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My sister Cheryl called me this morning, annoyed at a procedure her Indiana stake just used to call a new counselor in her Stake Presidency. An old counselor had moved and been released between Stake Conferences, so the new one was called and sustained during an interim Stake Priesthood meeting.

“This isn’t like an Elders Quorum President,” Cheryl mused. “A Stake Counselor doesn’t just serve men in his quorum, he has stewardship over the entire stake. But he can be set apart without a single woman knowing about the calling or sustaining him?”

The stake hasn’t even announced the leadership change over the pulpit in her ward, despite it happening weeks ago.

Cheryl’s complaint prompted my family to go and look up Church policy. The procedure her stake followed wasn’t aberrant, it’s approved:

When, as an exception, new stake officers need to begin their service before the next stake conference or stake general priesthood meeting in which they would normally be sustained, they should be sustained in the sacrament meetings of the wards and branches of the stake. These sustainings should be kept to a minimum. Members of the stake presidency or high council present the sustainings.

Handbook 2: Administering the Church § 19.3

This process is also set out in the Handbook’s “Chart of Callings.” It applies to stake counselors, stake clerks, stake executive secretaries, stake patriarchs, and high counselors.

I’m baffled. Sustaining votes by all members in stake conference make sense. Sustaining votes by all members in each individual ward make sense. But sustaining votes only at the stake general priesthood meeting, where no women are present, for leadership positions that oversee women? That’s odd. What’s the reasoning behind that policy?

“By Common Consent” includes women, doesn’t it?

Sustaining votes may be a formality, but they are a formality that matters. The lay nature of our leadership and our congregations is one of the most distinctive aspects of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. How we create our clergy is a form of democracy, a place where women voices are provided with sustaining input.

It would only take a small tweak to fix this. If the Church wants to signal that women’s voices are valued, then it should ensure we are always able to sustain (or oppose) the men with Priesthood stewardship over us.

*Photo by Tom Plouff on Unsplash