Ordain the Women

It's rare to witness the church drop its sanctimonious facade and lose its temper like we've seen recently, first when the Ordain Women movement came back to Temple Square and attempted, again, to enter the boys' club, and now that the church has picked up the club of excommunication and started to bludgeon away at the leaders of the movement and their supporters. Nothing makes the powerful angrier than genuine, uncowed, nonviolent, uninvited claimants, who keep knocking at the door after they've been turned away. I guess even the angel of God tried to shake off the wrestling Jacob.

There's plenty of room in the doctrine for women to be ordained. Certainly there's as much room to ordain them as there is to ordain anyone else. Unlike the descendents of Egyptus, or the non-descendents of Levi or Aaron, there's no actual scriptural prohibition against the ordination of women, just a rigid adherence to a "pattern" in which men have always been in charge. Or at least that's the intentionally myopic assertion. The fact is that past dispensations have included prophetesses (see Deborah, Anna, and Huldah, to name a few) and our current dispensation promises women that they will some day be priestesses.

Current interpretation states that priesthood blessings flow to women through men, either husbands or ordained leaders. Brother Dallin insists that policy even allows women to perform priesthood duties by, e.g., serving missions. But what's really to stop women from having hands laid on their heads, having the priesthood conferred on them, and being ordained to the office of a bishop, or being set apart as a high councilor or a stake president?

The obvious answer is fear. Some of it, I'm sure is a genuine, if misguided, belief that allowing women to work with men behind closed doors in priesthood leadership councils would spur infidelity and adultery. A quick survey of our sister churches (and business and political and non-profit, and other organizations) who include women at the highest levels, without full-scale sexual anarchy, should allay that fear. If married women and men and can work together with other married women and men, and work productively and positively, what other fears exist? I suppose there's a genuine, if also misguided fear that ordaining the women would violate some implicit heavenly order.

And that's the real problem. There's some scriptural support for the notion that men are supposed to rule over women. Eve took the fruit (first), so she's supposed to subject herself to Adam (who also took the fruit). Paul said that the man is a head of the women, just as Jesus is the head of the church. Yet we believe that men should be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression. Do we really believe that the Lord has a different standard for women, insisting that all women should be punished for Eve's transgression, forcing all women to be subject to their husbands simply because Eve partook first? This belief is particularly troubling given decades of church teaching that Eve's actions in partaking the fruit and persuading Adam to do likewise were at least partly virtuous, were part of the plan of salvation, and could even be described as virtuous (in part). As for Paul's admonition, putting aside the obvious disregard we have for his other counsel regarding women (long hair, speaking in church, etc.), if we believe that he man is the head of the woman as Jesus is the head of the church, how do we reconcile the fact that Jesus ordained men to the priesthood to lead his church, even as he was head of it? If being the head of the church involves giving the priesthood to those over whom he leads, why does being the head of a woman mean that men withhold from them the priesthood that Jesus so willingly shared?

The fact of the matter is that there's as much scriptural and traditional and logical support for denying the priesthood to the descendants of Egyptus as there is for denying the priesthood to women. Thankfully we've come to our senses and opened the priesthood to all men despite dubious scriptural and historical support to the contrary. It's time to consider, earnestly, whether the same kinds of prejudices and poorly conceived fears about giving the priesthood to all men don't continue to dominate our thinking regarding the ordination of women.

Yes, that means I'm suggesting that misogyny is now, just as much as racism was in previous generations, the preponderant factor in the continued institutional policy to withhold the priesthood from women. And that's the real, unspoken issue here. It's why this post probably won't go up on the Ordain Women site at any point, and it's why I'm putting it here anonymously. But let's be honest with ourselves. Misogyny is what's behind the priesthood ban. Is it the kind of misogyny that leads men to physical violence? Not in most cases. I'm sure that a lot of the general authorities honestly believe that they love their wives. Their wives would probably confirm that their husbands believe they love them. A greater love motivated Jesus to ordain Peter and the apostles, though. If you have a gift, and the priesthood is a wonderful gift, and you can share that gift with someone you love, why wouldn't you seek earnestly to find a way to give?

Public pleading (and public pressure) led Spencer Kimball to seek earnestly for a way to share the priesthood with all men. Scary as it was, historically and scripturally inconsistent as it was, a greater love was at work. That love led to a sincere decision to move the church forward. That decision led to revelation. I have little doubt that the same process would lead to the same result regarding women. Perhaps it will require some obstacles to be removed. After all, David O. McKay was pleading for a revelation on the priesthood long before Spencer Kimball received the revelation. But some obstacles can move themselves. The beams in our own eyes need not block our vision any longer than we allow them to.

Is what I'm saying apostasy? Do the pleadings of the widow make her unjust? Does denying her justify the judge? I think not. Apostasy, in my mind, does not consist in the suggestion that our leaders reconsider their decisions. I don't think arguments to that effect, even arguments suggesting that our leaders are human and imperfect, constitute apostasy. Wrestling with them does not make us apostates any more than it did Jacob. We are children of a God who wants us to reach, to struggle, to persist with him for his blessing. We say that Jesus stands at our doors and knocks, but to reach him, we stand at his doors and knock, too. We knock repeatedly. And he doesn't cast us away as apostates. He doesn't strike us down.

Of course, we don't say that he's a misogynist, either, or that his decisions are wrongheaded, if well-intentioned. We find it much easier to say those kinds of things about each other, especially because they're often the truth. Can we be more delicate? Certainly. Can we cast out the motes from our own eyes? Sure. Yet we don't insist on perfectly clear vision of our missionaries. Clouded as their vision is, they can call on those in darkness to repent. Motes and all we still get called to be home teachers to each other. Leaders need not insulate themselves against criticism from all but the Lord. Perhaps it's wrong to steady the ark, but the Lord didn't strike down Zipporah for calling out Moses and circumcising her son when Moses wouldn't (the Lord didn't even strike down Zipporah for the indelicate words she spoke in passion).

The beauty of great leadership is the willingness to listen to those we lead, to wrestle with them, and to ultimately hearken to their counsel, even when it seems hard. Women truly can receive revelation. Often, the Lord sends revelation to his leaders through those they lead. The Lord could certainly have told Moses directly how to organize the children of Israel, yet it was through Jethro that the counsel came. Jesus could have told Peter that he was to be crucified, yet it was through the tears of a humble woman that the message was driven home, even when Jesus was sitting next to the man who would lead his church in his absence.

Is it, then, apostasy to speak out to leaders when we have counsel for them? To seek to remove them from office is apostasy, certainly. But to urge them to consider counsel, to knock, repeatedly, at their doors, I think is a prerequisite to the receipt of blessings from above. It certainly isn't cause for the angry retaliation that would shut us out from the church we cherish.