Let Women Pray in General Conference


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I understand your concerns. Having said that, I cannot stop emphasizing the fact that there is nothing scriptural that prohibits sisters from praying in General Conference and we do have an statement where it states that they can do so in "all" Church meetings then why are we talking about the Lord and what may have directly revealed on the matter?

A lot of it is in how the question is framed. Is the policy that "women are banned from praying in general conference"? Or is it that "the quorums of the seventy have been given a standing assignment to provide the pray-ers for general conference"? We know the former is not scriptural or even policy. The latter? Not so much. That's why I'm so dubious about grass-roots petitions - so often we, the membership, quite frankly don't know what the blithering heck we're even talking about.

The cover letter for this petition is well done, there is nothing in the letter that hints a threat or disrespect but merely, a petition. A respectful one.

I'm not sure that really addresses what I wrote. A spit in the eye is still a spit in the eye, even if the spitter didn't take the extra few seconds to work up some phlegm to go with it. (How's that for a colorful analogy? ;) )

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Because they are seeking change and since it's not doctrinal or a policy, I really don't see the problem with the number of letters they wish to send.

I don't see a problem with seeking change, in a certain context, and I don't see a problem with many letters being sent.

What I see as an issue, is an organization or movement that develops for a group of people. To me it is no longer a simple matter of people expressing an opinion in the hopes of change. A danger arises for the group, that if the petition is rejected, then what? I'm sure there are many that go back to what they were doing, but there are some who will question. They will say but it doesn't make sense. They now have a group of people though that they know has sided with them and so they can get their support for other similar activities. These activities can become more aggressive and destructive and thus they start playing in satan's field.

Approaching this matter is an individual thing. Like you said it is neither policy nor doctrine. So why is this important to people what happens? And if someone really does deem it important, I feel it is a private, individual issue. Not one that uses public support and forms the above group.

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A lot of it is in how the question is framed. Is the policy that "women are banned from praying in general conference"? Or is it that "the quorums of the seventy have been given a standing assignment to provide the pray-ers for general conference"? We know the former is not scriptural or even policy. The latter? Not so much. That's why I'm so dubious about grass-roots petitions - so often we, the membership, quite frankly don't know what the blithering heck we're even talking about.

Are you hinting there is a policy where it states that the quorum of the seventy are the ones assigned to give prayers in General Conference because....? (too many of them?) If such a policy exist, where is it?

A spit in the eye is still a spit in the eye, even if the spitter didn't take the extra few seconds to work up some phlegm to go with it. (How's that for a colorful analogy? ;) )

:notworthy:

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It's possible, I suppose.

At one point, the APs visited our area, and joked about it with us. They help with transfers, so the mission president had told them about our requests. He, apparently, was getting a kick out of it. On that note, we made a "campaign poster" to send back with them. The following week we re-wrote all the words to "I Will Survive," and recorded a tape for our mission president to listen to. The chorus was changed to "We will baptize." It was more than a simple plea. It was rather an aggressive approach, but I don't think any of us expected the result that happened. We were shocked, but so happy, when it did. We only did the non-letter things once we learned that our mission president "got it."

I think you make a good point. Sometimes it takes multiple times before something clicks the way it should.

In that case, I see multiple letters or multiple people discussing with leaders this possibility as the way to have multiple opportunities for somones mind to be jogged a little bit. but that is my opinion. seems logical to me.

i also think of Martin Luther. He individually nailed his theses to the door of the church. Then when people read them, he garnered the support of the people then the church had to make a decision whether to make changes, or reject it. When it was rejected, the reformation began. People fell away from the church.

A petition becomes public and once rejected, people either accept that rejection or there will be those that hold a grudge and fall away because they don't understand why it was rejected and they get bitter about it. The persons logic may seem good to them but I'd say the apostles are in tune with what the Lord would have them do. They will see or understand things that the person petitioning doesn't, which can be why the person doesn't understand.

This is, for me, another reason why this communication should individualized. Just done multiple times.

