How to Speak Up
It’s a typical Sunday. You’ve settled into a folding chair in a sunny corner of the chapel classroom. Your scripture app is open on your phone and you’re reading along with the Sunday School teacher. Then it happens. A fellow ward member raises his hand to share his pet theory on faith in eternal polygamy as a winnowing process for latter times. Or maybe you are in Relief Society and your neighbor shares her heartfelt testimony that women who work outside the home lack a strong testimony of the gospel.
From speculation about the origins or supposed value of the priesthood and temple ban for members of African descent to declarations about which U.S. political party Jesus endorses, a lesson, talk, or church activity can be quickly derailed and misinformation propagated by interjections like these. While it may not always be possible or feel appropriate to speak up in response, these kinds of assertions are often hurtful, incorrect, or alienating. In those instances, it can be vital to voice dissent. We often feel discomfited and motivated to say something, but in the moment, our minds may buzz blankly and our hearts pound with anxiety. What to do?
The solution is to make a plan in advance. If you create a script for yourself, responding in the moment no longer requires an extemporaneous response. You follow your script. And while none of us are likely to reach for the exact same words, a guide for your script might look like this:
1. Correct
2. Diffuse
3. Redirect
Let’s look at each component. First, Correct. While you may have a refuting fact on hand, this part is more about simply stating dissent. The point of speaking up is not to begin a debate and further derail and disrupt, so don’t get bogged down in argument. Select a key phrase or two and rely on them to structure your statements in the moment, such as: That isn’t true; I don’t see it that way; That’s inappropriate; I think that’s unfair. You may have a specific extension to one of these in the moment and that’s great (though remember that brevity will be most effective—you’re not giving a speech), but you can also stick with one of these simple examples as is.
Second, Diffuse. I bet everyone, including you, is feeling uncomfortable right about now. Contradiction can be hard even in settings that call for it, but it is especially so in environments where we tend to expect mutual concurrence, like church or family gatherings. That’s ok. The expectation that we will all acquiesce can allow for problematic ideas to flourish and that’s why you’re speaking up. At the same time, we usually do share some values and beliefs with the person or people we are contradicting and you can point to one of those to diffuse some of the tension and reorient the group around a shared principle. Some examples include God’s immeasurable love for every person, that most people do the best they can, that everyone has to develop their own faith and testimony, and no one is perfect.
Third, Redirect. In church settings, a script like this will probably be most helpful if you build it with the goal of re-centering the room around gospel basics or the topic of the lesson at hand. This step can further diffuse any tension, but most importantly it returns the group to reason everyone is together. We have limited time to worship on Sundays and people have spent time preparing talks and lessons. It’s important to address harmful comments, but ideally, we are doing so to uplift, include, and turn our attention to the heart of the gospel.
The resulting script in response to, say, the comment about the faithfulness of working women would then look something like this:
“I think that’s unfair. We can’t measure anyone’s faithfulness but our own. Every individual has to develop her own capacity to receive personal revelation. One thing I appreciate about scripture study, our topic today, is the guidance we can find from examples like Ruth on how to persevere in following God’s personalized path for us.”
Finally, remember that speaking up with ease and confidence will take practice. It’s ok to feel nervous and you may not always phrase things as eloquently as you wish you could. But, your goal is to make your ward more inclusive and healthier. Voicing dissent from a place of love models a valuable skill for your community.
Have you spoken up? How did it feel? What strategies do you use?
Unto One of the Least of These
For background: I went to my bishop and told him that I was involved with Ordain Women. They had fair warning. I was asked to speak in sacrament meeting and when I said yes, I was handed a talk by a GA and the title was, “Come Unto Me.” The rest was useless drivel. Here is what I said (I have edited for length, and since this was five years ago, I have left out some things that I don’t really think add to the gist of the what I was saying):
Come Unto Me is the invitation of the Savior to us. It is found in the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and reiterated in our modern scriptures in Section 88:63 of the Doctrine and Covenants. “Draw near unto me, and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently, and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”
How do we draw near unto the Savior? He has shown us by His words and His example what He values and how we are to be numbered among His people. Alma, in Mosiah 18:9-11, sets out our responsibilities if we are to be called the people of God: “ye are willing to mourn with those who mourn; yea, and comfort those who that stand in need of comfort.” And in Matthew 25:40 we are counseled: “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” King Benjamin told his people and us in Mosiah 2:17: “when ye are in the service of your fellow being, ye are only in the service of your God.” Jesus spent His life among those who were marginalized, who were unacceptable to and within the mainstream culture of His day.
There are people among us today; in our congregations and our communities and even, sometimes, in our families who don’t feel welcome, who are outcast and marginalized. Who are these strangers among us?
Those who have questions often find themselves strangers among us. We too often see them as dissidents, disobedient, lacking in faith, questioning our testimonies and our leaders. Why can’t they just listen to our leaders who tell us what we need to think about and have faith that all things will be made known in the Lord’s due time?
Gays and lesbians have been made visible as strangers among us recently. Utah leads the nation in suicide among youth who identify as gay and lesbian. Almost half of the population of homeless teens in Utah are gay and lesbian children who have been expelled from their LDS homes after having told their parents about their sexual orientation. I am going to leave these disturbing statistics with the comment that there is something profoundly wrong with the way we are perceiving and treating these strangers among us, that we should think about.
The strangers with whom my heart really lies are certain women in the church today. Let me give some historical context on the way women have functioned in the church. The women of the first Relief Society were counseled by Joseph Smith: “I will make of you a Society of Priests as in Enoch’s day as in Paul’s day.” That trajectory was cut short by his martyrdom after which the Relief Society was dissolved as the Saints prepared for the exodus to the West.
The Relief Society was reorganized after the Saints had reached the Salt Lake valley. The Relief Society was a autonomous organization that was not brought under the auspices of the priesthood until much later. These women owned their own buildings, collected and managed their own funds and initiated and ran their own programs. They were suffragists, doctors, (sent to school in the East with Relief Society funds), nurses (trained by the doctors who returned from medical schools in the East), business owners, farmers, political leaders, builders and administrators of hospitals, writers, poets, publishers of their own magazines, newsletters, and instruction manuals. It goes without saying that they were wives and mothers.
