXT: WHERE we live and WHO our peers are.) Modesty means our lives are swallowed up in Christ. It’s not about US. Our identity is just an extension of Him. We live for others, not for ourselves. Modesty includes humility such that we know we have no right to judge someone because they wear something frumpy, ripped, cheap, stained, “immodest” or “inappropriate”, or because they swear or drink or act differently from how we would act. It includes acknowledging that only God knows the heart of another, and looking at someone’s physical appearance is NOT a reliable way to know that person’s heart. It’s been a frequent topic lately for us, because my kids just went back to public school after four years of homeschooling, and there’s social pressure there to appear a certain way, because they’re at the middle school in grades 6 and 8 (everyone’s favorite grades, right? lol). And we’re in one of the more affluent school districts in town. Noticeable contrast from homeschooling and getting all their clothes at the thrift store.

I also vehemently object to the hemline rules and the garments covering so much surface area, and that is the fact that Vitamin D deficiency is rampant and autoimmune illness rates are skyrocketing, and those who variables are intimately connected such that the more sun hits a person’s skin the less likely she is to EVER get a debilitating autoimmune illness. Likewise, autism is intimately linked to low Vitamin D level in the mother during pregnancy. So with the combination of post-Victorian excessive clothing and post-industrial service economy where we collectively spend too much time indoors, we are making ourselves ever more ill, and Mormon hemline rules are NOT helping. I’ve lived in Utah a few times, and during one of those times, some coworkers and I came up with the proposition that we should get the symbols tattooed on and do away with garments. It can’t happen soon enough for me, as I can’t currently attend the temple due to sensory processing issues that prevent me wearing garments anymore, which sensory issues only became debilitating enough to cause me to stop wearing garments after four years in upstate NY where the short summers didn’t supply enough sun on my “modestly dressed” bod to last me through the endless winters! Coincidence? Who knows.

I’d forgotten the issues with increased likelihood of infection until hawkgrrl’s post reminded me, but clearly there are multiple health reasons for adjusting the current garment and clothing rules/guidelines.

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dande48 wrote:

It sounds like a setup for one day saying “We’re not ‘giving’ women the priesthood. They’ve actually had it all along.We’re just making it official.” And thus doctrine gets turns into “early Church culture” once again.

For sure. It fails to address why men are authorized do things that women aren’t, when women used to do them and are presumably capable. But it does kinda have the ring of progress to it, all the same…as if we’re baby-steppin’ in the right direction. Or at least that is what I’m telling myself. And if I recall correctly, based on when this was given, the reason Elder Oaks talks about women so much in a talk on Priesthood authority, here, is because this was around that same time when the Ordain Women group was becoming more vocal. So he is bending (even if it’s a weak bend) to pressure, much as Pres. Kimball bent to pressures and that eventually led to the 1978 revelation.

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Old Timer wrote:

Elder Oaks already said in 2014 that endowed women have the Priesthood in this life. They simply aren’t ordained to offices currently in the hierarchical Priesthood organization. (The keys haven’t been used to allow that.)

Thanks, Curt! I found it. Here’s an excerpt:

“We are not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the priesthood in their Church callings, but what other authority can it be? When a woman—young or old—is set apart to preach the gospel as a full-time missionary, she is given priesthood authority to perform a priesthood function. The same is true when a woman is set apart to function as an officer or teacher in a Church organization under the direction of one who holds the keys of the priesthood. Whoever functions in an office or calling received from one who holds priesthood keys exercises priesthood authority in performing her or his assigned duties.” https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/the-keys-and-authority-of-the-priesthood?lang=eng

hawkgrrrl wrote:

Nevertheless, the NT does refer to a female apostle (post-JC) named Junia in Romans 16:7.

Yeah, Junia!! I’d like to meet her, one day. I knew there was evidence in scripture of women doing what our church considers exclusively male responsibilities. I’d searched a few days ago for the term “priestess” and didn’t find anything. Thanks for that reference. So it seems pretty likely that Jesus called at least one female Apostle. Or maybe Peter or someone called her, if not Jesus. Paul says, “…who were in Christ before me,” which could mean that Junia was called while Jesus was alive, or at some point during the brief period between Jesus’ crucifixion/resurrection and Paul’s conversion. I feel pretty confident deferring to Bart Ehrman on Junia being female. I’m currently reading his “Lost Christianities” and he does a great job of pretty objectively picking apart the differences between various manuscripts and hypothesizing motivations that may have existed for making changes to them (for example, “Junia” to “Junis”).

gospeltangents wrote:

Here is an interesting link that not only references Junia being female, but talks about women with priesthood in ancient Christianity. See https://mormonheretic.org/2010/10/19/women-with-the-priesthood-in-ancient-christianity/

This link is fantastic. Thanks so much. It’s going to be the basis for tonight’s FHE lesson.

