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Women of the Priesthood

washing_and_anointing_tub_in_the_salt_lake_temple_circa_1912.jpg There’s something that puzzled me for a long time when I was Mormon: women officiating in the ritual washings and anointings in the temple. Women are forbidden to hold the priesthood which allows a man to perform the religious rituals which are necessary to gain exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom. Yet, in the temple, women perform rituals which are considered essential to exaltation exactly as though they were members of the Mormon priesthood.

When I first noticed this, I presumed that men didn’t officiate in these rituals in order to preserve feminine modesty during a ritual that was historically received in the nude (as suggested by the photograph of the ritual washing tub in the Salt Lake Temple circa 1912). Even so, this pragmatic solution didn’t explain how women could perform what must be a priesthood ordinance without being a member of the priesthood. I then realized that other temple rituals promise women that they will become “priestesses”, albeit just “priestesses to [their] husbands”.

Up to that point in my life, I had been staunchly against women priests. It seemed presumptuous that people desired to change what God had ordained. I speculated based on this new evidence provided by the temple that women would indeed be inducted into the priesthood in God’s own time.

I know that I’m not the only one who has ever noticed this inconsistency, but until now, I’ve never had anyone to share my ideas with. The irony is that now that I feel free to share, I don’t care about it much, though the idea of women holding the priesthood still causes angst and controversy even among feminist Mormons. It seems to me like people are fighting over a gorgeously wrapped gift full of nothing.

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