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In September 1993, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicated several scholars who had challenged the Church’s positions on gender, sexuality, and the family. In her 1992 book Women and Authority, for example, Maxine Hanks had argued that the refusal to grant authority to Mormon women created a church that denied female spiritual power and expected women to find meaning in a male god with a “male body.” She believed that women would experience the recognition of female spiritual power not as “something new” but as “a loosening of bonds” that would allow them “to use something they had always had.” It would be “a spiritual liberation.”[1] D. Michael Quinn, another excommunicated member, had written an article demonstrating that the practice of polygamy within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had not ended with the Second Manifesto.[2] Lavina Fielding Anderson had spent hundreds of hours compiling examples of Latter-day Saint leaders using their ecclesiastical power to intimidate intellectuals into silence.[3]

Like many scholars of my generation, I had no idea that these excommunications happened or how important they would become. My mother had just decided that I was old enough to stay home alone, and I reveled in my freedom. I spent much of my time after school watching Murphy Brown and Ghostwriter. I was obsessed with Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Rufio from Hook. My life, of course, was not perfect. The year 1993 was also a time of mourning for my family. My uncle Christopher died in November of that year at the age of seventeen. My great-grandfather died less than a week later. Although he was ninety-four, his death hurt just as much as Christopher’s. My great-grandfather was one of the few people who seemed to understand me. He complimented my drawing skills, told me that I had a beautiful singing voice, and encouraged my love of reading.

As an adult, I learned that 1993 represented a kind of death for members of the Mormon studies community. Since the 1970s, Latter-day Saint women had been challenging the limited role the Church provided for female spirituality. The excommunication of Sonia Johnson, an outspoken ERA supporter, was the Church’s response to the challenges the feminist movement offered the Church in the 1970s and 1980s. According to poet and former Dialogue editor Mary Bradford, Johnson became “a folk figure of sorts”—“a litmus test of loyalty on the one hand and a symbol of revolution on the other.” She claimed that Johnson was “almost as ubiquitous as the Three Nephites.”[4] In 1995, the Church responded to the expansive theology of feminists like Maxine Hanks and Margaret Toscano with “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” It reiterated the Church’s fundamental belief that “marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God” and that gender roles are eternal.[5]

As time passed, the September Six became a symbol of the numerous ways in which the Church disciplines Latter-day Saint intellectuals. Kristine Haglund has written that “the ugliness of the 1990s” meant it was “never again . . . possible for an earnest Mormon with academic ambitions and liberal political inclinations to believe that her religion, her scholarship, and her activism belong integrally to Mormonism.”[6] Although Haglund was writing specifically about the literary scholar Eugene England, many people regarded the September Six with a similar sense of loss. Their disciplining caused an entire generation of Latter-day Saint scholars to pause before writing. Although I was only a child when they occurred, the disciplinary hearings shaped my own experience as a Mormon historian. This essay is my attempt to reckon with the legacy of the Church’s decision—both in my own life and for the field of Mormon studies as a whole.

As with many scholars of Mormonism, for me, Mormon history is family history. I was born into an interfaith family. My father was a seventh-generation Latter-day Saint whose ancestors had converted in upstate New York before moving with the Saints to Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and finally, Utah and Idaho. My mother’s family, on the other hand, combined Catholicism with folk belief in the fae. Her grandmother held meetings of the Portneuf Community Club in her home. Members read tea leaves and performed “spiritual work.”

According to my mother, my father left the Church long before it instigated disciplinary measures against the September Six. He had served as president of his high school seminary in the late 1970s but lost his faith after the death of his newborn child in 1981. Family members describe him flitting between atheism, a kind of reconstructed Mormonism, and general Protestantism for much of their marriage. By the time I was born in 1983, he no longer felt the need to bless his children in an LDS ceremony or raise them within the Church. He and my mother divorced four years after I was born. My mother’s family distrusted the Church after experiencing years of discrimination as one of the very few non-Mormon families in the area. My father was largely absent. As a result, I learned about the Church as a child through the writings of people like Sandra and Jerald Tanner. The Christian bookstore in the heavily LDS town of Pocatello, Idaho, had an entire section devoted to anti-Mormon pamphlets. As teenagers, my friends and I giddily perused its shelves. It felt like a transgressive act against a Church that controlled our lives even though none of us were members or believed its truth claims.

It wasn’t until graduate school that I became interested in a more nuanced version of Mormon history. I first started attending the annual meeting of the Mormon History Association (MHA) in 2009. The consequences of the Church’s decision to discipline the September Six shaped my perception of Mormon studies. The University of Michigan immersed its graduate students in a culture that valued women’s studies. At the Mormon History Association, however, I discovered that the aftermath of the September Six had decimated the study of Mormon women’s history. Although there were important women scholars present, including Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Laurie Maffly-Kipp, and Sarah Barringer Gordon, men far outnumbered women at the meeting.[7]

By the 1970s, Latter-day Saint women had begun to question the Church’s privileging of male careers and spiritual power. Claudia Bushman has described the trepidation and excitement with which Latter-day Saint women greeted the wider feminist movement. She gathered with a group of educated women in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 1970s. In her introduction to the 1971 “pink issue” of Dialogue, Bushman wrote that they had “no officers, no rules and no set meeting time.” They rejected many of the claims of the nascent feminist movement but “read their literature with interest.”[8] The women who produced the pink issue of Dialogue insisted that they were not radicals and claimed to be “shocked by [the] antics” of their more “militant” sisters.[9] Their rejection of extreme “antics” distanced them from controversial figures like Sonia Johnson. Over time, however, the discussions the group had about women’s lives radicalized some of the participants. Bushman described the excitement of being part of a group of women who were “working together, engaged in frontline enterprises, researching, thinking, and writing for ourselves.” She wrote just a sentence or two later that they “felt invincible.”[10]

While Latter-day Saint women were meeting in Boston, a similar group coalesced in Utah County. Feminists from Orem, Provo, and the surrounding areas met at Brigham Young University before being banished to the public meetings spaces in Provo in 1979 for their support of the Equal Rights Amendment. Like their Boston sisters, the women did not see themselves as “radicals.” According to historian Amy L. Bentley, the women “identified strongly with the LDS Church and concerned themselves with ‘family’ issues.” Their meetings covered a wide range of topics—“sex discrimination, depression among Mormon women, political lobbying, the rhetoric of polygamy, female bonding and networking, a history of sexual equality in Utah, growing up black in Utah, suicide, rape, planned parenthood, historian Juanita Brooks, the legitimacy of responsible dissent, the John Birch Society, and the pamphlet ‘Another Mormon View of the ERA.’”[11] Together, the women who met in Boston and Provo created a definition of faithful Mormon feminism. Faithful feminists argued for change and sought to improve women’s lives. They did not, however, challenge the legitimacy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or its emphasis on traditional family values.

The growth of feminist consciousness among Latter-day Saints led to a flowering of women’s history. A coterie of Latter-day Saint scholars combed the archives of the Woman’s Exponent to understand the place of Mormon women within the first wave of feminism. In 1982, Kenneth Godfrey, Audrey Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr published Women’s Voices, a collection of excerpts from women’s diaries that allowed Latter-day Saints to see the contributions that their grandmothers and great-grandmothers had made to the Church.[12] In time, the flowering of Mormon women’s history provided evidence that Latter-day Saint women had once spoken in tongues, healed each other’s bodies, and even prophesied. Inherent in many of these women’s scholarly writings in the 1980s was an acceptance of Church hierarchy—they weren’t “radicals,” they insisted. Although these Mormon feminists believed that Church had previously minimized women’s experiences in its history, they reaffirmed the authority of male leaders. Individual Mormon feminists could publish about their own lives and research early Mormon women’s history. They did not, however, explicitly challenge the Church’s authority.

In the 1990s, some feminists began to pull on the more radical threads of Mormon feminism. In 1992, for example, Margaret Toscano called for the “transformation of the entire Mormon priesthood” so that it recognized both male and female spiritual power. She believed that the resulting Church would be a better reflection of the kingdom of God, a place she believed was populated with “priestesses and priests, with equal right to know and speak in the name of the Godhead.”[13] Although she was not excommunicated until 2000, she too faced a disciplinary council in 1993. The Church’s distrust of feminists extended to some of the women who had been involved in the groups formed in Boston and Provo in previous decades. The same year that the Church excommunicated the September Six, Brigham Young University denied a proposal to have the historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich present at its Women’s Conference. Ulrich had been a prominent part of the Mormon feminist movement in Boston and received a PhD from the University of New Hampshire. Her work on colonial New England marked her as an important scholar of early American material culture and women’s lives.[14]

In choosing to discipline feminists like Margaret Toscano and Maxine Hanks, Church authorities demarcated the boundaries of acceptable Mormon thought. They suggested that scholars could not directly challenge the Church hierarchy or its emphasis on the traditional heterosexual family. Sara Patterson has written that excommunication allowed Mormon scholars to reject the association of adulthood with heterosexual timelines marked by marriage and reproduction.[15] The non-Mormon scholar Sara Jaffe has argued that the milestones white Americans associate with adulthood are “based on outdated assumptions about class and gender.”[16] Both authors use the term “queer time,” theorized by Jack Halberstam in the early 2000s, to represent a future in which heterosexual timelines no longer define individual lives.[17] Toscano and others called for a radical reimagining of the Church that undid hierarchies so that men and women could flourish. They imagined a future in which marriage and family would not be the only meaningful demarcations of people’s lives. In September 1993, however, the Church reasserted the importance of the family and submission to the Church hierarchy. The publication of the family proclamation two years later underscored this point.

The lack of women scholars that I saw at MHA in the 2010s seems to me directly related to these excommunications. Mormon studies already offered few rewards to women. Although there were women faculty at BYU and within the Church History Department, hiring committees often preferred to give positions to men, whom they assumed were primary breadwinners and thus needed income to support their families. Women also faced limited opportunities for advancement within BYU and the Church History Department. The threat of excommunication made Mormon history even less attractive as an area of study. By the 2000s, it was apparent that there was a second “lost generation” within Mormon studies. This time it was made up not of novelists from the period following World War II but of the scholars who might have been if the Church had not excommunicated the September Six.[18]

The arrested development of Mormon feminism has been deeply painful for Mormon women. In preparation for this reflection, I spent several days reading the memoirs and blogs of Mormon feminists. So many of their stories are about the difficulty of fitting their lives into the narratives that the Church has written for them. In East Winds, for example, Rachel Rueckert describes the painful disjuncture that she felt between her desires for her life—which included traveling to India, walking the Camino de Santiago, and ultimately becoming a writer—and the expectation that she marry young.[19] In some ways, Rueckert’s writing is a plea that she be allowed to play in “queer time”—to develop herself even if it comes at the expense of a traditional Mormon life. Likewise, a blogger at Feminist Mormon Housewives lamented in an essay on being a stay-at-home mother that she had never been encouraged to “[consider] anything else.” She found that the Church’s insistence that being a stay-at-home mother was the “best thing” for her children was a hollow promise. Although she wanted to fulfill the expectations others had for her, she found the thought that being a mother to small children was the “best thing” that would ever happen to her “depressing.”[20] She simply wanted more.

In addition to reading published narratives, I also asked Mormon women on Twitter what they felt was the biggest tension between their faith and their feminism. The people who answered expressed frustration with the limited vision that the Church offered them—a vision that they did not believe was in accordance with Mormon theology or scripture. One woman wrote that the Church’s theology offered women an opportunity to be “co-creators and co-equal gods” but was unable to fulfill the grandeur of those promises in everyday life. Instead of honoring the creative nature of female spirituality, the Church often “siloed” women and limited their power.[21] Another woman saw the “logical conclusion” of Mormon doctrine as “full partnership and equality” for men and women. Instead of being offered a breathtaking vision of female potential, however, she found herself mired in a “sexist, patriarchal structure that defies both [Mormon] doctrines and the teachings of Christ.”[22] I came to see these women as petitioners asking the Church to allow them to experience the fullness of the gospel. Latter-day Saint feminists have found themselves in an awkward position. Although they believe that the LDS gospel offers an expansive view of the eternities in which women have equal power to men, they find the current reality of the Church restrictive.

As an outsider to Mormonism, I hope that feminist scholarship continues to flourish—for personal as well as academic reasons. Because I cannot be excommunicated, I often comment on women’s reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ issues in the LDS Church. But insiders need to be able to do this work as well. Of course, the excommunication of the September Six did not fully arrest the development of Mormon feminism or the study of Mormon women’s history. The current generation of Mormon scholars has built upon their work. Scholars like Christine Talbot, Andrea Radke-Moss, and Rachel Cope have continued to write interesting books about Mormon history, even though they are some of just a few women doing so.[23] Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s A House Full of Females has shown scholars outside of Mormon studies what a close, careful analysis of polygamous family structures can tell us about nineteenth-century America.[24] Hannah Jung has examined how the federal government disciplined Mormon families using birth certificates, gossip, and formal legal structures.[25] Blaire Ostler and Taylor Petrey have applied queer theory to the study of Mormonism.[26] Rachel Hunt Steenblik and Kristine Wright write beautifully about feminist theology and ritual practice.[27] Recently, the work of Elise Boxer, Farina King, Sujey Vega, and Janan Graham-Russell has challenged Mormon scholars to take a more intersectional approach to their studies and recognize the inflection of race in Mormon women’s experiences.[28] Joanna Brooks, whose 2012 memoir The Book of Mormon Girl made her the face of Mormon feminism, has published extensively on the Church’s role in promoting white supremacy and settler colonialism.[29] Kate Holbrook’s work integrates material culture and food into the history of Mormon women, while others like Amy Hoyt and Melissa Inouye have expanded their studies beyond the United States.[30]

When I first began studying Mormon history in the late 2000s, it seemed as though the Church was opening up its history. Other scholars frequently asked how the Church had responded to my scholarship. They assumed that the Church hierarchy would try to deny me access to the archives and limit my ability to ask important questions about race and sexuality. I told anyone who asked that I found the Church to be open and welcoming. Recently, however, I feel like the Church hierarchy is retrenching. Discussions of scholars being asked to make their research conform with LDS doctrine and calls for “musket fire” make me pause when I answer that question now.[31] In the past, I felt as though the Church was completely open to discussing difficult questions, and the specter of the 1993 excommunications was receding. I’m not so sure anymore. It’s possible the September Six represent both the past and future of Mormon studies.

This saddens me. I want my Mormon sisters to have access to a fulfilling theology. While I was living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, my own church congregation called a divorced single mother as our pastor. Because I had grown up in conservative southeastern Idaho, I had few examples of female spirituality or leadership as a child. As a child of divorced parents, I believed my family was broken. In my new pastor’s sermons, she spoke about the pain of her husband’s rejection and the peace that she found in a gospel that promised she was loved in her imperfection. She talked about the challenges of being a single mother and the difficulty she had in seeing herself as beautiful. She saw me in my uncertainty and assured me that I was loved as I was. Her words were gospel for me in a way that no man’s could have been.

Mormon theology offers a similarly empowering vision to its women members. For some women, Rachel Hunt Steenblik’s poetry has captured their experience of hungering after God. She describes women as searching for God “the way a baby roots for her mother’s breast.”[32] This vision is somewhat limited. It does not necessarily capture the experiences of childless, queer, or trans women, or even women who find breastfeeding to be an awkward, cumbersome experience. For many women, however, reading Steenblik’s poetry is an experience in being “seen.” The threat of Church discipline, however, is always present. As I read the memoirs, poetry, and tweets of Mormon feminists, what I want most for them is a church that recognizes their prayers and their activism as a fundamental part of the kingdom of God rather than a challenge to the Church hierarchy and potential disciplinary council.

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

^[1] Maxine Hanks, “Introduction,” in Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism, edited by Maxine Hanks (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), xxvii–xxviii.

^[2] D. Michael Quinn, “LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890–1904,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 9–105.

^[3] Lavina Fielding Anderson, “The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology (1992),” in Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings, edited by Joanna Brooks, Rachel Hunt Steenblik, and Hannah Wheelwright (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 189–92.

^[4] Mary L. Bradford, “The Odyssey of Sonia Johnson,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14, no. 2 (Summer 1981): 23.

^[5] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” Ensign, Nov. 2010, 129.

^[6] Kristine L. Haglund, Eugene England: A Mormon Liberal (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021), 23.

^[7] For their works, see Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785–1812 (New York: Vintage Books, 1991); Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001); Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835–1870 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017); Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, Leigh E. Schmidt, and Mark Valeri, eds., Practicing Protestants: Histories of Christian Life in America, 1630–1965 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp and Reid L. Neilson, eds., Proclamation to the People: Nineteenth-Century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin Frontier (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2008); Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, ed., American Scriptures: An Anthology of Sacred Writings (New York: Penguin Books, 2010); Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); and Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Spirit of the Law: Religious Voices and the Constitution in Modern America (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010).

^[8] Claudia Bushman, “Women in Dialogue: An Introduction,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 6, no. 2 (Summer 1971): 5. I have a copy of the pink Dialogue and have reflected on this quotation before. I was reminded of it, however, while preparing for this essay by reading Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Mormon Women in the History of Second-Wave Feminism,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 43, no. 2 (Summer 2010): 49.

^[9] Bushman, “Women in Dialogue,” 5.

^[10] Claudia Bushman, “My Short Happy Life with Exponent II,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 36, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 186, quoted in Ulrich, “Mormon Women in the History of Second-Wave Feminism,” 52.

^[11] Amy L. Bentley, “Comforting the Motherless Children: The Alice Louise Reynolds Women’s Forum,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 23, no. 3 (Fall 1990): 47.

^[12] Kenneth W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, eds., Women’s Voices: An Untold History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992).

^[13] Margaret Toscano, “‘Put on Your Strength, O Daughters of Zion’: Claiming Priesthood and Knowing the Mother (1992),” in Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings, edited by Joanna Brooks, Rachel Hunt Steenblik, and Hannah Wheelwright (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 188.

^[14] “Brigham Young Rejects Pulitzer Prize Winner as Speaker,” Chronicle of Higher Education Feb. 24, 1993.

^[15] Sara M. Patterson, “The Straightjacket of Times: Narrating D. Michael Quinn,” in DNA Mormon: Perspectives on the Legacy of Historian D. Michael Quinn, edited by Benjamin E. Park (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2022), 40.

^[16] Sara Jaffe, “Queer Time: The Alternative to ‘Adulting,’” JSTOR Daily, Jan. 10, 2018.

^[17] J. Jack Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (New York: NYU Press, 2005).

^[18] For an article on the original “lost generation,” see Edward A. Geary, “Mormondom’s Lost Generation: The Novelists of the 1940s,” BYU Studies Quarterly 18, no. 1 (Jan. 1978): 89–98.

^[19] Rachel Rueckert, East Winds: A Global Quest to Reckon with Marriage (Newburgh, Ind.: By Common Consent Press, 2022).

^[20] Thunderchicken, “The Imbalance of Stay-at-Home Motherhood,” Feminist Mormon Housewives (blog), Mar. 23, 2015.

^[21] Kristine A. (@_Kristine_A), “Our potential versus our reality. Co creators and co equal gods working together to plan form and create without false hierarchies imposed,” Twitter, Dec. 29, 2022.

^[22] Joy Grows (@thrifty_joy), “the biggest tension for me is that we don’t actually follow our doctrines to their logical conclusion—full partnership and equality,” Twitter, Dec. 28, 2022.

^[23] Christine Talbot, A Foreign Kingdom: Mormons and Polygamy in American Political Culture, 1852–1890 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013); Andrea Radke-Moss, “We Also Marched: The Women and Children of Zion’s Camp, 1834,” BYU Studies Quarterly 39, no. 1 (Jan. 2000): 147–65; Andrea Radke-Moss, “Silent Memories of Missouri: Mormon Women and Men and Sexual Assault in Group Memory and Religious Identity,” in Mormon Women’s History: Beyond Biography, edited by Rachel Cope, Amy Easton-Flake, Keith A. Erekson, and Lisa Olsen Tait (Lanham, Md.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017), 49–82; Rachel Cope and Zachary McLeod Hutchins, eds., The Writings of Elizabeth Webb: A Quaker Missionary in America, 1697–1726 (State College: Penn State University Press, 2019).

^[24] Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835–1870 (New York: Vintage Books, 2017).

^[25] Hannah Jung is currently a PhD candidate at Brandeis University, where she is finishing a dissertation on secrecy within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

^[26] Blaire Ostler, Queer Mormon Theology: An Introduction (Newburgh, Ind.: By Common Consent Press, 2021); Taylor G. Petrey, Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020).

^[27] Rachel Hunt Steenblik, Mother’s Milk: Poems in Search of Heavenly Mother (Newburgh, Ind.: By Common Consent Press, 2017); Rachel Hunt Steenblik and Ashley Mae Hoiland, I Gave Her a Name (Newburgh, Ind.: By Common Consent Press, 2019); Jonathan A. Stapley and Kristine Wright, “Female Ritual Healing in Mormonism,” Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 1–85.

^[28] Elise Boxer, “‘The Lamanites Shall Blossom as the Rose’: The Indian Student Placement Program, Mormon Whiteness, and Indigenous Identity,” Journal of Mormon History 41, no. 4 (Fall 2015): 132–76; Farina King, “Diné Doctor: A Latter-day Saint Story of Healing,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 54, no. 2 (Summer 2021): 81–85; Sujey Vega, “Intersectional Hermanas: LDS Latinas Navigate Faith, Leadership, and Sisterhood,” Latino Studies 17, no. 1 (Mar. 2019): 27–47, and Janan Graham-Russell, “Roundtable: A Balm in Gilead: Reconciling Black Bodies within a Mormon Imagination,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 51, no. 3 (2018): 185–92.

^[29] Joanna Brooks, The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of An American Faith (New York: Free Press, 2012); Joanna Brooks, Mormonism and White Supremacy: American Religion and the Problem of Racial Innocence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020); Gina Colvin and Joanna Brooks, eds., Decolonizing Mormonism: Approaching a Postcolonial Zion (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2018).

^[30] Kate Holbrook, “Radical Food: Nation of Islam and Latter-day Saint Culinary Ideals” (PhD diss., Boston University, 2014); Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye and Kate Holbrook, eds., Every Needful Thing: Essays on the Life of the Mind and the Heart (Provo: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2023); Caroline Kline, Mormon Women at the Crossroads: Global Narratives and the Power of Connectedness (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2022); Amy Hoyt, “Maternal Practices as Religious Piety: The Pedagogical Practices of American Mormon Women” in Women and Christianity, edited by Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan and Karen Jo Torjesen (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2009).

^[31] Tamarra Kemsley, “BYU Faculty Members Urged to Align Their Teaching, Research Better with LDS Tenets,” Salt Lake City Tribune, Jan. 29, 2023; Haley Swenson, “Crushingly Cruel,” Slate, Sept. 3, 2021.

^[32] Steenblik, Mother’s Milk, 148.

[post_title] => She Simply Wanted More: Mormon Women and Excommunication [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 56.3 (Fall 2023): 109–123
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Listen to the Out Loud Interview about this article here.

In her 2020 address to the worldwide membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints, Primary general president Joy Jones declared, “President Russell M. Nelson taught, ‘It would be impossible to measure the influence that . . . women have, not only on families but also on the Lord’s Church, as wives, mothers, and grandmothers; as sisters and aunts; as teachers and leaders; and especially as exemplars and devout defenders of the faith.’”^[1]

Though it certainly may be impossible to measure women’s influence on families, it is to some extent possible to measure the influence that leaders like Jones and Nelson believe women have on the Church. Jones’s speech, delivered at the Church’s semiannual general conference, exemplifies a long tradition of Latter-­day Saint rhetoric, particularly in her use of quotation. In her eleven minutes at the pulpit, Jones quoted current Church president Russell Nelson four times, previous Church presidents three times, scripture six times, and a previous apostle once. Additionally, in the middle of her speech, a video played of Nelson speaking to a group of children. In all, though almost one third of Jones’s address about women’s roles was focused on other people’s voices, women were not among her selected sources.^[2]

This article argues such quotation choices reflect Church leaders’ views on authority. When the most powerful leaders in the Church use their limited time in the spotlight to highlight someone else’s words, they send a signal about how that source should be perceived. The quotation patterns in fifty years of general conference addresses reveal that, despite increasingly vocal commitments from Church leaders to the equal though separate status of women and men, those leaders continue to treat female voices as less authoritative than male ones.^[3] Church leaders quote men more than sixteen times for every one time they quote a woman. Even taking into account the expected effects of the Church’s overwhelmingly male scripture and all-­male priesthood hierarchy, women are quoted less, cited less, and acknowledged less than one might expect from an organization whose president recently told women, “We need your voice teaching the doctrine of Christ.”^[4] This article contends that their treatment of these voices is indicative of women’s status in the Church more broadly.

Background and Research Methods

General conference plays an important role in the Church and in its members’ lives. It is frequently the site of development and affirmation of Church doctrine, policy, and culture. At conference, leaders deliver what are understood to be divinely inspired messages on how members should act and think about their relationship to God. Members are frequently instructed in Sunday meetings in the weeks preceding conference to pray to receive answers to personal questions during conference, with the idea that God will speak to them individually through their highest leaders. Afterwards, the sermons are published in Church magazines and used as the lesson material in local meetings for the next six months, ensuring that what is said in general conference makes its way through the entire Church.

As such, studying conference talks is critical to understanding Latter-­day Saint theological and practical beliefs. It is also significant when considering women’s place in the Church. While Mormon feminists have worked tirelessly to amplify women’s voices, the voices that define the Church and its interests to members continue to be the primarily male speakers in general conference. The status and experiences of women in the Church cannot be fully understood without examining the Church’s most powerful men and their messages as delivered in its most influential forum.

In particular, such a study requires paying attention not just to the content of general conference talks, but to how that content is packaged. As sociologists Gary and Gordon Shepherd note in their groundbreaking studies of general conference, meaning is found not just in the content and themes of any given talk but in the “rhetorical modes in which themes are expressed.”^[5] Women’s place in the Church can be understood not just through what leaders say to and about women—and they say a lot!—but in how they frame and support what they have to say.

My research explores these questions by analyzing quotation practices in general conference between 1971 and 2020. I read every April^[6] session talk given by a member of the First Presidency or Quorum of the Twelve Apostles during those decades. I also read every talk by a female leader given in the April general session during that time period (thus, between 1984 and 2020).^[7] In order to understand how quotation dynamics vary by leadership position, gender, and audience in the modern Church, I also read every talk given by any leader in any session between April 2016 and April 2020. For each address, I documented every quotation,^[8] including what was cited, the number of words in each quotation, and the way the speaker verbally introduced each quotation. This totaled more than 12,700 quotations over 1,100 talks.

The rhetorical practices of general conference, like its format and structure, have changed over time. Nineteenth and early twentieth–century leaders would extemporize for hours; modern translation and global broadcasting have necessitated timed, prewritten addresses.^[9] This is the backdrop to my choice to focus on the period between 1971 and 2020. Many substantial technological changes happened in the 1960s: conference was first translated simultaneously in 1962,^[10] first broadcast to Europe in 1965,^[11] and first televised in color in 1967.^[12] Though speakers were still adjusting to these changes in the 1970s, the era of spontaneity was over, and leaders were aware of themselves as speaking to a much larger audience than those sitting before them. Additionally, transcripts and video recordings of general conference are available for that entire period on the Church’s website,^[13] providing definitive sources for those addresses.^[14] The quotations used in these carefully crafted speeches for a global audience provide a window into Church leaders’ views on gender and authority.

Understanding Quotation: Audience and Authority

Quotation is a common rhetorical practice that serves many different functions: spicing up a narrative, providing exact wording, or lending legitimacy to one’s own argument. As every student of high school English literature intuitively knows, this last function is particularly important. Anthropologist Ruth Finnegan writes that quotation “enables a writer to stand in alliance with revered words and voices from the past and . . . endow oneself with something of their authority.”^[15] Speakers in general conference constantly use quotation in precisely this way, positioning their ideas as (for example) the continuation of teachings from other Church leaders. In general conference, the rhetorical force of a quotation relies on the source of a quotation just as much, if not more, as the content of that quotation.

Scholars have sometimes used quotation in general conference as evidence for which sources general authorities were personally reading.^[16] Conference quotation patterns cannot be understood only in these terms, however. This is the case first because of quotation’s rhetorical function. With limited time and such a significant audience, conference speakers must be understood as carefully selecting their quotations for both content and source. Indeed, a look at the footnotes reveals that speakers in general conference frequently use sources specifically designed to achieve that purpose. Many draw upon references like Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, which collects acknowledged sources of wisdom like historical leaders or the anonymous proverb.^[17] This is one indication that conference speakers look for quotations to include in their talks as quotations, rather than, say, encountering those writers during research on some topic.^[18] The sources that appear in general conference are deliberately chosen with the spiritual and institutional goals of the Church’s highest leaders in mind.

The second reason to understand speakers’ quotations as deliberately selected for their audience is that the changes in quotation in general conference over time (see table 1 below) cannot be explained merely by changes in individuals’ reading habits. Because apostles and prophets occupy those roles until their deaths, the composition of leaders speaking in conference changes slowly.^[19] Even as the membership of this group remains largely the same, their quotation patterns change significantly.^[20] Not only do the same leaders collectively quote different sources over time, but they also frame their quotations of those sources differently for their audience. Though whom leaders quote is indeed an indication of whom they privately take to be authoritative or interesting, it is also a public decision.

Consider the fifteen most frequent sources of quotation from the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency in the 1970s and how that list changed in the 2010s (table 1). Both are clearly a reflection of the sources that matter most to the Church and its members: scriptures and prophets handily top each list. But the changes in these sources’ popularity is striking. Quotation of current prophets and apostles, for example, has increased dramatically,^[21] while presidents of the United States have gone from the top ten to zero. These changes in sources can be understood at least in part as a reflection of a change in audience. While general conference’s availability in the 1970s was limited beyond the United States,^[22] it is now internationally broadcast to communities without much besides their Church membership in common. Church leaders and their quotation practices are responsive to their audience.

Table 1: Change in Most Frequent General Session Citations from Members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, April 1971–1980 and 2011–2020^a

	1971–1980	2011–2020	Net change (percentage points)	Percent change
New Testament	31.5%	23.4%	-8.0%	-25.6%
Doctrine and Covenants	16.1%	16.4%	+0.3%	+1.9%
Book of Mormon	12.6%	21.5%	+9.0%	+71.3%
Old Testament	11.8%	7.4%	-4.4%	-37.4%
Pearl of Great Price	4.8%	4.4%	-0.5%	-9.6%
Past Prophets	3.2%	4.4%	+1.2%	+38.0%
Anonymous Sources	2.9%	0.2%	-2.7%	-94.3%
Past Apostles	1.9%	1.9%	0.0%	-1.8%
Joseph Smith	1.8%	2.8%	+1.1%	+59.0%
US Presidents	1.3%	0.0%	-1.3%	-100.0%
Hymns	1.3%	2.5%	+1.3%	+99.2%
Current Prophet	0.8%	2.8%	+2.1%	+260.3%
The First Presidencyb	0.6%	0.4%	-0.2%	-39.4%
Current Apostles	0.5%	1.1%	+0.6%	+131.0%
Members of the Church	0.5%	1.5%	+1.0%	+211.8%

a. Total citations for 1971–1980; 1,904; for 2011–2020: 1,832.

b. Speakers will sometimes quote statements put out by the First Presidency (the prophet and his two counselors) as a unit. This is distinct from citations of any one of those members.

While there is much to explore in these trends beyond their application to gender, this article focuses on quotation as a reflection of authority in order to explore women’s status in the Church. Quotation is a rhetorical practice in which speakers reveal beliefs about their audience. When choosing to quote from certain sources, speakers indicate two things: first, that they believe their audience will accept that source as authoritative, and second, that they themselves support that source’s authority.

Broadly, a source is more authoritative to an audience the more that members of that audience would believe a claim or obey an instruction (or seriously consider doing so) because it came from that source, regardless of their prior views about the content of the claim or instruction. Sources can be authoritative in many different ways. Conference speakers must navigate secular and ecclesiastical authority as well as many varieties of spiritual authority.^[23] What broad-­scale conference quotation patterns demonstrate is how weighty these different sources of authority are in their context.

Rhetorically effective quotation requires choosing sources with one’s audience in mind.^[24] The sources that general conference speakers choose, then, reveal features of the Latter-­day Saint community, at least as those leaders understand it. A previous United States president might be an authoritative source to Americans, but citing one would not help one’s persuasiveness overseas. How often various choices are made reflects the expected effectiveness of those appeals for members. This indicates that the sources cited more are, on the whole,^[25] considered more authoritative in the Latter-­day Saint context, while the sources cited less are less so. For this reason, the term “authority” functions broadly in this article to refer to the weight of a certain source’s status, not the reason for that weight.

Effective quotation must also be balanced by the speaker’s own views about the source. If someone crafting a speech knew that her audience put great trust in, say, mainstream media sources, but she herself did not think that trust was merited, she would not quote that source to bolster her argument even if it would be persuasive. Conference quotation patterns thus reveal both leaders’ beliefs and their hopes about their community. The sources cited most frequently are not only the sources audiences trust but also the sources leaders want their audience to trust. In the mouths of the Church’s most powerful leaders, such support through quotation can even increase a source’s authority.

Because leaders’ use of sources reflects their beliefs about their audience, studying how Church leaders quote women sheds light on how those leaders perceive women’s authority in the Latter-­day Saint community. Because speakers affirm authority through quotation, whether and how speakers quote women in general conference is indicative of those leaders’ commitment to women’s authority and equality. In this way, leaders’ treatment of women in their general conference addresses provides a meaningful window into the status of women in the Church more generally.

Why Quote Women?

Examining what conference quotation says about women in the Church is significant for two reasons. First, it is relevant for broader feminist projects involving concepts like equal representation of and respect for women. Second, it reflects on the Church’s realization of its own values.

This article takes feminist commitments on board, arguing that women’s underrepresentation in general conference is a problem to be fixed. Because Church leaders support a different model of womanhood than many feminist and secular sources propose, however, some might worry that it is misguided to evaluate the Church’s discursive practices by such standards. But the ways leaders engage with female voices in general conference can also be examined in light of their own stated commitments. Church leaders throughout the years have preached that women and men are equal, though separate. Church president Spencer Kimball told men in 1979, “The women of this Church have work to do which, though different, is equally as important as the work that we do. Their work is, in fact, the same basic work that we are asked to do—even though our roles and assignments differ . . . Our sisters do not wish to be indulged or to be treated condescendingly; they desire to be respected and revered as our sisters and our equals.”^[26] Other speakers throughout the years have mirrored that language and those sentiments, down to Relief Society president Jean Bingham’s 2020 declaration of “the eternal truth that men’s and women’s innate differences are God given and equally valued.”^[27]

Quotation as a rhetorical device sends messages, and those messages can reinforce or undermine the actual content of the talks in which they appear. This article will argue that, even if it is not their intention, leaders’ quotations of women in general conference marginalize women in the Latter-­day Saint community rather than portray them as worthy of respect and value. Insofar as this study shows that conference quotation practices fail to live up to an equal standard with respect to gender—and especially insofar as inequality is not the aim of Church leaders—it provides both an internal and external critique of those practices. If the Church is to live up to its creed, leaders must reexamine which voices they choose to emphasize and how they do so.

It is crucial to note that claims about women’s and men’s equal value do not translate easily into claims about equal authority, especially in an ecclesiastical setting. Women’s ecclesiastical authority in the Church is, of course, limited because they are not ordained to priesthood office. While leaders have recently asserted that women have both “priesthood power” and “priesthood authority,”^[28] this distinction is contentious, and women’s authority is instead most often spoken about (as in the Nelson quotation that began this article) in terms of “righteous influence.”^[29] The source of this influence is attributed to women’s caring nature^[30] and “unique moral compass.”^[31] Discussions of these kind emphasize women’s spiritual rather than ecclesiastical authority.

Conference quotation, however, is not limited to sources with ecclesiastical authority. If quotation were just about appealing to authorities in some sense higher than one’s self, one might expect prophets to quote mostly other prophets and scripture, but prophets also quote current and past apostles, as well as secular poets and historical figures.^[32] Poet William Wordsworth, philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, and New York Times columnist David Brooks have all been quoted multiple times by prophets and apostles.^[33] Additionally, because conference addresses focus on how members should live their lives and understand their relationship with God, leaders might have reason to reference other acknowledged sources of spiritual authority, like women. As Bruce McConkie wrote in 1979, “Where spiritual things are concerned, as pertaining to all of the gifts of the Spirit, with reference to the receipt of revelation, the gaining of testimonies, and the seeing of visions, in all matters that pertain to godliness and holiness and which are brought to pass as a result of personal righteousness—in all these things men and women stand in a position of absolute equality before the Lord.”^[34]

These types of assertions should lead to some degree of gender balance in quotations whose sources are not selected for their ecclesiastical authority. Indeed, given frequent conference claims about women’s superior moral sensitivity, one might expect leaders who profess such views to draw on women more frequently than men in some contexts. In a sermon about how to understand one’s relationship with God and live a moral life, the sources of insight McConkie listed ought to be just as open to women as to men, regardless of their ecclesiastical status. Despite this, a righteous woman’s influence is rarely the kind of authority conference speakers are interested in drawing upon.

Men Quoting Women

When looking at gender in general conference, the big picture numbers are striking. In April general sessions between 1971 and 2020, members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (hereafter referred to inclusively as “apostles”) quoted specifically male sources^[35] 3,264 times. This does not include the male-­gendered deities, Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father, who were quoted 1,968 times.^[36] In that same period, female sources were quoted 197 times.

This imbalance is huge, but not surprising—the perhaps natural consequences of an all-­male priesthood and hierarchical structure that places over one hundred men at a time in positions more powerful than the most powerful female leader. Latter-­day Saint scripture is also almost entirely male: the Book of Mormon has almost 250 named individuals, but only six of those are female, and only two women actually speak in the text. Given the Church’s broader position in a patriarchal society, it is also not surprising that the poets, historical figures, and non-­Latter-­day Saint leaders they quote would also be overwhelmingly male.

Though it may not be surprising, the lack of female representation is troubling, especially once the trends are broken down further (table 2). Altogether, female voices comprise 2.1 percent of general conference quotations in this sample. Looking only at 2011–2020, this number increases slightly: to 2.7 percent. By the same measure, explicitly male voices other than Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ account for 35.5 percent of conference quotations, going down to 31.7 percent between 2011 and 2020. This decrease is entirely due to leaders verbally attributing fewer quotes from scripture to male voices^[37]—if scriptures are excluded, quotation of men goes up from 14.8 percent over fifty years to 18.1 percent of all quotations in the final decade of my sample. Examining only quotations from specific people, removing quotes from scripture^[38] and not clearly gendered sources,^[39] reveals that more than nine out of ten of the individuals quoted in general conference are men.^[40]

Table 2: Gendered Citations in April General Session Address by Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and First Presidency, April 1971–2020^a

Total Female	2.1%
Total Maleb	35.5%
Scripture (Not Gendered)	36.1%
Jesus Christ	20.1%
Male Scripturesc	17.8%
Past Prophets	6.1%
Other Male Sourcesd	5.8%
Apostles	3.7%
Church Publicationse	2.7%
Non-Gendered Sourcesf	2.0%
Current Prophets	2.0%
Other Female Sources	1.7%
Godg	1.2%
Female Church Leadersh	0.2%
Female Scriptures	0.2%
Male Church Leadersi	0.2%
Couples	0.1%

a. Total citations: 9,200.

b. Here and throughout, Male totals do not include citations of Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ. 

c. A quotation is counted as Male or Female Scripture if the verbal citation attributes the quotation to a man or a woman. “1 Nephi 3:7 reads” would be labeled Scripture, but “Nephi wrote” would be labeled Male Scripture. Scriptural quotations that were not verbally cited are not categorized as Male or Female. The Male and Female Scripture categories do not, however, count the numerous quotations that are verbally attributed to Christ through or to a gendered individual (except for one section in the D&C addressed to Emma Smith, all of those are male); those are categorized as citations of Jesus Christ. 

d. Other Male Sources and Other Female Sources include all quotations whose gender can be determined from footnotes or verbal citations that do not fit into other categories. All secular gendered sources are included here, as well as quotations from church members outside of the highest levels of church leadership. 

e. The category of Church Publication includes documents like The Living Christ, The Family: A Proclamation to the World, the Handbooks, etc. (mostly written by men). It also includes all songs from the Hymnal and the Primary Children’s Songbook except when the verbal citation references a gendered author. 

f. Non-Gendered Sources are all the sources whose gender could not be determined from the footnote or the verbal citation that do not fit into another category. Examples of non-gendered sources include quotes from newspapers and magazines that did not include authors, anonymous sayings, the dictionary, musicals, individuals without names or gender identification, etc.

g. Quotations verbally attributed to Jesus Christ or the Lord were categorized as citations of Jesus Christ, while other citations verbally attributed to divinity, including references that were ambiguous between God the Father and Christ, were categorized as citations of God. 

h. Female Church Leaders includes all quotations from women occupying the general presidencies of the Relief Society, Young Womens, and Primary. 

i. Male Church Leaders includes all quotations from men who are general authorities or members of the Sunday School and Young Mens presidencies but are not apostles.

Women’s absence becomes even more visible in quotations from sources with high-­level Latter-­day Saint ecclesiastical authority.^[41] Of those, female leaders of the Church make up 1.9 percent of quotations. Ninety-­eight percent of the leaders that apostles quote in general conference are men. This amounts to a mere twenty-­one citations of female Church leaders by its highest authorities; ten are from Eliza Snow, and six of those are her hymns. In this sample of five decades of talks, a current female leader of the Church was only quoted to an audience that included men once, when apostle Dallin Oaks quoted Relief Society president Linda Burton in the 2014 priesthood session.^[42] In fifty years, an apostle never quoted a current female leader in an April general session. Current male leaders, meanwhile, were quoted 257 times in that same period. It is worth noting, however, that male leaders who are not apostles (such as members of the Seventy) have been quoted even less frequently than female leaders (thirteen times as opposed to twenty-­one).^[43] Apostles’ quotational emphasis on the authority of the institutional Church is entirely on its highest level—the level they themselves occupy. Because women are entirely excluded from that level, they are also excluded from consideration as ecclesiastical authorities.

It may seem that the gender imbalance in general conference is thus a result of women’s limited ecclesiastical authority. However, as discussed above, there are many other kinds of authority on which conference speakers draw, and leaders frequently make claims about women’s moral and spiritual authority. Though women are excluded from the most important leadership roles, Church leaders have encouraged them to be “contributing and full partner[s]” with men rather than “silent . . . or limited partners.”^[44] Outside of leadership roles, then, one might hope for gender parity.

However, this is not the case. Even when apostles quote sources who do not have ecclesiastical authority, they consistently prioritize male voices over female ones. Of the individuals quoted in conference who are neither scriptural nor high-­level Church leaders, fully 77 percent of them are male. This number is changing over time, but not always equitably: between 2010 and 2015, 58.6 percent of quoted individuals without scriptural or high-­level ecclesiastical authority were male; between 2016 and 2020, 69 percent were male.^[45] Representation of women, at least on this measure, has significantly^[46] increased since the 1970s, but this is happening neither quickly nor consistently.

There are two important caveats about these patterns. First, these statistics are the product of hundreds of talks by almost forty different apostles over fifty years. They are not the product of any one person’s conscious decision, and certainly no speaker selects his quotations with these broad patterns in mind. The average apostle quotes eleven times in a single talk, not nearly enough to cover all the categories of sources presented here.^[47] These patterns are also the structural default, the rhetorical norm for conference addresses, and individual speakers are unlikely to choose to deviate widely from them. This, however, makes it even more necessary to examine and bring them to light.

Second, the consistent overrepresentation of male quotations in general conference can be explained in part by the overrepresentation of men in the worlds of ecclesiastical, scriptural, and cultural authority that conference speakers inhabit. The Church’s all-­male priesthood, male-­focused scriptural canon, and patriarchal cultural context all play a role in muting women. The non-­ecclesiastical sources cited by speakers include a greater number of well-­known male writers and historical figures than female ones because many more men have historically been given the opportunity to become famous. There are also fewer conference talks and books on Church doctrine written by women. When thinking about the available sources leaders have to draw upon, women are consistently underrepresented, though not so dramatically as they are in quotation practices.^[48] In any case, this is only an explanation for these patterns, not a justification of them. The Church consistently emphasizes members’ responsibility to choose the right even when “the world” and those around them push in opposing directions. Leaning on excuses about cultural norms is unfair to leaders by refusing them the ability to choose differently.

The persistent failure of apostles to quote women is a persistent failure to acknowledge women as authorities. This tells us something about the way they see their audience: when leaders do not feature women’s voices, they indicate a belief that the community they are addressing would not view those voices as authoritative. They also affirm that belief. If the Church truly values women’s voices, its leaders must take responsibility to do so themselves. Rather than being contributing and full partners, women are silent in general conference, limited by prophets and apostles. Not only do women speak less frequently in conference because of the restricted leadership roles available to them, but they are heard less frequently because other speakers choose to amplify male voices instead of female ones in their quotation practices. Women’s silence here indicates a broader inability to be heard within the Church.

Women Above the Footnotes

Analyzing not just which sources leaders select but how and where they present those sources is key to understanding quotation’s rhetorical role. Even when conference speakers choose to quote women, they engage in rhetorical techniques that further reflect women’s lack of authority in the Church. Male leaders minimize women’s presence and influence by frequently mentioning their appearance and relationship status and infrequently giving their names.

Conference talks are written to be spoken. Understanding this is essential to understanding conference quotation because listeners, unlike readers, depend on authors to include information about when and who they cite in the body of the text rather than leaving it to parentheticals and footnotes (many readers may not scour the footnotes either). Embedded quotes go unrecognized by conference listeners unless speakers make a deliberate effort to frame them by changing their tone of voice or giving a verbal citation that provides an introduction to the quote. “1 Nephi 1:1,” “a young woman,” “it is said,” and “our beloved prophet, Russell M. Nelson” all function as verbal citations when spoken during an address. These citations can serve not just to indicate the source but to add to or explain its credentials: the common “our beloved prophet” preface does precisely that, as do additions like “prominent writer,” “one of my eminent business associates,” or “faithful wife and mother.” Verbal citations provide the information a speaker thinks the audience needs to understand and respect the source of a quotation.^[49]

1. Acknowledging and Anonymizing Women

If the source of a quotation plays a significant part in its selection, speakers are likely to verbally cite as fully as possible the sources that they take to be most authoritative. To see how women are acknowledged beyond the footnotes, each gendered non-­scriptural quotation can be sorted into one of three categories based on the way a source was verbally cited: complete, incomplete, or none (table 3). A complete verbal citation indicates a specific individual. Both partial and full names were counted as completely verbally cited: “President Spencer W. Kimball,” “Bishop Williams,” and “Liz” are all complete. An incomplete verbal citation indicates only that the speaker is quoting someone. All quotations that were verbally cited but had no name attached counted as incomplete. “The poet,” “a dear sister,” and “a business executive” are incomplete verbal citations. The nones are quotations that were not verbally indicated at all by the speaker.

The data on how different sources are verbally cited aligns with expectations in terms of the Church’s most authoritative sources. The current prophet is completely verbally cited 94 percent of the time, and past prophets are verbally cited nine out of ten times. Similarly, apostles are completely verbally cited almost eight out of ten times, and non-­apostle leaders are completely verbally cited six out of ten times. Female leaders of the Church, though rarely quoted, are completely verbally cited 95 percent of the time: when speakers cite female leaders, it seems that they do so deliberately and want their audience to know.^[50] This suggests, interestingly, that female Church authority does have weight in this context despite its infrequent representation.

Table 3: Completeness of Gendered Verbal Citations of Different Sources in General Session Talks by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, April 1971–2020

	Prophet (558 total)	Apostle (338 total)	Current Prophet (184 total)	Male (530 total)	Female (155 total)	Female Leader (21 total)	Male Leader (15 total)
Complete	90.5%	79.3%	94.0%	62.5%	51.6%	95.2%	60.0%
Incomplete	1.8%	6.2%	0.5%	24.9%	42.6%	4.8%	33.3%
None	7.7%	14.5%	5.4%	12.6%	5.8%	0.0%	6.7%

However, the opposite is true with women outside of Church leadership positions. Whereas non-­leader men are completely verbally cited 62 percent of the time, non-­leader women are only completely verbally cited 51 percent of the time, the lowest of any of those categories. They are also by far the highest, at 42 percent, of any group for incomplete citations. Between 2016 and 2020, women were quoted as named sources outside of narrative contexts only six times in front of men. In contrast, forty men who held no position of high-­level leadership in the Church were quoted and named in non-­narrative contexts in that time period, thirty in the general session. Non-­leader men are significantly^[51] more likely to be completely verbally cited than non-­leader women. These numbers demonstrate how men and women with the same level of ecclesiastical authority—local or none—are treated differently in terms of their authoritativeness for Church members. Not only do leaders quote women much less frequently than men, they often minimize their presence even when they do quote them.

Again, part of this is due to the fact that more of these non-­leader men than women are famous historical figures. However, speakers are more likely to name men than women even when those men are not well known. When quoting family members, regular church members, or writers who are not household names, speakers frequently name their male sources while leaving out the name of their female sources. These trends occur side-­by-­side, often in the same talks. In his 2015 address, apostle Quentin Cook quoted a woman, Carla Carlisle, and described her as “one of my favorite writers” without naming her or revealing her gender through pronouns in the talk itself—while naming and quoting several men in the same talk.^[52] Even though Cook seems to personally admire Carlisle, his reluctance to reveal her name or gender compared with his willingness to name and gender male sources suggests that her gender might decrease her legitimacy as a source.

2. Quoting Beautiful Wives and Mothers

The content of incomplete citations also reveals a great deal about women’s authority. Incomplete verbal citations have to do all the work in describing the credentials of a source. All the audience knows about the source comes from that verbal citation—they can’t bring in any background knowledge about the individual involved. It is telling, then, that speakers treat men differently than women in this sphere as well, tying women’s authority to their relationship status or their physical appearance.

Table 4 shows the incomplete verbal citations from apostles in the general session in 2017–2020. These years are a microcosm of a pattern that is consistent through the last fifty. Women are most frequently cited in their capacities as relations, with more than one out of three of all incomplete verbal citations referring to a woman’s relationship or family status. Men’s relationship status, meanwhile, is only mentioned in 8 percent of incomplete verbal citations, all in their capacity as fathers. Their calling in the Church is mentioned with about the same frequency (7.6 percent), while their employment status is used as a credential 41.7 percent of the time. Verbal citations recognize women’s careers only 6.2 percent of the time—not a surprise for an organization that was still frequently preaching against women’s employment into the 2000s—and their Church calling only 1.5 percent of the time. These numbers are particularly striking given that these sources are already anonymous. Evidence has already been presented that conference speakers are more likely to name men than women: the actual number of men who are cited in their capacities as local Church leaders, for example, is even higher.

Table 4: Incomplete Verbal Citations from Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency, April 2017–2020

Female	Male
A faithful wife and mother	One observer
Two LDS women	One writer
A dear sister	A fourteen-year-old boy
A single sister in her mid-40s	One friend of nearly 20 years, whom I admire greatly
A beautiful, vibrant young wife and mother	A temple president
A beautiful young returned sister missionary	One frustrated writer
Their precious mother	One historian

In these incomplete verbal citations, and elsewhere in conference talks, women are also far more likely to be the subject of adjectives such as “dear,” “precious,” and “beautiful,” as seen above, as well as “lovely,” “wonderful,” and “sweet.” In verbally citing the women they quote as beautiful and lovely, speakers connect to a tradition of conceptualizing female spirituality through the lens of female attractiveness, implicitly—and explicitly, in the form of the speaker—evaluated by men. Just like a Hollywood movie where the main character is gorgeous and the villain is inevitably scarred or ugly, in conference talks, righteous women are beautiful women. None of those adjectives (or correlates like “handsome”) are regularly applied to men, who are instead more likely to be described as “wise” or go without evaluative adjectives entirely in favor of authoritative credentials in the form of careers or Church callings:^[53] consider Gary Stevenson’s story about “a beautiful, vibrant young wife and mother [who] was a scrappy Division 1 soccer player when she met and married her dental student husband.”^[54] Women are specifically described as “young” fully three times as often as men, further depriving them of authority by minimizing their life experience. If anything, these trends have increased over time, particularly the use of “beautiful” to describe anonymous women. These verbal citations further undermine women’s ability to stand as equals in their community. By contrast, men occupy a variety of positions in and outside of the Church and have a range of authoritative credentials available.

Conference quotation practices serve to diminish female authority.^[55] Not only are women quoted significantly less frequently than men, but the ways in which women are quoted serve to further mute their voices. Women are anonymized and described with diminutives rather than with authoritative credentials. They are included as the wives of husbands while men are the leaders of organizations in and outside of the Church, despite the fact that conference speakers frequently encourage men to be good family members^[56] and women to step up as community leaders.^[57] These quotation patterns play into tropes that undermine leaders’ professions of gender equality.

Gendered Audiences and Gendered Topics

The data presented thus far have only been from members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the general session. The general session is open to everyone, but leaders also historically spoke at gender-­segregated priesthood and women’s sessions each year. When investigating how quotation patterns from the Church’s top leaders shift in different sessions, it becomes apparent that these leaders are very aware of gender. Their awareness leads them, however, to continue privileging male voices. What is more, when these leaders are speaking on the topic of gender, they assert male authority more strongly than ever.

In the last twenty years, First Presidency members have used quotation differently when speaking to different audiences (table 5). Looking at quotations across the general, priesthood, and women’s sessions, several interesting trends become visible. First, past prophets are a more popular source in the priesthood session than in either of the other two, but the current prophet is cited far more in the women’s session (a statistically significant^[58] difference).^[59] Men are quoted more in priesthood (40.6 percent) compared to the general (36.8 percent) and women’s (36.6 percent) sessions. However, non-­leader men experience a drop of almost six percentage points when speakers are addressing only women.^[60] Similarly, women are quoted less in the priesthood session (1 percent)^[61] than in the general session (2.6 percent), and the most in the women’s session (3.7 percent).

Table 5: Gender Distrubtions by Session of Citations in Talks by Members of the First Presidency, April 2001–2020^a

	General Session	Priesthood Session	Women's Session
Total Female	2.6%	1.0%	3.7%
Total Male	36.8%	40.6%	36.6%
Scripture	34.7%	35.1%	28.8%
Jesus	18.9%	16.7%	20.4%
Male Scripture	15.8%	12.5%	16.2%
Past Prophet	5.8%	14.1%	5.2%
Other Male Source	8.7%	8.0%	2.6%
Apostle	4.3%	5.0%	3.7%
Church Publication	3.3%	3.2%	5.8%
Non-Gendered Source	1.8%	3.2%	4.2%
Current Prophet	2.1%	0.6%	8.9%
Other Female Source	2.5%	0.8%	2.6%
God	1.9%	0.2%	0.0%
Male Leader	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
Female Leader	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
Female Scripture	0.0%	0.0%	1.0%
Couple	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%

a. Total General Session citations: 726; Priesthood: 524; Womens: 191

These numbers are an acknowledgment that the gender of a source matters. If leaders were not aware of the gender of their sources, there would not be this kind of variation between sessions. These numbers are also, then, an acknowledgment of audience. When Church leaders speak to women, they seem to find their audience less willing to take men’s voices seriously without high-­level Church authority; hence the drop in quotations of non-­leader men. However, when the Church’s highest leaders speak in the general session, they appear to think those male voices will be almost as respected as with an all-­male audience. This indicates that men are still in some ways the perceived audience, or perhaps the more important one, in a mixed-­gender group. And, as a group, men are perceived to grant female voices significantly less authority than male ones.

The notable increase in citation of the current prophet in women’s session by men is almost certainly due to the fact that quotation practices are responsive to topic as well. When discussing the origins of the Church, speakers are more likely to quote Joseph Smith; when discussing the sins of the world, secular news sources are used more frequently. In the women’s session, speakers are more likely to discuss being a woman—but they are most likely to quote men, not women, to make their case.

The Church has become increasingly concerned with gender and sexuality as society has become more permissive toward same-­sex relationships and less “traditional” models of the nuclear family, both of which (history of polygamy aside) the Church rejects. Speakers often use their time in general conference to address these issues, with growing frequency and urgency. Talks entirely devoted to discussing gender,^[62] from speakers of any rank, have increased dramatically in the twenty-­first century. Between 1970 and 1989, which included the contentious period of the Church’s fight against the Equal Rights Amendment, ten talks were given solely^[63] on gender. In the 1990s, there were eight. In the 2000s, there were twenty-­three; in the 2010s, there were twenty-­five. The pattern appears to be set to continue. Though some leaders are more focused on these issues than others, the high rate of talks about gender is not due to just a few. Every prophet since Gordon Hinckley (who became president of the Church in 1995) has delivered multiple addresses on gender, as have fourteen different apostles.

Every decade, just over half of the talks about gender are given in the general sessions. The rest are usually addressed to women: eight in the 2000s, and ten in the 2010s. Attendees of the priesthood session have been the recipient of talks specifically focused on gender only twice a decade in that fifty-­year period.^[64] Though “gender roles” sounds gender inclusive, these conference addresses generally are not. While discussions of sexuality are disproportionately aimed at gay men,^[65] gender is a women’s issue. True manhood will sometimes make an appearance, but good womanhood is the primary focus of these addresses, even when delivered to men. One might assume, then, that this difference between the men’s and women’s sessions would be due to female leaders’ focus on gender roles, but this is not the case. Only four of the eighteen talks about gender in the women’s session between 2001 and 2020 were given by women. The rest were given by the First Presidency. This is not to say that women do not speak often about gender roles; women gave eleven of the twenty-­six talks about gender in the general session in that time period. But the prophet and apostles speak on these topics far more often than any other group, and it is notable that they do so far more to women than to men. Male conference speakers who are not apostles almost never devote their talks to the subject.

In the context of authority in the Church, such patterns make sense. Because gender is the subject of developing Church doctrine, only the most powerful leaders have the appropriate ecclesiastical authority to make claims about these issues. When all such leaders are male, this means that discourses on gender are a male domain, regardless of how egalitarian their arguments may be. Quotations in these talks, though small in number (101 in this subset), provide further evidence of this. In talks by the First Presidency about gender between 2001 and 2020 (table 6), quotes from current leaders are much higher than in the First Presidency’s total average (shown in table 5). Members of the First Presidency quote the current prophet nearly six times more frequently when they are talking about gender (14.9 percent) than they do on average (2.5 percent).^[66] The six total citations from female sources represent a higher percentage (6.0 percent) than elsewhere from these speakers, but female leaders of the Church are not among those quoted. Specifically male voices, in comparison, still make up nearly 40 percent of the total.

Table 6: Gender Distribution of Citations in Talks about Gender and Sexuality from Members of the First Presidency, April 2001–2020^a

Scripture (Not Gendered)	25.7%
Jesus	19.8%
Current Prophet	14.9%
Male Scripture	9.9%
Apostle	9.9%
Non-Gendered Source	5.9%
Other Female Source	4.0%
Prophet	3.0%
Church Publication	3.0%
Female Scripture	2.0%
Couple	1.0%
Other Male Source	1.0%

a. Total citations: 101

It is perhaps surprising that leaders choose to rely so much more heavily on men’s voices when talking to women about how to be good women. This can be seen as both an appeal to established authority and an attempt to establish it. Gender and sexuality are two issues on which church members find themselves most at odds with mainstream Western culture, so leaders must increasingly support their arguments with the weightiest religious authorities. On the other hand, many church members are also at odds with Church leadership about these issues, with increasing numbers of young people leaving the Church over its position.^[67] In continually emphasizing the current prophet’s authority by citing him, these speakers are working in part to maintain the Church’s jurisdiction over these topics. Quotation is one tool to enforce male hierarchical church authority when addressing the issues that most threaten it.

This reliance is stronger than ever in the Nelson era.^[68] Oaks’s 2019 address at the women’s session quoted Nelson eight times out of twelve, along with the First Presidency and past Church president Kimball.^[69] Eyring also used Nelson as three of his five total quotes (the other two from scripture) in his 2019 talk on gender, telling women to “remember President Nelson’s perfect description of a woman’s divine mission—including her mission of mothering.”^[70] Neither speaker drew on women’s voices to describe women’s divine mission or anything else.

When looking at gender-­segregated sessions, it becomes apparent that the gender of both audience and source inform leaders’ quotation practices. It also becomes clear that leaders consistently prioritize men. Though conference speakers seem to believe that women see men without ecclesiastical authority as less authoritative than men do, that belief does not impact their quotation practices when men as well as women are in the audience. In this way, they treat their male listeners as more important than their female ones. Though apostles tend to quote women more often when talking to women, they also quote male leaders more often when talking about women. Women’s voicelessness elsewhere in the Church culminates in apostles’ choices to exclude female voices and prioritize male leaders when talking about womanhood.

Women Quoting Men

In the previous sections, this article has examined quotation patterns only from members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and First Presidency. Women have been quoted less, acknowledged less, and, by implication, seen as less authoritative than men. The highest authorities of the Church have indirectly used their voices in general conference not to elevate women but to emphasize male power, especially in the spaces that impact women most. These patterns also have an impact on how female leaders perceive themselves and their audience. The same analysis of quotation patterns from female leaders’ conference talks reveals that women also treat female voices as less authoritative than male ones—including their own.

On average, female leaders spend the greatest percentage of their talks quoting, more than any other group of conference speakers. Between 2016 and 2020, members of the First Presidency spent 15.5 percent of their talks on quotation,^[71] while members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spent 18.6 percent of their time quoting. Male leaders in other positions spent 16.9 percent of their time quoting, and female leaders spent 21.4 percent. These differences are both statistically significant^[72] and revealing. When the leaders who spend the most time using their own words are the most powerful, it is telling that the leaders who spend the least time doing so are female.^[73]

Not only do women spend more of their time than male leaders repeating others’ words, they also spend even more time quoting male sources than male leaders do. Like the First Presidency, women’s talks about gender include a heavy emphasis on quotations from the current prophet and other leaders. The women’s talks in the April 2020 session were perhaps the starkest possible example of this pattern: two of the three female leaders spoke on gender roles, and video footage of church president Nelson speaking was also inserted in the middle of their addresses. (Neither of the talks about gender roles given by male leaders had video segments.^[74])

This pattern of female speakers focusing on male voices is not limited by topic, however. Since female leaders began speaking regularly in the general sessions (1988–2020), 5.7 percent of female leaders’ quotations in the general sessions were from female sources, while 42.0 percent of them were from male sources (table 7). Between 2011 and 2020, female leaders quoted men 46.6 percent of the time—fully fifteen percentage points higher than the frequency with which apostles quoted men in the general session during that same time period (31.7 percent). Even when they are quoting women, female leaders treat them as less authoritative than similarly positioned male sources: female leaders completely verbally cite 68.4 percent of their male sources with no ecclesiastical authority, but only 47.8 percent of their non-­leader female sources. This is a greater disparity than in apostles’ talks (shown in table 3). In the women’s session, where female leaders quote women the most (13.2 percent of the time), they still quote men more than twice as frequently as they quote women (30.9 percent). Between 2016 and 2020, almost eight out of ten gendered quotations from female leaders have been male. By comparison, male conference speakers in other leadership positions^[75] in those years quoted men 40.7 percent of the time in the general session and 32.2 percent in the priesthood session, while quoting women 1.9 percent of the time to their mixed-­gender audience and not once to their all-­male one.

Table 7: Breakdown of Gendered Quotations in April General Session Talks Given by Female Leaders, 1988–2020^a

Total Female	5.7%
Total Male	41.9%
Scripture	28.4%
Male Scripture	12.3%
Jesus	11.8%
Past Prophet	9.8%
Apostle	9.8%
Church Publication	8.6%
Current Prophet	6.8%
Other Female Source	3.9%
Other Male Source	3.2%
Non-Gendered Source	2.7%
Female Leader	1.4%
God	0.5%
Female Scripture	0.4%
Couple	0.2%

a. Total citations: 559

If quotation in general conference is about drawing upon the authority of quoted sources, it might be surprising to see female leaders quoting male sources so often instead of even more authoritative sources like God or the scriptures. Indeed, female leaders tend to quote Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ less frequently (12.3 percent of the time) than apostles do (19.7 percent between 1988 and 2020).^[76] Women are not just quoting any male source, however: they are overwhelmingly quoting male Church leaders in an appeal to institutional authority. This is increasing over time: between 1988 and 2010, 19.8 percent of female leaders’ quotations came from male leaders, but between 2011 and 2020, that number went up to 37.5 percent—twenty-­two times the percentage of their quotations that comes from female leaders. Of these citations, women are quoting current leaders sitting on the stand behind them fully two out of three times. In this way, at least, women’s access to authority is mediated by male priesthood holders rather than coming directly from God.

Comparing this to quotation patterns from male leaders who are not apostles indicates that female leaders’ emphasis on apostles’ authority is not just due to women’s lower leadership positions. Between 2016 and 2020, non-­apostle leaders quoted current and past apostles 19.4 percent of the time.^[77] This is more frequent than apostles’ own quotations of fellow apostles in this time period (16.5 percent), but far less frequent than female leaders’ quotations of apostles (28.2 percent). Of the leaders they quoted, non-­apostle men also quoted living apostles less frequently than women did (57.8 percent as opposed to 61 percent). Just because these male leaders are not quoting apostles as often as women are does not mean that they are less comfortable with male authority, however: 95 percent of their gendered citations in the general session are from men, as are 100 percent of their gendered citations in the priesthood session. Where non-­apostle men have not quoted a woman once in the April priesthood sessions over those five years, 11.9 percent of their quotations in that session are from men without any ecclesiastical authority. Male leaders consistently treat male voices as authoritative, but they do not draw upon male ecclesiastical authority to the same extent that female leaders do. It appears that even the most powerful female leaders in the Church need to appeal more frequently to ecclesiastical authority because they do not themselves have the same access to it as men.

Female leaders’ quotation of apostles and prophets might be seen as their own active affirmation of male authority, deliberately directed at a potentially skeptical female audience. However, it is difficult to imagine that female leaders are even more invested in the maintenance of the prophets’ and apostles’ authority than those men are themselves—that is, the fact that female leaders quote male leaders more than any other group of speakers (and female leaders only 2 percent of the time) looks more like an attempt to draw on male authority to bolster their own credibility. Instead, female leaders’ quotation patterns indicate an investment in promoting female authority: when speaking to an all-­female audience,^[78] they quote both regular women and female leaders far more frequently than men do when addressing only women. The drop in quotations of women when men enter the audience, however, suggests that female speakers may not believe they have the power to follow through on that investment in a broader Church setting.^[79] These quotation patterns indicate that the highest-­ranking female leaders of the Church continue to rely upon male priesthood authority in order to be taken seriously, by women and by men. Male leaders’ quotation patterns reveal that women lack authority compared to men in the Church; female leaders’ quotation patterns are a direct result.

Conclusion

Those concerned with the role of women in the Church can cite a litany of statements from Church leaders over the last fifty years that claim that the Church both empowers women and relies upon empowered women.^[80] In 2015, for example,^[81] then-­apostle Russell Nelson quoted Boyd Packer’s 1978^[82] encouragement to women, saying, “We need women who are organized and women who can organize. We need women with executive ability who can plan and direct and administer; women who can teach, women who can speak out.”^[83] As prophet in 2019, Nelson reaffirmed, “As a righteous, endowed Latter-­day Saint woman, you speak and teach with power and authority from God. Whether by exhortation or conversation, we need your voice teaching the doctrine of Christ. We need your input in family, ward, and stake councils. Your participation is essential and never ornamental!”^[84]

Intentionally or not, these same leaders consistently engage in rhetorical practices that undermine these stated commitments. The overwhelming imbalance in quoting men and women reveals conference speakers’ belief, conscious or otherwise, that their audience respects male voices more than female ones. While much has changed for women in the Church over the last half-­century, much remains the same. Women consistently make up less than 3 percent of quotations in general conference. They are still described in terms of their appearance and relationship status; sermons about how they should live are the domain of male authority; their own representatives in the Church spend much of their time at the pulpit repeating male leaders’ words. Despite leaders’ claims that women speak and teach with power and authority, their quotation practices diminish that authority and frequently deny women the opportunity to speak at all.^[85] Quoting women more is one opportunity for leaders to practice what they preach and affirm female authority to the worldwide Church. Quotation in general conference matters because general conference matters: it is the most important event on the institutional Church calendar, with millions of members viewing the talks live and many more engaging with them repeatedly in Church magazines and Sunday curricula over several years. Short of small and large changes to the leadership structure of the Church, general conference is one key avenue through which leaders could demonstrate that women’s participation in the Church really is essential. Right now, their quotations show, it is not even ornamental.

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Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

^[1]This research was made possible by a Chappell Lougee Scholarship in summer 2017 and a Major Grant in summer 2018 from Stanford University. I would like to thank Lee Yearley, Kathryn Gin Lum, and Robert Daines for supporting those grants, Tom Bryan for help with the statistics, and Peter Bryan, Anita Wells, Rosalynde Welch, Gordon Blake, Tyler Johnson, members of the Cambridge First Ward Relief Society, and Dialogue reviewers for thoughtful comments on various drafts.

1. Joy Jones, “An Especially Noble Calling,” April 2020.

^[2]. A young girl spoke briefly in the filmed meeting with Nelson.

^[3] Though terms referring to sex (female/male) and terms referring to gender (women/men) are not equivalent, they are used interchangeably in this article.

^[4] Russell Nelson, “Spiritual Treasures,” October 2019.

^[5] Gary Shepherd and Gordon Shepherd, “Modes of Leader Rhetoric in the Institutional Development of Mormonism,” Sociological Analysis 47 no. 2 (1986): 127, original emphasis. Statistical analysis of general conference rhetoric is becoming more popular: others who have recently engaged on this front include Quentin Spencer and blogger Ziff at Zelophehad’s Daughters.

^[6] Though general conference happens twice a year, because of time constraints I chose to only study one session per year. Because the April conference often falls on Easter or the anniversary of Joseph Smith’s First Vision, the New Testament and Joseph Smith may be overrepresented in my data. However, my analysis of trends and changes over time should not be impacted, because those events happen every April.

^[7] In 1984, the recently released Relief Society and Young Women’s presidencies were invited to give short farewell talks. This marked the first time women had spoken in the general session in more than fifty years, but women did not become regular speakers until 1988.

^[8] I only counted direct quotation: ideas that were paraphrased or attributed to a source without actual words from that source were not documented. I also did not count dialogue within narratives, though I did count quotations by characters that explained the “moral of the story,” as well as stories that were told entirely in someone else’s voice.

^[9] The actual process of writing and editing conference talks is opaque. Many people other than the speaker might contribute to any one address. Spencer Kimball’s biography, for example, includes a story about Emma Lou Thayne reviewing a draft of his address to the first women’s session, where he apparently adopted many of her suggestions. Edward Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 167. Even potentially ghostwritten conference talks, however, should be seen as written from the position of the speaker’s authority.

^[10] Richard Armstrong, “Researching Mormonism: General Conference as an Artifactual Gold Mine,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 30, no. 3 (1997): 164.

^[11] Sheri Dew, Ezra Taft Benson: A Biography (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987), 380.

^[12] Armstrong, “Researching Mormonism,” 164.

^[13] “Conferences,” Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

^[14] The audio of the original delivery and the transcript later published in Church magazines will sometimes differ in small and large ways. I chose to rely on the published transcripts, which Church spokespeople have claimed represent the “speaker’s intent.” See for example “LDS Church Addresses Changes Made to Pres. Packer’s Talk,” Ksl.com, October 8, 2010.

^[15] Ruth Finnegan, Why Do We Quote? (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2018), 284.

^[16] For one persuasive example of this technique, see Taylor Petrey, Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020).

^[17] This practice is much less common now than it used to be, likely in part because of the way the internet has changed source availability. For uses throughout the years, see for example Marvin Ashton, “Roadblocks to Progress,” April 1979; Thomas Monson, “Building Your Eternal Home,” April 1984; James Faust, “The Power of Self-Mastery,” April 2000; Joseph Wirthlin, “The Abundant Life,” April 2006; and Thomas Monson, “Preparation Brings Blessings,” April 2010.

^[18] One particularly interesting feature of Bartlett’s is that it is organized by the person who said the quotation rather than topic, so speakers who cited it would have to be looking for the source. However, it is possible that speakers use these collections for citations only, rather than finding quotations within them.

^[19] For example, of the fifty general conferences in my sample, Thomas Monson spoke at forty-seven of them.

^[20] Changes involving a population over time can happen for many reasons. For example, the population might change as it ages, or because the composition of the population changes, or because various events impact all members of the population. I argue that many changes in conference quotation can be attributed to this last source. Again, shifts in conference quotation happen more quickly than cohort changes in Church leaders, and though these leaders are all aging, the age range between the group is often as high as thirty years in the decades covered here. These broad-scale changes in general conference are unlikely to be due solely to changes in private attitudes among speakers.

^[21] While percentage changes can look particularly dramatic when they are changes in small values, these particular changes are worth noting. For context, between 1971 and 1980, the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency quoted current apostles nine times and the current prophet fifteen times; between 2011 and 2020, they quoted current apostles twenty times and the current prophet fifty-two times.

^[22] Armstrong, “Researching Mormonism,” 164.

^[23] Latter-day Saint thinkers have long acknowledged the different roles played by scripture, prophetic pronouncements, and personal revelation in Church doctrine and practice. See, for example, David Holland, “Revelation and the Open Canon in Mormonism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism, edited by Terryl Givens and Philip Barlow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Other scholars make additional distinctions. Holbrook and Reeder’s At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2017) notes that women draw on authority from their Church positions, their expertise, their experiences and conviction, and their access to the Holy Spirit. Writing about the early Church, Jonathan Stapley distinguishes between “ecclesiastical authority, derived from Church office; liturgical authority, derived from membership in the Church to participate in general rituals of worship; and priestly authority, derived from participation in the Nauvoo Temple liturgy or cosmological priesthood.” Jonathan Stapley, The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 85.

^[24] Finnegan, Why Do We Quote?, 57.

^[25] Though conference speakers sometimes quote sources in order to disagree with them, this is quite rare.

^[26] Spencer Kimball, “Our Sisters in the Church,” October 1979.

^[27] Jean Bingham, “United in Accomplishing God’s Work,” April 2020.

^[28] Bingham, “United in Accomplishing God’s Work.”

^[29] “Influence” frames a woman’s power as something that manifests in others’ words and actions rather than in her own words and actions.

^[30] See, for example, Gordon Hinkley, “The Women in Our Lives,” October 2004.

^[31] Nelson, “Spiritual Treasures.”

^[32] C. S. Lewis was only quoted seven times in my sample, less than other figures like Alexander Pope, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

^[33] I did not set out to collect data on race, but it is notable and unsurprising that people of color (setting aside questions about race in the scriptures) are referenced in general conference far less than even women. In my sample, of the eighty-one named individuals not in Church leadership who were quoted more than once in the April general session by apostles, only one was not White: Abie Turay, who was quoted in Henry Eyring, “Is Not This the Fast that I Have Chosen,” April 2015.

^[34] Quoted in Dallin Oaks, “Spiritual Gifts,” March 1986.

^[35] I counted male sources as those that were either gendered male by a speaker’s verbal citation or footnoted citations from men.

^[36] In what follows, quotations attributed to Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ are never included in the male/female ratios. However, divinity in the Church is not outside of gender. See, for example, D. Todd Christofferson, “Let Us Be Men,” October 2006. Readers are encouraged to consider the impact of an embodied male divinity on these quotation patterns and on the Church. No potentially quotable texts are attributed to Heavenly Mother or to the male-gendered Holy Ghost.

^[37] Even with gender-neutral verbal citations, the scriptures quoted continue to have been almost entirely written by men.

^[38] This includes God, Jesus, Male Scriptures, Female Scriptures, Not Gendered Scriptures.

^[39] This includes Non-Gendered, Church Publication, and Couple.

^[40] Women make up 9.73 percent of 1,801 total citations.

^[41] This includes Past Prophets, Current Prophets, Apostles, Male Church Leaders, and Female Church Leaders.

^[42] In that same talk, Oaks also quoted three past Church presidents, three apostles (two living), The Family: A Proclamation to the World, the D&C, and Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. See Dallin Oaks, “The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood,” April 2014.

^[43] Current non-apostle male leaders have, however, been quoted in the general session three times.

^[44] Spencer Kimball, “The Privileges and Responsibilities of Sisters,” September 1978.

^[45] Out of seventy and sixty-five total citations, respectively.

^[46] Women are cited significantly more frequently in 2010–2020 than overall (using a one-sided t-test, p=0.004). However, women are not cited significantly more frequently in 2016–2020 than overall (p=0.254).

^[47] Some quote far more often than others: Neal Maxwell averaged twenty-four quotations per talk (almost all scripture), while Richard Scott averaged 4.5.

^[48] While women make up less than 2 percent of quotations of Church leaders, for example, they make up closer to 5 percent of conference talks.

^[49] One initial difficulty with using verbal citation to assert women’s authority is the lack of authority titles for women in the Church. Though there has been a recent push to refer to female presidents as presidents, women were not referred to as “President X” in my sample.

^[50] One additional way to determine the authority of a source is to look at the average length of quotations from that source. In a quotation from an authoritative source, what matters most is the presence of the source, rather than what is said. This is borne out by the data, as the current prophet has the lowest average word count of all non-scriptural sources. (In part because of a frequent conference pattern of weaving short phrases from scripture into one’s talk, scriptural sources had the lowest average word count of all sources.) Non-leader women have the highest average word count of all groups. This indicates that when women are quoted, they are quoted for content—meaning, again, that they are not quoted for source. The average length of quotes from women is also in part because of the frequency of narrative quotes from women.

