I will simply take on this task by discussing the text. As much of it as I can do in one post anyway.
And so it begins.....
"Women and men enjoy many opportunities for service in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, both within local congregations and at the Churchwide level. Among other things, Latter-day Saint women preach sermons in Sunday meetings and the Church’s general conference; serve full-time proselytizing missions; perform and officiate in holy rites in the Church’s temples; and lead organizations that minister to families, other women, young women, and children. They participate in priesthood councils at the local and general levels. Professional women teach Latter-day Saint history and theology at Church universities and in the Church’s educational programs for youth. Because only men are ordained to priesthood office, however, questions have arisen about women’s standing in the Church. This essay provides relevant historical context for these important questions and explains Joseph Smith’s teachings about women and priesthood authority."
Women enjoy "many" opportunities for service in the church? Women can serve in the primary program, the young women's program, and in the relief society. But women are only in charge of other women essentially holding barely more rank in their church and in their homes than children do.
And women preach sermons in Sunday meetings, meetings that are overseen by men and are only allowed to speak about what the male leaders allow or want them to speak about.
And women preach sermons in General Conference? Want to know how often that happens? Let's just look at this snippet from the blog ByCommonConsent which was published in January of 2014:
"With 25% of the speakers at the women’s meeting being male, and only 8% of the speakers in the general sessions of general conference being female (this excludes Priesthood Session, which is 100% male), there are three times as many male speakers in the women’s meeting than there are female speakers in the meetings that are supposed to be for men and women. If you include prayers and other speaking parts (as shown in the infographic), the women’s meeting has about 50% more male participation than the sessions for “everyone” have female participation."
"[1] This post concerns General Conference. One might think that our local sacrament meetings, with typically 50/50 gender ratio on the talks, would be better. Elouise Bell’s classic piece, “The Meeting,” is a gender-swap hypothetical to show how unbalanced things are there as well. Please consider this sentence the prose version of some kind of effusive hug/heart emoticon expressing my admiration of Elouise Bell."
So saying that women preach sermons in General Conference is like saying since we have had one African American President that minorities are fully represented in our government and they totally give Presidential speeches all the time. It's disingenuous at best and flat out deceitful at worst.
Moving on the the 2nd paragraph of the essay:
"The restoration of priesthood authority through the Prophet Joseph Smith is a fundamental doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Early in his ministry, Joseph Smith received priesthood authority from heavenly messengers; with that authority, he organized the Church, conferred priesthood upon other men, and ordained them to offices in the priesthood.1 By this same authority, Joseph Smith organized the Relief Society as part of the structure of the Church, which formally defined and authorized a major aspect of women’s ministry. All this was done to prepare the Saints to participate in the ordinances of the temple, which were introduced soon after the founding of the Relief Society. At the time of his death, the revelatory vision imparted to Joseph Smith was securely in place: women and men could receive and administer sacred priesthood ordinances in holy temples, which would help prepare them to enter the presence of God one day."
Yes, let's discuss the history of female Ordination to the Priesthood in the early Christian church as well as during Joseph Smith's lifetime because contrary to the church essay women were in fact ordained both in the ancient Christian church and during Joseph Smith's lifetime. Let's look at the ancient church first:
Here is a good book on female ordination in the early Christian church.