Our allotted spaces for women in the church have narrowed considerably over the decades of the 20th century and a cult of femininity defined exclusively as wife/mother had developed I quote Chieko Okazaki, the First Counselor in the General Relief Society Presidency from 1990 – 1997, “the current infrastructure of the church is not allowing women to be equally represented; our voices simply aren’t an integral part of the narrative.”
The obsessive and narrow definition of a wife/stay at home mother as the only acceptable way to be a Latter Day Saint woman does not serve us well. Women too often get the message loud and clear that their job is to be supportive and just agree with the decisions of the priesthood leaders and they feel it’s inappropriate to speak up, their voices are simply unheard because priesthood leaders are not accustomed to having their counsel. This has made too many of our sisters strangers in our congregations.
It has left women who are unable to have children out of the equation. It has made women who do not want children practically pariahs. There was a recent article in the Deseret News that excoriated those who make the choice not to have children. There are many reasons to make such a choice, but there is no room in our culture to do so.
Single sisters, I have walked a few years in your shoes and have some understanding of what the culture of the church looks like from your perspective. There too often seems to be no place for you. You are thrown the bone of “well, you will have the opportunity to marry and have children in the next life.” Uh, hun. So what is this life? A waiting room? This teaching is unfortunately very dismissive of your lives and your accomplishments and your contributions to your communities and the world at large.
I am a supporter of ordaining women. I think this is a step that will have positive consequences far beyond the confines of our church communities. I join with those who are asking our leaders, those authorized to receive revelation for the church as a whole, to petition the Lord for further light and knowledge. We have full faith in continuing revelation. I believe in the promise fo the night article of faith: “we believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.” Those of us asking our leaders to seek the counsel of the Lord on this important topic are seeking a place at the table: so that women’s voices, women’s lives, women’s challenges, and women’s diversity also inform the perceptions and actions of those who are creating the programs and writing and presenting the publications and counsel that shape our religious culture.
When we begin to see women routinely acting in all capacities within our religious communities and being regarded and viewed and treated as fully and equally human, I believe that boys and girls will grow up into men and women who have very different fundamental assumptions about themselves and each other than we currently have. I think that we will find that viewing individuals of the opposite sex in a more nuanced and less restricted way will be a paradigm shift of colossal scope. I believe we will be freer to see individuals as individuals with strengths and weaknesses, gifts and goals that are unique and that will open the possibilities of tapping the potential of individuals for greatness. I also think it will revolutionize the way girls view themselves as they grow into women. I believe that the creative and intellectual energy that is now being carefully circumscribed will change the world in ways we can only imagine. I believe boys will flourish as well when they are no longer required to spend so much psychological energy patrolling and enforcing the boundaries of masculinity.
I work for a world made new when the divine feminine is allowed to come into full partnership with the divine masculine and the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
There has been a great deal of very venomous rhetoric aimed at members of Ordain Women and myself personally. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have been told that if I don’t like things the way they are that I should just leave. I have been dismissed, my understanding of the gospel questioned, I have been accused of trying to tear down the church and of seeking power or being power hungry.
I find this charge of seeking power an interesting one in that priesthood does not confer power in the sense that we usually understand it. Power that is perceived as hierarchical and monarchical is diluted when you share in that power. The more people who have power in this model, the less one person has of it. This is the model that sustains self-aggrandizement, and it seems that is what is really meant by the charge that we are power hungry; that we seek for self-aggrandizement.
I don’t see that priesthood power is conducive to self-aggrandizement. This is the power to bless and to serve and to teach and to discern and to prophesy and to reach the full measure of our creation and to glorify God who said in Moses 1:39, “Behold, this is my work and my glory, to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man.” Man in the generic, I am certain. If that is self-aggrandizement, we need more of it in the world.
I joined Ordain Women last October when we went as a group and requested admission to the priesthood session as prospective elders. After we were turned away, the words of President Uchtdorf came to us like sweet manna to our starved and weary souls, “Regardless of your circumstances, your personal history, or the strength of your testimony, there is room for you in the Church.”
“To those who have separated themselves from the Church, I say, my dear friends, there is yet a place for you here. Come and add your talents, gifts, and energies to ours. We will become better as a result.”
These are wise and loving words.
“Come back, there is room for you here. . .” he said, and yet. Oh, and yet, right outside the doors, within our congregations and in our family circles are those whose struggle to maintain their faith has become or is becoming unsustainable because they KNOW there is no room for them here. They know because they have lived an experience that so many REFUSE TO SEE OR HEAR because of what they think they know. They have been turned away by words and, more importantly, the actions of the body of the Church form the top down; actions and words not of the few and far between, but of the many and the constant.
I hope that we will go forth from today and make the counsel of President Uchtdorf, King Benjamin, Alma, and Jesus himself manifest in the world. To turn harsh words away with kindness, to listen with our hearts and minds open to the struggles and needs of those around us, and to offer the outstretched hand to those who are strangers among us. For this is how we truly heed the invitation extended to us from Jesus: “Come unto me.”
Removing the Barriers to Women’s Ministry #musicmonday
![Mary Magdalene by Luca Signorelli [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Signorelli%2C_Mary_Magdalene%2C_orvieto.jpg/256px-Signorelli%2C_Mary_Magdalene%2C_orvieto.jpg)
Mary Magdalene by Luca Signorelli [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Former Ordain Women executive board member Nancy Ross was recently ordained to the office of elder in the Community of Christ. Those gathered for her ordination sang the potent hymn “A Prophet-Woman Broke a Jar,” written by religious composer Brian Wren and commissioned by the St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of Thunder Bay, Ontario, in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the ordination of women as elders in The Presbyterian Church of Canada.