^[51] Using a two-sided t-test, p<0.0001, t=4.902.

^[52] Quentin Cook, “The Lord is My Light,” April 2015.

^[53] It is worth noting that leaders have become more reticent about using career status as a credential over time.

^[54] Gary Stevenson, “A Good Foundation Against the Time to Come,” April 2020.

^[55] These patterns are present in many elements of conference talks besides quotation: leaders often tell stories that consistently mention women’s appearance, feature them only in their familial roles while men are discussed in a variety of settings, anonymize women even when they are the main characters of the story, and so forth. One memorable example was Cook’s 2011 talk, “LDS Women are Incredible!” (taking its title from a Wallace Stegner quote), which told the story of Young Women’s leaders digging through a young woman’s purse and finding items inside that demonstrate her spirituality, attention to personal hygiene, craft-making creativity, and ability to be “a HOMEMAKER!” Quentin Cook, “LDS Women are Incredible!,” April 2011 (original emphasis). Such a story would never be told about a man.

^[56] See for example James Faust, “Father, Come Home,” April 1993; L. Tom Perry, “Fatherhood, An Eternal Calling,” April 2004; D. Todd Christofferson, “Fathers,” April 2016.

^[57] See, for example, Dallin Oaks, “The Relief Society and the Church,” April 1992; D. Todd Christofferson, “The Moral Force of Women,” October 2013; Russell Nelson, “Sisters’ Participation in the Gathering of Israel,” October 2018; and Henry Eyring, “Covenant Women in Partnership with God,” October 2019.

^[58] Using a one-sided t-test, p=0.00001.

^[59] Note that women’s session data is only from the First Presidency; members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles more frequently quote the current prophet, but they do not speak in women’s session and so are not represented here. It might be that citations of the current prophet are lower in the priesthood and general sessions because the prophet usually speaks in those sessions, while he has only spoken at every women’s session more recently. This might be part of the story; however, as shall be shown below, there is also a difference in content in the talks given at the women’s and priesthood sessions that accounts for a greater number of citations of the current prophet. In the last few years, the current prophet has been frequently cited in the women’s session even when he is present.

^[60] This difference is statistically significant: p=.02 using a one-sided t-test.

^[61] The 0.2 percent appearance of female leaders in the priesthood session is due entirely to a story narrated by Eliza Snow in James Faust, “Perseverance,” April 2005.

^[62] I use gender to cover talks dealing with both male and female gender roles and sexual orientation. Speakers usually tie sexuality closely to gender roles: heterosexual marriage is a key element of required masculinity and femininity.

^[63] Gender and sexuality were mentioned in more than ten talks: homosexuality and women working outside the home, in particular, made their way onto several litanies of modern-day evils. However, gender was the primary topic of only a few of those addresses.

^[64] I did not count addresses about being good priesthood holders as talks about gender unless the speaker also mentioned maleness. Where leaders have repeatedly insisted that all women are mothers, whether or not they actually have children (see for example Nelson, “Sisters’ Participation”) men’s relationship with the priesthood is not discussed in the same terms.

^[65] See Petrey, Tabernacles of Clay, for a more extensive discussion of this issue.

^[66] This difference is statistically significant: p<0.0001 using a one-sided t-test.

^[67] Jana Riess, The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

^[68] Citations of Nelson make up 7.7 percent of apostles’ quotations in general sessions since his calling as prophet, while the current prophet made up only 2.0 percent of quotations in previous years. Monson, the prophet preceding Nelson, was quoted 2.2 percent of the time. Nelson is quoted significantly more than other prophets (p<0.0001, t=11.8 using a two-sided t-test) and significantly more than Monson (p<0.0001, t=8.32 using a two-sided t-test).

^[69] Dallin Oaks, “Two Great Commandments,” October 2019.

^[70] Eyring, “Covenant Women.”

^[71] This is measured by dividing the total word count of the address with the total word count of quotations within the address. It may not map exactly to speaking time.

^[72] Women spend a significantly greater portion of their talks in quotation than other groups of leaders (p=0.002, t=11.9 using a two-sided t-test) and the First Presidency spends significantly less than other groups (p=0.04, t=2.7 using a two-sided t-test).

^[73] It may be surprising that apostles quote more than other male leaders, but this can be attributed to other rhetorical differences. For example, male leaders who are not apostles tend to spend a larger percentage of their talks telling stories rather than discoursing authoritatively, which reduces the number of quotations in their addresses.

^[74] The only other video appearance that conference was in Nelson’s address, which was not about gender. He showed a video of himself in the Sacred Grove.

^[75] Members of the Presiding Bishopric, Presidency of the Seventy, Quorum of the Seventy, or presidencies of the Young Mens and Sunday School.

^[76] This ratio has remained relatively stable over time.

^[77] Apostles are the only group of leaders that consistently quote each other. Non-apostle men quote each other only 0.2 percent of the time.

^[78] Excepting, of course, the First Presidency members on the stand.

^[79] Alternatively, this drop might indicate that female leaders do not believe that female voices should be treated authoritatively by men. This seems unlikely given their presence in general conference and on mixed-gender leadership panels, however limited that presence may be.

^[80] Whether leaders’ views of female empowerment are indeed empowering is another question.

^[81] See also Spencer Kimball, “The True Way of Life and Salvation,” April 1978; and Gordon Hinkley, “Live Up to Your Inheritance,” October 1983.

^[82] Boyd Packer, “The Relief Society,” October 1978.

^[83] Russell Nelson, “A Plea to My Sisters,” October 2015.

^[84] Nelson, “Spiritual Treasures.”

^[85] Dorice Elliot, “Let Women No Longer Keep Silent,” in Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, edited by Maxine Hanks (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), 209–11.

[post_title] => Quoted at the Pulpit: Male Rhetoric and Female Authority in Fifty Years of General Conference [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 55.4 (Winter 2021): 1–50
While much has changed for women in the Church over the last half-­century, much remains the same. Women consistently make up less than 3 percent of quotations in general conference. They are still described in terms of their appearance and relationship status; sermons about how they should live are the domain of male authority; their own representatives in the Church spend much of their time at the pulpit repeating male leaders’ words. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => quoted-at-the-pulpit-male-rhetoric-and-female-authority-in-fifty-years-of-general-conference [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-11-14 23:46:27 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-11-14 23:46:27 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=31423 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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Podcast version of this Personal Essay.

I am the youngest of three sisters, reared as a Protestant in the Illinois suburbs of Chicago. My mother was a nurse who returned to working when I was in my late elementary school years. Her mother was a nurse, too, a Swedish immigrant who arrived in Rockford, Illinois, at the age of ten in 1890.

My mother was creative, generous, and hospitable. Throughout my school years, we hosted guests through various international programs from Germany, Argentina, Japan, and Iran. When I was twelve, my sisters, mother, and I traveled to see my mother’s relatives who still lived in Sweden and then went on a whirlwind tour of Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, France, and England.

Mom had the loudest voice and strongest opinions in the household. She was determined and committed to her sometimes eccentric opinions. She had a unique approach to allergies, believing that any ailment—from car sickness to cancer—could be attributed to something ingested or inhaled from the environment. For example, she was convinced that my unsettled tummy after car rides to my grandparents’ house in Chicago (which I attribute to being squashed between my parents in the front seat and driving forty-five minutes on bumpy roads) was a reaction to my grandmother’s gas stove and gas heating, to which I was surely too sensitive.

Armed with her strong beliefs, Mom petitioned the school board in our town to allow me to go to high school a year early because the middle school being built would have gas heating, which she insisted would have a deleterious effect on my health. I went to high school a year early. After earning straight As my first term, the school board decided I was officially a freshman and didn’t have to do any catch-up work.

Because there were no boys in our family, I just assumed that girls could do whatever they wanted to if they put their minds and hearts into it. My dad was as good a chef as my mother, and Sunday dinners were always his delicious domain. They both had honorable jobs making the world better. Gender didn’t count for much other than which bathroom I used at school. And as far as racial distinctions went, and as far as Christ was concerned, that had surely been settled long ago. I brought home 1960s civil rights songs from junior Bible camp and sang them joyfully: “And before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free!”

I read the scriptures as my pastors and my own questions led me—seeking truth from the Good Book (and balking at some of Paul’s wilder sexist remarks just as I balked at some of my mother’s odd conclusions). The words to John Oxenham’s hymn “In Christ There Is No East or West” led me along my path:

In Christ there is no east or west,
in him no south or north,
but one great fellowship of love
throughout the whole wide earth.
Join hands, disciples of the faith,
whate’er your race may be.
All children of the living God
are surely kin to me.

I was a faithful Christian girl who had, as the Protestant parlance pronounced, a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” (I have been Jesus’ girl for as long as I have conscious memories. I still am.) I was very involved in our church’s youth group and served as its president. Despite it still being the 1960s, I seriously considered becoming a pastor “when I grew up”—at that time a rare and radical profession for women.

During my senior year in high school, I became close friends with an LDS girl in my class whose family had recently moved to our town from Utah. She and I found we had a lot of common ground in matters of faith. She invited me to her house for dinner and to meet the missionaries. When they asked me if I wanted to learn even more about Jesus Christ, I said, “Of course!”

Ten months later, as a freshman at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, I felt I would never get a satisfying answer to the dilemma in front of me: did God want me to become Mormon? I was happy and fulfilled in my Protestant faith. The concept the Mormons (as they were then called) taught that the gospel contains all truth^[1] was exciting and compelling. It was not a question of “by their fruits ye shall know them” because in terms of quality of character, I recognized there were spiritual giants in each place. There were also the kooky kind of “fruits” on full display in both traditions, too.

During an October visit from two missionaries at my freshman college dorm I had a pivotal experience that gave me a jolt of grace and love beyond anything I had previously experienced. It granted clarity that assured me God wanted me to become a Mormon.

At first, I interpreted the transcendence of that encounter as “Yes, it’s true!” Over the course of the intervening decades, I have come to realize that I didn’t (and still don’t) understand what the “it” in that exclamation refers to and what the adjective “true” fully means. Regardless of my constant wrestling with words and their meanings, I still consider that experience in my dorm room as among the “true-est” experiences I have ever had. It changed my life if not my blood type and continues to shape my journey of faith.

After I waited for two years (attending Cambridge’s university wards and even holding callings), my parents were persuaded that this was not just an adolescent whim and allowed me to be baptized, three days shy of my nineteenth birthday.

The LDS women I first encountered in New England were dynamic, eager, outspoken, questing, accomplished women. These included, among others, Claudia Bushman, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Judy Dushku, Grethe Peterson, Nancy Dredge, Jill Mulvay, Carrel Sheldon, Cheryl DiVito, Judy Gilliland, and Mimmu Sloan. A half-generation older than I, they were the embodiment of what I thought all Mormon women (and men, for that matter) would be—articulate, advocates of equal rights for all, and full of faith in Christ.

As part of an institute class these women researched the lives of the nineteenth-century Latter-day Saint foremothers, compiled their results, and published a book called Mormon Sisters in 1976.^[2] They also launched a new iteration of the nineteenth-century periodical Woman’s Exponent for LDS sisters and christened it Exponent II—basing it on the “twin pedestals of Mormonism and Feminism” as they had seen exemplified in the lives of Eliza R. Snow, Emma Hale Smith, Patty Bartlett Sessions, Martha Hughes Cannon, Emmeline B. Wells, and others.

I remember walking past an institute class in Cambridge. I heard Judy Dushku saying that when her colleagues at the college where she taught asked her, “How can you be a Mormon and a feminist?” she replied, “Of course I’m a feminist! It’s because I’m Mormon!” To me that sounded just right. Shouldn’t everyone—male and female—be a feminist if it means allowing each individual to achieve “the measure of their creation”?

Soon I was illustrating for Exponent II, then writing articles and eventually a column, and attending or presenting at Exponent retreats in lovely New England settings.

In September 1979, President Spencer W. Kimball gave an address called “The Role of Righteous Women.” In it he said:

Much of the major growth that is coming to the Church in the last days will come because many of the good women of the world (in whom there is often such an inner sense of spirituality) will be drawn to the Church in large numbers. This will happen to the degree that the women of the Church reflect righteousness and articulateness in their lives and to the degree that the women of the Church are seen as distinct and different—in happy ways—from the women of the world.^[3]

I wanted to be “righteous” and “articulate.” The way I understood it, LDS women I knew weren’t “claiming” power from anyone else’s domain. They were examples of owning the power inherent in them as daughters and heirs of God.

When, as a new mother, I moved with my husband Chris to Hyde Park on Chicago’s South Side, I met more examples of women (and men) who understood the amazing potential God has invested in each of us. Throughout the decades I discovered soulmates among more LDS women. My sister-friend Cathy Stokes, an African American convert to the Church, was straight-talking, outspoken, committed to the gospel (and Gospel music)—and was not-to-be-messed-with. Others continued to lead, guide, and walk beside me as examples of Christlike women-in-action.

Cathy Stokes is the one who introduced me to a hymn from her previous Baptist tradition. I often hum and sing its refrain. It’s called “Plenty Good Room”:

Plenty good room, plenty good room,
plenty good room in my Father’s kingdom,
Plenty good room, plenty good room,
Just choose your seat and sit down.

Over the course of many decades of Church membership I have, of course, discovered that sisters in the Church vary in their attitudes and confidence in recognizing, owning, and asserting their God-given powers. Not all women were nurtured on the laps of confident, committed women. Not all of them grew up under the influence of strong-minded mothers in a house full of females and a non-hierarchical father. There are aspects of our LDS culture that subtly—or directly from the pulpit—have been tainted by “the philosophies of men mingled with scripture.”^[4] There remains a lot of long-standing toxic rhetoric that women are somehow “less than,” subservient, or in need of covenantal “safety hatches.”

Some feel that “smashing the patriarchy” is the ultimate goal of what they define as “feminism.” That is not my opinion. Each of us—female and male—have power given us to serve and lead, speak out and nurture, preach doctrine, and clean the bathrooms in the ward building. I’m sure there are others who feel that distinct rules and roles must be enumerated and enforced. I generally diffuse the discontent that stirs in me by reminding myself that each of us approaches life from our own quadrant of the Myers–Briggs personality scale. Some like rules. Some function better with hazier boundaries. (That doesn’t resolve all the hurdles I come across in my life as a committed misfit among the Latter-day Saints, but it provides enough buffer of charity to keep me moving forward.) As I have assumed from my earliest years, Christ is our example. Can we hear him calling us as he did in 3 Nephi 10:4: “How oft have I gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and have nourished you?” I am persuaded that part of my (and, I believe, our Church’s) current task is to ensure that there is, in fact, “plenty good room” in God’s kingdom. Let us acknowledge our power from our divine heritage. Then let’s choose our seat and sit down.

---

Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

^[1] Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1997), 16.

^[2] Claudia Bushman, ed., Mormon Sisters (Cambridge, Mass.: Emmeline Press Limited, 1976).

^[3] Spencer W. Kimball, “The Role of Righteous Women,” Oct. 1979.

^[4] Hartman Rector Jr., “You Shall Receive the Spirit,” Ensign, Jan. 1974.

[post_title] => Assuming Power [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 54.1 (Spring 2021): 53–57
Some feel that “smashing the patriarchy” is the ultimate goal of what they define as “feminism.” That is not my opinion. Each of us—female and male—have power given us to serve and lead, speak out and nurture, preach doctrine, and clean the bathrooms in the ward building. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => assuming-power [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-10-19 01:44:30 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-10-19 01:44:30 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=27874 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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Women’s work has always been multifaceted and applied across all aspects of human experience. Women have filled many roles: queen, mother, inventor, artist, healer, politician, caretaker, prophet. Women’s voices have been loud and quiet, sometimes invisible but always present, on the vanguard or on the margins, leading, pushing, making change. Today more women have the opportunity to fill prominent leadership roles, many in spaces and with titles that until recently were occupied only by men. What follows is an interview with five women in roles that carry organizational power who fill them with hard-won confidence and ownership. They reflect on their own journeys to accept this power while honoring the roles that all women play in their individual spheres of influence. 

Anja Shafer: Deputy Chief Development Officer, Accion International. Anja leads the development team and oversees fundraising and sustain ability efforts for a global nonprofit organization focused on financial inclusion. 

Debbie Theobald: CEO, Vecna Technologies. Debbie leads daily operational oversight of the executive team, closing key deals, establishing business partnerships, and making final decisions on product roadmaps and strategic priorities. 

Mehrsa Baradan: Professor of Law, UC Irvine School of Law. Mehrsa teaches, researches, and writes about banking law, financial inclusion, inequality, and the racial wealth gap. 

Pandora Brewer: Senior Director of Store Operations, Crate and Barrel. Pandora’s team is the interface between the corporate office and stores. She oversees project management, resource development, cross-functional partnership, and escalated store support.

Erianne Weight: Associate Professor, University of North Carolina; Director, Center for Research in Intercollegiate Athletics. Erianne serves on executive committees of university and national governing bodies to direct policy and growth. She leads grants, consultancies, and research projects to facilitate data-driven decision-making in intercollegiate athletics. 

Were you ever uncomfortable with the power you have in your work place? If so, how did you overcome this and start “owning” your power? 

Erianne: Owning my power has come with time, work, sacrifice, and the slow realization that my voice is actually really valuable. For years I felt that those in positions of power above and beside me were better, more qualified, and their words carried more weight than mine. I felt lucky to have my position and felt a continual need to learn and grow in order to justify my worth and tackle my insecurities. Through the journey, I’ve been fortunate to always have an internal compass that has empowered me to speak up even in moments when my position was weak and speaking up was risky. These moments have defined my career and have opened doors that I felt were inaccessible. As I’ve worked more and more with executive teams, I’ve finally realized that people in positions of power are just regular people who have been in the game a little longer. These leaders are fallible and can handle being challenged, and good leaders—the type of people I want to work for—embrace feedback and appreciate diverse perspectives. They want me to speak up. The day I embraced my worth and realized I didn’t need to defer to the most powerful person in the room was the day I finally felt whole. I no longer had to pretend to be something or someone I thought I was supposed to be, but rather I had the confidence to be me and trust that my knowledge and perspectives were needed and that I could make a difference. 

Debbie: Sometimes when I am having a hard time owning my power, feeling it’s too hard and too much responsibility, I find it helpful to step away and look at it as if I was a bystander. I say to myself, “If I was in charge and coming in fresh, what would I do?” Inevitably, I am able to think of at least a few things that make sense and that I am not doing. Then I try to face the reason I’m not addressing the problems I see. Am I afraid? Am I blocked by something or someone? Do I need more information or help? By stepping outside that power, I have been able to admit when I am intimidated, undecided, or just plain scared of a reasonable action and I can come up with a plan or at least a step that helps me get closer to that integrity of knowing and doing. 

Pandora: In my first leadership position, I equated power with control and vertical authority, and I was resistant. I realized over time that if language creates reality, I was framing power incorrectly and to the detriment of my team. Power is both a positional responsibility and having the confidence within that role to empower others in their positional roles. In my current role, I have the power to make change, move work forward, create opportunities that support contribution, remove road blocks, help others feel valued, develop new leaders, and drive results I have helped define. Once I named my organizational power in a positive way, the motivation to perform to these expectations increased, as did my commitment to develop my own leadership skills. When I rally the team around meaningful work, every person should go home and feel like, “Thank goodness I showed up today, something would not have happened in the same way if I had not been there!” I own my power when I know each person on my team is saying this to them selves on their drive home. 

Have you had situations in which others are uncomfortable with your workplace power? Will you share an example and how you handled it? 

Mehrsa: Earlier in my career, when I looked much younger and I was teaching large classrooms full of first-year law students, I felt that they did not respect me. They were pretty obvious about it. I had to develop strategies to deal with this, which included smiling less and being more formal in the classroom. Over time, this has become easier, but it was really a battle to get students to treat me as a professor. There is this mom/girlfriend trope for female law professors where students treat you as either their mom (expect you to nurture them) or their girlfriend (expect you to be fun and cool, etc.). If female professors do either, they can’t have the authority to also teach or mentor. It’s been hard to push back against these expectations while also being kind. 

Debbie: I too experienced more difficulty as a younger woman working in a technology field with a majority of men. I also had to develop a different persona for business interactions that included less playful ness, laughing, smiling, or even socializing, as these were often seen as invitations to not be taken seriously. I found myself being a very different person and I don’t think I was wrong to do so. It is appropriate to set boundaries and present a professional front. As I’ve gotten older, it’s actually become easier as I have the confidence to let more of myself come through without sacrificing my credibility. More women have also entered the tech field, which is wonderful, so there are more of us to emulate. 

In addition, there are women who also feel threatened by power, which proves difficult when exercising power. I find it is more accept able to be more straightforward with male members of my team when I ask them to take on a task or when I give feedback than to use the same frank manner with women. Men are just as emotional as women, but the upfront cost of emotional caution just seems higher for women. 

Have you experienced any double standards because you’re a woman in power—like being considered “bossy” or fielding negative comments about your commitment to family? Will you share an example and how you handled it? 

Anja: I wish I could say no, but even in the most well-intentioned organizations, I think there are some attitudes that are hard to shake off. I had been counseled that I needed to be more aggressive if I wanted to be seen as a leader. Our COO (a man) adopted me as an informal mentee. He suggested I get some executive coaching to focus on not being seen as so accommodating and collaborative (female qualities). I did not have a great coaching experience with the coach he selected for me to work with. I felt like I was being asked to change my personality to conform to being more like the senior leadership team (more male). It was in discussing my frustration with a peer and colleague that I learned that her experience was completely the reverse. She was in a similar leadership position and was being asked to be less assertive so she would come across as less bossy and easier to work with. It was then that I realized that these were both excuses to keep us at arm’s length from the true power. 

Erianne: I’ve been very fortunate to have a lot of strong women leaders in my life, but interestingly, very few of these women had children. Because of this, I have always been really cautious about being too open about being a mother. Male colleagues often talk about their children and they are seen as great dads, but when women share anecdotes, we are often viewed as overly sentimental or distracted by our responsibilities at home. I love my children with all of my heart, but when I am at work, I rarely mention them. Being pregnant was difficult to hide, of course, and the years following pregnancies were when I received the comments that were frustrating and demoralizing—that I wouldn’t possibly be able to keep up with motherhood and my workload, that I’m less than the men in my department who don’t have the same responsibilities, that I was doing surprisingly well for being a wife and mother. I believe it is really important to model a workplace culture that is family-friendly, and I bring my children to my office or to appropriate events so my students, colleagues, and children know the importance of finding work–life harmony and integrating our most important assets into our work. However, when it comes to small talk, I generally focus on what is most important to the people I’m talking with and I shy away from family-centric topics.

As your career roles have increased in responsibility and prestige, has your relationship to religion and/or your religious community changed? If so, how? 

Mehrsa: Yes, it’s hard to shift from a position of leadership all week to a place where women cannot be top leaders no matter how competent. And I think many members of my community believe that you are not doing it right if you’re working. I have felt a lot of judgment by the church community for being a working mom, but I was not surprised by it. I knew when I decided to do both that I was going against what I had been told to do (or not to do), but I had an equally powerful force on the other side—my family culture—telling me that I should have a career. 

Debbie: I was very lucky that I moved to Cambridge from the DC area about four years into my career. I had three kids already and was finding no solace or direction in the gospel library regarding my innate ambition and professional potential. I was in a mental and spiritual death spiral focused on the anger of disparity between me and my husband in our roles and the betrayal of dreams that had been planted in my girlhood to be ripped away when I became a mother. The women of Cambridge First Ward gave me so many examples of accomplished Mormon women in the workplace, with their families, and in their partnerships that I was able to unwind the conundrums, cling to my positive experiences, and find my own path. It is critical to nurture and uphold this variety so that we can each find joy. I am sometimes disappointed with the power distribution at the higher levels of the Church, but I have found many ways to create, to start something new, pull people together, and do good with my religious community at my local level. And Exponent II does a good job of challenging my perspective so I don’t get lazy with platitudes I construct and are comfortable to me. 

Erianne: I believe the power I feel through my career has empowered me to care less about the traditional cultural pressures or perceptions of judgement that are often so detrimental. I very intentionally embrace the elements of the gospel and Church that I love and do my best to ignore or proactively change the elements that I am frustrated by, and if that’s not socially acceptable, I’ve found myself caring less and less about what others might think and more and more about how to be love-centric in all of my decisions and actions. 

Did you have any mentors—especially female mentors—who have helped you progress in your career? How did they help you? 

Anja: I’ve never had any formal female mentors, but I’ve definitely looked for women role models wherever I could find them. I am drawn to women who can combine compassion with power and have been fortunate to find many of them in the Exponent II community. In the workplace I have found many women who have been able to have a little more of everything (not “have it all”) as they balance home and work and personal interests. They don’t tend to have the most senior roles, but they do seem to be the most content and fulfilled in their significant roles. I think that has been the key that has sustained me through difficult career moments; when I’m not the managing director at thirty-five and beating myself up for not being as ambitious as I could be, I remember I also have three amazing kids, I love spending time with my husband, and I have hobbies and interests that are just as important or more so than my title or work responsibilities. 

Erianne: Having strong female mentors has also been really wonderful for me. There are so many women who have paved the way for my generation, and I am grateful for them every day. Our chancellor shared once that she has been told she’s too short, she smiles too much, her hair is too short, her hair is too long, her voice is too high, her voice isn’t loud enough, etc., and it was so comforting to hear because she is now likely the boss’s boss of anyone who might have doubted her ability, appearance, or delivery.

Pandora: I believe watching and learning from other leaders is critical. I have had many female bosses in my career, but I am particularly grateful for two who have had a tremendous influence on my development and confidence. The first has strong convictions and taught me to speak up but do it in a way that is clear, to the point, and focused on results. She gives feedback that promotes accountability and ensures you feel valued in your contribution. The other is a true feminist who invites discussion around work–life balance and women’s experience. She pushes me to own my longevity as power, leveraging institutional knowledge with the immediacy and relevance of analytics, market, and trend. We also have a very inspirational female CEO. She is brilliant, has a clear vision, and is very direct and open in her interactions. She commands respect in who she is and how she leads. It is exhilarating to see her in action. 

At this point in your career, what are you doing to help or mentor other women who are earlier in their careers? 

Anja: So often I still wonder, “What am I doing?” or “What do I want to be when I grow up?” The more I learn and experience, the more I recognize what I don’t know and how much more I still need to grow. I have, however, been told by junior staff that my example of leadership and family commitment has helped them see a path for themselves. I recognize that being more vocal as a potential supporter or advisor would be broadly helpful. Fortunately, my organization has a formal mentorship program and I often get asked to participate. That has allowed me to see myself as having some valuable experience to share and has encouraged me to offer more. 

Pandora: This is a role I have always taken seriously, and I try to engage in supportive conversations any chance I have. Certainly as a leader, one of my focuses is to grow new leaders and I prioritize developmental activities and discussions. But these have to be backed up by day-to day feedback, which I give immediately and specifically. It is especially important to help people see and own their strengths and personal power. Knowing what you do well is foundational to true confidence. I do this in and out of my team. I watch others very carefully and when I notice a peer who seems to be struggling, I will engage them with questions. This generally leads to an opportunity for them to talk and space to find their own resolution. I try to apply my own experience only to reinforce or to line up in solidarity; most people don’t need answers as much as reassurance that they have the answer after all. I also try to give perspective but am careful to not diminish the unique weight of their current reality. I make time for conversations and interactions with others. When someone says, “But you are so busy . . .,” I will assure them that helping them be successful in the organization is the most important work I can do. 

Mehrsa: I think this is the most important part of my job right now— to mentor my students and younger scholars. Many come to me to ask for advice and often I take my students aside and try to help them out. I try to help them out in the ways I wish someone had helped me. It’s so wonderful to see junior scholars and students thrive. It’s much better now than ten or twenty years ago, and I think the more of us who are involved in mentoring, the better it gets for the next group. 

[post_title] => Women in Workplace Power [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 53.1 (Spring 2020): 143–157
Women’s work has always been multifaceted and applied across all aspects of human experience. Women have filled many roles: queen, mother, inventor, artist, healer, politician, caretaker, prophet. Wom￾en’s voices have been loud and quiet, sometimes invisible but always present, on the vanguard or on the margins, leading, pushing, making change. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => women-in-workplace-power [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-04-28 17:52:30 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-04-28 17:52:30 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=25890 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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In our Church, we often see continual revelation and innovation. For years, we have watched men expand their roles in leadership callings. It comes as no surprise that there are LDS women who feel called by God to practice pastoral care in ways that go beyond what is currently defined and expected for women in our religion. Here we define pastoral care as a model of emotional and spiritual support; it is found in all cultures and traditions. In formal ways, we see women provide this type of care when they teach and lead in the auxiliaries, serve as ministering sisters, and serve missions. We also see this when a sister holds the hand of another during a difficult sacrament meeting or brings a casserole to a home where tragedy has struck. Women are well-trained to provide service as one of the ways to minister to their ward and stake community.

As these women show, ministry can be so much more. The path of ministry sometimes means going to divinity school, working as a lay minister, or even seeking ordination in a Christian tradition outside of the LDS Church where women can be ordained. We have asked the following women to share their stories about how they have expanded their ability to minister through theological education and their chosen pastoral vocations. As pioneers who are expanding the roles of ministry for Mormon women today, we also ask how the Church can enhance the traditional model of women’s ways of ministering and how this can be shaped by future generations.

Katie Langston converted to orthodox Christianity after struggling with Mormonism’s emphasis on worthiness. She is now a candidate for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and works at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Brittany Mangelson is a full-time minister for Community of Christ. She has a master of arts in religion from Graceland University and works as a social media seeker ministry specialist.

Rachel Mumford is the middle school chaplain at the National Cathedral School, an Episcopal school for girls in Washington, DC. She is an active participant in both Episcopal and LDS communities of faith, reflecting her Mormon heritage as well as the resonance she finds in Episcopal tradition.

Jennifer Roach is a formerly ordained pastor in the Anglican tradition. She is a recent convert to the LDS Church and had to walk away from her ordination in order to be baptized. She works as a therapist in Seattle.

Nancy Ross is a professor and ordained elder and pastor for the Southern Utah Community of Christ congregation.

Fatimah Salleh began life as Muslim, converted to the LDS Church as a teenager, and was recently ordained a Baptist minister after attending Duke Divinity School. Her call to ministry is part of a colorful journey into finding a God for all and for the least.

How do you think members of the Church traditionally define the role of women as ministers?

Brittany: “Ministry” or “ministers” are not words I heard much growing up LDS. Traditionally in the Church, the work of women is largely confined to what they can do to serve the youth, children, and other women. Women do not lead men and are expected to serve as a helpmeet to offer support. Women in the LDS church take great pride in being part of the Relief Society and do a fabulous job of networking with other women in compassionate services and ministries to their local congregations. As we have seen, however, women’s voices and spiritual gifts have virtually no place in major decision-making conversations. Most members do not seem overly bothered by this.

Rachel: I see this Church definition to be grounded in the idea of service to God through service to others. This draws from the meaning of “minister” as an agent acting on behalf of a superior entity. Until recent direction from Church leadership, members didn’t refer to the idea of “ministry” often, at least in my generation. What I have heard in the last year has been focused on developing a personalized relationship with other members of the ward, particularly those assigned through the ministering program, through attention to their various needs. It’s essentially visiting and home teaching, but with a more flexible, open-ended approach to connecting with others.

Katie: I’m not sure that “ministry” in general is a term that Mormons use very much; even the new home and visiting teaching programs are referred to as “ministering,” which connotes a particular action people take, as opposed to a “minister,” which confers a kind of identity. Having said that, my experience growing up in the 1980s and ‘90s was that women’s contributions to the community were expressed in terms of nurture and charitable service, with motherhood being extolled as the highest expression of this role.

How do you see your role as a minister? How is it different and how is it similar to the traditional Church model?

Nancy: A few months ago, I became the pastor of my congregation. I have had a lot of mentorship leading up to this and support now that it is my role. Being a pastor is very different from being a bishop, whose job it is to give counsel. My job as a pastor is mostly to listen and affirm that people are loved by God—that they are whole and worthy regardless of whatever brokenness they feel. I organize meetings and events, but I do so with the help of everyone in my congregation.

Fatimah: I view my role as a minister as being more expansive and deeper than the role in the LDS tradition. I am ordained to be present in hard circumstances, and I have to learn the skill set of presence work: how to show up at hospitals, prisons, at places of pain, and be emotionally and spiritually prepared to help others carry their pain.

In the hospital where a mother was saying goodbye to her son, who was killed in a drunk driving accident, I was called to the bedside, and I was called to walk with this mother in deep rage and grief. I wasn’t there to defend God but to hold grief and deep sadness with a mother. My job is not to fix or defend God and not to try to make hard situations okay.

Rachel: I carry the person-to-person ministering role in my LDS Church community, seeking to care for others in a way that feels genuine on both sides, to know one another and care for each other on the long journey of life. In addition, I also have a specific role in the spiritual leadership of my Episcopal school community. This is being a “minister” in the other sense, as a member of the clergy with a calling and responsibility to serve in an official capacity in the community. While I do not officiate in some aspects of the Episcopal liturgy that necessitate an ordained priest, I do work hand in hand—and heart in heart—with my fellow chaplains to plan and lead our services and offer pastoral care to our community.

Brittany: Along with three other women, I lead the entire congregation in worship, fellowship activities, community outreach, and education and development of our congregants. My ordination and status as a minister are pivotal to this work. I see my role as a pastoral presence in moments of crisis and in the midst of debilitating faith transitions. My job as a minister is a promise I have made to my church, to God, and to the people I serve that I am committed to peacemaking and reconciliation. I will be there to listen, to walk with, and to hold out an invitation to know a God who loves unconditionally.

Katie: I’m very Lutheran in the sense that I believe strongly in the priesthood of all believers and that all baptized Christians are called to ministry. My particular call as a public leader in the church makes me no more or less a minister than the nurse, teacher, entrepreneur, service worker, or garbage collector in the pews. The call of public leadership is to preach the gospel of grace, to administer the sacraments of baptism and communion to the people, to speak to contemporary matters of justice and morality, and to be present at the threshold moments of people’s lives: birth, death, and transitions of all kinds.

What are your spiritual gifts?

Brittany: I think my spiritual gifts are the ability to be fully present in the moment, to have true empathy, and to find a point of connection with almost anyone I meet. I am able to make people comfortable almost immediately, and that is simply an aspect of my personality. In many ways, I feel that our spiritual gifts are simply an extension of who we are. I use them constantly, not simply at church or when I’m engaged in church work. Developing them has benefited me in just about every aspect of my life.

Fatimah: One of my spiritual gifts is a love of the scriptures. I work with both other pastors and congregants to understand the scriptures in a way that shows them God and helps them hear God’s voice. In these works, I can see how social justice is carved out in the word of God.

Rachel: I have a seeking, hopeful heart. I find joy in asking questions about the nature of life, humanity, and divinity, and I marvel at the many ways that people have explored these questions over time and place. I can find existential wonder in the contour of a line, the dialogue of an ancient story, or the burst of sound. I can listen and I can love. I feel with others the range of joy through sorrow. I love the craft of words, I find spiritual expression in writing, and I revel in the spiritual tension and expanse of scripture, poetry, and story.

I feel most alive spiritually when I am teaching, writing, planning worship with others, or in one-on-one conversation. My work as a school chaplain feels truly like a vocation, being called through experience to the work where I can give with a whole heart. When I was applying to divinity school, I heard the quote from Frederick Buechner that “the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”[1] I have felt this as I have learned the work of a school chaplain, where I can celebrate the diverse gifts of my students and colleagues and affirm the creative work of making worship authentic. Mary Oliver wrote, “My work is loving the world.”[2] I feel this work deeply in my calling to sit with colleagues, parents, and young people, to listen, to hold with them what needs to be held, to laugh, to grieve, and to embrace life.

Nancy: I am still trying to figure this out. I give a lot of blessings, both in writing and in person. I can also organize stuff and get things done. This is really useful in church work. A few years ago, I had the idea that I wanted to create an interfaith service for Pride in my city. The main organizer for Pride was initially hesitant about a religious service, but he attended our event and had a good experience. Since that first event, I have been asked to coordinate a similar event for Pride every year. My get-stuff-done gifts have allowed me to build relationships of trust in the community. My congregation looks forward to demonstrating support for our local LGBTQ+ community each year. Pride has become an essential outreach event for our group.

Katie: I think I have spiritual gifts of communication and teaching. I have always been interested in writing and gravitated naturally toward a career in marketing and communications after college, where I’ve worked for about the last fifteen years. To a large extent, my current position in communications and innovation at Luther Seminary is a very meaningful expression of my ministry because I have a chance to help leaders develop more life-giving practices of forming Christian community and faith. I feel called to help reshape the public conversation around Christianity so that we can repent of what often amounts to petty and destructive tribalism in order to live into the liberating and world-expanding gospel of Jesus.

Jennifer: I think gifts change over the course of one’s life, and the kinds of gifts I previously needed, I don’t have much interest in anymore. These days I see my gifts in three areas. First, I know how to be with people in their grief. I will mourn with those who mourn. Second, I can help people escape from shame. Shame always destroys. Somehow, I see people’s shame and know how to help them out of it. I think Jesus did this a lot—helped people to see the God-given goodness in them. Third, I am on the lookout for the ones who are alone, lonely, left out, and sad. I find ways to include them and let them know the joy of feeling part of a group that accepts them.

What has most surprised you about finding your ministry?

Brittany: I’m continually surprised at how inadequate I feel, and yet when I show up prepared and open to God’s Spirit, things seem to work out exactly how they need to be. Sometimes, I feel like I need to have all the answers or to have all my “stuff” figured out, but the work I do wrestles with and sits in the uncertainty. God always shows up in those gray areas and I’m not sure that will ever stop surprising me.

Fatimah: I am a minister at a local Baptist church. When I first began this work, local pastors from many different Christian traditions would ask me to come preach to their congregations. At first, I was concerned as I tried to explain to a kind Pentecostal pastor that I was Baptist and couldn’t preach to his congregation because we weren’t from the same denomination. He looked at me like I had two heads. It was then that I realized pastoral vetting is very different outside of hierarchical churches like the LDS Church or the Roman Catholic Church. Most Christian pastors want to know a couple things: “Is this pastor engaging and thoughtful?” and “Do they know the word of God?” The religious tradition one belongs to doesn’t really matter to them.

Katie: I’ve been surprised at how hard it is. People are difficult everywhere you go, and church people are no exception. Ministry—and, ultimately, faith itself—is about wading through human brokenness and hoping against hope that God is somehow present in the midst of it, and that God’s promises of grace, forgiveness, and bringing life from death are real, even when it seems as if there’s only chaos and despair.

If you are ordained, how did you decide to take that step? Do you see that as a break or an enhancement of your religious life as a Latter-day Saint?

Fatimah: I attended divinity school because I didn’t know what to do with the call that was rumbling inside of me. I attended divinity school to wrestle with God. So, I went, and I wasn’t on ordination track. I considered myself a religious refugee. Then, I found a place through my internships as part of my program where I shadowed two pastors, one Methodist and one Baptist. Both of those pastors would inculcate me with a vision of ordination. I cannot thank those two men enough for seeing ordination in me and speaking life of ordination into me.

Jennifer: I was previously ordained and gave it up when I joined the LDS Church. I am a recent convert (baptized six months ago) and of all the things I had to give up, my ordination was probably one of the easiest because of what I believe the nature of ordination actually is. For me, ordination is a community’s way of naming the gifts that already exist in a person. I had been displaying the gifts of a pastor for many years before my ordination. My community simply decided to make it official. Walking away from my ordination doesn’t take those gifts away from me. I am still every bit the minister that I was before, it just looks different in the cultural context of the LDS world.

I had to seriously re-contemplate this about a month after my baptism when a new LDS friend told me, rather angrily, that I had made a mistake in giving up ordination, “You walked away from what we are all fighting so hard to obtain! What have you done?!” But as I sought to discern what this could mean for me, I knew that all the gifts I have been given are still intact: compassion, a non-judgmental approach, and the ability to diffuse someone else’s shame. Those are gifts God gave me, not a church system, so no church system can take them away.

Brittany: I would not consider myself a Latter-day Saint any longer and see my ordination as a complete break from my former religious life. Ordination in Community of Christ comes as a response to the needs of the community, the giftedness of the person, and the needs of the community they will be serving. Calls are initiated by church leadership, and to be honest, I have struggled deeply with my call. I had twenty-six years of baggage, damage, and insecurities I was working through when my call came, and it came unexpectedly. I had to work through a new understanding of what ordination meant and decide if it was a responsibility I wanted to take on. Being ordained in Community of Christ in Utah means working with people who are seeking spiritual refuge. It’s difficult to completely break away from the culture here, and by being ordained, I was saying I was willing to stand in those moments of faith deconstruction with the hope of being a help and support in the reconstruction. Although I no longer consider myself a Latter-day Saint, I very much consider myself to be a disciple and follower of Jesus. My ordination has enhanced my understanding of Jesus’ message of good news to the poor and downtrodden. My ordination has taken me down a path of learning to set my own ego aside and be fully present in the moment for others. It’s given me more empathy and patience and has expanded my understanding of the importance of intention and finding a holy rhythm in life. I am more holistic and self-aware than I was before, and I try a lot harder to hold myself accountable to protect the rights and voices of the most marginalized. These things were important to me before, but through ordination, the purpose of Jesus’ mission has come alive.

Katie: It’s not possible to simply un-Mormon myself, so I’m sure my Mormon-ness will always be an important part of my pastoral identity. There are times I’m shocked at the ways in which white mainline Protestants struggle to speak about their faith even within their own families. In meetings with colleagues I’m always saying things like, “This must be my inner Mormon coming out again, but seriously?” Mormons do such a powerful job of instilling identity. And while not all of the tactics they employ to do so are healthy, there’s something very admirable about that, and I want to bring that commitment to identity and community forward into my ministry. I think that’s a gift of my Mormonism that I can share with the broader church.

How has your faith and/or spiritual practice deepened as a result of your chosen vocation?

Fatimah: I had to endure my own faith shattering. As I result, I have learned to hold my faith very tenderly; I allow it to fall apart, to grow, and to morph in ways that are unexpected because I have learned that I don’t want to hold it so tight that I can’t grow it with God. A faith that never undergoes shattering and wounding, I don’t know if that’s really faith. It’s that process that helps you to know that God is still in the midst and with you.

Jennifer: Ordination can be a real trap when it functions as a belief-limiting scenario. While I was ordained there was no freedom to explore belief beyond what was already prescribed. There were black-and-white limits to what I was allowed to believe. Ordination can be a blessing, but it also can be a straitjacket. You sign on the dotted line and must believe these things and never change. But I like to change and grow. I know how to recognize God’s leading in my life, and the day came when following truth was more important than clinging onto my ordination.

Nancy: As an LDS woman, I prayed, fasted, and read the scriptures almost obsessively. I felt that my connection to God was limited to those activities. I now engage in a lot of different spiritual practices and recognize that spiritual practice is more about intention and connection to God and self rather than any particular action. I think that this allows me to see that many activities can have a spiritual dimension. All of this has made my spiritual life richer and more fulfilling to me.

Brittany: I am much more mindful of how God moves in and through the everyday. I am not worried about being found worthy of God’s love or presence, I now understand that it is all around me and others with whom I come into contact. My ministry has become part of me. I do not stop being a minister once my workday is over. It has also shown me just how little I actually know about life and how much I rely on God and my community for support.

Katie: Leaving Mormonism and discerning a call to ministry was a decade-long series of existential crises. There were times I couldn’t bring myself to open a Bible or pray because it hurt so much. There were times that all I could do was fall on my face and cry out to God because it hurt so much. There were moments of revelation, moments of struggle, moments of anger, moments of healing. “What the hell are you doing with me?!” were words I shouted to God more than once. Through it all, God has drawn me closer, even when I wanted nothing to do with God and resisted the pull. God is faithful—even when it drives me crazy and I wish God wouldn’t be quite so faithful, God is faithful.

What do you hope to see in future generations of LDS women when they feel called to ministry?

Brittany: I hope women feel empowered to answer the call in whatever way feels best and most natural to them. Listen and trust the voice inside of you, even if it scares you. Whether that is staying in the LDS Church or finding opportunities to serve outside of the Church. I hope the LDS Church opens up more doors of ministry, but my hope is that women do not let closed doors stop them from answering God’s call.

Fatimah: My hope is that more and more women are able to live out their calls in the Church, and that the Church will grow to hold women’s calls with greater depth, expansiveness, and inclusivity. I believe in a God who can part the Red Sea and who sits with people in their greatest pain with love. I believe in a God who is a promise keeper.

Rachel: Allow yourself to feel and follow that call. Feel confident that as you are seeking God, and seeking good, that you will find comfort and joy in that journey. In the Gospel of Luke, when Mary unexpectedly found herself closest to the divine, she heard the words, “Fear not.”[3] I hope that LDS women will feel free to be as creative as they want to be, and that they will share their gifts of a passionate mind, open spirit, and loving heart. Be the voice you want to hear. God is with you.

---

^[1] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 119.

^[2] Mary Oliver, “The Messenger,” Thirst (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006).

^[3] Luke 1:30.

[post_title] => Mormon Women in the Ministry [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 53.1 (Spring 2020): 129–142
Interview with Brittany Mangelson who is a full-time minister for Community of Christ. She has a master of arts in religion from Graceland University and works as a social media seeker ministry specialist. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => mormon-women-in-the-ministry [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-04-30 15:08:43 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-04-30 15:08:43 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=25888 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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On a shelf in my office, I have a small red container marked “Chichester’s English Red Cross Diamond Brand Pennyroyal Pills.” I bought it in a moment of curiosity after learning that Utah’s newspapers once advertised abortion pills. The inside of the tin features a woman reclining on a moon. She promises consumers that Chichester’s pills “are the most powerful and reliable emmenagogue known” and are “safe, sure and always effectual.” Students rarely, if ever, notice the box, which sits in front of a Christmas ornament honoring Jeannette Rankin, an early female politician and pacifist from Montana, and next to a potato scrubber. Even if they did, it is unlikely that they would guess that it was a container for abortion pills. 

Since graduate school, I have been friends with several women whose academic work focuses on reproductive justice. In a particularly poignant piece, my friend Lauren MacIvor Thompson connects a man “punching his wife when she didn’t undress fast enough for sex” to his support for a fetal heartbeat bill.[1] Although I have been interested in the history of abortion and contraception for several years, I have not joined my colleagues in publishing on the subject. I feared that I would not be able to write a piece that was interesting to both academics and popular audiences and that the politically divisive nature of the topic would alienate people I needed to support me as a junior scholar. 

My friends’ engagement with public history, however, has convinced me of the need to engage with wider audiences. On social media and in an article published in the New York Times, for example, MacIvor Thompson has argued for the importance of detailed historical analysis when discussing abortion and birth control. Her deft exposition of the coded language that women used to discuss abortion in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries demonstrates the need for historical expertise when analyzing women’s history.[2] Discussions of abortion and birth control within Latter-day Saint communities, however, often lack the historical awareness for which MacIvor Thompson and others have called.[3] This essay is an attempt to provide an overview of scholarship on the history of contraception and abortion as it relates to Latter-day Saint women. 

Before the mid-nineteenth century, most people did not consider a fetus to be “alive” before it quickened, nor was first-trimester abortion illegal. Most authorities considered birth control and abortion to be under the purview of midwives and part of women’s health care.[4] Latter-day Saint understandings of women’s bodies and pregnancy closely mirrored those of other Americans at the time. In this essay, I discuss this history, present evidence that Latter-day Saint men sold abortion pills in the late nineteenth century, and argue that it is likely some Latter-day Saint women took them in an attempt to restore menstrual cycles that anemia, pregnancy, or illness had temporarily “stopped.” Women living in the twenty-first century are unable to access these earlier understandings of pregnancy because the way we understand pregnancy has changed as a result of debates over the criminalization of abortion and the development of ultrasound technology. Reconstructing this history is important, however, because it provides a context for our own discussions of women’s bodies and reproductive rights. Too often, these discussions are ahistorical, and Latter-day Saints and their neighbors act as though society has always understood women’s bodies, pregnancy, and the origins of life in the same way. 

One of the things that I have learned from my colleagues is that abortion was once fairly common and unremarkable. Until recently, there was no way for a woman to know for certain that she was pregnant until she felt the baby quicken or move. A woman whose period had stopped might be experiencing malnutrition or illness, or she might be pregnant.[5] If women saw the cessation of their menses as a sign of ill health, they could take medicine to restore their menstrual flow. Sometimes these medicines induced an abortion; at other times, they likely provoked menstruation in women who were anemic or malnourished. It was impossible to distinguish between these two outcomes. As historian John Riddle argues in his own discussion of the issue, a medieval woman “could not possibly know whether she had assisted a natural process or terminated a very early pregnancy.” Nor would she have framed the question in that way. In the medieval period, women and doctors did not see “pregnancy” as starting “at conception or implantation.” [6] Indeed, early signs of pregnancy were ambiguous. According to an online exhibit by Tatjana Buklijas and Nick Hopwood, women in the medieval and early modern periods lived “perched between good growth and evil stagnation” of their bodily fluids.[7] The authors make the same point as Riddle about differing definitions of pregnancy and the inability of women in that time period to differentiate between an early abortion and late menstruation. The ambiguity in which women lived was a part of their daily experience and points to the gap between their experiences and ours. 

Women have long practiced contraception and abortion. John Riddle describes an affair between a Catholic priest and a widow in fourteenth-century France that has provided scholars with information about late-medieval birth control. Inquisition records suggest that the priest often brought “with him [an] herb wrapped in a linen cloth” whenever they had sex. He placed it on “a long string,” which hung from her neck “between [her] breasts.” It is unclear how exactly the herb worked, but Riddle argues that the priest likely placed it in her vagina.[8] Although the priest was eventually accused of heresy, these accusations should not blind us to the existence of birth control in medieval Europe. Medieval women used a variety of contraceptive methods, including the withdrawal method, to prevent pregnancy.[9] A ninth-century medical text also contains directions for restoring the menses.[10] Centuries later, women in the nineteenth-century United States used teas made from pennyroyal to induce miscarriages. One of my students tells a story of her rural Wyoming grandmother making her own pessaries in the 1930s, which an unfortunate visitor once mistook for treats (much to his dismay).[11] What these examples demonstrate is that knowledge circulated between women in a variety of places and contexts about how to prevent pregnancies and how to use items from their kitchens to do so. 

Understandings of abortion and pregnancy began to change in the mid-nineteenth century. Male physicians launched a campaign to redefine how women thought of their bodies and abortion.[12] Historians like Jennifer Holland, Leslie Reagan, and Judith Leavitt have argued that the campaign was ultimately about the prestige of male doctors and academics who sought to establish themselves as authorities over women’s reproductive health.[13] In the 1850s, the American Medical Association (AMA) began a campaign to criminalize abortion and discredit midwives. In an article on “criminal abortion,” the AMA asserted “the independent and actual existence of the child before birth, as a living being” and urged people to protect that life.[14] The famous American phrenologist Orson Squire Fowler accused a particularly famous purveyor of female pills of “destroying the lives of both mothers and embryo human beings to an incredible extent.”[15] He advocated for her arrest in print. “If human life,” he wrote, “should be protected by law—if murderers should be punished by law’s most severe penalties—she surely should be punished, and her deathly practice be at once arrested.”[16] In the second half of the nineteenth century, states began to pass laws criminalizing abortion. It is important to note here, as Holland has done, that the emphasis on the “life” of the fetus “was not a result of any advancements in embryonic knowledge. In fact, there were none during these campaigns.”[17]

The first generations of Latter-day Saints developed their understanding of pregnancy during this tumultuous time period. Their understandings of the body, however, do not fit easily within this timeline. On the one hand, Latter-day Saints believed that the soul was not created at the same time as the physical body. Instead, they believed that the soul existed before it became embodied in human flesh.[18] Orson Pratt, for example, argued in 1853 that human souls “were present when the foundations of the earth were laid” and “sang and shouted for joy” as they watched creation. He believed that an individual’s body became enjoined with their soul in the womb.[19] Two decades later, Brigham Young identified quickening as the moment when a fetus became alive during a funeral sermon for a Latter-day Saint named Thomas Williams. He told the mourners that “when the mother feels life come to her infant, it is the spirit entering the body preparatory to the immortal existence.”[20] These statements by Young and Pratt were perfectly consonant with the understandings of pregnancy widely accepted during the early modern period, which had placed the beginning of life at quickening and accepted abortion in the first trimester as a return of menstruation. 

Latter-day Saint leaders, however, also made speeches denouncing abortion despite the fact that their theology did not necessarily require doing so. In 1867, Young explicitly decried attempts to avoid infanticide through “the other equally great crime.” Some scholars have interpreted his statement as a reference to abortion, but he could also be referring to birth control.[21] In 1884, Erastus Snow lauded Latter-day Saint women for refusing to patronize “the vendor of noxious, poisonous, destructive medicines to procure abortion, infanticide, child murder, and other wicked devices.”[22] Snow and Young never explicitly define abortion, but it appears that they accepted the arguments of the American Medical Association decrying abortion even as they rejected their position about when life began. 

It is important, however, not to just examine the sermons and speeches of elite Latter-day Saint men. Although Latter-day Saint leaders railed against abortion, there is evidence that some of their female followers took medications to regulate their periods and did so without much censure. In 1896, a Latter-day Saint female physician named Hannah Sorensen published an obstetrical textbook designed to provide women with information about their bodies. She had attended medical school in Denmark in the 1860s before converting to the LDS Church and traveling to Utah, where she set up a practice.[23] Sorensen accused the Latter-day Saint patients she saw in her practice as having “a terrible misunderstanding in regard to foetal life.” Perhaps with dis belief or even disdain, she wrote, “Many believe it is no sin to produce abortion before there is life, but there is always life.”[24] Her descriptions of her encounters with Latter-day Saint women suggest that some of them agreed with their contemporaries that quickening represented the soul coming into the body of an infant and did not see early abortion as a moral issue. 

Like their counterparts throughout the United States, Utah newspapers advertised abortion pills. Increasing restrictions on abortion and birth control meant that the advertisements used euphemisms to refer to the pills’ effects, but they were ubiquitous. A quick newspaper search using the database Newspapers.com reveals advertisements in a long list of Utah newspapers, including the Salt Lake Tribune, the Daily Enquirer (Provo), the Standard (Ogden), the Wasatch Wave (Heber), the Ephraim Enterprise, the Broad Ax (Salt Lake City), the Transcript Bulletin (Tooele), and the Deseret Evening News (Salt Lake City).[25] Reed Smoot, a future Utah senator and member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, owned a drug company in Provo that sold Mesmin’s French Female Pills. An ad in the Provo Daily Enquirer styled the pills “The Ladies’ Friend” and promised “immediate relief of Painful, and Irregular Menses, Female Weakness etc.”[26] The Deseret Evening News assured women in 1910 that Dr. Martel’s Female Pills could be found “for sale at all drug stores.”[27] And, as a final example, a British convert named William Driver stocked Dr. Mott’s Pennyroyal Pills in his store in Ogden, Utah.[28] Although I have been unable to find a direct statement from a Latter-day Saint woman describing her experience taking female pills, it is likely that some women did so. Otherwise, Hannah Sorensen would have had no reason to lodge her complaint and Latter-day Saint businessmen would not have stocked them. 

Sorensen found this situation troubling. In her obstetrical text book, she dismissed the idea that it was “no sin” to have an abortion before quickening by arguing that “life” existed “from the moment of conception.”[29] She also tried to convince Latter-day Saint women of the rightness of her position by giving classes on the subject. The notes that women took during her lectures and classes give us a window into changing Latter-day Saint attitudes about women and pregnancy. The George Teasdale collection contains the notes that Rosa B. Hayes took while listening to Sorensen lecture in 1889. Her notes locate the origins of pregnancy in the first moments after conception. Immediately after this event, she notes, “great changes take place in the system, causing many little troubles and ailments.”[30] “All ther [sic] nature,” she continued, “is in sympathy with, and lends assistance to develop the new being.”[31] She encouraged any pregnant woman to “ask Him to help her observe all the rules of nature, keep her mind placid, and contemplate on the future of her offspring.”[32] Women were to avoid eating “pork, pickles, beans, onions, bacon, unripe fruit, mustard, horse radish, cabbage, tea, coffee and all other stimulants.”[33] Sex was also forbidden as was her usual routine of “hard work.”[34] This new understanding of pregnancy encouraged women to see their bodies as vessels for potential life. It is difficult to know how Latter-day Saint women as a whole responded to Sorensen’s lectures and classes. While women like Rosa Hayes welcomed Sorensen’s information, others likely rejected it as nonsense. The latter were unlikely to leave records of their opinions.

By the late nineteenth century, attitudes surrounding abortion had already begun to change. Within a few decades, Latter-day Saint women would experience increased pressure to have large families. The Relief Society Magazine published a series of statements from members of the Quorum of Twelve on birth control in its July 1916 issue. Rudger Clawson called the decision to limit family size “a serious evil”—“especially among the rich who have ample means to support large families.”[35] Joseph Fielding Smith argued that “it is just as much murder to destroy life before as it is after birth.”[36] Likewise, Orson F. Whitney wrote that “the only legitimate ‘birth control’ [was] that which springs naturally from the observance of divine laws.”[37] The frontispiece featured a collage of young children and infants as an explicit argument for the value of children. It is difficult for women born in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries to imagine how women living in earlier time periods experienced pregnancy. Modern photography and ultrasound technology have transformed how we understand early pregnancy. In 1965, Life magazine published an emblematic set of photos of the fetus. The images invited people to imagine fetuses at each stage of development. One depicted an eighteen-week-old fetus, in the words of one historian, “radiant and floating in a bubble-like amniotic sac.” The same historian continues, “It is the image of a sleeping infant, eyes closed, head turned to the side, petite and glowing against a black background flecked with star-like matter.”[38]

Around the same time, doctors began to “see” inside the womb using ultrasound technology. Newspapers around the United States printed articles about the innovation’s promise: one woman from a Boston suburb discovered that she was having twins; a doctor in Colorado urged its use in conjunction with amniocentesis to diagnose Down syndrome; and an Alaska hospital used it to predict difficult deliveries.[39] Ultrasound has given us the illusion of direct access to the womb and has created the idea that the infant is a separate patient from its mother.[40] Before the mid-twentieth century, women did not have access to these technologies and saw early pregnancy as an indeterminate state. 

It is difficult to recapture the uncertainty that existed around early pregnancy in the nineteenth century. It is impossible to remove ourselves from the technologies and cultural concepts that shape our relationships to our bodies and pregnancies. I became pregnant with my second child at a difficult time in my life. I had just started a tenure-track job and was struggling to connect to people at the university. After I took the pregnancy test, I remember thinking that no matter what happened that it would be me and this child. My thoughts were directed at an embryo that was just a few weeks old. Although I like to imagine those thoughts as completely my own, they were made possible by decades of imagining the fetus as a separate being. Changing understandings of pregnancy have also shaped how Latter-day Saints relate to their bodies. Like their non-Mormon sisters, Latter-day Saint women initially placed the beginning of life in the womb at quickening and likely used a variety of herbal remedies to regulate their periods and pregnancy. Debates over abortion in the second half of the nineteenth century politicized women’s control over their bodies and created the idea of conception as the moment in which individual human lives began. The current stance of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on abortion is that “human life is a sacred gift from God” and that “elective abortion for personal or social convenience is contrary to the will and the commandments of God.”[41] It is important to remember, however, that Latter-day Saints have not always agreed on when life began and, as a result, have not always accepted that early abortion is a sin. It is important to ground our discussions of abortion and reproductive rights in a historical context. Too often, these conversations proceed as though our understandings of women’s bodies and the nature of life within the womb are self-evident. 

---

[1] Lauren MacIvor Thompson, “Women Have Fought to Legalize Reproductive Rights for Nearly Two Centuries,” History News Network, June 9, 2019, https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/172181. Dr. MacIvor Thompson has also pointed out in private conversations with me that heartbeat is inaccurate and puts the word in quotation marks in her own article. At six weeks of gestation, the fetus does not have a fully formed heart. Instead, what we see on an ultrasound is the electrical activity of the cells that will eventually become the heart. For a full explanation of the misleading nature of the term “heartbeat” and its use in contemporary politics, see “Doctor’s Organization: Calling Abortion Bans ‘Fetal Heartbeat Bills’ is Misleading,” Guardian, June 5, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/05 /abortion-doctors-fetal-heartbeat-bills-language-misleading. 

[2] See Lauren MacIvor Thompson (@lmacthompson1), “1/Good morning! I am compelled to write my first ever tweet thread because @CokieRoberts on @NPR this morning stated that she could not find abortion ads in 19thc newspapers and therefore historians are just playing at pro-choice politics,” Twitter, June 5, 2019, 6:26 a.m., https://twitter.com/lmacthompson1/status/1136247963817304064; and MacIvor Thompson, “Women Have Always Had Abortions,” New York Times, Dec. 13, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/13/opinion/sunday/abortion-history-women.html. 

[3] I have chosen to use the Church’s style guide as much as possible for this article. Since I am not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it seemed important to try respect the Church’s wishes as much as possible, especially when dealing with a sensitive topic such as this one.

[4] Tatjana Buklijas and Nick Hopwood, “Experiencing Pregnancy,” Making Visible Embryos (website), http://www.sites.hps.cam.ac.uk/visibleembryos /s1_1.html. 

[5] John M. Riddle, Eve’s Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 26.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Buklijas and Hopwood, “Experiencing Pregnancy.” 

[8] Quoted in Riddle, Eve’s Herbs, 22–23.

[9] Maryanne Kowaleski, “Gendering Demographic Change in the Middle Ages,” The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, edited by Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 190. 

[10] Jessica Cale, “Sex, Contraception, and Abortion in Medieval England,” Dirty, Sexy History (blog), July 17, 2017, https://dirtysexyhistory.com/2017/07/30/sex -contraception-and-abortion-in-medieval-england/; Hunter S. Jones, et al., Sexuality and its Impact on History: The British Stripped Bare (Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword History, 2018), 62. 

[11] Andi Powers, “Bitter Lessons,” High Altitude History (blog), Mar. 8, 2017, https://historymsu.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/bitter-lessons-andi-powers/. 

[12] Jennifer L. Holland, “Abolishing Abortion: The History of the Pro-Life Movement in America,” American Historian, Nov. 2016, https://tah.oah.org/november-2016/abolishing-abortion-the-history-of-the-pro-life-movement-in-america/.

[13] Holland, “Abolishing Abortion;” Leslie J. Reagan, When Abortion was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867–1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); and Judith Walzer Leavitt, Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750–1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 

[14] Cited in D. Brian Scarnecchia, Bioethics, Law, and Human Life Issues: A Catholic Perspective on Marriage, Family, Contraception, Abortion, Reproductive Technology, and Death and Dying (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 280. 

[15] Orson Squire Fowler, Love and Parentage: Applied to the Improvement of Offspring (New York: Fowlers and Wells, 1852), 68. 

[16] Ibid.

[17] Holland, “Abolishing Abortion”; Reagan, When Abortion was a Crime; Leavitt, Brought to Bed.

[18] Terryl L. Givens, When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 

[19] Orson Pratt, “The Pre-existence of Man,” Seer 1, no. 2 (February 1853): 20. Thank you to Matthew Bowman for pointing me toward this source. 

[20] Brigham Young, July 19, 1874, Journal of Discourses, 17:143. 

[21] Brigham Young, Aug. 17, 1867, Journal of Discourses, 12:120. See Peggy Fletcher Stack, “Surprise! The LDS Church Can Be Seen as More ‘Pro-Choice’ than Pro-Life on Abortion. Here’s Why,” Salt Lake Tribune, June 1, 2019, https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2019/06/01/surprise-lds-church-can/; and Lynn D. Wardle, “Teaching Correct Principles: The Experience of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Responding to Widespread Social Acceptance of Elective Abortion,” BYU Studies Quarterly 53, no. 1 (Jan. 2014): 112.

[22] Erastus Snow, Mar. 9, 1884, Journal of Discourses, 25:111–12. Although I have consulted the Journal of Discourses for these citations, many of them have been previously refenced by Lester Bush, and readers would do well to reference his work. See Lester E. Bush, Jr., “Birth Control among the Mormons: Introduction to an Insistent Question,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 10, no. 2 (1976): 12–44. 

[23] Robert S. McPherson and Mary Lou Mueller, “Divine Duty: Hannah Sorensen and Midwifery in Southeastern Utah,” Utah Historical Quarterly 65, no. 4 (1997): 336. 

[24] Hannah Sorensen, What Women Should Know (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon & Sons Company, 1896), 80.

[25] In this case, I used Newspapers.com to find these examples, but a similar search could be performed using Chronicling America (chroniclingamerica.loc.gov) or any number of sites. 

[26] Advertisement, Daily Enquirer 7, no. 88, Apr. 10, 1893, 2, available at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42896775/. 

[27] Advertisement, Deseret Evening News, Sept. 12, 1910, 9, available at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42896791/. 

[28] Advertisement, Standard, May 2, 1893, 2, available at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42896809/.

[29] Sorensen, What Women Should Know, 80. 

[30] Rosa B. Hayes, Midwife Instruction Book, 1889, p. 24, George Teasdale Papers, box 21, folder 5, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. 

[31] Ibid., 24. 

[32] Ibid., 26.

[33] Ibid., 29.

[34] Ibid., 31.

[35] “Birth Control,” Relief Society Magazine 3, no. 7 (July 1916): 364.

[36] Ibid., 368. 

[37] Ibid., 367. 

[38] Ann Neumann, “The Visual Politics of Abortion,” The Revealer (blog), Mar. 8, 2017, https://therevealer.org/the-patient-body-visual-politics-of-abortion/ For the original images, see Lennart Nilsson, “Drama of Life Before Birth,” Life, Apr. 30, 1965, 54–71.

[39] Respectively, “Ultrasound Tells Mom ‘Twins Due,’” Ogden Standard-Examiner, Nov. 14, 1971, 12, available at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42901981/; Joanne Koch, “Tests are Urged for Late Pregnancies,” Daily Times-News (Burlington, N.C.), Jan. 28, 1976, 11A, available at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42902070/; and Diane Simmons, “Hospital Squeeze is Result of More Patients, More Deliveries,” Fairbanks Daily News, Mar. 24, 1976, A-11, available at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42902070/. 

[40] For analyses of the role ultrasound has played in changing pregnancy, see Barbara Duden, Disembodying Women: Perspectives on Pregnancy and the Unborn, translated by Lee Hoinacki (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993); Malcolm Nicolson and John E. E. Fleming, Imaging and Imagining the Fetus: The Development of Obstetric Ultrasound (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013); and Sarah Dubow, Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

[41] “Abortion,” Gospel Topics, accessed Sept. 29, 2019, available at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/abortion?lang=eng. 

[post_title] => The Other Crime: Abortion and Contraception in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Utah [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 53.1 (Spring 2020): 33–47
In this essay, I discuss this history, present evidence that Latter-day Saint men sold abortion pills in the late nineteenth century, and argue that it is likely some Latter-day Saint women took them in an attempt to restore menstrual cycles that anemia, pregnancy, or illness had temporarily “stopped.” Women living in the twenty-first century are unable to access these earlier understandings of pregnancy because the way we understand pregnancy has changed as a result of debates over the criminalization of abortion and the development of ultrasound technology. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-other-crime-abortion-and-contraception-in-nineteenth-and-twentieth-century-utah [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-10 23:03:52 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-10 23:03:52 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=25875 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 25872 [post_author] => 3008 [post_date] => 2020-04-28 22:47:07 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-04-28 22:47:07 [post_content] =>

Spanish version.

On a warm and breezy Sunday afternoon, Julissa[1] opens her door and gives me saludos, a traditional greeting kiss on the cheeks. Stepping inside, I am engulfed by the familiar smell of green plantains with cheese, yellow rice, and roasted meats. I immediately tie up my hair and get to work. I stir the rice with her young daughter on my hip while Julissa’s mom chases after her older child. We fall into a comfortable rhythm as melodic as the cumbia music in the background. These foods and this trust placed in me to help prepare them are the result of many close years spent together, and I am touched every time I am included in this tradition. Finally, when all is ready, Julissa calls upstairs to the family: “Come eat! Hermana Brittany is here!” I cannot help but smile when she calls me hermana, her “sister.” Her reference to me signifies a dual meaning: I am not only like a family member to her, but additionally, the term hermana is used among Spanish-speaking members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as Mormons) to signify solidarity and integration with one another. This sentiment of el/la hermandad (brotherhood or sisterhood) is an important practice to remind Church members that we are socially and spiritually tied to and reliant upon one another. For Latina migrants in the Church, la hermandad is an essential part of navigating spaces within Mormonism that are complex, predominantly white, and/or politically and historically painful as they work, worship, and parent in the United States.

Julissa is twenty-eight years old and has been my hermana for over a decade. She is the daughter of an Ecuadorian mother and Salvadorian father. Her father and older siblings arrived in the US as refugees from El Salvador under temporary protected status (TPS). They had traveled from Ecuador and stopped to live in Mexico before crossing the border. Because none of Julissa’s older siblings were born in El Salvador, they did not qualify for temporary protected status with their father and therefore had to cross without documentation. Her mother crossed unauthorized months later with the help of Church contacts in southern California. In the early 2000s, Julissa’s mother won the green card lottery: an annual, preset number of visas issued to applicants from selected countries. Through this, she was able to petition for herself and then her children’s permanent residency.

On the night of my visit, Julissa agreed to go beyond her normal hermana role. She decided to share with me her intimate experiences growing up Mormon within an undocumented immigrant family in the predominantly white suburbs of Salt Lake City as well as her current experiences as a Latina raising bicultural children in the Church. Throughout our interview, I began to see how living in the United States has required her to develop multicultural approaches in order to navigate complicated social and religious environments. Julissa shared some ways these intersections manifested in her upbringing:

I remember my mother working odd jobs because she didn’t have papers. Growing up, I would see people from school or church being taken by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Unless you live through it, it’s hard to understand. Getting papers isn’t like paying a parking ticket. I’ve always considered myself an American, but in school and on my mission people made fun of me because I wasn’t American “enough.” That would hurt me. But I’m not ashamed. I’m eternally grateful my parents made our home reflect the parts of the world they knew. I learned music, food, language, and my faith. Those are a huge part of me. I want that for my daughters now.

Julissa’s experiences mirror what many other Latina Mormon mothers shared with me in anonymous interviews about living as immigrants in mixed-status or undocumented families in the United States. She is part of a large and underserved community within US Mormon spaces.

According to official statistics reported in December 2018, around 43 percent of global LDS Church membership identifies or has ties with Latin American or Latinx heritage.[2] Despite such a strong worldwide presence, Mormon Latinx voices are vastly underexamined in Church historical archives, Anglo-American LDS community dialogues, and scholarly research, with a few exceptions.[3] I know this because as a white US citizen born into the Church, aside from the occasional faith-promoting story or Ensign article, I did not grow up hearing Latina or migrant voices and histories highlighted in English-speaking congregations. It has been an ongoing process for me as a Church member and academic researcher to begin to understand how these public narratives regarding members’ life experiences have stayed for the most part, Anglo- and androcentric in nature. In the summer of 2018, I interviewed over twenty practicing Latina Mormon mothers living in Utah, Nevada, and southern California, all geographically considered part of the “Mormon Corridor,” or areas where early Church members historically settled and colonized. I was interested in the stories and experiences of these women, all of whom had lived undocumented in the United States for long periods, with about 45 percent who adjusted their legal status at some point after arrival. Some questions I explored in developing this research and the Institutional Review Board (IRB) interview guide were:

1. What is the historical role of Latinx inclusion and race relations in the LDS Church?
2. How do immigrant Latina mothers construct their sense of belonging in US Church communities?
3. How do Latina mothers choose to preserve their cultural values and traditions in their faith practice and family relationships?

It is crucial for me as both an hermana and researcher to highlight the voices of mothers who shared their stories with me, some doing so at risk to their personal safety or social standing within Church circles. My findings indicate that the majority of mothers often feel a strong disconnect between Church public policy and doctrine—one that encourages the protection of migrant families and cultural pluralism—and their actual lived experiences with Anglo-American family and Church members. Every woman interviewed expressed complex feelings of both belonging and marginalization, each recalling instances of discrimination within US Church spaces due to their ethnic and racial identity or legal status. These experiences heavily influenced mothers’ preferences for attending pan-ethnic Latinx congregations within the created spaces of Spanish or Portuguese “wards.” This is majorly in part due to the historical struggles Latinas, migrants, and women have all faced since the inception of LDS missionary work both inside and outside the US. This large and complex history expands well beyond Salt Lake City Church headquarters. Strides for racial equity and inclusion within Mormon spaces, US Church member attitudes regarding immigrant assimilation, and their individual migration experiences all influenced interviewed mothers in their development of multicultural social and parenting strategies. These approaches strive to navigate the overlaps of institutional oppression, transnational existence, and personal conceptualizations of identity and place.

I. Mormon Histories of Latinx Inclusion and Race Relations

Past scholarship has assessed how the LDS Church has struggled to create inclusive and equitable spaces for people of color as well as indigenous and immigrant communities.[4] Although it now maintains a larger international than domestic membership, the intersections of religious practice, gender identity, and immigration history and politics are all important in contextualizing how Latina migrant mothers experience and move within the body of the Church in the Mormon Corridor and, more broadly, US society. Many of the challenges the Church has faced both in the past and present in embracing and including underserved communities of color stem from doctrinal ideologies created by Book of Mormon interpretations regarding race, pastoral stewardship, and who has the authority to lead or speak for God.

The Book of Mormon perpetuates biblical beliefs that certain ethnic or racial lineages are deemed more “worthy” or capable to lead and preside over others.[5] It recounts the story of one family unit that divides itself between the descendants of two brothers, Nephi and Laman. Laman and his family make divergent and “sinful” choices on their journey from Israel to the American continent, while Nephi and his family obey God’s commands and continue down a righteous path. This ultimately leads to a change in their physical appearances, with light-skinned Nephites becoming more “white and delightsome” and, over time, being given spiritual and physical stewardship by God over the “rebellious, cursed” darker-skinned Lamanite tribe.[6] Much of the Book of Mormon text is spent relaying continued histories of these two conflicting tribes, with skin color leveraged as a marker of obedience and worthiness. Because Book of Mormon scripture clearly states that Lamanites were of Abrahamic heritage, they were worthy of some saving effort and fellowship. Wilford Woodruff, fourth president of the Church, viewed Anglo Mormonism as being tasked with assisting those descended of Lamanite blood to “blossom” so that “they would be filled with the power of God . . . and go forth to build the New Jerusalem.”[7] This scriptural narrative helps to contextualize the dogmatic foundations that shaped early perceptions among Church members regarding race and authority. Ultimately, because of the commandment for lighter-skinned communities to “save” their darker Lamanite brethren, they were privileged with increased status from the structural inception of Mormonism.[8]

Official Church sponsorship of missionary work and colonization of presumed “Lamanite”-dominant geographical areas in the American Southwest, Polynesia, Latin America, and the Caribbean began shortly after Mormon settlement in the Western frontier in 1847. Second Church president Brigham Young saw missionary efforts as a continuation of Church founder Joseph Smith’s vision for gathering the twelve tribes of Israel together in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ.[9] White Church members felt commanded to carry out the Book of Mormon’s call to graft Lamanite descendants into the faith. While efforts to include non-white peoples into the Church by proselytizing were considered “progressive” by the standards of the mid-nineteenth century, the grip of North American politics and racial attitudes on early Mormon treatment of “Lamanite” descendants cannot be ignored if we are to understand the contemporary placement and second-class citizenship of Latinx migrants in US Church spaces.

