Numbers 27-29

(April 24, 2014)
There are those who believe that the Church (and religion as a whole) is a repressive organization for women.  But that is clearly not correct.  Moses, in these chapters, recognizes the rights of women to inherit property (find that any other place in the ancient world).  Christ spoke of the importance of women, taught doctrine to women, and appeared first to women after His resurrection.  Joseph Smith spoke at length of the importance of women, and the Church was involved in extending suffrage to women (long before the nation as a whole did so).  Even Brigham Young, who the feminists love to deprecate, spoke of how an unhappy wife should be given a divorce rather than compelled to stay in an unhappy and abusive marriage.

But respect for women does not mean that the agenda of feminists is to be swallowed whole – especially when that agenda conflicts in important respects to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Gender is an essential characteristic of our nature, and has been since well before the foundation of the world.  While we love both men and women in the Gospel, we do not and cannot treat them the same.  Instead, we treat each of them according to the love we have for our Savior and the love that He has for them all.