Posts Tagged ‘ women ’

The headline is clear. Community of Christ will provide sacramental ordinances of marriage, commitment ceremonies, and ordination independent of sexual orientation in the USA. Specifically, after two days of discussion, the USA National Conference formally approved by a required 2/3rds majority the following recommendations to the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve: The 2013 USA [...]

The week from 17 March saw the inauguration of both the new Pope, Pope Francis, and the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. To mark that historic occasion the BBC broadcast a debate entitled Christianity at the Crossroads. The panellists were: Matthew Parris (MP) – former Conservative MP; Dr Anna Rowlands (AR) – Catholic theologian; [...]

The ordain women movement is focused on asking why females should not be ordained.  Let’s flip that around and ask why males are ordained. Discuss.

I decided to do an experiment: if you ran through all the explanations for why the structure of Mormonism isn’t sexist back to back, how long would it take before you completely contradicted yourself? Turns out about 30 seconds. For all we try and magnify the positive and downplay the negative, the fact of the [...]

Feminism makes some men very nervous.  They are afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing and being labelled a sexist.  They may feel like outsiders, unclear of their own standing as these conversations unfold.  Men and women alike may not be sure what feminism entails, but it can seem like a daunting list, one [...]

In January 2012, I did a blog post about topics women in the church were discussing.  I identified 10 practices that some women saw as unnecessarily discriminate or that were in other ways causing women to question their value in the church.  This was in response to a request Pres. Beck made of Mormon Mommy [...]

Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune said “that LDS women are scheduled, as of now [Mar 18, 2013], to offer invocations or benedictions at next month’s General Conference”.  Which session will it be?  Will it be an invocation, or benediction.  My bet is a benediction for the last session, so there won’t be [...]

If you’re a man…and Mormon…you’re probably a creeper. Read on to find out if you fit the profile and get tips for increasing your creepiness!

Human brains naturally use locations in space and time to make sense of events. Why should we expect eternal spirits to follow that protocol? The question has always bothered me. What follows is speculation about a different way of looking at the relationship between the physical and the spiritual than the Restoration faiths adopted in [...]

A recent news story tells of a YW leader who was released from her calling for breastfeeding her baby in a room full of young women.  She has also been threatened with the loss of her temple recommend if she doesn’t leave meetings to feed her baby.  Scott Trotter, LDS media spokesperson, was caught off [...]

I recently read an article in The Nation called “I’m Not Mother First.”  I also just finished reading Betty Friedan’s well-known tome, The Feminine Mystique, a book that turns 50 years old this year.  As I read the Feminine Mystique, there were several times when the cultural observations seemed anachronistic to me.  I have sometimes [...]

Quite some time ago I read Kevin Barney’s excellent article he wrote for Dialogue:  “How to Worship Our Mother in Heaven Without Getting Excommunicated.”  One of his references was a book by archaeologist, William Dever, called “Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel” which I just finished reading.  The gist of the [...]

All Enlisted is at it again!  The latest movement is to petition church leadership to have females give prayers in General Conference.  After the pantstastic success of the Wear Pants to Church Sunday, they are motivated to tackle this next.  The church’s official response? “Decisions on speakers and prayers at General Conference were made several [...]

“I stood amazed at the furor I had unwittingly caused.”  Amelia Bloomer When I first heard about the group All Enlisted organizing women to wear pants to church on Sunday, December 16, I was of two minds.  On the one hand, who cares?  Pants aren’t against the rules anyway, and I see lots of women wearing [...]

Women are banding together to break unwritten LDS cultural dress codes on Sunday Dec 16th by wearing pants to church.  The church’s PR team responded:  ”Yawn.”  What do you think? Discuss.

Once again, I’m thinking about the temple.  Why do women wear veils, and why are they supposed to veil their faces when participating in the true order of prayer?  At a wedding, many women wear veils for the ceremony.  For a wedding, it seems to hold a bit of romance.  In Islam, it is a [...]

The Proclamation on the Family states that “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”  We know that gender is related to genitalia, but sometimes that can be a bit confusing. I talked previously about Intersex individuals, and TLC has a show (also available on Netflix) called Strange Sex.  [...]

In the October General Conference, E. Cook cautioned against political extremism that supersedes and erodes testimony and commitment to the church: Many who are in a spiritual drought and lack commitment . . .  have made unwise choices. Some are casual in their observance of sacred covenants. Others spend most of their time giving first-class [...]

“Many laws permit or even promote abortion, but to us this is a great evil,” Elder Oaks said in Saturday afternoon’s session of General Conference.  Oaks is just one of many religious leaders that call abortion evil, but are there more effective ways to curb abortions than to simply stand on a soapbox?  A recent [...]

There has been a lot of bloggernacle discussion over the years about how to make women feel more equal in the male-dominated General Conference. What other ideas do you have? Discuss.