I frequented many a Sunday School lesson growing up where I was taught that the primary reason Utah was denied statehood for so long was the misunderstanding Congress had regarding the practice of polygamy. While this is generally true, polygamy was only one pillar of the Republican Party’s concern for American “decency” during the mid-nineteenth century. The Party was also concerned with the other “twin relic of barbarism,” which was the practice of slavery.[10] Congress representative Justin Smith Morrill argued that Utah’s delayed entrance was also because of the Church’s participation in indigenous people’s enslavement and indentured servitude. Utah was the only known US state to participate in state-sanctioned enslavement of indigenous peoples.[11] Because Mormons were seen as propagators of this “barbarism” on both fronts, along with accepting converts from outside Anglo ethnic groups, Church members began to experience a racialization that denoted them a degenerate breed of people who were losing their holistic whiteness.[12] To counter this and promote the Church as one producing “an angelic, celestial people,” a previously hesitant Brigham Young began encouraging Anglo members to buy indigenous slaves from their captors as adoptees or house servants. He stated that God permitted Mormons “to come here for this very purpose . . . [that] the Lord could not have devised a better plan than to have put the saints where they were to help bring about the redemption of the Lamanites [and] also make them a white and delightsome people.” This was all in order to “accomplish their redemption” in addition to serving as a pathway to battle negative racialization directed at the Church from outside groups.[13]

On top of attempting to ease fears of unbelonging within the Anglo mainstream, Mormon settlers felt “white savior” pressures, as Andres Reséndez explains, which were the driving motives for the passage of the Act for the Relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners in 1852. The law passed by popular consensus in the Utah territory to allow Mormon settlers to bypass the illegality of slavery within Mexican territorial lands. Church leaders felt that by purchasing indigenous slaves “into their freedom” from the horrendous conditions of illegal Mexican slave trades, they were upholding their spiritual obligation to “save” Lamanites.[14] The passage of the Act allowed for the Native enslavement to continue favoring local Mormon labor markets, and additionally permitted Church leadership to continue encouraging conversion among enslaved Lamanite women and children by placing them in Anglo homes where they could be “with the more favored portions of the human race.”[15] Reséndez also goes on to state that: “Mormons who adopted Indians had to strive to erase their Native cultures. These pervasive attitudes prevented Indians from fully integrating into Mormon society. Mormons [had] never anticipated keeping them as ‘indentures.’ . . . [T]heir impulses to help in their redemption eased their transformation into owners and masters. In colonial times, Spanish missionaries had acquired Indians to save their souls. In the nineteenth century, Mormons’ quest to redeem Natives by purchasing them was not too different. Both ended up creating an underclass.”[16]

These scriptural and social contexts identify the ways in which Lamanite identity was negotiated; people perceived as Lamanite ancestors should be saved through spiritual conversion as well as cultural assimilation practices via Anglo member efforts. These contexts are also what has made upward mobilization efforts so difficult for indigenous, migrant, or resource-poor members of the Church. They are often seen as outliers, or as Others, whose stories within the context of early Mormon history or current political dialogue may not meet the expectations of the standard “faith-promoting” narrative that so many leaders wish to propagate within missionary work and social dialogues. Professor Ignacio García reaffirmed the importance of understanding the breadth of these historical placements and constructs in a plenary address to the Mormon History Association: “Too much of Mormon historical studies still tell the story of the Other. This Other is voiceless and mindless, too often we speak for them (as) it concerns the anxieties of white Mormonism. . . . History provides a language and a protocol with which to articulate thoughts and concerns. People who have history have a language that provides a sense of agency, of being in control of their lives, or at least of being players within it.”[17] García’s analysis is particularly relevant to this discussion, as the majority of mothers I interviewed shared experiences in which their Latina and Mormon identities were in conflict with one another in regard to the attitudes of Anglo-American membership. They expressed that US-born members’ ideas of faithfulness to the Church are often conflated with a willingness and loyalty to adhere to Anglo-American Church ideologies, and they often felt their efforts to contribute to the kingdom of God were marginalized by instances of discrimination or alienation, most likely due to this lack of historical narrative within English-speaking congregations. They reported that this conflict often created an environment of pressure and emotional distress that compounded their already complex negotiation between the Self and the Church. As Garcia further argues, Latinx Mormons, “need their history—the chronicle of their struggles, triumphs, and disappointments—to understand their place in a religion that in the past has required placing and timing—in the collective sense—to fit in.”[18]

Racialized hierarchy and differentiated levels of inclusion by race maintain their historical grip in the modern Church as they continue to influence organization, policy, and gendered social relations between Anglo-American members on the one hand and communities of color and migrants on the other. Given the Church’s complex history of domination, enslavement, servitude, and submission of “Lamanite” heritage groups, I argue that being Latinx and Mormon has been problematic in nature from the beginning. Consequently, the struggles Latinx communities have faced in Mormon histories have much larger implications for contemporary social relations and membership than previously acknowledged. It is essential that Church leaders and researchers who work within the frameworks of Mormonism focus on decolonizing any “crafted soliloquy” that minimizes the Anglo-American Church’s contribution to the oppression and marginalization of people of color.[19]

II. Assimilation and Latinx Belonging in an Anglo-American Landscape

Aihwa Ong conducted one of the primary cases that investigated the experience of non-white belonging within US Mormon spaces, specifically that of Cambodian refugees who converted to Mormonism in the greater Oakland, California area.[20] She evaluated how the Church provided economic and social stability to many in this particular migrant group, many of whom were refugees fleeing genocide and war-torn areas. She also recounted that while interviewees who attended the Khmer-speaking wards reported increased economic opportunity and spiritual belonging through Church membership, they also encountered many social and racial barriers with Anglo members as they navigated their newfound religion. Ong writes: “The transnational appeal of Mormonism has been the reaffirmation of patriarchal values and discipline . . . that assimilates less successful people or impoverished immigrants to American values of strict morality, hard work, and middle-class success. . . . Yet, Mormonism maintains a structure of racial domination.”[21] These findings are consistent with the Church’s historical focus on grafting and incorporating migrant communities of color as preached from the pulpit for decades, especially within Latinx populations.[22] The Book of Mormon’s alternate history appealed to many potential Latin American Church investigators, providing a theological narrative of God’s belonging and divine destiny for those living in the Americas, one that existed outside of the legacies of genocide and oppression inflicted by European settler colonialism and Catholicism.[23] Assimilation, taught through a scriptural lens and propagated for many years mostly by Anglo missionaries from the US Mormon Corridor, was viewed as a natural and positive route to both inclusion and salvation. Aside from preaching to nonwhite populations, American Church leadership emphasizes the promotion of a nuclear family structure. This includes encouraging women to idealize motherhood and responsibility within the home. These perceptions reflect a larger historical lens of how the Church has appealed to nonwhite populations, as this nuclear family structure is prevalent in many parts of the world, including Latin America.

However, many mothers reported that this expectation for converts to “graft” or assimilate themselves into the gospel often requires nonwhite or immigrant members to adopt distinctly “white” Church or family traditions. One mother, Ines, shared her experience with this US Church cultural expectation. Ines came to the US from Guadalajara when she was in elementary school. She converted at seventeen and was able to adjust her legal status after marrying a Chicano citizen. Even at Ines’s baptism, Church leadership involved were very aware of her legal status. When she decided to serve a mission, she went domestically to Idaho. The Church’s current protocol allows undocumented missionaries to perform their service domestically so service can occur without compromising residency in the US. It was on her mission where she felt the most insecure about her legal status and immigrant status and felt pressured to acculturate to Anglo-American points of view. Ines shared with me the following: “I was scared to share my status on my mission. White members were really loving until they found out I didn’t have papers. I was undocumented until I was married. Spanish wards accept you and don’t judge based on legal status; we don’t have to hide. Right now, my bishop is undocumented. He knows how it is. For me, I’m still learning to live with all my identities. Too many American members wanted me [to assimilate], but I’m glad I’ve held on to who I am.”

Ines’s words express how legal status may transform Anglo Church members’ perceptions of their migrant co-worshipers, even if they first appear “assimilated.” In Ines’s case, because she spoke English with no discernable accent and presented as more güera, meaning she has a lighter physical complexion, she wasn’t immediately targeted for discrimination until her citizenship came into question. Her story highlights how nonwhite Mormons experience differential levels of inclusion and acceptance, heavily dependent on local attitudes. I argue that instead of striving for this grafting, which participants felt has led to erasure, US Mormons can better serve Latina migrant women by amplifying their voices, thereby responding to many underserved communities’ need for “knowing and being known” in their intersectional spheres of lived experience.[24] All interviewees shared with me that they wished their migrant experiences, “illegal” or otherwise, would be treated with the same dignity, respect, and space migrant Mormon pioneers are given in Church history narratives. It is valid that these hermanas would ask: why are early Mormon (and mostly white) migration experiences viewed as more legitimate than theirs?

Previous scholarship has examined how the continued efforts to “graft” nonwhite and/or immigrant members of the Church has created social division and tensions between Anglo and Latino leaders regarding stewardship of Latinx wards.[25] This research addressed the ever-increasing growth of Latinx membership as well as attempts to dismantle pan-ethnic Latinx wards, opting for assimilation with local English-speaking congregations. The dramatic drop in tithing and member activity in those areas where Latinx wards were forced to assimilate was profound, leading to Latinx wards being reinstated.[26] Other research has found that American leadership often failed to validate differing cultural expressions of faith, oftentimes minimizing Latinx members’ efforts to contribute to worship sharing and practices.[27] These histories and social contexts within Church history and US congregations are important factors in why most mothers I spoke with who attended majority Latinx congregations at the time of interviewing believed it was an environment where they could feel safety, peace, and community.

Another reason many Latina migrants reported a preference for attending the Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking ward was to distance themselves from the idealization of Anglo mothering expectations that heavily influence US Church spaces. While many mothers came from cultural backgrounds with rigid gender norms, most interviewees felt that English-speaking ward communities were not understanding or flexible with their specific circumstances. Some mothers worried that they could not achieve the “ideal” of being a stay-at-home mother like many of their white counterparts. This was not financially possible due to low wages or frequent labor exploitation because of their legal status. Many chose instead to frame their sense of belonging through Church ideologies, which emphasize the role of motherhood as sacred and respected, additionally finding comfort in doctrine regarding eternal families. Even though they agree with the Church’s doctrine on the eternal value of their roles as mothers, many did not want to feel obligated or pressured to parent the same way as their Anglo Mormon peers. Many expressed feeling better supported by other mothers in the Latinx ward, who made space for their ideas or had shared interests. Mothers shared with me that this distance from the pressure of whiteness allowed them to preserve cultural traditions and support one another in handling the challenges their families faced.

Luisa was newlywed and pregnant when she and her husband crossed the border from Mexico. After they converted to the Church in New York City, a Mormon leader provided a way for her, along with her immediate and extended family, to move to Utah. Luisa reported she had her family attend the English-speaking ward while her children were growing up because it was a mostly white area, and it seemed like a good idea to help everyone adjust and fit in. While she expressed nothing but pride and love for her children, she wished they had also interacted with more Latinos by attending the Spanish-speaking ward. During our time together, she told me:

I began noticing how my kids relate and do more activities with white kids. I have a hard time with that. They didn’t keep the Mexican culture the way I wanted. For example, I visited my dad the other day at his (Latino) neighbor’s house. Right away they invited me to eat. See? That’s my culture. We are very welcoming and attentive, we notice others. I get embarrassed when my kids have friends over and don’t offer them food! I’m hoping the older they get, the more they will take interest. My daughter asked me to teach her more, so I’m happy about that. But, I still wish we had done more.

Luisa’s experience highlights an important dilemma that Latina migrant mothers face in the US: how to bring up children in your own culture while preparing them to live and learn in another. In the Church as well as US society, women are still expected to be the primary caregivers and nurturers to their children. These expectations placed on women to adequately nurture as well as parent through a dual cultural lens while living with limited resources because of legal status adds layers of stress to migrant mothers. Many leaders within Mormonism, much like national policy makers, have rarely considered these realities when assessing migrant social capital or economic outcomes.

Previous research on mothers in the US has analyzed the expectations of intensive mothering as a historically constructed ideology that requires mothers to expend copious amounts of emotional and physical labor in raising children.[28] Much of this previous research used middle-class, white citizen participants who shared similar parenting opinions.[29] Studies that have sought to understand Latina migrant experiences have found that these expectations become compounded when a migrant is parenting transnationally or raising bicultural children in the US.[30] It is important to recognize here that these other studies reveal a similar pattern of disparities to that which we see in Mormonism. Immigrant mothers often feel a strong sense of obligation to remain connected to cultural, gendered norms of mothering from their sending countries while also facing immense pressure to assimilate to Anglo-American societal expectations.[31] These disparities between Anglo cultural expectations for motherhood and Latina mothers’ actual lived realities create a need for personalized relief and validation, often found in Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking wards where women can talk and worship with others in similar situations. For most women though, simply worshipping with other mothers in their native language is not enough.

Most Mormon leadership approaches and cultural values were created by middle-class white Americans. Many mothers I interviewed felt that the multifaceted factors that shaped their undocumented immigrant experiences were greatly oversimplified within US Church conversations, which emphasize personal agency as the primary determining factor for economic and personal success in the US rather than the support and access to resources that studies have demonstrated as most important. This, layered on top of Mormonism’s historical racialization of worthiness and authority among Lamanite descendants, can create a toxic emotional health environment for migrant mothers trying to find their place. A few mothers shared traumatic incidents and mental health concerns with me that they did not have the language or space to speak about even among other Latinas or within Latinx Church communities. One interviewee, Maria Dolores, told me her experience of being pregnant when she traveled by foot from Ecuador to Mexico hoping to cross the border and join her husband and other children already working in the US. During her crossing of the US–Mexico border, she experienced and witnessed horrific violence. Upon her arrival, she faced unstable housing situations and food scarcity during her first years in the US and saw no outlet to process her trauma. She cites a loving bishop from the Spanish-speaking ward as her advocate, expressing that loving Church leaders allowed her the economic resources she needed to get through the transition period. However, her negative experiences continue to trouble her. Maria Dolores cried softly as she relayed:

We suffered because I didn’t have papers for a long time. I had to be very strict with my children so we could stay safe, because of course racism will always exist here. Our circumstances required us to become strong. My children made me strong, and the Lord helped us survive. I also feel I was very blessed [in the US]. I know their lives have more opportunity. But I had to go through all of that [at the border] and navigate the two cultures. . . . That was so much. Looking back, if I had to do it all again, I’m not sure I would.

While almost all mothers interviewed heavily credited their faith and the Church with getting them through hard times pre- and post-migration, I often wondered if increased emotional and social support from Anglo leaders and more positive treatment from white membership might have positively affected the mental health, parenting, and economic outcomes for mothers like Maria Dolores. I believe these instances of isolation created by US Church spaces create a culture of casual but distant acceptance, as shown in previous work on Latinx paradigms within US Church spaces. Ignacio García emphasizes the importance of remembering how histories of assimilation pressures from Anglos on their Latinx counterparts have created inequalities that make it difficult for underserved communities like migrant Latinas to advocate for personal and spiritual needs at an infrastructural level. He writes: “Cultural whiteness; it remains entrenched in our institutional memory, in our manuals, sometimes in our conference talks, and too often in the deep chambers of our minds and heart. . . . [W]hite (members) rarely see beyond a superficial exoticism in the lives of Latino Mormons. They will appreciate our culinary skills and our quick feet, but not our history or our thoughts. And we will be left with the notion that our white brothers and sisters like us, maybe even love us—but nothing substantive will change.”[32] It is because of these infrastructural barriers that many mothers I interviewed developed and employed multiculturalist strategies and approaches when navigating US Mormon spaces. This occurred not only as a mechanism for survival but also created avenues to resist the underlying whiteness of the institution. Enacting their personal agency, mothers’ multiculturalist attitudes allow them to preserve, treasure, and amplify their Latinx identities and traditions within created Church spaces.

III. A Case for Multiculturalism as Resistance and Power

Navigating religious expectations in a bicultural parenting environment is not a new topic of interest in Latina migration studies, as many gendered influences regarding womanhood are based in religious influence.[33] LDS Church doctrine has prioritized and reinforced the idealization of traditional feminine roles and motherhood as a path to salvation. Past Mormon women’s studies in the US have predominantly focused on the experiences of white American citizens in their quest to find belonging in a patriarchal religious power structure.[34] Many of those interviewed reported feeling expected to restrict their energy to domestic spheres, religious belief, and child-rearing. Most of these traditions encourage women to personify characteristics such as self-sacrifice, family well-being, purity, and loyalty: qualities all akin to the Catholic conception of the Virgin Mary many interviewees were familiar with. Although it is not always the case, previous interviews have shown that many undocumented mothers form tight-knit networks that provide a better sense of stability for their members as they navigate parenting in a new country.[35] Fictive kin networks operate as a coping mechanism allowing Latina mothers to find ways to acclimatize to American life by balancing complex identities, with recent surveys indicating that multicultural and pluralistic attitudes are becoming more and more common among Latina parents.[36] The way these mothers choose to live their religious faith as well as outwardly demonstrate it within church communities is important when considering not only how social networks form but also how mothers begin to employ multicultural parenting strategies within them.[37]

Previous research has addressed the importance of utilizing multiculturalism in Church discourse and social interaction. Historian Jorge Iber considered Utah, along with many other areas of the Mormon Corridor, to be “lands that held great promise. . . . [Their] mines, railroads and beet fields held the hope of economic possibilities.”[38] His work explores how the Church addressed Latinx migration patterns to Mormon-dominated areas in the early twentieth century, often employing multicultural approaches in order to find common ground and shared value systems with Spanish-speaking migrants. This not only led to increased conversion to the Church but also maintained some degree of ethnic peace between white members working alongside Latinx communities in blue-collar industries.[39] The work is careful to include, however, that the attitudes of many white members and prevailing narratives of Lamanite history continued to create separation and segregation between the communities. Other previous studies have addressed conflicts and pathways multiculturalist approaches have had in influencing Latinx and Anglo relations in the Church ward and stake infrastructures.[40] These conflicts often manifested themselves in the psychological or social stress Latina migrant mothers experienced when choosing how and when to employ multiculturalist approaches within their households.

Natalia is a biracial convert from Argentina. Her mother is Congolese and immigrated to Argentina in her youth. When her father passed away, the family moved to the eastern US, where Natalia met Mormon missionaries. She ultimately moved to Utah, which she described to me in our interview as a place with many more opportunities for undocumented members to find work and a future spouse. Now married to an Anglo Church member, Natalia expressed some of these multicultural ideas to me in her own parenting and religious approaches:

I feel you have the expectation being Latina, you can’t have your kids talking back to you, you need to grab the chancla [sandal, sometimes used to spank] or yell at them. For [white] Mormons, you don’t ever grab the chancla. Yelling isn’t what the Lord would do. So you get both sides. What should I do? I feel like I must find common ground, and it’s difficult to not feel judged. I think also in terms of language. I want my child to speak Spanish. I also want him to learn French and have his African culture, especially because he’s so light-skinned. I don’t want him to forget who he is or where he comes from.

Again, we see from Natalia’s experiences the overlap and intersection of many worlds and the kinds of stressors that can create. All the mothers I interviewed, especially those married to white men, were very cognizant of how race would be perceived in heavily white US spaces, specifically in the Church. They also constantly must consider the layers of their heritage, their culture, US culture, Anglo Church culture, feminine gender roles, and their own personal desires as individuals living in multiple identities at once. Many interview participants felt better supported in the Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking congregations, stating that they felt more encouraged in parenting their way, according to their traditions rather than modeling their parenting choices after Anglo perspectives. This is where the idea of developing and employing multiculturalism strategies becomes increasingly important as a means to adapt to ever-changing political, social, and cultural circumstances, both in and outside of US Church spaces.

It is in this space that we see how many mothers began to utilize overlapping and intersecting identities for their advantage and personal mobilization in Church and US society. Most mothers reported that they had to transform the pressure and their feelings of being in-between two cultures into increased opportunities for learning, exploring, and maximizing the potential for procuring economic and social resources for their families. All mothers responded at one point in our time together that it was essential to recognize the importance of raising their children multiculturally for them to have the greatest chance to be included in both American culture and that of their sending countries. Essentially, mothers reframed the negative narratives Anglo social societies (Church communities included) projected onto them to generate innovative approaches that bolstered their parenting and economic positioning. One great example of this is Fernanda. Born and raised in Curitiba, Brazil, she and her now ex-husband moved to the States with their children after a former missionary from Utah helped sponsor them and provided them housing when they arrived. Fernanda was reluctant to go to the English-speaking ward, not only because of the language barrier but because she felt more supported in raising her children in a multicultural environment. When asked about how to balance this duality, she said:

I make sure we have our Brazilian customs here in the house. We speak Portuguese, have Brazilian birthday parties, we keep our traditions. But I know this is not my country. I know because of my color I’ve had some negative experiences. I learned many years ago that I had to adapt to how things are in American culture. Many bills are paid online. The systems [are] different. . . . The school is different. I am so grateful I have my Church community and children [who] helped me learn. I’m able to listen and talk with my children because they are growing up in a very different culture than I did.

Like Fernanda, many mothers’ parenting approaches were influenced by their own upbringings but were also challenged by different technologies, classism, colorism, and racism from Anglo communities both in and outside of the Church. Additionally, many expressed that they struggled with the fear of how to raise kids who were not so “assimilated,” did not “become so white,” or become so frio (distanced or cold) that they forgot their roots.

Mexican migrant Cecilia had to figure out how to maneuver parenthood as she experienced her own insecurities and growth as an undocumented minority woman in the white, male-dominated Church institution. Cecilia was brought from Mexico to Chicago, where her family owned multiple bakeries and were very successful. After joining the Church, the family moved to Utah. Cecilia described how her own migration experiences and questions of self-doubt with her identity have influenced her multiculturalist approaches to mothering her two children, whose father is also an undocumented migrant, but from Argentina.

In Chicago there were Mexicans and immigrants everywhere. I never questioned my identity until I came to Utah. I started to ask, am I Mexican enough? Am I too Mexican? Do I look like I should? It was rough for me to have that identity crisis, and then I wanted to overcompensate for my ethnicity. So, I want my children to embrace all three sides, especially at Church. They are American. They are Mexican. They are Argentinian. I want my children to be proud of where they are from even if they don’t ever live there. I don’t want others to question their identities so much. I want my children to think their way of living is something to be embraced.

Mothers like Cecilia cited that attendance in the Spanish-speaking ward allowed them to not only obtain parental support in Relief Society or from other migrant Church members but gave their children the opportunity to share space with other bicultural or multiracial children who were facing the same things as 1.5- or second-generation immigrants. This empowers mothers as they enjoy language retainment, engage in cultural activities and traditions that may not be otherwise celebrated, and generally experience a greater sense of peace and belonging with other Latinx members. Of course, mothers were also quick to tell me some iteration of a phrase common in Church culture: “The Gospel is perfect, but the people are not.” Mothers told me conflict was “bound” to happen in pan-ethnic congregations where different countries’ cultures or politics may conflict and members undergo personality clashes. But overall, mothers felt more secure taking their children to pan-ethnic spaces where they could better engage with a broadly Latinx heritage and cultural environment not found in white, Anglo US Church spaces.

Andrea, another mother who spoke with me, was born in Costa Rica to Peruvian parents who were already members of the Church. After her parents arrived in the US, they separated shortly thereafter, with her mother remarrying a Jewish Cuban man. She described how living undocumented in a multicultural household affected her personal perspectives. Although at times it was incredibly difficult, she felt it improved her worldview and made her a more Christlike and spiritual person. She is now married to a white Church member, and she told me it was a struggle with her in-laws to demonstrate the benefits of multicultural approaches in raising their grandchildren. It was not until she brought her husband to the Spanish-speaking ward that he was able to see why raising their children in a Latinx environment was so important to her. She exclaimed:

I’m very proud of my culture! I want my children to love it. I took my husband and kids to Church hoping they would learn Spanish and the Latino mindset. My husband grew up seeing the negative stereotypes but married into my family, and now he sees the beautiful too. He saw that Latinos work hard. We come, we contribute, and we fight to tell our story. I want my children to never feel ashamed of where we come from. Now he understands in a way he couldn’t before. . . . Hopefully my in-laws can [become] more open-minded too.

For mothers who expressed a desire to preserve their traditions like Andrea, active measures to assert themselves and their children through salient multiculturalism meant active participation in the Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking wards, which better allowed them to implement elements from each of their respective backgrounds to rear adaptable, culturally aware American, Latinx, Mormon children. The more pressure mothers felt from Anglo Church society to “assimilate,” the more motivated mothers appeared to be to take their children to dominantly Latinx spaces. Fictive kin groups of mothers within the Church then become not only spaces formed as a strategy for survival in the US but are platforms in which these women can assert their personal agency and power to resist the overreaches of white patriarchy within the Church institution.

As immigration, gender, and religious politics are highly unlikely to decrease in importance in our daily societal interactions, we must look to subcommunities like Latina migrant Mormons, who tactically employ multiculturalism as a form of resistance in the face of resource and social capital scarcity for examples of adaptive parenting. Their efforts are consistent with previous research that has discussed how small-scale actions, sometimes called “weapons of the weak,” can alter community experiences within an institution but do not risk threatening the overall power structure and, thereby, the benefits of group membership.[41] I believe it’s important to recognize why Latina migrants, along with other underrepresented communities within Mormonism, have had to employ these adaptive tactics in order to be recognized for their immense contributions and unseen labor given to the mainstream Church. Church resources should be used to alleviate the disparities nonwhite/immigrant communities currently face instead of furthering their marginalization.

I am acutely aware that Mormons have historically been a controversial, misunderstood community. Latina migrants who are deeply underrepresented or similarly misunderstood in US society have been able to find recognition and pathways to success within US Church spaces. This should be recognized, as it has created an intense feeling of belonging and loyalty among many I interviewed. Loyalty from the white US Church, though, has often required a cost from Latina migrants—one that can compromise or erase identity and place by succumbing to Anglo assimilation pressures. My hope in conducting this study was to first and foremost amplify the diverse voices, circumstances, and contributions of Latina migrant mothers, many of whom are women I grew up with and who mothered me. I remain passionate about authentically sharing their stories. My secondary but equally important goal was to begin to lay a conversational foundation that asks both the LDS Church institution and its Anglo US communities to evaluate where it is succeeding or failing in assisting members who face intersecting societal disadvantages. By understanding underserved populations’ perspectives on what the US Church can and must do better, we as a Church society can begin intentional action for structural and sociocultural change. I believe that in doing so, the Church could be a model for other influential religious and government bodies. Using the immense resource capital within Mormonism’s (inter)national political and social landscapes, we can pave the way for a more equitable and inclusive future. It is a long road that requires recognition and reparation with the past and sincere preparation for the future. That, to me, as both researcher and Church member, is the most effective and purposeful way we can exemplify and create true reciprocity within our religious societies and hermandades.

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^[1] All interview participants’ names have been changed.

^[2] “Facts and Statistics: Worldwide Statistics,” Newsroom, Sept. 1, 2018, https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics.

^[3] Rebecca A. Smith and Susan E. Mannon, “‘Nibbling on the Margins of Patriarchy’: Latina Immigrants in Northern Utah,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 33, no. 6 (2010): 986–1005; Ignacio M. García, “Finding a Mormon Identity through Religion and Activism: A Personal Note on Constructing a Latino Time and Place in the Mormon Narrative,” Journal of Mormon History 41, no. 2 (2015): 69–90; Ignacio García, “Empowering Latino Saints to Transcend Historical Racialism: A Bishop’s Tale,” in Decolonizing Mormonism: Approaching a Postcolonial Zion, edited by Joanna Brooks and Gina Colvin (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2018), 1–360; Sujey Vega, “Hermanas interseccionales: Las latinas de LDS navegan por la fe, el liderazgo y la solidaridad femenina,” Latino Studies 17, no. 1 (2019): 27–47.

^[4] Elise Boxer, “‘To Become White and Delightsome’: American Indians and Mormon Identity” (PhD diss., Arizona State University, 2009); Hokulani K. Aikau, A Chosen People, A Promised Land: Mormonism and Race in Hawai’i (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012); W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Moroni Benally, “Decolonizing the Blossoming: Indigenous People’s Faith in a Colonizing Church,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 50, no. 4 (2017): 71–188.

^[5] Armand L. Mauss, All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010).

^[6] 2 Nephi 5:21, 23–24.

^[7] Floyd A. O’Neill and Stanford J. Layton, “Of Pride and Politics: Brigham Young as Indian Superintendent,” Utah Historical Quarterly 46, no. 3 (1978): 239–41.

^[8] Sylvester A. Johnson, “Accounting for Whiteness in Mormon Religion,” Mormon Studies Review 3 (2016): 117–33.

^[9] Max Perry Mueller, Race and the Making of the Mormon People (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017).

^[10] John Kincaid, “Extinguishing the Twin Relics of Barbaric Multiculturalism—Slavery and Polygamy—from American Federalism,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 33, no. 1 (2003): 75–92.

^[11] The Congressional Globe, Thirty-Eighth Congress, Second Session, Jan. 1865, 144.

^[12] W. Paul Reeve, “From Not White Enough to Too White: The Historical Evolution of a Mormon Race,” Sunstone Magazine (website), Jan. 1, 2015, https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/from-not-white-enough-to-too-white-the-historical-evolution-of-a-mormon-race/.

^[13] Sondra Jones, The Trial of Don Pedro León Luján: The Attack Against Indian Slavery and the Mexican Traders in Utah (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000).

^[14] Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016).

^[15] Kate B. Carter, Heart Throbs of the West, vol. 4 (Salt Lake City: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1943).

^[16] Reséndez, The Other Slavery, 245.

^[17] García, “Finding a Mormon Identity.”

^[18] Ibid.

^[19] Octavio I. Romano-V, “Minorities, History and the Cultural Mystique,” El Grito: A Journal of Contemporary Mexican-American Thought 1, no. 1 (1967): 5–11.

^[20] Aihwa Ong, Buddha Is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, and the New America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).

^[21] Ibid., 200–01.

^[22] Mark L. Grover, “The Maturing of the Oak: The Dynamics of LDS Growth in Latin America,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 38, no. 2 (2005): 79.

^[23] Michael O’Loughlin, “Competing for Hispanic Catholics: Secularism, Other Faiths Battle for Souls,” Crux (website), July 2, 2015, https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/07/02/competing-for-hispanic-catholics-secularism-other-faiths-battle-for-souls/.

^[24] Roberto G. Gonzales, Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016).

^[25] Claudia L. Bushman, Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-day Saints in Modern America (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006), 102–09.

^[26] Mark L. Grover, review of “In His Own Language”: Mormon Spanish Speaking Congregations in the United States, by Jessie L. Embry, BYU Studies Quarterly 38, no. 2 (1999): 211–14, available at https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol38/iss2/13/.

^[27] Emily Ann Gurnon, “The Dark Face of a White Church: Latinos and Mormon Racism” (master’s thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1993), 1–17; Emily Gurnon, “Minority Mormons: Latinos and Latter-day Saints,” Christian Century 111, no. 5 (1994): 157–59.

^[28] Sharon Hays, The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998).

^[29] Pamela Stone, Opting Out?: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).

^[30] Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Ernestine Avila, “‘I’m Here, But I’m There’: The Meanings of Latina Transnational Motherhood,” Gender and Society 11, no. 5 (1997): 548–71; Leisy J. Abrego, Sacrificing Families: Navigating Laws, Labor, and Love Across Borders (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2014), 11; Joanna Dreby, Everyday Illegal: When Policies Undermine Immigrant Families (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015).

^[31] Patricia Fernández-Kelly and Sara Curran, “Nicaraguans: Voices Lost, Voices Found,” in Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, edited by Rubén G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 127–56.; Elma I. Lorenzo-Blanco, Alan Meca, Jennifer B. Unger, Andrea Romero, Melinda Gonzales-Backen, Brandy Piña-Watson, Miguel Ángel Cano, et al., “Latino Parent Acculturation Stress: Longitudinal Effects on Family Functioning and Youth Emotional and Behavioral Health,” Journal of Family Psychology 30, no. 8 (2016): 966; Vicki Ruíz, From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

^[32] Ignacio M. García, “Thoughts on Latino Mormons, Their Afterlife, and the Need for a New Historical Paradigm for Saints of Color,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 50, no. 4 (2017): 1–29.

^[33] Patricia Arredondo, “Mujeres Latinas—Santas y Marquesas,” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 8, no. 4 (2002): 308–19; Rachel ­Hershberg and M. Brinton Lykes, “Redefining Family: Transnational Girls Narrate Experiences of Parental Migration, Detention, and Deportation,” Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung 14, no. 1 (2013): 14–35; Leah M. Sarat, Fire in the Canyon: Religion, Migration, and the Mexican Dream (New York: New York University Press, 2013).

^[34] Catherine A Brekus, “Tanner Lecture: Mormon Women and the Problem of Historical Agency,” Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 2 (2011): 58–87; Dorothy Allred Solomon, The Sisterhood: Inside the Lives of Mormon Women (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Neylan McBaine, Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2014); Cory Crawford, “The Struggle for Female Authority in Biblical and Mormon Theology,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 48, no. 2 (2015): 1–66; Curtis G. Greenfield, Pauline Lytle, and F. Myron Hays, “Living the Divine Divide: A Phenomenological Study of Mormon Mothers Who Are Career-Professional Women,” Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology 16, no. 1 (2016): 1–14; Neylan McBaine, “Roundtable: Mormon Women and the Anatomy of Belonging,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 50, no. 1 (2017): 193–202.

^[35] Edward Flores, God’s Gangs: Barrio Ministry, Masculinity, and Gang Recovery (New York: New York University Press, 2014); Claudia Roesch, Macho Men and Modern Women: Mexican Immigration, Social Experts and Changing Family Values in the 20th Century United States, Family Values and Social Change, vol. 1 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015).

^[36] Tina U. Hancock, “Sin Papeles: Undocumented Mexicanas in the Rural United States,” Affilia 22, no. 2 (2007):175–84; Sujey Vega, Latino Heartland: Of Borders and Belonging in the Midwest (New York: New York University Press, 2015).

^[37] Peggy Levitt, “Religion as a Path to Civic Engagement,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 31, no. 4 (2008): 766–91; Felipe Hinojosa, Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014).

^[38] Jorge Iber, Hispanics in the Mormon Zion, 1912–1999 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000).

^[39] Ibid., 19–39.

^[40] García, “Thoughts on Latino Mormons.”

^[41] Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Servants of Globalization: Migration and Domestic Work (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2015).

[post_title] => Multiculturalism as Resistance: Latina Migrants Navigate U.S. Mormon Spaces [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 53.1 (Spring 2020): 5–32
I cannot help but smile when she calls me hermana, her “sister.” Her reference to me signifies a dual meaning: I am not only like a family member to her, but additionally, the term hermana is used among Spanish-speaking members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as Mormons) to signify solidarity and integration with one another. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => multiculturalism-as-resistance-latina-migrants-navigate-u-s-mormon-spaces [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-04-30 15:02:27 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-04-30 15:02:27 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=25872 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 23344 [post_author] => 2971 [post_date] => 2019-05-12 02:50:07 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-05-12 02:50:07 [post_content] =>

Imagine two circles, largely but not completely overlapping. The center, a tall oval of convergence, and on each side, facing crescents. One of the two circles is the dominant element of culture, men. The other, the muted element of culture, women. Both the crescent that belongs to men only and the crescent that belongs to women only are wilderness. However, as Elaine Showalter explains, “All of male consciousness is within the circle of the Dominant structure and thus accessible to or structured by language.”[1] Women know what the male crescent is like, even if they have never seen it, because it becomes spoken culture, the histories and mythologies of a people. These myths shape ideologies surrounding built and natural environments. What is understood in the twenty-first century as “nature” is really a curated environment built around industrial needs, urbanization, and selected areas of wildness, the boundaries of which are ever-eroding. The earth’s wildness has no place in “nature,” which has become man’s property. 

But the experience of women as women, their wilderness crescent, is unshared with men—utterly other—and therefore to men, unnatural. In the words of Ursula K. Le Guin: 

This is what civilization has left out, what culture excludes, what the Dominants call animal, bestial, primitive, undeveloped, unauthentic— what has not been spoken, and when spoken, has not been heard—what we are just beginning to find words for, our words not their words: the experience of women. For dominance-identified men and women both, that is true wildness. Their fear of it is ancient, profound, and violent. The misogyny that shapes every aspect of our civilization is the institutionalized form of male fear and hatred of what they have denied and therefore cannot know, cannot share: that wild country, the being of women.[2]

Early authors of the ecofeminist movement instituted women’s relationship with the natural world in modern discourse. Established as both an ecological philosophy and a social movement in the early 1970s, ecofeminism began by citing “the existence of a unique and significant relationship between women and nature and, on that basis, [it] advocates specifically women’s environmental activism to save the Earth.”[3]

A multidisciplinary group of scholars recognized the historical associations between women and nature. In 1974, cultural anthropologist Sherry Ortner published “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?” arguing that “women’s subordination to men is rooted in their symbolic connection to nature.”[4] Environmental historian and philosopher Carolyn Merchant followed with “The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution” about how “modern science’s mechanistic worldview has enabled the simultaneous exploitation of nature and subordination of women.”[5] In Ortner’s words, “The universality of female subordination, the fact that it exists within every type of social and economic arrangement and in societies of every degree of complexity, indicates to me that we are up against something very profound, very stubborn, something we cannot rout out simply by rearranging a few tasks and roles in the social system, or even by reordering the whole economic structure.”[6]

If conceptions of nature are built around just one crescent of human experience, male, it is clear that the intergenerational repercussions of woman’s dismissal and subordination, her separation from her own wild nature, reverberate in every facet of her being, affecting the health of the world. A lodestar in restoring the voice and psyche of women is Jungian analyst and cantadora Clarissa Pinkola Estés. For over twenty years Dr. Estés researched the archetype of the Wild Woman. This facet of the female psyche is primal, wild, but has been twisted and hidden by the forces of culture. She remains, however, in the traces of the myths, folk tales, and stories of many cultures—instinctual, visionary. 

Consequently, Dr. Estés is keenly aware of the devastations of the female unconscious that accompany women starved of these attributes. Dr. Estés gathered women’s own language to describe the grim symptoms of a disrupted relationship with the wildish force of the psyche. They include: “feeling extraordinarily dry, fatigued, frail, depressed, confused, gagged, muzzled, unaroused. Feeling frightened, halt or weak, without inspiration, without animation, without soulfulness, without meaning, shame-bearing, chronically fuming, volatile, stuck, uncreative, compressed, crazed.”[7] She contrasts this desiccated sense of being with the attributes of the Mother wolf, fresh with blood, making tracks, and herding her brood through wilderness with authority—Nature in her unadulterated form. It becomes possible, then, to imagine what a society might look like that has returned to nature’s ways, filled with women inhabiting their own authority. For now, the world is left in a state of ecological disaster. 

A False Paradigm of Separateness Promotes Ecological Fraying 

It is impossible to separate what has been done to women from what has been done to the land. Both are distrusted. Both are removed from their wildness. They are feared, tamed, and contorted into knowable forms, into extractable resources. Dominance-identified men and women do not say nature is sacred because they distrust it. Their definition does not include humanity. It is their construct; just as most of what is said and known about women is myth and construct.[8]

Because the essential networks of interconnection that define the sanctity of the earth and women are muted, rigorous scientific study that gathers enough understanding of ecological systems to honor and protect them is ignored in the face of lust for immediate gains that cut at the last roots of the living world. Humankind’s large-scale environmental degradations demonstrate that the forces of industrialization perceive that natural systems’ inherent value is inferior to extractable resources for immediate human consumption. Consumption is spreading at an uncontainable scale and rate. The pride behind this wanton destruction of eternal networks in the physical and spiritual spheres of the wild is the same pride that has removed Heavenly Mother from her temple throne and attempted to accelerate the silencing of women. The ramifications? A slow suicide. 

Social and economic structures that promote this commodity based view of the natural world have not been kept from influencing the worldviews of Church members and the Church’s own institutional structure. Unfortunately, this contributes to a spiritual and cognitive dissonance toward the land and the true substance of divine feminine identity. A full appreciation of these aspects is necessary for a full restoration of the gospel, one that plants the Mother tree in the temple as the giver of life and the healer of the environmentally degraded world. 

An Uprooted Eco-Spirituality 

As long as the institutional structure of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints remains a patriarchy, its behaviors and correlated teachings will uphold the mistreatment of women and nature by defining them as appendages of men, to be tamed and used, not heard or under 

stood. Hearing women and valuing their voices dissolves the pride that sustains all patriarchal structures. A patriarchy is an inherently telestial system where equality is impossible. In the words of Gina Colvin, “It’s a given that women aren’t equal to men in the church—and any argument that brawls with this fact is a nonsense. While men are granted the exercise of ecclesiastical and managerial authority over women—that is called a patriarchy.”[9]

While the Church has recently placed emphasis on the need for greater environmental stewardship, it has largely come through public facing statements on the Newsroom website and in speeches presented at symposiums rather than to the membership by way of general conferences or standardized materials.[10] These outward-facing statements are not a part of LDS discourse in any developed, systematic way and effect little change. To find environmental statements by General Authorities in the Church, one must search through the decades to find isolated commentary. For example, former President Ezra Taft Benson said in 1976, “Irreverence for God, of life, and for [humankind] takes the form of things like littering, heedless strip mining, [and] pollution of water and air. But these are, after all, outward expressions of the inner man.”[11] While these words bring attention to the spiritual issues behind environmental waste and destruction, they were prepared for the White House Forum on Domestic Policy in Denver, Colorado and have had little more effect on current LDS discourse than that of a small bandage on a wound that has been hemorrhaging for decades. Ultimately, they fail, as all statements will within the Church’s current patriarchal paradigm, to elucidate Mother in Heaven’s fundamental role in the design of the purposes and paths of creation.[12]

The patriarchal lens of the Church creates tension and dissonance around LDS theology that attributes all living beings with a soul, with an individual purpose and identity, and that promises their celestial ization along with Earth’s. Instead of carving out a unique paradigm that honors and sustains the ecologies connecting all living beings on the earth, the Church has largely taken on the inherent attitudes of dominance-identified men and women: that the earth is to be used as those in power see fit. What follows is an underlying belief by many of its members, compounded by eschatological theories, that things will go as they will for the earth and there isn’t much to be done to stop it. Its mentality is a modern-day iteration of the sorrowing of the damned. 

This fatalistic view of the earth creates a disconnect from the rape and abuse of the land and of women: it is sad but inevitable and only discussed peripherally. The beauty of the earth is mentioned in songs and occasionally over the pulpit, but there is little talk about the spiritual consequences of its destruction. Relatedly, there is little official discourse about the abuse of women in the Church. When stories surface, they are immediately buried under counter-accusations and victim-blaming; over and over again, women have to fight to be heard and to have the power of the patriarchal institutions on their side.[13] As patriarchy fears the creative powers of the wild, it fears the creative powers of women and their voices that cast a spiritual warning about collective abuses of their bodies and the body of the earth. There is no room within the walls of any patriarchy for women to speak as women, to voice the primal and primary roles that are theirs in the cycling of life to death and back to life. Consequently, women, wild with desire for their birthright, are opening paths of understanding to Heavenly Mother. Saints across the globe are seeking and finding answers on their own, through personal revelation and through creative works that are becoming the greatest force for ushering in exiled Lady Wisdom.

Women preside in the rites of birth and death; tend to children, the sick, and elderly; and are, therefore, a constant reminder of the inevitability of death, representing the unknown and uncontrollable. As Ortner states, “Because of woman’s greater bodily involvement with the natural functions surrounding reproduction, she is seen as more a part of nature than man is. Yet in part because of her consciousness and participation in human social dialogue, she is recognized as a participant in culture. Thus, she appears as something intermediate between culture and nature, lower on the scale of transcendence than man.”[14] This hierarchy bleeds into the mindset of LDS men and women. They are lulled by the trappings of a false power structure, and Mother of Heaven and her daughters are not only veiled but also violently severed from their true identity with no map to the Tree. 

A Cosmos without A Tree 

The cosmological failings of the correlated gospel include an omission of woman’s true realm, her powers, her voice, her dimensions. Likewise, Heavenly Mother is faceless, nameless, voiceless. Even Mormon feminists have been caught within the constructs of the Church’s patriarchal framework when articulating, in the words of Taylor G. Petrey, “Mother in Heaven’s identity and roles in order to represent their own needs and desires of the ideal woman and their calls for reforming the theology.”[15]

Within this context, Heavenly Mother is not located in a place of agency but instead reconsidered in domestic iterations. In these scenarios, and in the words of Melodie Moench Charles, “Heavenly Mother is not an equal partner with Heavenly Father in any sense. She is second to her husband in everything, to her son in many things, and even to the Holy Ghost. Since she has no sphere of operations, she has no power.”[16]

What does women’s heaven look like, spoken from their own lips out of their own hearts? What is the spirit and soul of their Creatress like? In short, what is the character of their own spirits? There are more answers available than have been given space in LDS discourse. They have not entered with full force into the discourse of LDS theology because Mother is still missing from her temple home as the source of women’s spiritual orientation and nourishment. Again, women must follow the crumbs that Dr. Estés has left behind to mark as a trail. A healthy woman, full of the wisdom of her Mother, “is much like a wolf: robust, chock-full, life-giving, territorially aware, inventive, loyal, roving.”[17] She embodies the wildness of the Wild Woman archetype. “She is the Life/Death/Life force, the incubator. She is intuition, far-seer, and deep listener. She encourages humans to remain multilingual; fluent in the languages of dreams, passions, and poetry. She thunders after injustice.”[18] She is not separate from the networks that create life; she maps them on her body. She “finds heartening instead of fear in the darkness of regeneration.”[19] She is the cosmological center. In the words of Mircea Eliade, “All religious experiences connected with fecundity and birth have a cosmic structure. The sacrality of woman depends on the holiness of the earth.”[20] Women represent the web of relationships born of Heavenly Mother, from whom they inherit creative powers. Like the Mother, women are the connective power between heaven and earth, administering their own life-giving ordinances. 

Heavenly Mother: The Seal of Creation

Mother is a tree. Her roots reach down into the underworld; her body is the flesh and blood of the present, the passage between life and death; her branches paths to the heavens. She represents eternal life in the most primal sense, as the preserver of the interrelationships of all beings and the earth around them. She knows everything that lives by name, why and how each came to be. She knows that for women and men to follow the righteous example of the rest of creation and fulfill the measure of their creation, they must choose to take part in the everlasting covenant. She is the Tree of Life, the Axis Mundi, the vertical marking of the center of the cosmos, the conceptual and ceremonial center, marking the point of intersection of the cardinal directions.[21] The tree of life has always been a symbol of the divine feminine. Specifically, in the Old Testament, the tree is the representation of Asherah, an Israelite goddess. She is the lady in the temple, the source of fecundity and eternal life. Christ is her fruit.[22]

Asherah was one in a family of gods worshipped in the first Jerusalem temple and part of a larger council of gods. This family included the Father, the Highest; the Mother, the consort-goddess Asherah and personification of wisdom; and the Son, called the Lord.[23] There is much textual evidence to support that the Son and Father were blurred into the one God of the current Hebrew Bible, and Wisdom the Mother was banished, surviving in allusions and fragments.[24] Abraham’s earliest form of temple worship was altered by King Josiah in the sixth century BCE to adhere with the book of the law. This book was discovered during the temple’s renovation and is either a version of Deuteronomy or an extracanonical law code.[25] The supporters of this law code are referred to as the Deuteronomists, and their temple and worship reforms “caused the loss of what were likely many plain and precious things. Among these were the older ideas, symbols, possibly entire rituals, and forms of words from the temple as its adherents had known it, including the Lady Wisdom.”[26]

The removal of Asherah from the Holy of Holies of the temple was the removal of the urtext of women; the sacred script that unfolded their role in salvation. It was the rejection of the ecological wisdom encoded in the everlasting covenant. In the words of Bible scholar Margaret Barker, Josiah also “destroyed the high places and pillars and burned Asherah, the sacred tree.”[27] At the time of the purge, Barker notes, groups of believers of the older faith (such as Lehi and his family) left or were driven from Jerusalem and, in their exile, continued the older forms of Abrahamic worship.[28] These older beliefs are found in texts such as the Book of Weeks and the Apocalypse of Enoch, as well as in the Book of Mormon. Close readings of the Bible reveal evidence for the older traditions in Ezekiel, Psalms, Micah, Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, and parts of Isaiah. Many of these prophets condemn “not only foreigners, enemies, or invaders from outside the kingdom but also the changes they saw from the religion of Abraham to that of Moses, and his Law.”[29]

According to Barker, “the sins of Jerusalem that Isaiah condemned were not those of the ten commandments, but those of the Enoch tradition: pride (e.g., Isa. 2:11, 17), rebellion (e.g., Isa. 1:23, 1:28, 5:24) and loss of Wisdom (e.g., Isa. 2:6, 3:12, 5:12).”[30] The first chapter of the Book of Proverbs gives voice to rejected Lady Wisdom: “How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing, and fools hate knowledge? Give heed to my reproof and I will pour out my spirit on you . . . because I called and you refused to listen . . . and you have ignored all my counsel . . . I will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when panic strikes you . . . when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon me but I will not answer, they will seek me diligently but they will not find me” (Prov. 1:22–28). This is the Goddess speaking.[31] These are women’s words of warning. This is wilderness promising that the very wildness that has stirred up such disdain will roll out on the earth the wrath of the Mother whose counsel is ignored. 

Lady Wisdom spoke from the cosmological center of the Israelites, from her home in the Holy of Holies about the mysteries of creation. The Holy of Holies (Prov. 8) was constructed as a perfect cube and lined with gold to represent the light and fire of the divine presence (2 Chr. 3:8). Barker states, “Wisdom is described in Proverbs 8.30 as the amon in creation, a word not found elsewhere, but thought to mean ‘architect.’ The Greek, however, translated it harmozousa, the one who joins together (Prov. 8:30), which implies that She was remembered as the bond of the everlasting covenant.”[32] The everlasting covenant was given to all living beings, not just men and women, as a way to preserve the connections forged on the earth and with Earth eternally. Barker continues, “The prophets linked covenant not to the Lord’s exclusive relationship to his people, but to the Creator’s relationship to the creation.”[33] Breaking the everlasting covenant means destroying the fabric of creation. It is a rejection of the feminine aspect of deity, her admonitions and eternal wisdom. The scriptures below suggest that “covenant” had a meaning connected with the order and stability of creation:[34]

Behold I establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you . . . the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 

Gen. 9:9–10, 16

The earth mourns and withers . . . for they have broken the everlasting covenant . . .  

Isa. 24:5

I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the creeping things of the ground. 

Hos. 2:18

Conclusion: Salvation is Dependent on Revering the Ecologies of Creation 

Isaiah prophesied that during the last days the earth would be cursed because of transgression: “The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left” (Isa. 24:5–6). It could not be more clear: salvation is dependent on revering the ecologies of creation and the physical, emotional, and spiritual ties that bind it. 

As the seal of creation, Heavenly Mother’s continued exile from the temple and from the religious and cultural life of contemporary Saints is in partial fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Her return to her rightful place in the temple will give women their divine archetype back and speaking grounds for not only their place in LDS cosmology but their place in healing the world. Her return will signify a restoration of humility, and love for all that is wild that will bring her offering as life-giver and eternal center of the actualized principles of wisdom to fruition. To enter the Holy of Holies, into the promises of celestial glory—a unified, holistic view of the entirety of creation—is to reverence a wild and mysterious Mother and her wild daughters, to learn the purposes of creation, the grand and the terrible, to contemplate the darkest abyss in order to discern the most brilliant light. It is to ultimately be entrusted with the understanding of the paths of everything that lives.[35]

What Moses actually saw on Sinai, as remembered by Baruch, the scribe of the prophet Jeremiah, was in part the transformation of the mountain into the Holy of Holies, a consecrated and purified space where Moses saw the creation of the world and learned the law.[36] These revelations were the mysteries of godliness, the wild heart of Heavenly Mother. This was Moses entering into true wildness. He was shown: 

The measures of fire, the depths of the abyss, the weight of the winds, the number of the raindrops, the suppression of wrath, the abundance of long suffering, the truth of judgement, the root of wisdom, the richness of understanding, the fountain of knowledge, the height of the air, the greatness of Paradise, the end of the periods, the beginning of the day of judgement, the number of offerings, the worlds which have not yet come, the mouth of hell, the standing place of vengeance, the place of faith, the region of hope, the picture of coming punishment, the multitude of angels which cannot be counted, the powers of the flame, the splendour of lightnings, the voice of the thunders, the order of the archangels, the treasuries of the light, the changes of the times, and the enquiries into the Law. 

2 Baruch 59:4–11

Approaching the Mother tree in order to partake of Christ the fruit is to enter into the way of all abundance. The Creatress, with El and Yahweh, will usher souls into eternal life who are trusted with the mysteries of creation, to better understand wildness as the vast web of interconnections and relationships to energies, matter, and souls. The Father’s and the Mother’s evaluation of their children will be based on the doctrine of Christ: to become as little children (3 Ne. 11:37–38). The roots of the word “innocent” mean to be free of injury or hurt. In Spanish it is understood to mean a person who tries not to harm others and who also is able to heal any injury or harm to herself.[37] All children are wild. All were wild once and lived in the wild country of the Mother tree. She is prophesied to return. It is time to usher her in. 

On the Day of Atonement 
Her return is as Her departure, 
“ . . . the sound of many waters.” 

A rush of angels and measuring reeds, laws 
pour out in a clamor of tongues, framing
cubit by cubit. 

To the Holy of Holies, through the eastern gate, 
Glory fills the temple—a river springs
from its center, Her branches spreading
on its banks, whose leaves 
are for healing. 

Whose fruit is for wisdom and whose oil 
is for anointing, to open the eyes to unerring
knowledge of what exists. She, the bond who holds
all things in harmony, She, the seal of creation, pours
out of the mouth of the Most High, 
covering the earth like a mist. 

My eyes were enlightened and my face
received the dew.[38]

---

[1] Elaine Showalter, “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness,” Critical Inquiry 8, no. 2 (1981): 200.

[2] Ursula K. Le Guin, “Woman/Wilderness,” in Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (New York: Grove Press, 1989), 163. 

[3] Juliann Emmons Allison, “Ecofeminism and Global Environmental Politics,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies (print publication date: Mar. 2010, online publication date: Nov. 2017).

[4] Ibid. 

[5] Ibid.

[6] Sherry B. Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?,” in Woman, Culture, and Society, edited by Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974), 68. 

[7] Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype (New York: Ballantine Books, 1992), 11.

[8] Le Guin, “Woman/Wilderness,” 162.

[9] Gina Colvin, “Ordain Women, But . . .: A Womanist Perspective,” in Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings, edited by Joanna Brooks, Rachel Hunt Steenblik, and Hannah Wheelwright (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 271. 

[10] See, for example, “Environmental Stewardship and Conservation,” Gospel Topics Essays, available at https://www.lds.org/topics/environmental stewardship-and-conservation?lang=eng; “Environmental Conservation and Stewardship Efforts,” Mormon Newsroom, https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/ article/environmental-conservation-stewardship-efforts; Steven E. Snow, “The Moral Imperative of Environmental Stewardship,” Mormon Newsroom, https:// www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/the-moral-imperative-of-environmental stewardship-elder-steven-e-snow; “Selected Scriptures and Church Leader Statements on Environmental Stewardship and Conservation,” Mormon Newsroom, https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/environment-statements.

[11] Ezra Taft Benson, “Problems Affecting the Domestic Tranquility of Citizens of the United States of America,” Vital Speeches 42, no. 8 (Feb. 1976): 240. 

[12] Margaret Barker, “Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?,” Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, http://orthodoxeurope.org/ page/11/1/7.aspx.

[13] One example is the case of the BYU rapes, daylighted through the courage of women. BYU then changed its policies. See Jack Healy, ”At Brigham Young, a Cost in Reporting a Rape,” New York Times, Apr. 26, 2016, https://www. nytimes.com/2016/04/27/us/rape-victims-brigham-young-university-honor code-suspensions.html.

[14] Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?,” 68–87. 

[15] Taylor G. Petrey, “Rethinking Mormonism’s Heavenly Mother,” Harvard Theological Review 109, no. 3 (July 2016): 322. 

[16] Melodie Moench Charles, “The Need for a New Mormon Heaven,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 21, no. 3 (Fall 1988): 84.

[17] Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves, 12–13. 

[18] Ibid. 

[19] Ibid., 147. 

[20] Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, translated by Willard R. Trask (New York: Harcourt, 1957), 144.

[21] Ibid., 33–36. 

[22] Margaret Barker, The Mother of the Lord, vol 1., The Lady in the Temple (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 190. 

[23] Zina Petersen, “Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 7 (2013): 100. 

[24] Ibid. 

[25] Ibid. 

[26] Ibid. 

[27] Barker, The Mother of the Lord, 24. 

[28] Ibid., 75. 

[29] Petersen, “Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?,” 104. 

[30] Barker, The Mother of the Lord, 53.

[31] Barker, “Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?”

[32] Ibid. 

[33] Barker, The Mother of the Lord, 209. 

[34] Ibid. 

[35] Ibid., 283.

[36] Ibid., 218. 

[37] Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves, 152.

[38] Kathryn Knight Sonntag, from “Ezekiel’s Visions,” in The Tree at the Center (Salt Lake City: By Common Consent Press, 2019), 64–65.

[post_title] => The Mother Tree: Understanding the Spiritual Root of Our Ecological Crisis [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 52.1 (Spring 2019): 17–32
But the experience of women as women, their wilderness crescent, is unshared with men—utterly other—and therefore to men, unnatural. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => the-mother-tree-understanding-the-spiritual-root-of-our-ecological-crisis [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-04-30 14:16:09 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-04-30 14:16:09 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=23344 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 23343 [post_author] => 3486 [post_date] => 2019-05-12 02:47:10 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-05-12 02:47:10 [post_content] =>

Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been. 

Moroni’s words in Mormon 9:31 

Years ago, in 2015, it was announced that women leaders were being added to Church leadership committees, including the temple committee. I hoped this meant changes would come to the gendered language of temple ordinances.

I had mourned when the most recent temple films were released in 2013 and I realized they included no changes to the script. Here was a perfect opportunity for such changes, complete with a new score and individual creation and garden depictions. But the archaic language remained. 

***

I do not lend the weight of truth to the language of ritual. Such language is symbolic. But even in the context of symbolism, language that is so preferential toward men and dismissive of women—especially when such language more aptly demonstrates the bias of the writers than the purpose of the ritual—needs to be removed. 

I have encountered historical accounts regarding the early development of temple ritual: there was much discussion and rewriting of the ceremonies, sometimes within a day, when Joseph was trying to figure it all out initially. And there were many subsequent changes made by leaders and committees soon after Joseph, and in the years since then. This history need not alarm us or surprise us—after all, the concept of truth in the Restoration is that which is built up “line upon line, precept upon precept; here a little, and there a little” (Doctrine and Covenants 128:21).

I can only imagine the possible discussions held by the temple committee over the recent years, the black and white script in front of them, red pencils in hand. How many of the letters written by people—by women sharing their experiences, their concerns, and their pain—were read by this committee? How many comments were considered as the blood red lines were drawn by this generation, through the black and white words? How many pleas were heard? How many times was a phrase, or even a word, considered and debated, with some insisting it remain and others asking for cleansing. I don’t know how long it might take a committee of various people—as well intentioned, and as biased and flawed, as any of us—to embrace a completely equitable and inclusive language for a ceremony with ancient roots that has gone through countless changes, but that simultaneously has as many different meanings as participants. 

***

Near the end of 2018, several friends and I discussed the rumors of coming changes to the temple ceremonies. A friend asked me for my wish list containing all of the changes I wanted to see. Since I have often spoken with temple and Church leaders regarding my own temple experiences, giving feedback at any opportunity about language and policy that has interrupted what can be a powerful learning experience in symbolic ritual, I had no problem coming up with a wish list.

But I surprised myself when I hesitated for a moment about what I would put at the top of the list. Initially, I had immediately thought of the crucial need to make the language of all ordinances completely equitable, having no reference to gender specific roles. Then, for a moment, I thought of something else that I bring up every time someone asks me to help them have a healthy experience at the temple. I almost put it at the top of the list. So many tend to assume the ceremonies are literal, and have lost the practice of figurative learning. At the beginning of every endowment session, I want there to be a reminder and short instruction that what follows is a symbolic ritual, and to be understood as an individual journey for each person. I want every temple preparation class to include a history of symbolic ritual as well as pragmatic instruction on how to practice experiencing the power of symbolism.

While the top of my wish list for temple changes remained a wish for gender equitable language, I could not ignore the significance I placed on creating opportunities to better understand the temple ceremonies themselves as symbolic. Both of these wishes grew out of the central thematic tension of the temple experience itself: our individual significance and our potential for one-ness, both with each other, and with God. 

***

There have been changes. I heard about and then experienced the most recent changes in the temple by January 3, 2019. I have mixed feelings about it.

I am grateful for what was removed, which consisted of much of the sexist language and action. There are still words that distinguish gender roles, and there are still differences in some of the ordinances between men and women. I see the changes as a step toward more equitable language, but not as achieving true gender equality at the linguistic level.I am concerned about some of the added phrases. The new, temporary intro gives some reference to the many and ongoing changes to the ceremony, but does not do much to indicate the nature of symbolic ritual, nor teach how to approach and learn from symbolic ritual. Other phrases can be interpreted as being more exclusive rather than inclusive, depending on how one reads scripture and proclamations. The most valuable additions are the words spoken by Eve at the end, and I will return to these later. Many of these changes correspond with items on my wish list; however, there still remains more that I continue to hope for.

As soon as the most recent changes were implemented and reported on, many more people wanted—even needed—to talk about the temple language. I have had calls and messages every day since then from people, usually women, who are trying to process their feelings about these changes.

Friends of all ages, some very active and some no longer attending, struggled with wondering if the language of the covenants they had made prior to these changes was still binding for them, or whether those covenants automatically “updated” to their current form, with its more equitable language.

Several times, women messaged me in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. They wondered why, if these were changes positive for women, did a difference in wording for the men and the women remain? Why was language added that could trigger thoughts of polygamy? Many asked, “Why is it so hard? Some changes I have wanted to see for so long are finally here, but I still wonder if God loves me as much as His sons?”

These conversations reaffirmed my belief in the importance of receiving regular reminders and instruction concerning figurative learning and the history of symbolic temple rituals.

But all the education in the world cannot erase or minimize the pain that existed, and continues to exist for so many, when sexist, archaic language has long been a core part of rituals that are presented as being essential to salvation.

All of the blood red lines that were painstakingly drawn through the harmful words in the ceremony script—words that have pierced so many hearts with deep wounds—remain in our collective consciousness. The knowledge of these invisible lines cannot simply be ignored or erased. This type of pain and trauma—the pain and trauma embedded within words that literally shaped an entire people’s concept of their present life and their potential eternity—this type of pain and trauma was felt for generations. True healing does not come through redaction only; this pain needs to be acknowledged in order to help temper and quell its destructive force.

***

Sometimes, all we can do is sit with each other, listen, and mourn that which burdens us in our journey to seek God. 

I hear of the trauma felt by those who took what they heard about the temple as being doctrinal, or as an eternal truth. Much of the rhetoric about the temple is that it is the only way we can attain salvation, and that if everyone in our family did not attend and remain “temple worthy,” we would not be together in the eternities. The ritual, which was developed and designed to be a depiction of an ascension journey for each of us, instead became for many a literal depiction of literal beings, and binary gender roles were narrowly defined as only fitting the limited role of Adam, or of Eve.

I am in several LGBTQ parent groups. One of the most common fears I hear expressed from mothers whose child just came out is, “I am so afraid they are not safe staying in the Church. But I want them to stay so we can be together after this life.” 

I wonder how we lost sight of the purpose of symbolic ritual, seeing it instead as a literal requirement with the power to separate us from those we love. 

I kept sensing that in trying to fulfill a covenant to offer all to God, people felt they had to sacrifice not only themselves, but also everyone they loved on the altar of a stone building that we call a temple, for the sake of that stone building. The temple itself shifted culturally into a literal and physical entity into which people seemed to feel they had to conform their own wills and experience. Significantly, this conforming always occurred according to someone else’s narrative perspective—what they had heard, or saw, or interpreted, in an external narrative.

They were losing the spirit of Christ’s message—that grace is constant, love is unconditional, and the Kingdom of God is within us—by trying to make the temple into something it isn’t, instead of embracing it for what it can be. 

I do not minimize or dismiss the trauma felt by those who struggle with the temple rituals. This trauma is very real.

I think anytime you take something that was designed to be symbolic (however imperfectly and however deeply biased the agenda of its creators), but then see it and try to experience it as literal, the result can be traumatic. 

Are the recent changes going to make a difference for those who choose to attend? Can they bring comfort for those who felt struggle and pain with past language?

I think the answer is as individual as the journey. 

***

No matter how much we try to teach the history of ritual, or the power of symbolic learning, I think we will struggle with any ceremony that holds such meaning for us. 

I think it is what we do as humans. We want to have a clear answer; we want to know what something means. We want to be told what to do, and rely on someone else to be in charge.

I think this desire helps explain why the Garden story is common among so many civilizations.

When I experience the story of the Garden symbolically, I understand the entire narrative in all its parts and characters as all applying to me in different ways. When I see myself in all of it—all parts, all characters—then I can sink into a place of potential enlightenment concerning what applies to me at this moment in my journey. The Garden story is a powerful archetype, and the powerful archetypes are the ones that apply to the human journey.

We are all in the Garden: a place of innocence, where all is laid out clearly and we are given the answers. We don’t have to figure anything out. The Adam part of us is good with this.

There is also a part of us that is wondering if there is something more. The Eve part of us recognizes that we are meant to grow, even in ways that are unknown. We have a hunger for wisdom.

It is human to want to be safe in the Garden, to be told the answer, and to then blame someone else when things don’t turn out or are difficult. And it is human to seek wisdom and to struggle with the difficulty of it. 

It is also human to create, to want to be in power, and to be the messengers bringing good news.

In ritual, we can see that we are part of creating the very Garden in which we live, that we then feel led to leave. We create our world, piece by piece. We follow rules that provide order, we try to seek answers when we wonder, we turn to what inspires, and try to create again when things don’t work out and opposition occurs.

Ritual in the temple symbolizes the human journey, in which we seek to ascend. And in that journey, we leave the Garden for a world—a world of fullness, of community, and of richness—in which we continue to seek God 

I have moments nearly every day where I realize I am trying to remain in the Garden. A choice exists: we can move toward complexity and wisdom, or we can try to remain in a place of no opposition. The symbolic journey depicted in the temple ritual helps remind me of this choice and brings to mind what I have learned for myself in moments of enlightenment. There are a number of ways this choice is described, this moment of choosing the fruit and leaving the Garden: a paradigm shift, a dark night of the soul, an existential crisis, letting go and moving on, a loss of innocence. I think of the inexplicably heart-pounding, breathless moments when I somehow know that going forward with a thought, or choice, or action will mean the end of life as I know it, and the beginning of a new way of being, full of unknown challenges. But to not move forward into this new existence when the possibility of deeper wisdom calls to me—that is something less than living. The Tree, an archetype for the Goddess, does not offer easy life. She invites me to deeper living.

I hope the new changes will encourage all to seek deeper understanding of ritual history, including what inspired the temple ceremony. 

***

I have been thinking about what shaped my own temple experience, which started when I was a child. 

I remember walking through a building that was under construction in 1963. I was about five and we had recently moved to Palo Alto. I was with my parents and we were visiting a friend who was working on the Oakland Temple. I saw rolls of carpet and wet paint signs. On the grounds, I saw the sprinkler lines being laid out and the space for the fountain. Later, after the Oakland Temple was finished and I knew that it was dedicated for ceremonies, I thought of how it was also still a building, made up of the same materials as any other. I could honor and revere what the purpose of the building was, without making that honor about the building itself.

Near that same time, during a visit to Salt Lake, my grandpa took us through the new annex of the Salt Lake Temple, which was under construction. He would talk very freely about the efforts to build this annex and the challenges and frustrations with other Church and temple leaders he encountered. He was quite candid with his feelings when he thought someone was being foolish about the project. I grew up realizing that everyone, including General Authorities, were subject to bias and flaws, and could do some harmful things, sometimes at the same time they were doing great things.

I learned that the details of the temple buildings as well as the workings in them were designed by a committee of men who had different ideas and opinions, rarely agreed, sometimes broke their word, sometimes sought or followed inspiration, and occasionally were willing to try something different from their own usual way of doing things.

Grandpa had a deep love and reverence for temple work, and he would talk about it with us from the time we were little. This practice helped me see the way one could speak of something sacred with reverence without getting tripped up by the idea that you couldn’t say anything about sacred things. He wanted us to be prepared to take part in something that was uniquely symbolic, and he, like many adults I knew during my life, recognized that being prepared and educated about the purpose and nature of something so unique could help me have a valuable experience. I heard him refer to the endowment as a spiritual play. I loved theater, and learned early that great theater was an excellent way to learn vicariously. The model of the Salt Lake temple looks like a theater, and the actors ascend up ramps and stairs as we journey through the rooms, to higher places. 

I remember many parts of the temple ritual being spoken of in conference talks and in sacrament meetings. I remember prayer circles being held in my parent’s house after fireside discussions. I even remember special prayer meetings patterned after the prayer circle, held in my student ward chapel, usually to pray for a member who was in extreme need. Temple ritual was a practice that carried over into life. 

When I was twenty-five, I prepared to receive my endowments for no other reason than that I felt ready. I am grateful I did not attend as a requirement for a mission or marriage—for me, this was the right path, and I did it because I wanted to learn from my own ritual experience. 

As I prepared, I especially appreciated my dad reminding me that the ritual was about me, and that what I learned is personal to me. I didn’t need to think that what anyone else thought the temple was about was true for me. And if anything did not lead me to see my connection to an all-loving God, I could set it aside. He reminded me that the rituals were designed and revised by men, starting with Joseph Smith and his fellow leaders, and then many others over the years. It had been changed many times. He expressed great trust that I was capable of seeing what was valuable, and what was not.

I think this preparation really helped me for the complex experience of the temple. Some parts spoke to me, and I felt I could find value in the ritual repetition. Other parts were so clearly relics of the isolated, defensive culture Brigham Young tried to create that I almost felt like I was getting a Church history lesson. I practiced setting aside those parts and relishing the others. I appreciated the prayer circle. This place where I could set aside any unkind feelings that might impede the spirit and connect with everyone to create one body, unified in seeking guidance and healing for the world, proved a powerful practice to take into my life. 

The recent changes mean there are fewer words and layers that separate people in the temple. Will it be a place where more can find this kind of unifying practice?

***

Last week I heard from a woman who had been upset when her daughter became engaged a few months ago. This woman was not really sure why she did not look forward to her daughter getting married, especially since she really liked her future son-in-law. When she experienced the temple changes in January, her concerns about the marriage went away. She realized how much she had been hurt by the former language of the ceremony, and how much she did not want her daughter to experience this pain. Now that the ceremony had changed, she looked forward to sharing this ritual experience in which her daughter covenanted directly with God. Even though I still hope people will learn to see all the temple rituals as symbolic, including the covenants, I find it hopeful that there are fewer words that could impede a unifying experience.

I hope the recent changes help more women find the experience of symbolically hearing and speaking directly to God one that empowers them to do so more completely in real life. There are so many messages in our society, our rhetoric, and our human nature that suggest we give up our seeking, our listening, and our divine connection, ceding our own rights to intermediaries. Anything that reminds us that God loves, knows and reaches out to each of us individually, and that nothing can separate us from that love, can encourage us to look for that in our own way.

About twenty-five years ago, I saw a PBS documentary about a woman on a ritual journey to a monastery high in the mountains of Japan. She kept a video journal as she traveled through the country, receiving instruction, hearing people share the limited information they were willing to give, and gradually leaving behind more and more of what she carried. Eventually, she could only go on foot, and climbed to a place in the mountains where she went through a ritual bath. From there, she was allowed to continue to the temple above, dressed only in simple clothes, taking nothing else. She was required to promise to only share the rest of her experience in a single Haiku, written after she completed her journey. The few words of the haiku described how her sleeve was wet with the tears she had shed, because of the moving sacred experience at the temple.

Those words told me all. I could not gain more by knowing the details of what precisely was powerful to her, or why it was so. She had immersed herself in the journey, and found her own self. This realization provided me with another reminder to let go of the concept of an external, inherent truth in a sacred ritual. Instead, I look for the truth that is mine alone, and encourage others to find theirs. I look for ways to experience deeper seeking in my life journey.

I thought, for a time, that the more fulfilling journeys would be found outside familiar ritual. About twelve years ago, I was rarely making time to attend the temple. I had had some powerful experiences there, and had appreciated being in a space where there was little distraction from contemplation, or conversation with God and ancestors. I felt I had learned what I wanted from the ceremonies, and did not feel much need to be there often, other than to seek a peaceful place of meditation. Then, one day, I sensed my dad (years after he had died) asking me to go once a week. It was not clear why I felt this request, but I was willing to see what happened.

It was not too many years before I felt I could also wet my sleeve with the tears shed because of what I learned in sacred ritual.

An Offering of Certainty 

There is nothing that is more difficult, or more important to let go of, and to sacrifice in this way, than my firm ideas of how things should be. No amount of time or money or resources I offer can compare to offering up my firmly held certainty that I already know all I need to about something. My certainty in the sufficiency of my own knowledge is precious to me—that is why I practice laying it on the altar. And in the space that is created through this offering, my heart and mind might find room to create new worlds. 

Connection through Names 

The practice of finding names, preparing them, and carrying them has become just one part of a larger structure designed to experience deep connection. Much of the vicarious work many have done in recent years has been performed for temple names, about whom we know nothing. I invite you to consider, when you speak the name you hold, that in a sense you become them, for a short time. I invite you to think of their life, and how it might be similar to yours. In practicing this conscious connection through names, for a moment, time and distance have little power, and I feel a oneness and a love that reaches through the veil. Death is overcome. For me, the sealing power is love. All external structures and processes are simply various means to help me experience the presence of others about whom I would know nothing if not for this experience of vicariously being them in their journey toward God.

My heart is turned to them, and I trust their heart is aware of me. My fears, challenges, and joys become theirs, and theirs are mine.

From this, I learn to turn my heart to those around me, and try to let differences in opinions, ideology, choices, and experiences have as little power as time and distance and death have when I am one with the names in the temple. Christ’s teaching to learn to love my enemies, because they are no longer my enemies in Christ, is now connected to the call to turn hearts to each other through this sealing power of love. The deep and confronting lesson of Christ is to love one another. If there is anyone I don’t love, then I don’t love anyone. Godlike love has no limits. When I seal myself to each and all with this kind of love, there is nothing that can overcome me, and the world will not be destroyed by any curse of division. 

I wonder how many times those beyond the veil might have felt the shared pain of the former ritual language. I wonder how much our ancestors still try to influence our ritual that has ancient roots. 

***

A few years ago, I stayed to do initiatories for several hours. I just kept asking for more names and was practically on autopilot, going through the motions, repeating the words and promises of the ordinance in my head. Then came a moment in which countless people from past generations seemed to be present, their voices rushing into my mind, wanting me to be aware. I could almost hear the pleas from Joseph, and Brigham, and Emma, and my ancestors: “We can’t be there to cleanse you from our blood, our sins. We did what we knew how to do. Please. Cleanse each other. Be clean from our mistakes, our fear. Love each other. Take care of each other. Please.”

I tried to be present to the countless beings who seemed to be trying to finish a work they could not see how to fully accomplish during their life. The work is not about fear, or sin, or punishment, or differences, or conditions. It is about love. God’s love is what makes us all worthy to be in Their presence. It is what makes us all Their anointed. This love is what the journey is about. 

When any of us reach out to bless, or witness, or offer anything in the promise of symbolic covenants that are meant to last beyond death, I see a connection beyond the persons who are physically present. This moment of connection reaches through each of us to all those we know and love, and all they know and love, sealing us all, through past and future generations, forever.

The words of an early Mormon hymn speak to me, as they might have inspired my ancestors. 

There is no end to glory; 
There is no end to love; 
There is no end to being;
There is no death above.[1]

*** 

The recent changes include added language that I find powerful. The instruction I still hope to see added at the beginning now has some presence near the end.

In great theater, the most important lines are spoken by the final voice. Now, the final voice is the voice of Eve, reminding us that the life that leads us to God is the one where we dwell in opposition and still find the joy in it, and where we multiply and replenish when we grow in wisdom. This concept is what I value in the Book of Moses. 

And in that day Adam blessed God and was filled . . . saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God. 

And Eve was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient. (Moses 5:10, 11)

In 2015, I was an ordinance worker in the Denver Temple. Days after the release of the November 2015 policy excluding children of LGBT parents from baptism, I struggled to go and work my usual shift at the temple. I was sad and hurting. My coordinator noticed. She pulled me aside and asked me to share my burden with her. I wept as I told her of the deep hurt of this destructive policy. She only expressed love for me, and told me that God looks on the heart. She knew God saw my heart, and cherishes me and everyone. She told me to take all the time I needed, and to do what I felt I needed to do. 

I sat for a long time in the celestial room, where there were no distractions. 

At different times I felt my dad there, and my grandma Josephine, whose name I have. There was a presence of Divine Parents, and Christ. I felt Their message: “Yes. This hurts. I am so sorry for the pain. I am here. You can stay as long as you want. You can be where you need to. You don’t have to do anything. I am here”

And: “There are people here. Some might be here for the last time. They are also hurting. There is work to do. I will help you. I am here.” 

After a long time, I went and worked in initiatory for several hours. They were unusually busy. There were women there who were weeping quietly the whole time. Some seemed worried, some calm, some happy.

As I placed my hands on their heads and spoke blessings, pronouncing forgiveness and cleansing, I saw that I was reaching through them and the name they carried, back through all ancestors, forward to all that would follow, out to all people in their life, speaking, pleading, blessings: clarity, life, strength, repentance, power, cleansing, forgiveness. This is one-ness. We experience God by experiencing each other with no barriers. 

My deep, sacred experiences with God have not been in the safety of the Garden. They have been in the broken woundedness of wisdom seeking, where the opposites can’t offer simple answers. A deeper love is present in wisdom seeking, and joy is felt in connection with the divine.

Perhaps the recent changes will invite a deeper connection with God, and with each other. 

My hope is that every journey we choose, symbolic or otherwise, will help us find our way to each other in oneness.

---

[1] LDS Hymn #284 “If You Could Hie To Kolob” Text: William W. Phelps, 1792–1872

[post_title] => Condemn Me Not [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 52.1 (Spring 2019): 17–32
I do not lend the weight of truth to the language of ritual. Such language is symbolic. But even in the context of symbolism, language that is so preferential toward men and dismissive of women—especially when such language more aptly demonstrates the bias of the writers than the purpose of the ritual—needs to be removed. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => condemn-me-not [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-04-30 14:01:18 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-04-30 14:01:18 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=23343 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 23348 [post_author] => 3256 [post_date] => 2019-05-12 03:01:04 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-05-12 03:01:04 [post_content] =>

Editor’s note: The following is taken from a Q&A discussion that followed a presentation on “LDS Women and the Temple in Historical Context.”

Provo, Utah, February 25, 2019[1] (excerpted and edited for length and clarity)

Dialogue: It’s a rare pleasure to get together with Maxine Hanks for a private discussion about the place of women in the LDS Church. She has done research and writing in Mormon studies for a long time, and she’s been standing on the front lines of Mormon feminism for more than three decades. I know you all—as Mormon feminists— have questions for her about feminist issues in the Church, and her thoughts about the temple. I also asked her to share some of her personal journey with us.

