Women and the laying on of hands

The gift to heal, as taught by Joseph Smith, is a gift given to all the followers of Christ, male and female. Women in the early days of the church often participated in healing as demonstrations of faith. Women most commonly administered by the laying on of hands to their children but were also called to administer to those outside of their families. One of the most common uses of women's blessings was to wash, anoint, and bless a woman's body before childbirth.

In a meeting with the Nauvoo Relief Society on April 28, 1842, Eliza R. Snow recorded the Prophet Joseph Smith's instruction to women regarding the laying on of hands and healing blessings:

Prest. Smith continued the subject by adverting to the commission given to the ancient apostles “Go ye into all the world” &c.— no matter who believeth; these signs, such as healing the sick, casting out devils &c. should follow all that believe whether male or female. He ask’d the Society if they could not see by this sweeping stroke, that wherein they are ordaind, it is the privilege of those set apart to administer in that authority which is confer’d on them— and if the sisters should have faith to heal the sick, let all hold their tongues, and let every thing roll on.

He said, if God has appointed him, and chosen him as an instrument to lead the church, why not let him lead it through? Why stand in the way, when he is appointed to do a thing? Who knows the mind of God? Does he not reveal things differently from what we expect?— He remark’d that he was continually rising— altho’ he had every thing bearing him down— standing in his way and opposing— after all he always comes out right in the end.

Respecting the female laying on hands, he further remark’d, there could be no devil in it if God gave his sanction by healing— that there could be no more sin in any female laying hands on the sick than in wetting the face with water— that it is no sin for any body to do it that has faith, or if the sick has faith to be heal’d by the administration.

He reprov’d those that were dispos’d to find fault with the management of concerns— saying if he undertook to lead the church he would lead it right— that he calculates to organize the church in proper order &c.” (Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, The Joseph Smith Papers, 36)

Eliza R. Snow clarified this fact in a letter published in the Woman's Exponent, where she answered some of the common questions from sisters in the Church:

Is it necessary for sisters to be set apart to officiate in the sacred ordinances of washing, anointing, and laying on of hands in administering to the sick? It certainly is not. Any and all sisters who honor their holy endowments, not only have the right, but should feel it a duty, whenever called upon to administer to our sisters in these ordinances, which God has graciously committed to His daughters as well as to His sons; and we testify that when administered and received in faith and humility they are accompanied with all mighty power.

Inasmuch as God our Eather [Father] has revealed these sacred ordinances and committed them to His Saints, it is not only our privilege but our imperative duty to apply them for the relief of human suffering. We think we may safely say thousands can testify that God has sanctioned the administration of these ordinances by our sisters with the manifestations of His healing influence (The First Fifty Years of the Relief Society, 515-516).

It wasn’t until years later that the practice was formally rescinded by church authority. Joseph F. Smith wrote the following to the Relief Society general presidency in 1946, outlining the guidelines that have since become the standard:

While the Authorities of the Church have ruled that it is permissible, under certain conditions and with the approval of the Priesthood, for sisters to wash and anoint other sisters, yet they feel that it is far better for us to follow the plan the Lord has given us and send for the Elders of the Church to come and administer to the sick and afflicted (The First Fifty Years of the Relief Society, 541, footnote 329).

Women were given and practiced this power for the first century that the church was in existence. It's a pity that this was changed after so much time and in contradiction to what Joseph Smith taught. Was this change a product of the time?

http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book/33

Changes to priesthood ordinations in the early years of the church

During the 1920s, Lorin Woolley claimed that President Taylor stated the following to him and others in 1886:

"I would be surprised if ten percent of those who claim to hold the Melchizedek priesthood will remain true and faithful to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, at the time of the seventh president, and that there would be thousands that think they hold the priesthood at that time, but would not have it properly conferred upon them." (Pamphlet, 1886 Revelation, p. 8.)

