I have noticed that somewhere along the way someone decided that the experience of Mormonism was to be correlated and corporatized. The collective membership, no matter where they were in the world or in their hearts should—if they consider themselves to be good Mormons and members—speak a common theological language. And I believe, in the process lost the God that exists beyond that language; the map is not the territory any more than doctrine IS God. They forgot that God danced to God’s own music, not the corporate melody that men in each generation heard and defended, even if that music was re-explained and cast aside in another. Mormonism is about the moment, now, and which musicians/leaders are making the music and calling the steps for God. But God is an individual song deep within each soul who is willing to go within and find it. When they do nothing is the same!
Ordain Women has come this far, don’t doubt now! The threatening tide may appear to be swallowing you up. “Fear not. I am with you always,” said Jesus. Either Jesus meant those words or He didn’t, and no human law or written talk, or supposed individual righteousness or sin will change that decree—always means always, no matter what! Sooner or later every life that claims to believe in Christ, and desires a deeper inner life must face the Peter moment of letting go and walking away from the boat that brought them to the water’s edge; the boat that brings you there is not the experience you are meant to have once you get there.
The Church is a great boat, and it has great boat captains, and is, mostly, well-ran. And in community with others, there are rules to follow about the ship that are for our own good, lest we fall overboard and drown because we have never gained the faith riding in a boat needed to walk on the water. What a paradox, to gain the faith and strength to walk on the water one has to eventually leave the boat.
I am not saying that one has to exit the Church to know God, but I am saying that once they do know God, the true and living God, and have accessed that deep divine and mature faith necessary to walk on water with the Christ within, their experience of and need for the boat changes. What do you do with a boat when you have learned to walk on the waves?
As a professor who taught his BYU students how to think, and how to go inward to access their deeper, authentic inner Christ, I see the importance of Ordain Women’s work.
What I believe Ordain Women is doing is calling LDS women out onto the water, to walk with Jesus in a whole new inner paradigm that I feel is more aligned with the historical Jesus. Whether the Church organization ever makes a way for women to exercise institutional priesthood power, or not, I do not believe God has denied women the priesthood. Sadly, that belief is functionally irrelevant to the day-to-day lives of many women in the church until the priesthood policy ban is lifted.
I believe women should be ordained.