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Are you hinting there is a policy where it states that the quorum of the seventy are the ones assigned to give prayers in General Conference because....? (too many of them?) If such a policy exist, where is it?

That's just the thing. We don't know. Even if we did know, I'm not sure it's our prerogative to play "gotcha" with the GAs over what is or isn't in the CHI. Not in public, anyways. ;)

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Like you said it is neither policy nor doctrine. So why is this important to people what happens?

Because as human beings, we all feel different about certain issues specially if those issues affect us directly. if they don't affect us directly, we tend to think they're not that important but the issue isn't less important just because we see it that way. It's called empathy. Same issue with the "Wear pants to Church day". A lot of men and women supported the idea, and a lot of them not necessarily because they particularly wanted to but as an act of solidarity towards others who felt ostracized.

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Are you hinting there is a policy where it states that the quorum of the seventy are the ones assigned to give prayers in General Conference because....?

I am just quoting yours because I read that idea awhile back but I dont know who said it or where and it's convenient here. :D

I thought Bishop Eldridge gave a pray after he was released. To me that suggests that its not just a quorum of the seventy thing.

he did pray right?

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I'll grant you this: I cannot prove that none of them have seen him in all that time. Fine. But it should be far easier to prove that someone did at some point. And the fact remains that there is no evidence of that. To the contrary, even President Hinckley admitted explicitly that he had not seen Christ. Many others have documented their personal struggle with gaining a testimony. This is fact. The Gospel Principles change is perfectly in line with the historical record. They're just trying to temper our expectations.

The trouble with what you say about Gospel Principles, Steve, is that that same chapter still denotes Seventies as "special witnesses of Jesus Christ to the world". So either that change to the heading of "apostles" does not mean as much as you assert it means, or some poor sap in the Correlation Department is about to lose his job (if he hasn't already).

I'm don't get too balled up over the idea that some apostles or seventies have seen Jesus in the same kind of waking, corporeal manifestation claimed by - say - Joseph Smith, or Lorenzo Snow. If you read Arrington's Adventures of a Church Historian, as well as (Edward?) Kimball's Dialogue article on the 1978 revelation, you see some tantalizing hints that we have not been given anything like a complete story about what happened that day in the temple in 1978--Kimball's excellent work notwithstanding.

The modern GAs have become maddeningly reticent about their experiences with the divine, but there are plenty of indications that such experiences still happen. As someone who accepts the Book of Mormon and the mission of Joseph Smith I think it's worth noting that they aren't the ones claiming that the age of miracles and divine manifestations have passed, either. In a forum where we all purport to believe in modern revelation, the onus is not on me to demonstrate that the heavens remain open. It is on you to show that they have closed. If you interpret that as a command to prove a negative, so be it.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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Because as human beings, we all feel different about certain issues specially if those issues affect us directly. if they don't affect us directly, we tend to think they're not that important but the issue isn't less important just because we see it that way. It's called empathy. Same issue with the "Wear pants to Church day". A lot of men and women supported the idea, and a lot of them not necessarily because they particularly wanted to but as an act of solidarity towards others who felt ostracized.

I agree. I applaud you and others who are empathetic in general and empathetic in that issue.

What I was trying to do with that question was lead into the next. I try to be logical, i think that is how my brain works, I'm a science guy. So a+ b+ c= (a+b+c). :)

That even suggests that the reason it might be important to you or me is not that it is important or direct in your or my life per se, but it is to bear one anothers burdens, and thus it becomes important to or I as it becomes a covenant keeping issue.

However, we can't over reason some things. Just because we are trying to help someone return from smoking, doesn't mean that we should join them for a little while to help slow down their consumption. so there is a line that we have to find and it can vary from issue to issue. We just have to make sure we don't reach the point of sin(better yet tip-toeing the line) and turning away from the light we have.

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Vort, to be clear regarding your context sequence, my inquiry referring to 1977, referred more specifically to telling people that the problems they saw were their own, and they needed to change.