Wren, long committed to social justice, chose two Biblical texts “that portray the ministry of women” as the inspiration for the hymn. One is from the four gospel accounts of the women who were the first witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection. The other, from which the hymn takes its title, is in Mark 14:3-9. It describes the woman who breaks open an alabaster jar of precious ointment to anoint Jesus. Not understanding that Jesus will soon be crucified, those around her condemn her. Jesus, however, does not:
“… there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on [Jesus’s] head. And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? … And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. She hath done what she could … “
The hymn’s verses not only recount these familiar stories but also lament the historical barriers to women’s ministry. We women have always “done what [we] could.” As we embrace the new focus in the Church “on ministering as the Savior taught,” the question embedded in these verses for us as Latter-day Saints is this: How much more could we bless the lives of others if all of the institutional barriers to women’s ordination and full ministry were removed?
A prophet-woman broke a jar,
by Love’s divine appointing.
With rare perfume she filled the room,
presiding and anointing.
A prophet-woman broke a jar,
the sneers of scorn defying.
With rare perfume she filled the room,
preparing Christ for dying.
A faithful woman left a tomb
by Love’s divine commission.
She saw, she heard, she preached the Word,
arising from submission.
A faithful woman left a tomb,
with resurrection gospel.
She saw, she heard, she preached the Word,
apostle to apostles.
Though woman-wisdom, woman-truth,
for centuries were hidden,
unsung, unwritten, and unheard,
derided and forbidden,
the Spirit’s breath, the Spirit’s fire,
on free and slave descending,
can tumble our dividing walls,
our shame and sadness mending.
The Spirit knows, the Spirit calls,
by Love’s divine ordaining,
the friends we need, to serve and lead,
their powers and gifts unchaining.
The Spirit knows, the Spirit calls,
from women, men and children,
the friends we need, to serve and lead.
Rejoice, and make them welcome!
Words Copyright © 1993 by Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL (www.hopepublishing.com)
Reaffirmation, Renewal, and Regeneration
In celebration of Ordain Women’s fifth anniversary, we sponsored a panel at the 2018 Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City titled “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Many Voices of Ordain Women.” As we look to the future and a new organizational structure that emphasizes both individual and collective, local and global activism on women’s ordination and gender equality in the Church, the panel not only drew on the past to inform a discussion of our initiatives going forward but also featured the thoughts and experiences of a number of OW executive board members and supporters who share the common vision of a more equitable religious community. The following was presented by OW executive board chair, Bryndis Roberts.
Good evening. First, let me thank you for coming to the Ordain Women session. Second, let me express my apologies for not being able to be with you in person. Please know that I would much prefer to be there with you.
I want to begin with these words from L.R.Knost.
“And just when the darkness
became too much to bear
and the struggle too hard,
the light broke through
and the caterpillar emerged
a butterfly
delicate but unbroken,
wild and gentle,
finally free to spread its lovely wings
and fly away on the wind.”
― L.R. Knost
Earlier this year, we celebrated the 5th anniversary of the founding of Ordain Women. In the lead up to that celebration, the Executive Board of Ordain Women spent a lot of time in thought and prayer about Ordain Women—our past, our present, and our future. We acknowledged that the joy and excitement that many of us had experienced when Ordain Women was launched or when Ordain Women held the first and second priesthood actions had been followed by a period of darkness and sorrow filled with excommunications, exclusionary policies, and talk of counterfeit relationships. Our commitment to the struggle for equality in faith was tested even more by the pain and sorrow of our siblings who bravely stepped forward and said #MeToo as they shared their heart-wrenching stories of sexual abuse at the hands of Church leaders.
It has been a long and difficult road and the woods that separate us from attaining equality in faith, while indeed dark and deep, have not been lovely. Yet, we have persevered as an organization and as individuals. We believe that while we have not yet attained the full victory, we have emerged from the struggle with renewed strength and determination.
As Chair of the Executive Board of Ordain Women, I would like to share with you two things. One relates to my individual journey on this quest for equality in faith. The other relates to the collective journey of Ordain Women.
With respect to my individual journey, I would like to share a portion of a letter that I wrote to the First Presidency:
As a 60-year-old Black woman who grew up in South Georgia and who has lived in Georgia all my life, I have experienced far too many instances of being treated as a second-class citizen and being denied the opportunity to utilize of all my skills, talents, and gifts simply because I am a Black woman. The pain of those experiences has affected and continues to affect every part of my life.
Our scriptures teach us that “all are alike unto God,” and in the face of those teachings, I find it difficult to accept or reconcile when my sisters and I are treated as less important than our brothers or denied the opportunity to fully participate in the work of building of the Kingdom simply because we are women. There is so much work to be done. Just imagine how much more productive and fruitful our efforts would be if all of the children of our Heavenly Parents – female and male – were allowed to function as full and equal partners in the work.
I have spent many hours in prayer on this subject and I do not believe that it is divine will that, simply by virtue of our gender, all women are limited in the roles we can fulfill in the Church and, ultimately, in the roles we can fulfill in building the Kingdom. As important as the work is, I cannot believe that it is the divine will that so many workers are not allowed to participate, fully and equally.
My prayer that women be ordained does not arise from any desire for prestige or recognition or from any envy of the men in the Church. I rejoice every time one of my brothers is ordained as a priest. However, I also ache for all women in the Church and for the Church. I ache because my wonderful, talented sisters have skills, training, and experience that could greatly benefit the Church. I ache because, in many parts of the world, there are wards and branches that are in desperate need of more “leaders” and more priesthood holders, and by automatically excluding women from consideration, the Church is doing itself a disservice. I ache because so much Kingdom building work is not being done because there are not enough priesthood holders to do the work. In 2014, those feelings and those experiences propelled me to stand with other courageous women and men and voice my prayer, my desire, my wish for women’s ordination in the Church.
There have been a number of changes since I initially expressed my prayer that women in the Church should be ordained. Some of those changes – being released from my calling and being deprived of my Temple recommend – have sorely tested my relationship with the LDS Church as an institution. However, my belief in the LDS Church as part of the body of Christ and my commitment to my baptismal covenants remain unchanged, as does my belief in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and in the teachings that “all are alike unto God.” As a beloved daughter of our Heavenly Parents and as your sister, those beliefs propel me to come to you, in your ordained roles as prophets, seers, and revelators to express my fervent prayer, abiding hope, and sincere wish that women in the LDS Church be ordained.
