If a female tried to get into the priesthood session of GC...

[Uncle Ted]

What does the JST have to do with anything? The JST has no historical relevance at all other than as a statement about Joseph Smith and how he operated. It has nothing to do with the original text.

That is the beauty of the JST. It is God's editorial changes to the KJV. It doesn't get any more direct than that.

[Uncle Ted]

I don't know if this article has already been posted somewhere here but it should go in this thread... I had not heard the story about Camilla Kimball:

Mormon healing: Call the elders — or the sisters?

[...]

In a 1940 pamphlet, apostle John A. Widtsoe taught that "the spiritual gifts which always accompany the church of Christ and are signs of its verity, are properly exercised under the power of the priesthood."
After that, women could pray for the health of their children and family, but only men could perform healing ordinances.


Stapley and Wright do note, however, an intriguing exception from 1979.

Then-President Spencer W. Kimball was recovering from brain surgery and asked for a blessing. Bruce R. McConkie, an apostle, and Marion D. Hanks, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, arrived to give it to him. Hanks anointed the ailing prophet's head, while McConkie invited Kimball's son, Edward, to join in. The apostle also invited the prophet's wife, Camilla, to place her hands on her husband's head.


"That was unusual," Edward Kimball later wrote. "It seemed right to me, but I would not have felt free to suggest it on my own because of an ingrained sense that the ordinance is a priesthood ordinance."


Though the LDS Church no longer authorizes women to administer healing rituals, Stapley and Wright conclude, "the heritage of female healing in the LDS Church is an essential facet of Mormon history and testament to the faith, power, and community of Mormon women."

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsfa...hurch.html.csp

[SoonerCoug]

I don't know if this article has already been posted somewhere here but it should go in this thread... I had not heard the story about Camilla Kimball:


http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsfa...hurch.html.csp

Camilla was my grandmother's sister. They were a little progressive in a very backwards sort of way.

[byu71]

I don't know if this article has already been posted somewhere here but it should go in this thread... I had not heard the story about Camilla Kimball:


http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsfa...hurch.html.csp

Pretty cool I think. I have never understood why a father who is inactive or even a non-member couldn't stand in the circle while blessing a child. For that matter, if the mother wanted to, why not?

One person gives the blessing by the power of the Priesthood. What are the others doing in the circle? If they are there for support, then why couldn't someone without the Priesthood stand in giving support. I love my Uncles and my hometeachers, but my mother's support would mean more to me.

[ERCougar]

Pretty cool I think. I have never understood why a father who is inactive or even a non-member couldn't stand in the circle while blessing a child. For that matter, if the mother wanted to, why not?

One person gives the blessing by the power of the Priesthood. What are the others doing in the circle? If they are there for support, then why couldn't someone without the Priesthood stand in giving support. I love my Uncles and my hometeachers, but my mother's support would mean more to me.

A baby blessing is a no brainer. I don't know or care enough to know the difference, but isnt it more of a prayer than an ordinance anyway? It's ridiculous that the mother has to sit outside the circle.

[byu71]

A baby blessing is a no brainer. I don't know or care enough to know the difference, but isnt it more of a prayer than an ordinance anyway? It's ridiculous that the mother has to sit outside the circle.

My guess is a tradition to reinforce the idea the men are in charge. I would like to see the traditional type ceremonies we have whose only purpose seems to be to show men are in charge be done away with. Women not praying in important meetings is one that has been done away with.

[Uncle Ted]

Camilla was my grandmother's sister. They were a little progressive in a very backwards sort of way.

So is that the reason that BRM invited Camilla Kimball to stand in the circle? i.e. He knew that Camilla was a little ProgMo and most likely would have done her own blessing on her husband after they all left anyway.

[Topper]

Pretty cool I think. I have never understood why a father who is inactive or even a non-member couldn't stand in the circle while blessing a child. For that matter, if the mother wanted to, why not?

One person gives the blessing by the power of the Priesthood. What are the others doing in the circle? If they are there for support, then why couldn't someone without the Priesthood stand in giving support. I love my Uncles and my hometeachers, but my mother's support would mean more to me.

Unusual given how orthodox BRM is perceived. There is plenty of doctrine to allow women to receive the priesthood, eventually. But the Church moves glacially. It may happen, long after you and I are deceased.

[byu71]

Unusual given how orthodox BRM is perceived. There is plenty of doctrine to allow women to receive the priesthood, eventually. But the Church moves glacially. It may happen, long after you and I are deceased.

I hope it is after I am gone. Harassment by Priesthood holders right now isn't too bad when it comes to guilt tripping me on church attendance et. al. Can you imagine if a woman with the Priesthood was assigned to guilt trip me???

[Uncle Ted]

A baby blessing is a no brainer. I don't know or care enough to know the difference, but isnt it more of a prayer than an ordinance anyway? It's ridiculous that the mother has to sit outside the circle.

If I am ever bishop the first thing I am going to do is give the option that the mother hold the baby in the blessing circle. I am getting tired of hearing babies screaming in the microphone because their young father just ripped the baby from her/his mother's hands and is so young and clueless that he doesn't even know how to properly hold a baby. It seems like it would be far less traumatic if the mother just simply held the baby.

[Sullyute]

I don't know if this article has already been posted somewhere here but it should go in this thread... I had not heard the story about Camilla Kimball:

"Then-President Spencer W. Kimball was recovering from brain surgery and asked for a blessing. Bruce R. McConkie, an apostle, and Marion D. Hanks, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, arrived to give it to him. Hanks anointed the ailing prophet's head, while McConkie invited Kimball's son, Edward, to join in. The apostle also invited the prophet's wife, Camilla, to place her hands on her husband's head."

I shared that story when I taught about priesthood ordinances in Elder's quorum last month.

[Green Monstah]

Unusual given how orthodox BRM is perceived. There is plenty of doctrine to allow women to receive the priesthood, eventually. But the Church moves glacially. It may happen, long after you and I are deceased.

His wife's grandfather green lighted female participation in blessigns in the Improvement Era (although her father started to erode that stance forty years later).

[Topper]

I hope it is after I am gone. Harassment by Priesthood holders right now isn't too bad when it comes to guilt tripping me on church attendance et. al. Can you imagine if a woman with the Priesthood was assigned to guilt trip me???

You need to travel more on Sunday. On the few Sundays, I'm not traveling, people fail to recognize me. Flying under the radar is a specialty of mine. You should learn the art.

[Topper]

His wife's grandfather green lighted female participation in blessigns in the Improvement Era (although her father started to erode that stance forty years later).

Given what a hardass he is usually perceived as, it is interesting.

[Green Monstah]

Given what a hardass he is usually perceived as, it is interesting.

Overall, I think BRM was a harmful voice within Mormonism (at least, his legacy is harmful), but I have always been moved by his final conference talk.