And if they were presuming to instruct the Brethren on God's will or on what was appropriate at Church, then they very much did need to change. It was the apostles' duty to wrestle with such issues. It was the memberships' duty to support the apostles, give their opinion when and if asked, and otherwise keep their mouths shut.

It was more along the lines of "was it inappropriate in 1977 to seek change toward equality for black men, and if not, then what is different about seeking change toward equality for women in 2013?"

I think the two are somewhat comparable, in the sense that those who agitated for change before 1977 were wrong to do so, just as those who agitate for change regarding women praying in General Conference are wrong to do so. The primary difference is that withholding the Priesthood and temple covenants from black people delayed their reception of a great many important blessings, while withholding women from offering invocations and benedictions at General Conference denies or delays no one from any blessings.

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Just because we are trying to help someone return from smoking, doesn't mean that we should join them for a little while to help slow down their consumption. so there is a line that we have to find and it can vary from issue to issue. We just have to make sure we don't reach the point of sin(better yet tip-toeing the line) and turning away from the light we have.

The difference is that in the "Wear pants to Church" event there were no "smokers". Nobody did anything wrong. We didn't have to join them in doing anything inappropriate, we were merely supporting (in a larger scale) sisters all around the world who felt ostracized because they wore pants.

Same applies with this issue. There is no threat involved, there is no disrespect on the tone of the letter, it is simply a petition.

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It's possible, I suppose.

At one point, the APs visited our area, and joked about it with us. They help with transfers, so the mission president had told them about our requests. He, apparently, was getting a kick out of it. On that note, we made a "campaign poster" to send back with them. The following week we re-wrote all the words to "I Will Survive," and recorded a tape for our mission president to listen to. The chorus was changed to "We will baptize." It was more than a simple plea. It was rather an aggressive approach, but I don't think any of us expected the result that happened. We were shocked, but so happy, when it did. We only did the non-letter things once we learned that our mission president "got it."

Actually, I think your experience is a pretty reasonable example of an acceptable way of acting. If I understand you correctly, you didn't try to talk the other sisters, your local elders, your DLs, ZLs, and APs into your way of thinking. You didn't call the mission president a chauvinist. You didn't write to an area authority to plead your case. You didn't grumble and complain to the members around you of how unfair the policy was. Rather, you wrote to your mission president and asked. Having received no answer, like the widow petitioning the unjust judge, you kept at it.

My impression is that if, at any time, the mission president had responded to you and said, "Sister Wingnut, that is not going to happen," you would have stopped petitioning him on the matter. You may have been disappointed, and you may even have disagreed with him, but you would not have continued your campaign, either in private or (especially) in public.

That is the primary difference that I see between your example and the petition being mentioned. You asked the legitimate authority, without any attempt at shaming or ganging up or other pitiful efforts at emotional manipulation. What you did was almost the opposite approach to sending around a petition.

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The difference is that in the "Wear pants to Church" event there were no "smokers". Nobody did anything wrong.

Au contraire. Misusing sacrament meeting as a stage for protest is very, very wrong indeed.

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Guest DeborahC

Once when I was investigating churches to join, I went to a Pentacostal Church.

I didn't care for the services, but I noticed that all the women were REALLY dressed up in their Sunday best. When I asked about it, one lady told me, "We love to dress up because we're coming to sup with the King!" That's always stuck with me.

I LIKE that LDS women wear dresses to church. It's a wonderful way to show respect.

Besides, from what I've observed, many of us ladies should be looking in a 3 way mirror before putting on a pair of pants.

It's not always a flattering sight.

I hope the Authorities continue to encourage us to wear dresses.

I hope it never changes.

(Oh man, I must REALLY be getting old and crotchety!)

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Would you mind stating how exactly wearing pants to Church was a form of misusing sacrament meeting?

When it all started, it was started by a group of Feminist Mormons who wanted a "Pants to church" day to basically protest the inequalities of the gender within the church. That's what started it. As Vort has tried to say, using church as a place of protest is inappropriate.