With respect to the journey of Ordain Women, I would like to share our vision of a new organizational structure. In response to the changing needs and wishes of those who support and/or are part of the Ordain Women Movement, the Board has decided to expand the reach of Ordain Women by providing for the establishment of a community-based network of local affiliates.
We believe this new structure will help propel us into being a truly worldwide movement and allow more space for local autonomy and creativity. Local affiliates will have the opportunity to plan and execute actions that best reflect the values and concerns within their community.
Affiliates will be asked to commit to honoring the values and mission of Ordain Women, engaging in faith-affirming strategic action, and foregoing unauthorized or rogue ordinations.
This commitment will be made through a registration process which will provide access to the use of the Ordain Women® name and logo.
As we continue to seek for equality in the church, we hope that this structural change will more
fully reflect Ordain Women’s commitment to intersectionality and faith-affirming strategic action.
You can listen to Bryndis’s recording of this message:
Stream here or download.
You can listen to the whole Sunstone presentation:
Stream here or download. For access to more of Sunstone’s 2018 Symposium, visit their website.
Inequality Cannot Go Unchallenged
In celebration of Ordain Women’s fifth anniversary, we sponsored a panel at the 2018 Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City titled “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Many Voices of Ordain Women.” As we look to the future and a new organizational structure that emphasizes both individual and collective, local and global activism on women’s ordination and gender equality in the Church, the panel not only drew on the past to inform a discussion of our initiatives going forward but also featured the thoughts and experiences of a number of OW executive board members and supporters who share the common vision of a more equitable religious community. The following was presented by OW executive board member, Lorie Winder Stromberg.
Throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, independent LDS forums and publications, such as Dialogue, Sunstone, the Sunstone Symposia, Exponent II and the Mormon Women’s Forum, provided invaluable, though by their very nature limited, public platforms for the discussion of Mormon feminist issues. However, the Internet was a game changer in terms of its ability to reach a much broader audience and facilitate feminist activism through online organizing, discussion lists, blogs, and websites. Many believed its reach and transparency would also protect Mormon feminists from the excommunications and institutional retaliations of the past that tended to dampen feminist activism and led Salt Lake Tribune religion writer Peggy Fletcher Stack to ask in 2003, “Where have all the Mormon feminists gone?” (Peggy Fletcher Stack, “Where have all the Mormon feminists gone?” Salt Lake Tribune, Sunday, October 5, 2003)
What Stack overlooked in her article was that Mormon feminism was establishing itself online. The process, however, was not seamless, nor would the Internet’s scope prove to be universally effective in uniting the Mormon feminist community or protecting individual feminists from institutional reprisal. A significant split in the Mormon feminist community emerged between those who wanted more expansive opportunities for women in the Church, but stopped short of advocating for significant structural change, and those who called for full structural equality and were willing to risk institutional reprisal. Female ordination was the flashpoint.
We officially launched Ordain Women on March 17, 2013. In an essay about its birth, I wrote, “For most of us, Ordain Women began with a simple acknowledgement—I’m a Mormon, and I believe women should be ordained. This realization came long ago for some and much more recently for others. It was a bold assertion in a patriarchal church where the lay priesthood and its attendant administrative and decision-making authority were seen as a divine power bestowed only on men in the faith, enabling them to preside over church and home. The theological and practical arguments that supported such an acknowledgment had been constructed by a handful of Mormon feminists over three decades. However, a significant social movement could not coalesce around the issue of women and priesthood ordination in Mormonism until a profound shift in attitudes and expectations about gender equality emerged—one sufficient enough to create a critical dissonance between Mormon women’s lived experience and LDS cultural norms. There also had to be an effective, far-reaching social platform to facilitate communication and collaboration among enough of those troubled by the dissonance that they, through an alchemy of personalities and social networks, were compelled to confront it.”
Sites like Feminist Mormon Housewives and Exponent II provided hospitable forums to facilitate that profound shift, even when many Mormon feminists were unconvinced or afraid to consider the question of women’s ordination. There were also established platforms that helped us reach a receptive audience. When several of the well-respected Exponent bloggers responded positively to my email soliciting some of the first Ordain Women “I’m a Mormon and I believe women should be ordained” profiles, OW gained immediate credibility in the Mormon feminist community. Further, the bold sincerity of the initial profiles uploaded to our website—which now number nearly 700–combined with a reasonable, Mormon-friendly website, a carefully crafted message that had been honed during the fall of 2012 in preparing the FAQ for “All Are Alike unto God,” and a commitment to activism proved to be more compelling than even we expected. Word of Ordain Women spread rapidly throughout the Mormon blogs. The website received nearly 10,000 discrete hits in its first 24 hours.
At our first in-person action the following October, nearly 200 women and men walked with us to Temple Square to ask for admittance to the priesthood session of general conference. We were turned away, one by one, at the doors of the Tabernacle. We wore our Sunday best and waited reverently in line, while men and boys barely out of grade school were ushered past us into the session. The images were poignant. They, of course, went viral.
Over the last 40 years, my feminism has always been activist, and much of it has been devoted to advocating for women’s ordination in the LDS Church. I remain concerned about how gender inequality negatively impacts all of us and convinced that the fundamental inequality of an all-male priesthood within Mormonism is such that anything less than ordination for women is insufficient. Too, an exclusively male priesthood policy seems at odds with what I understand to be foundational to Mormonism itself, namely, the expansive belief that God does not hoard power as if it were in short supply or reserve it for an elite few but shares it liberally and makes it available to all.
