have written to my daughter on the issue of the current movement among a small group of misguided women within the LDS Church, who are currently pushing for ordination in the priesthood. (These are my opinions and not those of the church)
Dear Michelle:
This is very long, but the topic requires deeper analysis than most. Please write me back and ask other questions or point out my errors. I will publish this on my website, because the truth of these matters needs to be known.
First I want to thank you for asking about the Progressive Mormon movement, I have been pondering it all day, as Mom and I traveled to the temple, and then when in the temple I gained some new and precious insights, that have and will bless my life, so whatever the result of my writing the following to you, the exercise has richly blessed me already. I will send copies of this to your Brothers and Sisters, so that they will also understand the true doctrines that society, at the bidding of lucifer, works so hard to corrupt.
Bottom Line Up Front: The Ordain Women movement, like many others of recent history, is just another method that Satan and his servants have initiated to destroy the family. Though seemingly at the forefront more now than in times past, the truth is the concept has existed since the Garden of Eden. Satan knows that he cannot get everyone with the false doctrines of a morally neutral Sexual Orientation, or of non-existent eternal accountability,
etc. so hatred motivates him to destroy more individuals and generations through the false doctrines (premises) that this movement is based on.
Here are some of the false premises that inform this movement:
1. That equality must be based on sameness.
2. That being ordained to priesthood power (Melchizedek and Aaronic) is somehow superior to any power currently accessible to daughters of God.
3. That the concept of submission requires arrogance or abuse of power on the part of the one requiring submission.
There are others, but these suffice and the true doctrines on the above false premises are sufficient to reveal that any movements or individuals whose ideas and beliefs are based on them, are deceived.
I will explain the true doctrines:
1. Equality does NOT require sameness.
The fact is that it was Satan’s anti-agency plan that would make sameness an essential element of equality. The fact that we are all free agents to develop and choose what we will become, necessarily implies the ability for individuals to be different, and yet still achieve our ultimate potential.
Men and Women are different and always will be, and it is not just due to nurture. Masculinity and femininity are eternal natures. That lack of sameness does not logically mean then that they then cannot be equal. They are equally loved, equally important to the plan, equally heirs to receive all that the Father has. However, their roles, and most importantly their NEEDS are different based on their divine and eternal natures and so they require different blessings, gifts, endowments, in order to assist them in achieving their highest potential of becoming Gods and Goddesses. Remember God works to save ALL his children in the way that will best bring about that result.
Here an analogy might help. Lets say there is a healthy, vibrant, young woman, who has just complete a 3 mile run and is sitting on a park bench. As she relishes the crisp autumn air, taking in deep breaths, a man limps up very slowly towing an oxygen machine with a tube running to his nose. He sits next to her, grateful for the rest. The woman stares for a long time at the man, and at his cool oxygen machine, and suddenly feels discontent, angry, somehow overlooked. It simply isn’t fair that he has a cool oxygen tank, and she does not have one. Never mind the fact that
she doesn’t NEED one, the obvious fact that she doesn’t have…… what he has…… ruins her day, and the culture of envy takes over her life. She then spends the rest of her days, petitioning Doctors to prescribe her an oxygen
machine, and suing insurance companies for not providing equal access to that technology. The Oxygen is like
ordination to the priesthood, something required for men to live (eternally), but which women DO NOT need.
While this is not a perfect analogy, it demonstrates what truly possess the hearts and minds of the progressive LDS women. The culture of envy pushes them to desire, petition for, and protest because they do not have, something, which they actually do not NEED. They next embrace the Satanic inspired move toward Self Deification and decide they do not care what God’s reasons are for giving the priesthood to men, they want to fire God and decree, godlike, that his reasons are unfair, unequal and unjust. This point I will cover more under the doctrine of submission, but is suffices to say that arrogance and narcissism, motivates the hearts of those who allow the culture of envy to control their lives in such a way.
God gave the mentioned priesthood to men, because they need it, in fact D & C 84 makes it clear that THEY cannot be saved without it. Priesthood power, is given to men, to assist them to attain many of the Characteristics of Christ …….Characteristics that Women are already endowed with based on their preeminent roles.
Sisters may enter God’s Holy house and do baptisms for the dead based solely on worthiness and age. Young Men must be worthy, of age, AND ordained to the priesthood. While it is true that Beehives do not pass the sacrament, that fact reveals that Deacons, and not Beehives, must culture, grow, inculcate, learn, the concept of selfless service in their lives. Sacrificial service is not naturally a male attribute, but is innate, (already present), in the young women, and lies at the heart of motherhood.