Maxine: Thanks, I’m happy to answer any questions or discuss what- ever topics you have in mind. First, to give some background, in 1992 I published a book about the history of Mormon feminism and women’s relationship to priesthood and theology.[2] I found feminist voices from the beginnings of the Church to the present; women like Emma Hale Smith, Eliza R. Snow, and Emmeline B. Wells were talking about their own authority independent of men’s, and their own relationship to priesthood. I used women’s writings from the Nauvoo Relief Society Minutes, the Woman’s Exponent, Exponent II, Relief Society Magazine, Mormons for ERA, Algie Ballif Forum, Mormon Women’s Forum, Voice club at BYU, and other sources. I republished a few feminist articles and asked feminist scholars to write new articles about LDS women’s history and theology for the book. I also interviewed women and men to collect their experiences with the divine feminine.

So, it was a lot of new and bold feminist research in one book at a time when most Mormons didn’t even use the word “feminist” in public. The result was that five of my writers and myself faced Church discipline; four of us were in the September Six.[3] We lost our Church membership, but we knew that was the risk and the price for publishing feminist work that questioned traditional or institutional views at that time.

Today all that information is mainstream on the internet, often used or cited by LDS historians, scholars, and members. So, nineteen years later, I came back to the Church in 2012. I felt compelled to do that for my own healing, as a feminist historian and theologian in the Church. I wanted to foster belonging for myself and others who’ve been silenced or disciplined for feminism or scholarly work.

I didn’t recant anything I’d said or written in the past or change my feminist views or work. I simply wanted to restore my membership, as I am. Obviously, I had help from supportive Church leaders. It was one of the best decisions of my life. This week is the seventh anniversary of my rebaptism. It’s been extremely healing and allowed me to explore a new territory of faith and ministry.

In the 1990s, we were navigating new territory by publishing Mormon feminist history and theology. We were talking about women’s relationship to priesthood in public; yet we couldn’t do that without danger of Church discipline then. Today it’s commonplace to talk about women’s priesthood and theology in public; everyone is doing it. I’m not saying it’s entirely safe, and some feminists still encounter leaders who try to silence or discipline them. Yet Mormon feminism is now understood as inherent in our history and culture. It’s normal, mainstream.

Now, I find myself sharing women’s history and theology in Church as a temple-going member because we realize that women’s theology has been there the whole time, embedded in Mormon origins. You can read it in the original Relief Society Minutes and other historic feminist writings on the Church web site. Today, members want more information about women’s history and theology. My ward asked me to share research about women’s relationship to priesthood. I see tremendous positive change and hunger for women’s theology. I anticipate more feminist work and healing in the Church to come. I’ve seen major changes in my lifetime. I know that policy can shift dramatically.

For example, when I was young, I wanted to be a missionary, but women were told not to apply, so I had to push and wait for approval to submit my application in June 1978. A few days later, the Church announced a revelation extending priesthood to black members. It was so sudden, so huge, it blew our minds and changed the Church overnight. I remember wondering if women might someday get the priesthood too. I entered the missionary home in Salt Lake just before October General Conference in 1978, where I voted with thousands of members to accept priesthood ordination for black men and extend all priesthood and temple blessings to black women.

That same week I first received my endowment in the Salt Lake temple, before leaving to serve a mission in the South where I worked in black neighborhoods. So the Church voted to lift the priesthood ban against blacks one week before I went to teach in black homes. My first experience on arrival in the mission was the baptism of a black woman. The meaning of that event was enormous, knowing she could have all the blessings, rites, and ordinances of the Church.

Fast forward to October 2013, a year after my rebaptism in the Church. I returned to the Salt Lake temple for the first time since October conference of 1978, a span of thirty-five years. Coincidentally, it was October General Conference weekend again, in 2013. It was also the same weekend that Ordain Women held their first action on Temple Square. Many of my close friends were involved in that event. I was supportive of them in many ways, yet my place was in the temple that weekend rather than on Temple Square.

When I went through the endowment that day in October 2013, a black man filled the role of Jehovah, and he also took me through the veil. So, for me that day, God was black. It was extraordinary, realizing that in 1978 there were no black people in the temple, but in 2013, God was black. Afterward, I called Darius Gray to tell him about it, and we both cried. For me, the shift in my temple experience between October 1978 and October 2013 signified a major healing in the Church. And, I thought that day, if God can be black in the temple, surely God can be female there, as well.

Being in the temple that day coincided with an historic call for women’s ordination outside. It was a watershed moment, a shift in Church consciousness about priesthood, like the change in 1978. Feminists on Temple Square were seeking priesthood and reclaiming the word “ordain”—because historically LDS women had possessed both. Women had received five or six kinds of ordinations from 1830–50—in ministry, the Relief Society, and the temple. Yet yet in LDS tradition those were female priesthood offices, women’s own line of authority. That weekend, I felt my place was inside the temple recovering my ordinations. It was an example of how we each have our own unique role or place to be. I found empowerment privately in the temple by seeking my endowment, while my friends on Temple Square found empowerment publicly by seeking entrance to priesthood meeting.

So that’s enough background. I’d like to hear from you all—about your own path, where you’re at, and how you feel about the temple or the Church.

FHE: I’m impressed that you find the temple empowering as a feminist. Can you elaborate more on how you find it empowering, personally?

Maxine: Sure, when I first entered the temple in 1978, I was surprised to discover that it wasn’t about marriage. All the men were sitting on one side, and all the women were sitting on the other side, rather than in couples. So, I didn’t feel awkward being single. That was a big deal in the 1970s, given the intense pressures to be married and have kids. I was trying to find out who I was, independent of marriage. The temple ceremony was about our individual relationship with God, not about couples. It was about my own path to God, not marriage. It was my own initiation into sacred rites. I was thrilled by all of that. I never saw the temple ceremonies through the lens of marriage or being dependent on a husband. I received the initiatory and endowment feeling empowered and consecrated to God, not inadequate or incomplete in any way. I didn’t pay attention to the one or two brief references about a husband because they didn’t apply to me nor to the ceremony. The initiatory and endowment are inductions into priesthood and your own ascent to God. That’s empowering.

I had a spiritual experience about priesthood in the temple, my first time in 1978. When I was “set apart” as a missionary, I felt something tangible conferred on me, a spiritual authority or mantle that stayed with me throughout my mission experience. However, when I went through the initiatory and endowment in the temple, I felt a bigger spiritual mantle descend on me, of the priesthood. I had no idea what type of priesthood it was, but I knew spiritually that I had just received priesthood in some form. I had no historical knowledge of that idea in 1978, it was only a spiritual sense, yet I knew it was real. And that sense of priesthood stayed with me all through my mission, and beyond. It gave me confidence and ability to minister, with power. In fact, my experience in the temple that day in 1978 drove me to research women’s priesthood and theology in the 1980s.

Today, I love the symbolism of the ritual, the spiritual and esoteric meanings. The endowment is a rite of redemption, a sacred pattern of salvation—about the soul’s descent from the realm of God, its awakening within the fallen world, and its ascent back to heaven. This is the archetypal journey of the soul, to discover its true self or nature, the “hero’s journey” through departure, testing, and return. It feels ancient, like entering a mystery rite in a temple from another time. I love the initiation rites and white vestments of temple priesthood. I see them as ordination rites into “highest and holiest priesthood,” and the fullness or “pleroma” of the Gods.

I see the endowment as an inspired midrash of Genesis that finishes or completes the theological story of Adam and Eve. It redeems them from the Fall via gnosis or spiritual knowledge of their divine identity, which returns them to God’s presence. It also redeems us, the human family, along with Adam and Eve, via knowledge of our true identity as divine beings, co-eternal with God, which brings us into communion with God. I see Adam and Eve as theological beings. They emerge from an androgynous being of clay, “Adamah” whom God divides into male and female humans, Adam (man) and Havah (life) before they fall into mortality. They are archetypal figures representing duality—male and female, masculine and feminine, physical and spiritual, mortal and eternal aspects of human being. The temple rites unite men and women in rituals that integrate the masculine and feminine and resolve duality into unity. On a literal level it joins couples in sacred marriage. On a theological level it returns the fallen human to heaven, marries the genders, mends duality, unites the mortal and eternal, reunites our souls with God. On a psychological level it symbolizes the integration of parts of Self into wholeness, masculine and feminine, conscious and unconscious the alchemical marriage of self, or “individuation.”

FHE: You talked about how you’re in the Church, you left for a long period then came back and there was something different. Where I’m at right now, I have historical background and knowledge, and personal experience through feminism, that I know is true, but I know that the Church is not there. Every time I go to church, it’s just like this pain—it hurts, that tension I always feel. It’s not like I want to leave the Church, but it’s so hard to be there and see where we could be yet where we are. Could you speak to what was different exactly that second time, of being back in the Church, and how you deal with those tensions?

Maxine: Yes, I wrestled with that dilemma for years before I returned. Could I really go back or not? I had a whole list of things I didn’t agree with or didn’t support. Then, I had a spiritual sense of reassurance that it would all work out okay because it was simple—“you need them, and they need you.”
It’s been better than I imagined. It works because I find a spiritual connection or resonance with members seeking God in our lives. Sure, we sometimes have different views on theology or doctrine or history, but that’s true at a scholarly conference or a family reunion. I don’t expect anyone to hold my view. I don’t go to church for shared ideology, I go for the shared spiritual experience of a group of souls gathered to pray and seek God’s love, light, inspiration. That works.

Also, returning works because enough had changed to create a new relationship. I didn’t go back to something I left behind, I went forward to something new. In twenty years’ time, I evolved and so did the Church: everything had changed. The Church is now publishing topics and materials that caused my exit—women’s feminist history and theology are online and in new books. Compared to 1993, this is Camelot. BYU offers feminist classes with theories and topics that Cecelia K. Farr and Gail Houston were fired for teaching, even a minor in women’s studies. BYU professors and LDS leaders share views that were once feminist and talk about women’s priesthood in public. There are still points of disagreement between my views and Church curriculum or policies, but those our opportunities to work on our relationship. However, today I find a higher degree of compatibility with the Church than before, which is encouraging.

I feel empathy for your dilemma—feeling pained or alien at church. There are days when I can’t avoid the distance between my view and theirs. So I focus on our bond as human beings, our shared spiritual struggles. That dissolves the social gaps. We’re all God’s children seeking our true home. Belonging can be situational depending on your ward and leaders. Yet I think one key to belonging is your own empowerment, within. That’s not something anybody can give you or take away. It’s your connection to God. Every person who tries to shut you down is an opportunity to strengthen your connection to God.
It’s also an opportunity to practice ministry, by addressing others’ fears. One day, I was quoting from the “Doctrine of Inclusion” in Relief Society and a sister objected to my sharing something secular. I explained that it was Elder Ballard’s talk in the 2001 Ensign, and she was truly grateful to know about it. Another time, I was teaching the Young Women about Miriam, Moses, and Aaron as the three prophets who led Israel together. The bishop looked doubtful and worried, so I read Exodus 15:20–21, Micah 6:4, and Numbers 12:1–8, which consoled him. The young women loved it, they were saying, “Miriam was a prophet? That’s so cool!” It empowered them.

FHE: In the Doctrine and Covenants, it seems like Joseph Smith in certain places asserted his ultimate authority to quell attempts at receiving revelation from people who weren’t the prophet. You seem to view him as someone who wanted his authority checked or balanced by other leaders. Do you think that’s a more accurate view of him than this authoritarian version of him in scriptures?

Maxine: I see both sides of Joseph—the authoritarian and egalitarian; they both show up in his relationships and leadership, and his dictation of scriptures. Everything is filtered through his personality, his lens. Some passages in the D&C speak in ominous patriarchal authoritarian voice and other passages speak with a sublime spiritual quality of wisdom. Section 132 reflects the best and worst of Joseph’s prophetic voice—it asserts his authority over Emma and threatens her with destruction if she doesn’t practice polygamy, yet it envisions a true equality of Gods, the equal exaltation of men and women in heaven. Joseph radically empowered women in ministry and priesthood, yet disempowered or harmed women in polygamy. I see both as real. Regarding who gets to receive revelations—in D&C 28, Joseph appeals to that story in Numbers 12 that I was teaching the Young Women—about God appearing to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. They’re all prophets, but Moses has a different relationship: “With him I speak face to face clearly.” This definition of prophetic role is invoked in D&C 28:2–3, and D&C 8 to answer the question of who gets to receive revelation. Joseph’s revelations are saying that we all have visionary or prophetic potential but we each have different callings, offices, and abilities.

Anyway, I recognize both sides of Joseph, positive and negative, the inspired and tragically flawed. It’s not realistic to choose one extreme, saying Joseph was only an abuser, or always pious. There’s evidence for both, but neither is the sum total of him. Joseph had higher visions of life and people that lifted them to new heights; yet he also harmed people. We need to see both sides, I think.

FHE: We got a new stake president and they invited him and his wife to speak. They didn’t allot specific time to either. His wife took two minutes and he took twenty. I had this thought “Why are you sitting down? Take your time.” It was her decision. There’s no doubt there’s this patriarchal system, but we’re half the problem I think, if we’re not rising or claiming our own power.

Maxine: I agree

FHE: I ask myself all the time—how do I feed into this patriarchal system? I think this has been indoctrinated in me since I was two. How do I, as a woman, claim my power, even if that system wasn’t there? I don’t know if I would rise to claim it.

Maxine: That relates to empowerment, which I see as inner validity or authority. I call it the “inner ordination” from God, who loves you and gave you existence. Your validity comes from your own eternal spirit. We peel back layers of social conditioning to discover we are divine beings of light—and how precious we are, how deserving to be ourselves and express our unique existence in this world. You have a divine right and responsibility to find your own voice and place. Validity is truly inner. Others can certify us with status, office or degrees, but where it happens is inside.

This is the lesson I learned outside of the Church. I took a path of ministry seeking ecclesiastical ordination, yet I found it in the solitary journey of self, alone with God. I experienced the inner spiritual ordination. Once you find that spiritual anointing or chrism or grace, you’ve got it and nobody can extinguish that, unless you let them. That’s what enabled me to come back to Church and find my authentic space neither shut down nor driven out.

You don’t have to leave the Church like I did, to find inner ordination—it’s a private process, between you and God. It doesn’t matter where you’re located. Once you experience the inner chrism, you’re empowered, regardless of what others do. The Gospel of Philip describes this beautifully—“when it is revealed, then the perfect light will flow out on every one. And all those who are in it will receive the chrism… And none shall be able to torment a person like this, even while he dwells in the world... The world has become the Aeon (eternal realm) . . . fullness for him . . . it is revealed to him alone.[4]

This passage is talking about the mystery of the “bridal chamber” within us, where our soul discovers its oneness with God’s divinity. That’s what Joseph Smith was talking about in his King Follett sermon, and in the temple endowment—that when we discover God’s spirit is like ours, we “ascend” to God. He said that was the whole purpose of temple rites—our ascent. I think this unity of our spirit with God’s, or “bridal chamber,” is a higher meaning of the temple rites. The “celestial marriage” necessary for exaltation with God may be our own soul’s relationship or oneness with God. On a literal physical level, a sealing rite between two human beings at the altar is incredibly beautiful and real, sanctifying a relationship of soul mates. Yet it also has symbolic meaning about recovering your spiritual union with God, which is eternal and core to your being. You and God are made of the same uncreated light—“intelligence or the light of truth was not created or made” (D&C 93:29). So at the innermost level, you are married to God.

FHE: That really helps a lot, thank you. Ok, then how do you handle it when someone objects to the views you share or your way of participating?

Maxine: I validate both sides, theirs and mine. There’s no fight when both sides are valid. We’re both children of God, I honor that, which allows us to be different. If someone has a problem with me, I talk with them to figure it out together. If that doesn’t work, I go home and pray for more insight, to see what I’m not seeing. Sometimes I’m prompted to hold my position, other times to concede. Conflict can relax when your refuge is found in God, not in approval from the other person. I try to find higher wisdom and listen, hear it.

FHE: I’m appalled that you were even excommunicated. I know it was a different time, but something I’ve been talking about with my roommates is that it still happens. Like that former bishop [Sam Young] who was excommunicated for publicizing the problem of sexual abuse. I find myself a little bit in fear of excommunication because my stake president has taught and made homophobic comments. So, in my own stake, in my own ward, I don’t feel safe to express myself. I feel like there’s so much inconsistency, depending on who your local leaders are, you can be excommunicated for anything. I don’t want to keep reinforcing this patriarchal mess.

Maxine: That’s an awful place to be in, that fear of discipline; it’s not fair or healthy. You don’t want to feed into that dynamic of fear. How do we break out of that? We change the dynamic from fear to compassion. We stop seeing each other as the enemy; in reality we’re spiritual siblings, and we need each other. That was the shift I made between 1993 and 2012. I changed my view of male leaders, which in 1993 was polarized. I lacked compassion for them, I thought they were the enemy. Seven years later, when working together on the Olympics, I realized they weren’t the enemy—they were my brothers. That radically changed our relationship to a far more realistic and positive one. This came up recently with Gina Colvin in New Zealand. She and her bishop got into a polarized tension that felt unsolvable, and excommunication seemed unavoidable. Then it completely reversed at the last minute. She did deep soul searching and praying, while hundreds of friends wrote letters to her stake president and bishop. Their perspective of Gina shifted to realizing she wasn’t the enemy—she needed their support. They told her, “We should be building a bridge with you, not a wall.” The discipline dissolved.

It’s a whole different narrative to find an unexpected bridge between feminists and male leaders. It reminds me of that scene from Indiana Jones, where he has to step into an abyss, relying only on faith that he won’t fall—then suddenly an unseen bridge appears. There’s an invisible bridge hiding between us and the opposite side. It’s Christ, the true mediator. If we pray for His help, an invisible bridge may appear. A bridge doesn’t mean you give in, go along with the other side. You have to find your own position first, you can’t find a middle ground or a bridge without both sides holding their own ground. Then, in that tension between two different places, a bridge can appear—if you’re both seeking a vision beyond your own positions. When I returned to the Church, my leaders and I were in unknown territory, wondering how do we do this? We both turned it over to Christ and the invisible bridge appeared. That’s the best answer I have for the fear between feminists and leaders.

FHE: What do you think is the best way to communicate frustrations to the Quorum of Twelve or the First Presidency—the decision makers—in a way that won’t turn them off or invalidate your own voice, but that actually inspires changes? We have these conversations only in small, very safe groups, with people who think like us. I am pained by not seeing Heavenly Mother in the temple and I’ve talked to many people who have that same pain.

Maxine: I feel that pain too, every time I’m in the temple.

FHE: What do you think is the most effective way to communicate that there is a large sector of the church population that has that frustration? Are the decisions makers aware of how widespread our frustration is on that, or other issues?

Maxine: Leaders in Relief Society, the Quorum of Apostles, and Public Affairs are all listening to women, including feminists, they’re hyper-aware of women’s concerns and complaints, and using that info for positive changes, which will continue. Public voices are noticed, read, considered. They also pay attention to private letters; they read their mail and often respond. I didn’t learn that until 2012.

How can you be heard without taking it so far you are alienating? Since they are paying attention, you don’t have to overstate or hammer your point. Just be honest and thoughtful, pray about it, and share information they can use. You can simply record a podcast, write a blog, or an article—like our discussion tonight for Dialogue.

For example, when Lester Bush wrote an article in Dialogue about the exclusion of black members from priesthood, it was 1973, not a progressive time. Yet President Kimball read and studied that article; his copy of Dialogue was covered with red marks.[5] That article prompted him to pray about the topic, and he received a revelation, changing the Church policy about black members.

FHE: In my previous ward I was put on a do not ask to speak or teach list, which I didn’t know until my current bishop told me about it. He called me to be a teacher for the Saints book, which I was so excited about. Anyway, this bishop shared with me experiences that he’s had with Heavenly Mother in the temple.

Maxine: What a great bishop.

FHE: He really is. Yet, there are many who abuse their power or are stuck in their white male privilege and have no idea what’s happening in our lives.

Maxine: That’s a vestige of women’s lost authority which male leaders subverted, starting with Brigham Young in 1845, then priesthood correlation in 1908–1970. Eliza R. Snow held onto female authority until her death in 1887. One of her last statements asserted “The Relief Society is designed to be a self-governing organization . . . to deal with its members . . . instead of troubling the Bishop.”[6] From Emma to Eliza to Emmeline, women were organized to work through the R.S., not through male leaders. It was a female line of authority from the ward to the top of the Church, where the Relief Society President and LDS President conferred. So, I don’t see a solution, other than restoring the Relief Society’s full authority.

FHE: I’ve been really trying to navigate this. I was open with my ministering brothers about all my struggles then I went to my bishop and I feel this fear, at the core—is God sexist? I know that in my communion with Him, He’s not, and She’s not, and They are not. I want to thank you for bringing in so much history and the spirit of our male and female Gods to show there is no sexism in the true plan of it all.

Maxine: I really believe our history reveals a theology of gender equality, on all levels of the Church, from missionaries to ward and stake leaders, to the temple rites, to male apostles and female disciples. That blueprint of equality keeps me going.

FHE: Learning more about that gives me the strength to try to find my place. If you could share more of your experience of how to negotiate that equality—it seems like you have the inner ordination that you talked about. You gave me words for what I’m trying to find and trying to understand. I want to be a change maker in every part of my life, but I can’t do that in the same way in the Church. Or, at least I don’t know how to. Some of us live our lives at this higher level of equality so we’re trying to bring the Church there. But how do I or how do you do that? What do you choose to say or not to say? Can you expound on that?

Maxine: First, I remember that we’re all learning and growing together. So, I pray for help and it comes. The best advice I can give is turn to God. Also, you’re a lay minister, every member is confirmed or“ordained” to the ministry, according to D&C 25. We’re all co-ministering the ward and stake, so what we do affects many others. Too often we focus on what we lack, not seeing the power of our voice or participation. Being aware of your effect on others enables you to be a better minister. Also, learning ministry skills is crucial, for every member and leader. I studied ministry and chaplaincy, to learn what it means to minister. It’s not about trying to convert anyone, or provide any answers. Ministry is giving others support to find their own answers. It’s listening to them and learning what they need in this moment. When you do that, you’re ministering.

A minister is a facilitator for others to work through their struggles. You hold a safe space for them to dig deep, face fears, hard issues, private trials. If they aren’t safe to deal with whatever comes up, that’s not ministry—which is unconditional support to face life’s hardest moments and not be alone. We all need someone to hold that space for us. You never know when you might be the only one who can do that for another person.

When you need ministering, choose someone you trust who will listen to your struggle and honor where you’re at, not judge you or impose their views on you, but allow you to find your own breakthrough. Ministry is knowing the difference, between our needs and others’ needs, so we don’t impose or transfer our views onto another, and we don’t allow them to impose their views onto us.

FHE: One of the things I love about the changes in the temple was that it took things that I was not able to reconcile in my relationship with God and adjusted most of them. It’s kind of confirming the relationship I have with my Heavenly Father. But it’s also given me pause to wonder about the other side of that. I don’t want to think that my relationship with God is what is right for the Church—or, that every thought I have is from the spirit or is doctrinal.

Maxine: Yes, it’s healthy to know the difference between your own personal path and the collective path of the Church, and not impose them on each other.

FHE: I know the answer to this is building a relationship with God and the spirit and learning how it’s talking to you. Is there a time, an experience you could share when you went too far, or realized that there was a boundary?

Maxine: Yes, my excommunication. On one hand, I definitely felt divine guidance to compile the book, I felt aided by higher wisdom. On the other hand, I could have navigated the book’s relationship to the Church more sensitively. I was out of sync with the Church, ignoring the chasm between my position and the Church status. It’s important to recognize where the group as a whole is located, relative to where you are as an individual—and to deal with both, not just your own.

The freedom to follow your own path is a gift from God. It’s crucial to listen to your soul and follow its call—don’t shut it down. Yet that’s different from the group journey. The individual and the group each have their own developmental journey. Both deserve respect.

I was at odds with the Church in my twenties, thirties, and forties, but now I’m more in sync with it than I’ve ever been, which amazes me. Still, there are differences between my perspective and the Church’s, which I honor. My interpretation of women’s history and priesthood overlap a great deal with Church materials, yet they may never fully align. I honor my own work and inspiration by writing and publishing, and I honor the work of the Church by supporting its efforts to empower women.

FHE: Your work in the past, your research and writing received some backlash. I recently did some historical research on a difficult aspect of Church history and I started to get backlash from people at BYU about it and it made me a little afraid to continue with it. I was wondering how you continued with your work in face of external pressure and backlash against it?

Maxine: I’m so sorry to hear that. Is it the department that’s having a hard time, your professors?

FHE: No, it’s peers.

Maxine: It’s often peers who put pressure on us, since they want us to be where they are. Are they more conservative than you are?

FHE: Yes.

Maxine: That’s hard. Peers can be intolerant sometimes. Backlash is often shadow projection and scapegoating, which can be destructive, harmful. It’s wise to protect yourself; don’t own projections. You’re the expert on you. Stay close to God, find others who support you, and stand firm in the truth of who you. Then just keep being you and doing your own work.

I try to heal the conflict via common ground. I look for areas where we agree, to build bridges, while allowing our differences. But if others’ efforts are harmful or unethical it’s time to stand firm, not compromise. I get backlash from critics about my return to Church membership.

Critics focus on the problems, harms, what’s wrong with the Church. Seeing the Church’s shadow is necessary, but it can go too far, consume you. I grew tired of talking about the problems long ago. I focus on the inspiring and empowering aspects of LDS theology and practice because that’s where I prefer to work these days, that’s where the life is.

FHE: You mentioned not depending on authorization from others. I’ve been thinking about that in the context of the temple changes and the role of revelation in the temple changes, or at least in the way the temple changes were released. What do you think of that intersection and how that plays into progression?

Maxine: So, the intersection of revelation and change?

FHE: Yeah, with revelation, when it actually happens, or how a lot of women already have been living or believing these things prior to the “revelation” of these changes.

Maxine: So, how do we view a new revelation, when it changes or reverses past policy that negatively shaped our lives, or didn’t shape our lives because we didn’t believe it?

FHE: Yes.

Maxine: Should we base our beliefs and decisions on current teachings that may change? That’s a crucial question in a Church that gives great authority to current revelation, teachings, and policies. The simple answer is—if a new revelation or teaching or policy is healthy and positive, it’s worth supporting. Obviously, it’s wise to choose teachings that resonate God’s love, feed our souls and improve our lives, over teachings that harm lives or shut down souls. The burden of safety is on us, to discern true or good teachings from erroneous ones.

This returns to the question of who can receive revelation. Leaders receive inspiration for their Church callings. Members receive inspiration for their own lives. The responsibility for our decisions is ours and ours alone. Leaders have authority over Church functioning but not over members’ lives. From an early age, I took my questions and decisions to God, rather than to my parents or to the Church. A few times, my parents or the Church were right, and I was wrong, but I made my own decisions. When I followed my own conscience, things went well, but when I followed others’ advice against my intuition, I regretted it, majorly. When we give our decisions over to someone else, we lose our divine guidance.

FHE: As a follow-up comment, I approach things in a similar way. I study religious history, specifically the Reformation and I somewhat identify as a Reformation spiritualist—the institution isn’t what is going to shape me, it’s going to be my relationship with God and my understanding of theology.

Maxine: Well, they both shape us, profoundly, but it’s our decision how much we let the Church or God shape us. That means taking responsibility for our spiritual progression, as Joseph Smith envisioned and the endowment implies. LDS faith relies on revelation, both personal and institutional, in tension with each other. This tension is always presenting itself. Church revelation leads one direction and your inspiration may lead another direction, until you’re out of sync with the Church, and you have to decide how far you’re willing to go. I was willing to follow my own spiritual path outside the Church— that was my decision. Excommunication was a revelatory “shattering of the vessels” opening a doorway to new knowledge and realms I had never known, with overwhelming positive results. Likewise, my spiritual path back home to the Church was equally revelatory and transforming. I don’t regret either path, at all. So, our relationship with God may take us out of sync with the Church, or back into sync with it—depending on where we feel God is calling us. I value both equally—my relationship with God and with the Church.

FHE: I have two very separate questions. My first question is, kind of touching on what was discussed before. I feel like I’ve sensed for a long time a kind of a benevolent sexism. How do you address that one, when your sex has kind of put you on a pedestal? And the perfectionism that goes with it, you know, is this weird thing.

Maxine: Gender in the LDS Church is complex. The dual tendencies of sexism and feminism are in tension with each other in Church history and ministry. This requires separating the sexism from the feminism in our tradition.

Women’s status in the Church reflects both tendencies of feminism and sexism. We have a gendered ministry, which can be experienced as feminist or sexist—depending on who’s managing it. Female ministry that is defined and managed by women themselves is “difference feminism” (a focus on women’s different needs as a gender). Yet when female ministry is defined and managed by men, that’s sexism, patriarchy. If men uphold gendered spheres, then manage both male and female spheres, that’s sexism, patriarchy. Female identity is defined by women themselves.

LDS tradition has an empowering theological blueprint that combines both gendered and ungendered authority, both separate and inclusive ministry, which evoke both difference feminism and equality feminism (a focus on women’s equality with men), in balance with male authority. This original blueprint placed women in parallel partnership with men, from the ward level to the top of the Church. Yet this theological gender balance has been obscured by organizational sexism accrued over time. Our blueprint of gender balance is skewed by male privilege, which diminishes the gender equality embedded in our theology.

Yet, the theological blueprint for equality envisioned by Joseph and Emma is still visible in the Church today. We have an ungendered lay ministry of men and women preaching, teaching, leading, and managing the congregation together. We have a gendered ministry of women and men working in separate spaces and authority for gendered mirroring and mentoring. We have an inclusive temple ministry that brings men’s and women’s gendered authority together in an inclusive priesthood order.

Women’s gendered authority was established in 1830–44, via a series of “ordinations.” In 1830, Emma Smith was “ordained” to lay ministry and high Church office of Elect Lady. [D & C 25] In 1842, the Relief Society presidency were “ordained” to “preside over the Society . . . just as the Presidency, preside over the church.”[7] In 1843, women were “ordained” as a “Priestess to the Most high God” in the temple, and also “ordained” to the “fullness” or “highest & holiest order of the priesthood” in the temple.[8] Additionally, in 1850, Louisa B. Pratt was “ordained” a full-time missionary, which was an ungendered office.[9] Today, women leaders in the ward, the Relief Society, Young Women, Primary, and in the temple still have their own offices, authority, keys, revelation, and “setting apart” or ordination to lead the gendered ministry of the Church. These are ways women are ordained.

If women were ordained by men giving them Aaronic and Melchizedek orders and offices, women’s authority would come from men rather than from women’s connection to God. Our LDS tradition of female seers, visionaries, societies, ladies, presidents, counselors, boards, prophetesses, priestesses, and mother god arose from women’s own spirituality, inspiration, and innovations, as feminist theology. There is a hidden narrative within the dominant history of men’s authority, where women’s own relationship with God gave rise to their authority. Women shaped Mormon origins and development via their own spirituality and agency.[10] Lucy Mack, Emma Smith, Mary Whitmer, Eliza Snow, Sarah Kimball, Zina Young, Bathsheba Smith, Emmeline Wells all envisioned, organized, and led women’s ministry. Joseph Smith didn’t give them spiritual power—they had it themselves.

FHE: I do think it’s a pretty consistent observation that benevolent patriarchy intrudes on us. Just all the pedestaling of women and overgeneralizations—like “my wife can do no wrong” or “women do everything better.” I feel like there are weird dynamics that feed into this, there’s anxiety, and lack of recognition of women’s reality.

Maxine: Yes, the need to pedestalize and generalize women erases their individual voice, agency. Gender differences can’t be generalized, and that’s not the purpose of separate gendered space, which is to explore that gendered identity. Benevolent sexism claims to value female gender then co-opts it. Some feminists toss out gendered spheres altogether saying, ‘Men and women should have all the same options, just treat us all the same.’ Yet research shows that women and men need gendered space, as well as inclusive space, for growth. LDS Church ministry wisely uses both gendered and inclusive spaces, which provide balance. On one level we have inclusive ministry and authority. Men and women both are confirmed to the lay ministry, then set apart or ordained to whatever callings, roles, or offices they receive. We have inclusive worship spaces—sacrament meeting, Sunday school, youth activities, stake and general conference, and the temple endowment where men and women receive the same vestments and rites, culminating in the celestial room, which brings everyone together.

On another level, we have gendered ministry and authority that focus on the needs of women or men as a group. Research on female development and education shows that women learn and perform better in female settings. Relief Society and the Young Women program provide gendered space for women to process female identity and ministry. The women’s session of general conference does the same.

Also, the temple initiatory rites are sacred female space for consecrating women’s personal relationship to God, which includes the Mother. The Church provides both gendered and inclusive spaces for women’s and men’s spiritual development. However, some of our women’s ministry and female spaces are under the direction of men—which erodes the purpose of gendered space. This is due largely to changes made by Brigham Young in 1845, when he asserted men’s authority over women in the Relief Society and the temple—and we’ve been stuck there ever since.

FHE: Thanks for that explanation. My second question has to do with the positive outlook. We talked about President Kimball, his healing of the Church. I resonate with President Nelson bringing back some of the same kind of beautiful, prophetic, hopeful statements. How do you think changes in the temple, now and future, will potentially function with how women in the Church can have a more influential role in the growth and movement of the Church?

Maxine: That’s a big question and topic, because women’s status in the temple is connected theologically and historically to women’s status in the Church. Temple priesthood and Church ministry affect each other because the temple priesthood was the culmination of ministry and priesthood in the Church. Women’s ministry began in 1830 and grew through stages in Kirtland 1833–36 and Nauvoo 1842–44, building upon itself until it culminated in temple priesthood 1843–44. We need a full recovery of women’s 1830–44 ordinations and authority in the Church, along with a full recovery of women’s ordination rites in the temple prior to 1845. Only that will complete the picture of women’s original authority and its blueprint for equality and fullness.

Originally, in 1843–44, women were “anointed and ordained” to priesthood in the temple. For example, in 1843 Joseph and Emma were “anointed & ord[ained] to the highest & holiest order of the priesthood (& Companion) D[itt]o).”[11] In 1844, Heber and Vilate Kimball were both anointed and ordained as “Preast and Preastest unto our God.”[12] Likewise Eliza R. Snow reported that women were made “priestesses unto the most high God.”[13]

However, in January 1846, this ordination rite was drastically changed by Brigham Young and re-administered to couples who had received the original rites under Joseph Smith. Brigham Young re- anointed Heber C. Kimball, “a king and a priest unto the most high God” but re-anointed Heber’s wife Vilate “a queen and priestess unto her husband” with all blessings “in common with her husband.”[14] Likewise Brigham Young was re-anointed “a king and a priest unto the most high God” while his wife Mary Ann was re-anointed “a queen and priestess unto thine husband” and “inasmuch as thou dost obey his counsel” would receive ”exaltation in his exaltation.”[15]

This catastrophic change removed women’s direct personal relationship with God, and subordinated women’s priesthood under her husband’s. Women were no longer a priestess to God, but a priestess to their husband, exalted through him, not through God. Women’s own authority as “priestesses to the most high God” was erased. Also gone was women’s direct unmediated relationship with God.

This temple change in 1846 was only part of a larger diminishment and erasure of women’s authority and priesthood that occurred immediately after Joseph Smith’s death in 1844. Brigham Young erased women’s independent authority and priesthood in both the Relief Society in 1845 and the temple in 1846, subverting both under men’s authority and priesthood.

Women had been “ordained” not only in the temple, but also ordained in the Relief Society. The Relief Society president was a prophetess with keys to receive revelation for the women and their organizations. This included revelation about the Divine Mother, as Eliza R. Snow received in October 1845. Joseph Smith didn’t articulate much about female orders or offices or theology of the Mother, because he left those tasks to the women themselves. Joseph turned the key of revelation over to female leaders to receive their own direction from God to define women’s priesthood order and offices.[16]
It might be the ultimate patriarchal act if men claimed revelation from the Mother to define female theology. I think it shows great wisdom that male leaders haven’t done that. In 1991, President Hinckley admitted that regarding the Mother in Heaven, he could find no precedent for prayers to “her of whom we have no revealed knowledge.”[17] I remember thinking what an honest confession that was from a leader of a worldwide religion—no knowledge of our divine Mother? I saw his admission as an opening for female leaders to receive revelation from Her.

Today in 2019, new changes to the temple ceremony are beginning to address and reverse the historical loss of women’s direct connection to God. We have been waiting for this needed correction since 1845–46. Today in the temple, instead of men and women making different covenants (men to “God” and women to “husband”) they make the same covenants and they both make their covenants directly with God. No longer are women queens and priestesses their husbands; now they are queens and priestesses in the new and everlasting covenant, which refers to the fullness of priesthood and gospel—not to marriage.[18]

This change recovers women’s parallel status with men from their subordination under male authority, and it restores women’s direct unmediated relationship with God. This is a momentous and welcome change. It corrects women’s loss of authority—to a degree. However, it doesn’t restore their full ordination as a “priestess to God” nor the full individuality of their priesthood. We have yet to recover women’s original and independent authority in both the temple and the Relief Society, and to yet discover the fullness of both.

However, this change is an enormous move in the right direction. The restoral of women’s original rites and ordination to priesthood in the temple could reverberate onto women’s preparatory ministry in the Church—the Relief Society, and Young Women—encouraging a full restoration and articulation of our historic female ministry and ordination. The keys, ordinations, orders, and offices of Relief Society and Young Women could return from the pages of our history, along with women’s sacred rites and ordinances, including blessings and healings. Perhaps we could also recover the presence of our Mother in the temple, the female Elohim. We have an extraordinary women’s ministry of theological equality that has survived and is still functioning—even though perhaps not fully self-aware, named, or articulated, and not fully enacted or empowered, yet.

FHE: Amen. Can I say thank you for fighting for us, for paving the way? Thank you for coming back. I feel inspired by your example and your spirit. I’m interested in your faith transition and progression. It doesn’t seem like you ever lost faith in God or in Christianity or the restoration, even. How was that in your twenty years away? And do you think there’s a spot in Mormonism for just cultural Mormonism?

Maxine: Yes, there are countless people who are inactive LDS yet still identify as part of the “Mormon” tradition culturally or ethnically. I think there’s space in Mormon culture to be whoever or wherever you are in the Mormon journey.
Actually, I went through a journey of extremes, beginning on my mission in the 1970s, then going inactive from Church in the 1980s, then publishing my book and leaving the Church in the 1990s, then finding oneness with God in the 2000s, then returning LDS in the 2010s. Each decade held a new paradigm. I went through many stages including atheism, agnosticism, gnosticism, and mysticism, which taught me to find my own light in the face of emptiness and darkness. It was gnostic Christianity where I found my inner spiritual core; and in the Christian liturgical year, I found my spiritual formation path. I found oneness with God, exactly as Joseph Smith described it in the King Follett sermon. Then I felt spiritually called to come back to the LDS Church and bring everything I’d learned, to see if I could integrate it all, somehow. I thought, “thanks a lot God, that’s a big job,” but I’m back, and trying to integrate it.

Long story short, I honor everyone’s journey of the soul. Nobody can tell you how it’s supposed to go; the map is within you. All you can do is try to listen to your highest most reliable guidance and see where it takes you. My path gave me what I was looking for, everything I wanted and needed. It transformed me. I would not have been able to come back and do what I’m doing now if I hadn’t taken that journey. And it’s not over, the inner path is still moving me forward into new knowledge and larger vistas, every year.

Dialogue: Thank you everyone for this great conversation. Before our closing prayer, I have a couple of final questions. One is, if you could go back and talk to the young feminist Maxine—trying to navigate and come to terms with her religious community and spiritual self—what would you tell her? The other is, what other changes do you see happening that you’re inspired by or excited about in the Church?

Maxine: I would tell her, don’t doubt yourself, have confidence in your work, you’re on the right path, go for it. You deserve the best things in life, college degrees, a career, a great husband. Do not diminish yourself.

What am I excited about? All the new women’s history coming from the Church, resources and books from Kate Holbrook, Jenny Reeder, Lisa Tait and other Church historians, and the Joseph Smith Papers.

I’m excited about the new ministering emphasis in the Church, which evokes the 1830 lay ministry in D&C Section 25, where the promises given to Emma are ours. Every member is a lay minister, and we’re beginning to grasp the power of that and learning how to minister. I’m excited to see women’s ministerial authority coming back and I hope we recover the “fullness” of 1842–44. I can’t imagine a more exciting time in the Church and Mormon studies, as we’re recovering our women’s history and our empowerment.

I’m excited for you young women and men because of where you’re at right now—the knowledge and sophistication you have is far beyond anything I had at BYU in the early 1980s. The courage and verve of your generation, where you’re starting from is so powerful, you can do anything.
Today, you have freedom we did not have, freedom to find your- selves, to be what you want to be, to express yourselves. You have tremendous opportunity. I hope you seize it and dare to be yourself fully, share with the world what only you can bring to it.

Thanks for letting me share some of myself with you tonight.

---

Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.

[1] Feminist FHE (Family Home Evening), first organized in Provo, Utah in 2012, by Hannah Wheelwright, and restarted in 2017 by Tinesha Zandamela, is a group of young Mormon Feminists that meets and talks about the intersections between Mormonism and Feminism. Since its founding, the group has spread to other locations. Current Feminist FHE (Provo) organizers include Laurie Batschi, Halli Bowman, Sydney Bright, Mallory Matheson, Jenna Rakuita, Rebecca Russavage, Charlotte Schultz, and Olivia Whiteley.

[2] Maxine Hanks, Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992).

[3] Contributors to the book who were excommunicated: Maxine Hanks, Michael Quinn, Lavina F. Anderson in 1993; Janice M. Allred in 1995 and Margaret M. Toscano in 2000; Lynne K. Whitesides was disfellowshipped in 1993. The September Six were six scholars and feminists all disciplined in 1993.

[4] The Gospel of Philip, translated by Wesley W. Isenberg in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, edited by James M. Robinson (New York: Harper Collins, 1990), 139–60; the text is available online.

[5] Rebecca England related this story to me on Nov. 13, 2018. “Jordan [Kimball, grandson of Spencer] and I found the marked-up Lester Bush article in SWK’s copy of Dialogue when we were sorting through their house on Laird Dr. after Camilla’s death. When he studied an article, SWK would underline in red pen or pencil—red underlining, meant he studied the article carefully. None of the other Dialogues or articles were marked up like that. We looked through all the Dialogues to see if any others were marked up similarly and none were except Lester Bush’s article. So, it made a strong impression on both of us. This would have been about 1989. We mentioned this in a conversation in 2009 and Greg Prince followed up with questions. One of Jordan’s cousins inherited the Dialogue.”

[6] Eliza R. Snow, “To the Branches of the Relief Society,” Sept. 12, 1884, Woman’s Exponent 13, no. 8 (Sept. 15, 1884): 61.

[7] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, Mar. 17, 1842, 7, The Joseph Smith Papers.

[8] Phinehas Richards diary, Jan. 22, 1846, LDS archives, and “Meetings of anointed Quorum [—] Journalizings,” Sept. 28, 1843, both cited in D. Michael Quinn, “Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843,” in Hanks, Women and Authority, 368, fn. 20, fn. 25.

[9] George Ellsworth, ed., The History of Louisa Barnes Pratt (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1998), 100-10, 128; available online.

[10] Maxine Hanks, “‘A Beautiful Order’—Revisiting Relief Society Origins,” LDS Church History Symposium, Mar. 3, 2016, session 3A; also Maxine Hanks, “Visionary Sisters and Seer Stones,” Sunstone Symposium, Kirtland, Ohio, 2015; also Ian Barber, “Mormon Women as Natural Seers: An Enduring Legacy” in Hanks, Women and Authority, 167–84. Also see Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835–1870 (New York: Knopf, 2017).

[11] Joseph Smith, Diary, Sept. 28, 1843, LDS Church Archives; Meetings of the Anointed Quorum, Sept. 28, 1843, both cited in Devery S. Anderson and Gary James Bergera, eds., Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed 1842–1845: A Documentary History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2005), 25–26.

[12] Anderson and Bergera, eds., Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed, 54.

[13] Eliza R. Snow, “An Address,” Woman’s Exponent, 2 (Sept. 15, 1873): 62.

[14] First entry in the “Book of Anointings,” Jan. 8, 1846, quoted in David John Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship (San Francisco, Calif.: Smith Research Associates, 1994), 87–88.

[15] “Book of Anointings,” Jan. 11, 1846, quoted in Buerger, The Mysteries of Godliness, 88–90.

[16] “He spoke of delivering the keys to this Society . . . I now turn the key to you in the name of God . . . and intelligence shall flow down from this time” (Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, Apr. 28, 1842, 36–37, The Joseph Smith Papers).

“Those ordain’d to lead the Society, are authoriz’d to appoint to different offices as the circumstances shall require” (Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 8, 38, 40, The Joseph Smith Papers).

[17] “I have looked in vain for any instance [of] a prayer to ‘our Mother in Heaven . . . I may add that none of us can add to or diminish the glory of her of whom we have no revealed knowledge” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “Daughters of God,” Gordon B. Hinckley address, Oct. 1991, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1991/10/daughters-of-god?lang=eng).

[18] “‘The new and everlasting covenant is the sum total of all gospel covenants and obligations. . . . Marriage is not the new and everlasting covenant’ . . . This covenant includes all ordinances of the gospel” (Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980], 158; Packer is here citing Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1 [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954], 156).

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If you’re aware of social media, you probably saw a post going around last week about Kim Kardashian. Some feminist called Kim out for posing nude and calling it “feminist.” No, the feminist insisted, it’s not feminist just because you said it is. It’s just recycling the old sexist stuff and pretending that because you’re in charge, it’s OK now. If the women are getting paid for it, then it’s all right? Of course it isn’t. 

And a couple of years before that, it was Miley Cyrus being taken down by Sinéad O’Connor because she was allowing herself to be degraded by putting herself in a music video with a disgusting sexist who was also making Miley a ton of money. Sinéad promised Miley that she would regret this later in life and offered her advice from an older, wiser perspective: to have more respect for herself and her body. 

These are only two examples of the feminism wars currently going on. And I remember participating in the war. I cheered Sinéad O’Connor and re-posted her letter to Miley. I was disgusted by Miley’s actions and considered her a deluded teenager who was being used by the men around her. Only now, it seems maybe it wasn’t quite that simple an equation. I’m not trying to either glorify Miley or excuse her here. My point is that there seems to be a particular brand of feminism which is the “right” brand and which feels self-righteous enough to go around pointing the finger at all the other kinds of feminism and telling them that they aren’t “right.” Women having power isn’t enough. They have to have the “right” kind of power. They have to do it in the “right” way, the feminist way, the equality kind of way.

Do you remember the feminist backlash against Twilight and against its Mormon creator, Stephenie Meyer? You may also recall that the backlash was a hundred times worse against the women who loved Fifty Shades of Grey and against its creator, E. L. James. These two women wrote about female characters who find power in their relationships with the men in their lives. They wrote primarily to female audiences. They made a ton of money doing it. But they didn’t do it the “right” way. They just fell back on all the old stereotypes about men and women. They weren’t the “right” kind of feminists. 

It reminds me of a former friend of mine who wrote an angry comment on one of my Huffington Post essays saying that I wasn’t a “real” Mormon anymore. Who decides who is a real Mormon? Well, there’s an official process for this in Mormonism, an authority who decides if you get kicked out. But being a “real” feminist or not is fraught with many more complications. There is no council of proper feminists. Nor is there an appeal process if you think you’ve been treated badly.

And yet, I am as guilty of pointing the finger at other women and saying they aren’t feminists as anyone else. I am still processing the reaction to a couple of my feminist posts at The Huffington Post, one called “If We Don’t Feel Oppressed, Are We?” and another “What It’s Like to Be a Mormon Woman.”[1] The first one I wrote in an attempt to speak to Mormon women who complain that, since they don’t feel oppressed, the fault must be in the women who do feel oppressed, or not in the system itself, but in the local male authorities (leadership roulette). I’m afraid that what I did instead was to make women feel as if they weren’t “real” women or that their way of finding power and wielding it wasn’t “real.”

In the second essay, I meant to describe what it would be like for a non-Mormon to slip into the body of a Mormon woman and what differences might surprise them. I’m afraid that it came off as condemnatory and even mocking, as if I were saying that the habits of being a Mormon woman are ridiculous and outdated and that our modesty habits are silly. 

I realized after reading some very angry reactions from traditional Mormon women that I had made them feel very much the way that I felt when I read a statistical analysis of the attitudes of working men toward working women. The report castigated women who choose to stay at home because it makes their husbands statistically more likely to treat women badly in the workplace. I felt I was being blamed for being a “bad” feminist and choosing what was right for my life, which was, in my opinion, staying home with my children. All of the sexist men in the world were my fault because I wasn’t working, or so it seemed. 

The reality is that if you look at a long list of women who have used their own power in their own lives, you get a wide range of choices. Think about the following. Do they count as “real” feminists?

Jane Austen? 

Harriet Beecher Stowe? 

Emma Watson? 

Beyoncé? 

Taylor Swift? 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg? 

Gloria Steinem? 

Chieko Okazaki? 

Kate Kelly? 

Neylan McBaine? 

Marjorie Pay Hinckley? 

Bonnie Oscarson?

Who has the right to decide which of these women count as real feminists and which do not? Do any of us?

When I was in graduate school writing a dissertation on a forgotten woman author of eighteenth-century Germany, I was told on multiple occasions that I wasn’t feminist enough. Why? 

First, I had changed my name when I married. My decision was made after months of careful consideration. I could see no real way in which I could take my mother’s name. Her last name was, after all, her father’s, and on and on forever. I could only choose between keeping my father’s name (with whom I had a very strained relationship) and taking my husband’s (who helped empower me in many ways). I chose to take my husband’s name. 

Second, I got pregnant when I was in graduate school. On purpose. And planned to alter my career aspirations to care for my child.

Third, I was writing about a woman writer (Sophie von La Roche) who had eight children and, after her husband’s death, supported them financially with her writing—which was all about traditional girls empowering themselves with traditional femininity. 

Fourth, I knitted in class. 

Fifth, I was a Mormon. One of my professors, Elaine Showalter, once told me that the greatest cause of women’s oppression was religion and it was the first thing one had to give up to be a feminist. 

Sixth, I read and wrote romance novels, which were the most repetitive and unliterary and repressive of all genres. 

So for a long time, I wasn’t sure I counted as a “feminist.” While I was busily writing young adult novels with “strong female characters” to the ever-growing audience of young adult and adult female readers, raising three daughters to question stereotypes of femininity outside and inside of Mormonism, I tried to find other words for my ideas about gender non-conformity.

About a year or so ago, I had an online conversation with another YA author in which she insisted that everyone really was feminist and we should all just admit it. I said that I had long had trouble with the term “feminist” and wasn’t sure what she meant by it at all. She said that feminist just means that you believe men and women are equal. When I asked her what equal means, she stopped responding. This seems to happen a lot because people imagine that “equality” is a simple term and that I am being argumentative in asking for a definition. But I actually think that defining equality is very difficult—perhaps even impossible.

Does “equality” mean: 

• Equal pay for equal work? 
• Equal treatment under the law? 
• Equal treatment by the health care system? 
• Equal opportunity in education? 
• In military combat? 
• Free access to birth control? 
• Alimony payments? 
• Shared custody of children in a divorce?

That is to say, is equality ignoring physical differences in men and women? Or is it trying to ameliorate them? Is it believing that men and women are essentially the same? Or seeing them as essentially different and in need of different assistance? 

I am concerned about the ways in which I see patriarchy swallow up the demands of feminism and use them against women. Each time we gain something, it is turned in the service of the patriarchy. I’m thinking of things like women starring in more television shows—but what kinds of roles are they given? I’m even thinking of something as basic to American political white feminism as abortion, which has become a new kind of oppression for some women who are forced into abortions by the very men who are abusing them sexually.

The reality is that there isn’t just one kind of feminism that serves all women equally well. I want to talk about two types of feminism, with the understanding that these are not the only kinds of feminism but that they are two opposing kinds and are at work frequently in Mormonism. The first kind of feminism is one I call “American political white feminism.” The second I call “French feminism.” 

American political white feminism is, as a male friend of mine described it, feminism that demands men and women are the same in every way that matters. It denies the body and it denies traditional femininity as having any value. Male virtues tend to be the ones that all should aspire to. This means that women who are more masculine tend to get more power and women who are traditionally feminine are sometimes mocked or pitied. If you want to have power, you just have to act more masculine. Stop apologizing, stop wearing makeup and dressing in provocative clothing. Stop having children and changing your name when you marry. Stop staying home as a child caregiver. Get a job and continue to climb the ladder of the corporate world until you reach the glass ceiling and can break it open. Don’t let men talk down to you. Call them out on sexism. Be aggressive. Point out when you’re being treated badly simply because you’re a woman. 

But French feminism—and I’m using that term a little loosely here, I admit—is a feminism in which traditionally feminine qualities are applauded and valued. The female body and its cycles are spoken of openly, written about in artistic ways, drawn, and sculpted. Femininity is applauded in male bodies as well as in female ones. There is no rule about who is allowed to be feminine and who isn’t. Makeup, soft voices, childbearing, alluring clothing, feminine mystique—all are part of femininity and are treated as worthy of investigation and equal treatment as traditionally male qualities such as power and aggression. 

When I first heard about French feminism, I thought that it fit well within Mormonism and our ideas of a Heavenly Mother who embodies divinely feminine qualities, and Eve, who took the fruit because she understood the need for mortal life with its pain and was willing to be the vessel of the human race. But French feminism (and traditional Mormon feminism) are not without problems. As many before me have pointed out, this feminism can simply reify the polarity between men and women. It can feel like a prison to women who do not fit into traditional feminine modes and it seems to emphasize the body above all else. 

Indeed, I could argue that the early days of the Relief Society were very much along the lines of French feminism, with separate spheres for male and female spiritual work. It has only been correlation that has put women in a subordinate position to male priesthood authority. Perhaps. Or perhaps it is correlation that has caused us to reconsider the value of separate spheres in the first place. Do we want to go back to separate spheres or do we need to find another model entirely? And what might that new and different model look like? 

Let’s go back to American political white feminism, which has been criticized much lately for its lack of intersectionality, or the desire to include women of color and transgender women. When I was talking online about this speech last week, one of my friends said in a parting comment meant to inspire me, “Crush patriarchy.” All I could think of was that it was a particularly patriarchal thing to say. War-like metaphors and the goal of crushing a political structure are masculine ways to think and interact in the world. If we, as women and feminists, are trying to crush patriarchy, aren’t we just falling back into patriarchy by assuming that the only power to be had is masculine power? How can we imagine a system outside of patriarchy when our dream of success is so enmeshed in patriarchal views of the world? 

In conclusion, let me talk about Mormon feminism. There are many strains of Mormon feminism currently at work: 

• Ordain Women
• Let Women Pray 
• Heavenly Mother feminists 
• Mother Eve feminists 
• Mormon historians excavating Mormon women’s history

And then there are women within the Church who would never think of themselves as “feminists” (because that is a dirty word) but who regularly use their power (dare we call it priesthood?) to bless the lives of others, male and female, around them. Is one of these kinds of feminism better than the others?

I am hoping that there is some way that we can find it within ourselves to listen more to other women with their own diverse ways of being feminist, even if they don’t call themselves feminists at all. I am hoping that we stop excommunicating each other for being “not feminist enough” and try instead to celebrate women around us whom we find worthy of celebration, in all their different wonders. 

In doing so, I hope to make feminism more inclusive and more affirming. The very idea that someone else’s idea of right living in the world as a woman is too small and needs to be bigger is surely one of the most masculine ways of seeing the world—and one of the least useful. Instead of proving who is best in some weird phallic contest that makes no sense for women anyway, let’s invite everyone who wishes to join and learn even from those who don’t call themselves feminists about ways to be women, to have power, and to act out our own desires in the world.

In the end, I find myself turning back to the German philosopher Theodor Adorno, whom I studied in graduate school in perhaps the most sexist institution that has ever existed, Princeton University. When I went to Princeton from Brigham Young University, I imagined I was entering an elite, liberal bastion of education where there would be no more sexism and no more assumptions about what women could or couldn’t do—or should or shouldn’t do. 

Instead, I found that there were no tenured female faculty members in our department. When asked why not, the professors told us with all sincerity that there simply weren’t any women on the planet who were qualified to teach at Princeton. And so they were going to develop them in-house. There were three assistant professors who were women while I was at Princeton. All of them left after experiencing some terrible form of sexism from the other professors, who continually told them that their work on women writers wasn’t worthy of Princeton University. I was told I could not do my dissertation on an obscure female writer unless I compared her to the greatest male German writer of all time, Goethe. Of the twenty greatest works of German literature we were tested on for our candidacy, none were written by women. And when I was in a class on German Romanticism by the Dean of the Graduate School and asked him why there were no women on the list, he said we didn’t have “time” for minor writers. 

Back then, I hated Theodor Adorno’s insistence on critique. He refused to endorse any political party or any candidate. He refused to describe what a utopia would look like. He did this because he still felt he was enmeshed in the old system and anything he did to try to point to a new one would be tainted. I find myself in my older years feeling very much like Adorno as I try to describe a new feminism. I criticize more than I support any one system. Which one is right? They are all wrong. But they each have things to teach us about who we are and about what might come after (if I may end with such a religious image) this world is washed away.

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[1] “If We Don’t Feel Oppressed, Are We?,” The Huffington Post, Jul. 22, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mette-ivie-harrison/if-we-dont-feel oppressed_b_7834070.html; “What It’s Like to Be a Mormon Woman,” The Huffington Post, Sept. 29, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mette-ivie harrison/mormon-woman_b_8208328.html.

[post_title] => Roundtable: When Feminists Excommunicate [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 50.1 (Spring 2017): 183–192
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In April 1992, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that “three hours before . . . the Relief Society’s sesquicentennial [exhibit] was to open at the LDS Museum of Church History and Art, three quotes were removed” mainly because they “were just a little too sacred.”[1] Interestingly, these quotes referred to teachings in the original minutes of the Nauvoo Relief Society. The quotes were: “the Society should move according to the ancient Priesthood”[2]; “Joseph Smith wanted to make us . . . a ‘kingdom of priestesses’”[3]; and the “sisters will be queens of queens and priestesses unto the most high God.”[4] These three quotes were removed and replaced by three statements about the Relief Society’s potential for service and blessings.[5] I saw this censorship as part of a larger historical trend going back 150 years, in which the Relief Society had been diminished, censored, or reinterpreted by male Church leaders. It had been diminished by conflicts over polygamy in 1843–44, then censored and disbanded by Brigham Young in 1845, then reinterpreted in the 1855 Church history, which rewrote excerpts from the R.S. minutes.[6]

For example, the Church history quoted the Relief Society minutes as saying, “I now turn the key in your behalf,”[7] whereas the actual quote was “I now turn the key to you in the name of God, and this Society shall rejoice and knowledge and intelligence shall flow down from this time.”[8]

The Church history also used the phrase “Delivering the keys of the priesthood to the church,”[9] yet the actual quote said, “Delivering the keys to the Society and to the church”[10] and “the keys of the kingdom are about to be given to them, that they may be able to detect everything false—as well as to the Elders.”[11]

This tendency to rewrite Relief Society history continued from the 1850s into the 1990s. One conference talk delivered in 1992 stated that the “Prophet declared that the Relief Society was to receive instruction and direction from the priesthood leaders who presided over their activities.”[12] Yet, the R.S. minutes described an institutional independence of Relief Society, where “Sisters elect a presiding officer to preside over them . . . [and] he [Joseph] would ordain them to preside over the Society—and let them preside just as the Presidency preside over the church.”[13]

Meanwhile, the museum curator for the 1992 Relief Society sesquicentennial exhibit, Marjorie Conder, explained, “In 1991, I tried to access the Relief Society minute book at the Church library, but it was inaccessible by every route I tried. It was easier to use the photocopy of a photocopy of a typescript I actually had in my hand than to get permission to see the original. And, if not for that photocopy, it would have been impossible to create the exhibit. Then, after I used quotes from the minute book, the exhibit came under severe fire. This rocked me to the core for years afterward. However, fifteen years later in 2007, I was able to use the actual Relief Society minute book on display for another exhibit that was built around thirty-three quotes from the minute book entitled ‘Something Extraordinary.’ And it really was extraordinary—the wheel had turned by that time.”[14]

This story illustrates a boundary shift between 1991 and 2007 regarding access and use of LDS historical documents like the original Relief Society minutes from being inaccessible to staff even for legitimate use in Church-sponsored projects to being openly available in official and widely public forms. The significance of this boundary shift can’t be overstated; new access to historical materials, including formerly restricted ones, has accelerated in the Church archives and online. (Another example is the minutes of the Council of Fifty, rarely seen by Church historians and unknown to the public, now being published in the Joseph Smith Papers.) We can’t access everything in Church archives, but we have drastically more access than we had before. 

This shift in access has affected women’s history itself—from being limited or rewritten in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to publishing the original texts in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The entire text of the original Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book has been published by the Church in its DVD Selected Collections from the Archives (2002), online in The Joseph Smith Papers (2009), excerpted in the handbook Daughters of My Kingdom (2011), and fully published with annotated commentary in the book The Relief Society: The First Fifty Years (2016).[15]

This progress also reflects another shift in regard to the Relief Society, from being disempowered by changes in the 1840s and 1920s and 1970s to recovering its history since the 1970s. Mormon women’s history was previously found only in limited articles, independent journals, and books, but the increasing accessibility and appearance of women’s history and historical documents in Church projects and online since 2000 represents a shifting focus on women as more central, less marginal. Examples include the Women in Church History Research Guide at LDS.org and the Mormon Women’s Studies Resource at Brigham Young University.[16]

The recovery of Mormon women’s history is vital because women’s authority and practices are recorded in their discourse. The Relief Society minutes were Mormon women’s “Constitution and Law”—the official canon of women’s authority, autonomy, organization, and priesthood.[17] Directly linked to section 25 of the Doctrine and Covenants as further developing that revelation, plus containing the women’s own inspiration, revelation, decisions, testimony, blessings, and practices, the Relief Society minutes functioned like a women’s Doctrine and Covenants. It was revered as the governing document for Relief Society throughout the nineteenth century, with new minute books created for each local Relief Society adding to the canon. These minutes also will be published online. 

Access to our Relief Society canon is just one boundary shift related to LDS women’s discourse, authority, practices, and theology, which have waxed and waned at different times throughout two centuries of Mormon history. Policy changes have affected women’s status in LDS religion in both positive and negative ways. 

Yet, the Relief Society exists and operates within another context: that of women’s theology or “feminist theology.” This includes women’s spirituality, spiritual practices, and religious experience, their views and expressions of God, their exercise of ministry, preaching, and writing about religion, interpretation of scripture, their recovery of women’s religious history and theology, their reconsideration of religious tradition, critiques of male constructs and language, assertions in participation and authority, evaluations of gender in religion, exploration of women’s status, identity, and potential, including motherhood and career.[18] These practices are abundant in LDS women’s history, discourse, and activity from Kirtland to Nauvoo to Utah to the worldwide present.

I’ve described Mormon feminist theology as “revisionist theology,” claiming that “Mormon theology, history, and doctrine need to be reevaluated in light of women’s participation, resistance, and perspectives.”[19] Mormon feminist theologians “examine how religion is gendered” ranging from ways they “reveal the feminine as inherent in Mormon theology” to considering “how gender is embedded in religious ideas and texts, how it’s constructed . . . how religion shapes gender, how gender shapes religion.”[20]

In reality, Mormon women have been exploring aspects of feminist theology in one way or another from the beginnings of the LDS Church to the present time.[21] The list of women who’ve engaged theology or explored women’s status in the religion is endless, beginning with Lucy Mack Smith and Emma Hale Smith, Mary Whitmer and Elizabeth Whitney, Eliza R. Snow and Sarah Granger Kimball, Zina D. H. Young and Bathsheba W. Smith, Emmeline B. Wells and the Woman’s Exponent, Susa Young Gates and Leah Widtsoe, the Relief Society Magazine and Amy Brown Lyman and Belle S. Spafford, feminists at Dialogue like Mary L. Bradford, and Martha S. Bradley; historians like Carol C. Madsen, Jill Mulvay Derr, Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, or Claudia L. Bushman and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich at Exponent II, feminists at BYU like Reba Keele, Jan L. Tyler, Cecelia K. Farr, Gail Houston, and Valerie Hudson, or at Ricks College like myself; Sonia Johnson with MERA, and the Algie Ballif Forum; feminists at Sunstone like Peggy Fletcher and Susan Staker; feminists at MHA like Val Avery and Linda K. Newell, and Journal of Mormon History like Lavina Fielding Anderson and Martha Taysom, groups like Pilgrimage, Mormon Women’s Forum, and BYU Voice; online groups like ELWC and MFN, and internet blogs, podcasts like Feminist Mormon Housewives, Mormon Women Project, and Facebook groups. 

The scope of Mormon feminist theology goes far beyond what we’ve realized or recovered in our history and Church practices. Yet, it is centrally present in our theology, doctrine, ministry, and Church structures, even if unrecognized. Having sought feminist theology since the 1970s, I see its centrality in my path and practice. So, I want to highlight a few boundary shifts in Mormon feminist theology over the past twenty-five years that were significant for me personally. 

I saw 1990 as a pivotal year. A new general Relief Society presidency was called, and they were feminists: Elaine Jack, Chieko Okazaki, and Aileen Clyde. These women engaged an empowered presence in their office, sermons, and activities, in planning the Relief Society sesquicentennial, and encouraging women’s history. They modeled authentic voice and position. The “dream team,” as we called them, represented a visible shift forward for women within the institution; they were doing feminism and feminist theology without using the labels. 

I thought we should own the terms “feminism” and “feminist theology” since Mormon women had been doing both all along. So, I began compiling a book about them. In 1990, I called for feminist theology or “Thea-logy” in the Mormon Women’s Forum Quarterly[22]; and in 1991, I presented a paper, “Toward a Mormon Feminist Theology,” on a panel about “The Current State of Mormon Theology” at Sunstone. Peter Appleby from the University of Utah concluded, “The new horizon in Mormon theology is clearly feminist theology.”[23] In 1990, my anthology Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism was advertised in the Signature Books catalogue, along with Strangers in Paradox, a book that also engaged feminist theology (without using the term). Women and Authority reclaimed “feminism” and “feminist theology” in name and practice as truly Mormon, inherent in our own tradition; it also reclaimed the word “priesthood” as related to LDS women. 

In 1990, these were scary moves because at that time, although many LDS women were practicing and writing feminism, very few feminists were willing to use the words “feminism” or “priesthood” in public or print. The excommunication of Sonia Johnson in 1979 had stigmatized Mormon feminism like a shroud of shame in the ’80s, creating an invisible boundary or veil of fear. I felt we needed to confront that fear and de-stigmatize Mormon feminism as a collective. Jan Tyler told me that Women and Authority vindicated Sonia, yet I would add that it vindicated all Mormon feminists by owning feminism and crossing the boundary of fear. Afterward, more women and men were talking about “feminism” in public, as if we had always done it. 

Unfortunately, the Church’s boundary differed from ours. In 1990–93, warnings about feminism arose in Church talks and I was advised by leaders and members not to talk about feminism in public. It was okay to be feminist, just not in public. Since I was editing a book on Mormon feminist theology, I knew I’d be crossing that boundary. After the book appeared in 1993, I met with a Church authority to discuss concerns—in an attempt to bridge an institutional boundary, the gap between men and women, leaders and members. He explained that feminism imposed secular ideas on the Church, which would never be accepted by the Brethren. I explained that we were not importing secular feminism, we were recovering Mormon feminism—our own tradition. He was firm that discussing LDS feminism in public was wrong and advised me to stop. I knew I had to continue. It was a matter of conviction. The boundary against LDS feminism was based on fear, not truth. We didn’t bridge much; we failed to find common ground. I shared some of the blame because we both were defensive and didn’t really hear each other. That same week, Elder Packer gave his now famous talk warning of three “dangers” facing the Church: feminists, scholars, and gays, who signified the secular.[24] His concern was protecting the Church from secular intrusions on sacred space. Yet we weren’t imposing the secular, we were excavating the sacred and using secular tools to understand the sacred better—to see what we hadn’t seen within our own religious tradition. 

Soon after, some of us were excommunicated in September 1993. Much has been written about that event, but in reality, it was simple: excommunication resulted from fear, of each other and of the secular intruding on the sacred. Fortunately, in some ways, we’ve come a long way since 1993. 

In 2000, the Church’s treatment of scholars began to shift as the Church began to publicly embrace objective scholarship, including non-LDS scholarly work, sponsor Mormon studies conferences, and undertake work on the Joseph Smith Papers Project.[25] Since that time, major progress has occurred in the Church’s public engagement with scholarship and feminism. For example, feminist theology of the LDS Mother in Heaven was surveyed in BYU Studies in 2011.[26]

Why did this shift occur? Likely, several reasons: a maturation of scholarly and feminist work happening inside the Church; non-LDS scholars showing more interest in Mormon studies and historical documents; access to Church archival documents increasing in-house and online; changing times and culture wherein feminism became a given for women, the cultural norm; and the influence of the internet with its Mormon blogs, feminism, and candid Mormon history. Even excommunication confronted fears as dissenters and leaders faced each other. Conflicts between leaders and scholars/feminists in the 1990s crossed so many boundaries, it took a decade to complete the “purge of 1993,” paradoxically closing that chapter of conflicted relations and opening the way for a new chapter in relationships after 2000.[27] All of this helped shift boundaries after 2000. 

In 2007, Bruce Hafen wrote an Ensign article entitled “Crossing Thresholds and Becoming Equal Partners,” noting that “For too long in the Church, the men have been the theologians while the women have been the Christians. To be equal partners, each should be both a theologian and a Christian.”[28] Previously, in 1993, Hafen, unlike other male leaders, had acknowledged the validity of at least some feminisms.[29] I saw his Ensign article as a major shift forward in positive attitude toward feminist theology. This progress was evidenced in 2009 when the Church published the Relief Society minutes online—the visible return of women’s canon and feminist theology. 

This decade, from 2000–2011, reflected an institutional shift from fear to embrace, inaccessibility to availability, censorship to transparency. Topics we couldn’t talk about in public and documents we couldn’t see ten years earlier were going online. Also, beginning in 2009, President Julie B. Beck gave a series of talks about women’s access to priesthood power and authority, using words like “ministry” and “priesthood” applied to women and describing their authority as parallel with male priesthood quorums.[30] I noticed this because as general Relief Society president she was engaging terms, ideas, and boundaries that a decade earlier were dangerous or forbidden for feminists. 

In 2012, another boundary shifted when a member of the “September Six” returned to the Church. Like the shroud of shame in the 1980s, the clouds of censure, rejection, and mistrust in the 1990s loomed like an impenetrable storm. Again, I felt compelled and called to challenge that barrier in 2012, as I had 1992—crossing a line of excommunication and alienation. Someone had to cross that boundary and close that gap; I did it not just for myself, but on behalf of others. A higher wisdom required it. The empowering truths in LDS theology and ministry, including feminist theology, deserved to be recovered and embraced. The previous boundaries imposed against feminist theology were dissolving and truly have shifted in the past twenty-five years, although many younger Mormons and critics don’t see that transition. 

In the 1990s we couldn’t talk about feminist theology or women’s relationship to priesthood in public without censure or threat of discipline. Today, we can do feminist theology by name and in public. We can argue and debate it, arm wrestle with each other, and publish it. Even Church leaders high and low are talking about women’s theology and relationship to priesthood. Members are advancing feminist theology in an explosion of articles, books, blogs, and groups like Feminist Mormon Housewives and Ordain Women. 

Unfortunately, in 2014 we saw the return of Church discipline after some OW feminists attempted to enter the men’s priesthood session on Temple Square. Church discipline asserted a boundary in response to dissent that challenged that boundary publicly, physically, and theologically. The Church reiterated its boundary in a First Presidency statement on June 28, 2014, saying that “Only men are ordained to serve in priesthood offices.” The statement added that “[m]embers are always free to ask . . . questions and earnestly seek greater understanding” but not to act “in clear, open, deliberate public opposition to the Church or its faithful leaders, or persisting, after receiving counsel, in teaching false doctrine.”[31] This also implied that only men can attend the general conference session designated as “priesthood meeting.” Ordain Women had challenged these boundaries and as a result Church discipline of Kate Kelly and other OW members enacted the boundary on their membership. 

Personally, I felt no call to cross those theological boundaries (of requesting ordination to male orders and offices or attending men’s priesthood meeting) since my view of women’s ordination differed; however, I cared very much about the women who did, so I supported them personally and pastorally. 

Other than this boundary battle about women’s ordination, progress has moved forward for scholars and feminists since 2000. However, not so for LGBT members. Recently, an entirely new punitive act of exclusion was asserted in the November 2015 Church policy for gay couples and their children, which views them as apostate and thus unable to receive Church ordinances. This new boundary has generated intense suffering, concerns, dissent, conflicts, and exits among members. I felt called to cross this boundary—to minister to gay members and their families as part of the body of Christ (as I minister to members of Ordain Women). As members struggle with this new boundary, or leave the Church, it’s easy to forget that such dilemmas existed the past and are always engaged in the present. There is no avoiding the challenge. 

However, coexisting alongside this new harsh boundary against gay members are other statements that demonstrate that some positive shifts continue forward in feminist theology. 

In 2014, Elder Oaks said, “We are not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the priesthood in their Church callings, but what other authority can it be? When a woman—young or old—is set apart to preach the gospel as a full-time missionary, she is given priesthood authority to perform a priesthood function. The same is true when a woman is set apart to function as an officer or teacher in a Church organization under the direction of one who holds the keys of the priesthood. Whoever functions in an office or calling received from one who holds priesthood keys exercises priesthood authority in performing her or his assigned duties.”[32] This again signifies a shift forward for feminist theology, making points similar to ones Michael Quinn and I raised in 1992.[33]

So, in closing, what have we learned, or what have I learned, through some of this boundary shifting? I’ve learned that Church boundaries do shift, as do our personal boundaries. Progress is needed, yet progress is not simply about pushing forward, but higher—unfolding greater wisdom and inclusion. We have simultaneous boundaries of progress and contraction, but if we see only the contraction or only the progress, we’re not seeing the whole picture. For some members, boundaries signify a need to make an extreme either/or choice to be all-in or all-out, to conform or reject, stay or leave, one or the other. For others, boundaries signify an invitation to practice engagement on a case-by-case basis as a personal spiritual discipline, discerning which boundary one will honor and which boundary one will violate or cross. Tension or dissonance between personal boundaries and group boundaries is normal in every group or organization; tension is an inescapable reality. Our individual paths, identities, and ethics may overlap with the group or may depart sharply, and we all have to live and work with that, and give each other permission to do so. A boundary is a signifier of choice, yet it’s not a true choice unless you have real freedom to consider both options—the agency to choose either one—because sometimes the right choice is to cross a boundary, violate it, and other times the right choice is to honor it. I think the most crucial issue is not whether we cross a boundary or honor it, but whether that decision is truly our own—and whether we can give each other the space to navigate these boundaries and narratives individually. 

We are all continually making and changing boundaries in our decisions, personal ethics, and identities. As I wrote in 1992, it’s “not about a power struggle, but about finding identity. . . . We shift and choose what we believe in many moments of personal revelation and choices, continually identifying what we will reject and retain of our own upbringing, culture, and theology. The challenge is to keep these as personal decisions, rather than surrender our voice to another.”[34]

So today, yesterday, and looking forward to the future, I still see this as the most crucial issue facing members of the Church and former members: our personal agency to discern our own ethical boundaries, and distinguish truth from error in our history, theology, doctrine, worship, culture, practice, and policies. Our ability and need to engage boundaries or cross them, to honor them or reject them, to change our view or position without punishment from each other, is a sign of our divine agency. We have been given this gift from a wise God so that we may decide for ourselves what we will do as we strive to refine and improve both our religion and ourselves. 

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[1] Peggy Fletcher Stack, “LDS Women’s Place? New Conflict Emerges,” Salt Lake Tribune, Apr. 11, 1992, A10. 

[2] “Minutes of the Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the Society,” Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 22, in The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmith papers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book/19.

[3] Bathsheba W. Smith, “Relief Society Reports” [Pioneer Stake], Woman’s Exponent, July and August 1905, 14. 

[4] Eliza R. Snow, “An Address,” Woman’s Exponent, Sept. 15, 1873, 62.

[5] Stack, “LDS Women’s Place?”

[6] Jill Mulvay Derr, Janath Russell Cannon, and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 74. 

[7] Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, edited by B. H. Roberts (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1902), 4:607 

[8] “Minutes of the Proceedings of the Sixth Meeting of the Society,” Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 40, in The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmith papers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book/37. 

[9] History of the Church, 4:604. 

[10] “Minutes of the Proceedings of the Sixth Meeting of the Society,” 37, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book/34. 

[11] “Minutes of the Proceedings of the Sixth Meeting of the Society,” 38, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book/35.

[12] “The Relief Society and the Church,” Apr. 1992, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1992/04/the-relief-society-and-the-church?lang=eng. 

[13] “A Record of the Organization, and Proceedings of The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo,” Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 7, in The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book/4. 

[14] Personal conversation with Marjorie Conder, who recounted this story in 2013. The minutes were available to the R.S. Presidency, and quoted in some Church publications, but not accessible to staff or members.

[15] For access to the Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, see http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book. 

[16] Women in Church History Research Guide, https://history.lds.org/article/women_in_church_history_research_guide?lang=eng; Mormon Women’s Studies Resource, https://sites.lib.byu.edu/mormonwomen.