I still believe Mormonism at its best can help liberate rather than subjugate women and other marginalized groups. However, it must be held accountable when it does not. Inequality cannot go unchallenged. As Mormons, we are called to a moral activism that holds us responsible for our choice either to perpetuate inequality through silence and inaction or to work vigorously for justice and equality. I see Ordain Women as collectively continuing the work for gender equality until the Church fully reflects the radical inclusiveness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Note: Much of this material is taken from two essays I wrote for publication:
“The Birth of Ordain Women: The Personal Becomes Political,” Voices for Equality: Resurgent Mormon Feminism, Gordon Shepherd, Lavina Fielding Anderson, and Gary Shepherd, eds., Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015, 3-26.
“On Agency, Advocacy and Amplification,” in Where We Must Stand: Ten Years of Feminist Mormon Housewives, Sara K. S. Hanks and Nancy Ross, eds., 2018, 300-303.
You can listen to the Sunstone presentation:
Stream here or download. For access to more of Sunstone’s 2018 Symposium, visit their website.
Priesthood, Patriarchy, and Promises Broken
In celebration of Ordain Women’s fifth anniversary, we sponsored a panel at the 2018 Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City titled “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Many Voices of Ordain Women.” As we look to the future and a new organizational structure that emphasizes both individual and collective, local and global activism on women’s ordination and gender equality in the Church, the panel not only drew on the past to inform a discussion of our initiatives going forward but also featured the thoughts and experiences of a number of OW executive board members and supporters who share the common vision of a more equitable religious community. The following was presented by OW profile holder and supporter, Margaret Toscano.
Mormon women have a stronger theological and historical claim to priesthood than do women of any other Christian denomination. Nevertheless, from the death of Joseph Smith, Mormon male priesthood leaders have systematically opposed, punished, and silenced women who have publicly asserted that claim. In this short presentation, I wish to forefront just a few key events in Church history that demonstrate how LDS leaders have covered-up or dis-informed Mormon women regarding their right to priesthood.[1]
As a Mesa, Arizona girl growing up in the LDS Church, I accepted what I was taught, namely, that men have priesthood and women have motherhood—which struck me as an unfair arrangement even then. In the 1970s, as a student at BYU, I began to question this assertion and commenced my research on the underlying theological and historical bases for it. What I learned was that Joseph Smith had promised the women of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo all of the rights, privileges, keys, and blessings of the priesthood, and also that he had actually ordained or instructed women to be ordained to the fullness of the Melchizedek priesthood in 1843 and 1844. While I was engaged in my research, I received my own temple endowments. The combination of my spiritual experiences in the temple, together with the historical information I was gathering, led me to believe and feel deeply that I had received priesthood through my endowment. Notwithstanding this belief, I was still not certain how the temple priesthood related to the priesthood to which men are ordained in the Church.
In the 1970s, Joseph’s speeches to the Nauvoo Relief Society were not readily available. When I finally read his original language, I was shocked at the directness and clarity with which he promised priesthood to women. I realized that the historical record had been doctored. His statement that he intended to make the Relief Society a kingdom of priests as in Enoch’s day and as in Paul’s day had been changed to support later Church leaders’ denial of priesthood to women.
I also learned that Joseph not only promised priesthood to women but that he acted to fulfill that promise. The documentary evidence shows that Emma Smith was anointed and ordained to the highest and holiest order of the priesthood on September 28, 1843. The exact language of that ordination makes Emma Smith historically the Elijah Abel for women’s right to priesthood ordination. Other women were likewise ordained in that same period. Later church leaders have obscured Joseph’s promises and have asserted that these ordinations of women are not equivalent to the ordinations of men in the Church but are merely about marriage sealings and celestial partnerships. Joseph Smith’s clear statements to the women contradict these assertions. And his last discourses to the Church demonstrate that he believed that the fullness of the temple priesthood embraced all the other orders of priesthood that had been revealed to the Church at large, and that the church priesthood was not complete nor fully restored without the women participating. I accept Joseph’s view. Notwithstanding, I believe with Ordain Women that LDS women cannot be content with the temple priesthood alone, but women must be ordained both to priesthood and church offices, just as men are. I do not believe that the LDS Church can be right before God until women sit in all the councils of the Church: the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve, Stake Presidencies, Bishoprics, etc.
Through my research, I also became aware that, after Joseph’s death, LDS church leaders from Brigham Young to the present have made various attempts to bury Joseph’s expanded view of priesthood and his ordinations of women. The most important and depressing of these attempts occurred in the 30-year period between 1892 and 1922. What happened, in brief, was this: On March 17, 1892, at the 50-year celebration of the organization of the Relief Society, Sarah M. Kimball read this statement:
President [Joseph] Smith stated that the meeting [in Nauvoo] was called for the purpose of making more complete the organization of the Church by organizing the women in the order of the priesthood.
Relief Society president, Bathsheba W. Smith, who had also been present at the Nauvoo Relief Society organization and was a member of the Anointed Quorum, made a number of clarifying statements on this issue: For example, in 1901, she said: “we have not taken these responsibilities upon ourselves, but have been called in the order of the holy priesthood.” In 1905, she boldly stated: “Joseph said he wanted to make us as the women were in Paul’s day, a kingdom of priestesses. We have the ceremony in our endowments as Joseph taught.” Later she declared emphatically: “Joseph gave us [women] everything, every order of the priesthood” and “instructions that [we] could administer to the sick.” Such strong statements were printed in the official women’s publication, Woman’s Exponent. Following this, in 1906, the male church leaders responded to these claims by pressuring the women into retracting their statements and asserting instead that the Relief Society had never been intended to be a priesthood organization, but rather had always been intended to serve under the direction of male priesthood leaders. Then, between 1907 and 1922, top church leaders made one official statement after another denying that women had ever had any claim to any portion of the priesthood whatsoever, thus contradicting the testimonies of Bathsheba Smith, Sarah Kimball, and other women who had direct knowledge and experience of actually being ordained to the highest and holiest order of priesthood under the direction of Joseph Smith, himself.