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The difference is that in the "Wear pants to Church" event there were no "smokers". Nobody did anything wrong. We didn't have to join them in doing anything inappropriate, we were merely supporting (in a larger scale) sisters all around the world who felt ostracized because they wore pants.

Same applies with this issue. There is no threat involved, there is no disrespect on the tone of the letter, it is simply a petition.

I feel that was taken out of context, and the comment before.

The example was one for over reasoning. In other words an example of an extreme in which people do something wrong. This is to illustrate what we have to beware of when engaging in empathy. That we can do some things in the name of empathy that go too far and commit sin or put us on a path the leads to sin.

I would like to ask for those that would support this petition for empathy, to whom are they empathizing?

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Would you mind stating how exactly wearing pants to Church was a form of misusing sacrament meeting?

It was a protest. As I wrote, "Misusing sacrament meeting as a stage for protest is very, very wrong indeed."

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Good evening Suzie. I hope you're doing good! :)

Please consider the following:

In response to a question Wingnut asked me, I wrote...

I simply know that we ought not to correct Church leaders through acts of rebellion. We shouldn't be trying to affect change through means that directly contradict revealed truth. So, what constitutes acts of rebellion? It is impossible to list every act, but we can certainly be guided to know when we are in danger if we have an eye single to the glory of God. This is where our intellectual honesty comes in to play. Those who are rebelling, know they are. Those who are not, know they are not. No amount of sophistry will ultimately change what is actually the case in any given situation.

Please take note of the bolded part. ;)

Wingnut responded to the bolded part above with...

Where is it a revealed truth that women should not be allowed to pray in General Conference?

In response to Wingnut's question, I wrote my amazingly clever response...

"We shouldn't be trying to affect change through means that directly contradict revealed truth" ≠ "It is a revealed truth that women should not be allowed to pray in General Conference"

Please note the bolded NOT EQUAL sign.

In other words, I did not make the claim that, "It is a revealed truth that women should not be allowed to pray in General Conference". This means that I don't need to justify it. Further, I don't agree with the statement.

Regards,

Finrock

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Hello All! Thank you for taking the time to read my post. :)

I wonder if those who have rallied around SteveReynolds' banner have actually read what he is supporting?

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: I am perplexed that members of the Church are rallying around the banner of SteveReynolds. SteveReynolds is using sophistry in an attempt to undermine truth and replace it with a form of relativism. The link Steve provides further speaks to this fact. The article Steve links to and Steve himself uses a stunning combination of poisoning the well, character assassinations, pseudo-science, pseudo-psychology, and a number of other fallacies to support the conclusion that, "A prophet’s counsel or directives — scriptural, dead, or living — are only valid to the degree that the body of the saints is willing to accept them."

Steve's message is consistently that the Church or Church leaders cannot be trusted.

Here is a sampling of SteveReynolds' message...

I admit I'm highly skeptical that you read the link I provided, but no matter. The church has often been influenced by culture and the erroneous opinions of its leaders over the years.

Steve is saying here that over the years the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has often been influenced by the erroneous opinions of its leaders.

What is the message? Church leaders are in error.

That is a fact, and even a passing familiarity with church history proves it. The church may well do what God wants, but that doesn't mean that everything the church does was prescribed by God. Tradition, culture, and mistakes abound.

Here again Steve suggests the idea that mistakes abound in the Church because of the leaders.

Message? Church leaders are leading us astray.

The membership is a check on the leadership. Membership acceptance or non-acceptance of what the prophet says or asks is what ultimately has the final say

Here the implication is that church leaders need to be kept in check and it is the duty of church members to do that.

Message? We can't trust Church leaders.

The church has even become cagey about things like calling the Proclamation on the Family a revelation -- they are very careful to make sure that it is never officially referred to as a revelation (Pres. Packer used the term a couple of years ago in conference and the printed version was careful to change "revelation" to "guide"). The new Gospel Principles book no longer calls the apostles and prophets "special witnesses of Christ," but "special witnesses of the name of Christ." You can drive a train through the difference that makes.

