The Church continues its war on women?

My Christmas column in the Deseret News for 2018 has now appeared:

“Christmas and Christ’s ‘mortal tabernacle'”

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“Elder Holland: To My Friends Who Want to Believe”

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Last week, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced a policy change that will permit holders of the Aaronic priesthood (overwhelmingly, young men) to perform baptisms and serve as witnesses to vicarious baptisms for the dead in the Church’s temples.  Young women of corresponding age — who have, of course, not been ordained to the priesthood — will now be permitted to fill the roles reserved until now for older women serving as temple workers:

“Church Adds New Opportunities for Youth and Children to Prepare for and Participate in Temples”

Heretofore, while they were permitted and indeed encouraged to go to the temple to receive such baptisms, neither young women nor young men were authorized to perform baptisms in the temple.

As a former singles-ward bishop who appreciates how much serving in the temple has meant to many young people — and who remembers how much it meant to me — I was happy at the announcement.

Certain critics, however, are never happy at any announcement from the Church, and it was depressingly predictable that some, opting for gender inequality as their preferred weapon in this particular case, have chosen to sneer at this policy change as merely allowing young women to serve as menial “towel girls.”

Here’s a good reply to such criticisms from a young Latter-day Saint woman:

“Why last week’s LDS Church announcement is about much more than towels”

My personal response is to declare, with Hugh Nibley, that “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the House of the Lord than mingle with the top brass in the tents of the wicked.”

In fact, like many thousands of other Latter-day Saints, I’ve done menial labor in temples and chapels, and I’ve been happy to do it.   There’s nothing humiliating about vacuuming a chapel or emptying a meetinghouse trash can or cleaning a meetinghouse toilet.  I remember, years ago, working in a Church cannery where four of us — holding doctorates in mathematics, geology, English literature, and Near Eastern studies — struggled to make sense of the instructions for canning a supply of peaches for distribution to the poor.  Our effort was certainly comical and undignified, but it wasn’t even remotely servile or demeaning.

From a devotional address given at Ricks College on 13 February 1996 by Elder Dallin H. Oaks, of the Council of the Twelve:

When the Saints needed a large quantity of rags to process in their paper mill, the First Presidency asked bishops to sponsor rag drives in their local wards and settlements. In 1861, President Brigham Young called George Goddard, a loyal Church member, on a “rag mission” to promote this effort. Brother Goddard recalled:

“[This calling] was a severe blow to my native pride. … After being known in the community for years, as a merchant and auctioneer, and then to be seen on the streets going from door to door with a basket on one arm and an empty sack on the other, enquiring for rags at every house. Oh, what a change in the aspect of affairs. … When President Young first made the proposition, the humiliating prospect almost stunned me, but a few moments’ reflection reminded me that I came to these valleys of the mountains from my native country, England, for the purpose of doing the will of my Heavenly Father, my time and means must be at His disposal. I, therefore, answered President Young in the affirmative” (quoted in Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom [1966], 115).

For over three years, George Goddard traveled from Franklin, Idaho, in the north to Sanpete County, Utah, in the south, visiting hundreds of houses. On Sundays he preached what were called “rag sermons.” By the end of this three-year mission, he had collected more than 100,000 pounds of rags for the paper project. It was humble work, but it was essential for the progress of his community, and it was assigned by priesthood authority.

At this Christmas season, when we celebrate Christ’s magnificent condescension in humbly taking upon himself our mortal flesh and descending to serve and to suffer among us — and at our hands — it seems unusually tone-deaf for critics to deride any kind of service, let alone the selfless, non-status-seeking service offered by faithful women in the temple.