Why can't girls pass the Sacramental Tokens?

[Jersey Girl]

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?



*Will Mitt insist that only boys hand out soft drinks and peanuts on Air Force One?

[_Chap]

It is really simple.

Francis Cornford explained it all in Microcosmographia Academica in 1908:

Since the stone-axe fell into disuse at the close of the neolithic age, two other arguments of universal application have been added to the rhetorical armoury by the ingenuity of mankind. They are closely akin; and, like the stone-axe, they are addressed to the Political Motive. They are called the Wedge and the Dangerous Precedent. Though they are very familiar, the principles, or rules of inaction, involved in them are seldom stated in full. They are as follows.

The Principle of the Wedge is that you should not act justly now for fear of raising expectations that you may act still more justly in the future -- expectations which you are afraid you will not have the courage to satisfy. A little reflection will make it evident that the Wedge argument implies the admission that the persons who use it cannot prove that the action is not just. If they could, that would be the sole and sufficient reason for not doing it, and this argument would be superfluous.

The Principle of the Dangerous Precedent is that you should not now do an admittedly right action for fear you, or your equally timid successors, should not have the courage to do right in some future case, which, ex hypothesi, is essentially different, but superficially resembles the present one. Every public action which is not customary, either is wrong, or, if it is right, is a dangerous precedent. It follows that nothing should ever be done for the first time.

Once you let the girls into the action in Sacrament Meeting, the way will be open to the introduction of lap-dancing in General Conference in due course.

[_subgenius]

It is really simple.

Francis Cornford explained it all in Microcosmographia Academica in 1908:

Since the stone-axe fell into disuse at the close of the neolithic age, two other arguments of universal application have been added to the rhetorical armoury by the ingenuity of mankind. They are closely akin; and, like the stone-axe, they are addressed to the Political Motive. They are called the Wedge and the Dangerous Precedent. Though they are very familiar, the principles, or rules of inaction, involved in them are seldom stated in full. They are as follows.

The Principle of the Wedge is that you should not act justly now for fear of raising expectations that you may act still more justly in the future -- expectations which you are afraid you will not have the courage to satisfy. A little reflection will make it evident that the Wedge argument implies the admission that the persons who use it cannot prove that the action is not just. If they could, that would be the sole and sufficient reason for not doing it, and this argument would be superfluous.

The Principle of the Dangerous Precedent is that you should not now do an admittedly right action for fear you, or your equally timid successors, should not have the courage to do right in some future case, which, ex hypothesi, is essentially different, but superficially resembles the present one. Every public action which is not customary, either is wrong, or, if it is right, is a dangerous precedent. It follows that nothing should ever be done for the first time.

Once you let the girls into the action in Sacrament Meeting, the way will be open to the introduction of lap-dancing in General Conference in due course.

Yet you omit the following from your reference, though your fascination with reasons to not do is clear:
The argument for doing something is that it is the right thing to do. But then, of course, comes the difficulty making sure that it is right. Females act by mere instinctive intuition; but men have the gift of reflection. As Hamlet, the typical man of action, says:
What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed; a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused.

Allow me to add:

His bad opponent's "facts" he sweeps away,
And drags his sophistry to light of day;
Then swears they're pushed to madness who resort
To falsehood of so desperate a sort.
Not so; like sods upon a dead man's breast,
He lies most lightly who the least is pressed.

SATAN, n. One of the Creator's lamentable mistakes, repented in sashcloth and axes. Being instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a moment and at last went back. "There is one favor that I should like to ask," said he.

"Name it."

"Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws."

"What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul—you ask for the right to make his laws?"

"Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself."

It was so ordered.

[_Chap]

Yet you omit the following from your reference, though your fascination with reasons to not do is clear:

I am glad you have enjoyed reading Cornford. If you find yourself in total accord with these writings of a highly privileged British middle-class male from over a century ago (at a time when women were still not allowed to receive degrees from his university), that is revealing in itself.

But since the question in the OP was phrased in the 'why not' mode

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?

it does seem quite reasonable to quote Cornford's masterly exposition of the common mode amongst people of his background and milieu of explaining why 'nothing should ever be done for the first time'. I should think that he would not find the world of LDS discussion entirely unfamiliar.

[_Themis]

Why can't girls pass the Sacramental Tokens?

They can, but only to the person next to them. :)

[_just me]

Something about having a vagina. Not sure exactly what it is, but there you go.

[_Buffalo]

Something about having a vagina. Not sure exactly what it is, but there you go.

Several leaders after Joseph Smith seemed to be vagiphobic.

[_Yoda]

Something about having a vagina. Not sure exactly what it is, but there you go.

Several leaders after Joseph Smith seemed to be vagiphobic.

Good word use! I'll have to remember that one for Scrabble! LOL

[_Chap]

Something about having a vagina. Not sure exactly what it is, but there you go.

Several leaders after Joseph Smith seemed to be vagiphobic.

Aaargh ... that is a portmanteau word mixing Latin and Greek (vagina 'sheath' + phobos 'fear')! No legal reason why you shouldn't do that, but it usually works better with all Greek or all Latin. Could you settle for an all-Greek compound like 'kolpophobic' (from kolpos in the sense of 'female pudenda')? That also has the advantage that it is not obvious to the uninitiated what you are talking about, and you can say things like:

'I get the impression that there is a lot of kolpophobia around in the priesthood in our ward nowadays'

and maybe get an answer like:

'I don't think my sons will get it, because we have kept their all shots up to date.'

by the way surely you need to say that while there was a lot of kolpophobia after Joseph Smith, the man himself was clearly kolpophilic (or polykolpophilic, or just plain suffering from kolpomania)?

PS - the wonderful thing about 'kolpophobia' is that (as I have just found through Google) it already exists! Here is a site that offers an online test to see if you suffer from it.

[_Pollypinks]

Mormons like to brag that they are christians, but they don't function as Christ did during his ministry, using women to travel frequently to other places to help spread the good news, and sharing space with them in their homes when culturally at the time, that sort of thing just wasn't done. People like to throw the apostle link to me, but, had Christ appointed women for apostles, they'd have been stoned faster than Steven was. I happen to have a female pastor, and haven't seen any reason not to enjoy the experience. Put the greek back into scripture, and you really can't find any reason not to have women either in the priesthood, or in the ministry.