This statement is based on a long standing controversy in the Church over the proper method of bestowing Priesthood. During the administration of Joseph F. Smith (1901-1918), the general policy was to first confer the Priesthood and then ordain to the individual offices or callings within that Priesthood. During the presidency of Heber J. Grant (1918-1945), the official policy specified that a direct ordination to office in the Priesthood was all that was really required and that conferring of the Priesthood was a redundant, if not presumptuous, part of the ordinance. During this time deacons, teachers, priests, and elders were ordained to their respective office, but not explicitly conferred the priesthood.

George Albert Smith (1945-1951) removed specificity in how the ordinances were to be conducted as a general policy, thereby permitting either form to be used (see Deseret News, Dec. 27, 1947; also Truth 14:12). When David O. McKay took over as President in 1951 he reverted to the form followed during Joseph F. Smith's administration.  This method is still being followed as the official Church policy.

Muslims have spiritual experiences too

This is in regards to our conversation about Muslims.  There were two points I was trying to convey.  The first is that I do think that Muslims have spiritual experiences and gain their faith in ways that are similar to Christians and people of other faiths. 

Here are some quotes from Muslims about spiritual experiences they have had.  


These comments come from the Yahoo Answers question, "Do you have 'spiritual' experiences or feelings from Allah when you pray or go to your mosque?"

"Prayer involves beautiful words, simple actions that have deep meanings. When a Muslim prays, the problems and stresses of the world become insignificant and what remains is a feeling of peace."

-from Yahoo user syrenarc

"There are no words to explain how I feel when I pray or read the Quran or listen to the Azan, and the only way you can ever understand this, is if you experience it yourself."

-from Yahoo user Abibliophobiac

"Indeed our prayers are answered and we feel ecstasy while reading Holy Quran and it solves several of our problems too."

-from Yahoo user Javed Iqbal

This experience comes from the islamicboard.com thread, "What does Allah's presence feel like?"

"Feeling Allah's guidance (one example):  Last spring, after a 10 hour day at work, I began my 40 minute drive home...after buying food for my family. I live in the country and came across an elderly couple in the middle of nowhere. Instantaneously, I knew I was supposed to help them. I didn't really want to stop. All I wanted was to go home to my family and be with them. There was no voice...no pillar of fire...just God telling me, somehow, that this was what I was supposed to do. I said aloud, with a smile: 'Okay. I hear and will obey'.
I did it with love and joy in my heart, being filled with God's motivation. As it turns out, this couple had to be in the city for a legal case. They had a ride up there, but no way home. I loaded them up and drove them the 3 hours round trip to their home further south. When I got there, I helped the lady take her backpack indoors. They lived in a mobile home and they had explained with the economy that neither had work for 6 months. When I put the bottled water they had in the backpack into their refrigerator, I quickly saw their fridge was empty and that their cupboards were bare. They both looked emaciated and had no food.
Although they protested, I took the groceries I had and stocked their larders. I didn't have much cash on me, but what I had, I gave to them...maybe enough to fill their car with gas. (They couldn't afford the gas to get into the city)
When I began to leave, the wife called me an angel. I told her: 'I am but a man, a mere tool in God's hand, But I was led today to help you. May you do the same when God leads you to'.
...This is what I refer to as God-consciousness, a term I have held dearly...
 ...The best spiritual advise I have ever received: In prayer, stop talking and start listening." 

 -from islamicboard user GodIsAll, post 10 

These come from the Experience Project:

"I was born and raised as a Muslim but I took it for granted and never really made the effort to pray. I knew in my heart I loved Allah but I was just too lazy to pray to him and tell him how much I loved him.  I had a boyfriend who I became extremely vulnerable to and when he broke up with me, I went into a depression, it's not like I was crying but I felt a sadness over taking my mind and heart.  I finally broke down and told my conservative Muslim mother. Instead of screaming or yelling at me for having a boyfriend, she suggested I go into my room, wash myself and just pray and speak to Allah, and to not hold anything back. The moment I started reciting, I felt tears well up, not from sadness but from a sense of relief, as if he was filling my heart with light and joy. Although the moments of sadness came back when I sometimes forgot to pray, the second I start reciting, I feel that he is reaching out to me, as not only my God but as my friend. Without him, I lose hope for the light at the end of the tunnel in times of darkness."

