{"id":69886,"date":"2019-02-01T10:03:39","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T17:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=69886"},"modified":"2019-02-02T00:48:04","modified_gmt":"2019-02-02T07:48:04","slug":"a-note-on-women-and-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/02\/a-note-on-women-and-the-church.html","title":{"rendered":"A note on women and the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Sister<\/a>
When critics and others lament the all-male membership of the Latter-day Saint priesthood, I like to point out that women do roughly half of the preaching in our principal worship services. That, I think, should count for SOMETHING. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(Image from LDS.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The most recent installment of the bi-weekly joint Hamblin\/Peterson column in the Deseret News<\/em> has appeared:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDorothy Day and the Catholic Worker\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In my most recent introduction to a volume of\u00a0Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>, I commented fairly extensively upon an important lecture given at the Provo campus of Brigham Young University on 10 November 2018 by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Interpreter Foundation\u00a0and an Apostolic Charge\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A video of that lecture itself, as well as its text<\/a>, are now available for your viewing and\/or reading:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cElder Jeffrey R. Holland, \u201cThe Maxwell Legacy in the 21st Century\u201d (2018 Neal A. Maxwell Lecture)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

https:\/\/mi.byu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/2018-Maxwell-Institute-Annual-Report-small.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent the first 18 years of my life blissfully assuming all Protestant churches allowed women to preach.\u201d \u00a0So writes Jenna Barnett in an article for the politically leftist Evangelical magazine Sojourners<\/em> (to which I once subscribed), entitled \u201cNew Study: Largest U.S. Churches Are Unclear on Women\u2019s Leadership.\u201d<\/a> \u00a0She describes her shock at learning that her assumption was not true.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s slightly ironic, I suppose, that the very patriarchal Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often harshly condemned for its alleged oppression and repression of women, does<\/em> allow women to preach. \u00a0(Ms. Barnett doesn\u2019t mention us, of course. \u00a0For one thing, we\u2019re not Protestant.) \u00a0In fact, it expects them to do so. \u00a0On any given Sunday, in my home ward and in congregations around the world, one or more women will speak \u2014 will \u201cpreach,\u201d to use more mainstream Christian vernacular \u2014 in our principal worship service.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, of course, I realize that the leadership structure of my church is very different from that of other churches, and that women are not ordained to priesthood offices within it. \u00a0And I understand that my church doesn\u2019t have \u201cpreachers\u201d in the sense that Protestant churches do, or clergy in the sense of Orthodox, Catholic, and other forms of Christianity. \u00a0Fine. \u00a0Nevertheless, it remains the fact that, on any given Sunday, in my home ward and in congregations around the world, one or more women will speak from the pulpit in our principal worship service. \u00a0And they\u2019re not simply reading a prescribed scriptural text, as they now do in some liturgical traditions. \u00a0They are freely speaking their own thoughts, from their hearts, composed in their own minds. \u00a0That\u2019s not nothing, and it shouldn\u2019t be minimized. \u00a0And it\u2019s been that way for a very long time \u2014 certainly for as long as I<\/em> can remember.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a fine sampling of sermons by women in the Church, see Jennifer Reeder and Kate Holbrook, eds.,\u00a0At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women<\/em><\/a> (Salt Lake City: Church Historian\u2019s Press, 2017).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Sir,\u201d the great English lexicographer and wit Samuel Johnson declared to his biographer James Boswell on 31 July 1763, \u00a0\u201ca woman\u2019s preaching is like a dog\u2019s walking on his hinder legs. \u00a0It\u2019s not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

That shamelessly sexist attitude is completely foreign to the restored Church of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 The most recent installment of the bi-weekly joint Hamblin\/Peterson column in the Deseret News has appeared: \u00a0 \u201cDorothy Day and the Catholic Worker\u201d \u00a0 *** \u00a0 In my most recent introduction to a volume of\u00a0Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, I commented fairly extensively upon an important lecture given at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1809,3259,3253,3250,2905,1815,3256,942,788,3247,1513,2201],"class_list":["post-69886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints","tag-dorothy-day","tag-holland","tag-jeffrey-holland","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-lds","tag-maxwell","tag-maxwell-institute","tag-mormon","tag-ordination","tag-priesthood","tag-women"],"yoast_head":"\nA note on women and the Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    The most recent installment of the bi-weekly joint Hamblin\/Peterson column in the Deseret News has appeared:   "Dorothy Day and the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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