moksha wrote:Do we believe that the Priesthood is necessary to walk up and down the aisles passing out stuff? Why don't we let the boys and girls do this?
Truth be told, there really isn't a good reason. There also isn't a "good" reason that we have deacons aged 12 and 13. It's a church tradition that became policy about 80 years ago. Originally, deacons were grown men, but when Temple attendance became more encouraged, men needed the Melchizedek priesthood and they didn't want to be deacons.
But it's not scriptural. Deacons could be 8 years old if we wanted.
Maxine Hanks includes the following account in Women & Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism:
In the mid-1970s a branch in the southern states consulted a visiting general authority about a lack of men to “pass sacrament.” He instructed them to have sisters in the ward pass the sacrament. The stake leadership protested that “they don’t have the priesthood.” He pointed out that when deacons pass sacrament trays to members in the pew, each person is actually “passing the sacrament” to the person next to him or her. So the branch allowed the sisters to pass the sacrament.
Technically, what the 12 year-old boys do when they walk up and down the aisles isn't any different from what every person in the pews (male or female) does when he or she passes the tray on to the next person. It does not require priesthood (or membership in the church, for that matter) and there's absolutely no reason not to let girls do it.
Then again, it's not like there's a good reason for withholding the priesthood from women in the first place.
"It seems to me that these women were the head (κεφάλαιον) of the church which was at Philippi." ~ John Chrysostom, Homilies on Philippians 13
I remember a class in church where the topic was "the spirit of the law." The teacher was telling a story about a new ward in South America, who would not let the women even touch the sacrament trays... and how silly that was!
I had to ask why women couldn't at least pass the sacrament to women in the mother's room? After all, women pass the sacrament to the person next to them? What's the difference? That's just as silly as the ward in South America... I never got a response, so your guess is as good as mine.
Probably the same reason as why women can't participate in baby blessings.
Well, all you had to do was write down a number. And you wrote ..Threeve. A combination of three and five. Simply stunning. And you wagered..Texas with a dollar sign in front of it. I'm speechless.