Week 59: Pregnancy and Priesthood
Dear Loved Ones,
This was a really hard, heartbreaking week for me. Prayers and emails of support would be much appreciated.
Over time, I drafted insight essays for weeks when I had nothing to say. So in lieu of an email, here's my thoughts on gender and priesthood. Too often, I hear both men and women of the church claiming that women holding the priesthood would be like men having babies. That is a faulty comparison.
It is just an erroneous as inventing that black men weren't allowed to have the priesthood for many years because there was something wrong with them. Here are some ways priesthood and pregnancy don't match up:
1. Women of all religions can have children. While Hindu women, Sikh women, Lutheran women, and Catholic women are having babies as we speak, only men of this church have the power and authority to act in God's name.
2. Not all women of our own faith can have children. Indeed, there are many women in the bible who couldn't have children for a time. Sarah. Hannah. Rachel. Elisabeth. My MTC companion had endometriosis and will very likely not be able to have children. She was concerned over the role of women in the church, probably because childbirth is counterparted to the priesthood so much. If childbearing is the distaff counterpart to the priesthood, what is the value of a woman who can't have children? Equating those two is a surefire way to cause distress and even alienation among women who can't have kids.
3. Pregnancy is biological, priesthood is religious. Because of that, there are a whole lot of reasons these two don't match up. For one, women can only bear children at a certain age while men can use the priesthood in old age. Also, men need to have the priesthood conferred on them by another priesthood holder. Women don't need any help from another woman to become pregnant. A man can lose the privilege of using the priesthood through sin, but women who sin don't lose the ability to bear children.
5. Men ARE involved in reproduction. The masculine equivalent of pregnancy is fertalization. Holding up the priesthood as the masculine equivalent is blatantly sexist towards men because it erases the importance of men as fathers.
6. The priesthood does not belong to man.
The priesthood is Jesus Christ. The visitors' center always had a senior elder in it to deal with the homeless men who wander in and pester the young women who serve there. I once heard a senior sister say "we need our priesthood here," as if this man was himself the priesthood. It is blatant blasphemy to call a man, any man, the priesthood. The priesthood is Jesus Christ himself.
Childbirth is a function inheret in every appropriatedly-aged woman who does not have fertility problems, but the priesthood belongs rightfully and solely to our Savior. Holding up priesthood and pregnancy as counterparts degrades women, degrades men, and degrades the Son of Man born of woman.
Sincerely,
Sister Smith
This was a really hard, heartbreaking week for me. Prayers and emails of support would be much appreciated.
Over time, I drafted insight essays for weeks when I had nothing to say. So in lieu of an email, here's my thoughts on gender and priesthood. Too often, I hear both men and women of the church claiming that women holding the priesthood would be like men having babies. That is a faulty comparison.
It is just an erroneous as inventing that black men weren't allowed to have the priesthood for many years because there was something wrong with them. Here are some ways priesthood and pregnancy don't match up:
1. Women of all religions can have children. While Hindu women, Sikh women, Lutheran women, and Catholic women are having babies as we speak, only men of this church have the power and authority to act in God's name.
2. Not all women of our own faith can have children. Indeed, there are many women in the bible who couldn't have children for a time. Sarah. Hannah. Rachel. Elisabeth. My MTC companion had endometriosis and will very likely not be able to have children. She was concerned over the role of women in the church, probably because childbirth is counterparted to the priesthood so much. If childbearing is the distaff counterpart to the priesthood, what is the value of a woman who can't have children? Equating those two is a surefire way to cause distress and even alienation among women who can't have kids.
3. Pregnancy is biological, priesthood is religious. Because of that, there are a whole lot of reasons these two don't match up. For one, women can only bear children at a certain age while men can use the priesthood in old age. Also, men need to have the priesthood conferred on them by another priesthood holder. Women don't need any help from another woman to become pregnant. A man can lose the privilege of using the priesthood through sin, but women who sin don't lose the ability to bear children.
5. Men ARE involved in reproduction. The masculine equivalent of pregnancy is fertalization. Holding up the priesthood as the masculine equivalent is blatantly sexist towards men because it erases the importance of men as fathers.
6. The priesthood does not belong to man.
The priesthood is Jesus Christ. The visitors' center always had a senior elder in it to deal with the homeless men who wander in and pester the young women who serve there. I once heard a senior sister say "we need our priesthood here," as if this man was himself the priesthood. It is blatant blasphemy to call a man, any man, the priesthood. The priesthood is Jesus Christ himself.
Childbirth is a function inheret in every appropriatedly-aged woman who does not have fertility problems, but the priesthood belongs rightfully and solely to our Savior. Holding up priesthood and pregnancy as counterparts degrades women, degrades men, and degrades the Son of Man born of woman.
Sincerely,
Sister Smith
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