For the next 60 years, the idea that women had a right to priesthood lay dormant until reasserted by scholars like me, my husband Paul, and Michael Quinn. It is no accident that all three of us were excommunicated for these and other assertions, starting 25 years ago. Supporting women’s priesthood ordination was not the main reason given for either Mike’s or Paul’s excommunication; but importantly, it was the crucial issue for me, the woman. Leaders told me they needed to excommunicate me so that people wouldn’t believe what I said about priesthood.
In 2012, the speeches of Joseph Smith to the Nauvoo Relief Society became available online. This information reinforced the belief of some church members that Mormon women should be ordained to priesthood. Others had become convinced of the rightness of this position by their spiritual feelings or their commitment to equality in the Church. Although many women began to harbor this view from the 1970s onward, their sub-rosa feelings were brought to the surface by the appearance in 2013 of Ordain Women, which provided a forum and support group for the public declaration of the belief that Mormon women should be ordained to priesthood. The importance of group solidarity for encouraging public declarations cannot be overstated.
Kate Kelly’s excommunication in June of 2014 sent a clear message to church members that they would be opposed, punished, and silenced by church leaders for asserting women’s claim to priesthood. Kate became the prime public example, though others have paid the price too. Although these punitive actions are consonant with those perpetrated in the past, it is heartening that this has not prevented individuals from declaring their belief in women’s ordination. Profiles and testimonies continue to be posted on ordainwomen.org. I applaud individuals who are speaking out. But still, ecclesiastical silencing and punishment have chilled the movement, caused people to resign their membership in the Church, and continue to thwart women’s full participation in church governance.
I am glad Ordain Women has remained a public presence, though it appears that the impetus and energy to have a large protest movement advocating women’s ordination to priesthood has, sadly, diminished. Still, even as a symbolic presence, Ordain Women is a vital organization. The power of patriarchal thinking and its concomitant prejudice against women’s ordination will, I fear, continue into the future where, I believe, it is possible that gay marriages will be solemnized in the temple before Joseph Smith’s promise of priesthood to women will be fulfilled. I hope both happen in my lifetime. But if they don’t, I believe the Spirit of God will continue to work with this people until a greater equality is achieved for all, black and white, gay and straight, male and female. The scriptures stand as the standard for the Church, and they admonish us, again and again, to reflect Christ’s love by how we treat each other. We are Christ’s so long as we do the work of Christ, which is to empower the powerless and to relieve the pain of any who suffer.
[1] For documentation of my claims and further evidence, see my chapter “Retrieving the Keys: Historical Milestones in LDS Women’s Quest for Ordination,” in Voices for Equality: Ordain Women and Resurgent Mormon Feminism, ed. by Gordon Shepherd, Lavina Fielding Anderson, and Gary Shepherd (Greg Kofford Books, Salt Lake City, 2015), pp. 137-166.
You can listen to the Sunstone presentation:
Stream here or download. For access to more of Sunstone’s 2018 Symposium, visit their website.
Is it worth it?
In celebration of Ordain Women’s fifth anniversary, we sponsored a panel at the 2018 Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City titled “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Many Voices of Ordain Women.” As we look to the future and a new organizational structure that emphasizes both individual and collective, local and global activism on women’s ordination and gender equality in the Church, the panel not only drew on the past to inform a discussion of our initiatives going forward but also featured the thoughts and experiences of a number of OW executive board members and supporters who share the common vision of a more equitable religious community. The following was presented by OW profile holder and supporter, Marina Capella.
Christian and I participated in the October 2013 Priesthood Session Action and gained a little bit of optimism from the level of participation we witnessed and the conversations that reverberated throughout the Mormon world afterward. The following year our optimism took a dive after the excommunication of Kate Kelly.
Excommunication, however, wasn’t new to the Anderson family. Christian had chosen to remain active in church even after his own mother’s excommunication in 1993.
While Kate’s excommunication was shocking and heartbreaking, it wasn’t enough to push us out. We had, after all, an incredible example of stalwart, stubborn persistence in Lavina.
In 2015, I was feeling more despondent in a new ward that seemed hostile to heterodoxy. I wondered if my mere membership made me somehow complicit in the church’s wrongs and considered resigning. My despondency peaked in March of 2015 when I had a disheartening experience at church. In an atypical act of bravery, I decided to write and share a genuine testimony one fast Sunday. I intentionally waited to be the last speaker, anticipating that my remarks might spark some backlash by my bishopric. I opened by sharing some benign remarks about how fast and testimony meeting gives us an opportunity to share genuine experiences and come to see one another as more than nicely-dressed automatons devoid of personal struggles. Then I got to the doozy. These were my remarks that followed.
“I have been considering resigning my membership from this church. After 32 years as a member, this is not an easy thing to consider. It is a painful prospect. But the fact is, I don’t feel like there is an acceptable place for me in this church anymore. I don’t believe some of the things I once did, nor do I think I ever can. Specifically, I don’t believe that the gendered segregation of leadership and priesthood responsibilities in this church is doctrine inspired by God. I think that gender, like race, is one of the MANY differences among us that conspire to divide us rather than unite us.”
Somewhere in the middle of that last sentence, with a few paragraphs left to go, a woman in the back of the chapel stood up and loudly proclaimed, “You need to stop!” I paused my testimony, turned to the bishop, and asked him if I needed to stop. He looked like a deer in the headlights, so I decided I would probably stop to avoid further drama. I turned back to the audience and the woman in the back again loudly proclaimed, “You need to stop!” I looked at her and, still teary-eyed and blubbering a little, replied, “We are called to mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort. How dare you call yourself a Christian!” and left the podium. The bishop abruptly brought the meeting to a close, and his counselor bore a quick but firm “the church is true” testimony to end the meeting. A host of people came up to me afterward, gave me hugs, and apologized for what had happened. My bishop called me later that day to apologize as well, but also made it clear that I could NOT discuss such topics at church without risking church discipline. The woman who had commanded me to stop later wrote me a note that explained she did what she did to “protect the children,” ironically enough.