-from the Experience Project, "Prayer Saved Me", by Biggal13

"I've been through the most amazing experience ever when I was 15 y'o. I've never been religious, I didn't pray nor read Quran...  All I knew about religion was that there's only one God and Mohammad (pbuh) is his prophet, but saying this is different than feeling it and deeply believing in it. I had no doubts but didn't feel the beauty of it.
[She tells about an experience at school in which atheist friends mock Islam, Mohammad, and Allah.  She is very traumatized and saddened by this.]
I was crying on the inside and guess what! Allah knew that. I went home the next day and told my parents about what happened...  Without any further planning, I found myself praying so hard, crying from all my heart, trembling like never before, I felt my heart so pure, I lost all the human characteristics like jealousy, hatred, sadness, dissatisfaction and so on.  I found myself thinking of others before thinking of myself, making duaa and wishing good for others before myself and this is when I felt Allah's response. I couldn't stop crying while praying and asking God for forgiveness and you may not believe it but every time I got up from praying I felt that God has forgiven me and removed all my sins, I felt that Allah is satisfied with me, is happy, I felt his love, his presence, his rahma. I felt that I'm the happiest person on earth. I stopped listening to music, watching movies, looking around; I didn't plan on stopping these stuff but something was stopping me, music hurt my ears, movies hurt my eyes.  I was in a beautiful inner peace. I stayed all nights reading Quran and praying, I only went to sleep after praying fajr and every time I went to sleep I felt so relaxed and comfortable and wished to go up to Allah because I felt his love and I wanted to be closer. I had religious dreams, I saw myself in every dream saying the shahada...  I woke up feeling great. I was living for Islam by Islam. We were in Ramadan back then.
...What I'm certain of now is that Allah answers your prayers when you truly believe on the inside that he will answer them."

-from the Experience Project, "This Is How I 'Felt' Islam", by beyleb

These experiences are eerily similar to what we experience in the Mormon faith tradition.  My own exploration of the nature of faith and spiritual experience has made me realize that what we have is not unique to any creed.  Despite this, the fact that Muslims and people of almost all denominations have spiritual experiences that reinforce or develop their faith does not make faith invalid.  Instead it reinforces the value of doubt and critical thinking for a foundation of faith.  It's said that thesis and antithesis leads to synthesis.  If the church is true it will stand after we throw at it the worst that can be said about it.

https://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/the-islamic-state-e2809cdacc84biq-magazine-1522.pdf

Do not doubt your doubts

Faith and doubt have been a system of checks and balances in my life.  If our faith is so strong that we would impose our will on others and punish those who don't agree with us then our faith has taken us down the wrong path.

If doubt softens our arrogance and makes us realize that our earthly understanding is meager, then doubt is a positive force in our lives.

My doubts have opened my mind in incredible ways, and I've grown from my doubts more than I ever did from the blind faith that I once relied on.  My doubt awakened an appetite for understanding and learning greater than I've felt before.  

Although I recognize that I no longer know much of anything, I now feel like I can base my belief on fact and reason, with faith as a bridge to what cannot be known.  Doubt has led me to a deeper fact-based understanding of church history, and it's led me to nurture my own ideas and beliefs on current social and political issues.   

But having doubts, growing in knowledge, and drawing my own conclusions on current issues, puts me, and like-minded people, in a precarious situation.  There is a collision between the churches stance on social issues (gay marriage, the role of women), and my own.  Do I abdicate my agency to the institution, or exercise my agency and follow my conscience to it's natural conclusion - though that may be in direct opposition to the institution of the church?