[17] “A Record of the Organization, and Proceedings of The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo,” 8, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book/5.

[18] Maxine Hanks, “Preface,” Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), vii–ix; Maxine Hanks, “Introduction,” Women and Authority, xi–xxx. See also Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow, eds., “Preface,” “Introduction,” Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1992), vii–viii, xii–xiii, 1–16; Pamela Sue Anderson and Beverley Clack, eds., “Introduction,” Feminist Philosophy of Religion: Critical Readings (London: Routledge, 2003), xiv–xv, 4–7.

[19] Hanks, “Introduction,” xxv–xxvi. 

[20] Maxine Hanks, “Maxine Hanks,” in Latter-day Dissent: At the Crossroads of Intellectual Inquiry and Ecclesiastical Authority, edited by Philip Lindholm (Salt Lake City: Kofford Books, 2010), 63–64. 

[21] Hanks, “Preface,” vii–ix; Hanks, “Introduction,” xi–xxx.

[22] Maxine Hanks, “Emerging Mormon Thea-logy,” Mormon Women’s Forum Quarterly 1, no. 4 (Fall 1990): 15–16, available at http://66.147.244.239/~girlsgo6/ mormonwomensforum/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/MWFVol1Num4.pdf. 

[23] “The Current State of Mormon Theology,” panel discussion, Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium, Aug. 9, 1991; speakers: Lowell Durham, Peter Appleby, James Faulconer, Richard Sherlock, Blake Ostler, Mark Gustavson, Paul Toscano, Janice Allred, Maxine Hanks.

[24] Boyd K. Packer, “All-Church Coordinating Council Meeting,” May 18, 1993, available at http://www.lds-mormon.com/face.shtml. 

[25] For example: 2002: Latter-day Saint Council on Mormon Studies formed to sponsor lectures, conferences, fellowships, professorships, and created the Howard W. Hunter Chair for Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University School of Religion. 2003: BYU cosponsored conference at Yale University Divinity School, “God, Humanity, and Revelation: Perspectives from Mormon Philosophy and History.” 2004: the LDSCMS sponsored a conference on academic study of Mormonism, “Positioning Mormonism in Religious Studies and American History” at Claremont Graduate University School of Religion. 2005: BYU cosponsored “The Worlds of Joseph Smith” at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. 2005: The LDS Church and the LDSCMS cosponsored “Joseph Smith and the Prophetic Tradition” the second conference on Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University.

[26] See David L. Paulsen and Martin Pulido, “‘A Mother There’: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven,” BYU Studies 50, no. 1 (2011): 71–97, https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/ mother-there-survey-historical-teachings-about-mother-heaven. 

[27] The excommunications of 1993 continued through the 1990s, with Janice Allred, Brent Metcalf, and David Wright, ending with Margaret Toscano in 2000, which completed what began as the purge of the 1990s 

[28] Bruce C. Hafen, “Crossing Thresholds and Becoming Equal Partners,” Ensign, Aug. 2007, 24–29, available at https://www.lds.org/ensign/2007/08/crossing-thresholds-and-becoming-equal-partners?lang=eng. 

[29] See also Bruce C. Hafen, “Teach Ye Diligently and My Grace Shall Attend You,” BYU Annual University Conference, Aug. 25, 1993, https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/bruce-c-hafen_teach-ye-diligently-grace-shall-attend; and Bruce C. Hafen, “Women, Feminism, and the Blessings of the Priesthood,” Ricks College devotional, Jan. 10, 1984. The same address was given at BYU Women’s Conference, Mar. 29, 1985, though the title has been changed on the BYU Speeches website: “Women, Feminism, and the Blessings of the Gospel,” https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/bruce-c-hafen_women-feminism-blessings-gospel/. 

[30] See, for example, Julie B. Beck, “Relief Society: A Sacred Work,” Oct. 2009, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2009/10/relief-society-a sacred-work?lang=eng; Julie B. Beck, “‘Daughters in My Kingdom’: The History and Work of Relief Society,” Oct. 2010, https://www.lds.org/ general-conference/2010/10/daughters-in-my-kingdom-the-history-and work-of-relief-society?lang=eng; Julie B. Beck, “What I Hope My Granddaughters (and Grandsons) Will Understand about Relief Society,” Oct. 2011, https:// www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/what-i-hope-my-granddaughters and-grandsons-will-understand-about-relief-society?lang=eng; and Julie B. Beck, “The Vision of Prophets Regarding Relief Society: Faith, Family, Relief,” Apr. 2012, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/the vision-of-prophets-regarding-relief-society-faith-family-relief?lang=eng; and Julie B. Beck, “Why We Are Organized into Quorums and Relief Societies,” BYU devotional address, Jan. 17, 2012, https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/ julie-b-beck_why-we-are-organized-into-quorums-and-relief-societies.

[31] Statement of The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, Jun. 28, 2014, https://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/june-first-presidency statement?lang=eng.

[32] Dallin H. Oaks, “The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood,” Apr. 2014, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/the-keys-and-authority-of-the-priesthood?lang=eng. 

[33] See Hanks, “Introducton,” xi-xxx; Hanks, “Sister Missionaries and Authority,” 315–34; and D. Michael Quinn, “Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843,” 365–410, all found in Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992). 

[34] Hanks, “Introducton,” xxviii. 

[post_title] => Roundtable: Shifting Boundaries of Feminist Theology: What Have We Learned? [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 50.1 (Spring 2017): 167–180
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Any church that is more than a generation old is going to suffer the same challenges that confronted early Christianity: how to preach and teach its gospel to myriad peoples, nationalities, ethnic groups, and societies, without accumulating the cultural trappings of its initial geographical locus. As Joseph Milner has pointed out, the rescue of the “precious ore” of the original theological deposit is made particularly onerous, threatened as it is by rapidly growing mounds of accumulating cultural and “ecclesiastical rubbish.”[1] This includes social accretions, shifting sensibilities and priorities, and the inevitable hand of human intermediaries.

For Joseph Smith, Jr., the task of restoration was the reclamation of the kerygma of Christ’s original Gospel, but not just a return to the early Christian kerygma. Rather, he was attempting to restore the Ur-Evangelium itself—the gospel preached to and by the couple, Adam and Eve (Moses 6:9). In the present paper, I wish to recapitulate a common thread in Joseph’s early vision, one that may already be too obscure and in need of excavation and celebration. Central to Joseph’s creative energies was a profound commitment to an ideal of cosmic as well as human collaboration. His personal mode of leadership increasingly shifted from autocratic to collaborative—and that mode infused both his most radical theologizing and his hopes for Church comity itself. His manner of producing scripture, his reconceived doctrine of the Trinity, and his hopes for the Nauvoo Women’s Relief Society all attest to Joseph’s proclivity for collaborative scriptural, theological, and ecclesiastical restoration.

Though Smith was without parallel in his revelatory capacities (by one count he experienced seventy-six documented visions),[2] he increasingly insisted on democratizing that gift. As one scholar remarked, “Joseph Smith was the Henry Ford of revelation. He wanted every home to have one, and the revelation he had in mind was the revelation he’d had, which was seeing God.”[3] Richard Bushman has noted how “Smith did not attempt to monopolize the prophetic office. It was as if he intended to reduce his own role and infuse the church bureaucracy with his charismatic powers.”[4] This he principally effected through the formation of councils and quorums equal in authority—and revelatory responsibility—to that which he and his presidency possessed.[5] Most remarkable of all, perhaps, was Smith’s readiness to turn what revelations he did receive and record into cooperative editing projects. With his full sanction and participation, the “Revelation Books” wherein his divine dictations were recorded bear the evidence of half a dozen editors’ handwriting—including his own—engaged in the revision of his pronouncements.[6]

It was in that work of scriptural production that Joseph recognized that theological reclamation necessarily entailed fracturing the Christian canon to allow for excision, emendation, and addition. Arguably, the most important work of reclamation and re-conceptualization is Joseph’s understanding of the nature and attributes of the three members of the Godhead whose own collaborative work and glory are “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). Smith believed that the true nature and attributes of the Trinity, the truly “plain and precious things,” were either buried, revised, camouflaged, or expunged from the biblical text (1 Nephi 13). Part of his reclamation entailed a restoration of the Divine Feminine together with a revision of contemporary conceptions of priesthood power and authority in conjunction with “keys” Joseph believed had been lost following the advent of Christianity. Joseph saw himself as midwife in the restoration of the priesthood of the Ur-Evangelium. Within this framework, he envisioned collaborative roles for women and men within the ecclesiastical structure and ministry of the nascent LDS Church, evidenced in partial form in the initiatory, endowment, and sealing rites of the LDS temple.

Reclamation of Divine Collaboration

In answer to William Dever’s question “Did God have a Wife?” the LDS faith responds with a resounding affirmative.[7] Relatively recent excavation of the symbols and modes of worship attributed to the Divine Feminine both within and outside the ancient Hebrew tradition, together with salient clues within the biblical text, are helping to support Joseph’s reclamation of God, the Mother, from the textual absence to which she has been consigned. As Joseph’s theology never emerged ex nihilo, neither is it reasonable to infer his re-introduction of the doctrine of Heavenly Mother to be without canonical and, given Joseph’s penchant for rupturing boundaries, extra-canonical precedent. Joseph showed himself to be quite happy trolling every possible resource in order to reclaim what he considered was most plain and precious (D&C 91:1).[8]

Joseph’s theology was Trinitarian, but in a radically re-conceptualized way. A conventional trinity, in its thrice-reiterated maleness, could never have produced the collaborative vision of priesthood that Joseph developed. It is, therefore, crucial, for both historical context and theological rationale, to recognize that Joseph reconstitutes the Godhead of Christendom as a Heavenly Father who co-presides with a Heavenly Mother. In 1878, Apostle Erastus Snow stated: “‘What,’ says one, ‘do you mean we should understand that Deity consists of man and woman? Most certainly I do. If I believe anything that God has ever said about himself . . . I must believe that deity consists of man and woman. . . . There can be no God except he is composed of man and woman united, and there is not in all the eternities that exist, or ever will be a God in any other way, . . . except they be made of these two component parts: a man and a woman; the male and the female” (emphasis mine).[9] In his 1876 general conference address, Brigham Young suggested a strik-ing equality within that Godhead, when he talked of “eternal mothers” and “eternal daughters . . . prepared to frame earth’s like unto ours.”[10]

Prescient but not surprising, therefore, is the merging of Smith’s reconstituted Godhead with the traditional Trinity. Elder Charles W. Penrose drew an unexpected inference from Joseph’s new theology when he suggested an identification of the Holy Spirit with Heavenly Mother. He responded to a Mr. Kinsman’s assertion that “the members of the Trinity are . . . men” by stating that the third member of the Godhead—the Holy Spirit—was the feminine member of the Trinity: “If the divine image, to be complete, had to reflect a female as well as a male element, it is self-evident that both must be contained in the Deity. And they are. For the divine Spirit that in the morning of creation ‘moved upon the face of the waters,’ bringing forth life and order, is . . . the feminine gender, whatever modern theology may think of it.”[11] Penrose may have been relying upon Joseph’s re-working of the creation narrative in the book of Abraham, where “movement” is replaced with “brooding”—a striking image of a mother bird during the incubation period of her offspring. (One remembers in this context Gerard Manley Hopkins’s lovely allusion to the Holy Spirit who, “over the bent/World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”)[12]

Even though recorded third-hand, the following account suggests that the prophet, Joseph, while not expressing the same identification as Penrose, was projecting the same reconstituted heavenly family:

One day the Prophet, Joseph, asked [Zebedee Coltrin] and Sidney Rigdon to accompany him into the Woods to pray. When they had reached a secluded spot Joseph laid down on his back and stretched out his arms. He told the brethren to lie one on each arm, and then shut their eyes. After they had prayed he told them to open their eyes. They did so and saw a brilliant light surrounding a pedestal which seemed to rest on the earth. They closed their eyes and again prayed. They then saw, on opening them, the Father seated upon a throne; they prayed again and on looking saw the Mother also; after praying and looking the fourth time they saw the Savior added to the group.[13]

V. H. Cassler has written, “What we have taken as absence was presence all along, but we did not have the eyes to see it.”[14] Even within our tradition, glimpses of Smith’s radical innovation have neither been sufficiently recognized nor appreciated. One such unrecognized symbol resides on the threshold of the celestial room in the Salt Lake Temple. Just above the veil on the west wall stands a remarkable, six-foot statue of a woman, holding what looks very much like a palm frond. She is flanked by two easily discernible cherubs to whom she is linked by gar-lands of colorful, open flowers. While chubby cherubs are ubiquitous in Renaissance art and could, therefore, be mistaken as merely decorative, the number and placement of the cherubs in the celestial room of the temple draw one back to the majestic, fearful Cherubim—guardians of the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies of the First Temple. The Lady of the Temple is positioned at the portal of the veil—the representation of the torn body of the Lord, Jesus Christ—through which all kindred, nations, tongues, and people shall pass into the celestial kingdom (Hebrews 10:20, Matthew 27:50–51). The original statue was purchased by Joseph Don Carlos Young, who was called by the Church Presidency to succeed Truman O. Angell as decorator of the temple interior. Young purchased the winged statue named “The Angel of Peace” and two cherubs on a visit to New York in 1877. However, during a dream vision one night Young recorded: “I felt impelled to remove the wings. Now I saw a smile and expression that I never saw before and I can now allow this . . . to be placed there.”[15] The enigmatic lady’s station at the veil of the temple, replete with crucifixion imagery, makes it unlikely that she represents Eve. Mary, the mortal mother of the Lord, is a possibility, given her maternal relationship to the Messiah. However, the Lady’s presence at the entrance to the celestial room, representing the celestial kingdom, suggests someone else. There are several key clues as to her possible identity.

Of note is the palm frond the Lady is holding. Anciently, trees were a potent symbol of Asherah, God the Mother.[16] In fact, the Menorah—the seven-branched lamp—that is reputed to have given light in the original Holy of Holies is fashioned after an almond tree, covered in gold—representing the Tree of Life spoken of at the beginning and end of the biblical text.[17] Not only are flowers fashioned into the Menorah: open flowers are one of the temple’s primary decorative motifs.[18] Palm trees also were closely associated with the First Temple with which the interior was liberally decorated together with cherubim: “And it was made with cherubims and palm trees, so that a palm tree was between a cherub and a cherub; and every cherub had two faces” (Ezekiel 41:18).[19] Palm fronds also play a conspicuous role in Jesus’ Passion—in particular his dramatic entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the day that begins the week ending in the crucifixion and resurrection of the Savior. The thronging crowds, waving and throwing palm fronds beneath the hooves of the donkey carrying the Messiah, “chant a Hoshi’ahnna’ (Hebrew “Save Us”)—a clear indication that many, if not all, the Jews present recognized that the man astride the donkey was the promised Messiah.[20] The palm fronds together with the chant suggest a recognition on the part of the thronging masses of the presence of the goddess Asherah—the Mother of the Lord—whose primary symbol is a tree.[21]

Asherah, or the Divine Feminine, is referred to in Proverbs 3:18 as the “Tree of Life.” Her “fruit is better than gold, even fine gold” (Proverbs 8:19). Those who hold her fast are called happy (a word play on the Hebrew ashr). It can be assumed, therefore, that Asherah and Wisdom (Sophia in the Greek) are different names for the same deity.[22] According to the book of Proverbs, Wisdom/Asherah is the name of the deity with whom “the Lord founded the earth” (Proverbs 3:19–20). Before the world was, She was. “Long life is in her right hand; /in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life” (Proverbs 3:16–18). Latter-day Saints are enjoined to search for her in the opening chapters of the Doctrine and Covenants because Wisdom holds the keys not only to the mysteries of God but to eternal life (D&C 6:7, 11:7).

Interestingly, the biblical association of Sophia with the Tree of Life finds powerful echo in the Book of Mormon narrative. Nephi begins the account of his vision by expressing an ardent desire to “see, and hear, and know of these things, by the power of the Holy Ghost, which is the gift of God unto all those who diligently seek him [God]” (1 Nephi 10:17, 19). Nephi’s narrative starts in the company of the Spirit, who immediately draws his attention to the Tree of Life—“the whiteness [of which] did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow . . . the tree which is precious above all.” Mary, the mortal mother of the Messiah, whom Nephi sees following the vision of the tree (the Asherah), is similarly described as “exceedingly fair and white” (1 Nephi 11:13, 15, 18). After Mary is “carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time,” she is seen bearing the Christ child (1 Nephi 11:19–20). This association of Christ’s birth with the Tree of Life, with its echoes of a Divine Feminine, is not unique to the Book of Mormon. The oldest known visual representation of the Madonna and Child effects the same conjunction. In the Roman catacombs of St. Priscilla, a fresco dated to the second century depicts the mother and child, with a magnificent Tree of Life overarching both.[23] Immediately following Nephi’s vision of Mary and the Christ child, he watches “the heavens open, and the Holy [Spirit] come down out of heaven and abide upon [Christ] in the form of a dove” (1 Nephi 11:25–27). It does not appear to be coincidental that both “Spirit” and “dove” are gendered female in Hebrew, Syriac, and Aramaic.

Augustine also finds his theological heart strings pulled by the pro-vocative power and logic of the Holy Spirit as in some sense the Wife of the Father and Mother of the Son: “For I omit such a thing as to regard the Holy Spirit as the Mother of the Son and the Spouse of the Father; [because] it will perhaps be answered that these things offend us in carnal matters by arousing thoughts of corporeal conception and birth.”[24] At about the same time, the early Church Father, Jerome, interpreting Isaiah 11:9 in light of the Gospel of the Hebrews, noted that Jesus spoke of “My mother the holy spirit.”[25] Even though Jews returning from the Babylonian captivity were essentially monotheistic, there are suggestions that their belief in a deity that comprised the Father (El), the Mother (Asherah), and the Son (Yahweh) from the First Temple tradition and before persisted. For example, in 1449 Toledo some “conversos” (Jewish converts to Christianity) were alarming their ecclesiastical leaders by refusing to relinquish certain tenets of their previous faith: “In as much as it has been shown that a large portion of the city’s conversos descend-ing from the Jewish line are persons very suspect in the holy Catholic faith; that they hold and believe great errors against the articles of the holy Catholic faith; that they keep the rites and ceremonies of the old law; that they say and affirm that our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ was [a] man of their lineage who was killed and whom the Christians worship as God; that they say that there is both a god and a goddess in heaven.”[26] As Margaret Barker has stated: “It has become customary to translate and read the Hebrew Scriptures as an account of one male deity, and the feminine presence is not made clear. Had it been the custom to read of a female Spirit or to find Wisdom capitalized, it would have been easier to make the link between the older faith . . . and later developments outside the stream represented by the canonical texts.”[27]

Reclamation of Ecclesiastical Collaboration

The reciprocal synergy of the Godhead was a catalyst—or at least precursor—to Joseph’s quest for a universal collaboration of male and female. On March 17, 1842, he took another momentous step in that direction. At that time both male and female members of the Church were actively engaged in the construction of the Nauvoo temple. Women collaborated in the enterprise primarily by contributing financially and by providing the masons with clothing. In addition, they saw to the needs of impoverished members arriving daily seeking refuge. As the number of women engaged in support of temple construction and relief efforts grew, a group of them, at the instigation of Sarah Kimball, formed the Ladies’ Society of Nauvoo. Eliza R. Snow drafted the constitution and by-laws and then took them to Joseph, who, while applauding the enterprise, suggested the ladies might prefer something other than a benevolent or sewing society. He invited the sisters to “meet me and a few of the brethren in the Masonic Hall over my store next Thursday afternoon, and I will organize the sisters under the priesthood after the pattern of the priesthood.”[28] In other words, just as the male society had been organized after the pattern of the priesthood, the women of the church would form a female society, with Joseph’s sanction and blessing, after the same pattern.

Like the men before them, the women were to be organized under the umbrella of the priesthood “without beginning of days or end of years” (Moses 1:3). Joseph further stipulated: “the keys of the kingdom are about to be given to them [the sisters], that they may be able to detect every thing false—as well as to the Elders.”[29] While it has been argued that the expression “keys of the kingdom” in regard to women refers solely to their initiation into the ordinances of the “greater [or] Holy Priesthood” in the temple, Joseph seemed to attribute to women a priestly standing. In other words, he acted on the assumption that in order to access the priesthood that “holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God” together with the temple ordinances in which “the power of godliness is manifest,” one would already need to be a priest (D&C 84:19–22). At least, there is evidence that this is how Joseph understood access to priesthood power and authority.

On March 31, 1842, Joseph announced to the inchoate Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, first, his recognition that collaboration between men and women was key to spiritual and ecclesiastical progress—“All must act in concert or nothing can be done,” he said. Second, “the Society should move according to the ancient Priesthood” as delineated in Doctrine and Covenants 84 (given in Kirtland on September 22 and 23, 1832). And, third, in order to accomplish the above, “the Society was to become a kingdom of priests as in Enoch’s day—as in Paul’s day.” Eliza R. Snow understood that the women’s Society or priesthood would enable women to become “Queens of Queens, and Priestesses unto the Most High God.”[30]

Joseph’s conception of female authority may have been tied to his understanding of the New Testament. That women as well as men held Church offices in “Paul’s day” has become apparent with the recent, more accurate translations of the Greek New Testament and research into early Christian ecclesiology. In Ephesians chapter four, Paul enumerates the gifts of the Spirit imparted by the Lord before His ascension: “some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to maturity” (Ephesians 4:11–13). Women as well as men were to be found in possession of each of these “gifts.” Peter Brown demonstrates that, unlike pagans and Jews, “They [Christians] welcomed women as patrons and . . . offered women roles in which they could act as collaborators.”[31]

In his letter to the Romans, Paul sends greetings to Andronicus and Junia (perhaps Julia), commending them for their faith and stating that “they are prominent among the apostles.”[32] Later writers would masculinize the name, but Chrysostom in the late fourth century had no problem praising “the devotion of this woman” who was “worthy to be called an apostle.”[33] In the second book of Acts, Luke records the following: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17–18). The apostle Paul considered the gift of prophecy one of the greatest spiritual gifts: “Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts,” he said, “and especially that you may prophecy [for] those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” (1 Corinthians 14:1, 3). Indeed, Orson Pratt stated in 1876 that “there never was a genuine Christian Church unless it had Prophets and Prophetesses.”[34] It is, therefore, not surprising to find them mentioned in the New Testament. In Acts 21, we learn that the four unmarried daughters of Philip the evangelist possessed “the gift of prophesy” (Acts 21:8–9).

The primary role of evangelists was to teach the death and resur-rection of Jesus Christ. Raymond Brown has noted that in the Gospel of John, the Samaritan woman serves “a real missionary function,” while the women at Christ’s tomb are given “a quasi-apostolic role.”[35] As Kevin Giles puts it, “the Synoptic authors agree that it was women who first found the empty tomb. And Matthew and John record that Jesus first appeared to women. The encounter between the risen Christ and the women is drawn as a commissioning scene. The Lord says, ‘Go and tell my brethren’ (Matthew 28:10, cf. John 20:17). The women are chosen and commissioned by the risen Christ to be the first to proclaim, ‘He is risen.’”[36]

Deacons are also listed among the offices in the nascent Christian Church, and women are also included. In his letter to the Romans, Paul commends Phoebe, “a deacon or minister of the church at Cenchreae” (Romans 16:1). The terms “pastors” and “teachers” are joined grammatically in Ephesians 4:11. It appears that the term “pastor” in the New Testament was the universal term referring to spiritual leadership. Among the female pastor-teachers, Priscilla is singled out for her theological acumen, instructing (together with—possibly her husband—Aquila) the erudite and eloquent Apollos of Alexandria “more accurately . . . in the way of God” (Acts 18:18, 24–26). Significantly, of the six times this couple is mentioned, Priscilla precedes Aquila in four of them—according her prominence over Aquila either in ministry or social status—or both. Rodney Stark stated in his book The Rise of Christianity that “It is well known that the early Church attracted an unusual number of high status women . . . . Some of [whom] lived in relatively spacious homes,” to which they welcomed parishioners.[37] Priscilla is not the only woman mentioned in connection with church leadership. In addition to Priscilla we learn of Mark’s mother (Acts 12:12), Lydia from Philippi (Acts 16:14–15, 40), and Nympha in Paul’s letter to the Colossians (Colossians 4:15). The apostle John addresses a letter to the Elect or Chosen Lady and her children (congregation) in 2 John 1:1. All apparently function as leaders of the Church.

The title translated as “Lady” in the New Testament is the equivalent to the title “Lord,” generally denoting social standing but possibly, in an ecclesiastical sense, denoting someone in a position of church leadership.[38] According to Stanley Grenz, the nascent Christian Church “radically altered the position of women, elevating them to a partnership with men unparalleled in first-century society.”[39] It appears that Joseph was engaged in the same endeavor in mid-nineteenth-century America. During the inaugural meeting of the Relief Society, after reading 2 John 1:1  Joseph stated that “this is why she [Emma] was called an Elect Lady is because [she was] elected to preside.”[40] While it can be argued that the aforementioned are all gifts of the Spirit that do not necessarily involve priesthood, there is evidence that Joseph saw the Spirit as directing the implementation of these gifts into specific priesthood offices.

I mention these historical precedents because it is clear that Joseph Smith was aware of them and that they influenced his directive to Emma  that “If any Officers are wanted to carry out the designs of the Institution, let them be appointed and set apart, as Deacons, Teachers &c. are among us.”[41] On April 28, 1842, after reading 1 Corinthians 12 to the Society, he gave “instructions respecting the different offices, and the necessity of every individual acting in the sphere allotted him or her; and filling the several offices to which they were appointed.”[42]

And so we find that the striking degree of collaboration between men and women in the early Christian Church is replicated in the founding of the LDS Church. In this regard, Bishop Newel K. Whitney’s words are significant: “It takes all to restore the Priesthood . . . without the female all things cannot be restor’d to the earth.”[43] This implies a much broader role for women in the Church structure than temple service alone. In Joseph’s journal account following the Female Relief Society meeting of Thursday, April 28, 1842, he writes: “Gave a lecture on the pries[t] hood shewing how the Sisters would come in possession of the priviliges & blessings & gifts of the priesthood—&c that the signs should follow them. such as healing the sick casting out devils &c.”[44] Commenting on Doctrine and Covenants 25, which Joseph read at the inaugural meeting of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, he stated that Emma “was ordain’d at the time, the Revelation was given”—that is, Emma was ordained not by man but by God to the position of Elect Lady (“and thou art an elect lady, whom I have called [or chosen]” [D&C 25:3]) as Joseph was ordained/chosen by God to the position of First Elder. It is clear from Emma’s remarks two years later at the Female Relief Society meeting of March 16, 1844, that she recognized that her ordination to the position of Elect Lady with its attendant power, privileges, and authority were divinely bestowed: “if thier ever was any authourity on the Earth [I] had it—and had [it] yet.”[45]

The second Relief Society president, Eliza R. Snow, who gained and retained possession of the Nauvoo Relief Society minutes, also recognized that Emma’s authority to preside over the Female Relief Society gave the women’s organization independence: “The Relief Society is designed to be a self-governing organization: to relieve the Bishops as well as to relieve the poor, to deal with its members, correct abuses, etc. If difficulties arise between members of a branch which they cannot settle between the members themselves, aided by the teachers, instead of troubling the Bishop, the matter should be referred to their president and her counselors.”[46] Reynolds Cahoon, a close affiliate of Joseph, understood “that the inclusion of women within the [ecclesiastical] structure of the church organization reflected the divine pattern of the perfect union of man and woman.” Indeed, Cahoon continued, “the Order of the Priesthood . . . which encompasses powers, keys, ordinances, offices, duties, organizations, and attitudes . . . is not complete without it [the Relief Society]”).[47]

The source of women’s ordination, Joseph suggested, was the Holy Spirit. He understood the women to belong to an order comparable to or pertaining to the priesthood, based on the ordinance of confirmation and receipt of the Holy Spirit. To the Nauvoo women, he suggested that the gift of the Holy Spirit enabled them to “administer in that author-ity which is conferr’d on them.”[48] The idea that priesthood power and authority were bestowed through the medium of the Holy Spirit was commonly accepted among both Protestants and Catholics at that time. The nineteenth-century Quaker, William Gibbons, articulated the broadly accepted view that “There is but one source from which ministerial power and authority, ever was, is, or can be derived, and that is the Holy Spirit.”[49] For, “it was by and through this holy unction, that all the prophets spake from Moses to Malachi.”[50] The Reformed Presbyterian Magazine cites this “holy unction” as “not only the fact but the origin of our priesthood” claiming to be made “priests by the Great High Priest Himself . . . transmitted through the consecration and seal of the Holy Spirit.”[51]

Such a link between the priesthood and the gift of the Holy Spirit is traced back to the early Christian Church, based on two New Testament passages. In John 20, the resurrected Christ commissions His disciples to go into the world proclaiming the Gospel, working miracles, and remit-ting sins in the same manner He was sent by His Father—through the bestowal of the Holy Spirit: “As my Father has sent me, so send I you. When he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:21–23). Peter preached that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” (Acts 10:38). And so to the Relief Society sisters Joseph “ask’d . . . if they could not see by this sweeping stroke, that wherein they are ordained, it is the privilege of those set apart to administer in that authority which is confer’d on them . . . and let every thing roll on.”[52] He called this authority “the power of the Holy Priesthood & the Holy Ghost,” in a unified expression.[53] Elsewhere he stated that “There is a prist-Hood with the Holy Ghost and a key.”[54] Indeed, Joseph presses the point even further. In a Times and Seasons article, he wrote that the gift of the Holy Ghost “was necessary both to ‘make’ and ‘to organize the priesthood.’”[55] It was under the direction of the Holy Spirit that Joseph was helping to organize—or, more accurately, re-organize—women in the priesthood.

For Joseph, the organization of the Female Relief Society was fundamental to the successful collaboration of the male and female quorums: “I have desired to organize the Sisters in the order of the Priesthood. I now have the key by which I can do it. The organization of the Church of Christ was never perfect until the women were organized.”[56] It was this key Joseph “turned” to the Elect Lady, Emma, with which the gates to the priesthood powers and privileges promised to the Female Relief Society could now be opened. The injunction given to recipients of priesthood privileges in Doctrine and Covenants 27 could, therefore, also apply equally to the nascent Female Relief Society to whom the keys of the kingdom were also promised.[57]

The fact that the Female Relief Society was inaugurated during the same period and setting as the founding of the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge is helpful in understanding its intended purpose. Joseph had been raised to the Third Degree of Freemasonry (Master Mason) the day before this auspicious meeting.[58] And a plausible argument has been made that the prophet considered the principal tenets of Masonry—Truth, Friendship (or Brotherly Love), and Relief—to be in complete harmony with the reclamation of the Ur-Evangelium.[59] It can, therefore, be argued that Friendship, “the grand fundamental principle of Mormonism,” formed the sacred bond between the male and female priesthood quorums in their efforts to proclaim truth, bless the afflicted, and alleviate suffering by providing relief as they worked side by side on their united goal to build the Nauvoo temple, assist those in need, preach the Gospel, excavate truth, and establish Zion.[60]

The organization of the female society also finds instructive parallels with the creation story in the books of Genesis and Abraham. Abraham states that “the Gods took counsel among themselves and said: Let us go down and form man in our image, after our likeness; and we will give them dominion. . . . So the Gods went down to organize man[kind] in their own image, in the image of the Gods to form they him, male and female to form they them” (Abraham 4:26–27). In the second biblical creation narrative, Eve is created after Adam when it was decided by the Gods that “it was not good for man to be [act] alone” (Genesis 2:18). After Adam and Eve were organized they were given the family name of Adam. He “called their name Adam” (Genesis 5:2; Moses 6:9). Adam is the family name, the couple’s surname. (One can note here the precedent set by “God” as a family name evidenced in the appellation: God, the Father; God, the Son; and God, the Holy Spirit). Erastus Snow’s remark bears repeating here: “Deity consists of man and woman. . . . There never was a God, and there never will be in all eternities, except they are made of these two component parts; a man and a woman; the male and the female.”[61]

The divinely decreed identity of the couple, Adam, is one of complementarity, two beings separated by a creative act and then reconstituted as one by divine sacrament. Only later does the name Adam come to denote the individual male rather than the couple. It is, perhaps, in this context of Adam as the family name that the following scripture from the book of Moses should be read: “And thus [they were] baptized, and the Spirit of God descended upon [them], and . . . [they were] born of the Spirit, and became quickened. . . . And they heard a voice out of heaven, saying: [ye are] baptized with fire, and with the Holy Ghost. This is the record of the Father, and the Son, from henceforth and forever; And [ye are] after the order of him who was without beginning of days or end of years, from all eternity to all eternity. Behold, [ye are] one in me, [children] of God; and thus may all become my children” (Moses 6:65–68).

In Moses, we learn that Eve labored with Adam. They worship together. They pray together. They grieve the loss of Cain together. Together they preach the gospel to their children (Moses 5:12). The right to preside over the human family was given jointly to Eve and Adam, as were the sacred rights of the temple: “And thus all things were confirmed unto [the couple] Adam, by an holy ordinance” (Moses 5:59). The sacerdotal nature of “ordinance” implies that Adam and Eve were also to collaborate in the powers inherent in priesthood. They were both clothed in holy garments representing the male and female images of the Creator Gods. Adam and Eve, therefore, represent the divine union of the God, El, and His Wife, variously known as Asherah (The Tree of Life), El Shaddai (God Almighty),[62] Shekhina (The Holy Spirit),[63] and Sophia (Wisdom). As Heber C. Kimball said, “‘What a strange doctrine,’ says one ‘that we should be taught to be one!’ I tell you there is no way for us to prosper and prevail in the last day only to learn to act in Union.”[64]

It is this union that Joseph appears to be attempting to restore with the organization of the Female Relief Society. The Nauvoo Relief Society minutes indicate that Joseph considered himself to be authorizing the women of the Church to form an institution fully commensurate with the male institutions he had organized earlier. The name the founding mothers chose for their organization was the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, possibly suggesting their recognition that what was being organized was the full and equal counterpart to the already operating male priesthood quorums.[65] John Taylor’s suggestion to name the female quorum “The Nauvoo Female Benevolent Society” in lieu of the Relief Society presidency’s proposal “The Nauvoo Female Relief Society” was rejected outright by the female presidency. “The popularity of the word benevolent is one great objection,” adding that we “do not wish to have it call’d after other Societies in the world” for “we design to act in the name of the Lord—to relieve the wants of the distressed, and do all the good we can.”[66]

It appears likely that the second president of the Female Relief Society recognized exactly that. As Eliza R. Snow told a gathering of Relief Society sisters on March 17, 1842, the Relief Society “was no trifling thing, but an organization after the order of Heaven.”[67] Indeed, Eliza later stated:

Although the name may be of modern date, the institution is of ancient origin. We were told by our martyred prophet, that the same organization existed in the church anciently, allusions to which are made in some of the epistles recorded in the New Testament, making use of the title, “elect lady”. . . . This is an organization that cannot exist without the priesthood, from the fact that it derives all its authority and influence from that source. When the Priesthood was taken from the earth, this institution as well as every other appendage to the true order of the church of Jesus Christ on the earth, became extinct, and had never been restored until now.[68]

In her poem, “The Female Relief Society: What is it?” Eliza expresses her understanding that the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo is the legitimate counterpart to the male organization by emphasizing the word “order” in the sixth and last stanza. She does so by enlarging the word in such a way that it immediately draws attention to itself, implying that she understands the “Relief Society” to be an order of the priesthood.[69] The “Chosen Lady”: Emma is so called “because [she was] elected to preside” as Joseph, the First Elder, was also elected to preside.[70] In the words of President John Taylor, “this Institution was organiz’d according to the law of Heaven—according to a revelation previously given to Mrs. E. Smith, appointing her to this important calling—[with] . . . all things moving forward in . . . a glorious manner.”[71]

The female counterpart of the priesthood would be linked to that of the male order in the appropriated grand fundamental of Masonry: friendship. One could construe that the name for the women’s organization, “The Female Relief Society, was chosen with the Masonic fundamentals of “truth,” “friendship,” and “relief” in mind—therefore empowering the female and male organizations to work together in mutual support, encouraging each other and meeting together in council—patterned after the Divine Council presided over by El, El Shaddai/ Asherah, and Yehovah. If that collaborative vision did not yet come to fruition, it did not go unnoticed by those who constituted the second generation of Relief Society sisters who were very familiar with the founding events of their organization; Susa Young Gates wrote that “the privileges and powers outlined by the Prophet in those first meetings [of the Relief Society] have never been granted to women in full even yet.”[72]

In turning “the key” to Emma as president of the Female Relief Society, Joseph encouraged Emma to “be a pattern of virtue; and possess all the qualifications necessary for her to stand and preside and dignify her Office.” In her article for the Young Woman’s Journal, Susa Young Gates, in her recapitulation of Doctrine and Covenants 25, reminds her young, female readership that Emma was not only called to be a scribe but a “counselor” to the prophet and that she was “ordained to expound the scriptures. Not only set apart but ordained!”[73] With Emma in possession of the keys to preside over the Female Relief Society, it was now possible to create a “kingdom of priests as in Enoch’s day—as in Paul’s day.”[74] As in the ancient church of Adam and Eve envisioned by Joseph and, as in the early Christian Church, women would share the burdens of administering the affairs of the kingdom together with ministering to their congregations, the sick, the poor and the needy, and proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.[75]

Indeed, Relief Society sisters performed a vital role in their min-istrations to the poor and the sick—including the pronouncement of blessings of healing. For example, Helen Mar Kimball Whitney records being blessed at the hands of Sister Persis Young, Brigham’s niece, who “had been impressed by the Spirit to come and administer to me . . . She rebuked my weakness . . . and commanded me to be made whole, pronouncing health and many other blessings upon me. . . . From that morning I went to work as though nothing had been the matter.”[76] At the Nauvoo Relief Society meeting of April 28, 1842 Joseph Smith had promised that “if the sisters should have faith to heal the sick, let all hold their tongues, and let every thing roll on.”[77] Women and men would also be endowed to perform the saving ordinances performed initially in the Masonic Lodge and then in the newly constructed Nauvoo Temple in order to redeem “all nations, kindreds, tongues and people” culminating in the sealing of the human family to each other and to the Divine Family, thereby fulfilling their collaborative roles as “Saviours on Mount Zion.”

As Susa Young Gates noted, “there were mighty things wrought in those long-ago days in this Church. Every great and gracious principle of the Gospel—every truth and force for good—all these were conceived and born in the mighty brain and great heart of that master-mind of the nineteenth century, Joseph Smith, the development and expansion of these truths he left to others” (emphasis mine). Susa then added that Joseph “was never jealous or grudging in his attitude to woman. . . . He brought from the Heavenly store-house that bread of life which should feed her soul, if she would eat and lift her from the low estate of centuries of servitude and ignominy into equal partnership and equal liberty with man.”[78]

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[1] Joseph Milner, The History of the Church of Christ, vol. 2 (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1812), v.; Joseph Milner, The History of the Church of Christ, vol. 3 (Boston: Farrand, Mallory, and Co., 1809), 221.

[2] They are treated in Alexander L. Baugh, “Parting the Veil: Joseph Smith’s Seventy-Six Documented Visionary Experiences,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations 1820–1844, edited by John W. Welch and Erick B. Carlson (Provo and Salt Lake City: Brigham Young University and Deseret Book, 2005), 265–326.

[3] Interview Kathleen Flake, “The Mormons,” PBS Frontline/American Experience (Apr. 30, 2007), retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/mormons/interviews/flake.html.

[4] Richard Bushman, “Joseph Smith and His Visions,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism, edited by Terryl L. Givens and Philip L. Barlow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 118.

[5] This practice is most clearly evident in his revelation on priesthood, D&C 107.

[6] See The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Manuscript and Revelation Books, Facsimile Edition, edited by Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, and Steven C. Harper (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2009).

[7] William Dever, Did God Have a Wife? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005).

[8] Among Joseph’s reading material is Willam Hone, ed., The Apocryphal New Testament (London: Hone, 1821). For Smith’s library, see Kenneth W. Godfrey, “A Note on the Nauvoo Library and Literary Institute,” Brigham Young University Studies 14 (Spring 1974): 386–89.

[9] Erastus Snow, Mar. 3, 1878, Journal of Discourses, 19:269–70.

[10] Richard S. Van Wagoner, ed., Complete Discourses of Brigham Young (Salt Lake City: Smith-Petit Foundation, 2009), 5:3092.

[11] Women in Heaven,” Millennial Star 64 (Jun. 26, 1902): 410, retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/millennialstar6426eng#page/408/mode/2up. Penrose, who was editor at the time this editorial was written, is likely the author.

[12] Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur,” Poems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), 70.

[13] Abraham H. Cannon, Journal, Aug. 25, 1880, LDS archives, quoted in Linda P. Wilcox, “The Mormon Concept of a Mother in Heaven,” in Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and Lavina Fielding Anderson, eds., Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 66; see also Maxine Hanks, Woman and Authority (Salt Lake: Signature, 1992).

[14] V. H. Cassler, “Plato’s Son, Augustine’s Heir: ‘A Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology’?” Square Two 5, no. 2 (Summer 2012), retrieved from http://squaretwo. org/Sq2ArticleCasslerPlatosSon.html.

[15] Joseph Don Carlos Young, Private Notebook (no date; no pagination), currently in the possession of Richard Wright Young, grandson of Joseph Don Carlos Young, quoted in Alonzo L. Gaskill and Seth G. Soha, “The Woman at the Veil,” in An Eye of Faith: Essays in Honor of Richard O. Cowan, edited by Kenneth L. Alford and Richard. E. Bennett (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 2015), 91–111.

[16] Daniel Peterson, “Nephi and his Asherah: A Note on 1 Nephi 11:8–23,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 9, no. 2 (2000): 16–25, 80–81.

[17] See Exodus 25:31–37, 37:17–22; Zechariah 4:1–3; Genesis 2:9; Revelation 22:2. See also Margaret Barker, King of the Jews: Temple Theology in John’s Gospel (London: SPCK, 2014), 34–38. Biblical quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.

[18] See 1 Kings 6:18, 29, 33.

[19] See also Ezekiel 40:16, 31.

[20] See John 12:12–13. The Hebrew for “Hosanna” is “Hoshi’ahnna” meaning “Save us” as noted in Margaret Barker, The Gate of Heaven (Sheffield: SPCK, 2008), 84.

[21] William Dever, Did God Have a Wife?, 101.

[22] E.g., Proverbs 1:20.

[23] See photographs of the fresco at Catacombs of Priscilla, http://www.cata-combepriscilla.com/visita_catacomba_en.html.

[24] Augustine, The Trinity, Book VII, ch 5. My gratitude to Rachael Givens Johnson for alerting me to this passage.

[25] Margaret Barker, The Mother of the Lord, vol. 1: The Lady in the Temple (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 104.

[26] Kenneth B. Wolf, “Sentencia-Estatuto de Toledo, 1449.” Medieval Texts in Translation (2008), retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/canilup/toledo1449. My gratitude to Rachael Givens Johnson for sharing this quotation with me.

[27] Barker, Mother of the Lord, 331.

[28] Sarah M. Kimball, “Auto-Biography,” Woman’s Exponent 12, no. 7 (Sep. 1, 1883): 51, retrieved from http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/WomansExp/id/10872/rec/17.

[29] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 38, retrieved from http://josephsmith-papers.org/paperSummary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book.

[30] Eliza R. Snow, “An Address,” Woman’s Exponent 2, no. 8 (Sep. 15, 1873): 63, retrieved from http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/WomansExp/id/15710/rec/31.

[31] Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 145.

[32] Romans 16:7.

[33] John Chrysostom, “Homilies on Romans 31,” in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament, VI: Romans, edited by Gerald Bray (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 358.

[34] Orson Pratt, Mar. 26, 1876, Journal of Discourses 18:171.

[35] Raymond Brown, “Roles of Women in the Fourth Gospel,” Theological Studies 36 (1975): 691–92.

[36] Kevin Giles, Patterns of Ministry among the First Christians (Victoria: Collins Dove, 1989), 167.

[37] Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1997), 107.

[38] For example, 2 John 1:1, 4, 13; 3 John 1:4.

[39] Stanley R. Grenz and Denise Muir Kjebo, Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 78.

[40] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 9.

[41] Ibid., 8.

[42] Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., The Words of Joseph Smith (Orem, Utah: Grandin Book Company, 1991), 115.

[43] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 58.

[44] Joseph Smith, Journal, Apr. 28, 1842, in Andrew H. Hedges, et al., eds., Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, Volume 2: December 1841–April 1843, edited by Dean C. Jessee, et al. (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2011), 52 (hereafter JSP, J2).

[45] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 126.

[46] E. R. Snow Smith, “To Branches of the Relief Society (republished by request, and permission of President Lorenzo Snow),” The Woman’s Exponent 27, no. 23 (Sep. 15, 1884): 140, retrieved from http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/WomansExp/id/33963/rec/1.

[47] Quoted in Jill Mulvay Derr, Janath Russell Cannon, and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992), 39, 50.

[48] Ehat and Cook, Words, 115. As Ehat and Cook point out, there seems little alternative to reading the “confirmation” in his expression as a reference to the gift of the Holy Ghost (141).

[49] William Gibbons, Truth Advocated in Letters Addressed to the Presbyterians (Philadelphia: Joseph Rakenstraw, 1822), 107. Quoted in Benjamin Keogh, “The Holy Priesthood, The Holy Ghost, and the Holy Community,” Mormon Scholars Foundation Summer Seminar paper, Brigham Young University, Jul. 23,  2015, n.p.

[50] Gibbons, Truth, 85.

[51] “Hours With Holy Scripture,” The Reformed Presbyterian Magazine (Edin-burgh: Johnstone, Hunter & Co, 1866), 45. Quoted in Keogh, “The Holy Priesthood, The Holy Ghost and the Holy Community.”

[52] On April 28 Joseph again visited the Relief Society meeting and discoursed on the topic of “different offices, and the necessity of every individual acting in the sphere allotted to him or her.” Given what follows it is evident that Joseph is addressing the different spiritual gifts allotted to each member of the community. For, he continues that “the disposition of man [is] to look with jealous eyes upon the standing of others” and “the reason these remarks were being made, was that some little thing was circulating in the Society,” com-plaints that “ some [women] were not going right in laying hands on the sick &c,” instead of rejoicing that “the sick could be heal’d” (Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 35–36).

[53] Ehat and Cook, Words, 7.

[54] Ibid., 64 (emphasis mine).

[55] Joseph Smith, “Gift of the Holy Ghost,” Times and Seasons, Jun. 15, 1842. Quoted in “The Holy Priesthood, The Holy Ghost and the Holy Community,” Keogh.

[56] Sarah Kimball, “Reminiscence, March 17, 1882,” in The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History, edited by Jill Mulvay Derr, et al. (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016), 495; emphasis mine.

[57] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 40; D&C 27:13–18.

[58] Cheryl L. Bruno, “Keeping a Secret: Freemasonry, Polygamy, and the Nauvoo Relief Society, 1842–44,” Journal of Mormon History 39, no. 4 (Fall 2013): 159.

[59] Don Bradley has illuminated these connections in “The Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism: Joseph Smith’s Unfinished Reformation,” Sunstone (Apr. 2006): 32–41.

[60] Ehat and Cook, Words, 234.

[61] Snow, Journal of Discourses 19:266.

[62] For example, Exodus 6:3. For a discussion of Shaddai/Shadday as a female name, see Harriet Lutzky, “Shadday as a Goddess Epithet” in Vetus Testamentum 48, Fasc. 1 (Jan. 1998): 15–16.

[63] Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 3rd ed. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990), 105–06.

[64] Heber C. Kimball, Nov. 29, 1857, Journal of Discourses, 6:102.

[65] Considering the male priesthood to be the “Male Relief Society” is no stretch. The profound influence of Masonry on Smith, his choice of the Masonic Lodge for organizational purposes, the association of Masonic thought with “Relief,” and the women’s choice to employ that term explicitly in their organization’s name, all suggest that the male organization was effectively in Smith’s conception a “male Relief Society.”

[66] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 11–12.

[67] Eighth Ward, Liberty Stake, Relief Society Minutes and Records, 1867–1969, vol. 1, May 12, 1868. In First Fifty Years, 270.

[68] Eliza R. Snow, “Female Relief Society,” Apr. 18 and 20, 1868, in First Fifty Years, 271 (emphasis mine).

[69] Eliza R. Snow, “Female Relief Society of Nauvoo: What is it?” in First Fifty Years, 135.

[70] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 9.

[71] Ibid., 14.

[72] Susa Young Gates, “The Open Door for Women,” Young Woman’s Journal 16 (Mar. 3, 1905): 117; retrieved http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/YWJ/id/14738/rec/16.

[73] Gates, “Open Door,” 116.

[74] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 22.

[75] Ehat and Cook, Words, 110.

[76] Helen Mar Whitney, “Scenes and Incidents at Winter Quarters,” Woman’s Exponent 14, no. 14 (Dec. 15, 1885), 106, retrieved from http://contentdm. lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/WomansExp/id/12881/rec/69.

[77] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, 36.

[78] Gates, “Open Door,” 116.

2016: Fiona Givens, “‘The Perfect Union of Man and Woman’: Reclamation and Collaboration in Joseph Smith’s Theology Making” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol 49 No. 1 (2016): 1–26.

Givens argues that one of the things that Joseph Smith was trying to restore was teachings taught to Adam and Eve, in particular men and women working together. Givens also highlighted the existence of Heavenly Mother.

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The issue of authority in Mormonism became painfully public with the rise of the Ordain Women movement. The Church can attempt to blame (and discipline) certain individuals, but this development is a lot larger than any one person or group of people. The status of women in the Church was basically a time bomb ticking down to zero. With the strides toward equality American society has taken over the past several decades, it was really just a matter of time before the widening gap between social circumstances in general and conditions in Mormondom became too large to ignore. When the bomb finally exploded, the Church scrambled to give credible explanations, but most of these responses have felt inadequate at best. The result is a good deal of genuine pain and a host of very valid questions that have proven virtually impossible to answer satisfactorily. 

At least in my mind, this unfolding predicament has raised certain important questions about what priesthood really is and how it corresponds to the larger idea of authority. What is this thing that women are denied? What is this thing that, for over a century, faithful black LDS men were denied? Would clarifying or fine-tuning our definition—or even better understanding the history of how our current definition developed—perhaps change the way we regard priesthood, the way we practice it, the way we bestow it, or refuse to bestow it? The odd sense I have about priesthood, after a good deal of study and pondering, is that most of us don’t really have a clear idea of what it is and how it has evolved over the years. Many women, even though they want to be supportive of their leaders, feel varying degrees of distress and pain over the mere mention of priesthood. They know they are being left out of something important, and they know that this signals unequal treatment, regardless of how the institutional Church portrays it, but perhaps they, like most of us men who “hold” the priesthood, don’t really grasp what it is, particularly if we compare the modern Mormon conception of priesthood with certain scriptural or historical clues. And this may partly explain why the two sides of this encounter often seem to be speaking past each other and are unable to find any common ground. Perhaps some clarification about this issue’s basic vocabulary might improve our collective communication and might help us find a path forward, because this issue is not going to go away, even if it has temporarily slipped into the shadows. But when it becomes more public again, if both sides just dig in their heels, the Church and its individual members will be poorly served. So, this pair of articles is intended to lay a conceptual foundation on which more productive communication might take place. 

Over the space of several years, I have come to view authority in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as something quite different from what I previously assumed it to be. Primarily this is because I started seeing distinct differences between the concept of priesthood and the larger notion of authority. Growing up Mormon, I simply assumed the two were the same, and this perception is quite common in the Church.[1] But as I will explore in detail in this article, priesthood and authority are quite distinct ideas, especially in ancient scripture, with authority being a much broader and more general concept. Authority can be a difficult topic, and inadequately understood authority can be problematic on multiple levels, but the unique Mormon definition of priesthood creates a structure that complicates rather than simplifies matters related to authority. In this article, I will address the question of what priesthood is, but first we need to establish a context for understanding priesthood, so let’s step back and look at the nature of authority in general. 

Two Sources of Authority 

I hate to do this, and some readers will probably never forgive me for beginning this investigation like a really bad sacrament meeting talk, but let’s look at the dictionary definition of authority. Merriam-Webster includes the following: “power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior,” “persons in command,” and “convincing force.” Synonyms include “influence” and “power.”[2] These definitions subtly suggest two distinct types of authority or power: individual and institutional. And this is an important point because it is difficult to understand what, exactly, authority is without also understanding how a person gets it. If authority is primarily the power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior in other people, how do we get this power? We often assume it can just be given by someone who occupies a higher position in an institutional hierarchy, but I’m not convinced that the power to influence others’ thoughts and opinions is simply a capacity that can be transferred from one person to another like a hundred-dollar bill or a shiny badge. I think it’s much more complicated than this. So let’s look more closely at the two primary sources of authority. 

Individual authority manifests itself in two different ways. Some people, because of their unique attributes, possess a certain power (often referred to as charisma) to influence others. Their words, their bearing, and their ideas project “a convincing force.” This would be a consensual form of authority, granted by those who accept another person’s influence.[3] And this sort of power cannot be given through institutional channels. Either you are born with it or you develop it, but it involves personal qualities, not organizational standing. The opposite of consensual authority, of course, would be authority that an individual claims and maintains by force or manipulation. This type of negative authority may influence other people’s thought and opinion if they are susceptible to evil or are easily deceived, but it is more liable to control their behavior, often through threat or fear. Between these two poles, however, are various degrees of personal influence, including the confidence some people exude that permits them to be domineering without attracting followers or admirers. 

Institutional authority is another matter altogether. Some people occupy positions of “command” because of their skill (or perhaps good fortune) in negotiating the paths of organizational hierarchy, thus landing themselves in stations where they are able to use the weight of institutional power to command or at least direct those who occupy lower echelons of the organizational chart, usually maintaining compliance by threat of organizational punishment or expulsion. Other persons, who may not possess this sort of skill or luck, are often granted a degree of institutional authority anyway by those who rank above them in the organizational hierarchy. Their success in advancing within the hierarchy, however, is dependent on how well they please (or perhaps deceive) those who have granted them authority.

Organizations themselves are generally the fruit of a charismatic leader’s influence. Once the founder of the institution has moved on or has died, authority in the organization usually becomes routinized and is based either on heredity (in a family business, for instance, or in a patriarchal religion) or on some form of legal and orderly framework (a corporation, for example) that the charismatic leader established before his or her departure.

This view of authority has significant overlap with the writings of German social and economic theorist Max Weber, who identified three “pure types” of legitimate authority: rational (“resting on a belief in the legality of enacted rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands”), traditional (“resting on an established belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of those exercising authority under them”), and charismatic (“resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person”).[4] Interestingly, Weber used Joseph Smith as an example of charismatic authority: “Another type [of charismatic leader] is represented by Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, who may have been a very sophisticated swindler (although this cannot be definitely established).”[5] Weber may not have known what to think of Joseph Smith, but he was particularly interested in what happens “with the death or decline of a charismatic leader. Charismatic authority is ‘routinized’ in a number of ways according to Weber: orders are traditionalized, the staff or followers change into legal or ‘estate-like’ (traditional) staff, or the meaning of charisma itself may undergo change.”[6] Weber would undoubtedly have been interested in the transition of the LDS Church from a charismatic “new movement” to a unique combination of traditional legitimacy and legal-rational bureaucracy in which charisma plays a sporadic and unpredictable role. 

It is important to point out in this context that Joseph Smith established at least two distinct paths by which authority became routinized after his death: the hereditary patriarchal priesthood and the institutional, hierarchical Melchizedek Priesthood. And the latter was not specifically enough defined, leaving the door open for two competing institutional claims—hence the confusion that reigned in the aftermath of his assassination. He also left sufficient room for a rogue charismatic claim to authority that arose outside these two typical channels. 

The Savior’s Authority 

In light of the distinctions outlined above between individual (or charismatic) authority and institutional (or routinized) authority, it is interesting to note that the Savior’s authority during his earthly ministry was almost exclusively individual, not institutional, and it was consensual, not claimed by force or threat or deception. He did declare a certain authority as God’s Son—which established a patriarchal line of authorization and perhaps even implied some sort of eternal though undefined organization—and he based his own mandate upon the frequent declaration that he came to do his father’s will.[7] These declarations were important, but people followed him not because of these claims; they followed him primarily because of a personal or charismatic influence. The manner of his teaching, “as one that had authority” (Mark 1:22), and his deeds—healing illnesses, raising the dead, and miraculously controlling physical matter—strengthened people’s perception of the authority he claimed. 

It is noteworthy, I believe, that even though Jesus spoke of his own or his father’s kingdom, and though he may indeed have laid the foundation for the church his followers expanded after his death, the Gospels are strangely silent about any effort on the Savior’s part to establish anything more than a minimal formal organization. Indeed, he insisted that his kingdom was not of this world (see John 18:36), and his recorded actions appear to support this declaration. He went about doing good, preaching a radical new doctrine, healing the sick, and irritating the entrenched and apostate power structure of the Jewish religion, but he did not focus much energy or many resources on establishing a rival organization. He ordained twelve apostles (or emissaries—those who were sent forth), gave them authority (not ever identified in the Bible as priesthood) to act in his name (primarily to preach and to heal), and commissioned seventy others as missionaries to teach his doctrine, but we read nothing, for instance, of Jesus establishing congregations of believers or erecting any sort of formal power structure.[8] Indeed, his instructions to the apostles recorded in Matthew 20:20–28 (which we will look at shortly) suggest the exact opposite of a power structure. If he established any sort of formal organization, it should probably be described as a service structure. 

Similarly, in the Book of Mormon, when Jesus visited the people at Bountiful, he taught them some fundamental Christian principles, commissioned twelve disciples, gave them authority (once again not identified as priesthood) to baptize and administer the sacrament, but the record does not indicate that he established any sort of formal hierarchical structure. Although Alma1 had established a church among the people at the waters of Mormon and expanded it in the land of Zarahemla and surrounding regions, this church apparently disintegrated in the thirtieth year after Christ’s birth (see 3 Nephi 6:14), and its successor was not organized until after Jesus had ascended into heaven a second time. In 3 Nephi 18, Jesus mentions his church twice, but as a future entity (see vv. 5, 16). It is not until 3 Nephi 26:17–21 that we read of the twelve disciples teaching and baptizing the people, “and they who were baptized in the name of Jesus were called the church of Christ.” This is the first mention of an organized church after the Savior’s initial appearance, but it seems the disciples were unsure what to call this group of baptized believers, so they prayed for this information, which brought another appearance of Jesus, who told them to “call the church in my name” (3 Nephi 27:7). The record does not indicate that Jesus himself organized this church, but that his disciples did this after he had ascended to heaven. 

In a similar manner, but with significant differences, the apostles in the Old World set up not an institutional “church” such as we have today (which would have been conceptually impossible at that date) but several “churches” (Greek ekklesia, assembly, likely small congregations of believers) in various cities during their post-Pentecostal missionary journeys, but the apostles apparently did not engage in any sort of intricate or hierarchical institution-building.[9] Geographical distance, communication limitations, and persecution probably restricted the extent to which they could establish a complex organizational structure. After the apostles were gone, however, the bishops of the various congregations formed regional synods to resolve doctrinal and policy disputes. Eventually, a council of bishops throughout the Roman Empire coalesced, which gave rise to what we now know as the Catholic Church, with its sprawling power structure, transformed sacraments, and Hellenistic creeds.[10]

This institutional structure for Christian authority endured and evolved for centuries, but in the middle of the past millennium the Reformation created several other avenues and definitions of religious authority, most of them rejecting the formal hierarchy and power channels of Catholicism. Since I haven’t spent much time investigating authority in the Catholic or Protestant spheres, I won’t have much to say about them. Authority in Mormonism is quite enough to tackle for one article (even divided into two fairly lengthy parts). To see how the Lord seems to view authority, its purpose, and its bounds, let’s look at two passages of scripture, one from the New Testament and one from the Doctrine and Covenants. 

Not as “the Princes of the Gentiles” 

After the mother of James and John had approached the Savior and inappropriately requested that her sons sit on Jesus’ right and left hand in his eternal kingdom, the other apostles were understandably indignant. But Jesus set them straight. He explained that even though the “princes of the Gentiles” exercised dominion and authority over their subjects, it was not to be so among his disciples. His kingdom was different. 

Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;

And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: 

Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. 

Matthew 20:26–28

Even on the surface, this is a startling statement. It runs counter to the attitudes regarding authority we generally see in the world, and even sometimes in the Church, where hierarchy, formal titles, reverence for position, and the act of presiding have become crucial concepts. Some LDS practices, when we consider them, seem to run counter to what the Savior was trying to teach his apostles. For instance, high councils that are assigned seats according to seniority or whose members must exit the room in that same order are enshrining the very sort of pecking order Jesus prohibited among his original apostles. In our sacrament meetings, we are also very careful about serving the bread and water to the “presiding authority” first. Not only can this get confusing for the deacons when visiting authority figures are in attendance, but for some reason it is difficult to imagine Jesus insisting that he be the first served. If the account in Matthew 20 is accurate, he would probably insist on being served last, and not because last is the place of honor. 

Although the Savior was very clear about his own authority and the fact that he was always in charge—preaching, inviting, commanding, reprimanding, forgiving, sending, and so forth—his instructions to his apostles seem specifically to forbid any sort of ranking system among them (except perhaps an inverted ranking, where those with the most authority were to serve rather than rule). If we can draw a lesson from this, it is perhaps that we are not to use authority in the Church as the world uses it. This is expressly forbidden. President David O. McKay translated this same idea into a modern context: “We cannot run the Church like a business.”[11] This may seem obvious, but business philosophies, practices, and structures are so pervasive in our modern organizational world that they tend to be difficult to circumvent in the Church, at both the individual and the institutional level. 

“No Power or Influence” 

Expanding on the central principle pronounced in the Savior’s brief reprimand of his apostles, Joseph Smith was very explicit in the revelation/commentary published in Doctrine and Covenants 121 about the use of priesthood authority and how it differs from worldly authority: 

Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen?

Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson—

That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.

That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man. . . . 

We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, [that] they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. . . . 

No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;

By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile. 

D&C 121:34–37, 39, 41–42

Hidden in plain view in this inspired commentary is an insight about priesthood that is not well understood. If we truncate verse 41 before it runs off into the list of qualities a leader should employ in exercising priesthood authority, a very important lesson comes suddenly into focus: “No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood”—period. A man cannot maintain power or influence over somebody simply by virtue of the fact that he holds the priesthood or occupies a priesthood office; nor should he try because if he does, he loses the power of the priesthood. As the prophet made abundantly clear in verses 36 and 37, the priesthood of God is powerless if held over someone else’s head. Priesthood power and influence (here undoubtedly meaning authority exercised in an institutional setting) come only as a consequence of long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, love unfeigned, kindness, and pure knowledge (in other words, the spirit of serving and ministering the Savior was trying to teach his apostles during his earthly ministry). People will not follow if they are pushed, coerced, controlled, threatened, or manipulated. Those being ordered about may comply, but they will not follow. Stated another way, individuals become leaders not merely because they occupy a position of presumed authority, even if that office is granted by divine directive. They become leaders only because others willingly follow them. Leadership is entirely dependent on the willingness of the followers. Mormons are known, by and large, for their obedience to authority. Indeed, sometimes we are rightly accused of being blindly obedient. But sometimes that obedience is more a passive compliance with edicts from authoritarian figures than an active following that leaders have earned by their behavior. In this light, true priesthood leadership always considers the rights, desires, development, well-being, free will, and autonomy of the followers first. Terryl Givens refers to this paradoxical idea of priesthood as “power with no compulsion.”[12]

Authority by Consent 

This idea adds a new wrinkle to the standard LDS definition of priesthood. Priesthood is more than just an abstract agency granted by the Lord to speak or act in his name. It is also authority sanctioned or consented to by peers. Unless a person in a position of authority has the consent or approval of those over whom he or she exercises authority, then that authority lacks power—in essence, it is meaningless or empty. And this idea becomes even more significant when we understand that the modern Church, as it was initially established, was both a theocracy and a democracy. For instance, we read in one of the earliest revelations to the Church: “All things shall be done by common consent in the church, by much prayer and faith” (D&C 26:2, emphasis added). In other words, authority in the Church is not just an institutional authority granted to leaders through approved priesthood channels; it is also a consensual matter, contingent upon the approval of the rank-and-file members. We also read, “No person is to be ordained to any office in this church, where there is a regularly organized branch of the same, without the vote of that church” (D&C 20:65, emphasis added). These verses suggest that, at least in theory, the Church is not just a top-down, authoritarian hierarchy. Indeed, the very name of the Church suggests as much. It is the Church of Jesus Christ, but it is also the Church of the Latter-day Saints. The name is a dual possessive. Sometimes we just assume it is the Lord’s church and that’s all there is to it. But it appears that he expects something more of us.

This notion of consensual authority is central, I believe, to the whole framework of eternity of which we are a part.[13]

Priesthood as an Abstract Idea 

Charles Harrell has pointed out that the LDS Church is unique in the way it regards priesthood. Rather than being tied exclusively to the fact of being a priest, in modern Mormonism priesthood has become an abstract idea. It is a generalized power or authority.[14] To illustrate what I mean, let me suggest that it is theoretically possible (although institutionally inconceivable in today’s Church) to bestow upon a young man the Aaronic Priesthood without ordaining him to the office of deacon, teacher, or priest.[15] In the official (though not rigid) language used when laying hands on the recipient’s head and granting either the Aaronic or Melchizedek Priesthood, the bestowal and the ordination to office are two distinct elements, although this was not always the case. In essence, although this never happens today, it would be possible to give someone the abstract authority without placing him in a particular institutional category (office or quorum). The authority is seen as separate from the office.[16] The authority is certainly separate from any particular calling in the Church, such as bishop, high priests group leader, or deacons quorum secretary. Until a couple of years ago, for instance, I did not hold a priesthood calling (I was a Primary teacher), but I still “held the priesthood” and could exercise it by giving health blessings or dedicating graves or performing other acts that were unrelated to a particular institutional position. 

Significantly, this view of priesthood as an abstract authority is not present in ancient scripture, which is probably why it also does not exist in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant universes. In the Bible, if you had priesthood, you were a priest. And in ancient Judaism, you became a priest through heredity, not through formal ordination. Indeed, the word ordination does not appear at all in the Bible, and the word ordain(ed) is never used to signify the bestowal of priesthood authority or office.[17]

The Ancient Meaning of Priesthood

The modern LDS usage of the word priesthood is a linguistic anomaly. In dictionaries, including Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary, there are two traditional definitions of the word: “the office or character of a priest” and “the order of men set apart for sacred offices; the order composed of priests.”[18] This is in keeping with the typical definitions of other “-hood” words. Parenthood, for instance, is the condition or character of being a parent. Neighborhood is an order or group of people composed of neighbors. These follow a pattern that makes linguistic sense. But priesthood, as a type of authority that can be given to people, falls well outside the normal definition of “-hood” words. 

A mother, for instance, would never claim to “hold the motherhood” or to “have the parenthood.” A group of neighbors would never say that they “hold the neighborhood.” Other churches do refer to bodies of priests as “the priesthood” as do Mormons, but this is a collective term, not an ethereal “something” a person can be given, something that can be held (or withheld). Thus, in LDS usage, priesthood is a word that has been wrenched from its historical and linguistic roots and given a meaning not present in any other context, even in ancient LDS scripture. 

On the surface, the relationship between priest and priesthood may appear to be some sort of chicken-and-egg enigma. Which came first? In Mormon dogma, the answer is obvious. According to Bruce R. McConkie, for instance, “Priesthood is power like none other on earth or in heaven. It is the very power of God himself, the power by which the worlds were made, the power by which all things are regulated, upheld, and preserved.”[19] In other words, God held the priesthood and then gave it to men, who were made priests. But simple linguistics gives us a different answer. In terms of word development, priesthood is obviously derived from the root word priest. There couldn’t be the concept priest hood until there were actual priests, just as the concept of parenthood could not exist prior to the existence of the word parent. God certainly had authority before the world was framed, but it is doubtful it was called priesthood. Regardless of the language, the term signifying the state of being a priest would have to be dependent on the prior term describing the priest himself. Why would God refer to his authority as priesthood? That makes no sense. He could call it godhood or some other term derived from his nature and station and being, but even that does not make linguistic sense. Godhood is the state or condition of being God, not some abstract form of authority.

Thus, priesthood (and its equivalent terms in other languages) is likely an earthly term, derived from the word priest, which came into existence at some point in human history to describe those called to represent God. If we accept the biblical account, this office is first mentioned in Genesis 14:18, referring to Melchizedek. In the modern LDS Church, however, it is common for individuals who are not priests to “hold the priesthood” (deacons and teachers, for instance), which is linguistically confusing and only makes sense to us because we have separated the term priesthood from its historical context and given it new meanings. 

Most Latter-day Saints would probably be surprised to discover that the word priesthood appears only eight times in the entire Book of Mormon, all of them in the book of Alma—once in Alma 4:20, where Alma₂ delivers the judgment seat to Nephihah and confines himself “wholly to the high priesthood” (the office of high priest over the church), and seven times in Alma 13, each instance employing again the term high priesthood, referring to those who “became high priests of God” (Alma 13:10). Melchizedek is specifically mentioned as having “received the office of the high priesthood” (Alma 13:18) but not merely “the priesthood.” I will return to the historical notion of high priesthood later in this article, but for now let me say that although I am a high priest in the LDS Church, Alma certainly would not have considered me a high priest, which to him would have been the religious leader of either the entire church or a regional subdivision of it. He certainly wouldn’t have understood how a person like me could be a high priest without even occupying any sort of “priestly” position (I now serve on the high council, which is a priesthood calling but not technically a “priestly” position). I am also quite certain that the high priests he was referring to in Alma 13 did not include today’s thousands upon thousands of LDS high priests. Alma would not recognize the priesthood as Mormons define it today. Indeed, nowhere in the Book of Mormon do we read of just “the priesthood,” meaning a general abstract authority bestowed upon all male members of the church or even a select few. We don’t even read of “priesthood” as the condition of being a priest. Priesthood in the Book of Mormon is always the “high priesthood,” the fact of being a high priest.[20] By contrast, the word priesthood appears 125 times in the Doctrine and Covenants and there mostly takes on the specialized meaning described above, although some of the early revelations had to be revised in 1835 to reflect this new and evolving meaning.[21]

Obviously, what we understand as priesthood in twenty-first-century Mormonism was not a familiar concept among the Book of Mormon peoples. Nor was it familiar to descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Old World before Jesus’ birth or to Christians during and shortly after his mortal ministry. Thus, the word priesthood appears only nine times in the Old Testament, all referring to the descendants of Aaron or, more generally, the Levites. Priesthood appears only seven times in the New Testament—five times in Hebrews 7 and twice in 1 Peter 2.[22] Not once does this word appear in the Gospels, and if it did, it would probably refer to the religious leader of the Jewish people, the high priest (similar to its usage in the Book of Mormon), or to the priests who served in the temple at Jerusalem, including Zacharias, father of John the Baptist. Sometimes we have a tendency to read into ancient texts our current understanding of terms. This skews our perception of what Christianity was like in its earliest days or how God’s people practiced their religion in Old Testament times. But clearly, the ancients’ understanding of priesthood was different from our conception today. 

In the Book of Mormon, none of the prophets is said to have the priesthood generally. Alma2 confined himself to the high priesthood, meaning he gave up the office of chief judge and devoted all his time to being high priest over the church, but he wouldn’t have claimed to “have” or “hold” the priesthood. His father, Alma1, began baptizing at the waters of Mormon, claiming simply that he had “authority from Almighty God” (Mosiah 18:13), not priesthood. And there is no evidence that he received this authority by the laying on of hands or by ordination. In fact, the circumstantial evidence argues specifically against it. Later, we read that Alma1, “having authority from God, ordained priests” (Mosiah 18:18). Interestingly, because Alma1 had been a priest in King Noah’s court, he could have claimed at that time to “have” priesthood or to be part of the priesthood, the body of priests, but only because of his position in the government of Noah, not because of the authority he received from God. A question that comes up now and then in LDS lessons on the Book of Mormon is how Alma1 “received the priesthood.” I’ve heard it hypothesized that he received the priesthood directly from God through the laying on of hands. But the record says no such thing (you’d think it would not omit such a glorious manifestation), nor does it require such an interpretation. This is simply an example of reading our modern concept of priesthood back into the ancient record. The more correct answer would be that Alma did not receive the priesthood from anyone because priesthood was not something people “received” in the Book of Mormon. Alma received authority from God, just as the record states, and he may have received such authority simply by word of mouth or by a manifestation of the Spirit, commissioning him to act as an agent of God.

After Alma’s group of converts arrived in Zarahemla, King Mosiah gave Alma “authority over the church” (Mosiah 26:8), but again, this is not identified as priesthood, which had a very restricted meaning among the Nephites. This phrase means simply that he received permission from the king to lead the church within Mosiah’s political realm. Earlier, when Abinadi was preaching to King Noah and his priests, including Alma1, the record states that Abinadi “spake with power and authority from God” (Mosiah 13:6). Nowhere does the Book of Mormon identify this general authority from God with the specific word priesthood, although anachronistically we assign this label to the authority these men did obviously have. That Mormon did not make this connection is probably significant. Authority and priesthood were two distinct concepts in the Book of Mormon; we have conflated them in the modern Church. 

Similarly, in the Old Testament, no prophet is directly associated with priesthood, although a few, like Samuel, do offer sacrifices. Descendants of Aaron are the priesthood, and, according to the LDS Bible Dictionary, “the presiding officer of the Aaronic Priesthood was called the high priest. The office was hereditary and came through the firstborn among the family of Aaron.”[23] This is the modern LDS explanation, which, contrary to our present understanding, places the office of high priest under what we now consider the lesser priesthood. To the ancient Hebrews, however, the priests as a body would have been the priesthood, and the high priest was part of that priesthood, its highest-ranking member. The terms “Aaronic Priesthood” or “Priesthood of Aaron” never appear in the Old Testament, nor does the term “Melchizedek Priesthood.” The prophets, as mentioned, were not said to have priesthood, although they obviously had authority. They were messengers of the Lord who spoke his word and recorded it and sometimes performed miracles in his name. Interestingly, the Old Testament identifies five different women as prophetesses. As with the prophets, they are not said to have priesthood (or even “priestesshood”). 

In the New Testament, priesthood is never explicitly mentioned at the calling of the apostles or the “other seventy” (Luke 10:1) who were sent out, nor is it mentioned in connection with bishops or deacons. These individuals had authority, perhaps even a commission from the Lord, although it is possible they were simply chosen by their fellow saints, but any authority they had is not identified as priesthood. The more general term authority, however, appears thirty-two times in the New Testament (twenty-two in the Gospels), only twice in the Old Testament, and forty-three times in the Book of Mormon. So authority was an important concept in ancient scripture (except apparently the Old Testament), but priesthood was a much more restricted idea, referring specifically to the fact of occupying the office of priest, and particularly of officiating in priestly rituals. And this is how it is still primarily used in the non-LDS Christian world. 

Modern Usage 

The fact that the modern Mormon understanding of priesthood does not appear in ancient scripture, including ancient LDS scripture, has bearing on the current debate about ordaining women to the priesthood. One of the common defenses offered for retaining the current priesthood prohibition is that women were not ordained to the priesthood in the Bible or Book of Mormon. This may or may not be true,[24] but by this same reasoning one might well ask, does the absence of the modern definition of priesthood in these books therefore invalidate it? The Church would certainly answer no. Thus, the absence of an idea or convention in ancient scripture does not necessarily prevent us from accepting it in modern times. Indeed, the practice of banning black men and boys from the priesthood had a stronger scriptural precedent (although murky and dubious) than does the practice of denying women this opportunity (see Abraham 1:25–27). Prior to 1978, some interpreted these verses in the book of Abraham as positive proof in the case of denying priesthood to blacks, whereas all we have regarding women is negative proof, the purported absence of a practice being interpreted as incontestable evidence that it should never happen, but this negative proof is by no means as convincing as we often portray it to be. 

Regardless, the scriptural/historical meaning of priesthood (as opposed to the modern LDS definition) can be seen clearly in mainstream media descriptions of the pre-1978 priesthood ban. “Blacks could not be priests,” stated a 2012 Atlantic article,[25] and this exact wording appears in numerous other articles from various publications. Most non-Mormons would not understand the concept of “holding” the priesthood, since priesthood to them is not something one can hold, and therefore they do not use this uniquely LDS construction. Stephen Webb, a Catholic scholar who became fascinated with Mormonism before his untimely death in 2016, describes the Mormon priesthood and contrasts it with priesthood in mainstream Christianity: 

Mormonism accepts the absolute sufficiency of Jesus’ blood atonement on the cross and rejects the need for a special class of priests set apart for performing sacred rituals. 