We stuck it out in that ward a few more months before deciding we needed a break. We attended another church for about six months, but something nagged us to return. We eventually found ourselves attending a Spanish-speaking ward where I was abruptly, and VERY unexpectedly, called to be Young Women’s President. I was open with my bishop about my viewpoints and struggles, but he insisted that the inspiration he had received to call me to the position was undeniable, and it warranted defending the call to the Stake Presidency despite their reservations. I have appreciated his faith in revelation and in me as I’ve done my best to serve the young women of our small and struggling ward. My service in the past two years has required some sacrifice and discomfort. I was pressured to renew my temple recommend. I have to grit my teeth through comments in church meetings and avoid discussing certain topics openly and honestly. I can only hope I have done some good teaching what I can in my own nuanced ways and leading by example.
Christian and I will be moving to Utah in a few months, so the next chapter of our religious life remains to be written. To be honest, we’re hoping for another break to re-charge.
Reflecting on my own experience and the experiences of other OW supporters, I have two parting thoughts. First, being a supporter of women’s ordination within the LDS church often comes at severe personal costs. Church discipline, family estrangement, and blowback from ward members even in progressive wards are all too common. For any woman who chooses to stay, the constant reminder that she is not allowed to exercise her spiritual gifts fully can be equally painful.
Second, Ordain Women encourages critical thinking to garner support. However, if successful, supporters often begin to think critically about other issues – LGBTQ+ mistreatment, race relations, historical deceptions, authoritarianism, etc. Once you realize there’s more than just one big problem to solve, long-term activity in the church AND Ordain Women becomes less and less tenable. For many Ordain Women supporters, the church’s response to Ordain Women (especially Kate’s excommunication) and, later, the November exclusion policy functioned to highlight other big problems of ecclesiastical abuse and mistreatment of LGBTQ+ individuals. As a result, many supporters stepped away from church activity and, hand-in-hand, Ordain Women activism. To move forward, we may well have to embrace the fact that Ordain Women will often be a stepping stone on a longer faith journey for all but the most self-sacrificing and dedicated among us [Lorie, I’m looking at you].
Is it worth it, then? I think it is. I think that trying to make the world a more equitable place for ourselves and future generations is worthwhile. Very few of us may be in it for the long haul, but lots of small efforts by many people add up to something greater, and that’s how progress happens.
You can listen to the Sunstone presentation:
Stream here or download. For access to more of Sunstone’s 2018 Symposium, visit their website.
Move in Closer
In celebration of Ordain Women’s fifth anniversary, we sponsored a panel at the 2018 Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City titled “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Many Voices of Ordain Women.” As we look to the future and a new organizational structure that emphasizes both individual and collective, local and global activism on women’s ordination and gender equality in the Church, the panel not only drew on the past to inform a discussion of our initiatives going forward but also featured the thoughts and experiences of a number of OW executive board members and supporters who share the common vision of a more equitable religious community. The following was presented by OW profile holder and supporter, Lori LeVar Pierce.
Four days before I turned twelve and moved from Primary to the Young Women’s Organization, there was a tectonic shift in the LDS Church when black men again were allowed to be ordained to the priesthood. As a child living in Arkansas, I didn’t know any black members of the Church and was unaware of the wider social calls for change or all the nuanced differences between this and the possibility of women being ordained. All I knew then was that something major had changed. Having lived my entire life in the US south and being part of a southern family whose roots literally go back all the way to Jamestown, I was well aware of the social attitudes about blacks and whites and had been taught all of the doctrinal arguments that favored denying priesthood and temple blessings to black members. And then… it changed.
My dad was the first branch president of a small branch in my hometown that was created when I was 10. I watched him on some Sundays conduct the sacrament meeting, say both prayers, and bless and pass the sacrament, as he was often the only priesthood holder in attendance. I looked forward to taking on some of those responsibilities myself. As we discussed ordination for women, my dad always said that the scriptural justifications for denying women the priesthood were just as flimsy as the ones that had been used to deny the priesthood to black men. And those rationales, once taught as doctrine, are now disavowed as incorrect speculation.
I had hope. Lots of hope. But I also knew realistically that women’s ordination wasn’t likely to happen quickly. I mostly pushed it to the back of my mind, went on with my life, and found lots of other things to focus on. Sometimes I prayed that it would happen more quickly. Sometimes I was able to find a like-minded someone, and we would have a discussion about it. Mostly, however, I just waited.
And then Ordain Women came along. My profile was one of the very early ones on the site when planning for the October 2013 priesthood action was happening. I had grown up with negative ideas about protestors and wasn’t anxious to be one, but I felt very drawn to this particular event. I eventually bought a plane ticket to fly from Columbus, Mississippi, to Salt Lake City for just 24 hours to participate in the October 2013 action. Flying alone all that distance to meet a group of people I had never met in person ended up being a very spiritual experience for me, as it was for so many others who participated that October.
I was then in a Relief Society presidency, and two days before I got on the plane, I told them what I was planning to do. They didn’t understand but listened as I explained my reasons. On my way out of the building, my bishop stopped me to tell me that he had read the things I had posted on Facebook, supported my actions in going to SLC, and hoped that our group was effective in changing attitudes. Later, his attitude changed. Though he was open to the idea of ordaining women, he was against “protests by members against the brethren.” The LDS Church Public Affair’s descriptions of Ordain Women had effectively convinced him that my personal accounts of OW actions weren’t true.
Since October of 2013, I have sometimes participated and sometimes stayed more in the background of Ordain Women. While I felt a strong spiritual calling to participate in what happened in 2013, I haven’t felt that same spiritual pull for personal involvement each time. Most of my advocacy happens at the personal level. I have lots and lots and lots of conversations with LDS members. One close family friend, who was a temple president, called me to repentance when he first heard about my involvement with Ordain Women. However, we spent time over several visits discussing it in his office in the temple and through letters, and I found his position softening a great deal.
There is a quote from Brené Brown that says, “It is hard to hate people close up. Move in.” So, that’s what I’ve done in my ward, in my family, and with my church friends. I have moved closer. I have discovered that usually in these in-person—or even on Facebook—discussion moments when a real discussion is happening, we come to at least some agreement. Usually, it comes down to agreeing that women getting the priesthood would be fine, but some don’t want to agitate for it.