Ordained Women in the Early Church: A Documentary History 1st Edition by Kevin Madigan (Editor), Carolyn Osiek (Editor)
4 customer reviews Women having been ordain to the Priesthood in the early Christian church, and as a matter of normalcy rather than an exception, is a historical fact. As is the ordination of women under Joseph Smith's tenure as Propet and President of the early LDS church. Here are several, 20 examples to be precise, that will demonstrate that when Joseph Smith uses the word ordain, it does mean what you think it means: Here is a link to 34 quotes from LDS sources about women's ordination under Joseph Smith. Please read these quotes as they will allow you to understand what Joseph Smith himself meant by ordination and his vision for women to have the priesthood as in Paul's day. As they had for centuries before women were stripped of their priestly duties in the early Christian church. And now on to the 3rd paragraph of the church's essay:
"Early Latter-day Saint Understandings of Priesthood
The restoration of priesthood authority came at a time of intense religious excitement in the United States. This excitement was driven in part by questions about divine authority—who had it, how it was obtained, and whether it was necessary.2 In the early 19th century, most Christians believed that the authority to act in God’s name had remained on the earth since the time of Jesus’s mortal ministry. Joseph Smith taught that Christ’s priesthood was lost after the deaths of the ancient apostles and had been newly restored through angelic ministration. Even so, many Latter-day Saints initially understood the concept of priesthood largely in terms common for the day. In 1830s America, the word priesthood was defined as “the office or character of a priest” and “the order of men set apart for sacred offices,” identifying priesthood with religious office and the men who held it.3 Early Latter-day Saints likewise thought of priesthood primarily in terms of ordination to ecclesiastical office and authority to preach and perform religious rites.4 As in most other Christian denominations during this era, Latter-day Saint men alone held priesthood offices, served formal proselytizing missions, and performed ordinances like baptism and blessing the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper." The above link with early church quotes from Joseph Smith and other refute the statements in the 3rd paragraph. But here is an article with specific examples of female ordination and participation in church leadership of the ancient Christian church. So unless Joseph SMith, members of the first Relief Society, including Emma Smith are wrong in which case the history contained in the following article was either against what Joseph personally taught or it was in line with what he taught and it waslatter generations of our church leaders who knowingly sanitized church history and practice with regard to female ordination. " The earliest references to local resident leaders in the Pauline churches are Philippians 1:1 and Romans 16:1-2. Paul addresses his letter to the community at Philippi with their episkopoi and diakonoi (both masculine plural titles in Greek, both terms borrowed from secular leadership). These are the terms that later came to mean "bishop" and "deacon." The episkopoi cannot mean here "bishop" as we understand it because there are many in one community. The role of the diakonoi also had not yet evolved into that which was later understood as deacon. The revised edition of the New American Bible translates the words as "overseers" and "ministers" and acknowledges in a note that the later development had not yet taken place.Masculine plural forms are used in Greek to refer either to groups of men or to groups of mixed gender. In Romans 16:1-2, Paul introduces to the letter's recipients a woman named Phoebe, a benefactor who is also a diakonos of the church at Cenchreae, one of the seaports of Corinth. Thus we know that women could hold this title at the time, and therefore the diakonoi in Philippi could be a mixed group. If the episkopoi of Philippians were heads of house churches, as seems likely, it is not impossible that some of them were also women (for example, Nympha in Colossians 4:15).
The account in Acts of the Apostles 6:1-6 of the apostles choosing seven men to take care of table service is usually considered the origin of the office of deacon, yet no one in the story is called diakonos and the apostles appoint them for the diakonia of the table so that the apostles can devote themselves to the diakonos of prayer and the word. All perform diakonos of different kinds.
Some years later, the churches of the Pastoral Epistles seem to have had a single episkopos, now a bishop (1 Timothy 3:1; Titus 1:7), with deacons as assistants. Women are explicitly included among the deacons (1 Timothy 3:11), possibly as wives of deacons but most likely as deacons themselves. Presbyters are a shadowy group here, mentioned later (1 Timothy 5:17-19). This reference could be to leaders in general, since the word originally meant "elders." Slightly later texts, like the letters of Ignatius of Antioch in the early second century, show the developing structure of bishop with his deacons and presbyters. The role of the deacons is clearer, as assistant to the bishop. The presbyters seem to be a council to the bishop. Nothing is said that precludes the presence of women in either group.
By the third century, there are both male and female deacons, particularly in the Eastern church. There is abundant literary and inscriptional evidence of female deacons. Their title is "deacon" or "deaconess," seemingly interchangeably. The early third-century Syrian Didascalia Apostolorum compares the bishop to God, the male deacon to Christ, and the female deacon to the Holy Spirit. The presbyters are likened only to the apostles; their role is still not clear (9.3-8). Though this document prohibits women from teaching, female deacons have a ministry to women that only they can perform: instruction, assistance at baptism, and other kinds of pastoral ministry. The late fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions gives the rite for ordination of a female deacon, with hands laid on and invocation of the Holy Spirit (8.19-20).