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Beefster wrote:

I suppose it shows that God works through imperfect people, and much like with the law of Moses, He will adapt to their traditions and weaknesses. Heavenly Father is a personal God, and he is often quite pragmatic and not quite as absolute as the orthodox crowd tends to make him out to be.

In the grand view of history, women have been considered more like property than people for the vast majority of it, with egalitarianism being relatively new at just under a hundred years old.

Thanks for these thoughts. I feel like you’ve hit on something. Seems we could use this same explanation to justify the vengeful, violent, jealous Old Testament god. If He reveals, or tries to get His people to live, the “ACTUAL 100% COMPLETE Fullness of the Gospel,” you know, the “Gospel the Way People Live it on Kolob” or something, the whole thing would implode, because culture/small minds can’t handle it. They need it line upon line, precept upon precept. Kinda like the United Order seemed like what God would actually want from a Zion people, but the 19th century Saints just couldn’t pull it off, because…some stuff’s just too hard. Like, if you give the kindergarteners college-level reading material and expect them to write an essay, you’re gonna have zero books read, zero essays written, and zero kids wanting to come back to class the next day because they can’t handle it, can’t pull it off, and it doesn’t make any sense. Maybe that was us (the collective “us”…not every single one of us, individually) with blacks and the Priesthood. Maybe that was the Israelites with “turn the other cheek”. Maybe that’s us, now, with women and the Priesthood. But if you give the kindergarteners some salt-filled lunch trays and have them trace alphabet letter shapes, they may not be living up to their fullest eternal potential in that moment, but they’re doing something that can eventually BUILD to their fullest potential, and that will prevent them all throwing in the towel and running screaming from the classroom.

Maybe if we give women the Priesthood right now, we get this massive outcry from the older generations that causes such confusion and pandemonium and mass exodus that the church becomes unable to perform the most basic fundamentals, like reminding everybody to love one another, and before we know it the church no longer exists as an organization and can’t bless lives at all. The bad would outweigh the good if we bring in the “good” too early. In other words, a good change (for example, giving the Priesthood to all worthy members) can be quite bad if the negative ramifications of implementing the change would outweigh the positive ones.

Beefster wrote:

Jesus was a champion of women in a world that treated women only slightly better than dirt (perhaps an exaggeration, but let’s be real: that’s what it looks like through a modern lens). In every instance I can think of where Jesus interacted with women, he treated them with the utmost dignity and respect.

Good point. I don’t know enough about first century Jewish culture to know how exceptional His treatment of women actually was. I’ll take your word that it was not the norm.

Old Timer wrote:

I actually like that the leadership now isn’t making justifications. They simply are saying it will take a revelation, since they don’t see it in our scriptural canon. That is a good first step, since it finally opens the door for it to change at some point.

Yes! That’s really encouraging!

My 13-year-old daughter’s SS teacher evidently (according to her) told the class that in the next life women would be given the Priesthood. I wanted to track him down and hug him for saying that, (or just for giving my daughter the impression that that would happen) even though I don’t know that there’s much, if any, doctrinal basis for it!

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You guys are the best…as always. I love the responses. Thanks so much.

Ok, so the most reasonable explanation for a male-exclusive Priesthood is the evolution/culture-based one Ray, hawkgrrrl, and dande48 point out. 😆 Yes. For sure. It explains why Priesthood has been traditionally a male thing. But I guess I need to figure out what good, if any, comes from maintaining that tradition.

Roy wrote:

A fairly compelling argument is that this is how Jesus organized things. He called 12 all male disciples.

He also preached exclusively to the Jews as the time was not yet right for the gospel to go to the gentiles. Later after the death of Jesus, Peter received a revelation that the gospel was to go to the gentiles.