Similarly, when a young women is ready to be endowed, she again enters the temple under the same standard. However, Young Men, like the deacons, must still be ordained, they must be made Elders…..before God’s blessings can be opened upon the young men, they must receive and exercise the priesthood, no such limit exist for God’s
daughters.
In both these cases it is important to note that the ultimate end state, and blessings are equally great, it is just how they are attained that is different, and it would be sinfully wrong to assume, that the differences in how they are obtained are based on anything but nature, and the wisdom of a perfect God.
It would be ridiculous for me to post a flyer urging all men to force our way into the conference center to attend the Relief Society and Young Women’s broadcasts, as it is for this misguided group to post such a flyer about General Priesthood meeting. The difference between the meetings is not based on any nefarious or evil design, but upon the recognition that males and females have different needs, and so their leaders speak to those needs specifically. All three meetings are published in many forms of media and all members of the church regardless of gender have access to the teachings, if they feel some desire to read or study them.
Similarly the creation of the visiting teaching program was NOT a function of trying to keep Sisters from home teaching, but rather a recognition that home teaching was often not enough, that women have different needs, that the home teaching program was not meeting those needs. It was not to say home teaching was superior, but quite the opposite, that it was clearly not sufficient to bless the lives of God’s precious daughters.
Similarly, the fact that high priests and elders meet in their own meetings and YW and RS sisters meet in their own meetings does not indicate that the men are all sitting around in the HP group gloating over their superiority, but rather a grace filled revelation to God’s leaders that different groups have different needs and that it is ok, just, even morally required, to focus on those needs by group. It would not be correct for an Elder to say, I am not a High Priest, and don’t meet with them, therefore I am discriminated against. Paul clearly revealed the fallacy of such beliefs in his day, as he described the Church as a body. The Mormon Progressives are in one sense:“the hands saying to the feet, I am not the feet, therefore I am not of the body.” That claim is a false and divisive doctrine, fomented by the destroyer. I Corinthians 12:12-27. (Note that immediately after his teachings he explains/infers that it is wrong for those not Apostles, teachers, etc. to somehow think they are being discriminated against based on their calling.)
Mary Fielding Smith did not need a priesthood ordination to heal her oxen
Anna the Prophetess did not need an ordination to the priesthood, to recognize and prophesy of the baby Jesus’ holy calling
None of the great and glorious women who have lived on this earth, and fulfilled their divinely inspired and foreordained missions, and who now merit exaltation and eternal life in the presence of the most high God, needed a priesthood ordination to qualify to receive ALL that the Father has.
So what could possibly motivate a woman to NOT be content with her own YW or RS broadcast, and want to invite herself into a General Priesthood meeting and worse to want to be ordained to the priesthood. What would lead a
woman to fanatically demand the oxygen that she does not need? Besides it being an indication that they are deceived about the concept of sameness, it is also revealing of a lack of understanding of her true role, and the true doctrine
with regards to womanhood and motherhood. Which doctrine I will now explain:
2. Being ordained to priesthood power (Melchezidec and Aaronic) is NOT superior to any power currently accessible to daughters of God.
Michelle, I have taught the following at times, and because of the entrenched anti-Mother fallacies that pervade our society have been accused of being Patronizing, or insincere. I testify to you that what I am about to share is nothing of the sort, it is in fact the doctrine of Womanhood, and motherhood as declared by God’s prophets and born out by the scriptures and the endowment.
The doctrine is that there is (inside or outside the Priesthood), no HIGHER OR HOLIER Calling, than to be a Mother in Zion.
Elder Nelson Taught in a general Priesthood Meeting:
“Many years ago the First Presidency issued a statement that has had a profound and lasting influence upon me. “Motherhood,” they wrote, “is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It
places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels."
"He went on to teach the following, which is the key to why feminists, progressives, and people from the dawn of time have tired to degrade and render quaint, or of little worth, what is in reality the greatest work of all. He said: “Because mothers are essential to God’s great plan of happiness, their sacred work is opposed by Satan, who would destroy the family and demean the worth of women.”
President Hinckley taught the following which should be pondered over in the temple to truly be understood:
“And so Eve became God’s final creation, the grand summation of all of the marvelous work that had gone
before. Notwithstanding this preeminence given the creation of woman, she has so frequently through the ages been relegated to a secondary position. She has been put down. She has been denigrated. She has been
enslaved. She has been abused. And yet some few of the greatest characters of scripture have been women of integrity, accomplishment, and faith."
