Hi, I’m Brad and I live in Seattle. I’m a returned missionary, a husband, a dad, a musician, and a Mormon. I have served in bishoprics as counselor and as branch president. I’ve been an elders quorum president, served in ward missions, and until recently was the primary chorister. I support Ordain Women and I think you should too.
Recent statements by the Bretheren have spoken of priesthood power being held by all women. That may be well and good, but Ordination goes one step further and confers the important powers of decision making over budget, staffing, ecclesiastical authority, organizational stewardship, tithes and offerings, teaching manuals, materials, public statements, dress, and meetings. There is no reason why a woman cannot preside at a meeting, why they cannot count and record tithes, why they cannot receive revelation for their flocks, or why they cannot call down the powers of healing, ministering, and other spiritual gifts of the priesthood.
I believe that we are stunting ourselves by discouraging the full employment of the strength and abilities of our sisters in Christ. I believe that we as men do ourselves a disservice by not valuing women as equals but instead putting women in gilded cages of higher spirituality and “specialness”. We men undercut ourselves when we deny our sisters, wives, mothers, and daughters the same spiritual powers and authorities that we take for granted. We make a mockery of our “service” when we deny others those same burdens.
My own wife is a powerful, competent woman who serves in leadership positions in her firm, at church, in the community, and boards of large non-profits such as the Seattle Symphony and the Seattle Art Museum. And yet, when the ward needed a Sunday School President, they called her, but renamed the calling to “Sunday School Coordinator”. There is no reason why she might not be called president. There is no reason why she should not be able to call upon priesthood authority in that calling. There is no reason why in a similar situation, that any of us shouldn’t. Authority is not about magical powers, it’s about the ability to act for and lead a group; an emancipation yet a designation of service.
I support OW because the church will be better with women in real leadership. The church will be better with women in authority. The church will be better when we not only call upon women but depend upon their contributions to the building up the Zion. Ordination will also show that we are a church that believes in continuing revelation, that we are a church that believes in our own 9th article of faith which states that God will continue to reveal many great and important things. I support OW because we can do better.