A Proper Wife

I have felt very ambivalent about posting this essay here but I have finally decided that I should, if only to bring slightly more awareness to this issue. The temple is the source of what MoFems call "my feminist awakening", because it was the first time in my experience in the church that I felt unavoidably confronted with doctrinal inequalities between men and women. It broke my heart. It shook my relationship with God to the core. It deeply damaged my sense of self-worth. It still does. I can honestly say that I have sought long and hard for spiritual and logical explanations outside of the most obvious ones, and I have found some, but the endowment is still deeply painful for me, almost every time that I go. I understand that many men and women in the church would find my feelings and perspective difficult to understand. That is why I am posting This Essay . Because her essay describes and lays out exactly how I understood the endowment the first time I was endowed. Th...

Hmm, this sounds familiar. Just a friendly reminder that doctrine can and does change.  " 9 We believe all that God has revealed , all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God."

So, while listening to/watching this talk, I was getting pretty excited. When he said that women are not ordained to offices of the priesthood, I turned to my husband and shouted "offices!" He had no idea what I was talking about and I'm sure felt set upon, but here is how I understood it: The church does not currently have the keys to all types of priesthood power/authority. They have not all been restored yet. Under the keys which we currently hold, women are endowed in the temple with priesthood power.(Elder Ballard)  They are given priesthood authority, under the direction of the priesthood holders, to carry out certain tasks and duties in the church. They are not ordained to offices in the priesthoods which we currently have . All of this was very validating to me to have so publicly affirmed. The highest offices of the priesthood that are available are king and queen , priest and priestess . We are anointed to these offices in the temple, but not ordained to the...

I didn't agree with everything in this post, but I think it's really important to understand and acknowledge that for a lot of women in the church, the temple is the SOURCE of their gender issues/pain rather than the solution. READ IT HERE.