Hudson Response

A long, long time ago I wrote an essay for Sunstone about women and the priesthood. Nobody really liked it. I mean seriously--people hated it. But whatever. I wrote it when I was in the midst of having kids and teaching and I was really pretty young, but my hunch was that in terms of running a church, in terms of reaching zion, in terms of advancing the civilization, as it were, of the LDS community, the children of God, women didn't necessarily need more priesthood--men needed more womanhood. What I saw in the church that was contrary to the spirit of God was what Valerie Hudson describes as masculine--self-centered power-seeking, self-aggrandizement, lack of concern for the safety and security of the flock.

I wrote about a woman in my ward in Cambridge in testimony meeting who had been with a friend in labor the night before and just felt like she had to talk about it--but then stopped herself suddenly, said "I don't know why I'm telling you this," and then gave a hasty amen. Why, I wondered, was it perfectly acceptable week after week to use football analogies but not okay to compare our spiritual lives to giving birth?

So Valerie's ideas are interesting--but also kind of obvious, no? I guess this is more of a popular magazine than a scholarly one. So there must needs be opposition in all things--Tieresias had to become both male and female in order to achieve true wisdom.

I'm also thinking of the powerful passage in D&C 121: Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen?
35 Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson—
36 That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.
37 That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.