When I was a beehive in YW’s many moons ago, I remember attending a lesson on the apostolic calling. Now, take a seat and pay attention to this story because it is a pivotal moment in My Feminist Life. My Young Women’s teacher (a woman, of course) went on and on about how amazing it must be to have “that special witness of Christ.” I remember feeling a sense of awe and gaining a testimony of the apostolic calling in the same moment that I realized that it would never be me. Because I am a woman. I raised my hand and asked the teacher if women can experience that special relationship with the Savior. Her response was, “Maybe one day you’ll raise a son who is an apostle!” I felt crushed.
In hindsight, I can look back at that moment as a fork in the road. I chose the path that eventually led me to put up a profile on OrdainWomen.org and devote time and energy to the organization’s mission. As the Ordain Women mission statement says, I am “committed to work for equality and the ordination of Mormon women to the priesthood.”
Now I have three sons. I’m actually really grateful for that. Not because I have the chance to raise an apostle because I do not believe my potential is fulfilled by what my children do. The truth is I’m not sure I could’ve handled raising daughters in the church. I don’t think I could send them down the same thorny, rocky path I’ve traveled. I feel like the inherent male privilege that my sons enjoy is transferred into a “mom of boys” privilege that allows me to continue engaging with my faith without worrying about my children being routinely excluded from opportunities to serve in the church.
Even still, having all sons as a Mormon mom holds a particular kind of expectation and challenge. They will head down a different path than I did. They will come to forks in the road and have choices I never had. They can continue down those paths, and I cannot go with them. My sons will receive ordinations and blessings, and I am shut out of it all.
This is why the Ordain Women’s Ready to Witness campaign is so significant to me. I am ready to be a part of the important moments in my sons’ lives. There is so much that I am shut out of—and I want to keep advocating for inclusion in all of it—but in the meantime, I don’t see any reason I can’t be witness to pivotal moments for them. I can Witness a baptism. I can Witness a sealing ceremony. I can be a Witness for my sons during priesthood interviews. If Mary can be the Witness to the Savior’s resurrection, surely I can be the Witness to these moments in my sons’ lives.
I am Ready to Witness.
Go HERE to learn more about the Ready to Witness campaign and how you can share your story.
Wow, Leah Marie. That story is so depressing. And like you said, the fact that your sons will go down a different path than you. I love the idea that you could at least be a witness to their important ordinances. I think this is a great OW action!
Two of the biggest assumptions that many Christians make regarding the truth claims of Christianity is that, one, eyewitnesses wrote the four gospels. The problem is, however, that the majority of scholars today do not believe this is true. The second big assumption many Christians make is that it would have been impossible for whoever wrote these four books to have invented details in their books, especially in regards to the Empty Tomb and the Resurrection appearances, due to the fact that eyewitnesses to these events would have still been alive when the gospels were written and distributed.
But consider this, dear Reader: Most scholars date the writing of the first gospel, Mark, as circa 70 AD. Who of the eyewitnesses to the death of Jesus and the alleged events after his death were still alive in 70 AD? That is four decades after Jesus’ death. During that time period, tens of thousands of people living in Palestine were killed in the Jewish-Roman wars of the mid and late 60’s, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem.
How do we know that any eyewitness to the death of Jesus in circa 30 AD was still alive when the first gospel was written and distributed in circa 70 AD? How do we know that any eyewitness to the death of Jesus ever had the opportunity to read the Gospel of Mark and proof read it for accuracy?
I challenge Christians to list the name of even ONE eyewitness to the death of Jesus who was still alive in 70 AD along with the evidence to support your claim.
If you can’t list any names, dear Christian, how can you be sure that details such as the Empty Tomb, the detailed resurrection appearances, and the Ascension ever really occurred? How can you be sure that these details were not simply theological hyperbole…or…the exaggerations and embellishments of superstitious, first century, mostly uneducated people, who had retold these stories thousands of times, between thousands of people, from one language to another, from one country to another, over a period of many decades?
The Christian argument for the bodily resurrection of Jesus would be a little stronger if the majority of NT scholars believed that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses, but they do not. Only a small minority of mostly evangelical Christian NT scholars (with an agenda—biblical inerrancy—) hold this view.
But even if the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses, or even if we could be certain that the four resurrection stories in the Gospels were originally told by eyewitnesses, who today would believe the eyewitness testimony of a bunch of mostly uneducated, rural peasants claiming that they had just eaten a broiled-fish lunch with their recently executed former fishing buddy???
It is a silly story, folks. Modern, educated people should not believe that it was a literal historical event.
Eyewitness testimony may be sufficient evidence for car accidents and murder trials, but it is not sufficient evidence to believe claims of sea monsters in Scottish lochs, alien abductions, or zombie sightings. If twelve guys told you that they had all eaten lunch with Big Foot on a recent hunting trip would you believe them? No. So why believe a second-hand report that eleven fishermen (and one tax collector), two thousand years ago, ate a broiled fish lunch with a walking/talking dead guy (zombie)?
https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/2018/01/18/eyewitness-testimony-is-sufficient-for-car-accidents-and-murder-trials-it-is-not-sufficient-for-alien-abductions-or-zombie-sightings/