A further document, the Testamentum Domini, probably written in the late fourth or early fifth century, assumes the existence of deaconesses, but preeminence is given to widows, who are clearly among the clergy along with bishop, presbyters and deacons (1.19, 23). There is a rite for their ordination (1.41). Deaconesses are not seated among the clergy, but at the head of the rest of the women of the congregation. Later in the document, female presbyters appear, to remain after liturgy with the bishop and the widows, fasting and praying until dawn (2.19). Here, the root meaning of "older women" could apply, though their placing with widows for all-night vigil with the bishop would then seem strange.
Only in the mid third century does the role of presbyters begin to emerge, when Christian congregations in a given region are growing too large to assemble all together with the bishop. As church organization evolves in the fourth century, presbyters are now in charge of satellite communities in large urban areas, and increasingly in rural areas as well. From these years come several conciliar and episcopal condemnations of women presbyters (for example, Council of Nîmes, In ministerium leviticum, canon 2; the Council of Laodicea, presbytides, canon 11; Letter 14 of Pope Gelasius, ministrare sacris altaribus; Fulgentius of Carthage, presbyterae). It is highly unlikely that so many condemnations would appear about a nonexistent practice. The frequency of occurrences suggests a widespread practice. Moreover, there is positive evidence of women presbyters. Several earlier inscriptions from Phrygia, Thera, Egypt and Sicily commemorate female presbyters, in one case (Ammion in Phrygia), the commemoration made by a bishop. The holy presbyter Flavia Vitalia in early fifth-century Dalmatia (today, Croatia) sold a piece of church burial property, so she was an authorized church agent. Leta presbytera in late fifth-century Calabria is commemorated by her husband, who does not bear an ecclesiastical title; it is therefore highly unlikely that her title comes from being his wife. Martia presbyteria made the offering along with two men in a graffito from Gaul around the same time. Giulia Runa presbiterissa is commemorated in the church of St. Augustine at Hippo, from a time soon after his death, probably during the Vandal occupation. Most intriguing are two fragments of a tombstone from Solin in Dalmatia, one a cross, the other the word fragment -- dotae, of which the most obvious reconstruction would be sacerdotae, to the (female) priest.
It is interesting to note that most of the references to female presbyters come rather late and that most come not from the East, where female deacons were more widely known, but from the West." From ncronline.org The National Catholic Reporter And women do to this day hold the priesthood and use that power even today. But only in LDS Temples. During a rite known as the second anointing. And Temple language still uses terms like "Priestess" and "Priestesses" to refer to women. There is more to it than that but it is curious as to why this language is used if women aren't fit to hold the Priesthood because of their lack of a penis. For me the Priesthood should be about building up the kingdom of God on Earth as it is in Heaven. It should be about acting in Christ's stead to serve His sheep but also all of His children. The Priesthood and being worthy of and endowed with the Priesthood should not be based solely on whether or not you have a penis. So the notion that women were ever ordain in Christian history is false. And so is the notion that LDS women were never ordained. Women still hold the Priesthood but only in Temples but also in the hereafter. They are not allowed to use it in the here and now. And here I present to you the 4th, 5th and 6th parapgraphs: "Unlike those in many other churches, Latter-day Saints extended priesthood ordination broadly to laymen, as directed by revelation. Over time, an extensive structure of priesthood offices and quorums was established. From the beginning, this structure was governed by revelation under the direction of priesthood leaders holding “keys.”5 The keys of the Melchizedek priesthood, given through divine messengers to Joseph Smith and later passed to others, bestowed the “right of presidency,” the right “to administer in spiritual things,” and the “right to officiate in all the offices in the church.”6"
"Latter-day Saints’ understanding of the nature of priesthood and keys grew as a result of revelations received by Joseph Smith. An 1832 revelation taught that the greater, or Melchizedek, priesthood held “the key of the knowledge of God,” and that in the ordinances of the priesthood, “the power of godliness is manifest.” Joseph Smith was charged, like Moses, “to sanctify his people that they might behold the face of God.”7 In 1836, angelic messengers committed priesthood keys to Joseph Smith that would enable church members to receive temple ordinances.8 In an 1841 revelation, the Lord commanded the Saints to build a temple in Nauvoo, Illinois, where He would reveal to His people “all things pertaining to this house, and the priesthood thereof.”9 The culminating ordinances of the priesthood were to be found in the temple and would help prepare men and women to enter into God’s presence."
