"Authority" in church

 I recently read a piece written by a woman who struggles with the notion of priesthood authority, deeply concerned about who is or is not currently authorized to hold certain callings in church and advocating making changes to both expand that and to free organizations in the ward from excessive oversight by men (giving examples of that excessiveness) which intrinsically gives leaders of those organizations less power and authority.

Below are some of my ruminations in regards to that. Always in a stage of progress, I hope.

In regards to your three examples, for what it's worth, that's not the way it works in our ward. 

Our Relief Society presidency organizes classes independently.

The Primary presidency considers who to call them the president counsels with the bishop and others to see if they have insights that would be helpful and then asks that the bishopric issue the call, not because priesthood means you have authority to issue calls or to nix them, but because it helps immensely if calls all come from one place, rather than each president independently issuing calls to members of the congregation whenever they feel inspired to do so. In my ward, that would be chaotic and divisive, rather than uniting.

It is true that a Sunday School president currently is a calling designated for men. As a woman I have no problem with that. All our Sunday School teachers work independently. He mostly just serves to help them get  substitutes when teachers aren't there and does the same process of choosing teachers that the Primary president does. I appreciate his humble service

The fact that seems to be missing in this conversation is that the world defines the one who has authority as the one who has the power of administration: the power to approve or reject, to declare what is or is not allowed, to instigate change or require the status quo, to not only add input but to independently make final decisions.  And it assumes that that involves ignoring, discounting, and/or disrespecting opinions other than one's own. It creates tiers of perceived value of individuals.

That kind of authority is one that we all, you, me, and everyone else falls into doing during our lifetimes. And though we usually don't recognize it in ourselves, we get angry when we see it in others.

And we get even more angry when we feel like we are prevented from changing or influencing the exercise of that kind of authority.

And we get more angry when we sense that our thoughts on really, really important issues are being ignored by people exercising that kind of authority. (Current national political situation is a classic example of this.)

As long as we believe that church authority is like world authority and administration, and that those who don't have it are powerless or being treated as second-class (like the way the world feels right now) we will continue to believe that changing who has the power will change the dynamics. 

But that's not true. What is most important in the discussion of priesthood authority is for all men and women (whether currently "having authority" or not) to perceive it as it really is when it is in play, and to live it the way Jesus teaches it.

The problems which we see are not due to men having "authority" at church. They are due to way too many of us are either seeing authority being exercised in the world's way, or exercising it in the world's way ourselves.

Scriptures define the exercise of priesthood authority, (the kind that Jesus has and that he showed forth in everything His did or does and which we all may receive) in words that make it not only clear that it is completely different from the world's exercise of authority, but also that when exercised as it is designed to be exercised, involves all of us, both men and women, equals in the sight of God, and fully invested in creating mutual trust, charity, humility, listening, patience, courage and mercy in whatever He call us, officially or unofficially, to do. 

It is not about who does what. It's not about what office, position or set of to-do lists we have. It's not about being the director or having the final say. It's about how we understand Him and how His love transforms His work, and the  specific, loving, individual work He does hand in hand with us as we serve,  as individuals and as a group, and which has the power to create further trust and love among us.

The problem is that too many of us, both men and women, are stuck in the world 's definition of authority and carry that into our callings at church. Our ways are not His ways.

The solution to the situations you see is not to expand the parameters of who gets to do what. (I am not opposed to that happening, I just know that doing so would not change the root cause of the challenge you see). Rather the solution is to help us all, both men and women, to comprehend the immense difference between the way the world exercises authority and the way God calls us, his children, both women and men, to exercise any authority we receive from Him.

That's a huge, unending task. But that comprehension is the only thing that will truly level the playing field.