That’s true. Jesus didn’t give the Priesthood to women (that we know of). I sure wish we knew why, as well as why He didn’t preach to the Gentiles. Would the men have a hard time being Apostles, for some reason, if there were also women Apostles? Was Jesus’ society just too patriarchal for that kind of church structure to work well? I think OUR society may have had a hard time pulling that off in centuries past, but certainly, now, I think we could pull it off (women bishops, etc.) and be okay. I could be wrong.

nibbler wrote:

Some time ago I had a BP that was also an institute teacher. He was of the opinion that the PH was reserved for males because it helped them transition into adulthood.

Thanks. This is the kind of explanation I was hoping to find. I’d not thought of this one. The only problem I see with it is that we’re allowing our young men to do things that our young women cannot do, even after those young women reach the biological milestones that correspond to the Priesthood ranking system. (For example, girls still do not pass the Sacrament when they begin wearing a bra.) And once men and women are all well into adulthood, and are obviously adults by all outward appearances, we still do not give women the Priesthood, or take it away from the men (it having filled its purpose at that point).

Roy wrote:

Nibbler, I do agree that having a role and responsibility in the community tend to make the YM better grounded than they usually are. I believe that this and missionary service helps to transition them into adulthood. I also believe that priesthood responsibilities might make men into better husbands and fathers than they otherwise would be.

I agree that all these are definite benefits of giving the Priesthood to young men. I wonder if, by giving the Priesthood to females, we would make these benefits less prevalent for males. Would Priesthood be less likely to help men stay grounded, transition to adulthood, and become better husbands and fathers if women were given the Priesthood, too? I don’t know the answer to this.

SilentDawning wrote:

If you want to hear a lot of reasons, look on an orthodox Mormon discussion forum and you’ll get all kinds of rationalizations and reasons.

Ok, maybe I should try and find those. I just assume they only have the standard ones (“men are weaker,” “it’s the Lord’s will,” and “something about Order”).

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I love this. I’m so glad it went well and that your burden is now lighter. I agree that kids can often handle more than we realize. DH and I are open about what we believe with our 12- and 11-year-olds, and they have handled it much better than I’d expected, thus far. I think you’ve set a better example of how to express our beliefs to our kids than I have been doing; you planned what you were going to say in advance with your wife, and you made sure it was done so that the kids felt safe and loved. I really need to follow this strategy. DH and I too often use humor/sarcasm when it would be better not to, and we’ve been lousy at careful advanced planning. (It’s likely not helping either of the kids to hear the parents make jokes about how you need male genitalia to hold a Sacrament tray. We sometimes act like big children, ourselves. 😳 )

Thank you for sharing this. So awesome.

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You guys are the best. Thank you for the thorough replies.

There are so many great suggestions. I can do these! The ones I want to try first:

* Don my anthropologist hat.

* Prep a talk on the subject.

* Practice mentally changing the wording and tone of a thought, so that if I do verbalize it, it can come across in the right spirit and not wolf-like.

* Be a good student by digging and fact-checking.

* Focus on positives.

I wish I knew Cyrillic notation! I had to look it up on Wikipedia. I’m so jealous.

Heber13 wrote:

3) Often I remind myself that God loves me. Maybe I’m a wolf. Maybe a lost sheep. Maybe a duck, or a llama. Whatever I am, God loves me. I read passages like Moses Chapter 1, and how Moses sees himself as God’s child. That is my true potential. That is who I am. Satan wants to call me “son of man” and have me think I am not of divine origin…but I can tell him to get behind me. Negative thoughts should be cast behind me. I try to focus on God loves me, even as I am. And that is good enough for me. Even if others don’t approve of me, I can set that in perspective, knowing I care about what God thinks of me, more than what others think of me. I remind myself of this often…sometimes not even paying attention to the class. Love is the root of spirituality.

Thanks for this bit, Heber13. I need to remember that He loves me, still, in my frustration.

I want to be like the water in that story of the Buddha, and I agree that it works to just let things be, but I feel like the water gets sludgy every Sunday, while it takes two weeks to clear, lol.

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Thanks for posting this. I have an 11-year-old son and we have reactivated ourselves within the last few months. He expressed last week that when he turns 12 he would like to be in the ward choir, or be a deacon, but not both. 😁 He asked if 12-year-olds HAD to pass the Sacrament. I told him that if he did decide to pass it, it would give another person a break that week, but that he didn’t ever have to. Then he asked why his sister wasn’t passing the Sacrament since she is 12. 😅 I love his fresh perspective on things and his confusion at all of the cultural traditions that don’t make sense. I think I’ll wait a while before telling him the white shirt and tie is recommended to pass the Sacrament!!

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