"Latter-day Saint women in the Church’s earliest years, like women elsewhere, participated actively in their new religious community. They ratified decisions by voting in conferences;10 they furnished the temple with their handiwork; they worshipped alongside men in meetings and choirs; they shared the gospel with relatives and neighbors; they hosted meetings in their homes; and they exercised spiritual gifts in private and in public.11 Early revelation authorized women to “expound scriptures, and to exhort the church.”12 Even so, like most other Christians in their day, Latter-day Saints in the early years of the Church reserved public preaching and leadership for men." These passages seem to me to be saying "Look, women were present and participated so the church is totally not sexist at all! See!!" Maybe that's just me though. Again women have always been seen as barely outranking their children in rank in their own homes and especially in their own churches. Just because it has been this way does not mean it should be this way. Black men, slaves, were given the right to vote in 1870 and yet women were not given the right to vote until 1920. Black men were not given the Priesthood until 1978 so it is unlikely that women will get the Priesthood for another 50 years and even then I don't think it will happen. If it does it will be the Aaronic Priesthood and another 50 years before getting the Melchizedek Priesthood, making women equal to men in the LDS church. These church essay's seek to deny racism, sexism and any sort of bigotry within our church. Because if the brethren can deny them, they do not have to accept and take accountability for them. Anyone and anything must be responsible except them and their fore bearers. Which oddly enough is the definition of narcissistic personality disorder. In that a narcissist can never accept responsibility for their words and actions, meaning anyone or anything must be the problem because they never can be. It seems this narcissism has become institutionalized in the LDS church. You can release all the essays you want but if you can't accept responsibility for wrongdoing you merely paint yourself into a corner of infallibility wherein you say you are infallible yet inevitably demonstrate that you are in fact fallible. And even then leaders will say they have made mistakes but that they must be overlooked or forgiven and yet when the rest of us make mistakes we get excommunicated without being told what we have done wrong like Rock Waterman. Where's our forgiveness? "Judge not, that ye be not judged.For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." Matthew 7:1-2 KJV If this teaching of Christ is true then many who think they are safe are not and those who fear they are not mostly are. The truth is not what it appears within the confines of the LDS church. Google can teach you more in 5 minutes than the church has for 100 years. These facts I have presented to refute the claims made in their newest essay are not made up. In fact, they are from LDS sources. If you haven't found them it is because the church has sanitized it's history to appear to be more congruent then it actually is. The church would have you believe the truth abut it's history is plain and precious and yet no church has changed more over it's history faster and more often than the LDS church. And in order to appear to have been consistent it has altered it's own history even to it's own members because most LDS members will not pay attention to any information that is not church approved for fear of running into "anit-Mormon" lies. Which is why Rock Waterman, John Dehlin and Kate Kelly were excommunicated. Becuase it then removes the troublesome facts like a tumor from a cancer patient. And yet the hemorrhaging of LDS members continues unabated. If you are still a member, if you have left faith altogether or if you have joined another church I pray for you to have a safe journey. I merely present information to counter what I honestly feel areduplicitous, disingenuous, and possibly deceitful information coming from the LDS church. Many have, but I hope as so many others seek to find the historical truth and to be spiritually feed, that I and others can help along the way for many people on many differing paths. The idea that the church may be hiding things or flat out lying is a hard thing to handle. But if one continues to study there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But we would do well to remember that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God as Paul said. Flawed people are all God has ever had to work with and His plan will still unfold regardless. If we reserve worship for God alone then we will never be disappointed. It is only when we worship men and those men inevitably fail us that our faith becomes endangered.The reason I think so many who leave the LDS church become Atheist is because the faith of so many LDS members is so entwined with the church leaders that once their faith in the leaders is gone so is their faith in God.
The members don't have a faithfulness problem, the church has an honesty problem. Leaning on the leadership is to lean on other sinners to be infallible. Which is like the blind leading the blind. But it is only Christ that gives sight to the blind. And He is the only one we can rely on to give us the sight to see what is true and what is not.