A few post later and Steve is now apparently an insider to how the Church operates. Notice the subtle implication that Church leaders are using manipulative means to control the message.

Notice the vague reference to something Pres. Packer said in order to once more plant the idea that the Church is manipulating the message.

Message? The Church leaders are manipulative.

The church had a long tradition of hiding and minimizing the practice on the record and most members simply took the manifesto as another in a long line of attempts to appease the government. Much of the obedience rhetoric we face today is due to efforts to finally end polygamy. Also, the manifesto is a declaration. It's categorization as a "revelation" has grown over the years.

Steve now takes on a historian's voice and makes several unsubstantiated claims. He claims the Church has a history of hiding and minimizing bad practices. He also implies that the manifesto was not due to divine revelation but rather due to government pressure. Steve takes it upon himself to unilaterally decide that the manifesto is NOT revelation.

Message? The Church/leaders are manipulative. There is no revelation.

Members often assume that the prophets and apostles speak face-to-face with Christ. However, the admission that apostles are witnesses to the "name" of Christ only is significant because it acknowledges that none of them have seen him for at least a hundred years or more. Many of them are on record as saying so explicitly (not avoiding the question with the "some things are too sacred..." deflection) and even prophetic testimonies from various prophets over the last century amount to nothing more than a story of struggling and praying for years before coming to the realization that they "already knew."

Amazing. Here Steve says that prophets aren't really special witnesses of Jesus Christ. Here the claims is that "prophetic testimonies" are "nothing more than a story of struggling and praying..."

It is becoming more obvious at this point that Steve is attempting to deny the prophets and apostles.

Message? Prophets aren't special/necessary.

Also, regarding the Proclamation, if it were a revelation, they would have said so to begin with. It could have been canonized immediately. However, even as it gains traction among the membership, leadership is still uncomfortable calling it that because they know it was a document revised over and over with the participation of legal counsel, etc. "Proclamation" is the appropriate word.

Here Steve is denying that the Proclamation to the World is revelation. Rather than revelation, Steve claims that this is simply another product of manipulative Church leaders and their lawyers.

Message? The prophets are manipulative. They do not get their ideas from God, but through manipulative and wordly ways.

I cannot prove a negative, but I promise you that you cannot prove otherwise. There is simply no record of it anywhere. Impressions in the mind or hearing the voice of the spirit do not count. Even things we categorize as "great revelations," such as the ending of the priesthood ban, are not associated with any actual visions of Christ. I'm not making this up. (Though I freely admit that "a hundred years" is just a round number because I am terrible with dates. Give or take a decade.) Now could there be one errant account here or there that I was not aware of? Sure, it's possible. I'm open to being wrong. But even one or two such accounts really doesn't change big picture.

I'll grant you this: I cannot prove that none of them have seen him in all that time. Fine. But it should be far easier to prove that someone did at some point. And the fact remains that there is no evidence of that. To the contrary, even President Hinckley admitted explicitly that he had not seen Christ. Many others have documented their personal struggle with gaining a testimony. This is fact. The Gospel Principles change is perfectly in line with the historical record. They're just trying to temper our expectations.

I am combining these two quotes because they are similar. As Steve's views are challenged, he begins to backpedal on some of his assertions. But, notice the use of sophistry to manufacture arguments that cannot be falsified. Or, the arguments are couched in such a way that even if he's proven wrong, he'll still be right in the grand scheme of things.

Regards,

Finrock

Edited by Finrock
Grammar and spelling and minor clarifications.
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I agree letter campaigns are an excellent vehicle for democracies. This is the Lord's Kingdom, and top down has always been the method within the Lords Kingdom.

Actually I think the voice of common consent is the Lord's preferred model. Read about how decisions were made in Joseph's day. Fascinating stuff.

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