Nevertheless, they have priests! Yet, as one might expect, their understanding of the priesthood fits no previous categories. Churches typically have a priesthood only if they have sacred rituals to perform, like the transformation of the bread and wine into the real presence of Jesus Christ. The priests who perform the Eucharistic transformation are thus heirs of the priesthood that performed the animal sacrifices in the Jewish temple. Mormons have a priesthood, but they do not treat the Eucharist, which they hold in their churches and not their temples, as a sacrificial ritual. . . . Rather than signifying expertise in performing rituals, the priesthood is a symbol of God’s promise to grant believers an exalted and divine status in the afterlife. Instead of being a specially trained group set apart from other believers, Mormon priests are at the forefront of where the whole church should be heading. Mormonism thus follows Protestantism in democratizing the priesthood but follows Catholicism in associating the priesthood with increasing intimacy with Christ.[26]

Webb offers an outsider’s view of the Mormon priesthood, perhaps not understanding entirely the sometimes confusing connection between priesthood and ordinances, but he does make a significant point: priesthood in both Judaism and Christianity is generally a specialized and separate order that exists for the sole purpose of performing sacred rituals. This is why most Protestant denominations do not have priests. I’m not sure, however, that Webb completely grasps the unique, abstract nature of Mormon priesthood. Still, this difference between the ancient notion of priesthood, which persists in the Catholic Church, and the Mormon conception is significant because, in modern Mormonism, priesthood as the right to preside is as significant as its capacity to officiate in rituals, which we refer to as ordinances. This seems also to be a modern development. Although some ancient prophets, such as Moses and Enoch, did lead the people, most prophets did not preside over any sort of hierarchical organization. They taught, called people to repentance, performed occasional miracles, and spoke for God. Think of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Elijah, Jacob (Nephi’s brother), Abinadi, Samuel the Lamanite, and others. None of these prophets could be said to preside in the way we think of it today. They also could not be said to “hold” the priesthood. In modern Mormonism, however, we have combined several disparate notions from ancient scripture in creating a priesthood that is necessary not only for officiating in sacred rituals but also for being a prophet and for presiding in a hierarchical organization. Because the idea of presiding is so central to modern LDS priesthood practices, I will return to it in the sequel to this article. For now, though, let us merely conclude that in Mormonism we appear to have appropriated a word and assigned it meanings that it did not previously have. This affects almost everything we do in the Church. 

The Development of Priesthood Usage in Modern Mormonism 

As might be expected, the modern Mormon definition of priesthood did not appear immediately with the establishment of the Church (or with the visit of John the Baptist). Just as the notion of priesthood as a form of authority does not appear in the Book of Mormon, it is likewise absent from Joseph Smith’s earliest revelations. Indeed, I find it quite surprising that the word priesthood does not appear at all for well over a year after the organization of the Church. It is noticeably absent from the “Articles and Covenants” (now Doctrine and Covenants section 20). In other words, Joseph Smith did not invoke priesthood authority at all in organizing the Church. Even the instructions for performing baptism that now appear in Doctrine and Covenants 20 do not mention priest hood, merely the words “Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ” (v. 73). But these words are the result of later editing. The earliest extant version of the “Articles and Covenants” contained this sentence: “And the manner of baptism & the manner of administering the sacrament are to be done as is written in the Book of Morman [sic].”[27] By the time this document was transcribed into Revelation Book 1, however, excerpts from the Book of Mormon had been added to provide the wording for these ordinances, including this: “And the way of Baptism is to be ministered in the following manner unto all those who Repent whosoever being called of God & having authority given them of Jesus Christ shall go down into the water with them & shall say calling them by name having authority given me of Jesus Christ I baptize thee in the name of Jesus Christ the Father & of the Son & of the Holy Ghost amen.”[28] No mention of “priesthood,” but a recognition that “authority” is needed. 

The first appearance of the word priesthood in the revelations does not come until what is now Doctrine and Covenants section 68, received on November 1, 1831, more than a year and a half after the organization of the Church, where we find the following statement: “behold & lo this is an ensample unto all those who were ordained unto this priesthood whose mission is appointed unto them to go forth.”[29] Nothing earth shattering there. 

A search through the earliest Church documents reveals that the first instance of priesthood appears on October 1, 1831 in the minutes of a meeting: “Br Joseph Coe & William W. Phelps were ordained to the High Priest hood under the hand of Br. Joseph Smith jr.”[30] The usage here is identical to that found in the Book of Mormon. Coe and Phelps, in other words, were ordained high priests. In a meeting held October 25, 1831, the minutes include a list of men “ordained to the Highpriesthood.” That this refers to being ordained a high priest is plainly evident from the lists that follow—of men being ordained elders, priests, teachers, and deacons. After the lists, we find the following text:

Br. Joseph Smith jr. said that the order of the High priesthood is that they have power given them to seal up the Saints unto eternal life. And said it was the privilege of every Elder present to be ordained to the Highpriesthood. . . .

Br. Sidney Rigdon said it was the privilege of those Elders present to be ordained to the High Priesthood . . . 

Conference adjourned until 8 o’clock A.M. on 26th. . . . 

Br. Signey Rigdon then made certain remarks on the privileges of the Saints in these last days. Remarks to those who were ordained to the High priesthood last evening, saying that the Lord was not well pleased with some of them because of their indifference to be ordained to that office . . .[31]

At this point in time, there was no concept of priesthood as an abstract authority encompassing various offices. There were only offices, and two of these were “priesthood” and “high priesthood” (priests and high priests). This is further attested by a revelation received on November 11, 1831, which, after significant alteration in 1835, became part of what is now Doctrine and Covenants 107. A portion of that revelation, in the earliest extant copy, reads as follows: “Also the duty of the president over the priesthood is to preside over forty eight priests & set in council with them & to teach them the duties of their office as given in the covenants And again the duty of the president over the office of the Elders is to preside over ninety six Elders & to set in council with them & to <teach> them according to the covenants And again the duty of the president of the office of the High Priesthood is to preside over the whole church.”[32] Note the parallel usage of “priesthood,” “Elders,” and “High Priesthood.” Elders were not part of the priesthood or high priesthood. Priests were the priesthood, and high priests were the high priesthood. This was still true on January 28, 1832, as seen in the minutes of a meeting held in Independence, Missouri: “Names of Elders present who were ordained to the H.P.H. . . .” followed by “Names of Elders who were not ordained to the H.P.H.”[33] In other words, elders could be ordained to the high priesthood, in which case they became high priests, or they could remain unordained to the high priesthood, but either way, elders were not part of the high priesthood. As yet, there was nothing called the Melchizedek Priesthood. 

The first mention of Melchizedek regarding priesthood came in February 1832, with the vision that became Doctrine and Covenants 76: “they are they who are priests and kings who having [received?] of his fulniss and of his glory and are prists of the most high after the order of Melchesadeck which was after the order of Enoch which was after the order of the only begotten son.”[34] This usage is similar to how it appears in the Bible: “Jesus, made an high priest forever after the order of Melchisedec” (Hebrews 6:20). Interestingly, if you combine these two references, Jesus becomes a high priest after the order of himself, and so does Melchizedek, which looks like some sort of circular puzzle.

In September 1832, with two revelations that are now combined in Doctrine and Covenants 84, the offices of elder and bishop became “appendages belonging to the high priesthood” and the offices of teacher and deacon became “appendages belonging to the lesser priesthood.” As late as June 1833, there was still some fluidity in the terminology. In a description of the plat of the City of Zion (in Missouri), we find both “the high and most holy priesthood after the order of Melchisedeck” and “the high priesthood after the order of Aron.”[35] The two divisions were becoming clearer, but both were referred to as “high priesthood.” Eventually, an April 1835 revelation that became part of Doctrine and Covenants 107 makes further changes: elder was now an office in what was called the Melchizedek Priesthood, and teachers and deacons became offices in what was called the Aaronic Priesthood.[36]

Implications for Priesthood Restoration 

Although the header to section 13 of the Doctrine and Covenants (which purportedly gives the words John the Baptist spoke to Joseph and Oliver when he restored the Aaronic Priesthood) is dated May 15, 1829, the text of this section was actually extracted from Joseph’s 1838 history, so it was composed long after the event. John is reported here to have declared: “Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer the Priesthood of Aaron . . .” (D&C 13:1). As indicated above, however, the Aaronic Priesthood was not a concept in 1829 or even 1832. Indeed, priesthood did not seem to be on Joseph’s radar at all, even though the word appears in one book in the Book of Mormon, referring only to individuals who are high priests. So I suspect that the wording of section 13 is anachronistic, recasting John’s words in a later vernacular.

In Joseph’s 1832 history, he describes the experience this way:

(firstly) he receiving the testimony from on high secondly the min istering of Angels thirdly the reception of the holy Priesthood by the ministering of—Aangels to administer the letter of the Law <Gospel—> <—the Law and commandments as they were given unto him—> and in <the> ordinencs, forthly a confirmation and reception of the high Priesthood after the holy order of the son of the living God power and ordinencs from on high to preach the Gospel in the administration and demonstration of the spirit.[37]

The usage here appears to be consistent with the time frame in which it was written: no mention yet of the terms Aaronic or Melchizedek; the angels as yet unidentified; a subtle shift in referring to the priesthood as something that may be received, but likely referring to two different offices, the second “after the holy order of the son of the living God”; and a yet undeveloped sense of what the two types of priesthood were designed to do. 

So what did John actually restore, and what words did he use? I suspect that Joseph’s 1844 account might be more accurate in this sense than some of his earlier descriptions: “I saw an angel & he laid his hands on my head & ordained me to be a priest after the order of Aaron.”[38] If John’s words reflected this description, it would partially explain why Joseph would have no real concept of priesthood after receiving from the angel the authority to baptize. So, I suspect that the Baptist, rather than declaring that he was conferring the priesthood of Aaron on Joseph and Oliver, more likely stated that he was ordaining them priests after the order of Aaron. The concept of priesthood as an abstract authority that could be conferred came later. 

Now, what about the second visitation? Among LDS historians, a popular venture is to try to answer the question, “When did Peter, James, and John restore the Melchizedek Priesthood?” Various answers have been proposed, some of them relying on anachronistic evidence. But this may actually be what we might call a trick question, along the lines of “How many of each kind of animal did Moses take with him on the ark?” By trick question I mean a question to which there is no possible answer. Based on the usage of terms as described above and the evolution of the idea of priesthood, whatever Peter, James, and John did in 1829 or 1830, it is very likely they did not “restore the Melchizedek Priesthood.” Melchizedek Priesthood was not a concept either in biblical times or in modern times before about 1835, and the notion of priesthood as a thing that could be restored was linguistically impossible in the earliest years of the Restoration. Indeed, as mentioned above, the word priest hood appears to have been totally absent before the autumn of 1831. 

It is apparent in the Bible (with Philip, in Acts 8) that a greater authority is needed to give the Holy Ghost than to baptize. The Book of Mormon is less clear about this, but Jesus did give his twelve disciples specific “power” to give the Holy Ghost (3 Nephi 18:36–37). How this was to occur, however, is a bit murky. The day after Jesus first appeared and gave them this power, the disciples baptized each other, and the Holy Ghost “did fall upon them” without any sort of separate ordinance or ritual. Likewise, in describing centuries later how the people in the church were baptized, Moroni simply explains that “after they had been received unto baptism, and were wrought upon and cleansed by the power of the Holy Ghost, they were numbered among the people of the church of Christ” (Moroni 6:4). Thus, it appears that the concept of a dual priesthood, two orders that referred back to Aaron and Melchizedek, was derived from a biblical and not a Book of Mormon framework. 

According to William V. Smith, this development occurred in April 1835 with a revelation Joseph received: “The text of the April 1835 revelation takes the form of a lecture, settling different questions, establishing terminology and the ordering of offices, and appealing to both Old Testament and New Testament–related narratives, a tradition with Joseph Smith, as well as combining several revelatory threads.”[39] This revelation now appears as Doctrine and Covenants 107:1–57, and, significantly, the latest edition of the Doctrine and Covenants now gives the appropriate time frame for the various portions of section 107, although it does not detail the significant edits that introduced new terminology. The important point here, though, is that most accounts of the restoration of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, all of which come from later dates, impose anachronistic linguistic formulations on earlier events in such a way as to give the impression that two distinct authorities were conferred upon Joseph and Oliver, and that they were called the Aaronic Priesthood and the Melchizedek Priesthood. Early Church documents, however, suggest that this was not possible. Whatever commissions or ordinations Joseph and Oliver received from angelic ministrants, it was only later that they came to be understood as the conferral of specifically named priesthood authorities. 

Priesthood Keys 

Continuing with the theme of terms we assume we understand but maybe don’t, let us look at a rather nebulous term that over time has grown in importance in the LDS lexicon: priesthood keys. First, though, let me point out that the concept of priesthood keys exists only because of the unique LDS definition of priesthood. If priesthood meant simply the state of being a priest, we would have no such thing as keys. Keys exist only because priesthood has become an abstract principle, a generalized authority. Keys unlock this authority so that it can be used in various ways. 

So, what exactly are priesthood keys? According to Bruce R. McConkie, “The keys of the kingdom [which may not be the same as priesthood keys] are the power, right, and authority to preside over the kingdom of God on earth and to direct all of its affairs.”[40] Joseph F. Smith taught that every man ordained to the priesthood has authority, but “it is necessary that every act performed under this authority shall be done at the proper time and place, in the proper way, and after the proper order. The power of directing these labors constitutes the keys of the Priesthood.”[41] The Encyclopedia of Mormonism defines priesthood keys as “the right to exercise power in the name of Jesus Christ or to preside over a priesthood function, quorum, or organizational division of the Church. Keys are necessary to maintain order and to see that the functions of the Church are performed in the proper time, place, and manner.”[42] Robert Millet and his coauthors explain that “the keys of the priesthood are the right of presidency.” They also point out, “While such persons as the Sunday School president, the Relief Society president, the Primary president, the Young Women president, and the Young Men president all have the right to inspiration and divine guidance because of the responsibility they bear, they do not hold keys.”[43] This last statement again tosses us into murky definitional waters. Most presidents of auxiliary organizations in the Church do indeed preside, as their title suggests, but they apparently preside without keys, which indicates that keys are not really necessary in order to preside, except in priesthood functions. 

The notion that the presiding officer in a ward or branch of the Church holds the keys pertaining to the performance of ordinances in that unit was apparently not understood as late as 1838. Often in the early Church, teachers were specifically assigned to preside over congregations, so that high priests, elders, and priests could travel and preach. Therefore, teachers presided, even though they did not have sufficient authority to baptize or bless the sacrament, which suggests that they also did not possess priesthood keys regarding the performance of ordinances in the branches over which they presided.[44]

Did Keys Exist Anciently? 

Joseph Smith is reported to have taught that “the fundamental principles, government, and doctrine of the Church are vested in the keys of the kingdom,”[45] and “the keys have to be brought from heaven whenever the Gospel is sent.”[46] If this is true, we might well ask why there is no mention of this concept in any ancient scripture, including the Book of Mormon. Not only does the term priesthood appear very infrequently and then only in a very specialized usage in the Bible and Book of Mormon, but the word key appears even less frequently in ancient scripture. Key appears only one time in the entire Book of Mormon and, interestingly, occurs in the setting of Jerusalem, referring to the treasury of Laban (1 Nephi 4:20), which makes me wonder if this is a technology that the Lehites did not take with them to the promised land (even though Nephi was a Wunderkind of world-class proportions). The word key appears only two times in the Old Testament, once as a literal device to open a door (Judges 3:25) and once as a figurative expression: “the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder” (Isaiah 22:22). Similarly, this term, in singular or plural form, appears only six times in the New Testament, all of them used figuratively—“the key of the bottomless pit” (Revelation 9:1; 20:1), “the keys of death and hell” (Revelation 1:18), “the key of David” (Revelation 3:7), “the key of knowledge” (Luke 11:52), and “the key of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16:19). This last reference is the only one even loosely associated with priesthood keys, where Jesus is telling Peter he will build his church upon “this rock” and give him “the key of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,” suggesting that this key involves making earthly acts valid in heaven. Of course, this key is never directly connected to priesthood in the New Testament, for Peter is never said to have priesthood. This reference, however, is probably where Joseph Smith came upon the idea of priesthood keys, even though this notion is far from clear in Matthew’s account. In contrast to the infrequent use of the word key(s) in ancient scripture, it appears sixty-three times in the Doctrine and Covenants, referring to the keys of the priesthood, of the kingdom, of patriarchal blessings, of the ministering of angels, of mysteries, of spiritual blessings, of salvation, and so forth, all usages being figurative. 

This disparity in usage raises an obvious question. Could it be that mention of figurative keys is an indication of how prevalent literal keys might be in the society in question? A literal key opens a lock, generally on a door. That is its function. This sort of lock is mentioned only four times in the Old Testament, all in the book of Nehemiah. Door(s), by contrast, is mentioned 198 times. In the New Testament, we find no lock(s), although door(s) is mentioned thirty-eight times. Could it be that most doors in ancient Palestine did not have locks and therefore had no keys either? As mentioned, the word key appears only once in the Book of Mormon, referring to Laban’s treasury, which understandably would have had a door and a lock. But the word lock does not appear in the entire Book of Mormon, and door(s) appears only eight times. One of these instances is a quotation from Isaiah (2 Nephi 16:4), so it tells us nothing about Nephite society. Another is from the Savior’s New World version of the Sermon on the Mount (3 Nephi 13:6), about praying in secret with the door shut. Of the remaining six instances, two refer to prison doors (Ether 7:18; Alma 14:27), two refer to tent doors (1 Nephi 16:10; Mosiah 2:6), one refers to the doors in the Jaredites’ barges (Ether 2:17), and one is a figurative usage: “Yea, even at this time ye are ripening . . . for everlasting destruction; yea, and except ye repent it will come unto you soon. Yea, behold it is now even at your doors” (Helaman 8:26–27). From evidence in the book itself, the only doors among the Nephites that would probably have had locks and keys were prison doors. There is no direct evidence that the Nephite homes even had doors, although the verse in Helaman suggests they did. But nowhere do we read that those doors had locks or keys. Considering the scarcity of literal doors and the absence of locks in the Book of Mormon text, it is not surprising that the concept of figurative keys, especially keys to priesthood power or to salvation, likewise does not appear in the record. The figurative usage of words has little or no meaning where the literal usage is rare or totally absent. It should be mentioned, however, that the Book of Mormon does not include any other metaphor that might correspond to our modern concept of priesthood keys. Certain individuals had authority from God, although not a generic priesthood, and they did not apparently require keys or any other metaphorical device to use authority themselves or give it to others. Alma1 and his descendants presided over the church, but none of them is said to have exercised priesthood or keys. 

Whenever I hear someone refer to priesthood keys existing in the ancient world, I can’t help but imagine a fictitious encounter between a modern Mormon theologian and Adam. Assuming Adam could understand English, if the theologian were to ask him whether he held priesthood keys, his likely answer would be, “What are keys?” His follow-up answer might be, “What is priesthood?” Physical keys were invented in ancient Egypt and Babylon, but these keys were made of wood, as were locks, and were both bulky and weak. Keys and locks made from iron and bronze were invented in ancient Rome, which enabled them to be smaller and stronger. But Adam and the early patriarchs would not have been acquainted with physical keys and therefore would have had no understanding of figurative keys. 

So if the ancients had no abstract concept of priesthood similar to the LDS notion of priesthood today, and if they had no figurative concept of keys connected to priesthood, where did this idea of priesthood keys come from? Michael Quinn suggests that “the doctrine of ‘the keys of the priesthood’ (and the related ‘keys of the kingdom’) became central to the question of presidential succession.”[47] The concept of presiding, of being at the pinnacle of a power structure, requires some sort of mechanism for maintaining order. Priesthood keys serve that function in Mormonism. But hierarchies have existed and continue to exist without any concept like priesthood keys. As long as established patterns of granting authority and providing for orderly succession are in place, organizations can and do thrive. As an aside, it is interesting to note that the presence of priesthood keys did not prevent multiple relatively credible claims to succeed Joseph Smith after his death. So apparently this concept was not widely understood (or perhaps not understood the way we view it today) prior to Joseph’s death. 

This brings us to a good stopping point for the first article in this two-part series. In the sequel, I will examine several ideas that flow from the concepts discussed here, including ordinances, quorums, priesthood bans, and non priesthood authority in the Church.

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[1] See, for example, Dallin H. Oaks, “The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood,” Apr. 2014, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/the-keys-and authority-of-the-priesthood?lang=eng: “We are not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the priesthood in their Church callings, but what other authority can it be?” The assumption behind this statement is that in the LDS Church priesthood and authority are the same thing.

[2] Merriam-Webster, s.v. “authority (n.),” accessed Feb. 16, 2018, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authority.

[3] It should be noted that this sort of personal authority can be used for either righteous or evil ends. Lucifer certainly possessed and possesses this sort of influence to shape the thoughts and behavior of others, as have many evil individuals in mortality. But even though Lucifer wields great influence among his followers, his authority is dependent on the will of his followers. Many years ago, when temple presidents sometimes instructed patrons in the temple and answered questions about the ordinances, I sat in such a session in the Provo Utah Temple. Someone raised a question about Lucifer’s claim to possess “power and priesthoods.” The temple president responded that Lucifer does indeed have priesthood, but it is a priesthood granted him by his followers. This principle is not official doctrine, but it rings true. For without followers, any person’s authority would be empty and meaningless.

[4] Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, translated by Ephraim Fischoff and others (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), 215. 

[5] Weber, Economy and Society, 242.

[6] Dana Williams, “Max Weber: Traditional, Legal-Rational, and Charismatic Authority,” http://danawilliams2.tripod.com/authority.html. 

[7] See, for instance, Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42; John 5:30, 6:38; 3 Nephi 11:11, 27:13; Doctrine and Covenants 19:24.

[8] The account in John 21, which describes how the apostles “go a fishing” at the Sea of Tiberius after the Savior’s death and resurrection, suggests that they assumed their duties in the ministry were completed. There was apparently no formal organizational structure that they felt obligated to assume control over, no official priesthood hierarchy such as Joseph Smith erected in the early 1830s, no network of congregations that demanded their attention—in essence, no “church.” Jeffrey R. Holland, taking what he calls “some nonscriptural liberty,” concurs with this basic assumption: “In effect, Peter said to his associates, ‘Brethren, it has been a glorious three years. . . . But that is over. He has finished His work, and He has risen from the tomb. He has worked out His salvation and ours. So you ask, “What do we do now?” I don’t know more to tell you than to return to your former life, rejoicing. I intend to “go a fishing.”’ And at least six of the ten other remaining Apostles said in agreement, ‘We also go with thee’” (“The First Great Commandment,” Oct. 2012, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/the-first-great-commandment?lang=eng).

[9] A Catholic explanation of the difference between bishop, priest, and deacon provides some interesting detail about how the early “churches” were organized. According to Ignatius of Antioch, writing in about AD 110, every church recognized three offices—bishop (episcopos), priest (presbuteros), and deacon (diakonos)—and without these three offices a group could not be called a church. In the apostolic era, these three terms were somewhat fluid, with Paul, for instance, referring to himself as a deacon (2 Corinthians 3:6, 6:4, 11:23; Ephesians 3:7) and Peter referring to himself as a “fellow elder” (1 Peter 5:1), elder being an equivalent name for priest. According to Hyppolytus (ca. AD 215), a deacon was not ordained to the priesthood (“Bishop, Priest, and Deacon,” Catholic Answers, accessed Feb. 16, 2018, https://www.catholic.com/ tract/bishop-priest-and-deacon). 

[10] An approximately similar process occurred in the Orthodox Church.

[11] Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005), 150. This remark came in the context of the correlation movement and the organizational changes the Correlation Executive Committee was proposing for the Church, which included, according to Ed Kimball, son and biographer of President Spencer W. Kimball, “applying management practices that were standard in the American business world” (Edward L. Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005], 249).

[12] Terryl L. Givens, “Paradox and Discipleship,” Irreantum 11, nos. 1–2 (2009): 39.

[13] I explore this idea in detail in my article “The Source of God’s Authority: One Argument for an Unambiguous Doctrine of Preexistence,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 49, no. 3 (2016): 109–44. 

[14] Charles R. Harrell, “This Is My Doctrine”: The Development of Mormon Theology (Draper, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2011), chapter 17. Interestingly, the LDS definition of priesthood as abstract authority does appear in the four inch-thick Webster’s unabridged dictionary, but it is limited only to Mormon usage: “3: the authority to speak and administer in the name of the Deity given in the Mormon Church by ordination; also: the body of those so ordained including those of the Aaronic as well as the Melchizedek orders” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged [Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1993], s.v. “priesthood”). For a history of how this definition evolved, see Gregory A. Prince, Having Authority: The Origins and Development of Priesthood during the Ministry of Joseph Smith (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1993).

[15] While it is theoretically possible to separate these two acts in today’s Church, it wasn’t prior to at least 1900, and perhaps even 1919, when Joseph F. Smith’s Gospel Doctrine officially proposed the distinction. Nor was it possible in the Book of Mormon (see Moroni 3:1–3). See a complete discussion of this change in William V. Smith, “Early Mormon Priesthood Revelations: Text, Impact, and Evolution,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 46, no. 4 (2014): 43–46. 

[16] Gregory A. Prince, Power from On High: The Development of Mormon Priest hood (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 48–50, raises the question of why the nine priesthood offices we currently recognize became offices when others, such as high council, did not, even though they met all the obvious requirements. “In attempting to define the rationale behind the nine offices now recognized by the Utah church, one is thus constrained by historical irregularities” (49).

[17] See Kevin Barney, “Ordained,” By Common Consent (blog), June 1, 2014, http://bycommonconsent.com/2014/06/01/ordained. Some verses can be read with the modern meaning (1 Timothy 2:7; Hebrews 8:3), but this is what Barney calls a presentist reading, misapplying current definitions of terms to ancient contexts. 

[18] American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828 ed., s.v. “priesthood (n.),” accessed Feb. 16, 2018, http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/ priesthood.

[19] Bruce R. McConkie, “The Doctrine of the Priesthood,” Apr. 1982, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1982/04/the-doctrine-of-the-priesthood?lang=eng.

[20] The book of Abraham presents an interesting mix of definitions. Usage of priesthood in this book is somewhat vague, but, in my opinion, most instances in the text itself reflect the ancient definition of the term, which lends weight to the argument that it is an ancient text. The captions for the facsimiles, however, most definitely reflect modern usage.

[21] See Smith, “Early Mormon Priesthood Revelations,” 1–84, especially 8–9, 12–13, 39–43, 63 n. 15, and 64 n. 17; Prince, Having Authority, 39–40, 51–57. 

[22] A Catholic commentary on why the Greek word for priest (hiereus) is not used in the New Testament (with two exceptions) explains that to the early Christians, who were primarily Jews, it would have been absurd to refer to Jesus or his apostles as priests, because they were not Levites, who were the only ones who could be priests among the Jews. This is why the Greek term presbuteros was used instead. Interestingly, this commentary makes the following statement: “It is okay for Jesus to be a high priest because he was not a priest of the order of Aaron but of the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 6:20), an order which was older than the Aaronic one (7:1), which did not require a special genealogy (7:3), which was superior to the Aaronic order (7:4–10), which was prophesied to arise again one day (7:11; cf. Psalms 110:4), and which required ‘a change in the law as well. . . . For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests’ (7:12–14)” (Catholic Answers Staff, “Why Doesn’t the Greek Word for ‘Priest’ in the Letter to the Romans Appear in the Bible More Often?,” Catholic Answers, Aug. 4, 2011, https://www.catholic.com/qa/why-doesnt-the-greek-word-for-priest-in the-letter-to-the-romans-appear-in-the-bible-more-often).

[23] Bible Dictionary, “High priest,” 659.

[24] It has been argued that women served as deacons or deaconesses, a particular type of church official, in the New Testament church and in subsequent years as the church evolved. See, for instance, Ann Nyland, “Women in Bible Ministry—Phoebe the Deacon and Presiding Officer,” Dec. 14, 2008, http:// ezinearticles.com/?Women-in-Bible-Ministry---Phoebe-the-Deacon-and Presiding-Officer&id=1787659. Of course, as mentioned earlier, deacons may not have been part of the priesthood.

[25] Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey, “How (George) Romney Championed Civil Rights and Challenged His Church,” The Atlantic, Aug. 13, 2012, http://www. theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/08/how-george-romney-championed civil-rights-and-challenged-his-church/261073.

[26] Stephen H. Webb, Mormon Christianity: What Other Christians Can Learn from the Latter-day Saints (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 150. Toward the end of this quotation, Webb is referring to the Protestant notion of a “priesthood of all believers,” where “every individual has direct access to God without ecclesiastical mediation and each individual shares the responsibility of ministering to the other members of the community of believers” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary). 

[27] “Articles and Covenants, circa April 1830 [D&C 20],” The Joseph Smith Papers, n. 27, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/ articles-and-covenants-circa-april-1830-dc-20/1#full-1257920176035385574. 

[28] Ibid. 

[29] “Revelation Book 1,” The Joseph Smith Papers, 113, http://www.josephsmith papers.org/paper-summary/revelation-book-1/99. 

[30] Matthew C. Godfrey, Mark Ashurst-McGee, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford, and William G. Hartley, eds., Documents, Volume 2: July 1831– January 1833, vol. 2 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, Richard Lyman Bushman, and Matthew J. Grow (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2013), 71. 

[31] Godfrey, et al., Documents, Volume 2, 80, 82, 85–86.

[32] Ibid., 135. For a thorough discussion of the various revelations that now make up Doctrine and Covenants 107, see Smith, “Early Mormon Priesthood Revelations,” 1–84. 

[33] Ibid., 163. 

[34] Godfrey, et al., Documents, Volume 2, 186.

[35] “Plat of the City of Zion, circa Early June–25 June 1833,” in Documents, Volume 3: February 1833–March 1834, edited by Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, Brent M. Rogers, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford, and William G. Hartley, vol. 3 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Ronald K. Esplin and Matthew J. Grow (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2014), 127–30. 

[36] See discussion in Smith, “Early Mormon Priesthood Revelations,” 15.

[37] Joseph Smith, “History, circa Summer 1832,” Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-summer-1832/1. 

[38] Joseph Smith, Sermon, Mar. 10, 1844, recorded by Wilford Woodruff in his journal, in The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph, edited by Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook (Orem, Utah: Grandin Book, 1991), 327.

[39] Smith, “Early Mormon Priesthood Revelations,” 19.

[40] Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 411, italics in original. 

[41] Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. Smith, 5th ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1919), 136. 

[42] Alan K. Parrish, “Keys of the Priesthood,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 2:780. 

[43] Robert L. Millet, Camille Fronk Olson, Andrew C. Skinner, and Brent L. Top, LDS Beliefs: A Doctrinal Reference (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), 361.

[44] Prince, Power from On High, 52–53. 

[45] Joseph Smith Jr., History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, edited by B. H. Roberts, 2nd ed., 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1971), 1:338 (hereafter cited as History of the Church). 

[46] History of the Church, 3:385–88.

[47] D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 16.

[post_title] => Authority and Priesthood in the LDS Church, Part 1: Definitions and Development [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.1 (Spring 2018): 167–180
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In the prequel to this article, I discussed in general contours the dual nature of authority—individual and institutional—and how the modern LDS concept of priesthood differs significantly from the ancient version in that it has become an abstract form of authority that can be “held” (or withheld, as the case might be). In the ancient world, priesthood was used to describe either the condition of being a priest or the collective body of priests. And in the ancient world, the duties of “the priesthood” revolved around rituals, with the priests standing in the place of the Lord, being his agents, as it were. By contrast, in the modern Mormon version of priesthood, those who “hold” this authority, especially the Melchizedek Priesthood, generally have only occasional opportunity to officiate in religious rituals, which we call ordinances. Priesthood is now much more expansive, involving many functions that have little to do with the ancient duties of priests. In certain ways, it is also less clearly defined.

Ordinances 

According to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, “The word ‘ordinance’ is derived from the Latin ordinare, which means to put in order or sequence; or to act by authorization or command. . . . The power to perform ordinances whose validity is recognized by God is inseparably connected with the divine authority conferred on mortal man, that is, the priesthood of God.”[1] Robert Millet and his coauthors, in a thick volume some see as a replacement for McConkie’s now out-of-print and out-of-favor Mormon Doctrine, give a dual definition: “In a broad sense, a gospel ordinance is a law, statute, or commandment of God (D&C 52:15–16; 64:5).” In a narrower sense, “an act or ritual done with proper priesthood authority is known as an ordinance.”[2]

The Millet book lists several of these ordinances and divides them into two categories—those that are necessary for salvation and those that are not. Gregory Prince, looking at ordinances from a historical perspective, makes an interesting observation: “In a Latter-day Saint context whatever tradition has defined as an ordinance is one. Otherwise what Latter-day Saints accept as ordinances defies simple definition.”[3] Prince points out that some ordinances are tied scripturally to priesthood; others are not. He lists seventeen separate ordinances, including casting out evil spirits, raising the dead, and the second anointing. Millet and his coauthors mention setting people apart for callings and dedicating graves, which Prince omits, thus helping underscore his point that the LDS definition of ordinance appears to be somewhat fluid.

The original version of the fourth article of faith, which was finally changed to its current wording in 1902, reads, “We believe that these ordinances are First, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; Second, Repentance . . .”[4] indicating that Joseph Smith initially regarded faith and repentance as ordinances. Even disregarding this historical anomaly, the necessity of having priesthood authority is not always clear. For example, during Joseph Smith’s and Brigham Young’s administrations, women were permitted to lay on hands and heal the sick,[5] and today they still help administer the endowment and perform washings and anointings in the temple. So ordinances may not always require priesthood for participation. Again, we run into definitional difficulties here.

Taking this line of thinking a step further, since our definition is not exactly set in stone, there may be some wiggle room for declassifying certain ordinances. This has already been done for the practice of cursing those who reject the gospel message, an ordinance that is mentioned in eight different early revelations but is no longer practiced in the Church.[6] A similar though not identical change could occur, for instance, if Church leaders were to determine that dedicating a grave is not really a priesthood ordinance. They might conclude that there is no necessary reason why women or non-LDS family members cannot offer this particular prayer. Dedicating a grave is certainly not an ordinance of salvation. Expanding participation in ordinances might also extend to serving as witnesses for ordinances such as baptism or temple sealings. I can think of no reason, for instance, why a woman could not serve as a witness to a baptism.

Ironically, Millet and his coauthors point out that “ordinances set things in order within the Church,” but our difficulty in specifying exact criteria for defining what an ordinance is seems to work against that desired order. Regardless, any attempt to define Mormon priesthood narrowly, as merely the authority to perform ordinances, becomes problematic. This is due both to the haziness of our notion of what an ordinance is and to the abstract nature of LDS priesthood authority, which allows it to extend far beyond the performance of priestly rituals. 

Specifically, a significant function of priesthood is to be a governing institutional authority in the Church. It could easily be argued that presiding has become the most significant function of priesthood, far out weighing the ritualistic role that priesthood played in ancient times. Even our vocabulary reveals our priorities in the modern Church: rather than performing sacred rituals, Mormons speak of administering ordinances. Priesthood is inseparably connected to institutional administration. 

Priesthood as Institutional Authority 

Because priesthood is an abstract principle in modern Mormondom, it does not necessarily have to be attached to the institutional Church, although in our day this is always the case. Joseph and Oliver, for instance, were not members of the Church when they received authority that was later termed priesthood, nor were they members when they baptized each other, but we explain this fact by observing that they had to receive the authority first in order to establish the Church; otherwise, the organization would not have been authorized by the Lord. Still, as pointed out in the predecessor to this article, Joseph Smith did not invoke priesthood at all in organizing the Church. Indeed, the word priesthood does not appear in early Church documents until more than a year after its organization.[7] Nevertheless, since the founding of the Church, priesthood has always been bestowed and exercised within its institutional confines.[8] Indeed, Orson Hyde, in a May 1844 article titled “Priesthood What Is It,” declared that priesthood “is the right and the power to establish and govern the Church of the Living God, and is the same to that body, that government is to the nation.”[9] This definition entirely sidesteps the more elementary and historical notion that priesthood has a necessary connection to being a priest and performing priestly rituals; it is instead the authority to establish an organization and then govern it. It is institutional authority. D. Michael Quinn makes this insightful observation: “When the Church was organized in April 1830, there was still little sense of hierarchy. Smith was seen as one prophet among potentially many. Neither was there a structured sense of authority or priesthood. . . . It was priesthood—and eventually a highly structured priesthood—which required the hierarchical institution that Mormonism became.”[10] Priesthood and hierarchy are inextricably intertwined in the modern Church. One does not exist without the other. In fact, one spawns the other. 

The Organizational Impulse 

Priesthood in modern Mormonism has hatched a hierarchical institution that is, organizationally speaking, on steroids. The LDS Church is so massively organized that it makes even the Roman Catholic Church look like amateur hour. Even if we completely ignore the general Church hierarchy of First Presidency, apostles, seventies, and general auxiliary presidencies as well as all area- and stake-level officers, we still see that each fully staffed ward in the Church has not just a bishop and his counselors, but twelve (yes, twelve) presidents with two counselors each (if you count the bishop as president of the priests quorum with his two assistants), a handful of clerks, a ward mission leader, an employment specialist, a music chairperson, dozens of teachers, secretaries, advisers, and other assorted official positions. This irrepressible organizational impulse makes Mormonism easily the most highly structured religion on earth, but it also opens the door to several significant and as yet unanswered questions regarding authority. One very simple question is: how much of this organization is absolutely necessary? This is a question that has been studiously avoided. The idea of giving every member a “calling” has certainly trumped every call for organizational reduction and simplification. 

Returning to the idea that priesthood and institutional hierarchy are inseparable in modern Mormonism, I should point out that it is, of course, theoretically possible for the Lord to bestow priesthood authority upon someone not baptized into the Church, but as far as we know, this has not happened since the Church was organized. In earlier dispensations, however, prophets sometimes received authority and spoke and acted in the Lord’s name without any sort of corresponding formal organizational structure (Moses in exile and Abinadi among the apostate colony of King Noah, for instance), but this pattern does not prevail in our day—the priesthood and the Church are inseparable. Without the priesthood, there is no authorized Church, and without the Church, there is no valid framework within which the priesthood can operate, although this framework has changed and evolved significantly since the early days of the Restoration.[11]

At times in the ancient world, priesthood was directly responsible for leading the people, not just performing sacred rituals. At the time of Jesus’ ministry, for instance, the religious leader of the Jewish people was the high priest. As I understand it, this is because the temple was the central pillar of the Jewish religion, and the high priest was the chief of the priests who performed sacrifices in the temple. A similar situation prevailed at times among the Nephites, but the direct connection to priestly rituals is missing from the record. Alma1 and his successors in the office of high priest did function as head of the church, but just how the Nephite temple figured into this arrangement is unclear. Indeed, there is only one mention in the Book of Mormon of sacrifices being performed in connection with Nephite temples, and this was long before the church was established. It is also not a very specific or clear connection: “And . . . the people gathered themselves together throughout all the land, that they might go up to the temple to hear the words which king Benjamin should speak unto them. . . . And they also took of the firstlings of their flocks, that they might offer sacrifice and burnt offerings according to the law of Moses” (Mosiah 2:1, 3). The temple here is only tangentially connected to priestly rituals (priests and priesthood are not even mentioned). The temple is instead a place where the king teaches the people. We must assume, since the Nephites followed the law of Moses, that they performed sacrifices in their temples, but the specifics of this practice are not mentioned. In the Book of Mormon, as opposed to the Bible, the temple is not ever directly connected to either priesthood or the office of high priest. In the Nephite record, at least after Alma1 founded the church of Christ, priesthood served as a form of institutional religious authority. In this particular regard, the Book of Mormon church is similar to the modern LDS Church, even though the concept of priesthood among the Nephites differed from our understanding of priesthood today. 

In terms of the two types of authority discussed in my previous article—personal and institutional authority—priesthood in the modern LDS Church is entirely an institutional authority. It is not an authority based on personal influence or a divine dispensation to an individual. It is conferred by and through the organization. Granted, some leaders possess a set of personal qualities that have been labeled charisma, and this may give them greater influence over those they lead than the leverage exerted by others whose personality and attributes are less alluring. But charisma alone does not give any member of the Church the right to act officially in Church affairs. It certainly does not give a person the right to preside over the organization. 

Leadership Succession

After the death of Joseph Smith, there were two major non-institutional claims to succeed him as the presiding authority in the Church and two significant institutional claims,[12] as well as several marginal claims. James Strang sought to succeed Joseph Smith on the basis of a letter he claimed Joseph had sent him and visions he claimed to have had. This could be viewed as a charismatic appeal for authority. Another group held that authority to lead was a hereditary matter (a notion Joseph actually encouraged), and they eventually convinced Joseph Smith III to accept the presidency of their movement, which became the Reorganization. The largest body of Saints, however, chose to follow the apostles, who claimed the right to succession based on their priesthood and on keys they said Joseph had conferred upon them. This was a formal institutional claim to authority. Sidney Rigdon also claimed the mantle of institutional leadership by virtue of his position in the First Presidency, which created competing priesthood claims.[13] In September 1844, the Twelve excommunicated Rigdon in an attempt to extinguish his claim that he was the only ordained prophet, seer, and revelator remaining after the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum. Rigdon moved to Pittsburgh with a group of his followers and continued to stake his priesthood claim to leadership. In terms of sheer numbers, though, the apostles prevailed, and since the 1844 succession crisis, the right to preside in the LDS Church has come only through regular and formal priesthood channels, established and maintained by the apostles.[14]

But are presiding and priesthood necessarily connected? I will examine that issue later in this article. 

Nonpriesthood Authority 

We come first, though, to an interesting question. Although priesthood today does not exist without the institutional Church, is priesthood the only authority in the Church? There are two views on this. One is the perspective I grew up with—that priesthood and authority in the Church are synonymous (in other words, priesthood is the only form of authority in the Church). This view of authority is a fruit of the unique Mormon definition of priesthood as an abstract idea, a general power that people can possess. If priesthood is God’s authority delegated to men on earth, then what other authority can there be in the Church? This is the perspective behind Elder Oaks’s 2014 general conference talk on the authority of the priesthood, in which he gave the following explanation:

We are not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the priesthood in their Church callings, but what other authority can it be? When a woman—young or old—is set apart to preach the gospel as a full-time missionary, she is given priesthood authority to perform a priesthood function. The same is true when a woman is set apart to function as an officer or teacher in a Church organization under the direction of one who holds the keys of the priesthood. Whoever functions in an office or calling received from one who holds priesthood keys exercises priesthood authority in performing her or his assigned duties.[15]

I will give some reasons why I find this explanation inadequate, or at least incomplete, but for now let me just say that the other view on priesthood—the view I have come to see as more convincing—is that priesthood is not the only authority in the Church, which may open a side door through which we can get around the impasse we are now experiencing on this very difficult issue.

Four Examples of Nonpriesthood Authority 

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that priesthood is not the presiding, supervisory authority in the Church. No one would argue this. What I am saying is that there seem to be types of authority in the Church that, while created and directed by priesthood leaders, do not seem to be part of the priesthood. Let me illustrate what I mean by other forms of authority with some examples. 

1. The Relief Society president in my ward has authority. In fact, I would argue that in a practical sense she has more institutional authority in our ward than I do, even though I am a high priest and a member of the stake high council. She certainly has more institutional authority than the president of the teachers quorum, even though she does not “hold” the priesthood or possess priesthood keys and her calling is not a priesthood calling, as is the teachers quorum president’s. She can call meetings, give sisters ministering assignments, coordinate the care of the afflicted, participate in ward council, and preside over Relief Society meetings. Of course, she acts and presides under the supervision of the bishop, but so does the president of the teachers quorum. According to the first view presented above, both of these presidents “exercise priesthood authority,” but there is obviously a distinct difference between the two. One is a priesthood office; the other is not. And we can’t just gloss over this difference. 

The relationship between Relief Society and priesthood is no simple matter, particularly if we consider statements such as the following, which Joseph Smith reportedly made when organizing the women’s organization: “I am glad to have the opportunity of organizing the women, as a part of the priesthood belongs to them.”[16] What we may be encountering here is simply a question of semantics, perhaps even somewhat careless semantics. Joseph loved to give people authority, as long as it was subordinate to his authority as presiding officer of the Church, and he established a complex institutional hierarchy that required multiple (and sometimes overlapping) levels of authority, but he called that authority priesthood, even when it had nothing to do with the office and ritual duties of a priest. Whatever authority Joseph was intending to bestow upon the Relief Society, however, it was suspended by his death, and when Brigham Young resurrected the society several years later, in certain ways it was not really the same organization Joseph authorized. 

2. Today we have a highly organized Church, with a complex hierarchical pyramid of authority that we call priesthood, but the institution—particularly the corporate support structure that has grown up around the ecclesiastical core—cannot easily fit within the naturally restrictive bounds of an all-male priesthood. Similar to the Relief Society president example mentioned above, middle managers in the departments at Church headquarters exercise authority in a variety of ways. None of these managers, however, exercise authority as a function of their priesthood. Indeed, some (the female managing editor of the Friend magazine, for example) do not hold the priesthood. Rather, these individuals exercise institutional authority in a manner very similar to that of a middle manager in any worldly corporation. They do this under the supervision of priesthood advisers, but they are not exercising priesthood in their jobs. 

3. Another example of nonpriesthood authority in the Church occurs in its missions. Young male missionaries are called to be district leaders, zone leaders, and assistants to the mission president as if these were priesthood offices, but they are not. Missionaries called to these positions of leadership and administrative authority are not set apart or ordained or sustained by the vote of other missionaries. (I should add that mission president and temple president are perhaps the only high level callings in the Church that are not sustained by the vote of those over whom they preside, which places them at variance with the law of common consent.) Because so many sister missionaries are now entering the field, new leadership positions have been created for them, called “sister training leaders.”[17] Although these new positions are of course not priesthood offices, neither are the leadership positions occupied by male missionaries. But they are positions of institutional authority. Which brings up the question of why a sister missionary could not serve as a zone leader or assistant to the president.[18] The argument may be made that this would allow women in the mission to preside over men, but we already have this arrangement in the Primary auxiliary in almost every ward in the Church, including my calling a couple of years ago as a teacher, in which I answered to the Primary president. 

4. A final example that is quite different but very much related to the previous three can be illustrated by the frequent situation that occurs in part-member families where the wife is a member but her husband is not. Who presides in the home when a son turns twelve and is ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood? Certainly not the twelve-year-old, even though he is the only priesthood holder in the house. And what about six years later when that son turns eighteen, becomes an adult, and is ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood? In no less an official source than “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” we find this statement: “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.”[19] This statement in no way insinuates that the father must have the priesthood in order to preside. According to President Joseph F. Smith, “There is no higher authority in matters relating to the family organization, and especially when that organization is presided over by one holding the higher Priesthood, than that of the father.”[20] The parenthetical clause here is just that, parenthetical, which means that it can be dropped from the sentence without impairing its basic meaning. Therefore, according to President Smith, the highest authority in any family is the father, whether he is a baptized member or not. But how can this be possible? The home is the fundamental unit of the Church, we are taught. How, then, can someone who is not even a Church member preside over the fundamental Church unit, and in some cases preside over someone who holds the Melchizedek Priesthood? Apparently, the biological (or even adoptive) authority of the father outranks priesthood authority. And what about the situation where an aged high priest goes to live in the home of his son who became inactive at age fifteen and is still only a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood. Who presides? In this case, home ownership would probably trump priesthood rank. 

This concept of the father, or husband, presiding in the family runs into difficulties, however, when considered in tandem with another state ment in the family proclamation: “Fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.” How can fathers and mothers be equal partners if the father presides over the mother? I will have more to say about the sometimes-confusing notion of presiding, in families and elsewhere, later in this article, but for now let us merely acknowledge the very real possibility that priesthood is not the only authority in the Church, nor does it preside in every circumstance. 

Women and Authority 

What is the difference, then, between priesthood authority and these other possible types of authority in the Church? One of the primary differences is that performing certain ordinances is limited to the priesthood (the only function the word itself actually suggests). But, as mentioned in the previous article, even this was not always as strictly defined as it is today. Women and girls at an earlier time, for instance, were allowed to prepare the sacrament for church meetings and perform other tasks that are now the domain of priesthood holders.[21] And for decades after the establishment of the Church, women also laid hands on the sick and afflicted and blessed them. They performed these healings not through the priesthood but through their faith, in harmony with this declaration in the Book of Mormon: “And these signs shall follow them that believe—in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover” (Mormon 9:24). We might well ask how laying hands on the sick and healing them through faith in Jesus Christ can be construed as not “acting in the Lord’s name,” which again illustrates the difficulty associated with the abstract definition of priesthood we embrace today. We might also ask how, in a more official ritualistic capacity, women are permitted to officiate in certain temple ordinances. How can they perform priestly functions without holding an authority we define as priesthood?

One answer is to insist that women do indeed exercise priesthood authority, but without actually having the priesthood. If we accept the idea that priesthood is the only authority in the Church, this explanation does indeed have some merit. But it leaves too many questions unanswered and even creates new questions that are very difficult to answer.

I don’t want to be difficult here, and I don’t want to openly argue with an apostle, especially Elder Oaks, who has always been one of my favorite General Authorities. I realize that his assertion (that anyone who receives a calling from someone with priesthood keys is exercising priesthood authority) is a generous gesture toward women in a spirit of inclusion, but in the attempt to make space for women under the umbrella of priesthood authority, this assertion actually expands our already nebulous definition of priesthood and creates further ambiguity. If that is all priesthood is—the performance of a necessary function under commission from someone who holds priesthood keys—then everyone who performs any function in the Church, from the lowliest Primary teacher to the general president of the Relief Society, exercises priesthood authority in their calling. And this includes nonmembers, who are sometimes given minor callings in wards and branches. They too would be exercising priesthood authority.

This is where an expanding definition gets us into murky waters and can bruise already tender feelings. Regardless of how broadly we try to define priesthood, female Primary teachers, sister missionaries, and Relief Society general presidents know that they do not actually have the priesthood, an abstract authority that is bestowed only on men and boys through ordination and that enables them to perform priesthood functions such as baptizing, blessing the sacrament, and anointing the sick. If sister missionaries are really exercising priesthood authority in their labors, why then are they not allowed to baptize their investigators who desire to join the Church? If they really do have priesthood authority (you really can’t exercise it without having it), it is difficult to understand why they should not be able to baptize under the keys held by the mission president. But they cannot, which means, quite plainly, that they do not have priesthood authority, and to tell them they do in an effort to smooth over troubled waters may only make things worse and bring a new level of confusion to the issue.

This notion (that anyone who has received an assignment from a priesthood leader is exercising priesthood authority) is also undermined by the status of black male members of the Church before 1978. Some of them served faithfully in their wards and branches in various nonpriesthood capacities. They received these callings from priesthood leaders. According to this reasoning, these black men were exercising priesthood authority by teaching Primary, leading the music, and coaching Young Men basketball teams. But according to teachings of Church leaders at the time, they were “denied the priesthood; under no circumstances [could] they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty.”[22] Any attempt to explain to them that they were actually exercising priesthood authority while being specifically denied that authority would have been confusing at best, offensive at worst. So why is this reasoning deemed acceptable when addressing questions about women and the priesthood? This is perplexing. 

As suggested above, many women do have some sort of unnamed, undefined institutional authority, but I would argue that it is not priest hood. Consequently, all our attempts to try to include female Church members in the priesthood in some indirect or tangential way only end up offending and alienating many of them, because there are so many things this oblique “exercise” of priesthood does not include. If we are really serious about claiming that priesthood is the only authority in the Church and that anyone who fulfills a calling under priesthood direction is exercising priesthood authority, reason suggests that we simply make this official by ordination. Otherwise, we find ourselves in increasingly troubled definitional waters with no clear way to resolve the confusion created by our problematic priesthood lexicon.

Presiding and Nonpresiding Positions 

Because of our abstract definition of priesthood, exercising this authority in Mormondom involves more than just performing ordinances; it also encompasses the right of presidency, or the right to preside. All presiding positions at the general Church level and in all major subdivisions of the organization (stakes, missions, districts, wards, and branches) are reserved for priesthood holders—for men.[23] But what about nonpresiding positions? Is there any apparent reason why women could not be called as, say, high councilors or clerks, which are not priesthood offices and really have nothing to do with presiding? And what about a presiding position such as Sunday School president, which is not a priesthood office? 

Interestingly, when we move past the “important” leadership positions, there are other presiding positions in the Church that seem almost of a different species. For instance, presiding positions in ward priesthood quorums are, in practice, very similar to presiding positions in auxiliary organizations, especially Relief Society and Young Women. Thus, at lower levels in the Church hierarchy, there seem to be presiding positions for men and presiding positions for women. Both types are positions of authority, but only one is called priesthood, even though they are quite analogous in practice. I will explore the differences and similarities between these two types of presiding positions later in the context of priesthood keys and quorums. 

For now, though, let me merely suggest that the only accept able avenue out of this increasingly confusing maze of explanations regarding priesthood and authority in the Church seems to be the admission that priesthood is only one kind of divine authority and that there are, in fact, other kinds. This admission may lead us to consider new possibilities, such as the validity of the ancient scriptural notion that priesthood and authority are distinct concepts, that priesthood is linguistically and logically connected to officiating in priestly rituals, and that priesthood and institutional leadership may not necessarily be coterminous. These are certainly radical ideas, but they have a solid basis in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. 

What I have tried to point out thus far in this article and in the previous one is that our unique definition of priesthood leaves us somewhat in no-man’s-land.[24] We are stuck somewhere between a rather restrictive scriptural/historical idea of priesthood as merely the capacity of being a priest (performing the ritualistic functions that a priest performs) and the more expansive (and apparently still expanding) modern idea of priesthood as the institutional authority that enables a person to lead or speak or act in the Church in an official or governing capacity. The idea that there are other types of authority in the Church that are not designated “priesthood” illustrates the problematic nature of a priesthood that is neither completely restrictive nor completely expansive. 

Organizational Imbalance 

One circumstance that arises from the LDS view of authority is that lesser (local) priesthood keys are bestowed upon leaders in one branch (male) of the organization, but they are not bestowed in the other branch (female), thus creating a situation in which there are presiding officers who have keys and there are other presiding officers who do not have keys. This produces not only organizational confusion but also inequalities that cannot be easily explained away. 

Perhaps Joseph Smith would have eliminated these inequalities had he lived long enough. We cannot know. As mentioned earlier, Joseph saw the Relief Society as having some part in the priesthood, and on April 28, 1842, “he spoke of delivering the keys to this Society and to the church.”[25] What keys these might be he did not explain clearly, but he did say that “the keys of the kingdom are about to be given to them [the Relief Society], that they may be able to detect everything false— as well as to the Elders.”[26] If this seems confusing, it is likely because Joseph used many terms loosely, keys included. For Joseph, a particular word could mean many things, and meanings often shifted over time. For instance, in 1842, Joseph, speaking about the keys of the kingdom, explained that “the keys are certain signs and words by which false spirits and personages may be detected from true, which cannot be revealed to the Elders till the Temple is completed.”[27] Regardless of the several meanings he may have attached to the word keys, the general figurative idea of keys was obviously important to him.

So, where does this leave us? I’m not sure. Priesthood keys serve a purpose in the Church—of maintaining order, particularly in terms of succession at the top—but they also add a layer of complexity and of perplexity to the lower levels of the organization. For instance, we make a big deal of the fact that a deacons quorum president holds priesthood keys. But what do those keys do? Frankly, nothing. They purportedly permit the deacons quorum president to assign other deacons to pass the sacrament and collect fast offerings (activities that were not always priesthood functions), but he could just as easily do this without the concept of keys. According to our standard explanation, these keys permit the deacons quorum president to preside over his quorum. But how is this different from what the Beehive class president does? 

So, just for the sake of asking the obvious, what would happen if we removed the term priesthood keys from our LDS vocabulary? Would the organization, in practice, function any differently? Would the Church become simpler or more chaotic? Would the absence of this concept open the door to greater equality? These are questions we perhaps ought to examine more carefully. 

Priesthood Quorums 

Temple ordinances, we are told, like most other ordinances in the Church, must be performed under the specific authority of priesthood keys. As pointed out in the first article in this series, priesthood keys constitute a rather confusing topic, partly because they do not pertain only to the performance of ordinances. They also allow certain individuals to preside over the whole Church or certain segments of it. But what, we might ask, do priesthood keys have to do with priesthood quorums? The answer may be surprising. Indeed, in certain ways it is almost as if the keys governing ordinances and the keys for presiding over quorums are different sets of keys. 

Priesthood keys in the modern Church are generally said to be exercised within the parameters of a priesthood quorum—sort of. This is fairly straightforward with, say, a deacons quorum president. He presides over a quorum of up to twelve deacons because he holds the priesthood keys for that quorum. But this pattern is not so simple in higher levels of the hierarchy. A stake president, for instance, presides over the stake quorum of high priests because he holds priesthood keys pertaining to that quorum. But he also presides over all members of the stake, most of whom do not hold the priesthood. So priesthood keys do not govern just members of a priesthood quorum. They can govern all Church members who live within a certain geographic area. But there are limitations. The deacons quorum president does not preside over all twelve- and thirteen-year-olds within the ward boundaries. 

Setting these questions of presiding aside for the moment, let us look more closely at priesthood quorums. A priesthood quorum is, at present, a body of men or boys within a particular geographic area who hold the same office in either the Aaronic or Melchizedek Priesthood. In the twenty-first-century Church, however, we must ask how these groups function and how they differ from other groups within LDS wards, such as the Relief Society or the Beehive class.

The elders quorum in my ward meets weekly, discusses gospel topics as determined by quorum leadership, and engages in various service projects organized by the elders quorum presidency. The Relief Society in my ward meets weekly, discusses gospel topics as determined by auxiliary leadership, and engages in various service projects organized by the Relief Society presidency. The only priesthood-related function specifically directed by the elders quorum presidency is the ministering program. But this is not an ordinance. In fact, there are no ordinances in the Church that the elders quorum is uniquely responsible for. And the Relief Society is also involved in the new ministering program. So there is no appreciable difference between the two organizations. 

The Aaronic Priesthood quorums are specifically responsible for one ordinance—the sacrament. But a priesthood quorum is not necessary to perform this ordinance. The deacons could receive assignments to pass the sacrament, the teachers to prepare it, and the priests to bless it through direct invitation from the bishop, without the intervention of a quorum presidency (although the bishop is the priests quorum president). In other words, the quorum organization itself is superfluous to the performance of the ordinance of the sacrament. There is no necessary connection between quorums and ordinances, which is why I suggested above that the keys for presiding and the keys for performing ordinances seem quite distinct.

So why do we need quorums? Apparently for the same reason we need an organization for women and classes for young women. Organizationally speaking, there is no appreciable difference between priesthood quorums and parallel female groupings. Priesthood is connected to ordinances, but these can take place without the involvement of quorums. Some quorums, in fact, have no direct connection with any ordinance. Elders and high priests may give health blessings, but these are performed upon request on an individual basis and are not organized by the quorum presidency. Again, the purpose of the quorum appears to be unrelated to the primary purpose of the priesthood as depicted in ancient scripture, which is ritualistic in nature, not instructional or administrative. Given this fact, we might well ask what purpose priesthood keys bestowed on elders, teachers, or deacons quorum presidents serve. Since those keys do not specifically relate to the performance of ordinances, they serve only to allow the president to preside over the group, which is no different from what a Relief Society, Laurel, Mia Maid, or Beehive president does without keys. 

An Irreconcilable Situation 

In essence, we have presidents in the Church who preside with the priesthood and we have presidents who preside without it. This fact presents a very difficult conundrum. In essence, we must ask what the connection is between priesthood and presiding. In the ancient world, there was either no connection or, at best, an inconsistent one. But in the modern Church, presiding is one of the primary and necessary functions of priesthood, a function made possible only by our unique understanding of priesthood as an abstract principle rather than as a ritualistic office. How this plays out in the family creates tensions that are difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile, and we must wonder how much of the male-dominant aspect of family governance is strictly cultural and how much is based on some sort of eternal pattern. The Church seems of two minds on this question, as illustrated by the conflicting message sent by the proclamation on the family—that the father presides and that the husband and wife are equal partners. 

Of course, in the early years of the Restoration, there was no talk at all of equality in marriage relationships. Women had few rights in society—in terms of property ownership and voting rights, for instance—and the Church was very patriarchal in every way. And when polygamy became a public institution, in which one man could have multiple wives but the reverse was not true,[28] there was no way to construe the relationship as equal. It was not an equal partnership of one woman and one man—if one man had ten wives, then each wife had one-tenth of a husband. But since the Church abandoned polygamy and moved closer and closer to a somewhat hypothetical ideal of equal partnership in marriage, the patriarchal rhetoric has dissipated even though we still insist that the husband presides in this theoretically equal relationship. 

Personally, I have been very reluctant to use the term preside in my family. If I preside, that means I am the president, the one who presides. Preside, from the Latin, means literally to “sit at the head of,” and president is derived from the present participle of the Latin verb.[29] But what does that make my wife? Vice president? Not if we are truly equal partners. Co-president? Well, apparently not, because according to Church dogma the wife does not preside in the family unless the husband is absent. If the husband is present, he presides, which means he presides over the wife too, which means they are not really equal partners, unless we come up with a special definition of equal (which, of course, we have done). This dilemma seems to place marriage partners in an irreconcilable situation, and there is no comfortable way to spin this into something it is not.

According to Elder L. Tom Perry, “There is not a president or a vice president in a family. The couple works together eternally for the good of the family. . . . They are on equal footing. They plan and organize the affairs of the family jointly and unanimously as they move forward.”[30] If this is truly the Church’s understanding of family governance, then it needs to officially move away from the language of “presiding,” because partners cannot really be equal if one presides over the other. But there seems to be no inclination to do so. Thus, in the same talk, Elder Perry, quoting from a 1973 pamphlet published by the Quorum of the Twelve, included the following declaration: “Fatherhood is leadership, the most important kind of leadership. It has always been so; it always will be so. Father, with the assistance and counsel and encouragement of your eternal companion, you preside in the home. It is not a matter of whether you are most worthy or best qualified, but it is a matter of [divine] appointment.”[31] So which is it? On this point, the Church cannot have its cake and eat it too. One spouse cannot preside over the other if both are equal.

My wife and I discussed this conflict, and we came to the conclusion that the only way I really exercise this presiding prerogative in our family is in calling on people to pray, mostly at the dinner table. We decided that the notion of being equal partners trumped the idea of the husband presiding, so we now take turns, a week at a time, in asking someone to pray. In all other situations, we were discussing options and making important decisions as a team anyway, so this change in our household management methods was far from disruptive. But in more than a symbolic way, it does bring us closer to the ideal.

There is no real one-to-one correlation between marriage and the way authority is exercised in the institutional Church, but we can draw some insights from this personal example. We are often told by Church leaders that women are equal to men in the Lord’s eyes, but that they have different roles. This may be true. My wife and I have chosen different roles, some of them culturally derived, some of them perhaps biologically determined, but in terms of authority, we are attempting to share presiding duties. In the Church, although men and women are said to be equal, they are not really, because women are denied the opportunity to preside over wards, stakes, and the Church as a whole. So this is not really about different roles. It is about one gender having an open door to higher supervisory positions and the other gender being limited primarily to lower-level supervisory positions in the institution.

It is interesting to note that the word preside does not appear at all in the Old Testament, New Testament, or Pearl of Great Price. It appears only once in the Book of Mormon, when Alma consecrates priests and elders “to preside and watch over the church” in Zarahemla (Alma 6:1). But it appears thirty-eight times in the Doctrine and Covenants. Similarly, the word president appears only five times in the Bible, all in the sixth chapter of Daniel, referring to an office in the Persian government. It appears only once in the Pearl of Great Price (Articles of Faith 1:12, referring to worldly government officials) and not at all in the Book of Mormon. But it appears fifty-four times in the Doctrine and Covenants. Preside and president are words that arise from and require an organizational hierarchy. A president is “an official chosen to preside,” and to preside is “to occupy the place of authority.”[32] The connection between these two words in the early instructions given through Joseph Smith can be seen in a revelation given on November 11, 1831, which later evolved into part of what is now section 107 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Here, we read, “<6>{t\T}hen cometh the high Priest hood, which is the greatest of all: <7> wherefore it must needs be that one be appointed of the high Priest hood to preside over the Priesthood: <8> & he shall be called President of the hood high Priest hood of the Church; <9> or in o other high words the Presiding high Priest hood over the high Priesthood of the Church.”[33] The difference in usage between ancient and modern scripture once again suggests that the current LDS view of priesthood and presiding is a modern notion that originated in the nineteenth century. While the patriarchal nature of society persisted from ancient times to more recent times, in the past few decades cultural norms have shifted decidedly in favor of women’s equal rights. The Church’s rhetoric has also shifted somewhat in an attempt to accommodate this societal change, but the patriarchal nature of priesthood has remained unaltered. 

Whether a male-only form of authority reflects some eternal necessity, we do not know. In spite of all that has been said about Mother in Heaven,[34] nothing has ever been revealed about her. Perhaps this is because no one has asked persistently enough to obtain this knowledge. Or perhaps God has his own reasons for remaining silent. But we do have the prophet’s efforts to give authority, after the pattern of the priesthood, to women, and we do have the perplexing word priestess that surfaces here and there in our doctrine. What is obvious is that there are enough inconsistencies in our doctrine and definition of priesthood that there is plenty of room for both inquiry and discussion. 

Priesthood is certainly more than just institutional authority. Multitudes of effective priesthood blessings testify that there is a power in the priesthood that God honors. But just because there is power in the priesthood doesn’t automatically mean that we understand it very well, that we always bestow or use it appropriately, or that we shouldn’t be asking questions about it—lots of questions. As President Kimball so capably demonstrated in the years leading up to the June 1978 revelation that ended one particular priesthood ban, if we don’t ask questions, and don’t ask persistently, we likely won’t get any answers. And no answer is not necessarily an answer. Certainly, enough unanswered questions exist to allow us to at least explore some possibilities for significant change. To simply close off all discussion does not really resolve anything. 

Priestesses 

Despite the absence of women in positions of authority in either the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants, women do indeed have authority, as indicated earlier, in both the Church and the family. We just do not have a name for this authority. It is not “moral authority,” as was recently suggested.[35] And it is not priesthood, because women, in spite of institutional attempts to put a positive spin on the matter, do not “hold” the priesthood. It is, however, an official form of organizational authority. We just do not know what to call it. 

At the organization of the Relief Society, Joseph Smith seemed to be attempting to broaden his concept of priesthood authority so that it included women. Perhaps he would not have ordained women to the priesthood, but he was certainly seeking to establish a women’s organization after the pattern of the male priesthood. According to the minutes of the Nauvoo Relief Society, Joseph taught “that the Society should move according to the ancient Priesthood, hence there should be a select Society separate from all the evils of the world, choice, virtuous and holy—Said he was going to make of this Society a kingdom of priests as in Enoch’s day—as in Paul’s day—that it is the privilege of each member to live long.”[36] Unfortunately, we do not know how Joseph would have set up this kingdom of female priests (or priestesses) over the long run, and his successors have retreated from the language he employed and even some of the practices he encouraged, which leaves us today with an authority dilemma that seems unsolvable.

One of the practices Joseph specifically approved was the female laying on of hands to heal the sick. “Respecting the female laying on hands, he further remark’d, there could be no devils in it if God gave his sanction by healing—that there could be no more sin in any female laying hands on the sick than in wetting the face with water—that it is no sin for any body to do it that has faith, or if the sick has faith to be heal’d by the administration.”[37]

Sometimes we use loaded terms without really understanding the implications of their meaning. One of these is priestess, which appears today primarily in the context of temple rituals. According to Cannon, Dahl, and Welch, “By 1843, the temple’s full import and design seem to have crystallized in the Prophet’s teachings. The doctrines of sealing and of becoming kings and queens, priests and priestesses were often discussed.”[38] The expression “kings and queens, priests and priestesses” will be familiar to anyone who has received his or her endowment in the temple. The implication, however, seems to slip past us: namely, if we teach that women will someday be priestesses, we mean, by the very definition of the term, that they will also receive the priesthood. Just as you cannot be a priest without having priesthood, you also cannot be a priestess without having priesthood. Linguistically, the relationship is similar to parent and parenthood. If you are a parent, you also experience parenthood. Therefore, according to what is taught in the temple, at some point in the hereafter, women will not be banned from holding the priesthood. This implication of our temple terminology should give us pause. 

President Joseph Fielding Smith, the tenth President of the Church, stated, “It is within the privilege of the sisters of this Church to receive exaltation in the kingdom of God and receive authority and power as queens and priestesses.”[39] Taken literally, this means that in the celestial kingdom, women will have priesthood, or “priestesshood,” if we want to be nitpicky. They will be priestesses. They will have authority. But what does this even mean? What does a priestess do that is different from what a priest does? To my knowledge, this office has never been defined, which is too often the case with words we use frequently and simply assume everyone understands.

At a minimum, since these two sets of titles—king and queen, priest and priestess—are listed as pairs, we can probably assume that they are parallel in meaning. Kings and queens rule, priests and priestesses officiate in rituals, or ordinances, perhaps in a manner similar to what we see in the temple. So, do women have the priesthood in this life? In the temple, they seem to, although there is no ordination involved. Of course, we have no evidence that prophets such as Abinadi and Alma received authority through ordination, so ordaining may be only one way in which authority can be bestowed. In our modern context, ordination by the laying on of hands is the generally approved pattern, but perhaps we should ask if someone can have authority to officiate in a sacred ordinance without having been ordained to do so. It appears this is exactly what is happening in the temple. But for consistency’s sake, perhaps we ought to rethink this aberration. 

Traditionally, a priest (or a priestess) is someone who stands between God and his children by officiating in sacred rituals. In the temple, women are thus functioning as de facto priestesses without what we (perhaps incorrectly?) consider a necessity—ordination. Should this oversight be corrected? Since ordination is considered necessary in the modern Church to exercise priesthood authority, should female temple workers be ordained? Temple workers are set apart for their callings, but only men receive a priesthood ordination in order to perform the duties of this priestly calling. A man who does not hold the priesthood cannot officiate in temple ordinances; in fact, he cannot even enter the temple. Women, by contrast, are not only permitted to enter the temple, but they can also officiate in priesthood ordinances without an ordination. So, the logical question is, if women will be priestesses in the hereafter and will receive, we must assume, an ordination to that office, why are they not permitted to receive this ordination here, since many of them are already acting as de facto priestesses? This question has not been answered satisfactorily. A related question has also never been answered: If women can officiate in temple ordinances through the priesthood keys held by the temple president, why could not an unordained but righteous man do the same? 

The 1978 Revelation and Temple Service 

Much has been written about the priesthood ban and the 1978 revelation that ended it, but my wife, through her studies, became aware of a question that has not received much attention. Why did the priesthood ban prevent baptized black men and women (and boys and girls) from entering the temple to perform baptisms for the dead? Apparently, the only consistent requirements for serving as a proxy in this ordinance are having been baptized and living a righteous life. Prior to 1978, young nonblack women who did not hold the priesthood were allowed to serve as proxies in being baptized for the dead. If priesthood was not required for their participation in these ordinances, why, then, were faithful blacks not permitted to enter the temple and be baptized for their deceased ancestors?[40]

We might also ask why, to this day, young men who are not ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood are not permitted to serve as proxies in these vicarious baptisms. It makes sense that to serve as proxy, a person would need to be baptized. But what does being given the Aaronic Priesthood have to do with being baptized for someone else? There is no apparent connection, especially since young women can be baptized vicariously without the priesthood. In this case, there is actually a reverse inequality. For example, a young man, a baptized member whose non-LDS father has forbidden him from being ordained to the priesthood, is not permitted by the Church to go to the temple and serve as proxy in baptisms for the dead, while his sister is permitted to do so. This policy makes little sense. Restricting participation to those age twelve and above, when baptism itself can occur at age eight, is also difficult to understand. 

Taking this a step further, since faithful nonblack women (who did not hold the priesthood) were permitted to receive their endowments prior to 1978, why were faithful black men and women not permitted to receive their endowments? The lack of priesthood was not a barrier, apparently, for nonblack women. The Church does have a very vague tradition, dating back to Joseph Smith, that women somehow (though not by ordination) receive the priesthood through the endowment,[41] but if that were the case, why do we not acknowledge that priesthood in the everyday Church? Apparently, this is a doctrine that has been abandoned over the years. And so we are again in no-man’s-land: we have a requirement that males must hold the priesthood to participate in any ordinances in the temple, but women are not so restricted. Black women prior to June 1978, however, were not permitted to receive temple ordinances for themselves or to serve as proxies in vicarious ordinances, almost as if they were being told they should have had the priesthood, since the priesthood ban was what was keeping them out of the temple. But, of course, nonblack women were allowed to participate in temple ordinances without the priesthood. 

This seeming cauldron of confusion regarding priesthood and temple policies both past and present stems almost entirely from one of the first notions introduced in the first article in this two-part series—that the Mormon priesthood is unique in all the world of religion in that it is an abstract concept, a power or authority one can hold separate from any priestly function in performing rituals or ordinances. Indeed, as pointed out in the previous section, in the case of temple ordinances we have the unique situation where individuals perform priestly functions without any official priesthood ordination.

Since 1978, of course, my wife’s question has become moot. Members with black African heritage are able to participate in all temple ordinances. But other questions, both those suggested above and others beyond the scope of this study, remain unanswered. Perhaps we need to take a lesson from President Spencer W. Kimball about persisting in seeking answers until we receive them. Even though I am a white male who grew up in the LDS Church, President Kimball’s dogged determination has played a significant role in my own life. 

A Little Personal History, Followed by a Personal Perspective 

I have a confession to make. I grew up a racist. No, I wasn’t a member of the junior Ku Klux Klan. But I grew up in North Ogden, Utah, a very Mormon suburb of Ogden. I attended Weber High School. There was not one black student in the entire school of 1,500 students. We had maybe three or four Asian-Americans, a couple of Native Americans, and perhaps a couple of Hispanics (I don’t think either of them spoke Spanish). We did have a few genuine cowboys, but that’s another ethnic category altogether. In short, this was a very, very Caucasian school. Lily white. The student body came from the suburbs north of Ogden, the farming communities west of Ogden, and the frozen villages over the mountains in Ogden Valley where David O. McKay grew up. To my knowledge, I did not meet a black person until I played high school basketball against Bonneville High, and even then my only interaction with my black opponent was maybe a foul or two. We didn’t strike up a conversation during free throws. So I grew up believing the racial stereotypes that prevailed in a school such as Weber in the early 1970s. And I am not too proud to admit that I likely used a racial slur or two. This was simply the culture I grew up in. It was based on ignorance. 

Then I was called on a mission to Germany. In my second assignment, we had a black member in the ward. He was a sweet, humble man from the Ivory Coast who accepted the fact that he couldn’t hold the priesthood. He impressed me, even though he spoke very meager German and English. Later, in my fourth assignment, my companion and I were street contacting in the city one day and spoke with a blond haired German farmer who told us we could visit him at his home. We bicycled out into the countryside east of town one day and found an ancient farmhouse with an attached barn and a heavy thatched roof. We knocked on the door, and Hans invited us in. He then introduced us to his wife, Josephine, who hailed from Ghana. What a shock. As it turned out, he was as spiritually alive as a piece of petrified wood. She was very interested in our message. So we began teaching them, and soon Josephine told us she had some friends who would be interested. 

Her friends were Leo and his wife (whose name I can’t remember). They were from Nigeria, and Leo was attending the university in Hamburg. Leo was perhaps the most Christlike man I had ever met. I knew instantly that he was a better Christian than I would ever be. He was intensely interested in our message and soon developed a conviction that Joseph Smith was a prophet. This was 1977. We knew we were not supposed to actively proselytize black people, so we were careful in our teaching. I counseled with the mission president a couple of times. I remember two things he said. First, “Elder Terry, I’m glad this is your problem and not mine.” I think he meant this simply as a vote of confidence that I would handle the situation with care. Second, “Whatever you do, don’t offend the Lord.” Well, that gave me something to think about.

We taught our three black investigators slowly and carefully, and we eventually reached the point where we had to tell them about the priesthood ban. I think the most difficult day of my mission was the day I had to tell Leo that he couldn’t hold the priesthood. He took it hard and wanted to know why. So we opened up the Pearl of Great Price and read a bit. We tried to explain how he and his people had been fence-sitters in the premortal world. We taught him about the blood of Cain that he obviously had running through his veins and the curse that attended it. In other words, we taught him all the standard LDS rationales for the priesthood ban. And everything we taught him was false. 

Fast forward now a little more than a year into the future. It is June 1978, and I am teaching German-speaking missionaries at the MTC (it may have still been called the LTM at that point). One day, after teaching, I bounced on over to the teachers’ lounge. As I was entering the building, another teacher passed me and said, somewhat excitedly, “Have you heard the news? Blacks can have the priesthood.” Something in the way he said it made me think he was joking. I replied, “That’s not funny.” He insisted, “No, I’m serious. President Kimball’s had a revelation.” I ran out to my car and turned on the radio, and of course it was the only thing everyone was talking about. I sat there in that hot car and wept. I wept for the change, and I wept for Leo. 

Fast forward again to 2007. I had been working for BYU Studies for just over a year. I was reading Ed Kimball’s biography of his father’s years as Church president, Lengthen Your Stride. But I wasn’t reading the Deseret Book version. I was reading the longer account that was on the CD pocketed inside the back cover. BYU Studies had edited and prepared the CD. In that version, I found four chapters describing in great detail the history of the priesthood ban and the events surrounding the revelation. Ed had access to his father’s journals, so this was possibly the most complete and moving version of these events that will ever be written. I said to myself, “We need to get this out where people will read it.” I knew few would take time to read the longer version of the book on the CD. So I combined those four chapters into a long article, worked with Ed to make sure he was happy with it, and published it in BYU Studies as “Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood.”[42] It is an incredible account and is available free for download at the BYU Studies website. 

