Women and Girls can now be witnesses to ordinances

[QuestionAbound]

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.or ... nances.pdf

[QuestionAbound]

I like that we are going back to scripture to clarify some things.

Good changes, though I admit that it'll feel weird to ME that a girl/woman/young woman will be sitting where our menfolk used to sit. I'm a traditionalist at heart.

Now...to change the rule for keeping the male new name a secret......here's to hoping!

[Holy Cow]

Wow!! Thanks for the update. This is great news! Definitely a big step in the right direction. I hope this is moving things closer to extending the priesthood to any member that desires to hold it.

[Roy]

Wonderful! wonderful!

"In the mouths of two or three witnesses" - can we have three witnesses?

Looks like boys and girls as young as 8 can now act as witnesses. I somewhat dislike recently baptized children being lumped in with women. However, I am not entirely sure where else I might draw the line. The Aaronic office of a priest is required to perform the baptism, would the equivalent age be a good line in the sand? A baptized individual male or female that has at least reached the calendar year in which they will turn 16? That seems so arbitrary. Better I suppose to go with baptized members as young as 8. At least that might have some scriptural references to draw from if pressed. Mosiah 18:9 talks of baptized individuals standing as a "Witness of God"
D & C 20:37 lists as requirements for baptism that the individual "Witness before the church" that they have repented.
Doctrinally, there is a case to be made that 8 year old baptized members can act as witnesses.

[DarkJedi]

Hopefully the next step will be that mothers can hold babies during naming.

[Minyan Man]

Is there the possibility that they can't get enough men to come to the temple?
Especially with the number of temples being built?

[Curt Sunshine]

One of my daughters sent the announcement to our family text group. My wife and daughters are ecstatic.

[hawkgrrrl]

I'm not even remotely ecstatic about this as it points out just how ridiculous it was that it took us to 2019 to get there. Ardis did a great post in 2017 on the history of women as witnesses: http://www.keepapitchinin.org/2017/12/1 ... dont-know/

Also, how am I supposed to be jazzed about being lumped in yet again with children? That's where this gender essentialist garbage leads to: women are in the same category as children. Only men are full people.

[felixfabulous]

These changes are all bittersweet for me in that I think the actual changes are good and needed. But, they seem to reinforce the notion that the original policy/stance was wrong or just something someone decided arbitrarily at one point, the people who were critical of it originally had legitimate criticisms (even though they were often criticized and marginalized themselves for making the criticism) and things were easier to change than were originally presented.

It's doubly frustrating when I point this out to people and am criticized for being too rigid or nitpicky and holding the Church to an unrealistic standard. So many of these cosmetic changes were recommended by Nylan McBaine in her Book Women at Church 10 years ago. I think they are good changes, but it rubs me the wrong way that they are rolled out as revelation.

[Roy]

I agree Hawkgrrrl. And yet, as my post above illustrates, where else would we draw the line? 18? Is that the universal demarcation of adulthood in all parts of the world?

In some ways this is like the "let women pray in conference" movement in that in the end it seems rather silly that there was ever a prohibition at all.

However, in contrast to "let women pray", this change will allow women to participate in an essential and recognizable way in specific ordinances for their family members and loved ones. That is still a very good thing at the end of the day.

P.S. Felix and I were writing at the same time.