Comments on: Do women need to be liberated within the LDS church?

By: Gramps

Gramps — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 15:54:00 +0000

Liz,

Sorry for the delay for getting back on this I needed to do a bit of research I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight.

The Quorum of the Anointed was a group of men and women who were chosen by Joseph Smith to be the first people to receive their Temple Ordinances in Nauvoo. This group was gathered together to discuss and decide on spiritual matters. They did not have an official administrative function. Back then terminology of the church was not standardized like it is today. Today in the Church, Quorums reference priesthood organizations, but back then it really just meant a group. Today we would probably call it the Council of the Anointed or the Committee of the Anointed. The church has many councils and committees. Women are very much a part of these today as the women were a part of the Quorum of the Anointed.

Now you cite the specific case of William Law. Brother Law fought being excommunicated from the Church. Brother Law was also a member of the Quorum of the Anointed. During his fight against excommunication his membership in the Quorum of the Anointed was also brought up. As you correctly noted everyone (men and women) had a voice in expelling him from the Quorum. Please note that many confuse this with him being excommunicated from the church. That was not a power Quorum of the Anointed had. The excommunication was handed later by the church courts.

In the Church’ modern day committees and councils by design and intent everyone (men and women) are to have a say. Any leader who ignores or silences the women on their committees and councils is shooting themselves in the foot. They are running counter to the will of the Church in such matters. The whole point is to have many different voices and opinions and ideas so that the best one can found.

The women in the church have not lost anything they had in the Quorum of the Anointed. They are part of all kinds of councils and committees from the Ward level and up. Any leader who ignores them acting under a personal bias would stand in need of correction.

By: Gramps

Gramps — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 18:20:00 +0000

In reply to liz Perrott. I believe you meant 1844 not 1944. :)

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 17:55:00 +0000

Speaking from the viewpoint as a professional researcher, I can only offer the following observance – not really much of an “opinion”: We are seeing the results of the last 30 years of American and western media portraying men and women in a one-sided manner: female smart, men stupid and irrelevant. In nearly all TV shows, movies, advertisements, Facebook posts etc, women are being portrayed as the domninant, intelligent gender and men are increasingly portrayed as cavemen who need to be educated, corrected, babied, and “taught lessons” to demasculate them. It has indeed reached the point of “man-bashing” which is being packaged and sold as “humor”. Even now, few are recognizing this for what it is and on what level it has saturated the media. In the media, gone are the chivilrous days of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and noble men rescuing the damsel in distress – this has been replaced with such gender confusion as armor-clad, sword-wielding women who rescue befuddled, depressed, uneducated, and dysfunctinal men. Can you name the last Disney movie where a male role was portrayed as the rescuing hero (think carefully)? Or where Fathers or husbands played virtually any role whatsoever? Consider the brainwashing effect this has not just on young women, but young men as well. Gender is under attack by the adversary in ways it never has been before, and has been brilliantly packaged and sold as “humor” more than any other form. The rumored “female liberation” movement in the church we are increasingly hearing about (a media-driven movement) is a result of this now decades-long brainwashing effect that our new culture of man-bashing has produced. Clarity: The only way women can be “liberated” in the church is the same way for men to be “liberated” – by either leaving the church or corrupting Gospel doctrine, both of which only serve earthly whims based on pride and ultimately serve satan’s goal. Men and women are designed to be perfect equals in partnership and union. Heavenly Father knew what he was doing in creating genders, associated roles, gifts, blessings, and responsibilities.

By: liz Perrott

liz Perrott — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 20:38:00 +0000

Women have held more power historically than they do now. For example, on January 7, 1944, the Quorum of the Anointed vote one-by-one to expel William Law. The women voted on an equal basis.Obviously, this is something that would never happen today. The reason that woman might want to have the priesthood is because the concept of different but equal does not apply when decisions are made at higher levels.

By: Michael Jensen

Michael Jensen — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 09:55:00 +0000

I’m not a woman, so I can’t speak to what it’s like to be woman in the Lord’s restored Church. But as I’ve pondered this topic, I’ve received some insights that I believe might help. One insight is that the Spirit of the Lord is never going to lead you to push the envelope. The attributes described in Mosiah 3:19, which all of us should be striving to emulate, describe what the Spirit of the Lord will lead us to do, think, and become: “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive,
meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things
which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth
submit to his father.” The world’s ways are not the Lord’s ways. The world would work from the outside in. The Lord works from the inside out. “Now I would that ye should remember that God has said that the inward vessel shall be cleansed first, and then shall the outer vessel be cleansed also.”(Alma 60:23) We’ve always had our critics, and those who would seek to try to promote change via persecution, antagonism, and by “pushing the envelope”. As Elder McConkie once said: “Please do not put too much stock in some of the current views and
vagaries that are afloat, but rather, turn to the revealed word, get a
sound understanding of the doctrines, and keep yourselves in the
mainstream of the Church.” So that’s one insight. Another one is that women having the priesthood is simply not how the Lord has set things up in His church. Part of the rationale, as far as I understand it, that was given by the group of sisters who demanded they get the priesthood, a conference or two ago, was that they were asking if it was the right time for the brethren to ask the Lord if they could be given the priesthood. To be both blunt and direct, those sisters had no idea how revelation actually works. It’s not about asking questions. It’s about asking inspired questions. Questions that the Holy Ghost puts into your mind and heart, as you seek for that inspired question. So those are some of the insights that came to me, I hope they’re helpful to someone else.

By: Marian Dunn Griffith

Marian Dunn Griffith — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 15:13:00 +0000

There is a fantastic book just out be Sheri Dew called “Women and the Priesthood”. It covers this subject in depth. I would recommend it for further study on this subject.

By: MormonMama

MormonMama — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 14:10:00 +0000

I have often heard that the Church treats women as second-class citizens, but that has not been my experience as a woman. I am a convert to the Church and it wasn’t until I became a member that I felt truly valued simply for being a woman. The world tells me that I can do whatever a man can do and that if I don’t attempt to prove that, then I am not living up to my full potential. The Gospel teaches that I have value as a woman because I am a daughter of God, that the very traits and abilities that make me different from a man have value in and of themselves. I do not feel that I need to be “liberated”. I already was when I discovered the Gospel and the Church!