In a talk this last week, a member mentioned that his faith would lead him to always follow the prophet, without question, and regardless of the worldly outcome.  The essence of his message was that if you follow an ecclesiastical leader, even if he is wrong, God will not hold you accountable. 
What a dangerous message.  We are each accountable for our own decisions.  It's critical that we incorporate reason and the feelings of our conscience to find the path that we should take.  The sentiment in which people abdicate their right to think for themselves, taken to the extreme, results in Nazi Germany, and WW2 Japan.  Even if it's not taken that far, it isn't hard to see the bigotry and atrocities that are the outcrop of blind obedience.   

The leadership are not infallible - far from it.  Our Mormon history is littered with egregious errors: polygamy, blacks in the priesthood, sexism, and (I believe) the current poorly conceived fight against the civil rights of the LGBTQ community.  
The leadership don't have a direct line to the mind and will of god.  Revelation isn't like the bat phone; there isn't a special device that can be picked up and through which the brethren are dictated word for word how to run the church - as much as it seems they would like to keep this a possibility in our minds.  Revelation comes from inspiration, it comes from feeling and emotion and it's very subjective.  The quorum are undoubtedly doing their best, as did early prophets.  But they too erred.  Joseph Smith, after certain revelations failed to come true, admitted that some revelation comes from God and some comes from the Devil.  We're taught that Apostles and Prophets can speak for God, but they can also speak as man.  

Brigham Young said: 
"What a pity it would be if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not. This has been my exhortation continually."

Our God-given humanity comes from our senses, emotions, feelings, mind, and conscience.  When something feels wrong I'm not going to doubt my doubts, I'm going to doubt the wisdom of putting my faith in another man.

Things I don't like about the church - Leondard Arrington

From LDS Church historian Leonard J. Arrington's "Things I don't like about the church." Courtesy Greg Prince.

"While Leonard continued for the rest of his life to see God within the Mormon tradition and to participate in weekly worship services, he grew increasingly frustrated— albeit in private— about the institutional embodiment of that tradition. In a diary entry entitled “Things I don’t like about the church,” he vented, with disarming candor, in laying out an agenda for change that has remarkably relevance to the contemporary Mormon scene over two decades later:

1.      The imposition of one pattern for everybody rather than suggesting two or three patterns and letting local wards or stakes or districts follow the one most convenient for them. Examples, the three-hour meeting schedule on Sunday.

2.      Appointing the highest tithe payers to positions of leadership rather than the most capable or worthy. In choosing stake leaders, the General Authority comes with a list of the 15 or 20 highest tithe payers and starts down the list to choose a stake president and high council.

3.      The maintenance of a disloyalty file on liberals, including articles they’ve written with questionable statements, newspaper clippings. These are used against the person without him or her knowing what is in the file and having a chance to deny it or explain it. The supposition is that liberals are out to destroy or embarrass the church, a supposition entirely false.

4.      The insistence on unanimity among the Twelve, which means that the most obstinate member, the one holding out against the rest, wins.

5.      The insistence on choosing a new president from the senior member of the Twelve. This means we’ll always have a president far beyond his energetic, creative period of life. We should retire persons from the Twelve at age 75 and never choose anyone over that age to be president of the Church.

6.      The First Presidency and Twelve should call a person in to talk with him/her before putting the person on the blacklist, not to be cited, his/her books not to be sold in Church bookstores, not to be allowed to speak in Church, etc.

7.      The church should allow historians to present "human” material in biographies of presidents and General Authorities.

8.      We should allow women to be associates to the Twelve and sit in on their meetings. The Relief Society president should sit in on bishopric meetings. Mothers should be allowed to stand in the circle to bless babies, confirm newly baptized persons as members of the Church, just as they now can open and close meetings with prayer.

9.      The manuals used in adult Sunday School, Priesthood, and Relief Society classes are absolutely hopeless. Using the same gospel doctrine manual every fourth year; the same with Priesthood manuals. Hopeless. Why can’t they assign a skilled and experienced writer to do a new manual every year?"