Over the years, as I have studied and contemplated the reason it took so long for this change to come, I, along with others, have reached the conclusion that it did not come earlier because, essentially, the Church wasn’t ready for it. The members, not the Lord, were quite likely the reason for the delay. David O. McKay prayed about this issue frequently during his administration and was eventually told, “with no discussion, not to bring the subject up with the Lord again; that the time will come, but it will not be my time, and to leave the subject alone.”[43] My own suspicion is that there were too many Mormons who shared the culturally embedded racism that I grew up with. It was only after the hard-fought gains made through the civil rights movement that much of this racism dissipated. My views changed because of Josephine and Leo. By 1978, enough Latter-day Saints were ready for the change that there were celebrations in the streets and many prayers of gratitude from Saints in all walks of life. The Church, as a whole, was ready in 1978.[44]

So, what does this have to do with the other priesthood ban, the one preventing women from receiving the priesthood? Obviously there are differences. As mentioned earlier, there is actually more positive scriptural basis (if interpreted a certain way) for denying blacks the priesthood. The scriptural evidence against ordaining women is mostly negative—in other words, an absence of evidence, although that absence is now being questioned by some very good scholarship.[45] But women, like blacks, have had to wage a long battle to achieve the rights and privileges and equalities they now enjoy in American society. Society has changed dramatically. 

Now, let me be perfectly clear on this. I am not advocating that women be ordained to the priesthood. I have no reason to do so. What I am advocating is that we keep an open mind, much as President Spencer W. Kimball did regarding blacks and the priesthood, and that we do our homework, just as President Kimball and others did. An article that every Latter-day Saint ought to read is historian Craig Harline’s 2013 Hickman Lecture, “What Happened to My Bell-Bottoms?: How Things That Were Never Going to Change Have Sometimes Changed Anyway, and How Studying History Can Help Us Make Sense of It All,” delivered at BYU on March 14, 2013.[46] Harline puts change in historical context and shows just how wrong we usually are when we assume some things will never change. 

As members of a church that believes in ongoing revelation, we should never hold the attitude that things can’t change. President Kimball showed us how flimsy that argument is. I often wonder how much earlier the 1978 revelation might have come if Church members had been more open to change. In this context, I believe the only appropriate answer to the question “How would you feel if the prophet announced that women will be able to receive the priesthood?” is “I would be delighted.” The answer “He would never announce such a change” is restricting the prophet in ways the Lord might not choose to restrict him. Who are we to tell the Lord what he can and cannot do? I think we often do that unwittingly by assuming we know more than we do. I have come to the point where I would welcome such a change, if it came about through the appropriate channels. As these two articles have demonstrated, I hope, our understanding of priesthood is not perfect. It is a complex topic that still holds many inconsistencies and perplexities. We don’t have it all figured out, even though we sometimes speak as though we do. We should be wiser. 

---

[1] Immo Luschin, “Ordinances,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 3:1032. 

[2] Robert L. Millet, Camille Fronk Olson, Andrew C. Skinner, and Brent L. Top, LDS Beliefs: A Doctrinal Reference (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), 464. 

[3] Gregory A. Prince, Power from On High: The Development of Mormon Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), 79.

[4] See, for instance, The Pearl of Great Price: Being a Selection from the Revelation, Translations and Narrations of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Latter-day Saint Printing and Publishing Establishment, 1878), 63. For a detailed description of the textual change, see Lyndon W. Cook, “The Articles of Faith,” BYU Studies Quarterly 17, no. 2 (1977): 254–56. 

[5] See Jonathan A. Stapley and Kristine Wright, “Female Ritual Healing in Mormonism,” Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 1 (2011): 1–85. Female participation in the priesthood ordinance of blessing the sick still occurs, though rarely. Stapley and Wright relate an incident in September 1979, when Elders Bruce R. McConkie and Marion D. Hanks were called to the bedside of President Spencer W. Kimball after his first surgery for a subdural hematoma. Elder McConkie invited President Kimball’s wife, Camilla, to join them in laying hands on her husband’s head during the blessing (84). A similar occurrence was related to me by an elderly high priest whom I home taught and who served earlier in his life in a stake presidency. He said that once, when giving a blessing to a family member, he laid his hands on the afflicted person’s head, but his mind went blank. He then had a strong impression that his wife was to join him in the ordinance. He invited her to lay her hands on the family member’s head, and when she did, the stupor of thought left him, and he was able to proceed with the blessing.

[6] See Prince, Power from On High, 108–09.

[7] In part 1 of this pair of articles, on page twenty-six, I mistakenly stated that the word priesthood first appears in early Church documents in October 1831. The word actually appeared in the minutes of a June 3–4 conference, indicating that several men were “ordained to the High Priesthood,” meaning they were ordained high priests. The point, though, is still valid. Priesthood was not on Joseph’s radar at the organization of the Church or for at least a year afterward. See Michael Hubbard MacKay and others, eds., Documents, Volume 1: July 1828–June 1831, the Joseph Smith Papers (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2013), 326–27. 

[8] As I explained in the previous article, men were ordained to offices, but they did not receive priesthood. Just as in the Book of Mormon, there were elders (Joseph and Oliver were first and second elders but were not ordained such), priests, and teachers. Later, biblical offices were added: deacon and bishop. But priesthood, as was explained in the previous article, was not a concept yet, other than meaning the state of being a priest. 

[9] Orson Hyde, “Priesthood What Is It,” The Prophet, May 25, 1844, 3.

[10] D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 7–8.

[11] See William V. Smith, “Early Mormon Priesthood Revelations: Text, Impact, and Evolution,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 46, no. 4 (2013): 1–84, especially 13–19 and 46–48.

[12] Three if you count the early effort by Emma Smith and some members of the Quorum of the Anointed to promote William Marks, president of the Nauvoo high council and an opponent of polygamy, as Joseph’s successor. This effort was nipped in the bud before the entire Quorum of the Twelve returned to Nauvoo. See Merina Smith, Revelation, Resistance, and Mormon Polygamy: The Introduction and Implementation of the Principle, 1830–1853 (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2013), 186. 

[13] Sidney Rigdon, who likely suffered from bipolar disorder, would have been a poor choice to lead the Church had his claim succeeded, an assessment his son John Wycliffe Rigdon agreed with. “I do not think the Church made any mistake in placing the leadership on Brigham Young,” he wrote. “Sidney Rigdon had no executive ability, was broken down with sickness, and could not have taken charge of the Church at that time. . . . The task would have been too great for Father. I have no fault to find with the Church with doing what they did. It was the best thing they could have done under the circumstances” (quoted in Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994], 360. See pages 116–18 for a discussion of Rigdon’s mental health). 

[14] It is interesting to note, as Michael Quinn has point out, that before 1847, the First Presidency of the Church was not an apostolic quorum (Mormon Hierarchy, 37–38). Four of Joseph’s counselors (Gause, Rigdon, Williams, and Law) did not come from among the Twelve, nor were they ever ordained apostles. Amasa Lyman was ordained an apostle and took Orson Pratt’s place in the Quorum of the Twelve when Pratt was excommunicated. When Pratt was reinstated, Lyman was bumped from the quorum but was made a counselor in the First Presidency. Two of Joseph’s assistant presidents (Cowdery and Hyrum Smith) were ordained apostles but never served in the Quorum of the Twelve. Assistant President John C. Bennett was not ordained an apostle. After Joseph’s death, the First Presidency became an apostolic quorum. All members of the First Presidency (with one exception noted below) either came from the Quorum of the Twelve or were ordained apostles shortly before or after their call to the presidency. J. Reuben Clark Jr. and Alvin R. Dyer, for instance, never served in the Quorum of the Twelve, but they were ordained apostles. Clark served in the First Presidency for eighteen months before being ordained an apostle. Dyer was ordained an apostle in October 1967 but was not added to the Quorum of the Twelve. In April 1968, he became an additional counselor to President David O. McKay, serving with first counselor Hugh B. Brown, second counselor N. Eldon Tanner, and additional counselor Thorpe B. Isaacson, the only counselor since 1847 who was never ordained an apostle.

[15] See Dallin H. Oaks, “The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood,” Apr. 2014, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/the-keys-and authority-of-the-priesthood?lang=eng.

[16] Sarah M. Kimball, “Auto-Biography,” Woman’s Exponent 12, no. 7 (Sept. 1, 1883): 51.

[17] Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Church Adjusts Mission Organization to Implement ‘Mission Leadership Council,’” Apr. 5, 2013, http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/ church-adjusts-mission-organization-implement-mission-leadership-council. 

[18] I heard recently of a mission in which the mission president organized an entire zone of female missionaries, complete with female district and zone leaders. It is significant to note that these female leaders did not preside over any male missionaries. 

[19] The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” Ensign, Nov. 2010, 129, available at https://www. lds.org/topics/family-proclamation. 

[20] Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1968), 286–87. Father, Consider Your Ways, a pamphlet published by the Quorum of the Twelve in 1973, concurs: “Fatherhood is leadership, the most important kind of leadership. It has always been so; it always will be so. Father, with the assistance and counsel and encouragement of your eternal companion, you preside in the home” (4–5, quoted in Ezra Taft Benson, “To the Fathers in Israel,” Oct. 1987, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1987/10/to-the-fathers-in israel?lang=eng). See also Dallin H. Oaks, “Priesthood Authority in the Family and the Church,” Oct. 2005, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2005/10/ priesthood-authority-in-the-family-and-the-church?lang=eng, where Elder Oaks explains why his single mother presided in the home even when he was ordained a deacon.

[21] Many of the duties associated today with Aaronic Priesthood offices evolved over time and were not institutionalized until as late as the 1950s. Of course, at one time, youth were not given the priesthood at all, and adult men were ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood offices. For a recounting of the evolution of the Aaronic Priesthood and a listing of current priesthood duties that do not actually require the priesthood, passing the sacrament among them, see William G. Hartley, “From Men to Boys: LDS Aaronic Priesthood Offices, 1829–1996,” Journal of Mormon History 22, no. 1 (1996): 117–18, 129–31. This article is reprinted in William G. Hartley, My Fellow Servants: Essays on the History of the Priesthood (Provo: BYU Studies, 2010), 37–86. Hartley quotes President Heber J. Grant saying that “there was ‘no rule in the Church’ that only priesthood bearers could carry the sacrament to the congregation after it was blessed” (130).

[22] Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 527.

[23] Some would bring up the general auxiliary presidents in this context, but the Relief Society general president no longer presides over the Churchwide Relief Society. Ward Relief Society presidents are presided over by their bishops, not, I should add, by their stake Relief Society presidents. This fruit of correlation creates the strange situation in which we have presidents who do not preside. General and stake auxiliary presidents function more in the mode of consultants, not file leaders.

[24] It is tempting to render this idiom “no-woman’s-land” here, but I’m sure any attempt at either humor or political correctness would be offensive to someone, so I will resist the temptation. By the same token, “no-man’s-land” will probably offend others, so I’m in a no-win situation. Nevertheless, the term is exactly right, regardless of its sexist overtones, so I will use it.

[25] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, Apr. 28, 1842, 36, The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief society-minute-book/33. 

[26] Ibid., 37, The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book/34. 

[27] History of the Church, 4:608.

[28] In the earliest days, Joseph Smith did marry already-married women, but this practice did not prevail after the Saints arrived in the Salt Lake Valley and eventually acknowledged publicly their practice of plural marriage. 

[29] Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, s.v. “preside” and “president.”

[30] L. Tom Perry, “Fatherhood, an Eternal Calling,” Apr. 2004, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2004/04/fatherhood-an-eternal-calling?lang=eng. 

[31] Perry, “Fatherhood,” quoting The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Father, Consider Your Ways: A Message from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (pamphlet, 1973), reprinted in Ensign, June 2002, https://www.lds.org/ ensign/2002/06/father-consider-your-ways?lang=eng.

[32] Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, s.v. “president” and “preside.”

[33] Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, and Steven C. Harper, eds., Manuscript Revelation Books, facsimile edition, Revelations and Translations, vol. 1, The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2009), 217. 

[34] See David L. Paulsen and Martin Pulido, “‘A Mother There’: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven,” BYU Studies 50, no. 1 (2011): 70–97. This article runs the gamut on what Church leaders have said about Mother in Heaven. All of it is simply conjecture. None of it is revelation. Significantly, the most definitive statement is by George Q. Cannon: “There is too much of this inclination to deify ‘our mother in heaven.’ . . . Our Father in heaven should be the object of our worship. He will not have any divided worship. . . . In the revelation of God the Eternal Father to the Prophet Joseph Smith there was no revelation of the feminine element as part of the Godhead, and no idea was conveyed that any such element ‘was equal in power and glory with the masculine.’ Therefore, we are warranted in pronouncing all tendencies to glorify the feminine element and to exalt it as part of the Godhead as wrong and untrue, not only because of the revelation of the Lord in our day but because it has no warrant in scripture, and any attempt to put such a construction on the word of God is false and erroneous” (George Q. Cannon, Gospel Truth: Discourses and Writings of President George Q. Cannon, compiled by Jerreld L. Newquist, 2 vols. [Salt Lake City: Zion’s Book Store, 1957], 1:135–36, quoted in Paulsen and Pulido, 78). This sobering little reminder is significant because Cannon is right. We really do have no revelation from God on this subject, and we have no revelation telling us why he has been so silent about his supposed female counterpart. So, without such a revelation, we really are shooting in the dark here.

[35] See D. Todd Christofferson, “The Moral Force of Women,” Oct. 2013, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/the-moral-force-of women?lang=eng. The examples I mentioned above are not some sort of nebulous moral authority. They are official, nonpriesthood forms of institutional authority. 

[36] Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, Mar. 31, 1842, 22, The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book/19.

[37] Ibid., Apr. 28, 1842, 36, The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmith papers.org/paper-summary/nauvoo-relief-society-minute-book/33. 

[38] Donald Q. Cannon, Larry E. Dahl, and John W. Welch, “The Restoration of Major Doctrines through Joseph Smith: Priesthood, the Word of God, and the Temple,” Ensign, Feb. 1989, https://www.lds.org/ensign/1989/02/the-restoration-of-major-doctrines-through-joseph-smith-priesthood-the word-of-god-and-the-temple?lang=eng.

[39] Joseph Fielding Smith, “Relief Society—an Aid to the Priesthood,” Relief Society Magazine, Jan. 1959, 5–6.

[40] Apparently, there was one notable exception to this rule. Jane Manning James, a black member known well to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, was permitted to perform baptisms for the dead but was repeatedly denied the opportunity to receive her endowment. See John G. Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 229.

[41] See, for instance, Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy, 36–37.

[42] Edward L. Kimball, “Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood,” BYU Studies 47, no. 2 (2008): 5–78. Available for download at https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/spencer-w-kimball-and-revelation-priesthood. 

[43] Church architect Richard Jackson, quoted in Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005), 104. 

[44] Eugene England called for Latter-day Saints to prepare and pray for the priesthood ban to be lifted. See his “The Mormon Cross,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (1973): 78–86.

[45] See, for instance, Cory Crawford, “The Struggle for Female Authority in Biblical and Mormon Theology,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 48, no. 2 (2015): 1–66. 

[46] Craig Harline, “What Happened to My Bell-Bottoms?: How Things That Were Never Going to Change Have Sometimes Changed Anyway, and How Studying History Can Help Us Make Sense of It All,” BYU Studies Quarterly 52, no. 4 (2013): 49–79. Available for download at https://byustudies.byu.edu/ content/what-happened-my-bell-bottoms-how-things-that-were-never-going change-have-sometimes-changed.

[post_title] => Authority and Priesthood in the LDS Church, Part 2: Ordinances, Quorums, Nonpriesthood Authority, Presiding, Priestesses, and Priesthood Bans [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.1 (Spring 2018): 167–180
In the prequel to this article, I discussed in general contours the dual nature of authority—individual and institutional—and how the modern LDS concept of priesthood differs significantly from the ancient version in that it has become an abstract form of authority that can be “held” (or withheld, as the case might be). [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => authority-and-priesthood-in-the-lds-church-part-2-ordinances-quorums-nonpriesthood-authority-presiding-priestesses-and-priesthood-bans [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-04-30 13:54:17 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-04-30 13:54:17 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=19114 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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Because for a very long time the office of high priestess had been forgotten and her characteristic features were nowhere indicated, I bethought myself day after day. The appointed time arrived, the doors were opened for me. Indeed I set my eyes on the ancient stele of Nebuchadnezzar . . . on which was depicted an image of the high priestess. . . . I carefully looked into the old clay and wooden tablets and did exactly as in the olden days.

Nabonidus, King of Babylon[1]

In every century including our own, history records women exercising leadership in Christian communities, and in every century that leadership has been contested, beginning in the early church and continuing through contemporary battles over the ordination and ministry of women.

Karen King[2]

The introductory heading to the canonized 1978 First Presidency letter announcing the end of the racial ban on black males’ priesthood ordination cites Second Nephi to frame the revelatory text that follows: “The Book of Mormon teaches that ‘all are alike unto God,’ including ‘black and white, bond and free, male and female’ (2 Nephi 26:33).”[3] It goes on to note that “during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, a few black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. Early in its history, Church leaders stopped conferring the priesthood on black males of African descent.” Although “Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice,” this and other recent public statements on the topic of the racial priesthood ban bear the traces of the careful historical inquiry of the past fifty years.[4]This work, like the scriptural citation, demonstrates a “native” textual and historical LDS solution to a social problem that had been building for decades in the Church.

Although race and gender are connected in 2 Nephi 26:33, the historical origins of the gender ban have not yet been addressed with the same degree of attention in Church discourse.[5] The recent statements made by the Church on the racial priesthood ban strongly emphasize the impact nineteenth-century US racial politics had on the development of the priesthood ban for members of African descent,[6] but no such discussion of culture and gender politics has yet been addressed in Church publications on gender and priesthood. The most one can say is that recent statements have emphasized the unknown reasons for, but clear evidence of, the prohibition on women holding the priesthood. In a recent interview with the BBC, for instance, managing director of LDS Public Affairs Michael Otterson cited the absence of precedent as the reason women are not ordained in the Church: “Holding offices such as Bishop and Apostle—there is no scriptural precedent for that, and so we don’t ordain women to those positions.”[7] What is striking about the recent official LDS appeal to scriptural silence is that it appears to ignore the most polemic passages, such as 1 Tim 2:8–15 (“no woman . . . [has] authority over a man”) and Gen 3:16 (“[Adam] shall rule over [Eve]”) as precedents for a gendered priesthood ban. Thus it may signal the emergence of a parallel with LDS discourse about race, in which appeals to scripture and tradition were replaced with similar expressions of agnosis.[8] Continued attention to scriptural precedent and discourses of gender, as well as to the best recent scholarship on this issue, seem warranted, especially in the absence of detailed official commentary on the matter.[9] Scholarly investigation of the cultural context of racial concepts of priesthood has done much to shed light on the origin and development of the racial priesthood ban, and it is toward the understanding of the same for the gender ban that I direct my efforts in this study. 

Interrogating the Bible, however, is not simply a matter of one-to-one mapping from biblical norms to modern practice, even when one accounts for the differences between biblical and LDS priest hoods. Any study of the textual legacy of LDS canon (including the Bible) necessarily begins with the observation of the exclusively male perspective represented in its content, production, selection, and transmission. Indeed, as scholars have shown repeatedly, the Bible is thoroughly and perhaps inescapably androcentric, and in this respect the expanded Mormon canon is not different.[10] If we had nothing further from the scriptures to discuss on the subject of women, this fact alone would be sufficient to ask whether we can be sure not only whether women were ordained in Old or New Testament times, but whether we should even expect a record of such. There is indeed much positive evidence to discuss, but every text is thoroughly affected by this one overarching observation, since it limits our ability not only to make a scriptural claim about any single woman, but also to reconstruct accurately a spectrum of gender relations in the world of the Bible. 

Related to this is the fact that although women arguably are never explicitly declared inferior as a sex in the Bible or in the extended LDS canon, both are replete with texts that declare women’s subordinate status through violence, political and legal structures, access to worship, control over fate and property, and general assumptions and outlook. Most scholarly commentators on the subject casually label the Bible and its underlying society as patriarchal.[11] Women’s agency is not everywhere restricted in these texts, but is often severely limited, especially in public spheres. Although it is important not to let the overarching androcentrism of scripture strip the texts of nuance and complexity, these observations are important for establishing a backdrop against which to contrast the texts that do show female ecclesiastical agency, even over men, since they swim against the current, so to speak, of the bulk of scriptural tradition. In such a thoroughly androcentric text, the women who occupy roles apparently reserved only for men demand greater hermeneutical attention rather than casual dismissal. Awareness of the elite androcentric authorship cautions against mapping biblical texts directly and uncritically onto our picture of the world of the Hebrew Bible and enhances the texts in which women do exercise authority in roles Latter-day Saints understand to require priesthood ordination.

Biblical scholarship will never yield Bibles full of women. Nonetheless, closer scrutiny and improved methods in this expanding field have shown a remarkable and often overlooked tradition of female authority. Further, critical attention to the history of Biblical interpretation has revealed two and a half millennia of repeated efforts to suppress traditions of female authority and to present misogynistic readings as normative. Most modern appeals to biblical precedent on this subject fail to account and adjust for the cultural medium and biases by which that precedent was established. Reconstructing a world based on a thoroughly androcentric text produces a thoroughly androcentric world.[12] Recognizing this, biblical scholars like Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza have largely abandoned the attempt to recover a robustly egalitarian ministry between the pages of the text partly because it results in the misguided search for pristine origins that conform to the observer’s desired view of the future.[13] Instead Schüssler Fiorenza focuses, as I will here, on possibilities opened by historical accounts in which the struggle between egalitarianism and hierarchy is visible, thereby reveal ing a past not so dissonant with the present.[14] Attention to the implicit and explicit evidence of struggle within the text has the potential to inform current discourses.[15]

This stance also allows one to maintain a commitment to scripture while mitigating or neutralizing its more pernicious passages and interpretations. In any case, Michael Otterson’s assertion of no female ordination in the Bible and the professed agnosis about the reasons for such invite a deeper exploration of the scriptural evidence within its social and textual environment. Furthermore, the Mormon destabilization of biblical inerrancy opens unique space for the incorporation of alternative readings and for the integration of the voluminous body of research on the role gender and power played in ancient Israel and in early Christianity.[16] The LDS tradition provides robust resources for telling new stories, for going, as did Nabonidus, back to the texts, for (re)new(ed) understandings of old ways. 

Thus disclosing instances of women occupying authoritative religious roles is not the end of the investigation. Discussions about priesthood also must consider the way in which narratives are assembled, shaped, and revised, and to what ends. Not only does the biblical evidence demonstrate clear precedent for female authority (understood as priesthood in the LDS tradition), it also shows how priesthood traditions were created, repackaged, contested, and combined to come to new understandings or to make sense of social dissonance. It is this process of constructing tradition that is my ultimate focus here. To use Schüssler Fiorenza’s metaphor, the role of this inquiry is not so much to uncover an objective reality, but rather to take the patches and fragments and assemble therefrom a quilt or a mosaic image of the past.[17] Given the clear existence of multiple and contradictory precedents in the Bible, to appeal to any text as precedent is to engage in a process of selection and suppression, to highlight one and neutralize another. As we shall see, coming to new understandings through careful readings and retellings of even fragmentary old texts is itself not just a hallmark of ancient ways of thinking about priesthood but is also inscribed within the earliest strata of LDS tradition and practice. Coming to new views of dimly lit texts—especially about priesthood—is a quintessentially Mormon practice.

In the following, I investigate what the Bible has to say to Latter day Saints about gendered priesthood and, equally important, how it says it. I update the discussion of scriptural evidence on the basis of new scholarly work and also attend to evidence from LDS scripture not discussed in prior analyses.[18] I pay attention to the way the Bible shapes and configures priesthood through the formation, revision, and interpretation of narratives. I also look in greater detail at what is meant by ordination, including ritual practices, in an LDS context. I conclude by asking whether the dissonance that emerges between recent discussions and scriptural tradition can be resolved within the parameters of LDS theology. 

Defining Priesthood in an LDS Context 

Before moving to a discussion of evidence of women holding positions of priesthood authority in the biblical texts, it is necessary to have a sense of the expansive Latter-day Saint definition of priesthood, which extends well beyond the usual sense of a limited class of religious functionaries authorized to govern ecclesiastical communities and administer rituals thereof. A basic, current, Mormon definition of priesthood is “the power and authority of God delegated to man on earth to act in all things for the salvation of mankind.”[19] The term “priesthood” includes several related concepts: power, authority to wield the power, and the right to preside.[20] Few aspects of LDS belief are described in more elevated language than priesthood. In D&C 84:20–22 Joseph Smith revealed that “in the ordinances [of the priesthood], the power of godliness is manifest. And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh; for without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live.” In a Nauvoo sermon, Smith called priesthood “the channel through which all knowledge, doctrine, the plan of salvation, and every important matter is revealed from heaven,”[21] and declared, “the Priesthood is an everlasting principle, and existed with God from eternity, and will to eternity, without beginning of days or end of years.”[22] The LDS canon links priesthood to the foundation of the world: “the Lord God ordained priests, after his holy order . . . to teach these things unto the people. And those priests were . . . called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God” (Alma 13:1–3; cf. Abraham 1:3). A priesthood bearer wielding authority serves in persona Christi, as Elder Boyd K. Packer said: “When priesthood authority is exercised properly, priesthood bearers do what [Christ] would do if He were present.”[23] To “hold” the priesthood in Mormon parlance is to be ordained to a priesthood office, through which power to act in certain capacities at church and in private is granted. Unlike other Christian denominations, in which men and, increasingly, women take orders in what is comparable to a lifelong vocational decision, in the LDS tradition priesthood power is conferred on every male who meets the age and worthiness requirements as approved by local priesthood leadership. Thus priesthood reaches into every family structure, at least ideally, and has been described by some leaders as of greatest importance in the home. Elder Packer recited in the same 2010 talk the statement of President Joseph F. Smith: “In the home the presiding authority is always vested in the father, and in all home affairs and family matters there is no other authority paramount. . . . The father presides at the table, at prayer, and gives general directions relating to his family life.”[24] Although LDS leaders have drawn some distinctions between priesthood rights and responsibilities in the home and in the Church, it is clear from this brief description that priesthood is understood as the governing force of both. Elder Oaks expressed the situation in terms of an ordered structure: “the government of the family is patriarchal, whereas the government of the Church is hierarchical.”[25]

Priesthood is the beating heart of Church ministry and governance. According to the publicly available Handbook 2, “through the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood, Church leaders guide the Church, direct the preaching of the gospel throughout the world, and administer all the spiritual work of the Church. The President of the Church is the presiding high priest over the Melchizedek Priesthood.”[26] Not only is priesthood understood to be the authority by which the Church is governed, the Melchizedek priesthood is the centerpiece of the organization, being defined in opposition to its “auxiliaries”: “The Young Men, Relief Society, Young Women, Primary, and Sunday School organizations are auxiliaries to the priesthood.”[27] A key component of priesthood, then, is agency—the power to act: to govern, preside, direct, create, administer, and so on.[28] In the discussion of biblical texts below, I will therefore pay particular attention to those instances in which female cultic agency is manifest, since it is this type of agency that is at the heart of priesthood in Mormonism.[29] Finally, when it comes to the current official LDS discourse about priesthood, I will restrict my comments to the statements made about scriptural bases for gender restrictions, though it is important to note that LDS leaders use a variety of approaches, including scriptural appeals, to talk about the reason for the ban on female priesthood ordination.[30] I hope this essay will contribute to the vitality of the ongoing discussion by charting important moments in the struggle for authority manifest in scripture and, especially, by outlining some of the scriptural resources for new approaches to power and gender in Mormon theology. 

The Struggle for Authority in the Old Testament 

Eve, Adam, and Gender Hierarchies 

The Bible makes no statement either on differences between genders or on the essence of female identity. One finds no labeling of specific activities as “women’s work,” no description of innate qualities bestowed upon the sexes, and certainly no direct appeal to eternal gender roles. That is not to say, however, that divisions between sexes were not performed or practically understood or that women were not subordinated in Israelite or Greco-Roman text and society; for most intents and purposes, it suffices to note that ancient Israel inherited the ubiquitous patriarchal culture of its region.[31] But there is no explicit theological or theoretical paradigm describing female capacities as the result of divine forethought, much less a rationale given for women being shut out of political and religious hierarchies.[32] As Tikva Frymer-Kensky put it, “the Bible presents no characteristics of human behavior as ‘female’ or ‘male,’ no division of attributes between the poles of ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine.’ The metaphysics of gender unity . . . is also expressed in the biblical creation stories.”[33] Some biblical scholars have revised the androcentric interpretations of the Eden narrative, showing that in the context of the narrative itself gender unity appears to be the norm even though the androcentrism of the intervening traditions of interpretation often want it otherwise.[34] Others, however, have criticized the idea of biblical gender unity on the basis of the social expectations of the ancient Israelite audience, pointing out that, as is seen in the prevalence of misogynistic interpretations over the course of millennia, an egalitarian reception of the story would constitute an unlikely exception.[35] A closer look at these stories provides backdrop for scriptural politics of gender also in an LDS context. 

The ambivalence of the Hebrew Bible on the question of natural gender hierarchies is apparent from the first chapters of Genesis, which narrate not one but two creation stories, a doubling recognized at least tacitly since antiquity. These stories, which ultimately derive from different authors, present fundamentally different pictures of the creation of the sexes. Even though they appear to have had little influence in the Old Testament after Genesis 5, they constitute a—if not the—textual site of gender struggle in Judeo-Christian contexts from pre-New Testament interpretation right through to modernity, including Mormonism. Gen 1:26–27 tells how humans were created “male and female,” after the animals, dominating (together) the world order in the image of God who was himself at the top of the universal order. The grammatical plurals used to speak of the divine in these verses, coupled with the ambiguous number of the noun ĕlōhîm have led some commentators to the conclusion that male and female humans were created in the image of male and female gods: “ĕlōhîm said, ‘let us make humankind[36] in our image, according to our likeness. . . . So ĕlōhîm created humankind in his image, in the image of ĕlōhîm he created him: he created them male and female.” Some have read the final occurrence of ĕlōhîm not as a proper divine name but rather as the plural noun “gods,” owing to the apposition with “male and female,” which might represent a trace of a pantheon of male and female divinities in whose image male and female humans were created.[37] In the retelling of Genesis in the LDS Book of Abraham, Gen 1:26–27, as opposed to JST Genesis and the Hebrew Bible, is rendered entirely in the plural: “And the Gods took counsel among themselves and said: Let us go down and form man in our image, after our likeness. . . . So the Gods went down to organize man in their own image, in the image of the Gods to form they him, male and female to form they them” (Abr 4:26–27).[38] Thus no biblical or LDS rendition of Gen 1 shows any apparent hierarchy of sex; rather, both have dominion and are commanded to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth.[39] Further, in these divine plurals the presence of goddesses cannot be excluded. 

In the account of Genesis 2–3,[40] on the other hand, God creates humans in a process out of sequence with the scheme in Gen 1, creating first the human (ʾādām) from dust before the plants,[41] then the animals, then woman (not called Eve until after the expulsion), a “suitable helper”[42] from the rib of the ʾādām. As Gen 2–3 unfolds, of course, the asymmetric order of events seems to dictate the severity of the divine response. The woman is first to eat the fruit, then Adam, and in the resulting confrontation with God the woman is explicitly subordinated to the man: “I shall multiply your suffering and your pregnancy; in suffering shall you birth children, yet your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you” (translation mine). Motherhood here is coterminous with suffering and subordination in a way not expressed in Gen 1. Thus it is Gen 1 that, since at least the first century, commentators have cited as evidence for an originally egalitarian creation, while Gen 2–3 expresses a hierarchy of the sexes that has more frequently been appealed to as the biblical basis of gender relations, especially in ecclesiastical settings.

Even though the gendered hierarchies of these accounts are not explicitly referenced elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, the tension between the apparent egalitarianism of Gen 1 and the apparent hierarchy of Gen 2–3 is replicated in first-century biblical interpretation (including the New Testament) and beyond. Daniel Boyarin argues that the two accounts yielded two ancient theological constructs that anticipate even recent theoretical models of sex differentiation.[43] The first, visible in the Hellenistic Jewish interpreter and philosopher Philo of Alexandria and in the writings of Paul, seizes on the difference between Gen 1 and Gen 2–3 as expressive of the difference between the eternal and the temporal. In this strain of first-century thought, the ideal is the unsexed spiritual androgyne (the singular ʾādam here is both male and female), created in the image of God, as opposed to the physically realized male and (subordinated) female. According to Boyarin, this explains the contradictions in Paul, who said on the one hand that “there is no male nor female . . . in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:29), and on the other that “a husband is the head of his wife,” (1 Cor 11:3). He reads these as Paul’s expression of the [superior] spiritual ideal and the [inferior] physical reality that will eventually be overcome, pointing out that Paul goes on to say in 1 Cor 11:11, “nevertheless, neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord” (1 Cor 11:11; emphasis mine).[44] Both of these texts from Paul express “an androgyny that exists on the level of the spirit, however much hierarchy subsists and needs to subsist on the fleshly level in the life of society.”[45] As New Testament scholars have argued, Galatians 3:28 is a part of the baptismal liturgy that specifically references Gen 1:26–27 and reverses the basic gender division to an androgynous state (Adam = male and female) as a way of expressing the future ideal.[46] In any case, there is no evidence to suggest that Paul thought there would be any heavenly hierarchy of gender any more than there would be divisions between “Jews” and “Greeks” there.[47] In the here-and now discussed in 1 Corinthians, however, Paul’s theology could accommodate hierarchy (11:3, 9) and strong sexual differentiation in custom (11:6–10), even while it emphasized care and reciprocity (7:3–4; 11:11–12) so as to prepare for the coming time in which gender would be collapsed entirely.[48]

Other traditions, such as early rabbinic Judaism, were “fully committed to a completely naturalized ‘sex.’”[49] In this vein the human creature of Gen 1 was not a spiritual unity but rather a bodily hermaphrodite, a “dual-sexed creature in one body”[50] that was simply split into two separate bodies in Gen 2–3. “In the rabbinic culture, the human race was thus marked from the very beginning by corporeality, difference and heterogeneity. For the Rabbis, sexuality belonged to the original created (and not fallen) state of humanity.”[51] In this construct it is not sex differentiation that is the result of the disobedience but rather the hierarchy of Gen 3:16.

Boyarin points out that these two poles, the primal spiritual androgyne and the dual-sexed bodily creature, anticipate the extremes of modern approaches to sex and gender, between strong sexual dimorphism on the one hand and the transcendence of sex on the other.[52] He goes on to show that all of these paradigms, whether ancient interpretation or modern theorizing, have difficulty avoid ing the practical tendency toward a denigration of the female: “sexual dimorphism . . . seems fated always to imprison women within a biological role, while transcendence . . . seems always to be predicated on a denigration of the body and the achievement of a male-modeled androgyny, a masculine neutral.”[53]

Against the backdrop of Boyarin’s analysis, we find that LDS interpretation straddles the division between the two extremes.[54] In Joseph Smith’s reworking of Genesis 1–6, known as the Book of Moses, the transition between the creation stories calls the first one spiritual and the second physical (Moses 3:5–7), similar to Philo, but within the same text yokes the male-female pair of Gen 1 to the body of God (2:27; 5:1–2): “In the image of his own body, male and female, created he them” (5:1; emphasis mine). Leaving aside the question of what it means for a singular male divine body to produce male and female spirits in its image, what is apparent here is a blurring of the polarity by articulating an ideal, spiritual, sexual dimorphism alongside the physical that has become a hallmark of Mormon theology.[55] Whereas for Paul it may be said that the hierarchies that he (only sometimes) condones are endemic to physical reality but have no place in the coming kingdom, the LDS interpretation raises the stakes by making both spiritual and physical creation dimorphic. This calculus is arguably the source of much of the current tension in Mormonism over female authority, precisely because it is a battle not just for earthly equality (as Paul might have had it) but also for the meaning of eternal gender difference. Temporal arrangements are also heavenly realities.

Genesis 3:16—sometimes called the most misogynistic text in the Bible—has been a battleground of gender relations for centuries but it takes on a particular importance in LDS theology of gender for the reasons described above. In LDS commentary Gen 3:16 has commonly been read as a curse and used as evidence for the male right of rule in Church and home. In the 1973 Ensign, Brent Barlow used it to argue for the need to strengthen the patriarchal order in the family.[56] In 1975 President Spencer W. Kimball famously softened the language of the KJV to “preside” instead of “rule,” which change now links Gen 3:16 to the Family Proclamation statement that fathers are to “preside” in the home “by divine design.”[57] Others, like Jolene Edmunds Rockwood, have read the verse similarly to Paul as expressive of a temporary state: “the fact that [Adam ruling over Eve] is mentioned at all presupposes that man did not rule over woman before the fall.”[58] Boyd Jay Petersen has recently shown that nineteenth-century LDS women and even some male leaders assumed the verse to be temporary and frequently thought that the curse could be lifted in their lifetimes.[59]

There is even a detectable rise in conservative LDS discomfort with an eternal hierarchy of gender. The increasing pressure towards egalitarianism in the Mormon heaven is confirmed in the extreme rereading of Gen 3:16 as a statement of equal dominion, advanced several times in recent years by a few prominent LDS commentators. In 2007 Elder Bruce C. Hafen and his wife Marie attempted to use this verse as evidence of egalitarian governance by an appeal to the underlying Hebrew preposition bet, the word translated as “over” in “he shall rule over you.” In the August 2007 Ensign, the Hafens, aided by a BYU professor of Hebrew, argue: “Genesis 3:16 states that Adam is to ‘rule over’ Eve, but this doesn’t make Adam a dictator. . . . Over in ‘rule over’ uses the Hebrew bet, which means ruling ‘with,’ not ruling ‘over.’”[60] Since then it has been repeated several times by LDS political scientist Valerie M. Hudson, including in the April 2013 Ensign.[61] According to normal Biblical Hebrew usage and to the narrative context of Gen 2–3, this translation is, unfortunately, impossible. The repetition of this mistranslation underscores well the increasing LDS need to neutralize scriptural gender hierarchies.[62] The Hebrew verb māšal, “to rule” requires the preposition bet and always means in this construction “to rule (over),” as in the sun ruling over the day (Gen 1:18), Abraham’s servant over all his house (Gen 24:2), Joseph over Egypt (Gen 45:8, 26), Solomon over all the Levantine kingdoms (1 Kgs 5:1), and so forth. When the preposition bet is translated as “with” in English, it is an instrumental “with,” as in, “I hit my thumb with a hammer.” To say “together with” requires an entirely different preposition. Added to the Hebrew difficulties, the logic of the exchange—in which the sequence of the transgression yields negative consequences for the participants—clearly prohibits such an egalitarian understanding.[63] Thus, besides contravening basic Hebrew semantics and the plain logic of the verse in its context, this reading also stands in contrast even to previous LDS theology, including the JST.[64] The impossibility of this translation, and the extent to which the plain sense of the text is ignored,[65] highlights a growing discomfort, even among the ranks of General Authorities and conservative scholars, with bald-faced gender hierarchies in scripture. The only hermeneutic motivating this translation is the need to resolve the dissonance between text and modern sensibility by so thoroughly recasting the most blatantly hierarchical proof text of the Bible to legitimate the Church’s stance on egalitarianism.[66] The fact that this very same biblical text was used in the same LDS publication forty years earlier to argue for the divine institution of patriarchy in the home[67] suggests that biblical scholar Athalya Brenner was correct when she said Genesis 3:16 is something of a Rorschach test revealing the interpreter’s basic assumptions about gender.[68] It also underscores the fact that an appeal to precedent, especially on the topic of gender and authority, always amounts to a selection from among a variety of possibilities.

Lady Wisdom and LDS Priesthood 

The struggle for authority is also expressed on the heavenly level in hierarchical struggles between male and female deities in the Hebrew Bible. A full discussion of divine gender relations would take us too far afield here; it is sufficient to point out, with Tikva Frymer-Kensky, the long history in the ancient Near East of goddesses’ power, once expressed in a rich variety of roles and characters, subsumed by ever more powerful male deities. The Hebrew Bible manifests the same trajectory of subordination, especially in the shift from polytheism and monolatry to monotheism; it preserves knowledge of once-legitimate Israelite female divinities, if only known either obliquely as traces of a worship system thriving before the seventh century BCE or as targets of reformist’s cult reform.[69]

The question of the status and role of the goddess is closely connected with the question of priesthood authority in LDS theology. Since the particular LDS notions of priesthood are tied to the universal gendered existence discussed above, the discussion of the goddess is more salient to the question of priesthood than may be the case in other traditions. When priesthood, as we have seen, is less an authorization of a hereditary human exercise of cultic responsibilities than it is an eternal power exercised solely by male gods and male humans, any limitations on the agency of the goddess can serve to reinforce the gendered mortal arrangement. The previous and current theological inquiry into Mormon notions of the divine feminine have crucial implications for LDS notions of gendered priesthood, since a goddess devoid of power does not easily admit female authorities possessed of it. In any case, even a cursory study of the goddess in the world of the Hebrew Bible and in Mormon theology reveals that the opposing forces of egalitarianism and hierarchy are felt in heaven as they are on earth.[70] That this was a struggle and not simply a unidirectional sublimation by fiat is shown by the divine female figure of Wisdom, who is under-represented in LDS theology. 

The closest a woman deity comes to speaking and displaying complex agency in the Bible is in Proverbs 1–9, which presents the figure of Wisdom (ḥokmâ), remarkable for her unabashedly female voice and her disruption of roles that have come to be defined in LDS thought as stereotypically gendered. Wisdom is personified here as a public teacher (“at the busiest corner,” 1:21), and speaks in the first person (1:22–33; 8:2–36). In 3:19–20 she is the means by which Yahweh created the world, and likewise chapter 8 speaks to the role of (“Lady”) Wisdom in creation: “The Lord acquired me at the beginning of his work / the first of his acts of long ago. / Ages ago I was poured out / at the first, before the beginning of the earth” (8:22–23). And further, “when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker”[71] (8:29–30 NRSV). She is the source not only of righteousness and creativity, but of power, wealth, knowledge, foresight, and justice: “I have good advice and sound wisdom; / I have insight, I have strength. / By me kings reign, / and rulers decree what is just; / by me rulers rule, / and nobles, all who govern rightly. . . . Riches and honor are with me, / enduring wealth and prosperity. I walk in the way of righteousness, / along the paths of justice” (Prov 8:14–16, 18, 20). Many scholars see this chapter as the reflex of a once vibrant tradition of goddess worship in Ancient Israel that was suppressed as strict monotheism became entrenched, or as an originally Egyptian or Canaanite goddess translated into a post-exilic Israelite context.[72] Some, including even LDS authorities, have connected this creative, agentive aspect of Wisdom with the (grammatically feminine) spirit (rûªḥ ʾĕlōhîm) in Gen 1:2 that moves on the face of the waters.[73] This interpretation may also be supported by the description of Wisdom in Proverbs 8:23 as having been “poured out,” which may evoke the pouring of oil for anointing kings, of other liquids for rituals of worship, and/or the pouring out of God’s spirit (cf. Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17–18, 33). Further, the description in Proverbs 8 of a divine woman as the source of regal power, knowledge, justice, and creation—with no reference to motherhood or domesticity—places this text in sharp contrast with the more famous misogynistic biblical passages and hints at a struggle for female agency playing out on the cosmic level even within an entrenched patriarchy.[74] When compared with an LDS notion of priesthood as the supreme active force in the cosmos, this text troubles the interpretations that otherwise associate such force with male actors and, arguably, male being.[75] Wisdom is a nearly perfect analogue to the LDS definitions of priesthood discussed above: the power by which the universe was created and ordered and the proximate source of knowledge and understanding. She is, as the figure of Jesus in much of Christian theology, both supremely powerful and immediately approachable, participating in the creation and the quotidian. While Proverbs sometimes hints at her subordination to God and is written from an unabashedly male perspective to a male audience, it also suggests the possibility that she was “outside of God, not merely a divine attribute,”[76] the means he “acquired” (8:22) to bring the world into being.[77] Notwithstanding some mitigating forces of subordination even present in these texts,[78] Proverbs 1–9 (and especially ch. 8) give voice to an active, speaking Goddess and manifests a female order and power in (non-reproductive) creation. If the Mormon basis of priesthood is a power prepared from before the foundation of the world (Alma 13:1–3), and the primary function of its wielders is teaching, Lady Wisdom is exactly coterminous with LDS priesthood and could form a basis of new understandings of this power and its gendered qualities.[79]

Biblical Conceptions of Priesthood 

Joseph Smith’s close engagement with biblical text may provide a model for a contemporary LDS engagement with the Bible on the topic of priesthood. As discussed above, Latter-day Saints and non-LDS biblical scholars use the term “priesthood” differently, especially since, as Richard Bushman and Mark Ashurst-McGee have pointed out, Joseph Smith’s revelations uniquely blended the Reformation notion of a “priesthood of all believers” with the Old Testament framework of offices and ritual power.[80] The previous work of Anthony Hutchinson, Melodie Moench Charles, and Todd Compton has clearly laid out the terminological problems when it comes to discussing LDS priesthood and the Bible.[81] Paramount is the fact that “priesthood” is a term never used in the Bible in the way that Latter-day Saints understand it, even though the concept of an institution of priests certainly was operative.[82] Further complicating the issue, what came to be understood as the major division in LDS priesthood orders, Melchizedek and Aaronic, is nowhere visible in the Bible. To be sure, it was out of a combination of revelations based on close reading of the Bible and social developments in the early LDS church that the division evolved, but no biblical scholar concludes from biblical evidence that anciently there were two priesthood orders as Latter-day Saints understand them. The Hebrew Bible tells many stories directly and indirectly about strife between different priestly lines (see below), and at times (non-Aaronid) Levites were apparently subordinated to Aaronid priests, but they are never understood in qualitatively higher and lower general orders, and never explicitly connected to the figure of Melchizedek, who is only mentioned in two enigmatic texts in the Hebrew Bible.[83] Furthermore, different texts show different views of priestly hierarchies, and some seem to assume that at certain times in Israel’s past it was not necessary to hail from a priestly lineage to perform priestly duties such as sacrifice.[84]

What LDS priesthood shares with the Bible, however, is the basic notion that priests stand at the often-dangerous intersection between God and his people, life and death, sacred and profane. In terms more familiar to Latter-day Saints, priests not only represented the people to Yahweh, they also represented Yahweh to the people,[85] “identifying and clarifying the purpose of a given ritual, reifying tradition by the recitation of laws or the record of legal precedent, and preserving the catalogue of hymns and prayers that the deity would expect or even demand to be recited at specific occasions.”[86] In some places they are described as judges of local disputes (Deut 17:8–13), scribes, and keepers of esoteric knowledge and religious history.[87] In the absence of Israelite kingship in the Second Temple period, they would become the highest native political authority. To stand at this threshold brought mortal risk along with power, as in the stories of the priests Nadav and Avihu (Lev 10), Dathan and Abiram (Num 16) and Uzzah (2 Sam 6). It is no surprise then that the origin accounts of the Levites, told no less than four times in the Bible, all depict the Levites as violently zealous for Yahweh, even against their fellow Israelites. Indeed, violence seems to be intimately bound up with priestly service.[88]

One of the most influential (and often overlooked) roles of the priests was as the main keepers of the traditions and knowledge from which major portions of the (Hebrew) Bible would take shape. These traditions were passed down through institutions that, by the time the texts were assembled, had become more centralized and stratified along with the state to which they belonged.[89] Whereas in pre-monarchic Israel it was apparently possible for men (and possibly women, see below) outside designated lineages to act as priests, religious authority was restricted as political power became concentrated, especially in Jerusalem. In the process of centralization, the struggle between various priestly lineages became pitched in a way that is manifest in several stories of conflict among priestly houses.[90] The most famous are those in the Pentateuch that depict the disloyalty of prominent priestly figures, such as the golden calf episode (Exod 32) or the rebellion of Dathan and Abiram (Num 16). Most scholars see these as having been told in much later times to justify or attack the ascendency of one lineage over another.[91] Indeed, perhaps the most significant change in Old Testament priesthood when David moved the capital from Hebron to Jerusalem (previously a non-Israelite city; 2 Sam 5–6) and installed the ark there, which resulted in the appointment of two chief priests, Abiathar and Zadok. Later Solomon banished Abiathar to Anathoth (1 Kgs 2) for having supported his half-brother Adonijah’s claim to David’s throne. Thus the Zadokites came to control the newly built temple in Jerusalem and maintained control for centuries, but the rivalries between these priestly families continued at least through Jeremiah’s time.[92] It is clear that priests used their power as custodians of knowledge and history to employ older traditions to influence and to make sense of the social changes underway in monarchic and post-monarchic Israel. There is also strong evidence, discussed below, of the deliberate manipulation of texts by their later custodians to remove and downplay priestly agency in narratives about women.[93]

As with nearly all public institutions and bureaucracies (and stories) in the Bible, the text as we have it gives the impression that men always dominated Israelite priesthood. Such was not always the case in the ancient Near East, where there is significant evidence for a wide variety of priestly and other official roles available to women within the cult and society.[94] The most famous example is the third-millennium Akkadian entu-priest Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Agade, to whom are attributed many hymns and prayers and who is depicted in at least one stone relief, making her the first named author known to history and one of the earliest women to be depicted visually.[95] Almost two millennia later we find Nabonidus consulting earlier textual and visual records ostensibly because the office of high priestess had been forgotten in his day and he wanted to install his daughter therein. While there is no direct prohibition of female priestly service in the Bible (or in LDS scripture), most texts assume male exclusivity along with other non-gender criteria, such as a restriction to the proper lineage. However, it is difficult to hold up the assumption of gender exclusivity as normative evidence, since not only were the authors and curators of these texts men, but they were also priests or male functionaries with vested and conflicted interests in the way the story was told. As power became concentrated during the monarchy in fewer and fewer lines, the doors that appear to have been more open to women in earlier periods were shut firmly, and, crucially, were made to look as if they had always been.[96] Biblical scholars have pointed out that in the Bible, even though women were never priests, neither were the vast majority of men,[97] and even the strongly androcentric priestly narrators in the Hebrew Bible show an enhanced (though still unequal) status of women connected to priestly lineages.[98] The picture becomes even more complex, however, when we turn to the cases of women who arguably acted as priests, mostly ignored in LDS treatments of women and authority: Hannah, Jael, and Zipporah.[99]

Hannah 

The case of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1–3 is remarkable for the way the story juxtaposes Hannah with the male authorities around her (sons of Eli, her husband Elkanah), especially in the way she acts against their misunderstandings or doubt. The text presents Elkanah as concerned but not fully on board with her efforts to have a son; Hannah takes the initiative to approach the Lord in the temple at Shiloh herself. In 1 Sam 1:9 Hannah “presented herself before Yahweh” in the courtyard of the temple, observed by the priest Eli from his seat beside the doorpost, making a silent vow that she would dedicate her son to the Lord if he would lift her barrenness.[100] Eli dismissively misunderstands her prayer as drunkenness, but upon her explanation he expresses hope that her desire will be granted. When it is, she names the child, which is a practice that likely conveyed social authority, as the position of name-giver signaled influence over the thing named.[101] Hannah breaks company with her husband on his next journeys to Shiloh until the child is weaned, at which point the Bible says without comment that she brings the boy, a three-year-old bull, and other offerings to the temple, and they (Hannah and Elkanah) slaughter the bull and take the child to Eli.[102] Upon Samuel’s consecration as a lifelong Nazirite, Hannah then sings a song (1 Sam 2) that reflects an ancient Near Eastern and biblical tradition of women as composers of cultic hymns.[103] Thus Hannah wields considerable cultic power. While it would go beyond the evidence to say that she served as a priest as did Eli, it is clear that her service exceeded that which apparently was allowed to women as the cult became centralized, and certainly that of the Second Temple, where women could not approach even the courtyard of the temple building itself. In any case, Hannah had authoritative agency: naming, vowing, sacrificing, dedicating, composing. Rather than circumscribing Hannah’s power, maternity leads her to exercise authority in reference to her existence as a woman.[104] Her example provides a foundation for imagining female priesthood power in a way that does not collapse gender difference. 

Hannah’s role as a cultic agent is probably most strongly confirmed by the deliberate manipulation of the Hebrew texts concerning her activity. The Hebrew text of the books of Samuel is notoriously corrupt, with the witnesses of the Septuagint (LXX) and Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q51=4QSamuela) providing strong evidence of such. Some of the textual corruption is clearly accidental, but some appears to be the result of one or more scribes taking strong issue with the implication that Hannah exercised priestly agency.[105] In the Masoretic (Hebrew) text (MT), on which virtually all modern translations are based, the line in 1 Sam 1:23 that originally read, “Only, may the Lord establish that which goes out of your [Hannah’s] mouth,” as it is in LXX and 4QSama, the text was changed to “Only, may the Lord establish his word.” Further, MT has removed three notices about Hannah in the presence of the Lord (1 Sam 1:9, 14, 18) and added the clause to verse 9 that she had been drinking. In verse 18 LXX, Hannah leaves Eli and goes to her quarters connected to the Temple to have a ritual meal with Elkanah. Donald Parry points out that these quarters (liškâ in Hebrew) are otherwise only connected to males, including priests and Levites; this was probably omitted deliberately from MT.[106] Hannah probably originally also said in 1:8, “here am I” (so LXX), as only males do elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (including, famously, her son), and overwhelmingly in contexts of divine apparition. Hannah’s final pilgrimage to Shiloh in LXX has her explicitly entering the temple (1:24a) and presenting her son before Eli. In 4QSama, it is Hannah, not Elkanah, who worships in 1:28b. Thus MT exhibits a marked discomfort and deliberate textual manipulation specifically connected with the cultic activity of Hannah. This discomfort also explains the addition, only in MT, of the note that the sons of Eli slept with the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting (2:22): not only does it further implicate the sons of Eli, it also diminishes the status of female cultic activity exhibited in LXX and 4QSama.[107] This tampering shows the difficulty in making historical claims from the Bible about exclusively male priesthood activity not just because of the authors’ androcentric blinders, but also because of deliberate manipulation of the text, likely under taken to make an earlier time conform to the norms of the scribe’s contemporary situation or to his more strongly gendered notions of acceptable practice. For the MT scribes, it seems, even Hannah’s limited priestly activity is too strongly put, and makes this impossible to rule out an explicit striking of female priesthood from the scriptural record before the text was finalized. 

Jael 

The story of Jael, told at the beginning of Judges, has also been connected to priestly traditions. Her introduction in Judges 4:17 is traditionally translated “Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite,” but others read “woman of the Kenite clan” because ḥeber can also mean “community” or “group.”[108] The Kenites were a clan well known for their priestly service, Moses’s father-in-law Jethro, priest of Midian, being the most famous.[109] Even if her status as Heber’s “woman” holds, it is only mentioned in the text to show how she ended up at a sacred site far from Kenite territory, since Heber (or this Kenite group) left the heartland of Moses’s father-in-law (here called Hobab) and encamped “by the terebinth of Zaanannim” near Kedesh, which is a city of refuge managed by priests (Judg 4:11).[110] “Heber” as an individual has no role in the story other than to explain Jael’s location. Jael is keeper of her own tent, to which the Canaanite general Sisera flees for sanctuary, probably indicating her tent was more than her private dwelling. No impropriety is marked in the way he, or the Israelite general Barak later, enters her tent. As Sisera rests, Jael drives a spike through his temple and then goes out to invite Barak back to her tent to show him the vanquished foe. In Judges 5, the ancient poem known as the Song of Deborah, Jael is presented alongside Shamgar ben Anat, one of the judges who also delivered Israel through violence (Judg 3:31).[111] Interpreters have frequently read the narrative about Jael as one of seduction, but this is beyond the evidence and reflects more on the interpreters’ assumptions than on the biblical characterization of Jael.[112] Rather, her priestly lineage, her tent-sanctuary pitched at a sacred site, and possibly even the emphasis on her decisive violence in the service of the community suggest she was understood as a priest at one point. 

Zipporah 

It is no accident that our final example also concerns a Kenite. Zipporah, Moses’s wife, is the daughter of Jethro, priest of Midian, and is almost entirely absent from the narrative in Exodus, with the exception of an enigmatic passage in Exodus 4. While in Midian (i.e., Kenite territory), Yahweh tells Moses to go back to Egypt to demand the Israelites’ release from Pharaoh. Moses asks leave of Jethro, who grants it, and he and Zipporah and their sons set off. Then, apparently on the way,[113] Moses receives further instructions from Yahweh to tell Pharaoh that Yahweh will kill Pharaoh’s first born son if Pharaoh does not let Israel (Yahweh’s “firstborn son”) go. Almost as if this part of the story reminds the narrator that Moses grew up in the Egyptian court and was probably therefore uncircumcised, Yahweh shows up as the family stops for the night and, without explanation, attempts to kill Moses. “But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched [Moses’s] ‘feet’ with it and said, ‘Truly you are a spouse of blood to me!’ So he let him alone. It was then she said, ‘a spouse of blood by circumcision’” (Exod 4:25–26).[114] Not only is Zipporah daughter of a chief priest, she literally stands between Yahweh and his people and saves their lives through her ritual mediation, establishing precedent for a cultic practice now lost to us. In Exodus and elsewhere, circumcision and sacrifice are closely associated (Exod 12:1–28, 43–49; Josh 5:2–12). Zipporah clearly performs a ritual of substitution that, in later times, would be the exclusive domain of men. Though brief, this remarkable text hints at a deeper tradition of female priesthood in the earliest days of Israel.

These women are cultic agents whose roles are priestly even within ostensibly male-dominated cultic frameworks, such that they acted in priestly roles. Hannah and Zipporah perform ritual acts reserved for males in other texts, and they and Jael engage in types of violence that also characterize Levites’ behavior: ritual slaughter (Hannah), homicide ( Jael), and circumcision (Zipporah).[115] That the priestly character of each of these examples must be teased out speaks to the likely discomfort the storyteller/editor had with indicating a female office directly, a discomfort in evidence in the transmission of the story of Hannah. Whereas we saw earlier that stories about eponymous priests such as Aaron were told as a way of challenging claims to priesthood, we see another aspect of textual manipulation with regard to women in the cult. The priests and other male functionaries who curated these texts would have likely been uncomfortable with the depiction of a system at odds with their own, but nevertheless were not at complete liberty to deviate from the collective memory of their culture. Still, set within the larger framework of LDS use of biblical texts to understand priesthood, the fact that biblical evidence is infrequent does not need to be a major cause for concern, since some of the most central notions of LDS priesthood were developed out of obscure textual adumbrations.[116] Those discussed here that raise the possibility of female priests in ancient Israel provide ample means for LDS theological inquiry, especially given the fact that Joseph Smith promised to make the women’s Relief Society organization “move according to the ancient Priesthood . . . . that he was going to make of this Society a kingdom of priests a[s] in Enoch’s day—as in Paul’s day.”[117]

Prophets Male and Female 

The struggle for female prophetic authority is much more visible than the case of female priestly authority. The LDS conception of prophecy is more closely aligned with that of the Bible than is the case with priesthood, although in both LDS and biblical contexts priesthood and prophecy exhibit considerable overlap. Prophets in the ancient Near East generally acted as mouthpieces for a god, and in the Hebrew Bible they have the additional role of intermediaries. Thus priests and prophets both mediated between God and people, and it is not surprising to find the same person, for instance, Samuel and Elijah, performing both roles at times.[118] As Mark Leuchter puts it, “The ‘priests’ of Jerusalem oversaw ritual and divine instruction while the ‘prophets’ of Jerusalem delivered fresh oracles from the divine, but the differences between the two roles are more a matter of the emphasis of their activity than a strict separation between types.”[119] Such is also the case in the LDS priesthood hierarchy, in which the heads of the priesthood are sustained as “prophets, seers and revelators” even though the title “prophet” in LDS hierarchy does not technically constitute an office in the way that “priest” and even “apostle” do. Still, the connection is so close that the LDS manual Duties and Blessings of the Priesthood states, “all the prophets of the Lord in each dispensation since Adam have held this [priesthood] authority.”[120]

The Old Testament specifically mentions five female prophets: Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, the wife of Isaiah, and Noadiah, while the New Testament names Anna.[121] The first three exhibit agency within their roles as prophet. Miriam composes victory hymns and alludes to Yahweh speaking through her, though she is on the losing end of a confrontation with Moses, after which her voice is never heard from again; Deborah judges all Israel, prophesies regularly, leads armies, composes victory hymns; Huldah is the prophet whose testimony is required to determine the authenticity of the scroll of the law found by Josiah’s officials, and she prophesies concerning the death of Josiah; Noadiah is grouped with those prophets who opposed Nehemiah, and Isaiah’s wife’s activity as prophet is not described, unless it be the conception of a child. Thus the possibility of women acting within their roles as prophets, undifferentiated from their male counterparts, is well established. Even in the cases of the opposition of Miriam and Noadiah, they are not singled out for their gender, but are included with at least one other male in their contention.[122]

The cases of Huldah and Deborah require further scrutiny. Huldah appears in 2 Kings 23 as the prophet to whom the king turns for divine authorization of the newly discovered book of the law, the crucial development in the narrative about Josiah’s reform. She thus functions in the same way as Isaiah during the Syro-Ephraimite crisis of Isaiah 7 and Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem in Isaiah 36–38. Upon learning of the discovery of the scroll in the temple, Josiah sends his emissaries to Huldah for divine verification. In responding, she speaks for God: “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you to me, ‘Thus says Yahweh, I will indeed bring disaster on this place and on its inhabitants—all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read’” (2 Kgs 22:15–16). Some have contended that the fact that Huldah goes on to wrongly predict Josiah’s peaceful death suggests the author meant to cast her as a false prophet on the basis of Deut 18:21–22, but this is not explicit in the text. Moreover, as Thomas Römer argues, Josiah’s death “in peace” means not that he would not die in battle, but that he would be spared “the spectacle of Jerusalem’s destruction,” as opposed, for example, to the fate of Jehoiakim (cf. Jer 36:30–31).[123] In any case, Josiah inaugurates his famous sweeping reforms on the basis of her confirmation, hardly a condemnation of a false prophet. Huldah thus authorizes the ideas not just at the center of Josiah’s reform but also of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history ( Joshua–2 Kings). It would be more than a little perplexing to entrust the prophetic validity of the newly discovered scripture and of the royal agenda to a prophet the author ultimately considered illegitimate.

Deborah 

Finally, and most promiment, Deborah has long energized and troubled biblical interpreters[124] precisely because of her sex, but the text of Judges finds no trouble therewith. She is described as the “wife of Lappidoth,” but scholars recognize, that because of anomalies in the way her putative husband is presented, the phrase should rather be rendered “woman of flames,” or even “wielder of torches,”[125] possibly in reference to her prophetic specialty but certainly evocative elsewhere of theophany (Gen 15:17; Exod 20:18). Not only is she a prophet, she is Israel’s judge, as were Tola and Samson in the book of Judges and also Eli and Samuel in the beginning of Samuel (1 Sam 4:18; 7:16–17). The text says more about her judicial activity than that of any other judge: that she would sit under the “palm of Deborah” and the Israelites would come to her for judgment. She also possessed power by virtue of her prophetic authority to muster armies: she speaks for Yahweh and summons the general Barak, who only agrees to go into battle if she is with him. She is known for her compositions (Judg 5:5), including the victory song of Judges 5. There she is also curiously called a “mother in Israel,” which appears to be used as a title, something she “arose as.” Scholars have suggested this as a counterpart to the appellation of prophets as “fathers” (2 Kgs 2:12; 6:21). If this is the case, it may hint at the existence of her “children,” which would be prophetic apprentices analogous to those of Elijah, called “sons of the prophets” (1 Kgs 20:35; 2 Kgs 2:3, 5, 7), and therefore possibly an order of female prophets. The concentration of cultic, political and military leadership in the person of Deborah makes her only peers in biblical history Moses or possibly Melchizedek. Translated into LDS terms, Deborah functioned as did Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, or Brigham Young in Utah; there are no other comparable analogues.

On the question of female prophetic authority it is thus established that women were authorized at the highest levels to receive revelation from, and to speak to, the people on behalf of the Lord in the Hebrew Bible. As Melodie Moench Charles notes, though, the treatment of Deborah and Huldah in LDS reference materials exhibits a discomfort similar to that which we saw with Hannah in the Masoretic Hebrew text. The editors of the LDS Bible Dictionary, working from a non-LDS base text, changed the wording of the entry on Deborah from a “prophetess” to “a famous woman who judged Israel,” while Huldah was excised altogether (whereas she had been present in the base text).[126] In the new online “Guide to the Scriptures,” however, the entry “Deborah” has been corrected to read “prophetess” in place of “famous woman.”[127] Huldah is not treated alone, but the Guide has included a new entry, “prophetess,” that names Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, and Anna as women who were called prophetesses in the Bible, but cautions “a prophetess does not hold the priesthood or its keys,” without further explanation.[128] This assertion merits more detailed exploration, especially given Paul’s expectation that women regularly prophesy (1 Cor 11:5). As with priests and goddesses, the cases of the female prophets clearly demonstrate legitimacy in the struggle for (and brief triumph of) female authority that has characterized our discussion thus far. 

The Book of Judges and the Evaluation of Women’s Authority

The evidence above shows women operating in roles Latter-day Saints would designate as priesthood offices if men occupied them. Equally important here, however, is the prominent struggle for authority manifest in all of these texts, a struggle which repeatedly shows women as actors, and even as agents of priesthood power as understood in LDS terms, that is then removed, rejected, or lost as power is concentrated in the hands of men. The loss of female authority and opportunity as institutions grow and societies “stabilize” is not a sociological surprise. Jo Ann Hackett has called attention to the pattern in which the development of institutions pushes women to the margins, even when they had enjoyed prior dominance in a given arena, such as medicine. It is a pattern that is manifest at many points in the Bible, especially in the Book of Judges.

One can detect in Judges an evaluation of the relation between the status of women and the health of the covenant community. The loss of female authority is not only outlined in the Book of Judges, it is assigned an overtly negative value and may be read as a litmus test for the health of Israelite society. The text shows the Israelites careening toward disintegration in the days when “there was no king in Israel, every man did what was right in his own eyes” (e.g., Judg 17:6). This disintegration is perhaps most apparent in the way women are treated with disproportionate frequency (relative to other books) and on a declining trajectory. At the beginning we find Deborah prophesying and judging Israel and Jael coming to the rescue in her capacity as priest, but as the narrative progresses women diminish in power and are stripped of authority, of agency, and even of name. Abimelech gives ominous voice to the fate of women under kings after an unnamed woman saves the temple refugees from his tyranny by dropping a stone on his head and crushing his skull. He says to his armor-bearer: “Draw your sword and kill me, so people will not say about me, ‘A woman killed him’” (Judg 9:54). As Judges continues, we find the sacrifice of a young female firstborn ( Jephthah’s daughter, Judg 11), the death of the most (in)famous judge, Samson, by Delilah’s treachery, and, in the final chapters, the unnamed concubine of a Levite casually turned over to fellow Israelite men for a brutal gang-rape following which her husband dismembered her as a way of calling the tribes of Israel to war against one of their own. Judges is bookended on the one hand by Deborah and Jael, who use their agency to muster the armies and defeat the enemies of Israel, and on the other by the Levite’s concubine, whose passive body is used not only by her assailants but also by her Levite husband to rally the Israelites. Judges can be read as intentionally equating the declining treatment, agency, and status of women with the declining health of Israelite society.[129] Continuing into the book of Samuel, the results of this declining health lead toward kingship, which is ambivalently characterized both as a solution to the decline and as a rejection of Yahweh (1 Sam 8).[130] One is tempted to say that a major loss in the bargain of kingship is female cultic agency. Even though it is ultimately unclear whether the author considered the advent of kingship as a boon to women, it is clear that the earlier, “healthier” situation at the beginning of Judges shows women holding status equal and even superior to men, triumphing over their male oppressors within and outside Israel. The book of Judges can therefore be read to condemn the decline of female authority and to idealize the situation in which women were judges—presidents, in LDS terms—and prophets. This text, furthermore, opens the way to the deployment of LDS discourses of apostasy that allow an evaluation based on canonical texts not just in the case of early Israel, but of the continual rejection of female authority in postbiblical contexts, to which we will return below. It now remains to treat the struggle for female authority in New Testament texts. 

Priesthood and New Testament Women 

The New Testament arose in a period for which there is better contemporary documentation than in the case of most of the Old Testament, which contributes to the fact that studies of women and gender in the New Testament and its context are disproportionately more voluminous than that of similar studies of the world of the Hebrew Bible. The discussion here will thus be necessarily summative and incomplete but will attempt to point to those instances most important for an LDS understanding of the struggle for female authority. The New Testament evidence complicates the discussion of priesthood in Mormonism because it is intertwined textually with the Hebrew Bible, and, at the same time, developed in a vastly different socio-political and religious landscape from it. As is frequently noted by scholars, the Temple was not a central focus of Jesus’s teachings, and he certainly did not describe the community of disciples, or its leadership, in priesthood terminology.[131] For the first hundred years of Christianity, the records of Jesus’s earliest followers show a similar lack of interest in cultic institutions, whose force was diluted in texts such as 1 Peter 2:9, which applies the “royal priesthood” of Exodus 19:6 to the whole Christian community. Nevertheless, as Christian communities grew and ecclesiastical roles developed, the pattern of greater female leadership preceding institutional centralization holds again. There is early evidence of women occupying roles of apostle and deacon, followed by an effort to deny women such offices (e.g., 1 Timothy 2:9–15).[132]

Gospels 

On the surface the Gospels seem less concerned with issues of institutional authority, probably because the Jesus movement arose largely outside elite sacerdotal contexts. Further, Jesus’s sometimes radical social critique of existing power structures seems to hold out greater opportunities for historically oppressed groups, including women, and subsequently these groups often appealed to the Gospels to support their claims.[133] Thus, studies of gender in the gospels often focus on the notion of discipleship as presented in the text, rather than on ecclesiastical hierarchy. These studies have revealed strong evidence that the authors promoted, in harmony with their understanding of Jesus, a “discipleship of equals,” a term coined by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza.[134] Given the charge in LDS discussions of ecclesiastical equality that advocates of female ordination are unduly preoccupied with “sameness” rather than equality, it is important to note that Schüssler Fiorenza has emphasized that equality in her view does not imply the collapse of all distinction, including gender, but rather seeks equality in difference, an equality of “status, dignity, and rights” rather than an equality of maleness and femaleness.[135] Especially relevant here are the gospels of Luke and John, both of which exhibit a tendency to add women to their source material to balance the depiction of discipleship,[136] although this is not necessarily an unqualified gain for women, as a closer look reveals.

Many have noted that there are more passages about women in the Gospel of Luke than in the other gospels, about half of which are unique to Luke.[137] A careful analysis of these passages, though, demonstrates Luke’s concern for women maintaining their proper position and a suppression or recasting of stories in which women challenge Jesus (cf. Mark 7:24–30) or are commissioned to spread the gospel among gentiles (cf. John 4). This is less surprising when we take the companion volume to Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, into account. There the author shows a proclivity toward establishing Peter’s primacy and a general harmony and structure among the male apostles.[138] The Gospel of John, on the other hand, has arguably the highest view of women in the earliest community. Women are responsible for the initiation of signs, for revealing Jesus’s identity through discourse with him, and for supervising all aspects of his death.[139] Margaret M. Beirne takes this evidence as revealing John’s view of a “genuine discipleship of equals” given his unique structural juxtaposition of male and female disciples.[140]

Especially important for an LDS framework is the way apostolic authority is portrayed. The fusion of “the twelve” with apostleship was a development that postdated Paul and not a concept or office uniformly understood throughout the New Testament (e.g., 1 Cor 15:3, 5–8).[141] Most ancient notions of apostleship require both the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to the person in question and his divine commission to spread the message.[142] The work of Ann Graham Brock reveals that Luke and John represent canonical poles in their view of apostolic authority, especially with regard to Peter and Mary Magdalene, and therefore demonstrate a very early battle for apostolic authority.[143] Luke systematically removes Mary’s privileged place among the disciples as well as any potentially poor light that may be cast on Peter. For example, he deletes the reciprocal rebukes of Peter and Jesus (Mk 8:32–33//Matt 16:22–23) and is the only one to add the exclusive resurrection appearance to Peter (Luke 24:33–34). At the same time, Luke breaks with the other canonical gospels in denying both Jesus’s appearance to Mary Magdalene and his commission to her to testify to his resurrection, the two crucial components of apostleship.[144]

John does not share Luke’s elevated view of Peter. Rather, for John, Peter is not even specifically called by Jesus, and he is certainly not the first.[145] Where Matthew, Mark, and Luke have Peter revealing Jesus’s identity as the son of God (Mk 8:29; Matt 16:16; Luke 9:20), in John this confession is done by Martha (11:27), and Peter’s recognition and confession are less forceful, as he calls Jesus the “holy one of God” (6:69), a phrase that could signify a divinely sanctioned human, such as a prophet. In John, Jesus does not call the twelve, and even though the author knows about such traditions, he de-emphasizes their significance (6:70).[146] John also only uses the term “apostle” once in a passage “that conveys a warning about status,”[147] which, given that the author of John is writing after the other evangelists, is likely a deliberate omission. At the same time, the gospel of John generally portrays stronger women than does Luke,[148] and this applies especially to Mary Magdalene. Mary and Peter are explicitly juxtaposed at the tomb when, finding it empty, she calls Peter and the beloved disciple, who come and witness its emptiness. Upon their departure Jesus appears exclusively to Mary and commissions her to bear witness to the disciples. Thus the gospel of John reverses the picture we find in Luke; now Mary is championed at the expense of Peter. Between these two poles, Mark and Matthew skew toward the portrayal of John, a point Brock notes as significant in light of the usual agreement of the synoptic gospels against John.[149]

The struggle evidenced in Luke and John plays out in other texts both inside and outside the canon(s). Brock sets the conflict seen in the New Testament within the broader context of the first several centuries of Christianity and thus adds to the mounting evidence of female authority in the early Church. This includes the later, non-biblical traditions that she was a prostitute,[150] as well as the title apostola apostolorum, “apostle to the apostles” and Bishop Hippolytus’s third-century assertion that “Christ showed himself to the (male) apostles and said to them: . . . ‘It is I who appeared to these women and I who wanted to send them to you as apostles.”[151] That the tradition endured is suggested by Gregory of Antioch’s sixth-century citation of Jesus’s words at the tomb to the two Marys: “Be the first teachers of the teachers, so that Peter who denied me learns that I can also choose women as apostles.”[152]

Besides the adumbration in Luke and John of a pitched battle for apostolic preeminence between Peter and Mary, these texts are most remarkable for their witness to tradition—to narratives—as one of the grounds on which the contest was fought. Both drew on earlier material at the same time as they innovated and adjusted in order to convey their vision of how the contemporary church should look. This is both a common theme and an indication about the power of narrative for reshaping priesthood traditions and theologies in the face of social change. 

Pauline Letters 

The letters attributed to Paul have the distinction of providing both the strongest evidence for female authority and the strongest rejection thereof. In Romans 16, for example, Paul names a female deacon (Phoebe) and apostle (Junia) among several other prominent women. In 1 Timothy 2:12, however, women are not permitted to have authority over men or teach in church services. The Pauline letters have therefore received a great deal of attention in studies of the role of women in Christian leadership. Although these contradictions have been the focus of many studies, including an LDS context, they are worth exploring once again here in detail.

In addition to the verses in 1 Corinthians 11 that say husbands are the head of their wives as Christ is the head of the Church, two other letters urge wives to be submissive and subordinate to their husbands (Eph 5:21–33; Col 3:18–4:1). These passages do not explicitly comment on the significance of this hierarchy for gender relations outside of marriage or for the way this might constrain leadership roles in the ecclesiastical community. The normative value of these texts for modern practice is troubled by the fact that few denominations, Mormonism included, follow the rules for which the hierarchical order was invoked in these texts as a justification.[153] Women are not required to wear head coverings in public worship, as Paul strongly contends is a practice based on the created order (1 Cor 11:3–15), nor are the rules governing relations between slaves and masters in Col 3:22–4:1 understood to support the modern practice of slavery. As Hutchinson notes, this disconnect “demonstrates the cultural contingency of the rule.”[154]

Some letters in the Pauline corpus speak more directly to the question of ecclesiastical leadership, however. The strongest of these is 1 Tim 2:8–15, which treats women’s behavior in the churches generally: “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty” (vv. 11–15 NRSV). Here the order of creation is explicitly linked to gendered leadership, which supports not only male exclusivity but also radical receptivity on the part of the woman: no teaching, no speaking while learning, completely submissive. These verses bear close resemblance to 1 Cor 14:34–38, which appear in the middle of instructions about the management of spiritual gifts, such as prophecy, in gatherings: “As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (NRSV).

Although it would seem that these texts clearly indicate a generalized division of administrative labor between men and women, there are many reasons to reject their normative bearing on modern practice. First, current LDS practice already ignores much in these verses. Women do not learn in silence with full submission, and women speak and pray publicly and are not required to veil their heads. As Hutchinson notes, “the fact that women do teach in the modern LDS Church casts doubt upon any attempt to use this text to establish an exclusionary ordination policy.”[155] Second, there are strong reasons to think someone besides Paul wrote these verses. It is a consensus among New Testament scholars that the pastoral epistles (1–2 Timothy; Titus) were forged in Paul’s name after his death to gain an authoritative voice for endorsement of the author’s contemporary agenda. This is supported by differences in style, language, and theology as well as anachronistic use of terminology. The fact that 1 Timothy forbids women access to offices such as bishop is an anachronism that gives away the author’s context and ecclesiastical environment. In the case of 1 Cor 14:34–38, the verses are intrusive in theme and bear strong resemblance to 1 Timothy 2, which indicates their secondary insertion into the chapter. There are also very good reasons to doubt the authenticity of Ephesians and Colossians as letters authored by Paul. 

