Putting OW into perspective

I feel like I need to write a brief post regarding the recent controversy regarding Kate Kelly's excommunication from the LDS Church. Kelly is the founder of the Ordain Women (OW) organization that has been agitating for female ordination to the priesthood in the Church. It's a thorny issue that has plagued my Facebook wall, and I'm exhausted from seeing posts from friends either defending or criticizing her excommunication. Anyone can google the issue and find blogs/ articles arguing for both sides, so I'm not going to do it here.

As a historian, however, I want to highlight that we have an incomplete excommunication story. We only have Kelly's side of the story, while very little has been issued from her ex-bishop or the disciplinary council explaining their decision (in accordance with church policy... I think).*  As long as we don't have both sides of the story, I think we should refrain from passing judgement (e.g. "Her ex-bishop was right/ wrong!"/ "She was right/ wrong"). We'll probably never know whether the disciplinary council was justified in their actions till the next life. For now, all we can and should do is extend love and hope for reconciliation for both sides.

This issue has caused the headquarters in Salt Lake City to remain in a bind- how should the top leadership respond to what is really a local level concern? Headquarters thus issued two statements that would benefit from more circulation. The first is a 5-page letter from Michael Otterson, managing director of Public Affairs for the Church, who sent it to various blogs for publication . It's a quick read, respectful in tone, and provides much needed insight into how church affairs with regards to women's issues are conducted. The letter published on the Millennial Star blog can be found HERE, while a Deseret News article about the letter is found HERE. The second is another succinct statement issued by another spokeswoman for the Church, Jessica Moody, which is linked HERE.

Now we come to the main purpose of my post. I just came back from a short trip to the Philippines, and attended church there. I did not have access to email or social media while in the Philippines, and returned to an onslaught of postings about Kelly's excommunication. What really struck me was how members in Singapore and the Philippines were NOT talking about this issue, at least in public.** I've engaged in one private conversation about this topic since coming home, but other than that, no one seemed passionate or even interested in talking about this, even when we had our Relief Society lesson about the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood last week. And my sense in talking to my friends about Ordain Women was that they were quite adamantly against the organization.

The contrast could not have been greater.

And it really put the issue into proper perspective for me. I'm not saying that the OW controversy does not have value or that we can't learn from it. Nor am I saying that all non-North American women are against OW- I'm sure there are a few who have heard about it and might even admit to supporting it. What I'm saying is let's remember that this is a very Western, even North American, issue that has ignited a firestorm there, but hardly sparked the same flames in other parts of the world. By putting the issue into proper perspective, it raises question to the claims of "global sisterhood." Of course I want to see the Relief Society succeed in uniting women all around the world in a common cause for Christ, but being against/ for OW is not going to be it.

There are a lot more other causes/ issues that can do that. Perhaps let's move on and talk about those instead.

*The closest thing to an explanation from Kelly's local church leaders can be found at THIS blog piece- kudos to the writer for pointing out that the basis of Kelly's excommunication was not because she questioned, but because she wilfully defied the counsel of church leaders.
**When I was in the Philippines, the meeting was half-Tagalog, half-English, so they could have talked about it without me knowing, but I highly doubt so.