The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that charity and benevolence are Natural to women. (Church History 4:605). Charity, the pure love of Christ, the essential element to salvation,!!!!! it is no wonder the scriptures refer to Mercy as a feminine trait.
There are many more but the true doctrine is best summed up in the following talk by Elder Faust:
http://www.lds.org/ensign/1988/05/the-highest-place-of-honor
The summation of these teachings is that Women have the MOST sacred and important role in the eternities. Men’s mission is to provide for them, to care for and protect them, so that they will be able to fulfill that divine destiny, without distractions. Women are not just the heart and center of the home, but the heart and center of the plan. In other words, priesthood holders are to use the priesthood to acquire what women possess innately, and
they are given the mission to facilitate them in their highest and holiest calling as co creators with God and even more importantly as the teacher’s of his children.
Elder Ballard Taught: “Sisters, we, your brethren, cannot do what you were divinely designated to do from before the foundation of the world. We may try, but we cannot ever hope to replicate your unique gifts. There is nothing in this world as personal, as nurturing, or as life changing as the influence of a righteous woman. … All women have within their divine nature both the inherent talent and the stewardship to mother. The word motherhood defines women’s eternal roles; it describes their nature as nurturers. Nurture is a rich word. It means to train, to teach, to educate, to foster development, to promote growth, and to nourish or feed. Women have been given the great privilege and responsibility to nurture in all these senses of the word, and the Relief Society has the responsibility to teach and support women in their divinely ordained, indispensable roles as mothers and
nurturers”
It is not idle talk for our leaders to teach that when you save a girl, you save generations, (note the plural). The scriptures are filled with examples of wicked, perverse, disgusting kings, whose grandsons, rise up as great
righteous kings to put off all the idolatry their fathers and grandfathers had imposed upon Israel. How could
that possibly happen? The answer is motherhood.
Since motherhood is the very key to the entire plan of salvation, Satan has, does and will continue to attack it.
The society we live in does not get it. We hear presidential hopefuls denigrate the wives of other politicians for staying home and “making cookies,” wrongfully and self-servingly assuming that prominence in politics or any other endeavor in society somehow is more worthwhile than mere motherhood. We see a father, touting the success of his daughter who was a highly paid president of a corporation, but whose few children suffered for her choices, while her sister who gloried in the divine role, and had and taught and trained and nurtured 8 wonderful children is seen as somehow less important, less successful.
It is an undeniable fact of history that as mothers abdicated the divine role of nurturing their children in purist of careers, power, prestige and other SELFISH worldly pursuits, the decline of our society has increased. This is so because as already mentioned NO ONE can do that role….not society, not TV, not nannies, not even priesthood holding husbands, as well as the mother who was endowed from before the world began with the power to
fulfill that mission. It is simply divine mercy, that as part of God’s plan to save his children, he endows his daughters with the gifts required for their preeminent role of nurturing, and thus also endows them with the gifts that will lead them to exaltation and eternal life. In other words, the innate powers mothers have to spiritually save God’s children, in turn saves the mothers. That is one reason why, in the end, many more Sisters will be saved than brothers, not withstanding all the ordinations to the priesthood.
Here a word about feminism. The Feminist movement has done more to destroy the world than any other movement I have seen. Sadly in its inception, it was actually meant to bless women’s life,fight for suffrage, etc. today feminism, foments gender discord and practices sexism, to justify its existence. Today by proclaiming to be a feminist, one automatically castes up a wall, a distinction, a political position, that is anti-man, that presumes old white priesthood holders, are keeping something from them, or that it is enmity, pride, sexism, that lies at the heart of any and all organizations who treat genders differently, even when such is not really the case. It is not an accident that feminist organizations today, are pro-abortion, support gay rights, and denigrate mock and ridicule those who choose motherhood as the primary focus of their efforts. Generations of youth have suffered and will continue to do so because mothers, relying on the false
and insidious lies of such organizations, have been distracted from or even left totally, their foreordained missions.
One need not look very far to see the effect. Statistics of none believers even bear it out, children, left to themselves, abandoned by mothers who ought to have loved them more than their own selfish pride, and self-centered desires for aggrandizement, have been destroyed spiritually.
