Sunday, April 6, 2014

No, you won't get the priesthood. You aren't black.

There is an interesting movement within the LDS church to ordain women to the priesthood. Some women feel they are being oppressed by not being given responsibilities that the men in the church have. 

Dallin H. Oaks rebuffed them at the priesthood session of the most recent LDS General Conference. His speech is now being compared to Apostle N. Eldon Tanner's from 1967 regarding blacks and the priesthood with this photo:


Four years after Elder Tanner's speech, the LDS Church formally lifted the ban on blacks in the priesthood. After that, many people viewed the original ban as a mistake, a view I would consider shortsighted. If you look at Christian history, Jesus Christ flat out ignored people in need because of their ethnicity and the time not being right for their ministry. However, the Gentiles were promised that their day would come.

Brigham Young and other prophets had promised that, one day, black people would receive the priesthood. One of the conjectures surrounding the ban on blacks having the priesthood was Utah gaining statehood. I don't believe this to be too far fetched. If Utah, as a political body, had given rights and privileges to blacks at that time, it could have further damaged rocky relations with a government which once ordered the extermination of Mormons. This could potentially have continued persecutions against the membership and stifled efforts to build up the Kingdom of God here on the earth. In 1896, the Federal Government overturned a law signed in 1870 granting women in Utah the right to vote. Moreover, women were never promised that they would one day receive priesthood keys. The Church has never barred them from holding leadership positions within the church.

Regardless of how badly the Ordain Women movement misinterprets scripture to dubiously support their viewpoint, their mission statement says, "We sincerely ask our leaders to take this matter to the Lord in prayer." That is a daring proposition. Do they believe the church leaders have not prayed about it? If they did, and the response was already given, would they accept it? I doubt it, especially considering it already has been answered on multiple occasions. The intent of their organization is not to ordain women to the priesthood. They only plan on validating their own self-worth, while perverting the Doctrine of Christ, similar to how the adversary attempted to during the grand council in heaven. To paraphrase their line of thought, "I think I know better than you do."

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