Hi, my name is Nik. I am a father of three (2 daughters and one son) and have been married for over 10 years. I grew up in the Church and attended seminary and institute, went on a mission and married in the temple. I have served in multiple callings to include Ward Mission leader and Elder’s Quorum presidency.
I see my Mormonism as a form of wrestling between faith and doubt about concepts that are known, unknown, knowable or unknowable. I see the metaphors and symbols that Mormonism uses to talk about God and humanity, creator and created, as symbols that make sense to me. As I read scripture and ponder on the influence of culture on the symbols and metaphors of religion I feel we are holding ourselves back when we deny women priesthood. There is scriptural precedent (female prophets and apostles), historical precedent, and doctrinal space for women to exercise priesthood power. Perhaps it is only our limited understanding and cultural bias that has placed women outside of the priesthood office, but there is no doctrinal reason for women to be denied having priesthood power.
When I think of a Heavenly Mother, and temple ordinances that suggest women will become priestesses and queens in heaven, it makes sense to me that priesthood power is a requisite to godliness for both genders. Humanity has a history of subjugating and oppressing women and denying women the priesthood is just another vestige of a cultural inheritance we need to eradicate. In 1978 when the Church received revelation that expanded the priesthood to black men, Bruce R. McKonkie was forced to admit:
“Forget everything that I have said… or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world. We get our truth and our light line upon line and precept upon precept. We have now had added a new flood of intelligence and light on this particular subject, and it erases all the darkness and all the views and all the thoughts of the past. They don’t matter anymore.”
In 1978 we received revelation that helped us remove significant shackles of cultural racism within the collective symbols and metaphors of our religion. I hope for a new day and a new arrangement to shed light out into the world on this subject of priesthood and women and to remove shackles of misogyny and sexism. I believe it’s time to remove any particles of darkness of the past and we forget about them. I believe women should be ordained.