I still remember the pro Equal Rights Amendment Sisters of the past, chaining themselves to temple gates, and yelling out in conference how they did not sustain their prophet because of his stance on that amendment. They
sacrificed their families and their exaltation, based on their arrogant and false assumptions that they new better and more than God, it really is tragic…….No, I would not ever want my name or thoughts to be associated with such a movement.
3. The concept of submission has nothing to do with power, and everything to do with love and respect.
Michelle, I know that for many the real issue is the“presiding” title that comes with priesthood ordination. Yet, even worries about that are based in lack of true understanding. I have known some women who do not like the temple, or who chaff at the concept taught by Paul of a woman “submitting” to her priesthood holding husband. Some of it may be based in the erroneous actions of the husband, who contrary to the laws of the priesthood exercise unrighteous dominion, but much of it has also come based on society’s lies as outlined above.
However, I have yet to hear any sincere student of the scriptures accuse God the Father of being a megalomaniac, or Jesus of being an oppressed, and cow towed weakling, because Jesus, constantly and lovingly submitted in all things to the will of the Father. For some reason, people seem to not be offended by the concept of submission as it relates to God and Christ. Perhaps it is because they know that God and Jesus are one, perfectly unified, perhaps it is because they know that Jesus and God have BOTH achieved the highest possible potential for humankind? Perhaps it is because they understand that love, pure love, is what motivates the bleeding, pleading son, to say “nevertheless, not my will but thine be done” What powerful and instructive words. There is no power struggle there, no culture of envy, no under the thumb mentality, just pure humility, and love at work. In truth that is the pattern for a godly marriage. The husband typifying the father, the wife typifying Christ, and the two as a godhead moving in perfect unity, while the son submits to the father. Incidentally, base on what I have written before it is sweet and sacred to ponder over why mothers are to typify Christ, the Savior of the world.
As we go back to the beginning it becomes clear that it was Satan, who “wanted God’s honor, his power, his glory” in essence, Satan and not Jesus was the Godist, who demanded equality with God, and protested against the concept of submission, a clear window into why he continues the same cry today through his proxies.
Some final thoughts
1. From the temple. There is a part in the endowment that has long been a sore spot to Mormon Feminists that I have spoken with, it is an action required of sisters but not of brothers. I admit I had often wondered about it and pondered over it, until today. I cannot go into specifics for obvious reasons, but there came to my mind today, the events as recorded in Exodus 34:29-35…. and suddenly I got it. What might be seen by the malcontent, sexist, as a demeaning action, became to me an indication of a higher and holier nature. If you read the scripture cite you will likely come to understand it, if not I would encourage you to go to the temple and ponder over that scripture while
there.
2. In the end, as Paul said, division is not the standard…..but unity, Neither is the woman without the man , nor the man without the woman in the Lord. As with the godhead symbology, they are to be perfectly unified, and when unified in the right manner, they BOTH. woman and man together, hold and exercise a different Priesthood, the Patriarchal Priesthood. At that stage they do not need that Priesthood, to perfect themselves, they are already there, rather that priesthood comes to them to empower them to fulfill the rest of their eternal destinies.
3. Some erroneously think that the absences of more doctrine and clarity with regard to the role of women in the councils, pre-mortal life, scriptures, etc, is because the word of God was written by sexist men. I strongly disagree.
I believe that the absence of the mention of women, particularly in the most sacred of topics, is out of respect and reverence for those sacred women, who have, and continue to, fulfill their glorious duties, in the highest and
holiest of all activities that can be conceived of in the eternities. To me, God’s actions are like those of Joseph, whose thoughts and concern for Mary, made him want to keep the incident out of the public eye. I have seen such filthy, profane and degrading treatment of God and Jesus, from art, to music, to conversations…..It is no wonder the Father protects his eternal companion in just such a way. If Mom and I ever make it, you can bet that I will
do nothing less to reverence and protect her from the mockery and profanity of a secular and disgusting world.
4. I do feel sad for those in this movement. Though they would likely deny it, you can know that the supporters lack
joy in their marriages, or are not married, or that they have suffered under oppressive priesthood holders, or have long since determined they could do a better job than God, and for selfish reason have sought to self deify. For those
who are simply deceived, we can have compassion, but for the generations of yet unborn, we cannot condone nor support the overall destruction their position will bring upon God’s children.
Well, I love you and hope this helps. It helped me to consolidate my thoughts and as I said, now I am ready to assist others with the same questions. I look forward to your questions or input.
Love Eternally
Daddy