DOES THE LDS CHURCH NEED TO "DO BETTER" FOR WOMEN?
NO (IMHO)
Latest from Mormon Land: ‘We’re going to do better’ for women, says Apostle Renlund;
In a recent piece in the Salt Lake Tribune, LDS Apostle Dale Renlund is quoted as saying “we’re going to do better for women”. He went on as follows:
“The reason for the asymmetry between men and women regarding priesthood office ordination has not been revealed,” Renlund said. “Any proposed reason for that asymmetry with regard to priesthood office ordination is speculative.”
IMHO, by leaving the priesthood work to the men, the LDS Church has never done badly by women and, in my view, thus has no need “to do better” for them in this regard. That women in the LDS Church don’t hold the priesthood is not a form of discrimination against them, as feminists and other critics of the Church like to argue. Instead, it clears the deck for women to focus on a higher calling - a calling feminists and liberals view with contempt.
When Elder Renlund says the reason for the asymmetry between men and women regarding priesthood office ordination “has not been revealed,” I respectfully disagree. The reason may not have been explicitly stated in scripture, but, then again, it doesn't need to be. The reason is written and revealed plainly in the natural order of things, is staring us in the face, and rocket science is not required to figure it out. Indeed, that the Author of scripture hasn't bothered to explicitly address or elaborate on this question (the critical differences in and roles of men and women) is, in my view, a compliment to our natural intelligence. His assumption, I suspect, is that, since it isn’t that complicated, we should be smart enough to figure it out for ourselves. I was, starting at about age 12…
The answer, in my view, is encompassed in the economic term, "division of labor". In the natural order of things, men and women are very different. These distinctions are absolutely real, not arbitrary, not doctrinaire, and, except at the margins where there is some overlap, are not negotiable. Though those in the business of denying reality to suit their own fanciful purposes maintain otherwise, physically, emotionally, psychologically, socially, men are built better to serve certain purposes and women better to serve others. In this impartial natural order of things, there is no judgment about which of these roles is better, which has precedence over the other. They are both simply woven into the same fabric of reality.
However, in the natural order of things, if one were to ask which of these two genders has greater power and impact in the world, I would say women, hands down.
In what might be described as the grand cosmic structure of reality, women, by virtue of their unique ability to give birth and a built-in capacity to nurture their offspring that far outstretches that of men, have far greater power to impact the fate of mankind than do men. Men are largely all sound and fury, signifying little or nothing. Their primary function is to put up a roof, light a fire, bring home the bacon and stave off the wolves. With some occasional notable exceptions, men strut their little time across life’s stage, then exist into oblivion. Women, on the other hand, hold the future and fate of the world in their hands - and maybe that of eternity as well. Their living legacy, generation after generation, is the future of the human family. They are built for it, and men are not.
The piddling responsibilities of priesthood ordination - a sop thrown to the men to make them think they are important - pale in comparison with the real power and responsibility women have in bearing and nurturing children - to say nothing of their near-absolute power over men. Those with experience of marriage and family know this is true.
It isn't that women couldn't handle or even excel in priesthood responsibilities if given them - they certainly could - but, rather, that they have so much more important and consuming work to do - work the true Gospel and Church of Jesus Christ will teach, encourage and support them to do. Indeed, again IMHO, any purported Christian church that fails to teach or preaches against this exalted role for women has provided prima facie evidence of its apostasy.
In and LDS context, one could reasonably ask this question: suppose a wife and mother with five children were called to serve as bishop over an LDS congregation. Could she possibly do justice to both callings? Those familiar with the demands of these two responsibilities know this is a rhetorical question. Not a chance.
Moreover, let me suggest that those LDS men and women who have a mature understanding of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and its foundational gender-based theology (see the LDS Church’s “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”) understand the divinely engineered balance, the ultimate equality and the absolute necessity of these gender-based division-of-labor roles. If these critical distinctions were not necessary, why would the Creator have ordered his creation in this way? Indeed, are not those who take issue with this divinely established gender-based order - those who, at the extreme, deny absolutely the differences between men and women - spitting in God’s eye?
This, in my opinion, is true to the extent that those men or women in the LDS Church who complain about what they deem to be an unfair inequality of men and women in the way the church is organized and run are giving clear evidence either of their ignorance of the critical doctrinal fundamentals of the faith they purport to espouse, or some degree of apostasy therefrom. After the doctrines relating to the Atonement of Jesus Christ - faith, repentance, baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost - there is, in my humble opinion, no doctrine more fundamental to LDS Christian theology than the critical natural distinctions between and differing roles of men and women in time and eternity. Indeed, one cannot, I think, reject these gender-based theological fundamentals and claim to be a member of the LDS Church in any meaningful sense.
Sadly, one of the great tragedies of our age is that these cosmic, enduring, eternal “division of labor” fundamentals, these absolute aspects of reality, are either not understood or even actively repudiated in our society. Individually and collectively - and as a church (see “The Incredible Shrinking Mormon Family”) - the further we depart from these bedrock dynamics, the worse things will be for us.
You can’t fool Mother Nature…
Right vs. wrong, truth vs. lies, reality vs. fantasy, knowledge vs. ignorance, order vs. chaos, law vs. lawlessness, justice vs. injustice, patriotism vs. treason, light vs. darkness, good vs. evil, happiness vs. misery, God vs. the Godless…
You pick…
Torquemada