I am a Mormon

I was talking to an LDS friend recently and she was surprised when I called myself a Mormon.  I go to sacrament meeting most weeks, and I have a calling - but she found it strange that I would consider myself a Mormon because of my doubts and dissenting views.

Sadly this is a common perception.  Even my own family has cast dispersion on my sincerity, and motives, and people that I don't know well question the morality of my actions or beliefs.  And so I want to write this message to other transitioning members who may have felt this marginalization

I have a strong commitment to my Mormon heritage.  It's couched in the context of a liberal and non-absolutist faith, but it is abiding.  

Early in my faith transition I felt like I was outside of the church.  In the months and years since, I have come to realize that I am Mormon.  I am a soul wrestling with the doctrine and the scriptures, I'm obsessed with finding truth and letting light and knowledge flow into me, and that is a deeply Mormon trait.

My reason for this journey has been to grow and evolve in knowledge and understanding, and although I feel that the LDS church as an institution is flawed, I'm not going to jettison my heritage.  An artist puts layers and layers of different pigments onto a tapestry, and when the final layer is applied, it is influenced by the depth of every layer that came before it.  The LDS church is part of my identity and it gives me resilience and power.  

Although I can no longer say that I know much of anything, I believe in this community: we are all souls struggling together to understand the nature of God and life.  

Is there reason to believe that God directly influence our lives?

Does God answer prayer, give guidance, allow for miracles, heal the sick through the priesthood, and otherwise give blessings to his followers?  To say that he does indicates that God impacts the reality that we live in.  If this is so then there should be evidence - a real, objective, effect that is measurable and testable.

With science, our understanding of truth is continually refined and improved upon.  Consider any bit of current scientific truth or knowledge: gravity, ecosystems, evolution, etc.  Scientists develop hypotheses and test against them to gather evidence that points us towards the truth.  As proofs are made and the body of evidence grows, the scientific community converges on truth and becomes united in it's understanding.

As a thought experiment, imagine a man plucked from the 15th century and dropped into today's world.  If we were to interview him about his understanding of any manner of 'truth' virtually all of his beliefs would be utterly laughable.  His knowledge of physics, medicine, and the nature of space and the universe would be eclipsed by any curious elementary school child.  But ask him about God and religion, and his belief would fit right into the spectrum of belief today.

This is because there is no way to test against the claims of religion or gather evidence to prove, or definitively refute it.  Where our knowledge of science, technology, and medicine has evolved and improved dramatically, our knowledge regarding the truth of religion has not budged.  And unlike within the scientific community, religious communities fracture and splinter.  New sects and ideologies are sprouting up everywhere.

To me, this lack of convergence strongly indicates that fact-based empirical evidence does not exist in religion.
  

I've laid out this argument in this past and been rebuffed by believers with the idea that God demands faith.  The argument goes that evidence would preclude the need for faith, and faith leads us to truth that is beyond understanding or immeasurable/not testable.

If we accept the argument that God's influence isn’t testable or measurable then our 'evidence' for belief is no longer empirical.  It is internal and based on personal feelings and emotion, or individual anecdotes (attributing our circumstances to God). 

However, given that people of all faiths describe similar emotional conviction as rationale for their beliefs, how can one truly know that his or her faith is correct unless one gives a thorough and fair investigation of other systems of beliefs?

But this would require a mind clear of bias - the clarity to recognize and stamp out internal cognitive dissonance for what he or she was raised to believe.  This is not simple, and may not even be possible.

Only by making a concerted effort to do this, can one defend his or her system of belief as the correct system of belief.

Still, this only applies to individual because this process is based on personal reaction to these doctrines and faiths, and not based on measurable, statistical evidence.  I can't find justification to say that this leads to perfect truth, only that it leads to the faith that is most meaningful to the individual.