When Man Was Given the Commandment To Preside

In recent years the movement to “ordain women” has caused us to reflect on the origin and the rightness of a man presiding.   This movement presupposes that the practice of only men holding the priesthood is based on cultural traditions rather than on doctrinal truth.  In recent generations, many cultural ideas about women have been triumphantly overturned in our society such as: women were not as capable as men to hold certain positions in the workforce or that women weren’t as intelligent as men and should not vote, etc.  Those cultural ideas have been  disproven and now as some feminists look to the next victory to win they see a church with male leadership.  They view their current religious experience through that lens of cultural gender paradigms.  Their conclusion is that the doctrine that men are given the priesthood and women are not is a mistake, an antiquated teaching that needs updating.  They cite other instances where changes have been made--women praying in church or speaking in general conference.  While I empathize with the pain of wondering if you are valued less than a man, I do not believe that it is a cultural mistake that men hold the priesthood  because The Garden of Eden predates culture and it is there that we find the origin of “presiding”.

The Fall

Before culture existed, before man’s faulty ideas were presented as truth, God himself gave man the mandate to preside. President Hunter references the Garden of Eden as the time when the divine appointment was given to men. After Adam and Eve partook of the fruit they were given consequences.  As Latter-day Saints, we are unique in our belief that the fall was a part of God’s great plan.  The Fall was a step down, but also a step forward. Because we understand the Fall to be a good thing, we understand that the consequences given as a result were not a vengeful God trying to exact a punishment to fit the crime, but rather a loving Father who gave us exactly what we would need in order to overcome the effects of the Fall and return to His presence.  Interestingly, He gave gender specific consequences.

Speaking to Eve He said, “Unto the woman, I, the Lord God, said: I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee (Moses 4:22).”

To Adam he said, “Cursed shall be the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.  Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.  By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou shalt return unto the ground—for thou shalt surely die—for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou wast, and unto dust shalt thou return (Moses 4:24-25).”

In the New Testament Paul teaches about the fall saying that there would be something exalting for a women in facing the challenges that were unique to her. “Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”  “Saved” in this context means saved from her transgression, exalted, not saved in a sense of surviving the childbearing process.  While some women do not get the opportunity to bear children in this life, I believe in the truth explained by Sherri Dew that motherhood is the essence of who we are as women regardless of whether or not we have our own children.  Seeking and yearning for the opportunity, and embracing this God given responsibility to be a “mother” is woman’s greatest opportunity to develop the God-like qualities that this consequence intended. I feel that motherhood has been a very refining and ennobling experience for me and I rejoice that I can be “saved in childbearing.”  When I am my truest, best self the word I would use to describe myself in relation to my fellow man is mother.

I cannot speak for a man and how exalting the Fall’s consequence was for Adam and his posterity, but as I have seen family, friends, and church members become fathers as well as leaders of wards and stakes I have seen men develop those same God-like qualities that motherhood brings out in women.   I have dad and I’ve watched him.  When I reflect on who I saw him become as a father of 10 kids or presiding over a ward or a stake, I believe man needed that presiding role in order for him to become who God wanted him to be.  I believe that there was something exalting and ennobling about the consequences of the Fall for him just as there was for Eve.

Doctrinally speaking, we see that Adam and Eve experienced a fall and were given consequences as a result.  As Latter-day Saints we believe the Fall was good and so the consequences would be for our benefit as well as Adam’s and Eve’s.  While what happened in the Garden of Eden cannot be influenced by culture, our interpretation of these scriptures can and has been.  As we grow in understanding, we begin  to examine the words there and contemplate what they mean.

The consequences of the fall were given to us as a way for us to become who we are intended to become.  The thorns and the weeds aren’t to hurt or just annoy us.  There is something essential to us having them there for us to learn what we need to learn.  Men need to be the leaders of their families.  We need to nurture them along in this responsibility.