Sheri Dew Responds to Ordain Women With a New Book

Sheri Dew, the CEO of Deseret Book, the book company owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has published a book about women and the priesthood. The book is titled Women and the Priesthood: What One Mormon Woman Believes.

Here is the official description:

The fact that women are not ordained to the priesthood in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is for some a sticking point, a hot topic, even a potential media controversy. Others aren’t troubled by the issue at all. But wherever you fall on that spectrum, you’ll be fascinated by this doctrinal exploration of a topic that is crucial for both women and men to understand.

In Women and the Priesthood, Sheri Dew discusses the varying responsibilities of men and women in the context of key doctrine of the Church, including the eternal truths that women are vital to the success of the Lord’s church, that God expects women to receive revelation, and that both men and women have access to God’s highest spiritual blessings.

This enlightening book shows how studying the doctrine of the priesthood will help you find the answers you seek about women and the priesthood, about women in the Church, and about the vital influence righteous women can have in the world.

A quote from Sheri Dew, featured in an email from Deseret Book promoting the book, makes it very clear that this book is a response to Ordain Women.

In the clamor for women to be treated "equally" with men, many appear to missed, misunderstood, or discard as insignificant the innate, transcendent gifts women has been given and the unique position women have occupied in the eyes of our Creator all along.

Yes, "equally" is put into scare quotes.

Sheri Dew is a powerful and prominent LDS women. Not only is she a powerful CEO figure at a Church corporation, but she is also a former member of the church-wide General Relief Society Presidency and the author of two very successful devotional biographies of LDS Church Presidents (Ezra Taft Benson and Gordon B. Hinckley).

Ordain Woman is having an impact if they are being responded to in book form by conservative establishment figures like Sheri Dew. Ordain Women is succeeding.

If you have expressed support for Ordain Women vocally or in social media, be prepared to receive this book for Christmas. You might want to brace yourself for multiple copies.

Be prepared! Have on you extra copies of The Challenge of Honesty: Essays for Latter-day Saints by Francis Lee Menlove. Menlove makes an argument for female ordination that is rooted in both the Bible and Mormon History. It is a well-crafted and thoughtful argument that will appeal to a range of Mormons, even those who do not consider themselves to be feminist.