It wasn’t very many years ago that I was reprimanded and the bishopric came into Relief Society to “correct” me when I discussed the details of women giving blessings of healing in the early days of the Church—facts that are now available to review in the Church’s Gospel Library App. More recently, I had an amazing discussion in Relief Society with the wife of a member of my stake presidency, my bishop’s wife, and the Relief Society president about women giving blessings, both by faith and with the possibility of priesthood ordination. They were listening and agreeing with me. This is not to say that the road is easy or that everyone agrees with me, but I have found more agreement than disagreement overall.
As a child and young woman, I was always the only Mormon in my schools. My church leaders taught me that it was a good thing to be peculiar—that it didn’t matter if I had beliefs that no one else shared. It didn’t matter if I stood alone. That same training serves me well as a supporter of Ordain Women inside the LDS Church. My church taught me to stand up for what I believe—even if that belief goes against the crowd. I believe women should be ordained.
You can listen to the Sunstone presentation:
Stream here or download. For access to more of Sunstone’s 2018 Symposium, visit their website.
Hope
In celebration of Ordain Women’s fifth anniversary, we sponsored a panel at the 2018 Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City titled “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Many Voices of Ordain Women.” As we look to the future and a new organizational structure that emphasizes both individual and collective, local and global activism on women’s ordination and gender equality in the Church, the panel not only drew on the past to inform a discussion of our initiatives going forward but also featured the thoughts and experiences of a number of OW executive board members and supporters who share the common vision of a more equitable religious community. The following was presented by OW executive board member, Amy Isaksen Cartwright.
There have been few moments in my life as profound as the moment we entered the grounds of Temple Square to ask for admittance to the Priesthood session of conference in April 2014. It was with a heart full of sincere desire and a hope for better days that I walked with hundreds of other women to say, “we are here, we are ready and we will let the desires of our hearts be known.”
I carried my one-year-old daughter on my back that day, partly out of necessity but mostly because I wanted to be able to share this memory with her someday. It was her birth that really propelled me into Mormon Feminism as I considered what her life would look like as she grew up in the church. I didn’t want her to learn to push down her questions about inequality. I didn’t want her to learn that her lot in life was to answer to men, to please men, to find meaning only in the baring of men’s children. I wanted her to grow up knowing that she was the presiding authority in her own life, not auxiliary to it.
That little one-year-old is now five. She is spunky, tenacious and independent. We no longer attend LDS church services but have been welcomed with open arms into our local Community of Christ congregation. Every week, she and her older brother together collect the offering during our Sunday services. She takes her duty seriously and executes it with pride. Every week I’m filled with a twinge of jealousy and a lot of relief that she has learned early that there is no corner of her life, especially her spiritual and religious life, where she cannot participate in the same duties and responsibilities as her elder brother.
A year ago, I attended a women’s retreat with that same congregation. No men were present to preside over us. We spanned in age from late-20s to early-90s. On the final day of the retreat, we held a worship service run entirely by women from the planning to the presiding to the blessing of the communion. Afterward, one of the women requested a ministration. We all gathered together around our sister. One of the women, an ordained Elder, pronounced the blessing upon her as the rest of us placed our hands on the shoulder of the woman beside us. It was an incredible moment for me—to see women openly and with the blessing of their church—doing all the duties I had only ever seen carried out by men. What struck me most was how very un-subversive it was. It was just women carrying on with their spiritual lives.
Despite having stepped away from weekly services in my LDS congregation, it is a hope for that kind of normalcy around women’s leadership and spiritual empowerment that keeps me active in Ordain Women. When I see my five-year-old daughter participating in her spiritual community to the fullest she can for her age, no bars being placed because of her sex, I hope for five-year-old me of yesterday, sitting in the pews of my LDS church on Sundays, who wonders why only boys can pass the sacrament. I hope for my nieces and nephews that they will grow up knowing that they are equal in the eyes of God and in the eyes of their church.
I continue to hope for better days.
You can listen to the Sunstone presentation:
Stream here or download. For access to more of Sunstone’s 2018 Symposium, visit their website.
The Power of God
In celebration of Ordain Women’s fifth anniversary, we sponsored a panel at the 2018 Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City titled “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Many Voices of Ordain Women.” As we look to the future and a new organizational structure that emphasizes both individual and collective, local and global activism on women’s ordination and gender equality in the Church, the panel not only drew on the past to inform a discussion of our initiatives going forward but also featured the thoughts and experiences of a number of OW executive board members and supporters who share the common vision of a more equitable religious community. The following was presented by OW executive board member, Leah Marie Silverman.
I remember the first time it really hit me that men and boys in the church had access to something I did not. I was about 12 or 13 years old, and I was in my Young Women’s class. The lesson was about the priesthood, and the teacher was talking about the great responsibility that the apostles have—that they are special witnesses of the Lord. She hypothesized about whether the apostles meet the Savior in this life as a part of their special witness. And I thought, “That would be so amazing. It would be so incredible to see and talk with the Savior and then spend your life testifying of Him.” And then, in the next heartbeat, I realized that could never be me. I would never be called to that. Not because I am not worthy or because I lack testimony. Simply because I was born a girl. I was crushed.
Over the years I attempted to console myself by remembering the joy and responsibility of motherhood. I knew this was supposed to be the right answer. But however I tried, this consolation felt empty because I’ve always known the comparison isn’t apt. Motherhood’s true parallel is fatherhood. After I became a mother, I saw this made manifest in my husband, who is a wonderful, nurturing, compassionate father. I can’t pretend anymore that I am content with the status quo because I am a mother. To be clear, this is not a complaint about my role as a mother. But my husband is both a father and a priesthood holder, and this magnifies his role as a husband, father, and servant of Christ. I just want the same. Having access to the power of God on earth would magnify my role as wife, mother, and servant of Christ.
You can listen to the Sunstone presentation:
Stream here or download. For access to more of Sunstone’s 2018 Symposium, visit their website.