The third and perhaps strongest reason to reject these texts as normative for modern Church practice, however, is that they do not appear to have been normative even for Paul and even assuming he wrote them. A few chapters before his apparent pronouncement that women everywhere are to be silent in meetings (1 Cor 14:34–38), Paul assumes that women prophesy in these same meetings (1 Cor 11) and in Acts 18:26 Priscilla teaches the convert Apollos alongside her husband Aquila in Ephesus, a congregation Paul established. She is also mentioned in Romans 16, a chapter that merits a closer look because it undercuts the idea of an ecclesiastical hierarchy based on gender and, more important, gives positive evidence of female leadership in some of the earliest Christian communities. 

Romans 16 has for decades been at the heart of this discussion because in it, Paul mentions as a matter of course several prominent women described as fellow ministers active in the church community.[156] He refers to Prisc[ill]a alongside her husband (Rom 16:3–4) as a co-worker with Paul in Christ who was apparently willing to endure death for Paul’s sake and whose home was a meetinghouse. A certain Mary is also mentioned (v. 6) as one who worked hard (ekopiasen) among the community. In this chapter the verb kopiaō is only used for women, including Mary, Persis, and Try phaena and Tryphosa (v. 12). The latter two are also named in other undisputed letters of Paul (1 Cor 16:16; 1 Thess 5:12) in which Paul tells the communities to be subject to these women. This seems at odds with the prohibition in 1 Timothy on women having authority over men, not to mention the injunction against speaking or teaching.

The women most famously discussed in Romans 16 are, however, the deacon Phoebe and the apostle Junia. Paul introduces Phoebe as “a deacon (diakonos) of the church at Cenchreae,” and instructs his audience to “welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well” (Rom 16:1–2 nrsv). The K JV translates the Greek diakonos here as “servant” while in other texts, such as Phil 1:1 and 1 Tim 3:8, 12, it renders “deacon,” apparently based solely on the sex of the referent. While the term can indeed mean “minister” or “servant,” justifying the difference between understanding “servant” or “deacon” in Romans versus Philemon or Timothy without a tautology is difficult.[157] Additionally, Paul’s further specification of Phoebe as a deacon of the church, and also a benefactor (prostatis), speaks to her leadership and to the possible point of emergence of the office of deacon in Christianity.[158] Little wonder she is the first person named in the chapter.

The double standard of avoiding official terms for Phoebe solely based on gender concerns finds a twentieth-century parallel in the case of Junia. In Romans 16:7 Paul enjoins the church in Rome to “greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me. They are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was” (nrsv). Although the name has been understood as feminine in gender since antiquity, in the twentieth century some began to argue that the Greek Iounian should be understood as “Junias,” a masculine name. Eldon Epp has recently thoroughly discredited this argument, which was clearly driven by the supposition that women could not be apostles.[159] Another point of contention concerns whether the phrase rendered “prominent among the apostles” should be translated instead as “of note among the apostles,” i.e., that apostles knew this (non-apostolic) couple well. Though this is in the realm of possibility, two pieces of evidence militate against it. First, the fact that Paul notes the couple’s earlier entrance into the Christian community relative to his own bolsters the claim of apostleship. Some argue that “apostle” here need not indicate an office in the Church, but that it existed as a general term alongside the capital-A “Apostle” synonymous with the Twelve. This line of reasoning, however, would also undercut Paul’s own apostolic claim, even in the same letter (cf. Rom 1:1). Second, as Hutchinson notes, “in Paul the preposition en in this kind of locution normally means ‘among.’ Had he meant ‘to’ he probably would have used the dative apostolois without the preposition. What we have is reference to a woman Paul considered not only an apostle, but an outstanding one.”[160]

Romans 16 presents more than a collection of unflinching notices about women in early Christian communities. Rather, it presumes women played an active role in the center of leadership, preaching, and ministry alongside men. None of the anxiety about women’s status in the hierarchy, so prominent in 1 Timothy, is in evidence in Romans 16. Not only does this chapter contradict multiple times the statements in the androcentric texts above, it does so by naming women and their titles. As we saw with Mary Magdalene, the major obstacles to understanding Junia as an apostle come from interpreters’ assumptions about women’s opportunities for leadership rather than from the texts themselves.

To summarize the complex evidence about gender and authority in the Pauline letters, the texts do not speak with a unified voice, nor does modern LDS worship find uniform normativity in them. We can attribute some antiphony—perhaps the most dissonant—to other authors writing in Paul’s name (1 Timothy, Ephesians, Colossians) and to interpolation (1 Cor 14:34–38). The other apparent contradictions involving the submissiveness of wives to husbands (1 Cor 11) as compared with the apparent erasure of gender (Gal 3:28) in Christ may be in fact the result of Paul’s differentiation between created order and eternal order discussed above. He makes room for, and even endorses, certain cultural contingencies of subordination, such as slavery and marriage, in favor of not disrupting preparations for the coming kingdom of God. In Christ Jesus, however, Paul seems to hold out the possibility of adopting the non-hierarchical eternal structure promised in the baptismal pronouncement in Galatians 3. At the very least, one cannot easily negate the positive evidence from the Pauline letters of women serving in leadership roles that in the LDS Church are priesthood offices.

In the Pauline letters—disputed and otherwise—as in nearly every other text we have encountered to this point, we also find in evidence the struggle for authority at many levels, beginning in the New Testament itself and continuing to modern efforts to interpret it. The disputed letters bear witness to the struggle for gendered authority in a second-century context. The bare fact of the injunction of 1 Timothy against female participation in church settings witnesses to the reality of women’s ecclesiastical activity at the same time that its inclusion in the canon demonstrates the success of the exclusionary process. The modern struggle for authority is seen in the gendered hermeneutics whereby Phoebe is denied status as deacon and Junia is rendered masculine, both solely on the basis of prevailing assumptions about female authority. That these hints of a more egalitarian early Christian arrangement survived at all—and among the very earliest textual witnesses to Christian practice—once again urges careful attention to the implications of female priesthood authority. As with the many other texts we have seen, these pseudepigraphic writings both appeal to and transform tradition through text, this time by assuming the authoritative voice of Paul and extending themes of gender adumbrated in the undisputed letters. The skepticism of inerrancy claims endemic to LDS theology allows and perhaps even requires an interrogation of the authorial bases of the texts in question here, thus avoiding many of the obstacles confronting other denominations. Mormonism potentially makes room for disentangling contradictory threads and, in doing so, for the theological neutralization of the most misogynistic texts in the Pauline corpus.

Women in Early Christianity 

Questions about the reliability of texts like Romans 16 that depict women in leadership roles at the center of the earliest Christian formation have led scholars to look with greater intensity at gender in the first Christian centuries. Studies of women and gender in early Christianity have burgeoned since the 1970s such that even a full sketch of the contours of the area of study is impossible here. For our purposes it is important to note the increasingly high resolution of the picture of women in Greco-Roman and Levantine contexts in the first centuries A.D. Some of the older positive explanations for a presumed higher rate of female conversion—such as that the liberating message of Jesus attracted people from segments of society oppressed under Judaism—have been replaced by models that combine sociology, anthropology, archaeology as well as literary criticism and philology.[161] The notion discussed above that women found greater opportunities for leadership and public agency during times of change has been alternatively championed and resisted and continues to be at the center of discussion.[162]

Crucial to this question is the recognition of the primary social locus of Christian communities not in an entirely public sphere as it would be in the third century and later, but rather in “house churches,” which seems automatically to suggest greater leadership opportunities for women since, some argue, their primary domain in Greco-Roman society was domestic, and, as we argued was the case in ancient Israel, the move to the public sphere and subsequent welding of centralized public and religious authority pushed women to the margins.[163] Scholars point out, however, that the evidence is considerably more complex, and that the homes in which Christians would have met were themselves situated at the juncture between public and private. Indeed, the domestic location can be seen either as a means to greater female power and agency or, as in the case of 1 Timothy 3, a way of enshrining the patriarchy of the home in the church organization. That upper-class homes were also semi-public venues in which men and women ran their businesses calls into question the assumption that they were entirely the domain of women. Evidence does point, however, to women as responsible for hospitality; Carolyn Osiek and Margaret MacDonald argue that the female leaders of houses mentioned in the New Testament—Mary mother of John, Mark (Acts 2:12), Lydia (Acts 16:14, 40), Nympha (Col 4:15), and possibly Chloe (1 Cor 11:1)—likely “hosted formal dinners and presided at them, including the assembly of the ekklesia.”[164] These spaces were also centers of teaching and communication, and as such also place women in the center of developing Christian practice. If these women did preside at the regular meetings of Christian congregations, they were acting analogously to bishops in Mormon terms. 

Although the process of institutionalization and centralization firmly pushed women to the margins of ecclesiastical hierarchy, this move obviously did not end the struggle. Some women found alternative means to authority and status in self-authorization and in the renunciation of sex, as portrayed in the Acts of Thekla, a document contemporary (perhaps not coincidentally) with the Pastoral Epistles.[165] Others challenged the male-dominated hierarchy more directly. Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek provide substantial documentary evidence from literary texts as well as inscriptions indicating that women did hold the offices of Deaconess (well-known especially in the Eastern Church but attested also in the West) and Presbyter (elder).[166] Though the nature of the evidence—comprising mostly either screeds against women in the clergy or terse inscriptions indicating little more than names and titles—prevents a clear view of duties, roles, and relation to male counterparts, it is sufficient to establish the struggle for female authority well after the merging of political and ecclesiastical power. 

Letter to the Hebrews and LDS Priesthood 

The final New Testament text crucial for discussion is the Letter to the Hebrews, in which the link forged between Jesus and Melchizedek had profound influence on Joseph Smith’s articulation of priesthood, visible especially in the dominant quotation of Hebrews in Smith’s revision of Genesis 14. The anonymous author of Hebrews, which was ostensibly composed as a letter but reads more like a sermon than an address to a specific Christian community, draws creatively on various traditions in the Hebrew Bible to solve a socio-religious problem, namely the relationship between Judaism and the Christian community emerging from it. The Hebrew scriptures and Jewish tradition could not simply be jettisoned, because it was within that framework that Jesus and his disciples operated and understood their roles, but at the same time, with the expansion of the message of the resurrected Jesus into non-Jewish areas, the question of religious practice naturally arose. It was a problem that famously exercised Paul, who also turned to biblical exegesis to answer the same question, using, for example, the note in Galatians 3 about Abra[ha]m’s belief and Yahweh’s declaration of his righteousness in Gen 15:6 to show that one could be justified by faith outside the law. 

Hebrews appeals to a different set of texts to explain the necessity of Jewish heritage as well as its supersession in the figure of Jesus. At the core is the author’s mapping of Jesus onto the Jewish sacrificial cult, especially the Day of Atonement ceremonies described in Leviticus 16. The major historical hurdle to be overcome was that Jesus was not a priest or from a priestly lineage. For this reason the author invoked the mysterious figure of Melchizedek, who is found in only four verses in two passages in the Hebrew Bible: once as the king of Salem to whom Abraham pays tithes in Genesis 14:18–20 and again in Psalm 110:4 as having something to do with an enduring priesthood and kingship.[167] As with most such enigmatic passages, the tantalizing brevity and provocative silences caused many interpreters to rush into the breach to flesh out the biography and purpose of this figure. James Kugel discusses how interpreters both before and after the New Testament teased out of the suggestive scraps of these two texts a figure more exalted than the one portrayed in the Bible.[168] Some of these interpretive traditions were apparently influential in the composition of Hebrews, the most notable being the notion found in the Dead Sea Scrolls (predating Hebrews) that Melchizedek was a priest in the heavenly temple, because of the opening verses of Psalm 110: “take your throne at my right hand,” and “the lord sends out from Zion your mighty scepter,” as well as “a priest forever.” Also of concern to interpreters was Melchizedek’s parentage. Since he was not of the family of Abraham and was apparently Abraham’s superior, exegetes were at pains to explain this relationship in terms of chosen lineage since Jerusalem was known to be a non-Israelite town until the time of David. Thus the notion developed especially in Jewish circles that Melchizedek was the same person as Shem.[169] For the author of Hebrews, however, the silence surrounding Melchizedek’s genealogy indicated that he had none; he was “without father, without mother, without genealogy” (Heb 7:3). These two concepts—(a) an eternal high priest (b) without lineage—allowed Jesus, a non-Levite, access to a higher, eternal priesthood. It allowed Hebrews to show Jesus, by virtue of the eternal priesthood and his offering of (his own eternal) blood, as simultaneously fulfilling and making obsolete the core of Jewish worship. Like Paul in Galatians 3, then, the author’s appeal to a difficult passage regarding a pre-Mosaic figure uses Jewish tradition precisely to make an end-run around it.

For Joseph Smith, however, Hebrews was not simply about Jesus; it also held the key to understanding an eternal order of non-hereditary priesthood superior to that of the Levites that was held not just by Jesus, as the author of Hebrews has it, but by all the central male figures of the Old and New Testaments. Smith combined Hebrews with the narration in Exodus 34 of Moses re ascending the mountain to retrieve two new tablets after he had smashed the first set in the Golden Calf incident two chapters earlier, seeing in this text an aborted attempt to give all Israelites (males?) the higher priesthood.[170] It was almost certainly his revision of Exodus 34 that provided the structure for the articulation in D&C 84 (esp. vv. 24–26) of higher and lower priesthoods and, tellingly, the covenant that attended the receipt of the higher priesthood (D&C 84:39–41).[171] Thus Joseph Smith does with Hebrews and Exodus what the author of Hebrews had done with Genesis and Psalm 110: he put the biblical texts into conversation with each other to establish new understandings of priesthood in response to contemporary social and theological concerns.[172] This precedent of interpretation might open space for new LDS readings of priesthood on the question of gender and authority.

Rites of Ordination 

The act of ordination seems to be the standard by which recent Church statements have dismissed biblical evidence, and it is vital in contemporary Mormon affirmations of authority. Article of Faith 5 says “a man must be called of God by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority.” Thus the official church statement that there is no record of Jesus ordaining women requires an unpacking of what scriptural ordination looks like, especially since most scholars agree that Jesus did not ordain anyone, woman or man, to ecclesiastical office in the Bible. The most explicit scriptural evidence for ordination as the ritual transfer of authority comes from Exodus and Leviticus, which speak of the consecration, ordination, and anointing of priests. If this is the standard the Otterson statement has in mind, it is one that cannot be met almost anywhere else for any office besides the priestly legal texts in the Pentateuch, and especially not in the New Testament. 

If one broadens the definition of ordination to an expression of divine commission, there are many ways the Bible signals the commission. In KJV John 15:16, Jesus refers to his having chosen and “ordained” disciples, but (a) the Greek tithemi need not convey ordination to an office but rather a generic appointment, and (b) it remains unclear, even if the word “ordained” is kept, to what the disciples were ordained. Priesthood is certainly not directly in view here unless in a very generic (non-biblical) sense. Acts 6 depicts the twelve choosing and laying hands on seven subordinates chosen to look after logistics, though it is unclear here too whether this indicates a permanent office. 

Other means of declaring intentional divine selection and commission vary widely and include: personal visions (Micaiah in 1 Kgs 22; Paul in Acts 9), Yahweh touching the mouth (Jeremiah 1), winged serpents touching the mouth with a coal (Isa 6), eating a scroll (Ezekiel 1), and casting lots to decide on the new apostle (Acts 1:23–26). Even more important, the charge, commission, or ordination of most of the male religious authorities in the Bible (even for individual priests) is not described; to list their title was enough, especially if their actions could be assumed to affirm their status. Thus Deborah gives oracles of Yahweh and successfully routs the Canaanites—is her commission in doubt? The same goes for most of the other women treated here. Furthermore, if Paul’s criteria for apostleship include both a vision of the resurrected Jesus and the charge to bear witness of it, Mary Magdalene and the other female witnesses can be considered apostles, “ordained” in the same way Paul was. On the other hand, we have many prominent male figures considered prophets who not only do not describe their ordination (e.g., Elijah, Abinadi), but who are not even specifically called prophets: Amos, Hosea, Joel, Micah, Nahum, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Malachi, Daniel. Further, the LDS understanding of important male figures in the Bible as priesthood holders, such as Adam and Abraham in D&C 84, is arrived at by a revelatory process that has not yet dealt with their female counterparts. Even to cite examples of priesthood and ordination from the Book of Mormon is to ignore the substantial differences in offices and priesthood structure between the Book of Mormon and the current LDS church. There is therefore not only lack of precedent for female ordination in scripture, but much of modern LDS practice of male ordination similarly either lacks precedent entirely or is only weakly attested. In other words, the Bible does not speak unequivocally about either male or female ordination practices as understood or performed by Latter-day Saints. 

Finally, the case of the priesthood ordinations of Joseph Smith and associates at the (literal) hands of angelic messengers complicates any facile claim about priesthood ordination in scripture. The significant gap in time and characterization between the priesthood restoration events and their description reflects an evolution in the understanding of these events.[173] While multiple documents confirm Joseph Smith’s claim to authorization by angelic authority in 1829, the specific link between John the Baptist and the Aaronic priesthood was not forged until after the concept of Aaronic priesthood had itself developed, after 1835. Even more complicated is the question of Melchizedek priesthood restoration, understood today to have taken place at an uncertain date and place by the laying on of hands from Peter, James, and John. Not only is this event murky in origin, but, as Michael MacKay shows, Joseph Smith never cited it during his lifetime as the moment of restoration of, and ordination to, the highest priesthood. Rather, MacKay points to a less widely cited event in the home of Peter Whitmer Sr. in which Smith and Oliver Cowdery apparently were authorized by voice to perform ordinances of the Melchizedek priesthood and to ordain each other Elders.[174] He also points to the Book of Mormon for evidence of authorization to the highest authority solely by divine speech-acts (Helaman 10:6–12). Not only does the history of the LDS church reflect a gradual process of understanding priesthood and restoring it, but it also attests that ordination is possible through pure perception and not exclusively through physical conferral. In any case, all of these examples show different ways of indicating ordination such that ordination of the female authorities discussed earlier is impossible to rule out, even within an LDS framework. 

Conclusion: Precedent, Narrative, and Native Resolutions 

All things had under the Authority of the Priesthood at any former period shall be had again— bringing to pass the restoration spoken of by the mouth of all the Holy Prophets. 

Joseph Smith, 5 October 1840[175]

I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

Joel 2:28 // Acts 2:17 

The scriptural evidence presented here makes as compelling a case for female precedent in most LDS priesthood offices as for males, including the highest: Deacon (Phoebe), Priest (Zipporah, Jael, Hannah), Bishop (Deborah and perhaps Mary mother of John, Mark, Lydia, Nympha, and Chloe),[176] Apostle (Mary Magdalene, Junia), as well as Prophet (Deborah, Huldah, Miriam, Isaiah’s wife, Noadiah), and president of the Church (Deborah). This is a remarkable number given the strongly androcentric production and social setting of the texts. These women make difficult any LDS claim that there were no ordained women in the Bible, especially given the problems with the definition of ordination described above. The simple presence of these figures creates tensions in the particular Mormon constellation of ecclesiastical authority, a tension demonstrated in, for example, the excision of Huldah from the LDS Bible Dictionary and the manipulation of the entry on Deborah. Another source of tension we have seen is the way LDS priesthood hierarchy is not the province of a narrow cultic institution but extends into potentially every home, which intensifies gender relations and fuses priesthood with an eternal gender identity that is at odds with some biblical notions of gender equality. This tension is replicated in the strong dual commitment of the Church to gender equality and to a gendered restriction of priesthood agency. Yet the particular LDS framework also yields unique possibilities for an endemic resolution of these tensions, because although the extension of the concept of priesthood supports the gender hierarchy by marking sex as the most important distinction, it also encompasses roles such as prophet and apostle that were clearly held by biblical women.

The object of this study has been not so much to draw back the curtain to reveal a pristine egalitarian state in which women held priesthood, but rather to point to a cyclical process of empowerment and denial playing out on divine and human levels and in every era important to Mormon theology. What is revealed time and again is precedent followed by restriction and asymmetrically gendered interpretations. Seen thusly, the question becomes whether this cycle can be understood and accommodated in LDS theology.

One can begin to address this question by attention to the importance of narrative in establishing and understanding authority. At many points we saw ancient and modern authors not simply appealing to tradition but shaping, tailoring, and reconfiguring even (and perhaps especially) very thin textual evidence to address contemporary concerns and produce new knowledge in the face of significant social development. We see it at work in the disappearance and diminishing of women in the wake of the centralization of cultic power in Exodus, Judges, and Samuel; in the way the Deuteronomists excised Asherah worship and non-Jerusalem shrines using Moses’s voice; in the way stories were told about priestly progenitors such as Moses and Aaron and their descendants in order to justify the contemporary preeminence of one line over another; in the way Luke and John tweaked their source material so as to promote or demote the apostolic claims of Mary Magdalene and Peter; in the way the author of the Pastoral Epistles adopted Paul’s voice in order to combat the appearance of women in the church hierarchy; in the way the author of Hebrews drew on many biblical and non-biblical texts and traditions to understand Jesus as a priest, and in the way Joseph Smith extended Hebrews.[177] Indeed, the turning points in Joseph Smith’s revelatory career were rarely fully understood even by him from the start. One thinks especially of the multiple and divergent accounts of the first vision and the gradual articulation of the angelic conferral of both Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods as well as the development of priesthood structure and organization itself, which happened in step with scriptural inquiry and social exigency.

More important than the weight of precedent is the ability to assemble from it a new picture that is in recognizable harmony with the tradition. In keeping with the biblical pattern of reshaping tradition, a new but familiar picture of women’s relation to priesthood in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could be assembled from canonical materials. The scriptural evidence of the repeated struggle for the wielding of female authority provides a solid basis for new approaches to the question of power, authority, and gender in the LDS tradition, not just in establishing precedent for authoritative women but also for establishing divine female power, for the exercise of agency, and for the negative evaluation of subordinating gender relations. Future theological reflection might draw, therefore, on the description in Proverbs 8 of a divine, female-gendered creative power overseen by an active and accessible goddess; the equation of female agency and authority with the health of the community of God in the book of Judges; and the patterns of Deborah, Jael, Zipporah, and Mary Magdalene as survivals of the female priesthood Joseph Smith said existed “in the days of Enoch . . . [and] in the days of Paul.”

This material might also explain the present lack of female authority in relation to the past and potentially the future. The decline pictured in the Book of Judges was rooted in a cyclical pattern of oppression and deliverance that evokes the unique LDS way of relating to the past, a relation mediated by the term “apostasy,” which is also understood to be historically cyclical on scales from dispensational to individual.[178] The concepts of apostasy and restoration have been at the heart of LDS self-understanding from the beginning. Terryl Givens recently pointed out that Joseph Smith’s definition of corruption from the primitive church as a justification for the radical reshaping of Christian tradition was exactly the opposite of the prevailing Protestant notions.[179] According to Givens, for Smith and for the subsequent church, restoration was not a removal of accretions like the restoration of a painting darkened by the patina of time (as other Protestants saw it) but a replacement of that which was lost, primarily of original authority.[180] It is in precisely this respect that Mormonism stands in a uniquely advantageous position when it comes to understanding the history of biblical authority: it is able to acknowledge not just the content of scripture but the particular (even the particularly misogynistic) conditions under which scripture developed. Apostasy as a cyclical loss of authority makes it possible to explain the struggle visible in all the texts above, not just in their basic narrative content but also in the ways texts were edited and selected and alternative narratives excluded. It can explain, for example, the inclusion of the Pastoral Epistles in the canon and the exclusion of the Acts of Thekla. In what President Dieter F. Uchtdorf described as an “ongoing Restoration,”[181] it seems that few concepts would be as consonant with the LDS notion of lost authority as the loss of female authority. It is a loss adumbrated in the partial restitution of priesthood authority to women in the last years of Joseph Smith’s life.[182]

Seen this way, the loss of female authority is entirely congruent with Joseph Smith’s view, as Givens describes it, of “restoration as an untidy and imperfect process involving many sources, varying degrees of inspiration, and stops and starts.”[183] If the project of Restoration is a replacement of things lost, the repeated denial of genuine female authority can be seen in LDS terms as a fundamental human tendency of apostasy replicated in virtually every generation: a tendency so ingrained, so part of the fabric of human existence as to make female authority one of the last principles to be restored, because it was one of the first to go.

To return to the opening comparison of the gendered priesthood ban to the racial priesthood ban, it seems the Bible presents stronger evidence for women holding priesthood—especially as Latter-day Saints understand the term—than does early Mormon history for black men ordained during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. In the comparison, however, we find a kind of reversal of sources: in the case of the racial ban, there were clear modern indications of ordinations of black men but only indirect scriptural justification; in the case of the gendered ban, there is clear biblical evidence of women holding the highest offices, while the modern evidence stops just short of ordination in Joseph Smith’s lifetime. Latter-day Saint women have no modern Elijah Abels; they instead have Deborah and Jael, Phoebe and Junia. Maybe more important than precedent of personnel is the clear and repeated scriptural evidence of the assertion and removal of female authority on many levels, from biblical events to text composition to transmission to interpretation. More important still, in my view, is the richness of the Bible and Mormon scripture, treated preliminarily here, for uncovering and exploring narratives of female authority within an LDS framework. It is in precisely this area that much theological and interpretative work remains to be done. 

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Author’s Note: I am grateful to more people than I can name here for their help in making this paper stronger. Rebekah Perkins Crawford was a constant sounding board, read many long drafts, and made detailed comments that prompted new ideas and saved me from pitfalls. Taylor Petrey and Kynthia Taylor deserve special mention for helpful discussion of issues of gender and scripture both general and specific. This paper also benefitted greatly from the detailed critique of Kristine Haglund and of the anonymous Dialogue reviewers. This work is dedicated to my daughters A., C., and also to my son H. 

[1] After Victor A. Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House, JSOTSup 115 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1992), 170. 

[2] “Prophetic Power and Women’s Authority: The Case of the Gospel of Mary (Magdalene),” in Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millennia of Christianity, edited by Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Pamela J. Walker (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 21–41, 335–43; here 21. 

[3] Official Declaration 2. 

[4] Especially Lester Bush, “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” Dialogue 8 (1973): 11–86; Armand Mauss, All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2003). 

[5] The “Gospel Topics” essay on lds.org (https://www.lds.org/topics/ race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng) draws more extensively on careful academic research to help make sense of the ban in the history of the Church. At the time of writing, no official Church publication has attempted to deal in a similar way with the gender ban. 

[6] Ibid.

[7] BBC World Service, “Sister Saints—Women and the Mormons” broadcast, August 23, 2014, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p024wttp. Transcript and emphasis mine. He made a similar statement in an earlier open letter released to several LDS blogs: “I suppose we do not know all the reasons why Christ did not ordain women as apostles, either in the New Testament of the Book of Mormon, or when the Church was restored in modern times. We only know that he did not” (“Context Missing from Discussion about Women,” May 29, 2014, http://bycommonconsent.com/2014/05/29/an-open-letter from-otterson-context-missing-from-discussion-about-women/). LDS Apostles have made similar comments: Elder Oaks called the gender division “a divinely decreed pattern” (“The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood,” April 5, 2014, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/the-keys-and-authority-of the-priesthood?lang=eng); Elder Neil Andersen (“Power in the Priesthood,” October 6, 2013, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/power-in the-priesthood?lang=eng) cites 1 Nephi 11:16–17 (“I do not know the meaning of all things”) in response to why only men hold the priesthood; Elder David Bednar voiced similar agnosis in the Europe Area Sisters’ Meeting in Frankfurt on September 9, 2014. 

[8] Compare the new heading to Official Declaration 2: “Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice [of prohibiting blacks from priesthood ordination].” 

[9] See “Women in the Church,” https://www.lds.org/topics/women-in-the-church?lang=eng. 

[10] Exemplary evidence for this will be discussed below. On the androcentrism of LDS scripture, see Melodie Moench Charles, “Precedents for Mormon Women” in Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective, edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and Lavina Fielding Anderson (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 37–63; Lynn Matthews Anderson, “Toward a Feminist Interpretation of Latter-day Saint Scripture,” Dialogue 27 no. 2 (1994): 185–203. 

[11] See the discussion of Carol Meyers’s work below. 

[12] The classic critique of even feminist contributions to androcentric power structures is Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990). 

[13] Which is often itself motivated by androcentrism and even anti-semitism.

[14] See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Re-Visioning Christian Origins: In Memory of Her Revisited,” in Christian Origins: Worship, Belief and Society, JSNTSup 241, edited by Kieran J. O’Mahony (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2003), 225–50, esp. 243. 

[15] Carol A. Newsom, “Women as Biblical Interpreters Before the Twentieth Century,” in Women’s Bible Commentary, 3rd. ed., edited by Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Rindge, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012),11–26. 

[16] On LDS attitudes toward the Bible, see Philip A. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

[17] Schüssler Fiorenza, “Re-Visioning Christian Origins,” 236.

[18] Major scholarly discussions of gendered authority and LDS scripture include: Moench Charles, “Precedents for Mormon Women;” idem, “Scriptural Precedents for Priesthood,” Dialogue 18, no. 3 (1985): 15–20; Margaret and Paul Toscano, Strangers in Paradox: Explorations in Mormon Theology (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990), 154–78; Anthony A. Hutchinson, “Women and Ordination: An Introduction to the Biblical Context,” Dialogue 14 (1981): 58–74; Todd Compton, “Was Jesus a Feminist?” Dialogue 32, no. 4 (1999): 1–17; idem, “Kingdom of Priests: Priesthood, Temple, and Women in the Old Testament and in the Restoration,” Dialogue 36, no. 3 (2003): 41–59. 

[19] Described in, for example, the 2014 Priesthood/Relief Society curriculum, Teachings of Joseph Fielding Smith, p. 166. This definition is repeated in the 2014 talk of Elder Dallin Oaks (“Keys and Authority of the Priesthood”). For a fuller discussion of historical priesthood definitions, see Toscano and Toscano, Strangers in Paradox, 143–53. 

[20] See Encyclopedia of Mormonism, s.v. “Priesthood.” 

[21] History of the Church 4:207–12. 

[22] HC 3:385–92. 

[23] “The Power of the Priesthood,” April 3, 2010, https://www.lds.org/ general-conference/2010/04/the-power-of-the-priesthood. 

[24] Ibid., quoting Joseph F. Smith in Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1939), 287. 

[25] “Priesthood Authority in the Family and in the Church,” October 1, 2005, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2005/10/priesthood-authority in-the-family-and-the-church?lang=eng. 

[26] Handbook 2 (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2010), §2.1 (https://www.lds.org/handbook/handbook-2-administering the-church/title-page?lang=eng).

[27] Ibid., §15.4 

[28] This sense has been downplayed in recent statements and discussions, which emphasize being acted upon, or receiving the blessings of the priesthood. For example, Sheri L. Dew plainly stated “it is more blessed to receive” and that “power would be available to men and women through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Atonement, through the gift of the Holy Ghost and the ministering of angels, and it would also be available to men and women alike through the restoration of the priesthood. Both men and women would have full access to this power, though in different ways” (Women and the Priesthood: What One Mormon Woman Believes [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2013], ch. 4 [Kindle edition]). As Elder Neal L. Anderson phrased it on October 6, 2013, “We sometimes overly associate the power of the priesthood with men in the Church. The priesthood is the power and authority of God given for the salvation and blessing of all— men, women, and children.” He compared the priesthood power to sunlight entering a room through a window: “A man may open the drapes so the warm sunlight comes into the room, but the man does not own the sun or the light or the warmth it brings. The blessings of the priesthood are infinitely greater than the one who is asked to administer the gift” (“Power in the Priesthood”). This can only be true if the phrase “blessings of the priesthood” excludes the possibility that the ability to “direct, control, and govern” is a blessing. In this line of reasoning, the passive role of reception is equated with the divine while the existence of agents who are actively able to bless is elided. The agent’s role of active service is underplayed in an attempt to create a more egalitarian rendering of the interaction. Thus the “power to act” aspect in the current definition of LDS priesthood is downplayed in favor of the “salvation of mankind” component. It is seen perhaps most clearly in Elder Oaks’s 2014 statement: “Priesthood power blesses all of us. Priesthood keys direct women as well as men, and priesthood ordinances and priesthood authority pertain to women as well as men” (“Keys and Authority”). Here agency rests with keys and ordinances instead of with the social actors who turn the keys and perform the ordinances. 

[29] Mary Keller rethinks the role of female agency in religion by locating the power of some ecstatic performers in their radical receptivity, their “instrumental agency,” being wielded as a hammer or played as a flute: The Hammer and the Flute: Women, Power, and Spirit Possession (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). Jonathan Stökl discusses and ultimately rejects the relevance of this model to the ancient Near Eastern evidence: “The Role of Women in the Prophetical Process at Mari: A Critique of Mary Keller’s Theory of Agency,” in Thinking Towards New Horizons: Collected Communications to the XIXth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament Ljubljana 2007, edited by Hermann Michael Niemann and Matthias Augustin, Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des Antiken Judentums 55 (Frankfurt: Lang, 2008), 173–88.

[30] For a summary of the recent LDS turbulence and discourse surrounding this issue, see Neylan McBaine, Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact (Draper, Utah: Kofford Books, 2014), 7–15. For examples of these non-scriptural approaches and justifications, see Dew, Women and the Priesthood; Oaks, “Keys and Authority”; Julie B. Beck, “Mothers Who Know,” October 7, 2007, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/mothers-who know?lang=eng; Andersen, “Power in the Priesthood.” For earlier analysis of non-scriptural LDS rhetoric, see Sonja Farnsworth, “Mormonism’s Odd Couple: The Motherhood-Priesthood Connection,” in Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, edited by Maxine Hanks (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), 299–314. Available online at http://signaturebookslibrary.org/?p=975.

[31] On the problems of using the label “patriarchy,” see Carol L. Meyers, “Was Ancient Israel a Patriarchal Society?” JBL 133 (2014): 8–27. Pace Meyers, I use the term here not to indicate that men had all power over women in every sphere (as was once claimed for ancient Greece and continues to be claimed for ancient Israel), but to indicate the male-dominated hierarchy articulated in terms of kinship and not simply gender. 

[32] The New Testament comes slightly closer in 1 Cor 11 and 1 Tim 3, but there the reason for subordination is tied to order of creation and to behavior, not to innate qualities. Again, while hierarchy is assumed, philosophical reasons for such are absent. See also discussion of Gen 3:16, below. 

[33] “The Ideology of Gender in the Bible and the Ancient Near East,” in Studies in the Bible and Feminist Criticism (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2006), 188. 

[34] Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), esp. 72–143; Mieke Bal, Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1987), 104–30; Carol L. Meyers, Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), passim. 

[35] S. S. Lanser, “(Feminist) Criticism in the Garden: Inferring Genesis 2–3,” Semeia 41 (1988): 67–84; but against this see Meyers, Rediscovering Eve.

[36] As virtually every commentator notes, the Hebrew word ʾādām is not used as a personal name until chapter 5 and thus many translate it as “earthling,” since the folk etymology given in the text connects “ʾādām” with “earth” (ʾādāmâ). While maintaining the nuance is important, this should not be read as evidence of early egalitarianism, since the fact that the word for “human” becomes the male human’s personal name is another clear link between maleness and normative humanness. See discussion in Ronald A. Simkins, “Gender Construction in the Yahwist Creation Myth,” in Genesis, Feminist Companion to the Bible, Second Series, edited by Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 32–52, esp. 44–46.

[37] See Michael Coogan, God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says (New York: Twelve, 2010), 176; David M. Carr, The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality and the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 23. My thanks to David Bokovoy for pointing out these references. 

[38] While it may be unlikely that, given the narrative context, female gods were implied here, neither the text nor LDS theology explicitly precludes the possibility. On the differences in the creation narratives, see the detailed treatment of Anthony A. Hutchinson, “A Mormon Midrash? LDS Creation Narratives Reconsidered,” Dialogue 21, no. 4 (1988), 11–74. 

[39] That is not to say that the priestly author of Genesis 1 was an egalitarian himself. It is important, however, in the comparative relation between Genesis 1 and 2–3. 

[40] Technically speaking, the creation account of Gen 1 continues through Gen 2:4a, meaning that the second creation account spans Gen 2:4b–3:24. I use “Gen 1” and “Gen 2–3” therefore as an easy shorthand. 

[41] Compare Gen 1:11–12 with 2:5–7. 

[42] The myriad treatments of the Hebrew phrase “ʿēzer knegdô” have demonstrated that no kind of menial assistant is envisioned; ʿēzer is elsewhere only applied to divinity. For LDS implications, see Jolene Edmunds Rockwood, “The Redemption of Eve,” in Sisters in Spirit, 3–36. 

[43] Daniel Boyarin, “Gender,” in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, edited by Mark C. Taylor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 117–35; cf. idem, “Paul and the Genealogy of Gender,” Representations 41 (1993): 1–33 (repr. in A Feminist Companion to Paul, edited by Amy-Jill Levine [London: T&T Clark, 2004], 13–41). 

[44] See Boyarin, “Paul and the Genealogy of Gender” for a thorough discussion of the seeming contradictions in Paul. 

[45] Boyarin, “Gender,” 124. 

[46] Wayne A. Meeks, “The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity,” History of Religions 13, no. 1 (1974): 165–208; Dennis Ronald MacDonald, There is No Male and Female: The Fate of a Dominical Saying in Paul and Gnosticism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987).

[47] Boyarin puts it succinctly: “If Paul took ‘no Jew or Greek’ as seriously as all of Galatians attests that he clearly did, how could he possibly—unless he is a hypocrite or incoherent—not have taken ‘no male or female’ with equal seriousness?” (“Paul and the Genealogy of Gender,” 22). 

[48] On this see also Richard B. Hays, “Paul on the Relation of Men and Women,” in A Feminist Companion to Paul, edited by Amy-Jill Levine (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 137–47 (repr. of idem, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996], 46–59). 

[49] Boyarin, “Gender,” 118. 

[50] Ibid., 128. 

[51] Ibid., 129. 

[52] Seen in the work of Monique Wittig and Luce Irigaray. See Boyarin, “Gender,” 128–33. On the relevance of Irigaray’s work to Mormon thought, see Taylor Petrey’s forthcoming article, “Rethinking Mormonism’s Heavenly Mother,” Harvard Theological Review (forthcoming). 

[53] Boyarin, “Gender,” 132. 

[54] The problems of relating Gen 1 and 2–3 across the “P-J seam” in LDS creation narratives are thoroughly treated in Hutchinson, “LDS Creation Narratives,” esp. 31ff. 

[55] See Taylor Petrey, “Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology,” Dialogue 44, no. 4 (2011): 106–41; idem, “Rethinking Mormonism’s Heavenly Mother.” 

[56] Brent A. Barlow, “Strengthening the Patriarchal Order in the Home,” Ensign (Feb. 1973): https://www.lds.org/ensign/1973/02/strengthening-the patriarchal-order-in-the-home?lang=eng. 

[57] President Spencer W. Kimball, “The Blessings and Responsibilities of Womanhood,” Ensign (March 1976) The address was originally given in the Relief Society General Conference session, October 1–2, 1975, https://www.lds.org/ ensign/1976/03/the-blessings-and-responsibilities-of-womanhood?lang=eng; “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” https://www.lds.org/topics/ family-proclamation?lang=eng. 

[58] Rockwood, “The Redemption of Eve,” 21. 

[59] Boyd Jay Petersen, “Redeemed from the Curse Placed upon Her: Dialogic Discourse on Eve in The Woman’s Exponent,” Journal of Mormon History 40 (2014): 135–74, especially 162–65. Cf. D&C 61:17, in which the effects of the curse on the land are reversed for the saints. 

[60] Bruce C. and Marie K. Hafen, “Crossing Thresholds and Becoming Equal Partners,” Ensign (Aug. 2007): 27. 

[61] http://squaretwo.org/Sq2AddlCommentarySherlock.html; http://www. fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2010-fair-conference/2010- the-two-trees; http://mormonscholarstestify.org/1718/valerie-hudson-cassler; Valerie M. Hudson and Richard B. Miller, “Equal Partnership in Marriage,” Ensign (April 2013): https://www.lds.org/ensign/2013/04/equal-partnership in-marriage?lang=eng. 

[62] However, biblical commentators have for almost a millennium found other ways to neutralize the passage. See examples in Newsom, “Women as Biblical Interpreters,” 11–26; see also Meyers’s intriguing analysis (Rediscovering Eve, 81–102), in which she limits the “ruling” to an etiology of sexual (rather than holistic) relations. She renders the verse as “I will make great your toil and many your pregnancies; / with hardship shall you have children. / Your turning is to your man/husband, / and he shall rule/control you (sexually)” (102).

[63] If one ignores these difficulties, it might make for an interesting LDS midrash on the verse, especially if one then reads Gen 4:7 as Sin “ruling with” Cain. 

[64] See Moses 4:22 and, e.g., the statement of Brigham Young: “There is a curse upon the woman that is not upon the man, namely, that ‘her whole affections shall be towards her husband,’ and what is next? ‘He shall rule over you’” ( Journal of Discourses, 4:57 [September 21, 1856]). 

[65] This is not to say that the plain sense of the text requires or justifies a totalizing gender hierarchy. 

[66] There is arguably a subtler side of this interpretation, too, which wants to find the tension felt in modern Mormon society also expressed in ancient Israel: in other words, if ancient Israel could maintain that men and women “ruled together” while still having an exclusively male priesthood, this would support the current structure in the LDS Church. 

[67] Barlow, “Patriarchal Order.” 

[68] “Any interpretation of this utterance—as a curse, aetiological statement of fact, blessing or otherwise—is largely dependent on the reader’s gender position and may vary considerably” (Athalya Brenner, The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire and “Sexuality” in the Hebrew Bible [Leiden: Brill, 1997], 53). 

[69] Archaeological and epigraphic records confirm the nontrivial existence of Asherah as female consort of Yahweh. Biblical scholars point out that Hosea, one of the earliest writing prophets, excoriates the Israelites for worship of Baal (or baals) but not of Asherah (or asherahs), reflecting a time in which such worship was legitimate. See the thorough treatment of Baruch Halpern, “The Baal (and the Asherah) in Seventh-Century Judah: YHWH’s Retainers Retired,” in Konsequente Traditionsgeschichte: Festschrift für Klaus Baltzer zum 65. Geburtstag, edited by R. Bartelmus, OBO 126 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 115–54. For a basic outline of the parameters and recent discussion, see Sung Jin Park, “The Cultic Identity of Asherah in the Deuteronomic Ideology of Israel,” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 123 (2011): 553–64. Noteworthy in this regard are the multiple inscriptions at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud which bless individuals by Yahweh and “by his Asherah.” The debate as to whether Asherah refers to a cult object or to a personal name seems decided by the male and female bes-figures over which the words are inscribed. In any case, the unproblematic worship of Asherah is confirmed here. For evidence of the “disappearing god dess,” see Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998); Mark S. Smith, “The Blessing God and Goddess: A Longitudinal View from Ugarit to ‘Yahweh and his asherah’ at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud,” in Enigmas and Images: Studies in Honor of Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, edited by Göran Eidevall and Blaženka Scheuer, CBOTS 58 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 213–26 (esp. 224–25). 

[70] On the limitations of Heavenly Mother in Mormon theology, see Moench Charles, “New Mormon Heaven”; Petrey, “Rethinking Mormonism’s Heavenly Mother.” 

[71] Not, as in the KJV, “as one brought up with him.” 

[72] On Wisdom as a Canaanite goddess, see Bernhard Lang, Wisdom and the Book of Proverbs: An Israelite Goddess Redefined (New York: Pilgrim, 1986). On the Egyptian connections, see C. Bauer-Kayatz, Studien zu Proverbien 1–9: Eine Form- und Motivgeschichtliche Untersuchung unter Einbeziehung ägyptischen Vergleichsmaterial, Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 22 (Neukirchen-Vluyn, West Germany: Neukirchener, 1966); Michael V. Fox, “World Order and Ma‛at: A Crooked Parallel,” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University 23 (1995): 37–48. Gustav Boström argued for a Mesopotamian connection: Proverbiastudien: Die Weisheit und das fremde Weib in Sprüche 1–9, Lunds Universitets Årsskrift 30 (Lund, Sweden: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1935). Cf. Daniel C. Peterson, “Nephi and his Asherah,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 9 (2000): 16–25, 80–81; esp. 22–25.

[73] For LDS precedent see David L. Paulsen and Martin Pulido, “‘A Mother There’: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven,” BYU Studies 50 (2011): 70–97, here 80. 

[74] The Sophia traditions in Gnostic texts show a similar figure; see Deirdre Good, Reconstructing the Tradition of Sophia in Gnostic Literature (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987). 

[75] One might associate her with Joseph Smith’s statement that the Melchizedek Priesthood “is the channel through which the Almighty commenced revealing His glory at the beginning of the creation of this earth, and through which He has continued to reveal Himself to the children of men to the present time, and through which He will make known His purposes to the end of time” (HC 4:207). 

[76] Roland E. Murphy, “Wisdom and Creation,” JBL 104 (1985): 3–11, here 9. He also points to Gerhard von Rad’s identification of Wisdom as the matrix in which the earth was created, the “self-revelation” of creation. 

[77] The verb rendered “acquire” [qnh] can also be translated “create” and even “procreate,” and it takes its place as one of the many strongly ambivalent terms surrounding the figure of Wisdom, which might itself be a hallmark of Wisdom literature but also speaks to the rich potential of this figure for LDS theology. See discussion in David Bokovoy, “Did Eve Acquire, Create, or Procreate with Yahweh? A Grammatical and Contextual Reassessment of qnh in Genesis 4:1,” Vetus Testamentum 63 (2012): 1–17. 

[78] Carol A. Newsom, “Woman and the Discourse of Patriarchal Wisdom: A Study of Proverbs 1–9” in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, edited by Peggy L. Day (Minneapolis: Augsburg-Fortress, 1989), 142–60; Athalya Brenner and F. van Dijk-Hemmes, On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible (Leiden: Brill, 1993), esp. 54, 127. See, finally, the nuanced approach of Gerlinde Baumann, “The Figure with Many Facets: The Literary and Theological Functions of Personified Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9,” in Wisdom and Psalms, Feminist Companion to the Bible, Second Series, edited by Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 44–78. 

[79] See, for example, Baumann, “The Figure with Many Facets”; Claudia V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1985); see also Susan Cady, Marian Ronan, and Hal Taussig, Sophia: The Future of Feminist Spirituality (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986). 

[80] Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 153, 251–69; Mark Ashurst McGee, “Zion Rising: Joseph Smith’s Early Social and Political Thought,” PhD Diss., Arizona State University, 2008, 310. On the Reformation notion itself, see Malcolm B. Yarnell III, Royal Priesthood in the English Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 

[81] Moench Charles, “Precedents for Mormon Women,” and “Scriptural Precedents for Priesthood;” Hutchinson, “Women and Ordination;” Compton, “Was Jesus a Feminist?” and “Kingdom of Priests.” 

[82] For an excellent overview of priesthood in the Hebrew Bible, see Mark A. Leuchter, “The Priesthood in Ancient Israel,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 40 no. 2 (2010): 100–10. 

[83] During the lifetime of Joseph Smith and until the twentieth century, the term “high priesthood” referred not to the general Melchizedek Priesthood but to the office of high priest. See extensive discussion in Gregory A. Prince, Power from on High: The Development of Mormon Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995) and, recently, in William V. Smith, “Early Mormon Priesthood Revelations: Text, Impact, and Evolution,” Dialogue 46, no. 4 (2013): 1–84 (here 39–46).

[84] For example, Micah (Judg 17–18); cf. also discussion of Hannah and Elkanah below. 

[85] “When priesthood authority is exercised properly, priesthood bearers do what He would do if He were present” (Packer, “Power in the Priesthood”).

[86] Leuchter, “Priesthood,” 101.

[87] For example, Shaphanides (see Leuchter, “Priesthood,” 105), Ezra (Ezra 7:1–5). 

[88] The four main texts are: Gen 49:5–7; Deut 33:8–11; Gen 34:25–26, 31; Exod 32:26–29. See Joel S. Baden, “The Violent Origins of the Levites: Text and Tradition,” in Levites and Priests in Biblical History and Tradition, edited by Mark Leuchter and Jeremy Hutton (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 103–16. Phineas’s violent zeal, moreover, in Num 25 results in Yahweh’s promise to Phinehas of perpetual priesthood. It seems no accident, then, that the spectacular violence done to the concubine in Judg 19 came at the hands of a Levite. Other texts hint at the nexus of priesthood and violence: the Kenites/Midianites, connected both to the first homicide (Cain, in Gen 4) and to the priestly clan in whose territory Moses first encountered Yahweh and who provided him with a priestly wife (see below). It was, of course, to the Kenite/Midianite territory that Moses fled after having killed an Egyptian. See full summary in Baruch Halpern, “Kenites,” Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 4:17–22. 

[89] Not that such processes were without significant tension, especially with the monarchy. See Jeremy Hutton, “All the King’s Men: The Families of the Priests in Cross-Cultural Perspective,” in “Seitenblicke”: Literarische und historische Studien zu Nebenfiguren im zweiten Samuelbuch, edited by Walter Dietrich, OBO 249 (Fribourg and Göttingen: Academic Press and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 121–51; and Stephen L. Cook, “Those Stubborn Levites: Overcoming Levitical Disenfranchisement,” in Levites and Priests, 155–70. 

[90] The classic and still-informative study of these conflict stories is that of Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), 195–215. For a summary of problems these stories present, as well as scholarly solutions, see George W. Ramsey, “Zadok,” Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 6:1035–36. 

[91] Compare the language describing Jeroboam’s installation of the calves in Dan and Bethel (1 Kgs 12:28) with Aaron’s making of the Golden Calf (Exod 32:4).

[92] Some scholars see the figure of Zadok as originally a Jebusite priest native to (pre-Israelite) Jerusalem, owing to his problematic genealogy and to the similarity of his name to other prominent Canaanite Jerusalemites, Melchizedek and Adonizedek, among other details. Others, however, argue that this is not necessary, especially since the explicit connection to Melchizedek is never made in the text, and argue instead for a northern priesthood that traced its lineage to Moses (Abiathar and the Elides) locked in a power struggle with a southern line deriving from Aaron (Zadok).

[93] Cory D. Crawford, “Between Shadow and Substance: The Historical Relationship of Tabernacle and Temple in Light of Architecture and Iconography,” in Levites and Priests, 117–33.

[94] For an excellent collection and discussion of the major ancient Near Eastern primary sources, see Mark W. Chavalas, Women in the Ancient Near East: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2014). See also the detailed work of Hennie J. Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel: Their Social and Religious Position in the Context of the Ancient Near East (Leiden: Brill, 2003). 

[95] See discussion in, for example, Zainab Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Ancient Mesopotamia (London: Routledge, 2001), 113–17.

[96] See examples below for discussion of the textual evidence in the stories of Hannah, Junia, and Mary Magdalene. 

[97] See, for example, Hannah K. Harrington, “Leviticus,” in Women’s Bible Commentary, 70–78 (here 77); and the discussion and examples in Compton, “Kingdom of Priests,” 49. 

[98] See Sarah Shechtman’s excellent treatments: “Women in the Priestly Narrative,” in The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions, edited by Sarah Shectman and Joel S. Baden, Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments 95 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 2009), 175–86; idem, “The Social Status of Priestly and Levite Women,” in Levites and Priests, 83–99; idem, Women in the Pentateuch: A Feminist and Source-Critical Analysis (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2009).

[99] One could also include here Tamar in Genesis 38, whose actions and those of her accusers presuppose a connection to a (poorly documented) sexual cultic service. 

[100] For discussion of “before Yahweh” in architectural context, see Michael B. Hundley, “Before YHWH at the Tent of Meeting,” ZAW 123 (2011): 15–26.

[101] See discussion in Carol L. Meyers, “Hannah and Her Sacrifice: Reclaiming Female Agency,” in A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings, edited by Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994), 93–104, here 97–99.

[102] Women also are said to offer sacrifice in connection with vows in Prov 7:14. 

[103] Miriam, as prophet, in Exod 15; Deborah, also prophet, in Judg 5; more generally Judg 11:34; 1 Sam 18:7; 21:11; 29:5; 2 Sam 1:20. See also Julie Smith, “‘I Will Sing to the Lord’: Women’s Songs in the Scriptures,” Dialogue 45, no. 3 (2012): 56–69.

[104] See discussion and references below, in the New Testament section on discipleship. 

[105] What follows is only, necessarily, a brief overview of much careful text-critical work. It is well established that the Massoretic text in the cases discussed is the inferior text. See, among the many treatments, Anneli Aejmelaeus, “Corruption or Correction? Textual Development in the MT of 1 Samuel 1,” in Textual Criticism and Dead Sea Scrolls Studies in Honor of Julio Trebolle Barrera ( JSJSup 158, edited by A. Piquer Otero and P. A. Torijano Morales (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 1–17; idem, “Hannah’s Psalm in 4QSama,” in Archaeology of the Books of Samuel: The Entangling of the Textual and Literary History, VTSup 132, edited by P. Hugo and A. Schenker (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 23–37; Donald W. Parry, “Hannah in the Presence of the Lord,” in Archaeology of the Books of Samuel, 53–73; Emmanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3d ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), esp. 254–56. On the general ability to discern textual manipulation in MT without the contrary evidence of LXX or other versions, see Alexander Rofé, “The History of Israelite Religion and the Biblical Text: Corrections Due to the Unification of Worship,” in Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov, edited by S. Paul, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 759–93.

[106] “Hannah in the Presence of the Lord,” 63. 

[107] Cf. Exod 38:8, where women serve at the entrance unproblematically. Alexander Rofé argues persuasively that this phrase in 1 Sam 2:22 is an addition in MT because the scribe wants to further implicate the sons of Eli, but he does not connect it specifically with the crucial discomfort of ch. 1 (“Israelite Religion and Biblical Text,” 772–73). 

[108] Susan Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998), 97–98.

[109] See Halpern, “Kenites.” 

[110] Benjamin Mazar points out that a terebinth with a place-name following (e.g., Gen 12:6–7; 13:38) is always a holy site elsewhere (“The Sanctuary of Arad and the Family of Hobab the Kenite,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 24 [1965]: 297–303). On Kedesh as a city of refuge ( Josh 20:7), see Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, 98. 

[111] His name means “son of (the Goddess) Anat” (on whose proclivity toward violence see above). It is entirely appropriate for a man said to have slain 600 Philistines with an oxgoad. 

[112] The note about Sisera falling “between her feet” in Judg 5:27 has been taken together with the tent-setting as evidence of Ja’el using her sexuality to entice and distract him. As Jack Sasson notes in his recent Judges commentary, to assume they were in a copulative embrace does not accord with the mechanics of her fatal blow ( Judges 1–12, AB 6D [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014] 317), and instead is likely the well-known biblical (and ancient Near Eastern) trope of the vanquished lying at the feet of the victor. See, however, Ackerman’s proposal that Jael, like Anat, is cast as a kind of erotic assassin, whose sexuality is not far from violence (Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, 61). 

[113] Originally the instructions in 4:21–23 were part of a different narrative from the rest of the story, but have been placed there by the compiler of Pentateuchal documents. It is no accident that they are placed immediately before the following narrative, which describes a threat to another firstborn (Moses) and his redemption by the blood of his own firstborn son. 

[114] As noted for centuries, “feet” here and in many other places in the Bible is a euphemism for male genitalia. Thus the foreskin of the son substitutes for that of the father, evoking the common biblical ideal of sacrificing the firstborn or substituting something in his place. See Jon D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993) for a full discussion of the theme and its examples in scripture. On the JST and attendant issues for Latter-day Saints, see Kevin Barney, “Reflections on the Documentary Hypothesis,” Dialogue 33, no. 1 (2000): 57–99, here 92–94. 

[115] See Smith’s excellent discussion of the scriptural praise for these violent acts in “Women’s Songs,” 58–59. 

[116] Mention should also be made of the revelations developing from the barest of textual support, such as baptism for the dead, on the basis of 1 Cor 15:29.

[117] See the entry March 31, 1842, in the “Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book,” available at http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/nauvoo relief-society-minute-book?p=19&highlight=ancient%20priesthood (accessed Oct. 22, 2014). 

[118] This mediatory role is, however, unique in the ancient Near East and may not have been part of the earliest stages of prophecy during the monarchy.

[119] Leuchter, “Priesthood,” 103. 

[120] Duties and Blessings of the Priesthood, Part A (2000), 9. 

[121] Prophecy outside the Bible has also been of scholarly concern, especially in the past three decades. Among ancient Near Eastern cultures, prophecy as a phenomenon detectable in writing so far has shown up almost exclusively in Mari in the second millennium bc, in Neo-Assyria in the first, and in the Hebrew Bible. In all three contexts, there is clear evidence of female prophets, and in the case of Neo-Assyria, as Corrine Carvalho and Jonathan Stökl point out: “If our evidence is to be trusted, the vast majority of Neo-Assyrian prophets were female” (“Introduction,” in Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East, edited by Jonathan Stökl [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013], 1–8, here 3). Lester Grabbe, further, has argued that it is difficult to find evidence anywhere for a specifically female-gendered office, that is, for “prophetess” as distinct from a “prophet” who happens to be female; male and female prophets occupied the same role and not separate gendered (hierarchical) versions (“‘Her Outdoors’: An Anthropological Perspective on Female Prophets and Prophecy,” in Prophets Male and Female, 11–26). Stökl’s comprehensive survey of all three ancient Near Eastern contexts shows the Hebrew Bible’s apparent overwhelming preference for male prophets to be somewhat anomalous, possibly owing to the tendency (though not a rule) of prophets speaking for deities of the same sex (Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, CHANE 56 [Leiden: Brill, 2012], 216–17; idem, “Ishtar’s Women, YHWH’s Men? A Curious Gender Bias in Neo-Assyrian and Biblical Prophecy,” ZAW 121 [2009]: 87–100). It is possible furthermore that the grammar of Hebrew, which allows groups of mixed gender to be referred to by masculine pronouns and verb conjugations, skews the numbers to make the disparity seem all the greater (See Stökl, Prophecy, 217). 

[122] For Miriam it was Aaron, and for Noadiah it was “the rest of the prophets” (Neh 6:14). 

[123] Thomas Römer, “From Prophet to Scribe: Jeremiah, Huldah, and the Invention of the Book,” in Writing the Bible: Scribes, Scribalism and Script, edited by Philip R. Davies and Thomas Römer (Durham, England: Acumen, 2013), 86–96, here 93. 

[124] See Joy A. Schroeder, Deborah’s Daughters: Gender Politics and Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) on text and interpretational history of Deborah, as well as the summary “Deborah, Jael and their Interpreters,” in Women’s Bible Commentary, 128–32. 

[125] See Sasson, Judges 1–12, 255–56. 

[126] See Charles, “Precedents,” 43. 

[127] See https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/deborah?lang=eng&letter=d (accessed Nov. 1, 2014). 

[128] Online at https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/prophetess (accessed Nov. 24, 2014). 

[129] On the sociological pattern of women’s marginalization as institutions are centralized, see Jo Ann Hackett, “In the Days of Jael: Reclaiming the History of Women in Ancient Israel,” in Immaculate and Powerful: The Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality, edited by C. W. Atkinson, C. H. Buchanan, and M. R. Miles (Boston: Beacon, 1985), 15–38; idem, “Women’s Studies and the Hebrew Bible,” in The Future of Biblical Studies: The Hebrew Scriptures, edited by R. E. Friedman and H. G. M. Williamson (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 141–64. 

[130] An interesting correlation with the book of Judges’s inital characterization of women’s authority is visible in the beginning of Sameul, where Samuel is described as the last judge. It is perhaps no accident that in this last gasp of the ideal kingless arrangement, Hannah also evokes the authority that characterized Jael and Deborah.

[131] See summary of A. E. Harvey, “Priesthood,” in Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 565–67.

[132] On the obstacle that this text continues to be for female authority, see, for example, the analysis in the House of Bishops’ Working Party report “Women Bishops in the Church of England?” (London: Archbishops’ Council, 2004), 228–35, esp. 231. Some however read 1 Tim 3:11 as indicating the possibility of women in the diaconate, though this seems a stretch given the surrounding verses and the general tenor of the epistle. 

[133] The Gospel narratives were important, for example, in Sarah Moore Grimké’s 1837 stance against the pastors who wanted to curtail her public involvement with abolitionism: “The Lord Jesus defines the duties of his followers in his Sermon on the Mount. He lays down grand principles by which they should be governed, without any reference to sex or condition. . . . I follow him through all his precepts, and find him giving the same directions to women as to men, never even referring to the distinction now so strenuously insisted upon between masculine and feminine virtues” (“July 1837 Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of Woman. Addressed to Mary S. Parker” [Boston: I. Knapp, 1838], 128). I am indebted to Rebekah Crawford for pointing me to this text. 

[134] In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983), xxiv. 

[135] See Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Sharing Her Word: Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Context (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 113–14. See fuller discussion and slight correction in Margaret Beirne, Women and Men in the Fourth Gospel: A Genuine Discipleship of Equals, JSNTSup (London: Shefflied, 2003), 32–33. Valerie Hudson and Elder D. Todd Christofferson, for instance, have raised the specter of sameness in the LDS debate about women’s authority: Hudson, “Rectifying the Names: Reflections on ‘Womanhood and Language’ by [Ralph] Hancock,” SquareTwo 7, no. 3 (2014): http://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleHudsonRectificationNames.html; see also idem, “Equal Partnership in Marriage”; Christofferson, “The Moral Force of Women,” October 5, 2013 (https://www. lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/the-moral-force-of-women?lang=eng): expresses a “concern . . . from those who, in the name of equality, want to erase all differences between the masculine and the feminine.” 

[136] For this phenomenon in Luke, see, for example, Jane D. Schaberg and Sharon H. Rindge, “Gospel of Luke,” in Women’s Bible Commentary, 493–516.  

[137] Schaberg and Rindge, “Gospel of Luke,” 498; see also Ann Graham Brock, Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority, HTS 51 (Cam bridge, Mass.: Harvard Theological Studies, 2003), 36–37. 

[138] Compare the treatment of the council of Jerusalem in Acts with that of Paul (Acts 15; Gal 1–2). 

[139] See Gail R. O’Day, “Gospel of John,” in Women’s Bible Commentary, 517–30, esp 519.

[140] Beirne, Women and Men in the Fourth Gospel, passim. 

[141] See Taylor Petrey, “Purity and Parallels: Constructing the Apostasy Narrative in Early Christianity,” in Standing Apart: Mormon Historical Consciousness and the Concept of Apostasy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 174–95. 

[142] Luke also seems to require that the apostles have been a companion of Jesus during his earthly ministry; women also fit this criterion. See Hutchinson, “Women and Ordination,” 64. 

[143] Brock, Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle. This is not to say that she is the first to treat the subject; see, for example, Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 51–52. 

[144] Brock, Mary Magdalene, 19–39. 

[145] John 21 casts Peter in a positive light uncharacteristic of the rest of John. It is no accident that this chapter comes after the apparent conclusion to the book in John 20, and has been regarded by many scholars as an appendix added by a later editor. See discussion in Brock, Mary Magdalene, 51–52.

[146] On this see ibid., 43–45. 

[147] Ibid., 45; see John 13:16. 

[148] See, for example, the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4; the contrast between Martha’s belief and Thomas’s doubt ( John 11:27 vs. 20:29); and Mary’s anointing of Jesus and his rebuke of Judas when he complains (11:54–12:11). For a full discussion of these and other examples, see ibid., 55–60. 

[149] Brock, Mary Magdalene, 41–60. As Brock notes, they both are eclipsed by the mysterious Beloved Disciple in the Gospel of John, however.

[150] This is an interpretation stemming, not coincidentally, from the story of the female sinner (not prostitute) at the end of Luke 7 and the introduction of Mary Magdalene in the beginning of Luke 8. 

[151] Hippolytus, De Cantico, 24–26; CSCO, 264: 43–49; cited in Brock, Mary Magdalene, 1–2. 

[152] Cited in Brock, Mary Magdalene, 172. 

[153] See Hutchinson, “Women and Ordination,” 66–68. 

[154] Ibid., 66. 

[155] Ibid., 67; emphasis Hutchinson’s. 

[156] The classic study is that of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Missionaries, Apostles, Co-Workers: Romans 16 and the Reconstruction of Women’s Early Christian History,” Word and World 6 (1986): 420–33. Moench Charles treats the chapter in the context of the LDS canon (“Precedents for Mormon Women,” 54–56), as does Hutchinson, “Women and Ordination,” 65–66. 

[157] See discussion in, for example, Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 47–48. For LDS context, see Hutchinson, “Women and Ordination,” 65.

[158] The author of Acts cites what he may understand to be the origin of the office of deacon in entirely male terms (Acts 6:1–6), which probably accounts for the reluctance of the KJV translators to call Phoebe a deacon. It should not surprise us, however, to find contradiction in the development of church organization between Acts and the undisputed letters of Paul, nor the characterization of the development of offices as orderly and androcentric. See discussion of Luke-Acts above. 

[159] Clare K. Rothschild (Review of Eldon Jay Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle, Journal of Religion 87 [2007]: 270) summarizes nicely the evidence Epp presents: “(1) Junia was a common Roman name; (2) ancient writers without exception read ’Ioυνιαν as Junia; (3) ’Ioυνιαν was the reading of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus (1517) to Nestle (1927); (4) all early translations transcribe the name as feminine; (5) ‘Junia’ was understood in all English translations of the New Testament from Tyndale (1526/1534) until the late nineteenth century; (6) neither of the masculine forms is attested in ancient texts anywhere; and (7) the contraction hypothesis (i.e., Lat. Junianus) is flawed (23–24).” 

[160] “Women and Ordination,” 66. 

[161] On this see Judith M. Lieu, “The ‘Attraction of Women’ in/to Early Judaism and Christianity: Gender and the Politics of Conversion,” JSNT 72 (1998): 5–22. Scholars have also raised important objections to the characterization of Judaism as oppressive and Christianity as liberating as the unfounded reinscription of anti-Semitic dogmas. The seminal works on this are Bernadette J. Brooten, “Jewish Women’s History in the Roman Period: A Task for Christian Theology,” HTR 79 (1986): 22–30; and especially Judith Plaskow, “Christian Feminism and Anti-Judaism,” Cross Currents 28 (1978): 306–09. 

[162] Sociologist Rodney Stark (The Rise of Christianity [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996]) has engendered strong reaction for his claims that women joined the early Christian movement and his narrative of how it took hold and grew before the fourth century. His comparison with (and especially his projections about the future of ) Mormonism makes his work especially interesting for the study of women in the early LDS Church. See discussion in Lieu, “Attraction of Women,” 6–8. 

[163] A strong expression of this view is that of Karen Jo Torjesen, When Women Were Priests: Women’s Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1993); also Anne Jensen, God’s Self-Confident Daughters: Early Christianity and the Liberation of Women, translated by O. C. Dean, Jr. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996). 

[164] Carolyn Osiek and Margaret MacDonald, A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 12.

[165] On Thekla, see Francine Cardman, “Women, Ministry, and Church Order” in Women and Christian Origins, edited by Ross S. Kraemer and Mary R. D’Angelo (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 301–02. On alternative means to authority and the renunciation of sex, see the seminal work of Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988). 

[166] Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek, Women’s Ordination: A Documentary History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). 

[167] What may not be exactly clear is that some translators are not sure that in this text “Melchizedek” is referenced simply as the phrase “righteous king.”

[168] James L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as it Was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 276–93.

[169] This is, incidentally, an interpretation probably picked up by Joseph F. Smith in D&C 138:41: “Shem, the great high priest,” sandwiched between Noah and Abraham. Cf. the language of D&C 107:2, where Melchizedek is called the “great high priest.” 

[170] A careful reading of Exodus 34 shows, however, that three traditions are being brought together here, none of which understands the covenant to have been altered because of the Golden Calf incident. In one, Moses is simply retrieving an exact copy of the earlier tablets, and in another he is writing down (for the first time!) the instructions the Lord gave him. See discussion in Joel S. Baden, “The Deuteronomic Evidence for the Documentary Theory,” in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, FAT 78, edited by Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, and Baruch J. Schwartz (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 327–44. 

[171] Kent Jackson (personal communication) kindly provided crucial information on this sequencing: At the end of July 1832, Joseph Smith and Frederick G. Williams returned to the Old Testament translation in Gen 24:58, page 60 of the 119-page JST manuscript. Exodus 34 comes ten manuscript pages later. On July 31, 1832, Smith indicated that he and Williams were “making rapid strides” in the Old Testament. Doctrine and Covenants 84 was received about two months later on September 22–23, 1832, making it likely that Exod 34 was reworked not long before D&C 84. 

[172] That is not to say that there were not other significant influences in Hebrews or in D&C 84; only that these provided the key ideas.

[173] See Prince, Power from on High, 1–45; Quinn “Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843,” in Women and Authority, 365–85; Michael H. MacKay, “Endowed with Power: Prophets, Angels, and the Restoration of the Priesthood,” (unpublished ms. under review).

[174] See HC 1:62: “We now became anxious to have that promise realized to us, which the angel that conferred upon us the Aaronic Priesthood had given us, viz., that provided we continued faithful, we should also have the Melchizedek Priesthood, which holds the authority of the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. We had for some time made this matter a subject of humble prayer, and at length we got together in the chamber of Mr. Whitmer’s house, in order more particularly to seek of the Lord what we now so earnestly desired; and here, to our unspeakable satisfaction, did we realize the truth of the Savior’s promise—“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”—for we had not long been engaged in solemn and fervent prayer, when the word of the Lord came unto us in the chamber, commanding us that I should ordain Oliver Cowdery to be an Elder in the Church of Jesus Christ; and that he also should ordain me to the same office” (emphasis added). See also MacKay, Endowed with Power, passim. 

[175] HC 4:211. 

[176] Deborah is included here in her capacity as “judge in Israel,” cf. D&C 58:17–18, which specifically links modern bishops to ancient judges. The New Testament women are conjectures based on their likely oversight of Christian house churches (Acts 20:28; the polemic stance in 1 Timothy clearly prefers that bishops be male, but the stringency bespeaks an underlying struggle in which such was probably not the case; This is of course in addition to its spurious authorship). Aside from this possibility, no bishops, male or female, are named in the New Testament. 

[177] For a broader view of the reshaping of history in the Bible and Latter day Saint scriptures, including a fuller discussion of the case of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history, see Cory D. Crawford, “Competing Histories in the Bible and in Latter-day Saint Tradition,” in Standing Apart, 129–46. 

[178] On apostasy narratives, see the collection of essays in Standing Apart.

[179] Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 23–41. 

[180] Ibid., 41. 

[181] Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Are You Sleeping Through the Restoration?” April 5, 2014, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/are-you-sleeping through-the-restoration?lang=eng. 

[182] I agree here with Gregory Prince (Power from on High, 207, n.25), challenging D. Michael Quinn’s assertion that LDS women have had the priesthood since 1843 (“Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843,” in Women and Authority, 365–409), that early Church documents do not support a full granting of priesthood authority to women since those documents show an ultimate subordination to male authority, as well with the sense that the foundation for female authority will have to be sought elsewhere. I propose it may be found in the biblical texts discussed here. 

[183] Givens, Wrestling the Angel, 38–39.

[post_title] => The Struggle for Female Authority in Biblical and Mormon Tradition [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 48.2 (Summer 2015): 1–57
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It is an incredible honor to be here with you. I was not yet born when the women who published A Beginner’s Boston met at Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s house in Boston to talk about their lives, launching the organized contemporary feminist movement. When the first issue of Exponent II was published, I was three years old, living in a religiously observant and conservative LDS home in Orange County, California, a home where there was no Dialogue, no Exponent II. I was eight years old and listening to President Kimball speak at the Rose Bowl when I saw the Mormons for ERA-hired plane tow its banner—“Mother in Heaven Loves ERA”—through the skies of Pasadena. I was so curious, but there were no Mormon feminists in my world—at least none that I knew of. Not until Eugene England walked into the classroom where I sat for my August 1989 orientation at Brigham Young University did I know there could be such a thing as a Mormon feminist. But since then, since I was eighteen years old, I have been fed, sheltered, warmed, and nurtured by Mormon feminist communities as a thinker, believer, critic, activist, scholar, writer, mother, and human being by women like Lorie Winder Stromberg, Elouise Bell, Margaret Toscano, Gloria Cronin, Lavina Fielding Anderson, Judy Dushku, Kay Gaisford, Becky Linford, and so many others. I have been welcomed into feminist networks, relationships, and venues created and tended to by women working long before my arrival. I feel an enormous debt of gratitude and a sense of honor in being part of this important work with all of you. I am here to say thank you to the women who built this movement, our spiritual home. 

I am sensitive to the fact that we are here in the wake of yet another difficult moment in Mormon feminist history after the excommunication of our sister Kate Kelly and during yet another season when progressive Mormon women and men in many places are being monitored, called in by their priesthood leaders, instructed not to participate vocally in Sunday meetings, released from callings, and subjected to other informal disciplinary actions. It has certainly been a difficult few months for me. I have been surprised by my own reactions, so much so that I stepped entirely back from blogging and social media, largely because I have not known what to say that could encourage and contribute.

It’s a moment that reminds me of a letter I came across in my research for the anthology of Mormon feminist writings that I am editing with Hannah Wheelwright and Rachel Hunt Steenblik, to be published next year by Oxford University Press, which features so many of you, and to which many of you have contributed. This letter comes from March 1979, from the Alice Louise Reynolds Forum, an association of older Mormon feminists in Provo, Utah, expressing dismay about anti-feminism within the Church to LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball: 

Dear President Kimball: 

We speak for a sizeable minority of LDS women whose pain is so acute that they must try to be heard. Does the First Presidency really know of our plight? We cannot believe that anyone deliberately seeks to destroy us; nevertheless that is the signal we are receiving. We feel that we are the victims of a deliberate and punishing ultra-conservative squeeze to force us out of fellowship. . . . Suddenly many devoted Mormon women are being treated like apostates. . . . We desperately need to know whether, after serious consideration, soul-searching, and prayer, you indeed and in fact find us unworthy, a minority open to attack, and ultimately expendable. If not can the word get out that Mormon feminists are not to be subjected to intimidations, rejection for Church assignments, loss of employment, and psychological excommunication? Every difference of opinion or sincere question should not be answered with a threatening indictment of one’s testimony. We are women who love the Lord, the Gospel, and the Church; we have served, tithed, and raised righteous children in Zion. We plead for the opportunity to continue to do so in an atmosphere of respect and justice. For decades we have been part of the solution, whatever the need has been; we are saddened to be now considered part of the problem.[1]

It was a letter that perhaps some of us feel we could have written in September 1993 or June 2014. The familiarity of this letter—its sentiments, its plaintiveness—could be taken as an indicator of how little has changed in the last few decades. Certainly in editing this book I’ve been struck time and time again by the persistence of Mormon feminism’s core challenges and questions. In 1981, Nadine Hansen was among the first Mormon women to write about female priesthood ordination; last April, I stood with Nadine in the chilly rain outside the Tabernacle on Temple Square at the second Ordain Women direct action. Can we measure change? Will Mormon feminism always find itself engaged in a cyclical series of repressions and recoveries, push forwards and institutional pushbacks?

Cycles of retrenchment may never end, but the contexts in which we experience them certainly do. Whoever could have imagined in 1970 the rise of the internet, let alone its impact, for better and for worse, on Mormonism and the Mormon feminist movement? Thanks to the great feminist tool that is Facebook, we who once may have felt ourselves isolated in our wards can find virtual communities of Mormon feminists on the internet and share with them—all day and all night if we want—our historic moment and our lives. We once relied on hand-mimeographed newsletters sent quarterly by snail mail: my copy of the Mormon Alliance newsletter always came with an inked heart above the address label, straight from the hand of Lavina Fielding Anderson, and that heart meant the world to me. Now, we repost links to Mormon feminist or progressive blogposts, hit “like” buttons, share, and comment, all in real time. As dazzling as this virtual community is, the internet has also served as a new platform for the expression of anti-feminism, straining friends and family networks and creating a new warrant for surveillance of Mormon feminists. Then there is the dizzying sense of amnesia and inertia one gets from the constant scrolling of the newsfeed, every day bringing to our feminist blogs and Facebook groups newcomers with entry-level feminist awakenings—vital, crucial, necessary, to be sure—but also no sense of history, no anchor points in collective memory and experience.

It all makes one hunger for a rainy Saturday afternoon in New England, curled up in a chair near the window with the print Exponent II or maybe a book like Mormon Enigma and a cup of chamomile tea. That hunger for a book to anchor collective memory and serve as an opportunity for preservation, reflection, and the cultivation of conversation, common perspectives, and common dreams is one of the major reasons I undertook the compilation of the Mormon feminism anthology. Not since 1992, when Lavina Fielding Anderson and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher’s Sisters in Spirit and Maxine Hanks’s Women and Authority were published, has there been a substantial compilation of Mormon feminist writings. 

For Mormon feminists, now is the time to honor the forty-year legacy of this movement by taking steps to preserve and convey our own Mormon feminist history. Only by looking at our history can we gain perspective on our shared and individual experience and develop strategic insights to set priorities for our future. Having spent the last ten months fairly immersed in historical Mormon feminist writings from 1970 to the present, I would like to take this opportunity to offer the product of my own historical reflection by identifying what I believe are some key challenges the Mormon feminist movement should and must face in its next forty years. 

1. Mormon feminism needs to continue to press Mormon theology forward 

I often explain to my colleagues in the progressive religious community the profoundly democratic character of Mormon theology—that we have no trained clergy, no seminarians, no professional theologians, no theological seminars. Still, in compiling this anthology of Mormon feminist writing, I have been deeply impressed by the significant theological work Mormon feminists have accomplished over the last forty years. We inherited from Joseph Smith an arrested restoration on matters of gender: elements of the endowment ceremony and Smith’s own remarks to the Nauvoo Relief Society indicate